“We are prepared to offer substantial compensation equivalent to the value and potential value of your body. We understand that you may have had other offers but hope that you accept ours.” The blob was glowing with excitement now. At least Paresh thought it was excitement. It could have been arousal.
“What if I don’t want to be a host body?”
“We are prepared to offer substantial compensation equivalent to the value and potential value of your body.”
Paresh repeated himself.
The blob repeated itself.
This wasn’t getting him anywhere. “Look, thanks for the offer, but I have to catch the bus.”
The blob looked at him quizzically. Paresh didn’t understand how that was possible since he wasn’t sure where its eyes were, but it managed.
“As our bylaws do not allow for hostile takeover, we must act in the best interests of the shareholders and prevent dilution of market share. Accordingly, please note that refusal of this offer may result in the destruction of your planet. As added incentive, we have increased our offer of compensation by 12.5%.”
Paresh chose to ignore the phrase ‘destruction of your planet’ because it was absurd, even though his bar for absurd had recently risen. Instead, he focused on the ‘exciting opportunity,’ which included money. Sita had been wanting to remodel the kitchen (or as she called it, her cooking laboratory). And their car was old, an embarrassment among his colleagues. Paresh raised his eyebrow. “What kind of compensation are we talking here?”
The blob jumped up and down, making disgusting squishing noises with every impact on the sidewalk. “Are you willing to enter into negotiations with the BlarbTech/SnarbCo, Inc. Intraplanetary Conglomerate, hereinafter referred to as ‘the Blarbsnarb’?”
He was definitely going to miss his bus. The 8:45 bus was pretty quiet, at least. “I am willing to hear you out.”
“We believe this will be a beneficial arrangement for us both. Please allow me to contact our chairman and we will begin negotiations this very evening.”
“This evening? Where do I go? I’ll have to tell my wife where –”
“Agreement to begin negotiations constitutes acceptance of a non-disclosure agreement. Please do not speak of this impending transaction to any uninvolved parties as it is considered proprietary information and may result in serious legal consequences.” The blob had stopped glowing. It was possibly angry. Possibly calm. Paresh couldn’t tell. “The negotiations will begin this very evening at a location to be determined.”
And then the blob disappeared. Paresh expected a spectacular buzz and light show, but it was just gone, like it had never been there at all. Apprehensive, Paresh searched the parking lot for any other aliens before rushing to the bus stop.
He watched the 8:15 bus leave with a sigh and sat on the bench, alone. The 8:45 bus arrived, and he got on.
“Hey, Apu!”
He wasn’t the only one who had been delayed.
* * *
Paresh walked home from the bus stop, laptop bag in hand. He clutched the handle tightly, imagining using it as a weapon against those stupid kids with their stupid hats and their stupid skateboards. They didn’t actually have skateboards, but he thought they should. Although if they had skateboards, they wouldn’t be riding the bus. He definitely thought they should have skateboards.
Two blocks up and one block to the left. Three hundred feet and: “Your destination is on the right.” No one ever heard him say it, but it made him feel at home.
Sita would wonder why he was late. The blob thing had warned him not to talk about the ‘impending transaction,’ but was he allowed to tell her that he’d met an alien? It had never specified. He could leave out the details.
“They kept you late?” said Sita, opening the door.
Or she could do that. Paresh nodded and kissed her, hating that he had lied to his wife but grateful not to have to see her look of disbelief when he told her the truth. When he learned more about the offer, he would come clean.
He took off his shoes, placed his laptop bag in the closet, and went straight to the kitchen. “Turkey chili pizza in the oven,” Sita said, pointing.
“That’s not a real thing.”
“It is too a real thing, and you’re going to eat it.”
“I met an alien today,” Paresh blurted out.
“Paresh, that’s not polite, they’re called immigrants,” said Sita. “Your company change their hiring policy?”
“Yes,” he said, flushing. He was the absolute worst at keeping secrets. At the department retreat, they’d had a baby picture guessing game and every time someone pointed to his picture, he’d giggled.
“Where were they from?”
“Ecuador,” said Paresh, naming the first country that came to mind. Maybe he should go get the shovel in his garage if he was going to keep digging himself deeper into this hole.
“Very cool!” she said. “I’ve never been to Ecuador. You should find out how it is. We could take a vacation.”
The oven dinged and saved Paresh from having to continue the conversation. He had already begun to make up fake facts about Ecuador (their main export is kumquats, the capital city of Ecuador City has the rarest Dalí in the world, everyone owns a pet capybara). Sita knew more than Paresh about most things, but she taught biology, not geography.
She set a plate in front of him. Already sliced, the turkey chili pizza resembled a pizza in the way a veggie dog resembled a hot dog. Paresh suspected Sita had applied the principles of aggressive mimicry to food. She had been gushing about the anglerfish a few nights ago.
Paresh took a bite and appreciated the smoky taste of chili but stopped chewing as he was assailed by an unexpected flavor. “Is that mustard?”
“Aioli garlic mustard sauce! Do you like it?”
There was no sense in starting to tell the truth now; he was on a roll. “It’s great!” he said, swallowing, then almost choking as a face appeared on his pizza.
“Greetings, human!” the face said with a voice like nails on sandpaper. It was missing a part of its mouth, which Paresh had eaten. He looked up at Sita, who didn’t react. “We are ready to begin the negotiation process!”
“Not now,” he hissed.
“Not now what?” asked Sita.
“I was having this really great idea, and I wished it would come later tonight, when I was alone.”
Sita took a bite of her own pizza. “I know how that goes. I hate when I come up with a great lesson plan while I’m driving. I can’t write it down!”
“Please confirm the rescheduling of the negotiations,” Paresh’s pizza said.
Paresh had never eaten a whole pizza so fast in his entire life.
* * *
Later that evening in his office, Paresh turned around and there was the horned blob thing. He assumed it was the same one, but he couldn’t be sure. When it spoke, however, the voice was unmistakable.
“We apologize for the previous inconvenience,” it said.
“You can’t just talk to a man through his dinner,” said Paresh. “It’s rude and unprofessional.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “At dinner, but not through dinner.”
“May we begin the negotiations?” it said. Paresh checked that the door was closed. “Your partner will not hear our discussion. This enclosure has been soundlocked for confidentiality.”
“Good. Now explain to me what it is you want from me, and what you are prepared to offer.”
“The BlarbTech/SnarbCo, Inc. Intraplanetary Conglomerate, heretofore and hereinafter referred to as ‘the Blarbsnarb,’ would like to acquire your body.”
“I’m using it at the moment.”
“We believe that your body has a great deal of potential and is being undervalued in the market.”
“Market? What market? Are there m
ore of you?”
“That information is not relevant to this discussion.”
“Fine,” said Paresh. He had enough trouble with one alien; he didn’t need to think about more. “If you acquire my body, when do I get it back?”
“Upon corporeal incorporation, your body would become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Blarbsnarb, with partial autonomy on weekends vesting over four solar years.”
Some of that sounded good. Some of that sounded like gibberish. “And how much would you pay me?”
“The current offer is 0.0001 United States of American cents per cell.”
A fraction of a penny? But Paresh figured he had a lot of cells in his body, maybe even ten million. Which would be one whole cent. “I’m afraid that’s not enough,” he said. “Speaking of undervalued.” This was some kind of joke, surely. They didn’t understand numbers or money or something.
The blob’s horns began to glow, pulsating lightly. Then they stopped. “The Blarbsnarb Board of Directors has agreed to determine a higher, more suitable offer for you, Mr. Gupta. We will contact you when the new offer is ready.”
“Can I discuss this with my wife? I don’t feel comfortable” – he came this close to saying ‘selling my body’ before he caught himself – “accepting an offer without her input.”
The blob’s horns pulsated again. “As preliminary negotiations have concluded, you may consult your partner in this matter. We are aware that by law she owns half of your body and thus must approve any acquisition.” Paresh was going to dispute its statement, but the blob continued. “Have a good evening, Mr. Gupta. We look forward to conducting a successful business transaction.” Then it disappeared.
Paresh didn’t bring the topic up in bed that night. He knew better than to disturb Sita’s reading.
* * *
At breakfast, he asked her, “How many cells are in the human body?”
She swallowed her blueberry sweet potato waffle and said, “That depends on the body. And are we counting intestinal flora?”
Paresh wasn’t sure what that was. “My body. All the cells in it. Including the intestinal things, I guess.”
“Stand up,” she said. She stood up herself.
Paresh stood and stepped away from the table. Sita looked him up and down, and Paresh felt self-conscious about the months he hadn’t gone to the gym. “Now give me a spin,” she said, twirling her finger in the air. Reluctantly, he turned around in a circle, still feeling her eyes on him. When he was done, she nodded at him to sit down and took her seat.
Sita cut another piece of waffle and ate it. She pulled out her phone and did some quick calculations. “I’d say you’ve got about ten trillion cells in your body.”
Paresh almost choked on his waffle. “Did you say trillion?”
“Like a million billions,” she said. “Or a billion millions.”
He moved the decimal point in his head. They’d offered him ten million dollars.
And he’d asked for more.
“Sita, I have something to tell you.”
He told her.
After a moment, she put her finger to her nose and pointed at him. “So when you said last night that you’d met an alien…?”
He nodded.
“Okay, first of all, here’s a new lesson plan, hitting me at breakfast when I can’t write it down, but I’ll wing it. My kids won’t mind if we talk about aliens instead of the Golgi apparatus today.”
“No!” said Paresh. “You can’t tell anyone!”
“Why, do they have ray guns?”
“I don’t know what they have. They don’t even have hands, so ray guns are out of the question. But the…alien thing –”
“The Blarbsnarb representative.”
“The Blarbsnarb rep threatened to destroy the planet if I said no. They might do that if we talk about the deal.”
Sita rolled her eyes. “That planet-destroying shit is absurd. It’s got to be a bluff. They want your body like I do, and they’re going to pay for –” She put her head in her hands. “That is not where I wanted that sentence to go.”
Paresh chuckled. “Yes, I went down that road too.”
She gestured at him with the piece of waffle on her fork, syrup dripping on the table. “You should find out the details of the deal, what happens to you and how you get the money. Don’t sign anything until you read all the fine print.”
Paresh promised not to sign anything until he read all the fine print.
At the time, he meant it.
* * *
The blob appeared that afternoon in the Oracle bathroom. Thankfully, Paresh had completed his business.
“This is highly inappropriate,” he said.
“You did not leave appropriate hours and means by which to contact you,” said the blob. Paresh had forgotten how discordant its voice was. Hoping no one had heard it, he went to lock the door only to realize that the door had no lock. The blob continued, “We have increased our offer by 10% and have prepared the paperwork.”
“Let me see it,” he said, and a tiny wormhole opened up between them. Out popped three stacks of paper, which hovered in the air. White, yellow, and pink.
“Please sign and return the white copy,” said the blob. “The yellow copy is for you to keep.”
“And the pink copy?”
“The pink copy belongs to your partner.”
“Don’t you think that’s kind of sexist?”
The blob blinked. So that’s where its eyes were. “You may take the pink copy if it is sexiest.”
Paresh plucked the stack of white paper out of the air and began to look it over. He knew he ought to have a lawyer review it – at the very least someone like Carey in Contracts could take a look – but how could he even begin to explain what it was for? He didn’t want people at work talking about him like he was crazy. He read quickly; someone could walk in on them any minute.
He had to give the Blarbsnarb credit: they were pretty fluent in legalese. Paresh, sadly, was not. Had the contract been written in Java, he would have stood a chance at comprehending what they intended to do to his body. As it was, he understood that there would be a transition period following the completion of the transaction in which the terms of the possession would be finalized.
Paresh thought of what he could do with eleven million dollars. Forget remodeling the kitchen, they could buy a new house, a bigger one where they could start a family. He could quit his job and be a stay-at-home dad (Sita would never quit her job; she loved it too much). It was such an obscene amount of money that he didn’t know what he could do with it all, but he knew it would remove obstacles and pave the way for a brighter future. As long as they had a future. The phrase ‘destruction of your planet’ came back to him.
He signed the contract.
In several different places. They were really fluent in legalese.
* * *
When he handed Sita the pink copy, she said, “This is the pink copy.”
“Yes?” he said, pretending not to know what she was getting at.
“Where’s the white copy? The real copy?”
Paresh said nothing. He looked up at the ceiling.
Sita spoke calmly. “Do you remember this morning when you made what we humans like to call a ‘promise’?”
Paresh recalled all of his rationalizations, and now they seemed insufficient. Sita loved their house. The kitchen counters were chipped, but she knew the layout by heart. Why would she want to sell a place she could navigate with her eyes closed? (Sometimes she did walk around the house with her eyes closed. Once she bumped into the living room sofa, and that was only because Paresh had moved it a few inches to retrieve the remote without setting it back.)
He hadn’t done it for her. He had done it for him.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “I thought it was
for the best, but I should have brought it home.”
“Did you at least read the fine print?” she asked.
It had all been fine print. “I read…most of it.” The ceiling became very interesting to him again. They could repaint the ceiling. That would be a good use of money.
“Most of it,” she said.
“You know, by not refusing the deal, I kind of saved the world.” He shot Sita a hopeful glance.
“You kind of did it without me.” Sita chose not to stare at the ceiling, or even the floor. She looked right into Paresh’s eyes. “I’m going to bed.”
Paresh watched her leave. He waited, expecting the blob to appear, since this was an inconvenient time in his life. But he was left standing alone in the kitchen. He stood there for an hour before joining his wife.
* * *
The next morning, Paresh woke to find his wife sitting up with her arms crossed, glaring at him. “No more signing away your body without consulting me,” she said. “Deal?”
“Deal,” muttered Paresh.
“Did you find out how the process works? If you’re a subsidiary, they should let you stay in there, and we can work out how to spend the money.”
Paresh shrugged.
“Paresh, dear, I love you, but you have the business sense of a marmoset.” Sita poked him. “We need to contact the Blarbsnarb. This is a huge transaction; they ought to be more transparent.” Then she threw the covers off. “Wait, I’ve got a better idea.”
Sita walked out of the bedroom and returned with the pink copy of the contract. She tossed it to Paresh. “Let’s get some answers.”
Paresh turned to the first page of the contract and began to read it aloud.
* * *
“That was incredibly thorough,” said Sita.
“I did say they were fluent in legalese.”
“You think they’re a whole race of lawyers? Like maybe somewhere out there lawyers evolved into horned blobs bent on intergalactic domination?”
Paresh restrained himself from making a lawyer joke. Sita had set him up for so many responses, and he could see her trying to guess which one he would use. But it would have been so easy, like signing a contract without reading every word.
Alien Invasion Page 53
