Planet-H: The End of the Beginning

by J. T. Winterlord

  She smiled, showing off.

  "How do I look?" she asked coquettishly .

  "You look beautiful darling," I said, with a loving smile.

  "Now I have to run. Wait, I’ll call up my little slave." she said , getting up and grabbing her purse left on the chair next to her.

  "Wait Irina, tell me at least where your school is!"

  She pointed behind me and said.

  "We’re in front of it oh my big sister!"

  She kissed both me and Valdes and said goodbye; I heard her call someone named George who ran up immediately.

  "Come on slave, we have work to do." With this she turned to me and winked.

  I looked at George, a clumsy boy with glasses, obedient as a puppy.

  Nice, sweet scheming little bastard, I found myself thinking, laughing. My sweet little sister was certainly all there.

  I looked over in the direction of the school and my mouth dropped open in awe. I turned my gaze to Valdes ...

  "Come on Kate, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Madison Academy?" he said in the tone of someone consciously pulling your leg.

  "Where did this place jump out from? 'I exclaimed, surprised and not a little amused.

  "It isn’t by chance ....?”

  Valdes was really laughing now.

  "Flight school for recalcitrant old sea dogs?"

  I couldn’t believe it. I needed to go inside. On the outside it looked like a renovated old school, maybe it really was previously a school but the interior was bright and completely new. The rooms were large and it looked like a modern college. I was curious to meet someone and ask questions.

  I walked upstairs accompanied by Valdes. We went down a corridor and there was an arrow pointing to the management offices.

  Halfway along came the first surprise.

  "Look who's here," I said amused. It was Gianni, the warehouse manager. I asked him what he was doing there.

  He said he liked the project and had asked if he could participate, so he instructed one of the guys in the warehouse to take his place for the afternoons.

  "In the morning I take care of shipping and storage, while in the afternoons and evening I spend my time on this new project."

  While we talked he showed us various areas of the academy. We stopped in one section which had a large picture window overlooking a classroom below.

  I asked him what criteria they used for selecting boys who competed for the scholarships. Gianni explained that they were selected following long interviews. A lot of them studied for free and only a few received free room and board.

  I asked him about the web information forms to be completed. He said,

  “There are some very rare cases, in fact up to today they have selected only three. Why do you ask?”

  I told him what had happened to Irina. He picked up some sheets of paper and showed me one.

  “What you are looking at is an attitude test that allows us to measure the subject’s IQ. There are one hundred and fifty varying questions, not too difficult but they force the subject to think.”

  He had Irina’s test to hand. He was right, the questions were not difficult, some were strange but not particularly difficult. You could only respond with a‘yes’or a‘no’and between the questions there was a blank space for comments.

  I looked at the test results. She had not even guessed one correct answer!

  I of course asked Gianni for an explanation. He told me to look at the response time and read the response to the central question, slightly highlighted by a character font a little different from the other questions.

  I looked through to the end of the test to try and find the question Gianni had indicated.

  "Total time 25 minutes ... here the question asks…. if the train is the fastest or the skyscraper the highest?? What the hell kind of question is that Gianni?"

  He smiled and told me to read off the answer. I did so.

  "Yes, snow is whiter!"

  "The answer is certainly consistent with the question or has no consistency; but she got all the others wrong," I said.

  He smiled and pointed out to me that other people who had responded to those questions had simply omitted the one in question.

  "Note that Irina answered questions with an average response time of ten seconds for each of them. If you think about the possibility of giving random answers in this case you will find that the chance of giving all correct answers or all incorrect answers is very close to zero.

  This lead me to understand that Irina gave all the wrong answers on purpose.

  There are people who have given all correct answers taking an hour and a half to do this. I believe that these people have cheated.

  I think a lot more of people who have correctly answered a hundred and twenty questions over two hours or two and a half hours. If you add all this to the answers Irina gave regarding personal data, ... well, you have to select her!”

  He showed me what she had written -

  "Name of father: Darth Vader»

  "Mother's name: Snow White"

  «Date and place of birth: Tomorrow in Neverland"

  "Hobbies: Duels with laser swords and sculptures with stardust.”

  I stopped, I was laughing like mad while imagining Irina writing these answers, it was just like her.

  "Do you agree with me?" asked Gianni, laughing also, contaminated by my laughter.

  "Of course Gianni your logic is impeccable and my sister is an outrageous but kindly little beast."

  Maybe he hadn’t known before that Irina was my sister, but he did now.

  Laughing, I went closer to Valdes. Gianni showed me the courses they had enrolled Irina on and I saw there was a 'Debate on free fantasy and science fiction.’

  I asked Gianni what it was about and he showed me the evening program:

  ‘Initial debate with a presentation by Prof. Skraocovikoch, this evening 8pm.’

  I laughed again reading that name. I asked who he was and in response Gianni invited me to attend the first evening so I would understand more.

  I looked Valdes seemingly asking for confirmation of our presence at this strange event and he said,

  "Yes, I'm curious to meet this teacher also, he must be very proficient ... especially with that name." I giggled with him.

  We said cheerio to Gianni and left. We went for a long walk since we had plenty of time and I invited him to dinner, which was light and delicious. I was really enjoying my Valdes and I had all the people I loved around me; of course I missed my parents, but I knew now that they were fine.

  I found myself with the same silly smile from the seed episode stamped on my face. Leaving the restaurant I turned to Valdes and gave him a sweet kiss on the lips. He returned and we embraced.

  We entered the Academy again and climbed the stairs to the window. The students participating in the debate were already present.

  From above I saw Irina. Mentally I sent her a kiss and she surprised me by turning and blowing one back with a graceful gesture.

  I was curious to see this professor with the unpronounceable name. Gianni entered and made the announcement.

  "Honoured guests, students and others, I am pleased to present to you a man famous throughout the world. An author who makes us the envy of the best universities, a man who embraces a multiplicity of disciplines and intellectual stature, Professor Skraocovikoch.”

  Strangely I saw him barely managing to cover a laugh at this point but I could not and burst out laughing when Sgrunff entered the auditorium.

  Valdes too was laughing while Sgrunff, in a double-breasted black suit stood in front of the chair, conspicuously keeping his arms behind his back.

  He regarded the students with a serious and mysterious air and took a long pause.

  I was thinking - Oh my God! He’s going to pull out all his arms now and cause a panic with everyone running left and right.... I could already visualise the scene.

  And then he asked in deep serious tone of voic
e,

  "Do you know why you are here?”

  Not a word was said. His solemn and haughty air seemed to instil general trepidation. In fact had I not known Sgrunff I would have been a little fearful too.

  "Well, I see that nobody has the slightest idea of the reason for their presence here. I assume therefore that being in my honourable presence or visiting the cinema to watch a Leslie Nielsen movie amounts to the same thing."

  I thought to myself that Sgrunff was very serious - in fact I hardly recognised him and began to see him in a new light.

  "So," he continued, "the first question tonight is ...... how many arms do aliens have?"

  Here we go! I thought. I closed my eyes not wanting to see the next development.

  Someone said three, someone else shouted eight and Sgrunff started running like a crazy person between the benches waving his four hands and repeating,

  "Four, aliens have four hands uuhhh, buhhhh, I'm the ghost with four hands....!”

  He stopped abruptly and said:

  "And you don’t think they are fake I hope!"

  He let one arm fall and exclaimed,

  "Oh dear me. My arm fell off!"

  I opened my eyes and some of the boys began to laugh.

  In an attempt to collect the fallen arm he also lost the second.

  "Oh holy shit!" he exclaimed emphatically.

  He picked up both of his arms and began beating them against the bench.

  "They aren’t fake, right?"

  A boy touched them tentatively and said,

  "No prof. They aren’t fake, they are just rubber."

  The other students began to laugh and after being mightily scared one of the girls finally began to breathe again.

  Sgrunff returned to the chair, raised both arms and assured the boys that they were genuine alien arms, and with this he threw them behind him.

  He adopted a more benevolent and sympathetic air now, vigorously rubbed his hands together and said.

  "Right, so now I think I have your full attention, we can start!"

  He had their attention certainly, he had terrorised most of them. He started again with a new question,

  "In your opinion what is beyond this universe?"

  "The mozzarella constellation," said a boy.

  Irina contributed,

  "Yes, it is immediately after the‘Pizza with Mozzarella’nebula.”

  Sgrunff them looked amused and said,

  "I suppose you suspect that they are supplied by the Milky Way?"

  Another boy spoke up.

  "A wise conclusion prof.”

  Some boys laughed and a kind of sympathetic hilarity began to spread. He had evidently managed to gain their confidence.

  I watched Sgrunff. With only two arms he looked more than ever like Danny de Vito disguised as Einstein.

  It was time to go. I said goodbye with a wave and Sgrunff watched us from a distance and winked back. Gianni raised his hand slightly and I saw the little head of Irina turning and smiling at me. Other boys were turning round to look but Valdes and I were already leaving.

  We returned to our lodgings. It had been a busy and exciting day and I wanted to take a shower and rest, but only after spending some time with him.

  NEW DISCOVERIES

  The next day in class I questioned Sgrunff about the purpose of the Academy and his rather bizarre appearance.

  I noticed that he was still in possession of his four arms.

  Valdes entered with a greeting,

  "Good morning, Professor Profes ... Skraocovikoch," he said, laughing in a manner so pleasant it was catching and made me laugh too.

  "Good morning," Sgrunff replied with a wink.

  I asked him how he had managed to have only two arms the night before. He told me that he had already explained what a hologram is.

  "But let's see if I can avoid a long explanation with a quick demonstration.”

  "Sven, do you think you can take care of it as you are certainly faster then me?”

  This was directed towards the door where the crazy computer engineer was entering.

  "Of course Sgrunfy, when you want."

  Sgrunff nodded his head and I saw his strange body transform. Millions of tiny light particles were taking on a new shape. Amazingly I shortly found myself confronted by Jim Belushi in flip flops and shorts.

  He adopted a bodybuilder pose, obviously attempting with great effort to suck in his belly. He regarded me with a grin then let out a breath and dropped his shoulders, shaking his belly and making it bob up and down grotesquely.

  He said,

  "All muscles baby!”

  At that precise moment Sammy came in and his body structure suddenly mutated into the beautiful red-haired girl I had seen long ago.‘The red-haired slut’I had called her but was enchanted to observe her beauty. She was like a sensual goddess with finely chiselled features. The spell was interrupted by the loud voice of Sammy thundering from her delicate mouth.

  "Sven, will you stop it please?"

  Sven came close, laughing.

  "It was just a demonstration for Kate," He typed a strange and speedy sequence on his Pac and the two returned to normal.

  Sammy smiled and shook his head.

  "Why do I always wear such awful size twelve heels?"

  "Do you understand now Kate?" asked Sgrunff.

  Valdes was probing my neck in a gentle massage, probably to relax the strange tension that I felt when Jim and the red head appeared.

  "Yes .... that is, no. I saw it but don’t understand it."

  Sgrunff laughed in answer.

  "Oh, Kate, you already know what’s happening - you're sharp but sometimes you can be a little slow. Don’t be worried, it's just the effect Planet it has on individuals. You'll see that you will soon remember exactly what you already know.”

  Meanwhile, Sven was once again fiddling with his Pac.

  "Yesterday I noticed some strange energy peaks. It seemed there was an odd flow that was interacting with the upper diffuser, almost as if it was taking over. Can you tell me what happened?"

  I focused on the memories of the day before the meeting with my sister, that beast Kurl ...

  Sven stopped me and asked what I was thinking. I said,

  "I was thinking back to the meeting with Irina and with that pig Kurl.”

  "That’s it!," said Sven, "what did you feel?"

  "Rage, wrath and hatred ....."

  Sven told me that we had found something that absolutely had to be resolved. He asked me if there was anything else connected to those emotions.

  I thought for a few moments, trying to locate in my mind all the negative emotions that could have been interacting in that moment. I explained,

  "I felt a strange force that was pushing me to act in a recklessly violent way, but I managed to restrain it. I might even venture the hypothesis that this force is also connected to jealousy and grief.

  It seems to form a kind of energy block at the height of the thorax and this can become an affliction or in some cases sadness. At other times it can become anger and in both cases I feel I lose lucid reasoning.”

  Sven regarded at me intently, then asked me to think of something that in the past had saddened me.

  I directed my thoughts to the past period with Kurl and remembered that after my arrival I was crying every night. I felt deeply betrayed.

  Sven looked at the data provided by my Tasker. He could see other changes madethrough his PAC.

  "Yes, we have strong energy here that accumulates halfway between the lower and upper diffusers.”

  "Explain this Sven." The explanation however came from Sgrunff.

  "You see Kate, when the game had not yet been altered by the Externals, one felt a pleasant feeling of satisfaction if you were victorious or a slight disappointment if you were faced with defeat.

  Underlining that we are talking about a video game, each player has objectives to be achieved. If the player reaches these he wins, if not he loses
- it's a very simple formula.

  The Externals have modified these slight feelings in order to adapt them to the most complex and stupid nature of their prisoners.

  These beings, not all of them, only the most treacherous, use games that are much more serious in nature.

  Malice and anger are for them quite normal, not to mention possession. They are quite obsessed.”

  Sven continued,

  "They then amplified and modified these signals to make the prisoners of their race feel at home; imagine if they were left better or more delicate, it would not be acceptable .... for them of course."

  "Great," I exclaimed,"and ... how do we solve this?"

  Sven said we should behave in the same way as we had done for fear, but before that it was necessary for him to localize the exact modifications.

  "We will adjourn until I discover all the changes made to the circuits."

  He went back to work.

  I looked at Valdes.

  "No cats this time ... promise!"

  He nodded and laughed, saying,

  "Well ... you should have put in a good word, which you absent-mindedly forgot!"

  Some days passed peacefully. I took care of my work at N technology and tried to proceed with Sgrunff in my‘memory education.’Irina occasionally called, always in a hurry, but she said she was enjoying her language studies.

  I attended a business meeting where all the managers were present, to discuss generally how things were going.

  Denise spoke up.

  "We have significantly increased sales, but there are two major companies in the field of alternative energy that are creating problems for us.