The 17

by Mike Kilroy

  Brock asked calmly, “What was he like? Did you see him?”

  “No. I could only hear him. He spoke very deliberately. You know, like an alien who was hopelessly trying to understand us.”

  Brock slipped back into Brock-ly mode. “Interesting.”

  Zack continued. “He sounded almost sorry he was putting us through this.”

  “Sorry? He’s sorry?” Harness fumed. “He can kiss my Earthling ass.”

  Zack looked at each and every one of them and examined them. He eyed Harness, who jutted his jaw and clenched his fists in anger. He eyed Brock, who escaped into his thoughts. He eyed Zill, who blinked back tears and he looked at Cass, who just plopped on the floor and buried her head in her hands.

  Mizuki stood, arms crossed, examining everyone just as Zack was doing, making mental notes, studying.

  Being very alien-like.

  No, Zack, thought. It can’t be her. Then he recalled the newspaper clippings he saw on his return home. Mizuki wasn’t among them. Then again, there wasn’t one about Zill, either. Then he thought of Mizuki’s sudden change in personality. He thought it odd then, but it made sense now.

  It can’t be Zill, Zack concluded. The alien he spoke to was incapable of playing a role that well. George even said it was difficult to pretend.

  “I do not think we will ever know,” Mizuki said, calmly, bluntly, quite alien-like.

  Zack stood, his eyes drilling into Mizuki, who had finally noticed his stare.

  “What is your malfunction?” she asked.

  “Mizuki, say ‘can’t.’”

  “What?”

  “Okay. Say, ‘don’t,’ or ‘wouldn’t’ or ‘shouldn’t.’ Just say any contraction. Any will do.”

  The others glared at Mizuki.

  “Yes,” Brock said. “Come to think of it, you’ve been acting strangely lately, and speaking very formally.”

  Mizuki was defensive “So? This is how I converse.”

  Zack shook his head. “No. It’s not. It’s how they converse. When I talked to George, he didn’t—or couldn’t—use a contraction. He also used strange, formal words like converse and vex. I don’t think they have mastered our language well enough yet.”

  Zill blurted, “Yeah, just like Data on Star Trek.” Eyes swung to her. “What? Don’t judge me.”

  Mizuki sniggered and shook her head. “This is farcical.”

  “Farcical?” Zack laughed. “You’ve been cold and distant lately. I thought you were just having a mental breakdown or something, but you’ve been quietly studying us.”

  “Do not get so supercilious. Such hubris.”

  “See. There it is again. Supercilious? And you didn’t use a contraction again. You said ‘Do not. Do not.’”

  Mizuki was getting flustered—or at least feigning it. “That is just how I converse. And I am having a mental breakdown. I am feeling very irked. That does not make me an alien.”

  Zill hooted. “Like, who says ‘irked’ in normal convo? You are such an alien.”

  Mizuki shrugged her shoulders. “Then there is nothing I can do to persuade you.”

  Zack interrupted. “Yes. Say, ‘There’s nothing I can do to persuade you.’”

  Mizuki tried to speak, but couldn’t. Harness grabbed her and threw her down on the couch, holding her there as she squirmed. “I bet you are real ugly. Well, uglier than you are now. Show us what you really look like.”

  Mizuki looked around the room, her eyes glancing from face to face and finally focused on Zack. At that moment, he knew Mizuki was one of the aliens.

  She turned her gaze to Harness and said, almost defiantly, “My true form would offend you.”

  Harness, shocked, loosened his grip, allowing Mizuki to break free.

  Zill shrieked. “Oh my God, it’s going to shoot lasers out of its eyes and kill you, Harness. Look out!”

  “Zill,” Zack said. “Just shut up.” He walked closer to Mizuki, who stood her ground, defiant and pompous. “It can’t hurt us even if it wanted to. George? Is that you, George?”

  Mizuki shook her head. “No. George will be reprimanded for talking with you, Homo sapien boy. That is a certainty. I am Fred.”

  “Fred? George and Fred? Really?” Zill mocked. “Do you all have nerdy names like Wilber or Eugene?”

  Harness barked, “Shut up, Zill. Remember, your name is Zill. You shouldn’t make fun of people’s names, even if they belong to spineless aliens.”

  “Mizuki—or Fred—chuckled smugly. “You always show your true nature. So feeble of mind. This is why George is so wrong about your species. He thinks your race is the answer to our dilemma. I think you are just a waste of material, like so many others in the universe. Such inferior things, you are. So combative. You bicker and fight and belittle. You offer nothing. You add nothing. You would all be dead if it were up to me.”

  “But it’s not up to you, is it?” Zack said boldly. “You and George are just low-level underlings, the lab geeks who have to babysit us. So, who’s running this show?”

  Fred, who still looked disturbingly like Mizuki, grumbled. “You do not ask questions. You do what we say.”

  “I want to talk to someone higher up than a babysitter.”

  The alien circled Zack slowly, and then walked toward him. Harness jumped between them, but Zack tapped him on the shoulder and nodded. Harness hesitantly moved out of the way. Fred resumed his approach and now stood very much in Zack’s personal space. He eyed him up and down, smirking. It was unsettling to Zack.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” the alien asked.

  Zack nodded.

  “This is acceptable.” The alien grabbed his arm and Zack felt a sensation unlike any he had ever experienced. He felt as if he were unattached and floating as the room warped. He could see Harness reach out for him in stabbing swipes. He could see Zill cover her mouth and Brock cock his head in wonderment.

  And, then, darkness.

  †††

  The clicking and clacking was loud, so thundering Zack had to cover his ears.

  He was back in the cell—the spring in the cot that poked into his butt told him as much. He squirmed, and then stood, walking slowly toward the swirling barrier of light.

  The click-clacking, rising and falling in intensity, boisterous and emphatic, abruptly ceased.

  The aliens were definitely in a tizzy.

  “Hel … Hello?” Zack hesitantly yelled out.

  Silence.

  “All I want is to talk and understand what you want from us. Really, I just want to go home. You have to know by now this is torture to our species.”

  Silence.

  Zack gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He was never one to be patient. He was never one to just let things happen at its pace. When he wanted a thing, he wanted it as soon as possible. Not later. Immediately.

  He was never one to just let things go.

  It was perhaps one of his flaws—one of many his parents often pointed out to him—along with his shyness and awkwardness and his weak jaw and frail frame.

  He still didn’t understand why an alien race searching for a savior would want him.

  It appeared as if he wasn’t going to get the answer.

  Zack sullenly walked back to his cot and laid down, that spring poking him again. He hated that spring, just as he hated being confined in this charade, just as he hated these aliens who had brought him here, just as he hated being so average.

  He even found himself hating George—the only alien who even seemed to care.

  Zack felt his eyes fall shut, and then snapped them back open. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was—it seemed like years since he had slept soundly. It seemed like years since he even dreamt.

  Zack kept his eyes open for as long as he could, but finally gave in to his fatigue.

  †††

  Zack’s eyes shot open to the sight of Jenai staring down at him.

  She had that crooked smile he had grown quite fond of and a tear d
ripped from her eye and onto his cheek.

  At first, he was sure he was dreaming, but she pinched his forearm and he pulled it away in pain.

  “Ow!”

  “You’re not dreaming, Zack.”

  Zack smiled and threw his arms around her, hugging her tightly. She smelled like lavender and her hair was soft as he brushed it with his hand. “I thought you were dead. I thought they couldn’t bring you back.”

  “They did. I can’t believe Harness and Brock buried me. I had to claw my way out of that dirt. It ruined my nails.”

  Zack was in shock. “I … I … can’t believe it.”

  Jenai appeared puzzled as she looked around. “I can’t either, Zack. What am I doing in this cell with you?”

  Zack hadn’t a good answer to that. “Well, a lot of weird things have happened since you, uh, died.”

  “Weirder than me dying and coming back a zillion years later?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Jenai slapped Zack on the shoulder. “Tell me, then.”

  Zack told her of the brutal trench battle they fought against the German group, about his talk with George the Alien and his assertion that she couldn’t be resurrected and about Mizuki being a spy and really being Fred.

  Jenai’s eyes widened with each revelation. “Yeah. That’s pretty cray cray.”

  “Then Mizuki, or Fred, or whatever, zapped me into the cell. I heard these sounds that I guess the aliens make when they speak. It sounded like a heated argument, then nothing. I fell asleep and, you know the rest.”

  Jenai stood and walked toward the barrier. “Hey, creepy aliens. Talk to us!”

  Silence.

  Zack laughed. “I don’t think they are in the talking mood. I know I got George in trouble and I think Fred is on the naughty list now, too.”

  Jenai walked back to the cot and plopped down onto it next to Zack. “Too bad. I wonder what they really look like.”

  “Fred said their form would offend us.”

  “I bet our form offends them,” Jenai said. “How did you figure out Mizuki wasn’t really Mizuki?”

  “She used uncommon words and couldn’t use contractions.”

  “Yeah? Sort of like Data.”

  Zack chuckled. “Zill made the same reference.”

  “Zill? Really. I thought she only watched Pretty Little Liars and the Vampire Diaries.”

  “Apparently, her television tastes are eclectic.”

  Jenai put her head on Zack’s shoulder and bit her rough nails nervously. “How long do you think they’ll keep us in here?”

  Zack shrugged. “Not sure. They’re probably trying to figure out what to do with me, with us.”

  “I hope it’s soon,” Jenai said, squirming. “I have to go pee.”

  Jenai always had the ability to amaze him, even when she was clingy. She could be vulnerable and scared, and then make a joke that was completely disarming. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before.

  He could tell as she peered into his eyes and flashed that crooked smile again that she felt the same toward him.

  Her face became wan and her eyes flittered.

  Something was wrong.

  Her speech was slurred. “I feel … weird.”

  And just like that, Jenai had gone, vanished as if she had never really been there.

  He wanted to scream, but nothing escaped from his lips. He felt an overwhelming sadness wash over him, a despair he could not fully fathom.

  “Zack,” a booming voice echoed, deep like George’s, but not exactly George’s. “Can you understand our power now?”

  Zack began to wail, no longer able to contain his emotions. He thought his jailors cruel before. Now he thought of them as simply evil, pure and deliberately malevolent.

  “Why?” Zack asked between sobs. “Why did you do that to me?”

  “You needed to learn a lesson, Zack,” the voice thundered. “You needed to be put in your place.”

  “Who are you?”

  “That is not important. What is important is you cooperate. It is in your best interest. It is in our best interest.”

  Zack dried his wet face with the back of his hands. He was done crying. He was through with being at their mercy. “Why do you need me to cooperate? Just kill me and get it over with. I’m done. There’s nothing you can do to me to make me cooperate.”

  Silence.

  Zack stood and strode toward the barrier. He raised his hand and held it close to the aurora, feeling the pulses of energy throbbing in his palm. “You can kill me, and then bring me back. I can kill myself, and then you can bring me back. No matter what you do, what terrible place you drop me into, whatever terrible things you want me to do, it doesn’t matter. I will not cooperate.”

  Silence.

  “What!” Zack screamed. “No answer to that?”

  Silence.

  “Fine,” Zack said, thrusting his hand toward the light. Before his fingers slipped into the plasma field, the swirl of charged plasma flickered and then disappeared.

  Zack pulled his hand back in amazement.

  Mizuki stood on the other side of a large archway with her arms crossed on her chest and looked at Zack with disdain.

  She sighed and grouched. “Follow me.”

  Zack guardedly followed. His pace was slow compared to Mizuki’s.

  “Hurry up,” she said.

  “Fred?”

  Mizuki stopped, turned and looked at Zack, perplexed. “Um, no. It’s Mizuki.”

  It was Zack’s turn to be perplexed. “Mizuki? There never was a Mizuki. It was Fred pretending to be Mizuki.”

  Mizuki just shook her head and curled her lips oddly. “It’s too hard to explain. C’mon. They’re waiting.”

  Zack followed Mizuki as they snaked through sterile corridors of grey steel, finally coming to a large door.

  Mizuki pointed as the door swung open loudly. “Go on.”

  Zack slinked into the room nervously. His heart pounded and he felt sweat bead on his forehead. He rubbed his clammy palms together and took a deep, long breath.

  The room was large and constructed of the same sterile grey steel. His converse tennis shoes squeaked as he walked toward a large table set on a platform high above the dark, smooth marble floor. He could see the black outline of three figures in the shadows. They looked human.

  As Zack approached, he noticed a symbol carved into the marble. It was an ankh, bold and granite white. When he stood on it, a voice echoed “Stop!”

  Zack peered up and heard that click-clacking noise again. It made him edgy.

  He attempted to speak, but had no idea what to say. He just stared at the three heads in the shadows in awe.

  “Zack. What are we going to do with you?” The voice, a female one, seemed to come from the figure sitting in the middle. That was a question his mother always asked him when he had done something wrong. It unnerved him when she asked it and it particularly unnerved him coming from an alien.

  “Um” was the only thing that escaped Zack’s lips.

  “You are only here because George pleaded for you.”

  Zack took a deep breath and closed his eyes. For so long, he had taken what people had given him. Good. Bad. Indifferent. He was timid and weak. Passive and aloof.

  No more.

  He wouldn’t fight with swords or metal pipes or rifles, but he was going to fight now, in this arena.

  “Why do you defy us?” the voice asked.

  Zack snapped back. “Why do you cage us and make us fight?”

  “I believe George answered that when you last spoke: To learn from you.”

  “I think you’ve learned enough. I certainly have.”

  “We have learned you are insolent. We have no more need of you.”

  Zack laughed derisively. “That’s not true. If it was, we’d be dead already. I certainly wouldn’t have this audience.”

  Silence, and then click-clacking.

  “Who are you?” Zack asked. “Are you in charge?”
/>   “I am the leader.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Our names have no equivalent in your limited language. You can call me Bertha.”

  Zack sniggered. “You guys need to work on your human names.”

  Silence.

  The uncomfortable pause dragged on. Zack tried to quell his anxiety.

  “You have many questions?” Bertha asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ask them.”

  “Why me? Why us?”

  “We have been watching you for many of your centuries. We watched as you evolved. It was only a short time ago we deemed you worthy of the second stage.”

  “What’s the second stage?”

  “The collection of specimens.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Closer study. Examination under controlled scenarios.”

  Zack asked curiously, “How many other species have you collected?”

  “Hundreds of thousands, some so advanced your species would be considered an ameba in comparison. Some so primitive you would have no qualm about stomping it with your shoe. Through trial and error, we found an evolutionary stage such as your own was perfect for our needs.”

  They had taken a keen interest in Zack, which both pleased and troubled him. He thought it an honor to have this floor with them. He also thought it concerning. “Why take teenagers?”

  “Teenagers?”

  “Yes. Young adults.”

  “Age. Such a peculiar concept,” Bertha said, almost chiding. If Zack didn’t know any better, he thought she might actually have a personality. “Your species reaches the cusp of physical and mental maturity at that age. We take other species at the same developmental stage. It is the best time to study. You are easily manipulated. You are easily provoked.”

  “Why am I so special? I get the feeling not many of your subjects get an audience with you.”

  “Of all the specimens we have collected in the universe, you were one of the few not to fight. You were one of the few to shun battle, not because you were scared or weak or cowardly, but because you chose to refrain.”

  “I wanted to kill Gottfried,” Zack said, almost ashamed.

  “No,” a male voice boomed. It sounded like George. “I told you, you did not.”

  Bertha interrupted. “Our species want for nothing. We have conquered what you call death. We have conquered what you call disease. In doing so, we have lost the spark that makes a species alive. Quite simply, we need to reintroduce the ‘Spark’ to our species. However, we do not want the negative that so often comes with the Spark. It is very difficult to find such a balance, much more difficult than we anticipated.”