by Mike Kilroy
Eb inhaled another worm and swallowed before he spoke. “She’s very complicated. I read her file. It’s tough being the youngest of a brood on her planet. She’s had to fight for everything. She’s been ignored and underestimated her whole life. She reacted to that inattention by rebelling and it got her exiled. She set off on her own, and that still did not satisfy her. I know the feeling. She felt slighted, like she needed saving. That’s the worst thing to her, needing help. She’ll get over it … eventually.”
Zack wanted eventually to be now. He wanted things to go back to normal. He wanted for her to smile and wink at him again.
He wanted to feel that shudder again
With her, he didn’t feel so alone. At this moment, he felt like that last living thing in the cosmos.
He felt like the Ankhs.
“How long do I have to wait?”
“A day. A year … I’m not sure. I never got in a fight with one of her kind. I assume she’ll realize she overreacted. Then again, her people hold a grudge.”
“That’s not helping.”
Eb reached out a pale hand and slapped him awkwardly on the shoulder. “There. There.”
“That’s not helping, either.”
“Zack, when you put yourself out there, you’re bound to get hurt. It’s part of living. If you don’t, you’re no better off than the Ankhs. The Spark comes with a price.”
Eb, having finished devouring his worms, stood and left Zack to the slow torture of his eggs.
And himself.
†††
The Great Mizuki Freeze, as Zack had taken to call it, stretched into its third day with no signs of a thaw.
They sat awkwardly during meals, no words exchanged. They passed in the halls and sat in the observation room, watching various races engage in various activities, most mundane.
It was a terrible stretch of days, more anguishing to Zack than any he had spent in the arena, wielding lead pipes and swords and being slaughtered.
But he heeded Eb’s advice to let time mend their relationship. There were no words he could say that would work. Mizuki needed to break out of her fit on her own.
More Sparks arrived each day, the number swelling into the double digits. Seeing a new Spark arrive was the only time Mizuki made eye contact with Zack.
Number eleven arrived, a beastly looking thing with thick, coarse hair covering most of his body, a sloped forehead and a jutting jaw.
Zack sighed as he ate the last of his bacon.
It just didn’t taste the same.
He bused his tray and began to leave. He looked back at Mizuki, who sat despondently in her usual spot, when a group of burly men, humanoid, surrounded him.
“Zack Earnest,” one of the men said in a deep voice. “Come with us.”
“Where … where are you taking me?” Zack asked nervously. He peered over his shoulder at Mizuki, who stood and watched worriedly.
“Just come with us,” the man said, grabbing his arm and dragging him through the door.
As they pulled Zack along, he could hear Mizuki yell, “Leave him alone!” and another man, his arms as thick as tree stumps, subdue her.
They dragged Zack through the sterile hallways and finally into that cell he loathed so much. They flung him onto the cot and the spring poked him hard in the back.
Zack leapt to his feet and charged at the exit, but before he could reach it, the swirling aurora appeared. His face came inches from it and the heat of the plasma singed his eyebrows.
Zack stumbled back to the cot, and sat and stared at the swirling light. He found himself praying, which was odd because he had never been the religious sort. But he thought it appropriate now. If there were a God, he certainly needed Him now.
He stared for hours at the changing light patterns of the barrier, his muscles tense. His neck began to stiffen and throb and his eye began to twitch. He hated that.
Finally, he was ripped from his trance by a booming voice. It was George. “Zack Earnest, I am sad for you.”
Zack stood. His legs were stiff and wobbly from extended inactivity. “George?”
“Yes, Zack.”
“Why am I here?”
“You wanted to converse. Let us converse.”
Zack wanted this meeting, just not exactly this way. Perhaps it was a way for the Ankhs to intimidate him.
Perhaps it was working.
He suddenly found himself grasping for words again. He stammered and stuttered before calming enough to speak. “I know everything.”
“It is impossible to know everything. Even we do not know everything.”
“I mean about you. I know you have human DNA.”
“How do you know this?”
“I just know. I just know we are the same.”
“Yes, Zack. We share commonality. That does not, however, make us the same.”
“I also know you have no hope of survival. Even with us, even with our Spark, you will still die.”
“We know this as well.”
Zack was shocked. He felt his heart flutter in his chest as he tried to speak again. It took him a minute to compose himself. “You … you know?”
“Yes. We have known this for millennia.”
“Then why do this to us? Why bring us here and make us go through all of this if you know it is hopeless.”
“It is not hopeless. There is always hope.”
“Not for you.”
“We cannot give up. Bertha has made that very clear.”
“Do you agree with Bertha?”
Silence.
“George. Do you agree with Bertha?”
Silence and then, “Conflict is essential for any species.”
“So you don’t?”
“Would you not try anything to perpetuate your species?”
“I would see the writing on the wall. I would see when something was futile.”
“You would still try. Remember, Zack Earnest, we are you.”
Zack sat on the cot and contemplated that point. He came to an uncomfortable conclusion: George was correct. He stood and walked toward the barrier, getting as close as he comfortably could to it. “I want to see you.”
“That is not possible. Our form would offend you.”
“I know. I still want to speak with you face-to-face.”
Silence.
Zack waited at the barrier until it finally flickered off. He heard a door open and a figure couched in shadows walk toward him.
As the figure entered the light, Zack’s mouth dropped open. He closed his eyes and opened them again, not really sure he was seeing what he was seeing.
Standing before him was a man who looked like … Zac Efron.
“Is this pleasing to your eyes?” George asked.
Zack simply laughed. “Seriously? Zac Efron?”
“Would this be better?” George asked, his features morphing into a woman who looked like… Selena Gomez.
“No, George, that’s worse. I want to see your true form, no matter how offensive you think it may be.”
George backed into the shadows. “No. You are not ready. Someday, perhaps.”
“Why do we share the same DNA?” Zack asked.
Silence.
“C’mon. I’m curious. I’m fascinated.”
“Long ago we set out looking to expand our reach in the universe. We seeded many planets, including your own. We nursed you through your darkest times, built temples for you to worship us, and then, when you were ready to be on your own, we departed. We did this because we knew, one day, we would need you again.”
“When you get the seventeen, will you let the rest go?”
“We need thirty-four.”
It was Zack’s turn to be silent for a moment. “Wait. Thirty-four? I thought you only needed seventeen?”
“Yes. Seventeen. The seventeen strongest. The seventeen fittest. The seventeen who survive.”
Zack’s heart thumped in his chest. It pounded so hard he thought George could very well hear
it in the shadows. “Survive what?”
“The final test.”
“What is the final test?”
“The one that will determine the seventeen.”
Zack was growing frustrated with the circular conversations he kept having with George. For a race as advanced as the Ankhs, sometimes they were quite thick, he thought. “What does this test entail?”
Before George could answer, he heard click-clacking from the darkness. The barrier turned on inches from Zack and he quickly backed away again, feeling the heat on his face. His nose felt warm and his forehead blistered as he staggered back to the cot.
“I must go now, Zack Earnest. I will ask for the highest mercy for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You must be punished.”
Zack tried to quell his panic. “Punished? For what?”
“Your insolence.”
“Was Splifkin punished?”
“Yes.”
“Is he dead?”
“No. We do not kill. He will pay for his crimes in accordance with our laws, as will you.”
Zack heard more click-clacking, loud at first and then growing softer. It faded to a whisper and then nothing.
He was alone again.
He no longer wished it.
†††
Zack was forced to urinate in the corner. The smell was staunch and rancid because he had little to drink in the last twenty-four hours.
He thought about taking a leak onto the plasma field, but wondered if it would be similar to whizzing on the third rail of a subway track.
He decided to be safe instead. He had no idea if the Ankhs would bring him back this time if he managed to get himself mortally wounded in a stunt like that.
Instead, he waited for his punishment.
It wasn’t coming swiftly.
As the hours dragged on, he wondered if this was perhaps his penance. There was no worse sanction on a teenager than boredom. He remembered the days back at home when he could scarcely go five minutes without checking his iPhone. His classmates were worse, obsessively tied to their mobile devices and downright belligerent when the WiFi went out.
It wasn’t easy being a teenager. It was vastly overrated. The pressures were too many to count sometimes. The bullying, the teasing, the feelings of inferiority—and those were just at home. No parent was perfect. All families were dysfunctional—some more than others.
Zack’s parents were flawed and woefully disconnected from him, and he thought he had it lucky.
His life was very much a routine of worthlessness. School mattered little, grades even less. It seemed they were arbitrarily given by teachers who didn’t seem to care.
His generation defined themselves with music lyrics and movie quotes. They were constantly berated by the generations that came before them as useless.
Zack was tired back there. He was tired of the people, tired of his parents, tired of hearing how his generation was doomed. He was tired of hearing about global warming, of terrorism, of diseases and the end of days that were surely coming. He was tired of feeling alone and scared.
In many ways, he was much like the Ankhs.
And he was tired of waiting for the text message that was never going to come. And he was tired of pretending everything was fine. He was tired of saying, “I’m okay,” when he was anything but.
He wondered why he so desperately wanted to return to that. He wondered why he didn’t embrace this new life he was given, where he had seen wonders so sublime. He wondered why he hadn’t tried to kiss Mizuki yet. And he wondered if he would even get another chance to try.
All these thoughts bombarded him in the quiet and stillness. Maybe that was the point of his incarceration. Maybe that was his sentence—to realize he had it pretty good here and that his home, his Earthly home, was no place for him anymore.
Not long after he came to that epiphany, the barrier blinked and melted away and the men who had dragged him here emerged again.
“Time to take you back,” the man with the pythons for arms barked.
Zack walked in the middle of them, grinning. He was happy to return home—a home more real than any other to him now.
Part II
Chapter Seven
The Lonesome Man on the Moon
Eb’s voice prattled on. “Did they brainwash him? I didn’t know they could brainwash someone.”
Mizuki whispered, but Zack could still hear her. “They can make my room look exactly like home. They can hang my two moons in the sky, so, yeah, they probably can brainwash someone.”
“What do we do?”
“You’re the details guy. How do you un-brainwash someone?”
Zack chuckled at the silence that followed and he shoveled eggs into his mouth. Mizuki and Eb stood just a few feet away. They watched him, examined him, studied and scanned him worriedly.
They had nothing to be concerned about. The Ankhs didn’t brainwash me. Quite the contrary. They enlightened me. They just made me realize there was no use to resist.
Eb began to speak again between Zack’s hurried egg consumption. “Are you sure it’s actually him? They have been known to body-snatch.”
“It’s him. They can’t pretend stupid like that. Look at him. They did something to him. At least they sent him back. I haven’t seen Splifkin in days.”
Eb whined ruefully. “Oh … I shouldn’t have helped you. Oh … we did the wrong thing. I just know it.”
“You did nothing wrong. It’s they who scrambled his brain like those eggs he’s eating. And now they only need two more to get the seventeen. Bastards.”
Zack had heard enough. “I can hear you.”
Eb scurried away, looking back at Zack nervously. Mizuki sat down across from him, folded her arms on the table and stared.
Zack tried to ignore her, but couldn’t. “Oh, now you want to talk to me?”
“I’m worried about you. What happened? What did they do to you?”
“Nothing. I talked to George. He explained some things to me. That’s all.”
“They had to have done something to you. Look at you. You have a dumb grin on your face. Well, dumber than usual.”
Zack shook his head. “Mizuki, I’m fine. We’re all fine. What do we want to go back to so badly? Do you really want to go back to your world to be forgotten and overlooked? Do you really want to go back there and drift around like some sort of hobo? You say you want to carve out a new path for yourself, but you’re just so afraid to walk it. Here you have a defined purpose and it’s a noble one.”
Mizuki fumed. Zack could see a rage welling up in her. If she had been of Splifkin’s race, her skin would surely be blood red by now.
She remained calm.
Didn’t think she had such restraint in her.
“I’m going to let that go because they turned your brains into mush.”
“They did nothing to my brains.”
Mizuki slammed her fists on the table, rattling his now empty plate.
Perhaps she didn’t have restraint in her after all.
“Zack! C’mon. They did something to you. Maybe you don’t realize it, but what happened to fighting this?”
Zack stood and tossed his napkin on his plate, smeared with leftover egg residue. “I’m no fighter,” he said calmly, and then walked away.
†††
Zack lay awake on his bed and stared out the window at the moon hanging in the velvet sky. It was remarkable how detailed the Ankhs had made it in this menagerie; they had even recreated the craters on its glinting surface with incredible accuracy.
He peered at the man in the moon and thought him so lonely up there with no companion. It was a thought that never would have entered his mind before he met Mizuki and gazed the two glorious moons of her planet. But now, it was all he could think about.
Like the Alldan, he missed his Anneka.
They were so like-minded before, but now so dissimilar in their views. It made his heart ache. “She do
esn’t understand,” he muttered to himself, or maybe to the man on the moon, lonesome like he.
†††
Zack’s eyes flew open to a blurry face hanging over him in a beam of moonlight. A hand cupped his mouth while someone pulled at his legs.
“Oh … I don’t know if I can do this,” Eb whined.
“Shut up and pull,” Mizuki barked. “He has to see this.”
Zack squirmed and broke free. He rolled off his bed and sprung to his bare feet. Eb, who in normal illumination looked like a ghost, appeared quite normal in the near darkness. He held his pudgy fists up in front of his face. “I don’t want to hit you, Zack, but I will.”
“You don’t have to kidnap me,” Zack said. “What do you want to show me?”
Eb put his hands down and sighed in relief. “Oh, good, I’ve never hit anyone before.”
They led him, still barefoot, to another wall that warped to reveal a door that led into a set of hallways, these much older and worn by time. It was dank and smelled musty; the stone walls seeped water.
They carefully wove down a set of crumbling stone steps and into what looked like a storage room, similar to the nook they had found before, only much larger.
It was less a room to cast things away, but more a place to worship. It was full of old wood chests, stuffed with gold and silver trinkets, and more statues, some bronzed, some solid gold. Covering almost every inch of the walls were strange, carved symbols. Zack wasn’t up on his strange symbols, but they looked ancient Egyptian. He recognized some of the hieroglyphics—the serpent, the lion, the owl, the swallow and the quail.
He also saw many ankhs, including one etched painstakingly in the stone floor just in front of an arch with hundreds of snakes carved into it.
Zack smiled as his hand traced the hieroglyphics. He felt he understood the Ankhs more than ever now. It all made sense to him. He always scoffed at the ancient alien theorists, the people on the television who droned on about how the pyramids were built by a race not of this world and how this alien race had shepherded humans through their formative years.
They were correct, it seemed.
Zack beamed. “This is incredible.”
