by Brian Yansky
“There are no rebels,” he says again.
But here’s the thing I think later. If they’re worried, there must be a reason they’re worried. I know that when you’re in a wrestling match and you think you’re beat, you’ll lose. It’s true in martial arts and football for that matter, too. People convince themselves into losing all the time. The best, in terms of strength and talent, don’t always win. It may even be the biggest reason sports are interesting.
We think the Sans can’t be defeated, but what if we’ve convinced ourselves we have no chance and so we have no chance? What if there are rebels out west that haven’t been killed or captured by the self-proclaimed most powerful beings in the known universe? It would change things. Just the thought is like a warm blanket on a cold night to me. Maybe we aren’t helpless.
The next night, as I head up to our room, I see Michael coming out of the couples’ room (that’s what they call the room where they allow us to hook up) with Lindsey. They’re both smiling and they kiss and say their reluctant good-byes at the top of the stairs. I wait for Michael at the door to our bedroom.
“Dude,” I say. “You didn’t.”
“I did,” he says. “I did and did and did and —”
“Okay, I get it.”
“That’s one crazy girl,” he says. “She told me she was making some kind of fuss the other day and one of the Handlers asked her if she wanted to be dead. You know what she said?”
“‘No’ would have been a good answer.”
“She said, ‘What do you frickin’ think?’”
I shake my head, but I do have to admire her.
“She likes the way we look together. My black against her white and blond.”
“That’s so sweet,” I say.
“Sometimes you sound like a girl,” he says.
“Sometimes you sound like a dick.”
“Better a dick than a girl.”
“Shut up,” I say.
He laughs. “Yeah, you’re jealous. Tex is jealous.”
“A little.”
“She’d be perfect if she didn’t talk so much,” he says.
“That’s just wrong,” I say.
“Yeah, but it feels so right.”
“Shut up,” I say again.
He just laughs. He’s in too good a mood for anything to disturb it. Then I really am jealous.
Lauren and I are eating dinner the next night. She’s picking at her food. I ask her if she’s all right.
“I was just missing my mom.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She smiles that sad smile of hers. “You would have liked her. She had a good sense of humor. She was an awesome nurse. She was always trying to get me to slow down, but she supported me in everything I did.”
“She sounds great,” I say.
“I miss her.”
We’re both silent then.
I see Michael come off the cafeteria line with his tray.
“Michael,” I call.
He nods but doesn’t come right away. I realize he’s waiting for someone. Then I realize that that someone is Lindsey. They’re smiling mindlessly at each other as they walk toward us.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lauren says.
Michael and Lindsey sit down. Lauren pretends to find her food, which is some kind of vegetarian stew, fascinating. “This is really good,” Michael says. “Even my mother would have to admit this is really good.”
Michael eats, well, like a football player. He shovels food in. His spoon bangs against his bowl like the ringing of a bell. Within a brief minute or two, everything is gone. He looks like he might eat the bowl, too, but he controls himself.
Lindsey, meanwhile, has taken only a few hesitant bites. Small ones. She chews with obvious relish, though she keeps looking at the stew suspiciously. She pushes it away. Then she pulls it back and takes another little bite.
“If you don’t want it,” Michael says, “I’ll be happy to finish it for you.”
“It’s hard for anyone to eat with you acting like a vulture ready to grab their food,” Lauren says to Michael.
I’m surprised Lauren’s defending Lindsey. Michael looks hurt, but Lindsey looks relieved. It’s not like she digs in, though. She continues her tiny bites and her ritual of pushing the bowl away and pulling it back.
Michael studiously looks away. He’s pretty obviously still interested in her food. If she pushes that bowl too far once, I’m not sure she’ll get it back.
Lauren tells us that she helped make the stew. She tells us Addyen talks to her about stuff, like her religion and how she wants to open her own restaurant one day. Like before, Lauren talks like the alien is a friend, which is irritating.
“She’s not your friend,” I say.
“I never said she was. She’s just not like the others, that’s all.”
Lindsey pushes her bowl away. “She’s an alien. She’s one of them. They ruined everything. I was about to get in a Victoria’s Secret catalog. You know who I was going to have dinner with this month? Donald Trump.”
Lauren’s eyes narrow. Their truce is obviously over. “This whole invasion has been one big inconvenience for you, hasn’t it?”
“As a matter of fact, it has been,” Lindsey snaps. “It’s the biggest inconvenience in the history of the frickin’ world.”
“That’s probably true,” I say.
Michael snorts and Lindsey gives a small laugh. Even Lauren smiles.
As we bus our trays, Lauren says, “Addyen asked me to stop by the kitchen after dinner. Why don’t you come with me? I want you to see what she’s like.” I see she really wants me to meet Addyen, so I agree. We sneak back to the kitchen. Addyen is sitting at a table. She’s not taller than most of the female aliens, but she is wider.
“Lauren,” she says, surprised.
“You told me to come by,” Lauren reminds her.
She looks at me. “Not him. If one of the Handlers finds him here, there will be trouble. Anchise is watching this part of the house.”
Anchise is the worst of the Handlers. He likes hurting people.
“Maybe we should leave,” I say.
Addyen stands. “Stay,” she says. It’s not like she says the word in an unkind way or anything. It’s just that it sounds a lot like the way I used to say “stay” to my dog.
In a few seconds she’s back with bowls and a container. She scoops something into the bowls and passes them to us with spoons. We eat. It’s cold like ice cream, but it’s not ice cream. It’s impossible to describe because it’s like nothing I’ve ever eaten, but it actually makes me feel good.
“We’re not all like Lord Vertenomous or the Handlers,” Addyen says as we eat. “You may have good masters when the settlers arrive. You may have lives that are not so hard.”
Good masters. That’s the best we can hope for now. I’m about to say something when another cook comes in. She looks horrified to see us. Not looks. She doesn’t look any different, but I feel what she feels.
“Perhaps you better go,” Addyen says.
“Thanks for the dessert,” I say.
I admit on the way back to the library that Addyen isn’t so bad for an alien. We find Michael and Lindsey and talk for a while, almost like friends at school. I feel almost, I don’t know, normal.
Lindsey and Lauren even agree that women shouldn’t wear fur. Lauren is a dog person and Lindsey is a cat person, but they both think the idea of wearing animal fur is wrong and gross.
“It’s like that commercial where the actress says you wouldn’t wear your dog.”
“Or your cat,” Lindsey says. “A lot of famous people are totally for animal rights.”
“I volunteered in a shelter. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen.”
No big surprise that Lauren volunteered in a shelter. I wonder if there is anyplace she didn’t volunteer.
Lindsey says, “You know who else is all over animal rights? Paris and Alicia. I know them.”
“Well, I’ve met them, anyway.”
The conversation becomes a little bit of a tug-of-war. Lauren talks about animal cruelty, like using bunnies to test cosmetics or monkeys to test drugs. Things like that. Lindsey talks more about any famous person who cares about animals. After a few minutes of this, we’re ordered to bed by a Handler. Lindsey and Lauren go on talking as we move up the stairs.
When we get to our room, Michael says, “Are they actually becoming friends?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I say, “but it’s weird. I thought they hated each other.”
“You can’t tell with girls, dude. I’m not saying they’re as different as the aliens, but they’re more than halfway there.”
We nod silently at the wisdom of these words.
I see Catlin again that night. I’m dreaming, and I know I’m dreaming. She’s standing at the window in the moonlight wearing a short nightgown. I can see her body more clearly. She has nice legs.
“How is this happening?” I say. I’m standing by the door. The room seems enormous from this angle.
“You’re making it happen,” she says.
“How?”
She shrugs. She has a small round face, which her short, straight hair crowds; she pushes her hair back when it slips over her eyes.
“I don’t know. Lord Vertenomous put a locking spell on this room. He wouldn’t call it a spell, but I do. I can’t break it. You can, somehow.”
“In my dream,” I say.
Catlin nods. “He feels someone has been here, but he can’t believe it. He can’t believe even a Handler could break his spell.”
“You’re saying they use magic?”
“They wouldn’t call it that. They use their minds. But it’s like magic, isn’t it? Magic from inside.”
“Why are you here?” I ask. I wonder if she’s human.
“Of course I’m human,” she says sharply.
My face heats and I feel a little blush. I hate that. You read my mind? If you are human how can you read it like they do?
“You know how,” she says. “I hope you aren’t one of those people who pretends not to know what you know.”
“I know you’re not like me,” I say stubbornly. “We can’t read minds without alien help.”
“I think maybe I am like you, Jesse,” she says.
“How do you know my name?”
“That doesn’t matter. Here’s something that does. You’re right about the rebels. There are rebels.”
“How could you know that?” I’m suspicious of her. I think of Lauren, and I know she would tell me to be careful. She would point out the nature of simple math and say there are things about this girl that don’t add up.
“I don’t know who Lauren is, but you came to me; I didn’t come to you.”
I realize I have to be careful what I think around this girl. “But how do you know there are rebels?” I say.
“I know a lot of things,” she says. “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you more.”
“For example?”
She looks at me like I’m trying to take advantage of her, but then she shrugs and seems to relax a little.
“Those rebels out west killed that patrol. I think they were able to sneak up on him.”
“How? The aliens can hear us.”
“Maybe there are ways to keep them from hearing. Maybe the rebels know some of those ways.”
“How?”
“Get me out.”
“How can I get you out? I don’t even know where we are. In a dream. That’s all I know.”
“You can get in,” she says. “You can get yourself out. Figure out a way to take me with you. We can’t stay here.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re going to have to make a run for it sooner or later. You’re going to have to. You know I’m right.”
I know we’d be turned off in a second. How could we even get out of the house without them knowing? I realize that when I think this, even though I’m mostly thinking how impossible it is, I think we, not I. I’d want to take my friends. That is, if I ever tried anything so crazy.
I’m about to tell the girl this when I hear something. Actually it’s not as much a sound as it is the absence of sound, like a hole in sound. A shadow moves toward us. Cold. Really cold. It’s as if I’m suddenly outside on a winter night without a coat. I shiver. Catlin shivers, too.
“Go,” Catlin whispers through chattering teeth.
I try to will myself back to my room, but I can’t. The shadow gets closer and darkens. I take a step back, but that’s no good. It’s moving fast. It starts to slip over me. Only then do I manage to get back to my room. It’s kind of like I’m in a Star Trek movie and I’m beamed back.
The shadow follows, covering the room. Everyone wakes up because it’s so cold. Everyone is suddenly in a winter night. It lingers. Only as it leaves do I see it transform.
“What the hell was that?” Michael says.
“Did you see it?”
“See what? I felt it get really, really cold. I didn’t see anything.”
But I did. I saw the shadow become Lord Vert. I could hear him then. It wasn’t a thought exactly. It was more like a feeling, his feeling that it was impossible one of us could have been in that room with his spell on it. Impossible.
“What did you see?” Michael says.
I don’t tell him about Lord Vert. Instead, I tell him I saw a girl in a dream.
“Was she pretty?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You start groaning in your sleep, I’m waking you up,” he says.
“I just met her.”
He frowns at me. He shakes his head. “She’s a girl in a dream. What does it matter?”
We’re all shivering as we lie back down. Then I have a thought that warms me a little. Lord Vert, leader of the all-powerful Sanginians, is wrong. One of us — me — was in his room. One of us — me — did the impossible, which makes it possible, which makes me wonder what else might be possible. Maybe it isn’t so crazy to think of escape, after all.
I have a rule that I’ve tried to follow since I started high school. Don’t be a follower or a leader. I have lots of friends and I’m loyal, but I go my own way. Michael’s saying I wasn’t a team player was at least partly right. But I believe something now the others don’t believe. I believe the aliens aren’t invincible. I’ve got to convince my friends that I’m right. Of course I’m aware of one little problem. If I’m wrong, we all die.
PERSONAL LOG:
A patrol ship and officer in Section 3a are missing. I have sent two patrol ships to investigate. It is possible we missed, in our scouting reports, some type of natural phenomenon that might be dangerous to us.
I see no reason to report this to the company. The settlement is proceeding as planned. Soon the first wave of colonists will arrive. Everything will be fine. No, I won’t report any trouble. Father would no doubt find time to criticize my concern. He has little time for me, but he makes time for criticism.
Last night I had a conversation with my second, who calls herself Catlin. She wanted to know about the One. I knew she wouldn’t understand, but I spoke to her, anyway, humored her, because of my affection for her. I described the One and how He is connected to all things as we are connected to all things. He speaks and hears as we speak and there are moments when the whole universe listens as one. He is supreme, and we are made in His image.
She said the One sounded like God, angering me. I scolded her. Then I tried to patiently explain. The One is connected to all things and is all things and we are as He is because we are part of the One. You are not. You do not hear and you cannot speak. Your God is like the god of most primitives, a reflection of what you are. He is false.
I was so patient in my explanation. But then she said our god was just like us, which meant He could be a reflection of us. I became very angry. Here was product, the unconnected, speaking b
lasphemy to me. It was too much. I nearly broke her mind, but I stopped myself at the last second. Still, I damaged her. I do not yet know how badly. I will learn today if she can be repaired. I hope so. She amuses me most of the time.
We’re working outside, painting.
“It’s not the same,” I say.
“It’s the same,” Michael says.
“No,” I say, “it isn’t.”
“Why isn’t it the same?”
“They set the whole thing up,” I say. “How is that real?”
“They had to set up the situation. But then what happened, happened. Like life, Tex.”
“I don’t think so. I think they scripted parts of it.”
“What do you mean, scripted?” Michael says.
“They learned lines for situations. Not the whole thing but some situations.”
“No way. Survivor? Those people were serious.”
“Even if they didn’t script it, or all of it,” I say, “people were watching. That changed everything.”
“They were real people, and they acted out. Big Brother? You put people like that in a house, and it will get crazy. Even if no one was watching, it would get crazy.”
“I’m just saying they acted a certain way for the camera. It made a difference.”
“That’s still real,” Michael says.
“They voted on who had to leave the house or island or whatever.”
“Well, yeah, it was a competition. You got to have that.”
“Like a game,” I say.
“Right,” Michael says. “It was a game.”
“So it wasn’t real.”
“Reality TV,” he says in a loud and totally obnoxious tone. “Not reality. It was real enough for TV.”
He knows that he’s on weak ground. He asks me what I watched, then, if I hated reality TV so much.
“I liked lots of things,” I say.
“A guy like you who wouldn’t watch reality television must have watched public TV and news shows and stuff like that, right?”
“Sometimes. I watched movies a lot. I’m a movie person. I was.”
“So you’ve never seen that superhero show?”
“I watched that,” I admit.
