by Jordan Jones
I strained my head toward the speakers. "I think I hear humans in the background, at least." There was quiet, joyful laughing behind the sound of the breathing. "Be quiet."
"Richard? Brother?" Arne said.
"Arne. Hi."
"Oh, it's so lovely to hear your voice," she said.
A pause, long and painful, and then Richard delivered his speech.
"Arne, I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that my voice is the voice of what you know as a Weird Alien. I have become one with that race, and plan to die in the womb of the ancients," he said.
Taylor covered his mouth and tried to keep from laughing.
"What you don't know is that you are in grave danger. The Weird Aliens are warning us that something dreadful will be happening to you, who choose to live in the light of the terrible sun. I suspect the sun itself is going to launch spaceships from within and cast a bright fire down upon the sun-side of our solar system. Please, remain in the dark," he said.
"Remain in the dark?! You're delusional, man," Taylor said.
"Quiet," I said.
"I also request of you to begin to ingest small amounts of LSD daily, as soon as possible," Richard said. "If the illegal status of LSD on earth forbids you, then please try a larger quantity of morning-glory seeds, or possibly even dried psilocybin mushrooms. Any psychotropic chemical which alters the brain will help, really. Please, for your own sake, go to your nearest chemical supplier and take some of these drugs. I've been on a dose of dextromethorph-"
Arne interrupted him. "Richard! Richard! What you're doing now is called Convertee Solicitation," she said. Her words were of mixed volumes and syncopations. "You're. . . you're in a very bad place! Stop it!"
We could hear heavier breathing on the other line. "The light of my life has compelled me to stop with this solicitation as you call it. It is simply imperative that I spread the word of the ancients. My life on Earth was completely inverted. I wasn't who I was. I wanted nothing I really needed. I was stuck, inside the brain of a boy who also needed something he didn't want. I was brainwashed, Arne."
"Stop it!" she said. I had to turn the volume down because she was beginning to lose it. "You're a total lunatic now! We really need you to come to Earth without any drugs -- and take some classes at the community college in Ranchboro, where Mom and Dad live. You do remember Ranchboro?"
"I admit, it is like a dream to me now."
"Listen, Richard. Convertee Solicitation is illegal here on Earth, and when you come tomorrow, we will not tolerate it!"
Greg and Taylor said, "Tomorrow?"
I opened my mouth and closed it, pointing up at nothing. "Uh," I said. It was the only sound I could manage.
"Alright, Arne. I will try my best to comply with your Earth laws."
"Thank you so much. I have to go now. But please, try to be normal. It's for peace, Richard. I know how much you presume to want that."
"I do not presume," Richard said. "You have insulted me, now. I will forgive you in forty-five seconds. I hope you feel the shame I have felt during that time."
"Richard?"
"I haven't forgiven you, yet."
CHAPTER THREE
Jelly Nectar
Taken to ending a conflict peacefully, my father was recorded stepping the space plank, as it were.
The first Alien Invasion was spookily morbid. Billions died, and if it weren't for the Intervention, we would probably all have died in just a few months. Some suspected the Interveners to have produced the vulcanized beasts that attacked us, and rescued the solar system in a fake maneuver to enslave us. Certainly, we were indebted to the Weird Aliens who saved us. But the attack was over so quickly that we didn't have a lot of time to focus our loathing on the actual Invaders that killed our people. The world was in shock. We could only revamp our military front so such a thing would never happen again. After the vulcanized beasts left, a new era of peaceful human rule began.
Unfortunately, our bureaucracies were inadequate in actually proving we could rule the planet ourselves. A lot of people felt doped when they realized most people in power were either totally evil or totally faking it. Those rulers had been killed by the vulcanized beasts, through an unusual showing of intelligence and foresight.
That's how we were so vulnerable to the Weird Aliens during the Second Invasion. Demoralized second-class leaders took control of Earth. In a way, it was the best thing to happen to the common man. But for Earth, it meant losing a lot of people to chemicals. The new commanders didn't have enough experience.
Richard was telling us all of this, and added, "Earth before the Weird Aliens was an experiment for a drug-free species. The stigma of drugs was necessary for the human race to exist as it had been: miserable and oppressed.
Arne and I, upon seeing the neat man arrive from Saturn, took her brother--the space hippie--to the Space Restaurant to convince him we had wonderful lives.
"Your dad was extremely important, Samuel," Richard said. "He ended a violent conflict with the Space Aliens by surrendering control of the Greater Legion to the Weird Aliens. They ascended in ecstasy, and it is said they now live in a galaxy at the center of the universe."
"Oh really? My father was executed by Weird Aliens," I said. "Would you like to try the Finger?" I refrained from using our colloquial name.
"Soft shell crab? Delicious. Food on Saturn usually consists of jelly nectar from the wildlife's oily sonar cleft, and leafy atmospheric growths, which taste of seaweed," Richard said.
"You seem incredibly normal now that I meet you face-to-face," I said. "For a hippie."
"Oh, I knew you were listening to my conversation with Arne last night. I'm sure I was strange then. You see, interplanetary communication is extremely important in maintaining peace in the solar system," Richard said. "I was choosing my words very carefully for the Weird Aliens. Did your buddies ever come around regarding my visitation of Earth?"
Arne spit out her creepy-legged crab. "Your buddies?"
"Oh yes," Richard said. "His friends were all listening in. And so were our parents. You have the Captain to thank for that. And the Weird Aliens." He did a strange cross above his heart. "I thank them for all."
Arne looked at other diners as if she envied them for their company. She was pissed off, but I thought it was cute.
"My flatmates might have been listening in, yes," I said. "Richard seems fine with it. And you?"
She mumbled, "Fine."
"When are we returning to Earth?" Richard asked.
***
"No matter what you believe happened, your father made a great sacrifice and saved a lot of lives," Richard said.
In the dorm, I was fixing coffee for Arne and Richard. The coffee pods only made singles, because I wasn't supposed to have guests. Captain allowed Richard and Arne today, and said I'd get bonus credits if we convinced him to stay for good.
"I've seen the footage of my father stepping into the death-ray at the hands of the aliens," I said. "It was a diplomatic move to sacrifice himself so the Weird Aliens wouldn't enslave us all." Fake calcium-cream poured into each cup as I ordered it.
Arne gave Richard a hug. "Let's stop talking about his dad. He gets tired of it," she said. "I'm just glad you're back on Earth where you belong."
"One more thing, sister," Richard said.Here it comes, I thought,the space hippie theory about my father. He perked his head towards my coffee-making body. "That wasn't a death ray. He was teleported to the dark side of Neptune."
I sighed. "Then why wasn't he found during the Neptune raid?"
"He was taken to a Neptune that exists only in an alternate universe." He spoke loftily, as if this was a royal decree.
"Right." I brought the coffee to Arne and him. My own was without calcium cream. I didn't expect he could have held a conversation, but nothing else about him surprised me at all. "And where is this bozo Neptune, should I seek out my father?"
"At the center of the universe." He accepted the coffee, cooled from the
fake cream, and took a noisy sip. "This isn't very good coffee."
I sat down at the circular table. "Well, it's the best I could do."
Arne drank hers quietly.
"I have to ask you," I said, "Did you bring any drugs? Any hormones?"
"There are enough drugs in my system to last me my entire visit," he said. "I was told not to talk about drugs."
I placed the coffee on the table and carefully chose my words. "I give you permission as ranking cadet to discuss drugs in my dorm," I said. "So what was the chemical like that made you leave?"
Arne wanted to object. I could tell by the way she sternly stared into her coffee.
"The hormone Ocytocin helped me to explore the sensations of my physical body, and allowed me to find true love," he said. "For the first time ever, I could feel a strong connection to the entire human race. An almost sexual connection. To everyone. It is as if the stimulant in this coffee could allow me to fall in love."
"I remember," Arne said. "We found your nipple clamps in the garage." Her eyes were locked in the depths of her coffee cup.
"Yes, sister," Richard said. "I went a little overboard at first."
"But how," I asked, "Did the hormone convince you to go to the dark side of a planet?"
"I knew I was gay, and that no human would understand."
I nodded. For some reason, her brother enticed me. How could anyone decide to join an alien race without taking a psychedelic drug?
"Do you know where I can get Ocytocin?" I asked.
"Samuel!" Arne said.
"Look, it's not going to convert me," I said. I looked curiously at Richard, who was smiling. "It's not even psychotropic."
"Are you done, Arne?" he asked. "Because Ocytocin isn't classified as an actual drug, I brought some with me. It's not expected that any user I administer the hormone to will convert."
Arne gulped.
"Do you want to try some?" he said.
I was fascinated with the hormone. It could be the sex-enhancing drug me and my flatmates had all been looking for.
Sex-enhancing drugs weren't known for their conversion potential. Ocytocin had converted Richard as little as six months ago, but I felt strong, ideologically. I wouldn't be converted, if I could just get a heightened sense of arousal from the hormone.
When he injected the bullet into my arm, I doubted that he'd given me a human hormone. My erection shot up, and my chest felt overwhelmingly warm. I started crying.
"I'm sorry, Arne," I said. "Something is just so bittersweet about it."
"Give me that," she said and yanked the bullet from Richard. She shot it in her own arm, and her eyes squinted. "Fuck, man."
She jumped into my lap and started caressing me. Richard shot himself with the bullet. After a few minutes, I came into her, and he into me.
***
We were bonded eternally in the psychic ritual of love-making with our new Goddess, Oxytocin.
I lost all rank when we stole a ship from the combat hangar, yet still managed to get us through the checkpoints and into a hyper-drive routine en route to the dark side of Saturn.
We made it there, and were designated as dope-free initiates into the Weird Alien religion. We were so in love, we didn't need drugs. But it was days later that the Explosion Event destroyed our solar system, and brought us into a new world we never dreamed of.
Richard had warned Arne that an attack was coming from the sun. In fact, we had been converted by the Weird Aliens just days before a real attack came. Instead of a new assault by the vulcanized beasts, Earth was beset by the fires of the sun itself.
The initial blasts of the supernova fried everyone on the bright side of a planet.
The second wave, which would come in a matter of minutes, would destroy the entire solar system. The Weird Aliens had a plan for the converts. A device catapulted our freed bodies from the dark side of the planet to the center of the universe, just as the supernova wave decimated Saturn and the other planets. We were slingshotted thousands of galaxies away to a dark cloud in space, where we united in rapture for seven days.
After seven days, we were taken to an alternate universe, where our sun still existed, and we were allowed to live on the bright side of the planets. The solar system was identical to our old one. Our old universe happened to be a fluke system, and our sun went supernova years before it was supposed to happen. The Weird Aliens had found us, and freed most of the human race.
I willed the Weird Aliens to answer a question about the vulcanized beasts. What role did the vulcanized beasts really play in the destruction of the human race? I learned they emerged from their home inside the sun to devour our race before the supernova wasted our spirits. Humans had been saved from them by the Weird Aliens.
On the second Earth, I met my real father. He had lived in the alternate universe since we reported his execution.
He hugged me, and thanked Richard and Arne, who I couldn't separate myself from.
He said he loved me, and on the first night of my arrival told me something that has sparked an undying love for our universe, and every other universe as well.
"I know of a gay circus you might be interested in joining," he said. "They love boys your age and fitness. It's on the dark side of Neptune. Want me to show you?"
I fingered the acid blotter, and placed it on my tongue. "I think I do, Dad."
This story has been released under the Open Setting License, which allows for anyone to re-use characters, locations and other setting elements in their own works. For more information, see osl.theonosis.com.
What is the Open Setting License and why should I use it?
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