by Safa Shaqsy
“Burn him on a stick!” Kraig kept on yelling. I got up and walked up to where Kraig was standing to face him. I felt a bit dizzy, but I managed to stay on my feet. “You’re scaring him, shut up!” I yelled at him, but he was mumbling and cursing at Star. I smacked his cheeks and his face turned the other way.
He finally became quiet and got back to his senses. He licked his lips and turned to face me, “You had to do that?” he asked.
“It was necessary,” I scolded. “You were talking nonsense.” I turned and bent down to where Star stood, “You…you talk?” I carefully asked, “Like us?”
Star titled his head to the side with glistening eyes. Not registering what I’ve said to him.
Someone pocked my arm, “Tell him to say his name,” Andie whispered from far away. He feared that Star might do him harm.
I rolled my eyes, “Can you say Star?” I wondered.
Star got closer to me and placed his clawed palms on my cheeks, “Star,” he said in a shaky alien voice. “Aaaah!” the three of us screamed.
I glimpsed back to see the guys’ eyes wide looking at Star in bewilderment.
Andie swung his arms casually and asked, “Is anyone hungry?”
Kraig glared at him for such silly question. “Really? Andie? You ask about food, like right now?” Kraig said. Andie nodded, “Yup” he simply said, “I’m cooking” and hurried to the kitchen. “Okay, let’s go to the kitchen then,” Kraig mocked, but he headed to the kitchen and sat at the round kitchen table. Star and I followed him and we both sat on the chairs. Star and Kraig sat across from each other and the chair across from me was available for Andie to sit on. Andie started cooking soup from packages and served us the soup in bowls.
Andie sat across and said singing, “Dinner’s served.” I hadn’t been paying attention to my stomach, but once I smelled the soup I felt the hunger. My stomach was growling.
Kraig sniffed the soup aroma and grimaced, “This is worse than my grandma’s soup,” he complained. Kraig was used to having his grandma’s soup whenever he got sick his grandma used to pack her bags and stay in his house to take care of him until he felt better.
“Just drink it,” Andie bashed. We all started sipping our soup and stared at Star who was sitting quietly in his chair. The silence kept going on for one minute, until Andie asked, “Can you say my name?”
I coughed the soup in my throat.
Star turned to look at Andie. “Star,” he said. “Aaaah!” we all screamed again.
Kraig got up abruptly and said, “That’s it, I’m out!” and tossed the napkin on the table. He hurried to the door and left.
I exhaled, “It’s just us now,” I said.
Chapter Fourteen
“If an Alien Busters was found interacting with aliens, or aliens’ objects. They will be punished accordingly.” ~Alien Busters Manual, section ten, page 14
The glowing rock was placed on the table. Andie and I were staring at it, as Star was about to touch it. “No! Don’t touch it,” I ordered Star.
He stopped and pulled his hands from the table.
“I need to show this rock to professor Suzanne,” I informed Andie, “She seems to know these kinds of things. Maybe she’s seen something like this before?” I took the rock and examined it and tossed it to Andie.
“It looks like some kind of weapon,” he said as he examined it. “And it has weird markings on it.” He tossed it to me and I caught it and searched for the marks he was talking about. He was right. There were marks on the rock, like some kind of alien language transmitted to it.
My parents never told me about that before. That was the first time I saw anything like that. A rock which glows and gives aliens the power to speak. It was incredible. It was time for me to find out what was going on and why did the predators leave that rock where anyone could find it?
“We need to tell professor Suzanne,” I suggested. “Leave it for another day,” Andie said and got on his feet, “Right now have a rest. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” He walked out of the front door.
I went to the bathroom with Star and took my clothes off and tossed them on the floor. I got in the warm bath and took the rock with me. Star was staring at me for a moment and splashed his hands on the water.
“You can get in,” I said.
He got in the bath and bubbled the water with his mouth. “Star,” he said again. I opened the top of the rock and when the hologram screen appeared, I carefully tested it by pressing on the screen. I pressed something and a map of a spaceship appeared. It looked like some kind of alien spaceship. “Will you look at that?” I scrolled further. There were interior maps of the spaceship, but I couldn’t zoom, because of some error. Like I wasn’t allowed to know what the interior looked like. Star came closer and waved to the screen, “Be careful. We don’t want you to be stricken by light again.”
I noticed Star’s back had peeling skin. I touched he’s back and realized that the skin that was coming out of his back were wings. Alien wings. And they were growing out of his shoulder blades. “You’re growing wings,” I accounted to Star. I closed the top of the rock and threw it on the floor.
The next day I went to Professor Suzanne’s secret office. She examined the rock, as she tried to read the alien marks on it. “This is very interesting Nathalie. Where did you get it?” she wondered.
Should I tell her the truth about the trip Andie and I took to the wheat field? And about Star as well? Maybe I shouldn’t trust her with my secrets. Who knows what kind of connections she has. She might tell someone and that will threaten Star’s life. But she was my parents’ friend and they seemed to trust her with their findings. Maybe she won’t do me any harm.
“Andie and I found it on the crime scene,” I confessed.
She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, “Wait, you went to the crime scene?” she said. “Yes, it was my idea,” I said and shrugged, “I don’t know. I thought we might find something interesting about the predator. And we did. When this rock was opened, a hologram screen appeared and a bright light pulled my alien pet, Star, and made him talk like a human.”
Suzanne froze. “Did you say an alien pet?” she asked out loud.
“Yes, his name is Star and he lives with me…” I tried to explain but she interrupted me. “Wait, you keep an alien as a pet?” she confirmed in shock. “Like a real alien? In your house?” and her face brightened with joy.
She seemed happy about me keeping Star as a pet. I was afraid that she might ask me if she can conduct research and tests on him. It must have been very pleasing to know that her friends’ daughter kept an alien as a pet. And that she could see one up close.
“Yes, but please don’t tell anyone about him. If anyone knew about him, he’ll be in danger. You know how the citizens view aliens,” I pleaded.
She tried to suppress her excitement by folding her hands on top of her office table and pursing her lips, “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a smile, “so tell me more about Star. What does he look like? Oh, and what does he eat? Anything.”
“Well, Star is a Weritary species and he eats dog food.” I shook my head, “Does that make me a bad person?”
Suzanne laughed, “No, no not at all. It’s just…it’s very interesting that you keep an alien as a pet,” she retorted. “However, I would like to see Star. For testing purposes, of course,” she clarified.
“Star stays with me,” I defended, “he’s not going anywhere.” “Don’t worry Nathalie, I can take care of him. It’s only for a few days,” she tried to convince me, “I will share my test results with you and Star will be back to you in no time.”
Professor Suzanne seemed nice, but I couldn’t trust her. Star should be protected from everyone. Who knows who might want to harm him of they found out that the professor had him. I can’t risk his life for any research or test. It wasn’t worth it.
I looked her in the eye. “He stays with me,” I repeated. She leaned back on her chair, “Very well. It’s your
decision, Nathalie,” she said a bit disappointed. “And I admire your resilience.”
“So, what about the rock?” I tried to change the subject. She looked at the markings, “These seem to be some kind of alien language. These marks mean something,” she explained. “Why would aliens leave that rock unguarded? Were they trying to communicate with us?”
“Do you mean they’re trying to send a message to us?” I asked.
“If we’re lucky enough,” she said. “Aliens are known to be intellectual. That means it could be a possibility.” Aliens smart enough to send us a message. That was interesting. But what if this was a weapon, not just a message to us; a weapon that could destroy us all. Then Adkad City was in danger.
“What if it’s a weapon?” I asked, “What if this was a plan to get to us, to infiltrate the city?” There are a lot of reasons why aliens would want to evacuate us. And one of them was to take over our city, maybe the whole planet. Dean should know about that, he should warn the citizens here to be careful of what might come. Professor Suzanne had no idea what she was talking about, obviously. This weapon should be handed over to the proper authorities, and the proper authorities are Gale and Dean. I suspect that they will punish me for going to the crime scene. But I had to sacrifice for the greater good.
“You’re right, Nathalie. But what should we do about it?” she responded. “We should tell Gale and Dean about it,” I suggested. “Do you think they would listen to us?” she asked.
I shrugged. “They have to. Otherwise we’ll have to do it alone,” I said. “Do what alone?” she asked.
“Look for the predators,” I simply replied.
Her shoulders tensed, “No, it’s too dangerous. We can’t do that.” “Yes, we can,” I insisted. “We have the map to their spaceship. We can go there and find out what’s going on.”
She shook her head, “I’m not going near
those…things,” and her clasped hands were trembling. “Fine, the boys and I are going,” I uttered. I snatched the rock from the table and got up from the chair and walked out of her office into the hallway. I hurried down to where Gale’s office was located and knocked on the door. I pulled the hem of my shirt and adjusted my posture. The door slid open to Gale standing in the doorway. His unfriendly face looked surprised to see me knocking on his office door.
“Nathalie,” he said.
I walked in following him and sat on a chair in front of his office table and he sat behind it. He leaned forward and asked, “What brought you here, huh?” His eyes searched the rock I was holding in my hand, “And what’s that you’re holding?”
I had a moment of doubt, that I should not tell him the truth about the Exos. The rock I was holding could have been the most powerful weapon and if handed over to the wrong hands, then everyone would be in danger. I had no idea what the rock was, except that it had a hologram screen and changed Star into a talking alien.
“It’s a rock,” I confessed. “Andie and I found it at the crime scene.” Gale’s face twisted in anger, “You went to the crime scene?” he scolded. “Didn’t the guards tell you to stay away from the crime scene? And what about the news, haven’t you watched it? They advised everyone to stay away from that area.”
“I know, I know, okay? I’ve watched the news,” I bashed. “Listen to me, this is very important. This glowing rock has a map of an alien spaceship. I think we should go and look for this spaceship, since we have the map in this rock. The predators are in there, I just know it.”
“You just know it?!” he shouted. “Do you want to risk my other teams for this stupid suicide mission? Do you know how much trouble I got into just covering for the crappy mistakes you made in your last mission? I got a warning letter from Dean!”
“Just listen to me!” I snapped. He pointed his shaky fingers at me, “No, you listen to me! If you ever suggest risking my teams’ lives ever again, I’ll write you up. That’ll be enough to send you in for another evaluation!”
“But Gale, people are in danger!” I yelled, “Don’t you understand?” His pale face turned red. “Leave this investigation to the authorities. End of discussion!” he scolded and crossed his hands in the air as to end the discussion.
I bit my lips from anger and shook my head, “You’re kidding me.”
“Out of my office, now!” he ordered. I balled my hands into fists and got up abruptly and hurried to exit his office and the door slid shut behind me. “Bastard” I murmured. I walked to the main door and into the streets to stop a taxi. The day had just begun and the sky was brightening with the sunrise.
“Are you sure you want to do this? This seems dangerous,” Andie asked as he stood in my living room. I opened the top of the rock and watched the hologram screen, “More than ever,” I replied.
Kraig shook his head disagreeing. “Nat, we can’t just go into the field and look for this spaceship.” I couldn’t believe how Kraig was acting so suspicious of me. “Why not? I mean what if the predators hide in that spaceship and are ready to attack at any moment?” I insisted.
He let out a breath, “Okay, we are not going there. Let the police do this job.”
“I’m going,” I insisted, and turned to Andie, “Are you coming?”
He pursed his lips and thought about it for a moment, “Nathalie he’s right.” I couldn’t believe Andie was on Kraig’s side. He was supposed to back me up on that. But if they didn’t want to come with me, then I was going alone. I snickered, “Fine, I’m going alone,” I declared. I closed the top of the rock and walked to the door.
Andie grabbed me by the wrist and said, “You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can,” I responded and pulled my hand from his grip.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, “Fine, I’m coming with you. And we’re taking my car.” Kraig raised his palms questioning, “What the hell? Andie, what are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m going with her. I can’t leave her do this mission alone,” Andie responded. Kraig placed his hands on his hips and glared at Andie, then he turned to me, “Then I’m coming as well,” he said.
His change of heart shocked me and I was surprised by his support. “Really?” I asked.
He shook his head, “Don’t make me regret this,” he said. “I won’t,” I retorted and we got in Andie’s car and buckled up. Andie drove quickly to the city’s borders. We reached the big gate to the city and he talked to the guards again and convinced them that we were on a mission. The guards opened the big gate and he drove the car away from the city. We passed the wheat field where the crime happened. I opened the rock again to reveal the screen and pressed on some bottoms. A spaceship appeared on the screen and along with it an arrow that somehow changed every time we turned.
“Guys, look at the screen. This arrow must be telling us where the spaceship is located,” I said. “Andie, can you follow my directions?”
“Sure,” Andie said beside me.
The arrow indicated east, “Turn east,” I directed Andie. Andie glimpsed at me, “Now?”
“Now!” I snapped.
Andie slowed down and turned east. The road was bumpy and made us jump in our seats. I looked at the arrow and it changed to west.
“Okay, now turn west,” I ordered. Andie, without any question, turned the car west. He drove miles to an empty unknown area of the planet. There was no spaceship in that land, nothing except for sand. The arrow disappeared and it meant that the spaceship was somewhere in that area.
“Stop!” I screamed. Andie stopped the car abruptly and I got out. I stared at the land as the wind blew my hair in every direction. I walked around the area to find the spaceship, but there wasn’t one. The guys followed me as I stopped and looked at the screen again.
I sighed, “This has to be the place where the spaceship is located,” I told the guys. Andie shrugged, squinting his eyes from the sun, “Maybe they left?”
“No, it has to be here!” I snapped.
Kraig walked further and banged hi
s head in the air. He placed his palm on his forehead and cursed. “What the hell? I just hit my head on invisible wall or something?” he said.
I thought for a moment of what could have been there. Then I knew that it was the spaceship, but invisible. “Kraig, you’ve found it!” I called.
Kraig twisted his face in confusion, “Found what?” “The spaceship!” I said and ran to where he stood.
Chapter Fifteen
There are two kinds of aliens. The ones who are fed by humans, and the ones who feed on them. “Nathalie, get away from it!” Andie called behind me. I turned to look at him as he stared at me with his warning eyes, “Be careful” he warned. I turned to the invisible spaceship and touched the cool surface with my hands. My palms spread on the metal walled spaceship. I moved my hands on the surface to look for a door or an entrance of any kind. While I was searching, my hands stopped on a hole in the surface and it glowed with a red light, just like the rock I was holding. I looked at the rock in my hand and calculated everything in a second. The rock was the key to the spaceship door,
“Guys, I found a door,” I announced to the guys behind me.
The guys stared at the invisible spaceship and waited for the door to be opened.
“You sure you want to do this?” Kraig asked. “More than ever,” I replied in a hush. I carefully placed the rock in the hole and the rock glowed and revealed a circler entrance to the spaceship and a platform slid to the ground from the entrance for us to get in. “So? What are we waiting for?” I said to the guys and walked through the doorway. Before I went further Kraig mumbled something. “What did you say?” I asked him in a hush.
“Oh nothing. I was just expressing how much I hate you right now,” Kraig said as a matter of fact. The door suddenly closed shut behind us that left us in a dimness. And the lights went on that lined the walls of the spaceship. We flinched when the door shut.
