Just Plain Weird

by Tom Upton

  “Oh, doc, you’re such a killjoy,” Eliza complained. “You can take something exciting, something absolutely thrilling, and pour all the worries in the world on it.”

  “It’s called being realistic, my dear,” he said somberly.

  She looked at him defiantly, and snorted.

  “Oh, and what would you do,” she asked, “go round pushing all the buttons? You think that’s the answer? … You saw what trouble that brings, and you know what I’m talking about.”

  I listened as the argument developed, looking at her and then at him, until my neck ached. At some point, I felt a stabbing pain behind my eye. There was no warning this time, no gradual increase in pain but a sudden swell come out of the blue. I clutched the front of my head, my palm pressed hard against my eye, and a sound, a deep animal sound jumped out of my mouth from the back of my throat.

  “Travis!” I heard Eliza cry then, and felt her hand on my shoulder. “See what you’ve done with your bickering,” she said to her father.

  “I don’t think it was just my bickering,” I heard him respond. “And I don’t think that has anything to do with it.”

  “Travis,” she whispered again, this time very close to my ear. Her other hand was on my back now, and she was tugging me toward her, to lean against her. “Travis, what is it?”

  The pain was so intense that I couldn’t answer-- I wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the pain receded and was gone, leaving my entire body feeling flushed with relief. I straighten up, then, and looked at their alarmed expressions. Eliza’s fingers were digging into my shoulders, she held on so tight.

  “It’s all right,” I announced, “It stopped.”

  “It was worse this time, though, wasn’t it?” Mr. Laughton asked.

  “Much,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  “Doc, maybe you should check him out,” Eliza suggested.

  “No, it’s not that,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure why I said it. I had an idea, so very vague, that I knew what was happening, but it was hidden in some shadowy part of my mind. It was something so simple, so obvious as to be overlooked in favor of some other explanation. “It’s all right,” I assured them, yet they didn’t appear very assured. “I feel just fine now.”

  “You’re sure?” Mr. Laughton asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you could use something to drink?” Eliza suggest. “Maybe a lemonade?”

  “No, but how about an ice tea, with extra sugar.”

  What happened next seemed nothing short of miraculous, for no sooner had I asked for the ice tea, a glass of ice tea materialized in my right hand.

  Eliza and her father were dumbfounded. They gawked at the glass, then at me, then at each other.

  “How…?” Mr. Laughton started, but couldn’t finish.

  “Travis…uh…how did you do that?” Eliza asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  I was staring down at the glass. It had been the strangest sensation-- to have a solid object suddenly appear in my hand. I took a sip out of the glass.

  “Ice tea?” Eliza asked.

  “The best I ever tasted,” I said. I took another sip. “Don’t tell me-- nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  “Uh, no,” Eliza said. “Not exactly. Things materialize within a dispenser, but never outside the dispenser.”

  I leaned forward and set the glass on the coffee table. Something was still nagging at my mind, like a lost memory, a memory that, once recalled, would make sense of the entire situation.

  As Eliza and her father watched me-- actually, studied my every move, no matter how small-- I stood and began to pace the tiled floor. There was something here, I was sure, but what? I went up to the front window, parted the curtains and peeked outside, where the sun was beating down on the lonely street-- neighbors holed-up in their air-conditioned houses. Then I wandered back toward the sofa, where Mr. Laughton cast a furtive glance at Eliza, who was sitting attentively forward on the sofa.

  “In all the years since you’ve found the artifact,” I asked, “have you ever had any regular visitors?”

  Mr. Laughton considered the question briefly. “No,” he said. “You’ve been here two, three times. That would be the most. Your friend was here once. When we lived in Fort Myers, the mailman came in for a few minutes once. That’s all, as far as I can remember. Why?-- what are you thinking?”

  “And neither of you have ever had any kind of-- ailment?”

  “No,” he said. “Actually, I can’t recall the last time I was sick.”

  “Me, either,” Eliza agreed. “You know, I used to have terrible problems with allergies-- ragweed, mostly, if I remember right-- but that stopped a long time ago. I guess it was at about the time we found the artifact-- it’s so long ago, I can’t quite remember.”

  Mr. Laughton wagged his head in wonder. “It’s funny I never noticed that, but it’s true; we seem never to get sick. I can’t ever remember the last time I had to see a doctor.”

  “What does it mean?” Eliza asked me.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I think… Let me try something.”

  I turned away from them, and took a couple steps toward the front windows. I could almost feel their eyes on my back as I stood there, at about the spot where the console had appeared out of the floor. I tried to visualize the console in my mind, and, sure enough, the console emerged from the floor.

  I heard a gasp behind me. I wasn’t sure whether it came from Eliza or her father. All I knew was that a moment later, they were standing at my side behind the console.

  “That never happened before, either,” Mr. Laughton commented, sounding somewhat flustered.

  “How did you do that, Travis?” Eliza asked. “How is this possible?”

  I was sure I had the answer now. I knew it would sound crazy, but I figured they had been living with crazy for so long, maybe crazy was normal for them. So I didn’t feel the slightest reluctance to tell them what I believed.

  “I think this thing is alive.”

  5

  “Well, there has to be some difference,” Mr. Laughton was insisting.

  “Will you please just leave me alone?” I asked.

  “There has to be some explanation… Now let me see your head…”

  “Doc, leave him alone,” Eliza chided him.

  “Maybe it’s in the shape of his skull.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “You know, like some people can pick up radio signals if their skull is shaped just right and they have fillings in the right teeth.”

  “Doc…” Eliza whined, exasperated.

  “Well, we have to figure out whether this is possible,” Mr Laughton said. “It took me three years to suspect the artifact might be alive, and then another year to communicate with it on a very rudimentary level. Don’t you understand what this means, Eliza, if he is telepathically linked to the artifact? We can learn everything at once-- everything we need to know.” He tilted his head, then, studying me and considering something. “Maybe he has a primitive brain.” “A primitive brain!” Now I was just plain insulted.

  “My God!” Eliza cried.

  “Well, whatever you do, Travis, just try to keep your mind blank.”

  This nightmare of curiosity and conjecture had been going on for a half hour, though it seemed much longer, with Mr. Laughton trying to examine the size and shape of my skull and the location of the fillings in my teeth. He had already formed the belief that the artifact was communicating to me on some sort of telepathic level. He was baffled, though, as to why it was now communicating with me, when, over the years he and Eliza literally lived inside the artifact, it had scarcely made its sentience known. Ergo, there must be some radically different about me. It had begun with him warning me: “Travis, just don’t start thinking about any global catastrophes, like tidal waves or asteroids hitting the planet or the sun exploding,” lest the artifact read these thoughts as wishes for it
to realize. Naturally, now, as he chased me around the living room trying to feel my head, the only things I could think of were tidal waves, monsoons, the moon crashing into the earth, and metallic spiders covering the surface of the planet and eating every living thing.

  “Look,” he said now, catching his breath, “just sit on the sofa and relax-- make your mind go blank. I promise not to touch your head. But promise me, just try to keep your mind clear.”

  I asked, “Do you realize how hard it is to keep your mind clear when somebody’s telling you to keep your mind clear?”

  “Just relax, Travis,” he said, trying to make his voice soothing. “Just sit and relax.”

  So I sat on the sofa, and Eliza stood next to me, nervously chewing her thumbnail. We both watched as Mr. Laughton paced back and forth, his face grim as he thought.

  “We have to make this like an experiment,” he said. “And for an experiment to be successful, we have to have control. Travis, you have to relax, and try not to think of anything. Eliza, you and I have to be quiet, and careful not to suggest anything that will make Travis think of anything. All right, that sounds reasonable,” he said, as if to himself. “Now, Travis, try breathing in through your nose, and out through your mouth-- that will help you stay relaxed.”

  I did as he said, and slowly I was calming down.

  A moment of silence passed.

  “Fine,” Mr. Laughton said. “Now, Travis, do you feel at ease?”

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t guess-- know. Is there anything bothering you-- anything at all?”

  “Well, Eliza chewing her fingernail is a little annoying,” I said.

  “Eliza, stop that,” he scolded her.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, and stuffed her hand into her pants pocket.

  “Anything else, Travis?”

  “She’s standing a little too close, too,” I said, which was true enough; she wasn’t actually touching me, but her leg was close enough to my knee for me to feel her body heat.

  “Eliza move away from him.”

  This time she took offense. She sighed in disgust, and said, “Geez, I never realized I was such a nuisance.”

  After she stepped away, I did start to feel pretty calm, although not entirely at ease.

  “Anything else?” Mr. Laughton asked.

  When I hesitated to answer, Eliza started to glare at me.

  “Now what?” she demanded. “What could I possibly be doing that’s bothering you? I’m a mile away, and my hands are in my pockets. What?-- I’m breathing too loud?”

  “No, it’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing, if it’s bothering you,” Mr. Laughton said. “Remember, we need your mind completely clear.”

  “No, it’ll be okay,” I said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just a little distraction.”

  “Travis, what is it?” he insisted.

  “Yeah, Travis, what is it?” Eliza asked, daring me to answer.

  Now I was getting downright defensive. “Really, I’d rather not say.”

  “Look,” Eliza said, “If you want, I’ll leave, and go sit in the garage.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem quite fair,” Mr. Laughton said, and then turned to me. “After all, this involves Eliza very much, and she should be here.”

  I really had to think fast now. There was no way I wanted to admit the truth to either one of them: that the living room was a little chilly and Eliza’s tee-shirt was thin and she wasn’t wearing a bra and her-- flesh was-- reacting, and that was the sort of thing that, once I noticed it, I would find extremely distracting, given the fact that I was I normal fifteen-year-old male and had about a gallon of testosterone racing through my veins. All of this, of course, would normally be private, but because this confounded artifact appeared to be reading my mind, all of a sudden my every passing thought had to bear public scrutiny.

  “Listen,” I said. “If this thing really is reading my mind-- and only God knows why it would bother-- don’t you think that something so advanced that it can defy the law of physics-- don’t you think it could tell the difference between a wish and a passing thought?”

  “It’s impossible to say for sure, Travis,” Mr. Laughton said. “This technology was designed for aliens, there is no doubt about that, and it is impossible to tell how the minds of those aliens worked. Maybe they were incapable of having anything but wishes.”

  “Yeah, but something this advanced must have fail safes to avert accidental commands.”

  “Yes, that’s probable, but we don’t know that until we run a series of controlled tests. Until we run exhaustive tests, we can’t hope to have a good understanding of how this all works. Now,” he went on, “you’re obviously stuck on a thought that you would rather keep quiet.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I admitted.

  “A thought, I take it, that would embarrass you?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Can you reason around it?”

  “Oh, I’m trying,” I assured him, and then I had an idea. Maybe if I wished that she were wearing a bra… no sooner had I had the thought than an incredibly comical look passed over Eliza’s face. She looked uncomfortably at her father, and then glanced at me, her pale face starting to turn pink.

  “I-- I think I’ll go up to my room,” she said, “while you two do whatever you think you need to do.”

  “Eliza, are you sure?” he father asked.

  “Yeah, I think it’s for the best,” she said, and hurried out of the room. Before she disappeared through the doorway, she pulled open the top of her shirt and peeked underneath it.

  “Well, then,” Mr. Laughton said, clueless, “I take it that all the distractions are gone now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, more than a little relieved.

  “All right, let’s try something, then. Why don’t you try concentrating on the view screen? See if you can--”

  Before he had a chance to finish, the view screen appeared at the front of the living room; it was showing the topographical map of North America.

  “Can you switch it to the star field?”

  The map changed to the star field. It was very easy to accomplish, actually; all I had to do was see it in my mind, and poof there it was.

  “Can you change the point of view?”

  Slowly the star field change as the point of view rotated from a point in space to an aspect that was closer to earth. The stars seemed to move minutely until they lined up in more recognizable configurations.

  Mr. Laughton was enthralled, gazing up at the screen.

  “Amazing,” he murmured. “All right, now clear your mind. I really don’t know what else to suggest. There’s very little we know about the artifact, and so it’s difficult to know where to start.”

  “We could always ask it something,” I suggested.

  “Can we?” he wondered.

  “Why not?” I said. “If it understood that I wanted ice tea, maybe it understands a lot more.”

  “All right, try that.”

  “Where are you from?” I asked aloud.

  The view screen switched from one star field to another, this one filled with stars I definitely didn’t recognize. At the center of the screen, four red indicator lights surrounded a binary star system.

  “Fascinating,” he said. “Ask it how long it traveled to get to its present location.”

  I thought the question this time. The star field vanished, and the screen looked like a huge computer monitor screen across which was written in strange symbols some kind of formula.

  “All right, that’s no help. Can you ask it to translate the answer into earth terms-- in English?”

  The formula disappeared and was replaced with a simple answer: “.0000837 seconds.”

  “That’s not possible,” Mr. Laughton said, the expression on his face duller than usual. “How many light-years are we talking about?”

  The answer came back: “11654.9874 light-years.”

  Mr. Laughton gawked at me, and I just shrugg
ed my shoulders.

  “All right,” he said after a moment. “We’ll really have to give that some thought later. Maybe something is being lost in the translation, here, but I can’t see how anything can travel that far in a fraction of a second. Ask why it never chose to communicate with us, with Eliza or me.”

  The response: “No purpose.”

  “No purpose?” he wondered. “What does that mean?” he asked me, as if I really had a clue. “Let’s word this differently: ask why it chose you communicate through you.”

  The answer: “Searching.”

  “Searching for what?”

  “Pilot.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Laughton said as if he suddenly understood it all. “It makes perfect sense, don’t you see? The exchange of telepathic communication between pilot and ship would be instantaneous-- much faster than having to go through any computer, no matter how advanced. It would also give the ship the benefit of animal instincts. There must be something about Eliza and me that disqualify us as possible pilots. So it appears that our artifact is an orphan-- one half of that which is needed to function fully…. Ask it what happened to the last pilot.”

  When no response was forthcoming, Mr. Laughton concluded that the artifact didn’t know.

  “Ask it what its primary function is?”

  Answer: “Exploration and searching.”

  “Searching for what?”

  Here the answer that popped into my mind was so stunning I could hardly repeat it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, when he noticed my shock at the answer. “What did it say?”

  “I can’t be understanding this right, either,” I told him.

  “Why?-- What did it say?”

  “It says it’s searching for the creator.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows jumped up. He mulled it over for a moment, scratching his chin and frowning deeply.

  “Well, let’s not get carried away by that one. It could mean something entirely different. Its response could be open to interpretation. It could simply mean its inventor or--” he struggled to come up with other explanations.