by Marc Landau
The Bot-alien thought I was primitive? That was seriously primitive. Nowadays drones use safety nets (which shoot a protective, soft foam bubble-wrap substance) and then float any jumpers back to the ground. The systems are all automated and installed on every building and bridge.
Suicides by jumping off tall things have dropped to practically zero. Though like with everything, there’s always the exception. A few industrious hackers have been able to circumvent the system, confuse the drones, and actually jump.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You can’t force people to be safe. People are still free. And they often like to make bad choices.
I was reminded of the choice I was making to remain in the universe’s most technologically advanced, beautiful and bountiful prison. Was this really the way I wanted to spend the rest of my life? Weird that if I was given this back when I was on Prime, I would have been happy, but now given the choice by the aliens, I wasn’t so sure.
Friends and family and society and independence actually mattered more than I thought they did. It’s not something you think about until you have to. You just generally go about your day, feeling trapped in your life.
It’s only women like Kat who make you realize you’re not trapped. You’re free—even if you complain about it a lot.
There were so many pillows on the bed. So many shapes and sizes and colors and textures. Some bigger than me! Others smaller than the bot’s minor gauge receptor.
Why do women love having thousands of pillows? You only use one or two at most to sleep. Maybe three, if you’re weird, but that’s pushing it. Anyone who needs more than three pillows is a psycho. Just my opinion.
It’s the same with animals. If you have more than four, you’re either borderline psycho or about to start a rescue organization. Sometimes both. Most rescue owners are psychos. Good psycho, but still psycho.
Kat made a squealing noise at the sight of the princess bed, then took a flying leap through the air, and came down with a soft whoosh as it absorbed her body into its pillowy softness. She sunk so deep into the comfort foam, or whatever it was, that I couldn’t even see her.
A few moments passed and I still didn’t see her. Did the alien bed eat her? It was possible.
“Kat?”
No reply.
“Kat? You okay?”
“Shhh. I’m trying to take a nap.”
“Uh. Maybe now’s not the best time.”
“We have all the time in the world. Just a few minutes. Please.”
“Kat, I don’t think…”
The bot-alien zoomed over to me, hovering inches away from my face. “Do not contradict the Ultra. She desires a rest phase.”
“Uh. Kat, your bot-alien bodyguard is threatening me again.”
“Leave him alone, Farmy,” she said, her voice muffled by the dense pillows encasing her.
“You heard her, Farmy. Back the frak off.”
The bot did as requested. Not what I requested, but what she did. No way that thing was ever going to listen to me.
“You are not permitted to call me by that name. Or any name. You may not speak directly to me.”
“Uh, hey, Ultra. Can I call your buddy Farmy? And can I tell it what to do to?”
“Of course. Farmy, don’t be such a space pill.”
It beeped in defeat. “Yes, Ultra.”
One thing had been accomplished. Farmy had been put in its place. Though I was pretty sure it would take any opportunity it could to push me off the top of a mountain or smother me with a pillow the first time the Ultra wasn’t paying attention.
“Beep. I don’t know what happened to your primitive friend. It slipped and fell off the mountain. Beep.”
Kat’s dream palace was beautiful, but something was off. It was giving me the heebie-jeebies like in the vids when the family moves into a beautiful old mansion but everyone watching knows the idiots just set up camp in a haunted house, and they should run for their lives.
This place wasn’t gothic creepy or Tulvian torture porn-like, but the longer I stayed, the worse the churning in my stomach became.
“Kat, seriously, we should go check on Poka.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Party pooper.”
She got up. More like crawled on all fours, navigating her way like a kid in a bouncy house. Yes, we still have those. What kid doesn’t love a bouncy house? Clowns, on the other hand, were outlawed after the IT massacre of Twenty-Two-Fifty-Six. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, there’s nothing more terrifying than happy-faced clowns murdering masses of people.
The walrus slid in front of me blocking the way and it made me question which was more scary, a robot alien or killer clowns.
“There is more of the domicile to show you.”
“It’s okay Farmy. We’ll check it out later. Right now I wanna check on Poka.” I took a step forward and the bot blocked my path.
“But you haven’t seen the entire domicile.”
The bot wasn’t letting us go back to get Poka. It clearly wanted us to stay in the house longer.
“Is there some reason you don’t want us checking on Poka?” I asked.
“Beep. No. The Ultra needs to finish viewing the quarters so we can agree to the terms.”
I wasn’t buying it. Something else was going on here. Again, my Spudlum senses went off. Side note; Spudlum are highly sensitive empaths from the outer rim of Galga Seven. They weren’t sentient as much as they were mood organisms. They changed color depending on what someone was thinking or feeling. They turned the universal color red for danger when threatened. I was beginning to think if there was a Spudlum here, it would be glowing bright red.
Before we got to the front door, the bot finally came up with something to keep us a bit longer.
“…Ultra, there is a pool,” the bot-alien said.
That stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Kat, come on. We should go.”
“We will. In a minute. You know I can’t resist a pool. Or any body of water.”
I slumped. “I know.”
“This way, Ultra,” the bot-alien said, pointing to a circle in the wall.
“What is that?” I asked.
It blipped a giggle at my stupidity. “It is a portal, of course.”
How could I not know that the two-dimensional hula hoop on the side of the room was a portal. What else could it be?
Kat moved toward it, and I grabbed her hand, holding her back.
“ It’s okay Wil,” she said.
“I don’t know. I’m not feeling the portal thing. Last time, we teleported from the outer band of the Outpost to…well, wherever the hellvian we are. I don’t trust this thing. I don’t want to step into it. I have no idea where we’ll wind up.”
She considered my words. “You’re right. We can try it later. Once we’re more comfortable. Let’s go check on Pokes.”
Once we’re more comfortable? Had she decided to stay?
“Thanks. Let’s see how she’s doing.”
I turned to go back to the entrance, and that’s when the bot-alien pushed me into the portal. I knew that damn bot-alien was gonna push me off something.
Chapter Nine
My stomach dropped like I was on a ride that plummets down hundreds of feet in seconds. What’s that thing called? Roller something. I don’t know, I’ve never been on one, but it’s similar to riding the Valkan Caverns. Your stomach falls into your feet, and if you're at all susceptible to nausea, you instantly vomit. That’s why they provide the vomit-nanos. Luckily, I only threw up four times. After that, my stomach settled down for the remainder of the cavern expedition.
Kat, of course, didn’t even gag. She had a stomach made of steel. She could eat a Blovian pinworm and not flinch. I had to hand it to her. She was tough as Cartulvian granite.
Passing through the portal, I caught a flash of being somewhere close, but at the same instant far away. It was quicker than the blink of an eye, but I saw a grand room
. Circular and cavernous, but too smooth and technological to be a natural formation. Like being inside a grand theater that was shaped like an egg.
There were thousands of multicolored spheres filling the room. All of them pulsing, breathing a soft yellow light. It felt as if they were waiting for something or like they were in some type of stasis.
In the middle of the dome was a larger orb, about twenty feet around, with a semi-circular hole in it. Something was meant to fit in that space. Something was missing. That’s when I realized it was perfect for the jeweled rock I’d brought on board.
It was a throne for the Ultra.
The next instant, I was falling onto the roof and stumbling onto my knees. I stood up and brushed myself off even though there wasn’t any dirt on me. The bot-alien hadn’t lied. It was a portal to the roof. I had just made an unscheduled pit stop on the way. That, or you had to pass through the throne room to get to the roof. If so, it was a very bad layout.
“You want to go to the pool? Yes, right next to the living room. Just step through the portal, go past the egg throne amphitheater and out to the roof.”
Anything was possible in a place where the rules of nature didn’t seem to apply.
I remembered the bot had shoved me through the portal and a wave of heat flushed over me.
Kat came through a few seconds behind me, and the walrus a second after her.
I rushed the bot and pushed it hard as I could, slamming it back against a nearby wall.
“Don’t you fraking ever touch me again, or I’ll end you.”
I reached for the shutdown button on the back of the bot’s neck, not being sure it would work, but I didn’t care, I’d had all I could take of this magical bot-alien monstrosity.
Before my hand got close to its neck attachment, the walrus stuck a finger appendage into my thorax, my body went limp and I flopped to the ground. It didn’t knock me out, just paralyzed me.
Then the bot picked me up by the foot with its finger appendages and dangled me like a dead fish in front of Kat.
“Ultra, may I please dispose of this creature? It has warred on my being two times now.”
My cheeks flushed red in a mix of embarrassment and rage. I would’ve screamed but my lips were paralyzed too. I looked at Kat, helplessly pleading with my eyes, unsure if they were even moving.
“Put him down, Farmy,” she said, and it did as told, dropping me to the hard floor of the roof. I’d have felt it if I wasn’t paralyzed and was sure it would hurt once the effects wore off. If they ever did. Please universes, don’t let me be paralyzed forever.
“Why isn’t he moving?” she asked.
“I temporarily incapacitated it. Not to be concerned Ultra. It will wear off in three, two, one.”
And just like that, I could move again. But it was like all my body parts had fallen asleep and had suddenly all woken up at the same time. I flapped around on the ground trying to get back to my feet. I felt silly being turned into a pile of flapping limbs but did my best to brush it off. “Tell your fraking alien robot thug to keep its hands off me.”
“Farmy. He’s right. Don’t ever touch him again.”
The bot-alien blipped its acquiescence. “Yes, Ultra.”
“And apologize to him.”
“Beep?”
“Farmy. You need to say you’re sorry.”
The bot mumbled a few bleeps and blips.
“What? I couldn’t hear you,” she said.
“Bleep. Sorry.” It said, clearly hating every second of it. I had to admit seeing it being forced to apologize made me feel a little better. What can I say I’m petty.
Kat smiled. “That wasn’t so hard, was it Farmy?”
“…No. Ultra.”
“Good.” She clapped her hands. “Okay, now that we have that settled, can you believe this pool and the view? It’s…splendorific!”
She was right. It was splendorific! The pool was at least the length of a football field and had an infinite edge that blended into the most spectacular view of the newly terra-formed planet. The snow region. The mountain region. The tropical jungle region. All pristine and unspoiled. I could even see the small figure of Poka down by the waterfall, still trying to figure out what that statue thing was that looked exactly like her.
“She’s so cute, right?” Kat smiled, taking my hand. I nodded absent-mindedly in response. Like I was being slowly drugged or hypnotized.
Everything was so vibrant and bursting with life. Or was it clones? Are clones life? Either way, as angry as I was, the beauty of it all almost brought a tear to my eye.
Don’t get distracted again. They’re messing with you, the little voice reminded me.
It was true—they were messing with both of us. Kat seemed to be under-dramatizing the fact that the bot had just shoved me through a portal, paralyzed me, and clearly wanted me dead. I was getting more worried by the minute that she was slipping into some sort of Djinn-style fantasy world. I snapped out of the blissful haze, pulling my hand away from hers.
“Did you see that room inside the portal?” I asked her.
“What room?”
“Inside the portal. It was like an egg-covered throne room. I think it’s your throne. I mean the Ultra’s throne.”
Kat turned to the bot-alien. “Farmy? Is that true?”
“Confirmed Ultra. The human was not supposed to see it.”
“Why not?”
“You are not worthy,” it snapped.
“Well, the portal disagrees, Farmy.”
The bot blipped and buzzed angrily. I could see it was struggling to stop itself from attacking me again. The walrus inside was probably egging it on. Trying to get control of its systems back. Also it would enjoy seeing the alien crush me.
“What is that room for?” I asked the bot-alien but it ignored me. It wasn’t going to respond to a primitive creature like myself, so far beneath it.
“Answer him,” Kat snapped.
“It is the seat of power. It has been prepared and awaits your return.”
“My return?”
“Yes, Ultra.”
“Where did I go?”
The bot beeped and blipped. It sounded like the human equivalent of hemming and hawing. It didn’t want to answer, or was stalling.
“Answer me!” she repeated.
“You were lost to us.”
“And?”
“You have been found.”
“Once I was lost, and now I’ve been found? Are you kidding me? Explain.”
“Ultra understands. The human does not require comprehension.”
Kat put her hands on her hips. Uh-oh. I’d seen that a few too many times. The bot-alien had just hit a nerve. It’d better tell her what she wanted to know. It wasn’t going to like her if she got angry. Especially not with an all-powerful alien being inside of her.
Her eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened. Her face went bright green. I guess that’s what an angry Kat-alien looks like.
Her voice went deep and thunderous.“This human requires comprehension. Now, make me comprehend.”
It was the same Godlike voice I’d heard in my head.
The bot flicked its eye holes to the floor and did its best interpretation of kneeling. “Yes, Ultra.”
Chapter Ten
THE GREAT & LONG EXPLANATION
“The universe before the universe was new when our planet was born. Our home world was little more than a speck of dust when the planet formed around the Ultra. Its purpose was to keep balance, to focus the chaos that birthed the galaxy.”
“How does it do that?”
The bot-alien paused to consider the question.
“It is like a hose.”
“Like a water hose?”
“Correct.”
“So the Ultra is like a conduit?”
“Checking conduit. Correct. A hose. That is the best analogy I can offer your primitive mind.”
“Okay, so the Ultra’s a hose.”
“I’m not a
fraking hose,” Kat replied.
“The power of the galaxy flows in and the Ultra focuses it to maintain order and balance.”
“Hmm. So it’s kind of like a cosmic recycling plant. The Ultra turns space chaos into renewable goods.”
The bot ignored me and continued with the story.
“The dark force of the universe conspired to use its power to rule the galaxy and expand its domain infinitely.”
“So the classic good versus evil story.”
“Beep. It is neither good nor evil as defined by your language. It is power and conflicting energy masses that seek to expand their presence in the universe via a process akin to your word mitosis but that also isn’t the proper definition because your language is significantly too primitive to…”
“Okay okay. Just continue.”
“A species called the Krin evolved from the darkness and became our sworn enemy.”
“Why?”
“They are our sworn enemy.”
“Yeah but why?”
“Beep. You cannot understand.”
“Try me.”
The bot turned to Kat and pleaded with its eye holes but she wasn’t having any of it.
“You said you would explain. So explain,” she replied.
“The Krin are not technically our sworn enemy. I am trying to incorporate your futile language. They are more akin to a competitive force of nature that grows at an exponential rate based on its ability to synthesize the matter of the universe. They are more similar to a virus or bacteria that is growing out of control, and we are the doctor of the universe trying to cure the sickness. But it is not a sickness, it is an imbalance that must be corrected, but they have developed advanced technology to imprison and control the power of the Ultra so they can harness the chaos for their growth.”
I didn’t ask for any further explanations. My head was spinning but I got the main point. It was good versus evil. Except maybe it was a bit more like evil versus evil because the Ultra’s kin weren’t exactly what I’d call good.
