Chapter 4
“Yes, Christina. As soon as you leave Earth, you will look the way you really are.”
“I guess none of us should become astronauts then,” she replied, making everyone laugh like crazy.
Lyle absolutely adored everything that Christina would say and do. He applauded her little innocent comment.
“No, Christina, your anatomy will not be affected during or after the operation,” said Dr. Snyder. “Your tentacles will grow back, you know, so that you’re not incomplete. The only thing is that they will be much, much shorter and smaller, so that you can’t use them to strangle or suffocate anyone. Every part of your bodies regenerates, guys. It’s just that this operation that we perform on you, it makes it so that when those tentacles regenerate, they are not the same way they were when you were born, you know, big and long.”
“…Like the male’s genitalia,” replied Raven, a very perverted little alien who was always talking and thinking about sex and making the males horny, both human and alien.
“Shut up, Raven!” said Dr. Snyder.
Everyone laughed.
“Well, Christina, let’s not hold this up any longer. You have to… reproduce.”
Everyone laughed again and smiled.
“If you wait any longer, I’m sure that you’re going to start suffering. This is serious.”
Everyone remained silent this time.
They took Christina to the operating room and took her clothes off. Her body was completely clean. The only parts of her body that she had hair on were her head and her eyebrows. They placed a gown on her and she lied down on the operating table. They placed a respirator on her and gave her anesthesia. She counted backwards from ten to one and fell asleep.
They got to work immediately. They somehow made her morph into the entity she really was. Her tentacles were the longest that this team of doctors had ever seen because Martians had the longest tentacles in the universe. Dr. Snyder cut off all of Christina’s tentacles. They immediately regenerated, but they were longer than the tentacles of lunar aliens. They were long enough for Christina to defend herself from an alien attacker, but not long enough to kill. They let her morph back into human form and let her sleep in the recovery room.
Two hours later, Christina woke up. Her mother was beside her. She was now forty-four years old. “Hi, honey,” Brooke said.
Christina was stunned. She was still under the effects of the anesthesia, half-asleep, and she couldn’t defend herself. She was now at the mercy of her evil mother.
“Brooke…” said Christina.
“Why are you calling me Brooke? Why don’t you call me ‘Mom’?”
“I will never call you that because I hate you, ‘Mom’!”
“Well, guess what?” said Brooke, morphing into alien form. “I had never used my powers because I never thought it was necessary, but it is necessary now!” She used her tentacles to suffocate Christina and literally rip her apart.
This was nothing but a horrible nightmare. Christina woke up, breathing heavily. She heard Brooke’s screams and cries on the outside of the recovery room. Brooke had been in the recovery room with her, but she didn’t do what Christina dreamed. She was just talking to Christina and telling her how sorry she was for bringing her into this world for the wrong reasons. She didn’t want her and Christina to live together again because Christina was an adult, and she could live wherever she wanted to, and she had the means to finance and buy her own house or have Matt buy her a house. All Brooke wanted was to have a relationship with her daughter,
As soon as Dr. Snyder went into the recovery room to see how Christina was doing, Christina said, “I want to see my mom.”
Snyder signaled security to let Brooke in, and Brooke went in, hugged Christina, and said, “I love you, Christina,” and kissed her lips.
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“I am sorry for everything I’ve done to you.”
“I heard you when I was asleep.”
“You heard me?”
“Yes, and I forgive you. I understand money makes people, human and not human, do all sorts of evil things. Besides, the whole world knows that you’re not human. It’s been proven that both of my parents are from the other species, and you can show the world your talents. If you tell the world what you can do, all you have to do is go to college for a few months, get a degree, and start working on what you fancy, and make millions.”
Brooke couldn’t believe her ears.
The days quickly passed and Christina was buying things for the brand-new house that Matt had bought for her. Several hours later, she received a new living room set, a new dining-room set, and a new bedroom set. The technicians that the store sent were installing and assembling everything for her exactly the way that she wanted it because Matt had paid them extra money to do so. They were also installing a brand-new big-screen TV, sixty-three inch HD TV in the living room and a new satellite-TV system for her. She had also bought a DVD recorder to record her favorite programs on DVD and 1,000 DVD discs. She had a 1000 CD music collection on three towers that would hold 300 CD’s and one tower that held 100 CD’s. She had a huge stereo and surround sound. It was a dream that had come true. Matt had spent over fifty million dollars in one day buying her all that stuff and more. She had smaller HD TV’s, thirty-two-inch, in each one of her bedrooms, and satellite-TV receivers, her gigantic TV in the living room, a TV that was the same size in the family room, and one flat-screen TV in the kitchen. She had the newest and best laptop computer with wireless Internet service on it. Her computer was a black Sysrec fifteen-inch computer with a DVD burner, a 500-GB hard drive, the best processor, $500 of the best computer programs, and many other features. It was the best and most expensive computer in the world, and it cost over $5,000. She and Lyle had just gotten married and Lyle was out buying expensive clothes with Matt’s money. Nevertheless, Lyle and Christina would not live off of Matt for long because Lyle had just landed a job as a computer technician. He could’ve had a higher-paying job, but building and fixing computers was what he loved to do. He was also buying computer programs for his clients and computer parts because he’d just gotten his license and he already had appointments with four clients. One of the clients was getting her first computer, a fourteen-year-old girl, and Lyle was going to set it up for her. The second client, his baby spilled her juice all over the computer, and he needed a new computer as well. The computer of the third client needed a new hard drive because the hard drive she had, it had just crashed, and his fourth and last client of the day needed a new operating system because she had bought a defective one after doing an upgrade for her computer. Lyle could do all of that quickly and perfectly. When aliens were working, they could do in minutes what it would take humans hours to do. That’s why Lyle could help ten clients per day, and he would earn double the amount of money as other computer technicians.
What Lyle didn’t know was that his young client was his thirteen-year-old baby sister. She had been using her parents’ computer for five years. Now, it was finally time for her to have her own computer because she had excellent grades. She was a 4.0 average student, and she was very obedient to her parents. She was the daughter every parent would only dream of, and that was because after bringing Lyle into this world, it seemed that Sabrina and Logan had had the perfect child after having a lunar alien. Lyle was twenty-two years old in human age because he had aged normally, although no scientist could explain how Sabrina and Logan had done that before the technique that the experts of Tears of the Moon and Tears of the Sun had employed. It was hard for the Thompsons to have a child of their own because Sabrina had serious problems in her reproductive system, and they’d tried to have a baby for years. Kate and her crew made it so that they could have a child simply by altering their DNA with alien DNA without turning them into aliens, and letting them have Lyle. However, Shirley, Lyle’s little sister, she only had the superhuman powers and the seven senses of an alien, but she wasn’t physically an alien. She was 100% human, physically. She had many friends. She was incredibly beautiful and smart.
The hours quickly passed, and without knowing it, Lyle was finally at his little sister’s house, and he was going to meet her for the first time. He got out of the car with Shirley’s great laptop and knocked on the door.
Brittany opened the door for him. “Hi, Lyle, how are you? Come on in.”
“You know me, madam?” he said as he went in.
“Of course I know you,” said Brittany as she closed the door behind Lyle. “I’m your mother.”
He suddenly cried tears of joy. “You’re my mom?” He hugged her.
“You look just like your father.”
“That’s a compliment.”
“And just so you have a slight idea of what your little sister looks like, she looks just like me. You’re our only children. Shirley’s in her room,” she said as she and Lyle walked out of the living room and walked the hallway to Shirley’s room.
“Her name is Shirley.”
“Yes, it is. I named her after my mother, and we named you after my father, and after your father’s father. Your name is Lyle Philip Thompson and Shirley’s name is Shirley Elaine Thompson, Elaine being your father’s mother.”
They arrived at the door of Brittany’s bedroom. “The four of you, Dad’s parents and your parents, you must love each other very much for you and Dad to name us after both of your parents.”
Shirley was happy that the technician was finally here with the computer. She was on the phone with her best friend, Alicia. “I have to let you go. The tech is here.”
“Oh, really… is he just going to bring you, your computer or is he going to set it up for you, too?”
“I think he just came to bring it but my parents are going to pay him $100 extra dollars for him to set it up for me, too, I am not sure.”
“She’s on the phone,” said Brittany. “Let’s not interrupt her.”
“You’re right, Mom,” he said, smiling.
“You want some hot chocolate while you wait for her to finish talking? I heard your favorite snack was pound cake with hot chocolate, and that at TOTM they would always make sure that you guys would have your favorite snacks before going to sleep.”
They walked the hallway back to the living room. “That’s true.”
“So, you got married yesterday?” said Brittany as she walked to the kitchen.
“Yes, I did.”
“You aliens get married as soon as you fall in love, don’t you?”
“I know that’s uncommon in humans, but yes, as soon as we fall in love, we get married. I mean why wait? From the moment we get with that person we know that he or she is the right one for us, so why prolong the relationship like most humans do? You need time to get to know each other when you find that special person.”
“It’s true. You guys are lucky. Sometimes we wish we were like you… sometimes,” she said as she cut the slice of pound cake, a big one.
Lyle laughed. “You’re like no other human, mom. That’s for sure.”
“When they prepared me to have you,” said Brittany as she placed the slice in a plate, “they made me this way.”
Shirley was still on the phone with Alicia.
Alicia asked her, “With what money are your parents going to pay the tech for setting up the computer for you? Shirley, yesterday your dad lost his job. You’re lucky that he bought you that computer before this happened.”
“You’re right. I guess I’m going to have to set up the computer myself, huh?”
“No. You don’t have to do that. Tell that guy that my mom is on the way to write a check for him to pay him to set up the computer for you,” said Alicia as her mom, Starr was walking out the door.
Minutes later, Lyle walked through the door of Shirley’s bedroom and gave her a big hug. “Hi,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“What’s this?” said Shirley surprised with the hug. Suddenly, she looked Lyle in the eyes, looked at him from head to toe and noticed that he looked exactly like her father, 100% identical. “Oh, my God, you’re Lyle?”
“Didn’t Mom and Dad tell you my name before?”
“Well, yes, but there’s another tech in this town named Lyle. I never thought that they were talking about you, my older brother.” She hugged him again. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard wonderful things about you. I could never visit you because they don’t allow human children in TOTS or TOTM.”
“It’s ok. I’ve heard wonderful things about you, too,” he said, smiling. “You’re a straight-A student, cheerleader, community volunteer, hey, you’ve got it all. I also heard that you’re writing some songs.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling, “I am, but I am currently writing songs for other artists because I want to become a pop star, but it’s much too early. My parents want me to finish high school first because they don’t want me to have to endure what other teenage artists have had to endure just for being singers and actors and actresses. People can’t stand it when you’re successful and making loads and loads of money and they’re not.”
“That’s true. People are very covetous. I’m just glad we’re not like that,” said Lyle, referring to living things of his species.
“I heard Martians are just like humans.”
“No, they’re worse. They’re evil. The only Martians that are not evil and cruel to humans are the ones that have some lunar blood in them.”
“There are Martian-lunar hybrids?”
“Well, they’re not hybrids because hybrids are living things that are half one species and half another species, like human-alien hybrids.”
“Those exist?”
“Sure they do. It’s just that there are like two or three thousand of them in the whole world, but yeah, they’re among us. So,” said Lyle and sat on Shirley’s chair, “let’s talk about your new laptop, shall we? What Mom and Dad don’t know is that, since we’re family, the money that they’re going to pay me for the laptop and configuring the laptop for you, I won’t accept it because Dad lost his job, and you guys need the money right now a lot more than I do because you see me right now? Well, today alone, I’ve made $5,000 in computer repairs, and my clients have already paid me for their repairs and their computers because, since I desperately needed the money, I asked them to pay me in advance.”
“So, you’re not going to…”
“No. Something came up and you had to become my last client for today. I decided to take care of the others first because when I set a date to come and do a repair or an upgrade, I do everything in my power to get it done on that exact date, and since it only takes me minutes to do what I have to do, it’s easy for me.”
“I know my sister in law is the daughter of Matt Manning.”
“Yes, my wife is Christina Manning.”
“I wanted to ask you if there was any way that Mr. Manning could give Dad a job in his company.”
Suddenly, Logan went in his daughter’s bedroom to see his son. “Hello, Lyle,” he said and gave him a hug. “How are you doing today?”
“Before you walked in, Dad, I was just about to tell Shirley that I am going to talk to Matt to see if he will…” Suddenly, Lyle’s cell phone rang. “I have to take this,” he said, pulled the phone out of the pocket of his red long-sleeved shirt, flipped it open, and took the call. “Hello.”
“Lyle, this is Matt. How are you doing?”
“Matt, how did you know I wanted to talk to you?”
“Just the way you know when someone wants to talk to you. Listen, about giving your dad a job, we need a new supervisor because Scott had to move to Minnesota, and he just resigned yesterday. Tell him to come to my office tomorrow first thing in the morning. I don’t need references, I just need his birth certificate, and his resume. That’s it. I am going to interview him tomorrow, since I am the company president and I can do whatever I want.”
Lyle laughed.
“We also need someone to keep track of our sales, you know? Would you be interested in a part-time position so you can keep working as a computer tech?”
“I thought Mark was the president.”
“We both are,” said Matt and laughed. “This is one of few, if not the only company in the world that has two presidents. We founded this company together. You have to understand this, Lyle. We can do what humans cannot do. What’s impossible for humans is possible for us.”
“I know that. So Dad has a job, right?”
“Yes, he’s got the job. I just need his documents to know who he is, you know, and I’m just interviewing him to get to know him, you know, to see his personality and be able to look him in the eyes, you know, but this process is not necessary. The job is his already and he’s going to start tomorrow right after the interview.”
Lyle hung up. “Guess what, Dad? You have a job at Matt’s company!” he screamed and they hugged.
Minutes later, Lyle turned on the new computer to set it up for Shirley. Meanwhile, Brittany and Logan were in the living room watching TV to give Lyle and Shirley some more time to get to know each other. The computer had never been turned on, so Lyle had to set up Shirley’s account.
“What do you usually do on the computer?” Lyle asked Shirley.
“Schoolwork,” she answered.
“Is that it? You don’t download music, videos or do anything for entertainment?”
“No, I don’t download anything on my Mom and Dad’s computer because I don’t know how big the computer’s hard drive is, and I don’t want their hard drive to crash because of me.”
“You’ve never looked to see how big the hard drive is?”
“No.”
They laughed.
“I never save any files on it because everything I do on it, I print it, so the only files that computer has are the files that they’ve created.”
“I see. What word processor does that computer have?”
“The computer has the word-processor Redfox."
“That’s not very good.”
“I know, but it’s all we could afford.”
“This computer has the Cyber Genius word processor and I am going to buy the program for you with my debit card so that you have it permanently,” he said as he opened up the program.
“You have money?”
“Sure. Kate gave me $10,000 to put in my bank account for anything I needed and I have kept that money intact until now.” Lyle put his debit card information in to buy Cyber Genius in less than three seconds, activated the software, and closed the Internet browser. “There you go. What other programs do you want?”
“Programs to download music, instant-messaging programs, programs to download videos, programs to make movies, programs to create dolls… anything young humans do, as long as they don’t cost anything.”
He laughed. “Aww, you’re so sweet!”
“Well, you need that money!”
“True, but I’d spend as much as necessary on any of you guys. You’re my family, the only thing I have beside Christina. I am going to download the best programs to do all that stuff, but I have to remind you to download music legally. If you want a song, buy it, don’t download it illegally.”
“I would never do that.”
“That’s right,” said Shirley’s next-door neighbor, Norma, walking into her room all of a sudden, “because you’re too goody-goody.” She laughed. She was joking. “How are you doing, Lyle? When your parents told me that you got released, finally, I was very happy. You’ve been away from them for twenty-two long years.”
While Lyle downloaded all the programs that Shirley wanted, in a matter of minutes, he said, “I know, Norma. How is Nora?”
“Nora’s great.” Nora was Norma’s sixteen-year-old-daughter, and one of Shirley’s best friends. “She’s eager to meet you. I brought her with me but she’s out there talking to Brittany. How have you been?”
“I am great and making loads of money. I made $5,000 today alone. What do you think about that?”
“I think that’s unheard of, that a computer technician can make so much money in one day.”
“Lyle’s right. What’s impossible for humans is possible for aliens.”
“I see,” said Norma and walked out of the room. She closed the door behind her. She wanted to check on Nora.
“Does she dislike me?” asked Lyle to Shirley.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t think she likes any of us. Does she come over regularly?”
“Yes, she visits us every day, Lyle.”
“Why? I mean she doesn’t like us. Did you hear the little snide comment she made about you when you said you would never download music illegally?”
“Yes, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I mean…”
“Yes, well I did,” said Lyle and got up from Shirley’s chair. “I’m going to give her a piece of my mind right now.”
“Lyle, please don’t…”
He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Shirley went after him. “Lyle. Lyle!” she closed the door behind her.
Lyle went to the living room, where Nora sat beside Brittany in the sofa. Nora was in the kitchen, getting a snack, a cup of chocolate pudding. “You have the audacity to sit beside my mother after the hate you just showed my sister?”
Norma was shocked. “Lyle, what are you talking about?”
“Don’t you know that I see right through you?”
“Lyle, please,” said Shirley, crying. “That comment didn’t spark anything in me. Can’t you just let it go? I did.”
“Be like your sister, Lyle, if you admire her so much,” said Norma.
“What comment?” said Brittany, confused. “What are you all talking about? What did Norma say that was so offensive?”
Nora went to the living room with her pudding cup in her hand. “Mom, what did you say?”
“It’s not a big deal!” said Norma.
“What did you say, Mom? Come on, I know you! I’ve been with you all day and all night for sixteen years. Come on now? If you said something disrespectful, why don’t you be a real woman, and admit it?”
“’That’s right, because you’re too goody-goody’,” said Lyle. “Doesn’t that sound downright rude to you?”
Brittany turned around to look at Norma, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t mean to disrespect Shirley, Brittany,” said Nora. “I swear.”
“It was nothing, everyone,” said Shirley, sick and tired of the situation. “Just let it go. It didn’t mean anything to me; it shouldn’t mean anything to you. Don’t regard something this stupid and insignificant.”
“It may mean nothing to you, Shirley, but it means a lot to us because Norma’s envious of you,” said Brittany.
“I am not!” said Norma.
“I can’t believe that after all these years, we’ve found out the woman that you really are, Norma,” said Logan.
“Come on, it was a joke. You can’t take it seriously,” said Norma.
“Yes, well, Mom,” said Nora, “it was a sick joke, and it was very disrespectful. If I were Brittany I would feel exactly the same way.”
“The woman didn’t mean anything by it,” said Shirley. “I don’t want a friendship of many years to be destroyed because of me.”
“It’s not your fault, Shirley,” said Logan. “It’s hers.” Logan got up from the sofa, walked toward Shirley and took her hand. “Come on,” he said and they started walking out of the living room together, “let’s go to my room. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Shirley,” said Norma, crying, “I beg you not to destroy our friendship. I didn’t mean to offend your daughter.”
“Yes, well, you did,” said Brittany.
“Brittany, please…”
Meanwhile, in Logan and Brittany’s room, Logan was showing Shirley the surprise that he had for her. It was very small but meaningful. It was a diamond necklace and an MP3 player. The MP3 player he got with the money that he’d been saving for a month, and the diamond necklace, he got a loan at his bank for.
“Wow, Dad,” said Shirley, crying tears of joy. “I never expected this from you. Where did you get the money for the diamond necklace?”
“I got a loan at the bank,” said Logan, also crying.
“Oh, Dad…”
“It’s nothing. I will pay the loan next month, even though they gave me one year to pay it.”
They hugged.
Monti was walking on the railroad tracks and all of a sudden, he noticed a couple placing their daughter on the railroad tracks, right in front of the train, so that the train would run her over. He gasped, and instantly his eyes became one, and turned into a digital video camera that recorded her on the train tracks, in her wheelchair, unable to move, and her parents leaving the railroad. The video was ready to be transferred to a computer and Monti approached t