Chapter 10
Mech was redirecting a land rover to investigate. Even with an overhead satellite, given the lighting it was difficult to make anything specific out, until Jenny adjusted the frequency to infrared; a classic, saucer styled ship seemed evident.
“Martians!” Letty said.
“You’re crowding me, girls,” Jenny said.
“Sorry,” they said, not really backing off.
“It’s not Martians,” I said.
Jenny looked at me, curious.
Letty explained why I was wrong: “Martians come in saucers.”
“Only in the movies,” I corrected. “Real Martians use triangular shaped craft.”
“Clever boy,” Jenny said, as if she approved of my knowledge set. “Still, this is weird.”
“What’s weird? The shape of the craft or the timing of the coincidence?” Midori asked.
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Jenny said.
“Maybe its John’s ship,” Allura said. “I’m sorry, John, you’re just going to have to stay with us now that it’s wrecked and all.”
Jenny chuckled.
“What?” Allura asked, pouting.
“I am sure his ship is a lot bigger than that,” Jenny said.
“How much bigger?” Lilja asked.
“I hope to find out,” Allura said.
“I am feeling really uncomfortable with this conversation,” I said.
“Keep it G,” Jenny said, not looking back at me, pushing through some of the different view options.
“How is talking about the size of your ship making you uncomfortable?” Min-Jee asked.
“It doesn’t look too bad. There could be survivors,” Midori said.
“Indeed,” Jenny said, standing. “I am going to go have a look see. You girls stay here.”
“You’re going alone?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t be so 18th century,” Jenny said.
“I am not. I am being sensible,” I said.
“Very well. I accept your invitation to join me,” Jenny said.
“I wasn’t exactly volunteering,” I said.
“Afraid?” Jenny asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “I was merely pointing out that it was unreasonable to go alone.”
“And you’re right, but I can’t take the girls, and it’s too dangerous to leave you behind with them,” Jenny said. Allura began to protest again. “So, you’re with me, Star Fleet.”
“Please don’t call me that,” I said.
“Star Fleet?” Jenny asked.
“Haven’t quite earned it, yet,” I said.
“What can we do to help?” Midori asked.
That was a brilliant set up for more banter and jokes, but Jenny blocked with an appropriate response: “Well, gear up as if you were going out of the habitat, then come back here, and monitor our progress. Be ready if we need you.”
The girls shouted excitedly and ran to get their gear.
“That should keep them occupied for a while,’ Jenny said, hitting my arm. “Come along, then. No more time for sleeping.”
Jenny led me out of the main structure, across the mesa top under a glass dome to a lift that took us down to an enclosed structure where a sizeable truck, with four sets of tank tracked ‘wheels’ were suspended from their individual struts. We entered the vehicle, secured the door, and Jenny drove us into an airlock, cycled out the air, and then proceeded to drive us towards the downed ship. She set the autopilot, got up, and proceeded the lockers at the rear of the vehicle.
“Come on,” Jenny said. “Let’s gear up.”
Jenny opened several lockers, where she began pulling out gear. I began to undo my pants.
“Hold on. What’s that about?” Jenny asked me.
“I’m taking my clothes off,” I said.
“What for?” Jenny asked.
“To put on the environmental suit?” I asked.
“The e-suit goes over your clothes, John,” Jenny said.
“Oh,” I said.
“Were you hoping for a pretext to be naked with me?” Jenny asked.
“Well, to be honest,” I began.
“John, please,” Jenny said. “People could be dying out there and you’re thinking about sex?”
“Okay, record straight here, people die all the time and I am still going to be thinking about sex, and, well, since I have arrived here I have been inundated with pretext and preset-up contrivance and loads of precum leakage from rapidly moved through multiple arousal cycles and we got like what, ten to fifteen minutes at our present rate of speed,” I said.
Jenny turned to me. Very serious. “Since we’re all about straight records and honesty, let’s put this on table. I am an alien.”
“So?” I asked.
“Oh, you’re one of those,” Jenny said, sighing. “Well, that’s nice. I like that you’re open minded and all, but, really, John, we just met. I don’t know you. I have an idea of you.” Even her hand gesture seem to suggest ‘I have an idea of you’ was more than just her intuition about my character. “I see that you’re randy and a long ways from home surrounded by beautiful girls with no male competition, but I don’t see our present arrangement as a pretext for shagging. Sure, being out in the rover alone sounds like fun, but we’re on a mission here, and…” Jenny leaned in. “The girls are watching us.”
Jenny smiled at me, and pointed to the cameras placed throughout the rover. She pulled out a suit and handed it to me.
“Suck it up, we got work to do,” Jenny said.
I decided not to mope over the fact that I just got schooled, and it was actually the correct position for Jenny to take, and it again, only went to reinforce the reality function of my set. Believe me, if this were a dream, I would have already found a context to have slept whit all thirteen ‘Firsts.’ It was a tight fit, but I got the e-suit over my clothes. My boots did have to come off in favor of the e-suit boots, and Jenny helped in instructing me how to seal the boots to the pants, and the gloves to the sleeve. All that remained donning was the bubble helmet. We held off on that and returned to the front of the vehicle. Another vehicle was approaching.
“Oh, hello,” Jenny said.
“The Others?” I asked.
“Apparently,” Jenny said. She punched up a radio and connected a communication link between the two vehicles. “Hey there.”
“What are your intentions?” came the voice. It sounded male.
“It sounds human,” I remarked, a little disappointed I wasn’t going to meet an alien.
“Translator,” Jenny dismissed me. “We are on a rescue mission. There could be people injured.”
“The ship has fallen within our perimeter, and therefore belongs to us,” the other said.
“Ah,” Jenny said. “It’s like that? The tech belongs to the owner of the vehicle, don’t you think?”
“The tech is ours,” the other said.
“Okay, well, we’ll just recuse the occupants, and you can have the tech,” Jenny said.
“Any occupants will be considered bio-tech. Per Mech, humans will claim the surface, and the Others will claim the inner world. This falls within our jurisdiction and we claim salvage,” the other said.
“Okay,” Jenny said. “Good luck with your operation.” She turned off the radio.
“We’re turning back?” I asked.
“Uh? Oh, hell, no,” Jenny said. “If they want to play salvage rights, I think we’ll get there first. Not by much, but clearly we saw it first. Two can play this game.”
We did arrive at the crashed ship first, but ‘not by much,’ and not enough time to open the door to the saucer and go in. The other vehicle was a duplicate of the one we drove, and three suited young men stepped out. They were clearly human.
“A’llo, boys,” Jenny said.
“I thought they were supposed to be aliens,” I said.
“I am claiming salvage rights,” Jenny said, motioning me to let her handle this.
But I really wanted to see aliens. And the suit didn’t have pockets. I kind of felt useless, standing around, nothing to do with my hands. The men wore name tags on their suits. Ash and Nyu stood behind and to the left or right of Boss, who appeared to be the oldest of the three.
“It’s clearly within our perimeter,” the lead male pointed out.
“Yeah, and still, we got here first,” Jenny said.
“Well, we out number you.”
“I am older and smarter than you,” Jenny said.
“We brought weapons,” he said, and the three of them slung weapons into view.
“Oh, well, in that case,” Jenny said. “Help yourself.”
“Wait,” I said. “Think this through. What you’re doing could drastically alter the course of your futures, both physically and socially.”
“Shut up,” the lead said. “You’re not my father.”
“Oh, son, what are you? Three years old?” I said. “She and I are experts. Let us do our jobs.”
“I want you both to go get in my rover, now, or I will shoot you,” the lead said. “Ash, go with them.”
“Yes, Boss,” Ash said.
“You’re making a mistake, Boss,” Jenny said, not saying ‘boss’ nicely.
Ash directed us into the vehicle and had us sit on one of the long benches. He sat opposite us, weapon at ready.
“I thought these guys were supposed to be aliens,” I said.
“Me, too,” Jenny said. She smiled at Ash, but addressed me. “And I think he’s never seen a live female. I think I can get us out of this.”
“I can hear you,” Ash said. “And I am gay.”
“Oh, then he’s all yours,” Jenny said.
“Um, but I’m not…” I began.
“For the team?” Jenny asked.
“The team is lost,” I said, no bones about it. “This is one of those hard barriers, I am afraid.”
“Well, at least you know who you are,” Jenny said.
Boss returned to retrieve a box and then exited the vehicle again. When he and his colleague returned, they were carrying an enclosed stretcher, with something alien inside. Ash stood up. It was difficult to see inside the emergency tent at first, but when it was finally positioned on the floor, Nyu moved off to drive the rover back to their base, while Boss closed the door and pressurized the cabin. As soon as the cabin was pressurized, Boss began to remove his e-suit. It turned out, he wasn’t wearing clothes underneath the suit, which was the same suit as I was wearing. I looked to Jenny. She shrugged, indifferently. After he was out of the suit, he got dressed, and tagged out Ash, who took his turn changing from his e-suit to his everyday clothes. Their every-day clothes also had names tags, which was odd to me. Did they have trouble remembering their names? When Ash was dressed, he tagged out Nyu, who came back and undressed. Nyu was a large guy, probably Tongan.
“Both of you, out of your suits,” Boss said.
“No,” Jenny said.
Boss drew attention to his weapon. We started to undress.
“Really? You’re wearing clothes under your e-suit?” Nyu asked.
“Disappointed?” Jenny asked.
“Kind of,” Nyu said. He was clearly interested in Jenny.
“Boys will be boys,” Jenny said, playfully.
“We can take a closer look at her anatomy when we get back to base,” Boss said.
“I’m sure you have holos for that,” Jenny said. Once she was out of the e-suit trousers, she sat down to put the boots back on. I did the same.
“Nyu, get a blood sample of the alien,” Boss said.
Nyu hesitated. “Which one?” he asked.
Boss did a double take. “Really? How many aliens do you see?”
“Three?” he asked.
“Nyu, they’re human,” Boss said.
“Really? She’s a real female?” Nyu asked, staring. “I thought you said the other tower belonged to the Others.”
“No, Mech said tower two belonged to the Others,” Boss said. “Clearly, they are ahead of schedule, and human. Now, stop staring at her, and the get the sample of the alien. We can stare at her later.”
Nyu unzipped the bubble stretcher to reveal a small, gray, humanoid figure. It had large eyes that were closed, a thin slit of a mouth, and barely a nub for a nose, with two small holes. Nyu nearly retreated. The gray was wearing a body suit of a dull silver spandex looking material. It was a one piece, and tightly fitting.
“Relax. It’s unconscious,” Boss said.
“Let me help him,” Jenny said.
“You mean ‘it,’ don’t you?” Ash said.
“Let me render first aid. If that things dies and reports back that there are hostiles on this planet, they will come with a task force of millions to take this planet,” Jenny said.
Boss blinked. “If it dies, it won’t be sending any more reports,” he said. “Nyu, get the sample.”
“I am confused,” Nyu said. “There are no seams on the clothes. How do I take it off him to get the sample?”
Boss was at a loss.
“Probably used a replicator, kind of like cross between a transporter and 3-D printer,” I offered. Seamless space suits was very possible with today’s tech.
“Just jab through the sleeve,” Boss said.
Nyu followed instructions, but failed to puncture the suit. The needle broke. Nyu retrieved a second sampler from the kit.
“Jab its neck,” Boss said.
“You can seriously injure it,” Jenny said.
Nyu jabbed the needle into the gray’s neck to take a blood sample. Simultaneously, I grabbed my neck, feeling a sympathetic pain.
“You okay?”
“Just empathy,” I assured her, but it hurt like a son of a bitch.
Jenny studied me, but not seeing what she was looking for, turned back to Boss. The rover arrived at the airlock, waited for the cycle and then drove the rest of the way in. When the outside had pressurized, Boss directed me and Jenny to carry the bubble stretcher to the infirmary. We set him gently on an observation table. It wasn’t really heavy, but I found myself sweating. Jenny touched my arm, but I waved her off. Akemi came and retrieved the sample and proceeded to an electronic microscope. Other young men gathered around us, some staring at the gray, but most were more interested in Jenny, and her curves which her suit accentuated. A couple of them stared at her chest, which I have to admit, I had been doing the same, because even though her clothing didn’t reveal cleavage, just the hint of bosom had been distracting my attention. There were twelve adolescent boys present in all, not including Boss who was probably 19 or 20 years of age.
“Look, you don’t know what you’re dealing with,” Jenny said.
“Sure I do,” Boss said. “Before we left, I received a download from the Comp. What you are looking at is a real McCoy, a genuine Pleiadian.”
“It looks like a child,” Ash said.
“You should limit your use of Comp,” Jenny said. “It can have an adverse effect on your mental health.”
“Nonsense. I’ve use it daily, and there’s nothing wrong with my brain,” Boss said.
“Clearly,” Jenny said, sarcastically.
“Alright, which one of you messed up the sample?” Akemi asked.
“What do you mean?” Nyu asked.
“You jabbed yourself when taking the sample?” Akemi demanded.
“I didn’t jab myself! And I got it the first go,” Nyu said. “Sort of.”
“Then explain why this sample as human DNA in it?!” Akemi asked.
Jenny went towards the gray, and all weapons came up.
“Stop,” Boss said, aiming his weapon.
“I’ve tolerated your games long enough. I intend to save this creature,” Jenny said. “So, unless you intend to shoot me, stay out of my way.”
“Fine,” Boss said, clicking the safety off.
I stepped between her and on doing so everyone carrying a weapon brought it to bear on me. “Stop this madness. No one needs to die today. By letting us help him, you’re helping yourselves. Lower your weapons. Listen to me.”
“Why should we listen to you?” Boss demanded.
“Because,” Jenny said. “John is your past, and this creature here is your future. Akemi, bring me a saline bag bracelet with an ion pump generator, and a general med kit, stat. John, keep talking. Tell them.”
“It’s not a Pleidian,” I began.
“I told you it was a Martian,” Ash said. “According to the holos, Martian’s always travel in saucers.”
“OMG, where are you guys getting your history from, google? Technically, this one isn’t a Martian,” I said.
“How can you tell?” Ash asked.
“The Martians are tall grays, like anywhere from eight to 11 feet tall. The grays born on earth are anywhere from 3 to 5 feet tall,” I explained. “Do I need to convert that to metrics for you?”
“There’s no way that thing is from earth,” Boss said.
“You heard your own man say it was like 97 percent human DNA,” I pointed out. “Take the chimpanzee, for example. Depending on who you ask, it’s anywhere from 95 to 98 percent genetically the same.”
“What’s a chimpanzee?” Dan asked.
“Watch more nature shows,” I said. “Look, here’s the deal. Humanity creates artificial intelligence and then goes to war with it.”
“And we won, everyone here knows that,” Boss said.
“We lost,” I said. “Everyone lost. The AI, the humans, the planet. It became an extinction level event. A group of humans traveled into the past, and I mean, a long way into the past, and for a moment, they shared the Earth with dinosaurs. They were there just long enough to build the technology to relocate to Mars. In addition to Mars, there was a greater push to send colonists to Alpha Centauri and Trappist 1, but as you know, the ship would have to be computerized, capable of constructing what it needed on site. The first human colony ships left earth hundreds of millions of years before we even evolved as a species, and by the time we become an interstellar species and meet our brothers and sister, they will no longer resemble us.”
“What a ridiculous story. If you could travel back in time, why not just stay on earth?” Boss asked.
“Because they couldn’t stay on Earth. They knew the dinosaurs became extinct, they just didn’t know how.”
“An asteroid,” Jorge said.
“That’s what my generation believed,” I agreed. “But, that isn’t accurate. A faction of the human time travelers didn’t want to go to Mars and they didn’t want to go into space. They thought they could make a paradise on Earth and rewrite all of history and make the future world a better place. And after a while, they created artificial intelligence and, once more, got into fight over ownership and autonomy, and blew up the planet. We killed ourselves, and the dinosaurs. Fortunately, they did colonize Mars before they blew up Earth. Humanity continued to thrive on Mars, in a small, forgotten colony. And in those days, Mars was habitable. And over hundreds of millions of years, humanity changed. In the lighter gravity, in a different biosphere, humans became taller, thinner skinned, and the gray pigment helped diminished the effects of greater solar and cosmological radiation. We evolved into them. But the environment was failing. They needed a greater level of tech to save the planet. Some wanted to push on to interstellar space and find a new homes. Some wanted to return to Earth, but the fear was if they interfered with humanity, they might prevent their future, which is our past. The Great Division occurred. Some went to the stars, promising to come back to bring everyone remaining to a new home. Some went to Earth, hiding in underground and underwater bases, limiting their interactions as much as possible with the humans, and the ones that stayed on Mars, wanted to take out the ones on Earth. War ensued between the two factions of grays, and Mars was leveled by a nuclear war. At this point, it became necessary to bring in greater tech. The grays created AI and found a way to co-exist. The solution set was to build ships to colonize the galaxy. It wasn’t necessary to travel faster than light to do it, either. At one tenth of the speed of light, on ships carrying frozen embryos and smart computers that manufacture anything it needed from remote resources, they went to the stars. The AI was entrusted with finding a place, terraforming it if possible, and, once a foothold was established, it used artificial wombs to developed frozen embryos to make the next generation. We went out first, the Grays went out second, and sometimes we met and clashed and sometimes we cooperated, but mostly, we left each other alone because the galaxy is big enough for all of us. This is clearly your history. The Grays made it possible for original humans to continue, they recognize the importance of all of us living together in peace. Some planets got a full make over, some just got sophisticated habitats. All planets got a new generation of manufacturing spaceships with more embryos, in order to repeat the mission ad infinitum. This is who you are and why you are here. You, and the grays, and the AI are here to work in unison to fill the emptiness of the Galaxy with life and love and hope.”
There was silence. I felt like Captain Kirk after one of his rants. I waited hoping they would get it. But then again, they were just kids. Jenny was satisfied with her work and joined me. At least she seemed pleased with my speech.
“Then why didn’t Mech tell us this?” Boss said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he’s glitching.”
“Mech doesn’t glitch,” Boss said, pointing at me.
“Clearly, something’s wrong. He put you males here in this habitat, and the females over there, and told you both the other is alien,” I said. “That sounds pretty glitchy.”
“Well, males are from Mars and Women are from Venus,” Jenny jested.
“Yeah, talk about a Tale of Two Cities,” I agreed.
“Are you two talking code?” Boss asked.
“Read more books,” I said.
“OMG, they’re married,” Seth said. “That explains the code.”
Jenny put hands on hip and I crossed my arms in front of my chest: “We are not married,” we both said.
“How’s the Gray?” I asked.
“He’ll either pull through or he won’t,” Jenny said.
Just at that moment, Midori and her sisters entered, brandishing weapons of their own. They didn’t even shout surrender. Some of the boys brought their weapons to bear. I shouted “wait”, but the firefight had already begun. There was a lot of screaming and the popping of firearms. Jenny tackled me, taking me to the floor. She was on top of me, gazing into my eyes, smiling. I am not sure why she was smiling.
“Looks like we’ve been rescued,” Jenny said.
“I think I’ve been hit,” I said.
Jenny touched my chest, brought fingers dripping with red, tasted it, to my chagrin, and nodded. “Yep. Paint.”
“They’re paint guns?” I asked.
“Cease fire!” Boss yelled. “We surrender.”
Jenny stood, offered me a hand up. I got to my feet, a hand going to my chest. The girls stood victorious. Hardly a mark of paint on them. The boys were devastated, their pride hurt more than their bodies. Suddenly, the paint blotches on the wall made sense. Boys!
“That really hurts,” I said.
“We came to rescue you,” Midori said, triumphantly.
“I think you killed him in the process,” Jenny said.
“Ah, let me kiss you and make it better,” Allura said.
“Really?” Letty asked. “You still want him when you have a room full of that?”
“What can I say,” Allura said. “I like older men.”
“Round ‘em up, and take their weapons,” Midori said.
The girls followed her instructions; it was clear that flirting was going on, and a silent conversation about who was going to hook up with whom, as the girls sorted the boys out. Midori approached me and Jenny.
“You’re not going to tell them hands off, are you?” Midori said.
“I think that ship is sailed,” Jenny said.
I grabbed Jenny’s arm, but found myself unable to communicate why I was suddenly experiencing distress. It was almost like I was choking, but I was moving air. She took my arm in both her hands keeping me from falling. Midori allowed her weapon to fall to its strap as she took my other arm.
“John?” Jenny asked.
“Why have you brought us here?” I heard my voice, but it wasn’t me.
Midori was genuinely concerned. “I hurt him that bad?”
“No, this is something else,” Jenny said, her eyes transfixed.
The Boss tentatively approached, keeping his hands up, Allura following him with her weapon pointed.
“You!” I pointed at him. I sounded angry. “You brought me here.”
“No, he didn’t,” Jenny said. “Look at me. I’ve done all I can to repair your body, but if you need something more, you have to tell me.”
“The body is damaged beyond repair:” it was bizarre hearing my voice, but not being the one speaking. I sought information. “It’s talking about the beam,” I said.
“Oh, yay, you’re still in there,” Jenny said.
“What beam?” Midori asked.
“John! We need more information in order to help it,” Jenny said.
“Yes. It’s confused. No, better word, disoriented. It can’t find the group mind that it’s accustomed to. It’s afraid,” I said. My next words were not mine: “Temporal Displacement.”
“Oh!” Jenny said, snapping her finger and pointing at me. “That’s it! It wasn’t just a transporter beam. It was a temporal spatial teleportation beam.”
I agreed, and I wondered if it was a copy the way I was a copy; a copy just like the suns and planets were copies from an original template. “Jenny, you said you don’t believe in coincidences. But he’s from my time. My Earth. Scan him for radiation.”
Jenny let go of my arm and I nearly fell, but Midori took over supporting me. “Why I am here?” Again, it wasn’t me asking and it wasn’t me seeing, but I could still see and from my off perspective, I could clearly see concern and love in Midori’s eyes. It was not just concern and love for me, but for the alien addressing her. Midori’s love and compassion was so much more than I had noted earlier in our first meeting, but I should have known it from her kiss.
“I don’t know,” Midori said.
Jenny was scanning the gray with her device. “You’re right!” Jenny said. “He has the same isotopes in his body that you do.”
“John, you’re hurting my arms,” Midori said.
“We’re falling!” I shouted.
“No, I’ve got you,” Midori said.
Jenny turned off the device. “John, you have to let him go!”
“No, he just need to hang on,” I said.
“John,” Jenny said.
I let go of Midori’s left arm and reached to the Gray. From my perspective we were dangling over an abyss and Midori was my anchor. “We’re falling!”
“No, John, let go!” Jenny said.
Midori had me by the wrist with both hands. Jenny grabbed the same arm, as if holding me, and they were both dragged several inches, as if I were really falling.
“I’m confused,” Allura said. “You want him to hang on or let go?”
“John, let go of the gray. He’ll find his way home,” Jenny said. “Let him go. Stay with us.”
And still they slid.
“Help us!” Jenny snapped.
Allura grabbed me in an embrace, her arms hugging me. Lilja and Letty both found a way to grab hold, and still, they all slid.
“We got you, John,” Allura.
“John, stay with us,” Jenny said.
“Please,” Midori said.
“OMG, it’s so beautiful! The light! We’re flying,” I said.
Allura kissed me dead on the lips. I must have passed out, because I saw my body going limp in their arms. Allura caught the majority of my weight, but they all prevented me from falling. My body was carried to the nearest medical bed.
“OMG, I killed him!” Allura said.
“No,” Jenny said, arranging my body to do CPR. “Come on, John. Stay with us.”
Jenny hit my chest hard, before starting compressions. Allura yelled with concern and tried to block Jenny, but Midori embraced her and pulled her back.
“She’s hurting him!” Allura protested.
“She’s trying to save him!” Midori said.
Jenny breathed into me, and Boss dropped to do compression. Jenny nodded and he continued. Everyone gathered around.
“This hurts,” Allura said.
“Yeah,” Midori said.
Boss and Jenny continued for a while, but Jenny gave a final breath, checked for a pulse, and hung her head. It got really quiet, and everyone was staring. Only Allura wept aloud, and tears flowed down Midori’s cheeks.
“Do you want me to continue?” Boss asked.
“No,” Jenny said. “He’s gone.”
“Noo!” Allura said. “Hit him again. Please!”
Midori comforted Allura, drawing her head to her