Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences (4 page)

I have a hard time sleeping that night. I keep hearing crying. A soft, smothered sound that I decide is coming from a girl. The strange thing is that the sound isn’t coming from outside me. I hear it in my head. I get a little freaked. I mean, sure, I can hear the Handlers when they send me a message. But the crying isn’t coming from a Handler, and I can still hear it. I think back to earlier, when I saw that image of Jerome fighting in a bar. What is happening to me?

I know something else somehow. The girl is alone in a room, which is odd because no humans sleep alone in this place.

I hear Michael stir. Then he starts snoring softly. After a while the girl stops crying, or I stop being able to hear her.

It’s crazy that I could hear a girl crying in my mind, but I’m in Crazy World now. It’s hard to know what anything means.

I wish for about the thousandth time that I could talk to my dad. It’s not like I don’t want to see my mom, too, but it’s my dad’s advice I need. I’d ask him, “When the world has gone crazy, how do you keep yourself from following it?”

Since all I hear is silence, I have to imagine what he’d say.

“The world has always been crazy, Grasshopper.”

My dad was a big fan of any TV show or movie that had martial arts in it. That included this ridiculous show from the seventies called
Kung Fu
. Kwai Chang Caine is the main character, who grew up in a monastery in China, and his master, when he gave advice, always called him Grasshopper. My dad adopted the name for me when he gave me advice. Sometimes it was funny. Most of the time it was irritating.

“Yeah,” I say to Dad, “but invasion-by-little-green-telepathic-aliens crazy?”

“You’ve got a point.”

“How can I hear a girl crying in my head?”

“You could be crazy,” he admits.

He could be right.

“I wish you were here,” I say, and that wish feels like something cold inside me, something so cold it hurts.

“Me too.”

“You’d know what to do.”

“No,” he says. “I’d be just like you. I’d be trying to figure it out. The goal is to stay alive and keep trying to figure it out.”

He’s right. I say, “I think I hear the girl because she’s here in this house somewhere. Maybe it’s crazy, but that’s what I think.”

“Smart boy,” he says.

And he’s gone. And I’m alone.

To Senator & High Lord Vertenomous:

Congratulations on having the colony named in your honor. I am confident Vertenomousland will be a great success. The nonhearing species will make excellent labor slaves because of their size. They could be exported to farming or industrial colonies. The hearing will, of course, bring higher prices, and since we didn’t expect this level of hearing, our profits will be higher than originally thought. I did not mean to sound concerned about the hearing product. They are primitive. They only hear when we send them direct, amplified messages through links. I believe we can expect great things from this colony over time.

I will keep you informed, Senator.

ATTACHED NOTE TO THE OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE
:

Father,

You misunderstand me, sir. I am not asking for special treatment concerning my family. Nor am I complaining about conditions on this colony. Perhaps I only asked because of our conversation not long before I struck out on my mission. We sat in your study and drank Sumbulla, and you reminisced about your first assignment. You spoke of your passion for your first wife, how you felt the lack of her like a wound. I was deeply moved. Perhaps this was on my mind when I expressed my desire to have my wife and daughters here.

As for the product: of course I am aware that it is best if religious and product-rights groups do not learn of these hearing humans until the colony is settled. I will be, as you advise, careful in my reports.

I have taken one of the product as a second. She is superior to the others in both beauty and ability to hear. She is small and desirable. Hardly any taller than our own females, in fact. As you have mentioned in the past, it is good to have a second to keep one’s focus when away from one’s spouse. Also, it does give insight into the species.

I have studied her, particularly when she dreams. It is very curious. I do not know of another primitive culture that dreams. It is not true power, of course, but it is an altered state, a separate existence within the mind. Their experiences, apparently, seem real to them while they dream. This does not make them less primitive, because it is an illusion and contained within each unit, but it is interesting.

I look forward to your first visit. I will have much to show you.

Michael, Lauren, and I are sitting on one of the sofas in the library after dinner, the one time of day we get a little break. Lauren is telling us that Benjamin Franklin owned slaves, which is disappointing. The girl does know a lot about a lot.

Lindsey passes by with her sidekicks. At the same time, a girl who’s overweight gets up from a chair. Lindsey says, loud enough everyone can hear, “Porker.”

Lindsey’s sidekicks giggle. It’s like some bad teen movie.

The overweight girl turns bright red and lowers her eyes.

“Some things haven’t changed,” Lauren says.

“She was a model, right?” Michael says.

“She says she’s been in a lot of magazines, but I’ve never seen her. I don’t read those kinds of magazines much though.”

“She’s pretty hot,” Michael says. “I could see her as a model.”

“Typical guy. You’ve just seen her showing what a vain, self-centered creep she is and what do you say?
She’s pretty hot
.”

“Everyone has faults.”

He’s staring at Lindsey, who has settled at a table by some bookcases; she notices. He smiles. She smiles.

“God,” Lauren says.

Lindsey tosses her hair back. She’s one of those girls who gets a lot out of a hair toss.

“You know what’s got her so upset,” Lauren says. “The aliens don’t think she’s totally hot. They think she’s big.”

“She’s not big,” I say.

“She’s tall. They like their girls tiny. They assigned her to laundry. She wanted to be their personal secretary or something, but they told her no. And they call her big. That really gets her.”

“So she’s a porker to them,” I say.

“Maybe that’s why she said that to the girl,” Michael says. “See, I’m not really so shallow. I get the psychology of the whole thing. I think I’m gonna have to go over there and talk to her, help her understand what’s bothering her.”

“God,” Lauren says again.

He’s smiling and he puts up a fist. What can I do? I won’t leave a friend hanging. We touch fists, and off he goes.

“You boys,” Lauren says, more playful than I’d expect.

“Don’t put me with him. I’m not part of the Lindsey fan club.”

“I know.” She looks kind of thoughtful then. “What do you think you would have been part of?”

“What do you mean?”

“If all this hadn’t happened, what would you have, you know, become?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would you have studied in college?”

“Probably English. I don’t know for sure, though.”

Lauren does, of course. She knows everything. Double major: English and biology. Then she would have gone into the Peace Corps. She’d come back and go to medical school. She’d work for Doctors Without Borders or some other international group that helps those who can’t afford medical treatment.

“You would have been a great doctor,” I say.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Letting me talk about it. Pretending I have a future.”

A Handler passes by.

“You have a future.”

“Right,” she says. “Someone’s slave. That’s my future.”

“Maybe not,” I say, but I believe she’s right. I don’t want to but I do.

“You know better, Jesse. We’re going to be their slaves until we die. Just look around. They’re everywhere. There’s no way we can get away from this.”

“They aren’t everywhere,” I say. “They seem like they are, but they aren’t.”

“I’m afraid they are,” she says with the confidence of a straight-A student. “I feel them. If you try, you can feel them.”

“That’s the way it seems,” I say.

She looks slightly confused. “What do you mean?”

“Some nights I study their movements. My dad was big on observation. He was always telling me to really look at things. When I look closely, some of them fade, like they’re not real, like they’re phantoms. The aliens make them to make us feel like they’re everywhere.”

I lean closer to her. “Look at the one by the chair. Keep looking. Really look at it.”

Lauren stares at it, and after a few seconds, I can see that she sees it disappear.

“Unbelievable,” she says. She sits back. She taps the sofa with her fingers and for a second I’m reminded of Mr. Whitehead and the day of the invasion. “So maybe you’re right. Maybe they’re not omnipotent, but they took over our world in ten seconds. I’m not sure it matters if they’re everywhere or just
almost
everywhere.”

“It matters,” I say. “There’s a difference between omnipotent and
almost
omnipotent.”

We’re ordered to bed. She smiles and for just a second I think she might kiss me again. I can almost see a future of kisses from her, and it’s almost like I have something to look forward to. It doesn’t happen. She stands up. She says, “You’re right.” I should have kissed her is what I think. Then I think,
What am I thinking?
This isn’t the time for kissing or finding a girlfriend. This is the time to focus on staying alive.

“There is a difference,” she says at the top of the stairs. “Thank you, Jesse.” Survival is important, but even so, I’m still thinking about that almost-kiss as I head off to my room.

I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming.

I hear the girl crying again. Her crying is hushed, like she’s crying into a pillow or something. She stops abruptly. “Is someone there?” I don’t think she can be talking to me because I’m not there. I’m here in a bedroom that has the sweaty sock smell of a locker room.

“Who’s there?” she says.

“Are you talking to me?” I say. I can’t see her.

“Who else would I be talking to?”

“Right,” I say. “My dream, after all. You should be talking to me.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” she says. Something about her voice makes me think she’s cute. Maybe it’s a strange thing to think under the circumstances, but I’m pretty sure most guys would notice. I guess if I were in front of a firing squad and the squad was made up of all girls, my last thought might be, “That one on the end is kind of cute.”

“Not really,” I say.

“Who are you?”

“Look, it’s my dream. Shouldn’t I be asking the questions?”

“It’s not really a should or shouldn’t situation. Anyway, it could be my dream.”

“I guess.”

“But I think it’s yours. It doesn’t feel like one of mine.” She says this matter-of-factly as if she’s been in someone else’s dream before.

“Where are you?” I say.

“In a tower that’s not a tower.”