The Great Beyond

by A. K. DuBoff

I grabbed the credit card out of my desk and handed it to him. “Remember, we’re here to help people, not judge them. Now, go take care of that family.”

  He grabbed the card, nodded, and sprinted off.

  I only felt a little bad for partially agreeing with him.

  “The Mods!” It was Patsy again.

  I jogged back into the cubicles. Dr. Jodi Kwon was already on the screen. “—are wrong. Some terrible stuff happens on our planet. But so does some really great stuff.”

  The screen changed to the face of Dr. Ivette Gonzales. “It makes perfect sense to me. It’s basically the Hedonic Treadmill. As you succeed in life, your expectations and desires increase, as well. So, as you gain more, your relative happiness remains the same. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in this instance. We will always be able to improve, to do better. So no matter how well we do as a society, we would never be able to pass a C minus because perfection is unattainable.”

  The camera switched to Dr. Daniel Humetewa looking off-camera, his mouth gaped open. “Oh, wow. I like what Ivette just said a whole lot. But to expand on it. I think a C is perfectly respectable. I made Cs in school, and look at me! I got a PhD!”

  The camera switched again. Dr. Charles Perkins’ eyes darted around whatever room he was in. “Does no one else think this is crazy?”

  Silence.

  Charles raised an eyebrow at the camera. “Look, I basically agree with Ivette. But apart from that, I really don’t care about the grade. This Interocitor thing can communicate over light-years instantaneously! But instead of studying it and adapting it, we use it to challenge a grade?”

  More silence.

  “Nobody? Okay, whatever. Let’s just get this over with.” The station bumper replaced his face.

  “Wow.” Patsy must have snuck up when I was engrossed by the Mods.

  I gave her a slight nod. “‘Wow’ is an understatement. I knew it would be a circus, but I hoped it wouldn’t be. And somehow, it’s worse.”

  Patsy’s eyes widened above her grin. “But it’s so good!”

  “I know!” I let a quick smile cross my face, then got back to business. “Hey, how’s your eviction?”

  Patsy shrugged. “No idea. Phones are still busy, but I sent Enrico to talk the landlord into postponing at least until we can talk to a judge.”

  “Sending some muscle out for a little intimidation?” I waggled my eyebrows. “I like it. Keep up the good work.”

  I jogged back to my office and sat down at my computer. There was already a Facebook message from my husband: “Did you see? That was crazy, huh?”

  I laughed to myself and typed back to him. “I know, right? What about Dr. Carson? I know she has a lot of good points, but this is the freaking Coalition! Show a little decorum!”

  The little animation that indicated he was typing danced along the bottom of the window. “Totally! Hey, I think they’re back on!”

  “Okay, one sec!”

  I ran to the office door and peeked out. Pictures of the Coalition were floating by on the screen like some sort of screensaver, but the voice was just an anchor recapping what just happened and speculating what we might hear next, and even when. I slogged back to my desk and slumped into my chair to type. “Looks like it’s going to be punditry for a while.”

  “Yeah, looks like. Guess I’ll actually have to get some work done!”

  I giggled and typed back. “Yeah, me too, I guess.”

  The rest of the morning ended up being uneventful. Whatever the Coalition did during that time, it happened behind closed doors. As predicted, the news mostly ran profiles on all the newbies. I told everyone that Dr. Carson was my favorite, and I did end up liking her a lot, but I actually liked Dr. Gonzales the best. I just couldn’t admit that my favorite was one of the Mods. What would my coworkers think?

  Work was just as uneventful as the news. The phones cleared up enough for a few calls to get through, but still remained mostly useless. We got what we could done with minimal phones and distracted workers.

  When it was time for lunch, I threw my purse over my shoulder, strode out into the cubicles, stuck two fingers in my mouth, and whistled. “Alright, we did the best we could, all things considered, but I’m calling it until tomorrow. Do whatever you need to do to wrap things up, and then you’re free. If you wanna continue gabbing about the Graders, I’m going to the CNN Center for some BurgerFi. Rachel out!” I threw up a peace sign with my right hand and walked toward the front door through ironic clapping.

  I was about to exit when I noticed Julia and, presumably, her mother and daughter, sitting on the bench in the makeshift waiting area. I stopped in my tracks. “What are you doing here?”

  Julia’s mother raised an eyebrow.

  Oh, right. How could I forget? I switched to Spanish. “I’m sorry, what I meant to say was... What are you doing here?”

  Julia shook her head. “I do not know, Miss Wright. We drove around in the van for hours then ended up back here.”

  What the hell? John had one job! “I am so sorry, Julia. My colleague was supposed to take you to a safe house—”

  “Which I did!” John slid in from somewhere. “Several, in fact. And they were all full or not opening their very locked doors. I came back to regroup and see if I had any better luck with land lines. Maybe call some places in DeKalb.”

  Crap. This was turning into a helluva day to need a safe house. “Okay, make them comfortable here. Set them up to watch the Coalition, or something, and then do what you can.”

  John nodded as I headed out the door. I felt terrible for Julia and her family, but what was I supposed to do on today of all days? I couldn’t force the world to start back up again. Hell, I don’t think I could have done it back when I thought I could do anything. Before I found out how wrong I was. John was competent and could handle it, so I hopped in my car and headed to lunch.

  —

  The CNN Center was the perfect place for Coalition-starved coworkers to yak about the only thing on their mind. There were plenty of restaurants, and a giant TV was playing the news in the shared eating area.

  As I chowed down on my burger, Patsy rambled, not noticing that she’d dropped mustard on her floral top. “I can’t believe how much I like the Passes. I feel terrible about it, but they don’t come off as your normal Cons.”

  Theresa held a taco halfway up from her plate. “I know! They’re so sweet together!”

  It was only us three girls. Everyone else took the half-day as a reason to head home early. I didn’t blame them, but my husband couldn’t get off, so it was nice to have people to experience this with. I finished chewing some burger and added, “Am I the only one who thinks Dr. Humetewa looks high?”

  Both women guffawed.

  Theresa slapped the table. “No! I was thinking the same thing!”

  Patsy had opened her mouth to add something when the entire Center erupted in a wave of shushes.

  All three of us whipped our eyes to the giant screen.

  “It seems that we are ahead of schedule,” General Hayes announced. “We will begin contact in five minutes. A feed will be fed on a thirty-second delay to all news outlets. That is all.”

  I have no idea what came on the screen next, as the room became utter chaos. People stood and tried to use their cell phones. Some ran for the exits. Others stayed put but spoke louder to compete with the noise.

  I pulled out my own phone and used the center’s free Wi-Fi to message my husband. “Are you watching this?”

  A second later he responded with, “!!!!”

  “It sucks we can’t watch this together!”

  “You’re telling me! Don’t worry, though. I set the DVR for the whole day. We can watch it together on repeat.”

  I giggled and glanced up at my coworkers. They were both on their phones, too. A feedback screech pulled my gaze to the TV.

  It was starting.

  The Coalition all sat together across from a machine. The camera panned to show it off
. It had a wide base with colorful buttons and dials and a monitor shaped like an upside-down triangle sitting atop a thin neck rising from the base. A wave-shaped rainbow oscillated on the screen as it made a noise that sounded very similar to a phone ringing. By the third ring, everyone in the center was silent and staring at the television.

  The screen split. A camera panned across each face on the Coalition in the left pane. And the right showed a close-up of the upside-down triangle monitor.

  The ringing stopped. It was replaced by what sounded like the alien language from the Message and the Dump. On the left pane, all eyes were on the linguist of the group, Dr. Humetewa.

  He stared at the ground and listened intently. And then, he cackled.

  Theresa leaned in and whispered to me, “Yup, definitely high.”

  On the screen, the General furrowed his brow and groused at Daniel. “Care to share what you find so funny, Dr. Humetewa?”

  The linguist stomped a foot and covered his mouth. “I’m sorry, it’s just... the translation... We called the support line, and it’s saying that our call is important to them and will be answered in the order in which it was received. We’re on hold! Aliens have us on hold!” After almost successfully calming down, Dr Humetewa lost it again and almost fell out of his chair.

  Some strange music played on the Interocitor as the rainbow waveform danced around the screen. A quick glance to the Coalition revealed they were feeling very awkward just sitting there waiting.

  Eventually, the rainbow disappeared and was replaced by a light-blue background. I almost dropped my phone in excitement. The moment was finally here. We were going to see the Graders!

  Something rose from the bottom of the screen. It appeared to be fur. The Graders had fur! Dark-green, matted fur and three eyes. Three googly eyes.

  Wait, what?

  Patsy covered her mouth. “Oh my god, they do look like the puppets.”

  I shook my head. “No, Patsy. I think those are the puppets.”

  Two baggy creatures danced on screen, their mouths flopping up and down. “Blarg! Blarg! Blarg! Blarg! Blarg! Blarg!”

  Theresa gave me a confused glance. “What’s going on? Is that the same language from the Message?”

  I shook my head. I really couldn’t tell. On the left side of the screen, everyone was waiting on Dr. Humetewa to translate. He shrugged. “It’s gibberish. They’re just repeating, ‘Blarg’.”

  The puppets doubled over, and laughter erupted from the Interocitor. General Hayes stood. “What is the meaning of this? We demand answers!”

  And then it happened for real. We got our first look at actual, real-life aliens! They only had two eyes and were not, in fact, covered in fur. They did, however, have tall, squat, yellowish beaks and beautifully deep-colored feathers. There were two of them. The one on the left had plumage covered in a green gradient, and the one on the right had blue and pink feathers. The one on the right also wore a t-shirt with what appeared to be English letters on it, but I couldn’t make them out.

  Their beaks didn’t have much movement apart from up and down, but the way they were raised on their faces, lifted up to their squinted eyes, it looked like they were smiling. The one on the left spoke first. “What’s up, Earth folk?”

  The entire Coalition gaped at the perfect English.

  “My name’s Qwee~’roo and this is my bud, Le’caw.”

  No one responded. After a moment, Qwee~’roo waved a clawed hand back and forth across the Interocitor. “Hello? Earth to humans? Well, not Earth, I guess. Ha!”

  General Hayes balled his hands into fists, not at all hiding his grumpiness. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The two aliens glanced at each other then back toward the screen. Qwee~’roo spoke again. “What do you mean?”

  The General’s face reddened, veins popping out of his neck. “We pass your test and make contact, and you greet us with gibberish-speaking puppets!”

  The aliens guffawed. Le’caw actually fell off the side of the screen. Qwee~’roo shrugged as he stopped laughing. “We were just having a bit of fun.”

  Hayes fumed. “Fun?”

  Dr. Karen Pass stood and placed a calming hand on the General. “I think what the General is trying to say is, we were hoping you could tell us more about the grade you gave us.”

  The blue and purple Le’caw climbed back on-screen, still laughing. It looked like his (Her? Its?) shirt said ‘BTS’ and had a group of Asian men pictured on it. That couldn’t be right...

  Qwee~’roo spoke again. “Hmmm... nah.”

  Karen blinked. “Excuse me, did you just say... nah?”

  “Yah.”

  The General tightened his fists and opened his mouth to start yelling, but Karen patted his shoulder again. Her eyebrows were pinched in anger herself, but she did a very good job at not letting it sound in her voice. “Why leave us a means to contact you if you won’t give us any more information? We worked for over a year to build the Interocitor, and we put together a diverse panel to—”

  Both aliens cackled and almost fell over again.

  Karen composed herself. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see what’s so funny.”

  Qwee~’roo spoke through laughter, “Diverse! You said... you said your group was diverse!”

  This time, the General did not hold back. “This is ridiculous! If you knew anything about Earth culture, you’d see our panel for what it is. A diverse sampling of our world.”

  The green alien finally stopped laughing. “Okay, how many of you are from America?”

  No one raised their hands, they just glanced to each other in confusion, as if not sure how to answer. The General pointed at Jodi Kown. “Dr. Kwon is South Korean, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Jodi glared at Thaddeus. “Um, sir... I was born in Scranton...”

  The General choked. The blue and pink alien composed itself and gave the panel one of those weird beak-grins. “Are any of you from outside the United States?”

  Milind Desai slowly raised his hand.

  “Yes, of course, Dr. Desai isn’t from the U.S. He’s from...” Hayes shifted his gaze to Milind. “What part of India are you from, again?”

  Milind raised an eyebrow. “Toronto, Canada.”

  The General was at a loss for words again, so Karen tried to regain control of the panel. “You’re absolutely right, our panel only represents our continent, but the nation we all come from is quite diverse itself, and—”

  Qwee~’roo held up a claw. “And how many of you are Christian?”

  After a moment of stunned silence, everyone except Milind Desai and Beverly Carson raised their hands.

  The General smiled. “See, we have a Hindu and...” He gestured to Dr. Carson. “Muslim?”

  Dr. Carson’s eyes widened and she stared daggers at Hayes. “Now, why on Earth would you assume that, I wonder? I happen to be an atheist.”

  Dr. Desai raised his hand. “Me too...”

  Daniel Humetawa stood up and glanced around at his colleagues. “I’m sorry... This is all very interesting in a trivial sort of way, but... am I the only one interested in how and why these aliens speak perfect English?”

  I gave the CNN Center a quick glance. Everyone was glued to the screen. I wondered if they were as confused by these creatures as I was.

  The green alien gave a shrug. “Well, the hardcore fans learn the native language so they don’t have to read subs. Le’caw, here, is heavy into K-Pop.”

  Le’caw waved at the screen. “By the way, Dr. Kwon, I was very excited when you were announced as part of the Coalition.” She bowed. “Anyoung haseyo. Juhneun Le’caw yiehyo.”

  Dr. Kwon’s eyes darted back and forth. “I, um… I don’t speak Korean.”

  Beverly Carson leaned over and covered her mouth. “Holy crap, even the aliens are racist.”

  General Hayes stomped closer to the Interocitor. “What is going on here? Is this some kind of joke?”

  The aliens glanced at each other, then swiveled back t
o the camera and nodded. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  The General stumbled backward. “What?”

  I glanced down at my phone, there were too many notifications to see if any were important. Whatever they were could wait. My eyes darted back up to the screen.

  Le’caw’s beak bobbed a few times. “Congrats! You actually figured it out! You guys are all part of our prank show!”

  Hayes shook his head. “No, no, no. Do you know how much money we spent?”

  Daniel Humetawa cocked his head. “Wait, so you’re not actually aliens? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Qwee~’roo shook his head. “Oh, no. We’re from a very far away planet. We just really like pranks.”

  Dr. Carson actually laughed. “So, you came all this way to prank us? Did the grade actually even mean anything?”

  Le’caw grinned. “Nope! We show up to random planets and archive all of your entertainment, then leave a random message and go home. The stuff we pirate, plus the running feed of your reactions, provide years of entertainment! Earth has been one of my favorite shows in a long time!”

  The green alien nodded. “Oh, definitely. Your guys’ reactions have been choice.”

  The General’s face reddened, his knees locked, and he got incredibly still. I was afraid he was going to pass out. “So, the grade... meant nothing? It wasn’t real?”

  The aliens responded, but I didn’t hear what they said. Hayes saying, ‘The grade meant nothing’, played in my head over and over. It was all fake. The past four years had been wasted. Four years!

  I glanced back down at my phone and unlocked it. With a swipe, I scrolled through endless notifications. Like the grade, they meant nothing. I tapped ‘close all’ and opened up Facebook Messenger. The phone lines would be unusable for some time, but Wi-Fi should still be fine. I tapped out a message to my husband and left the table.

  Patsy waved at me. “Hey, Rache! Where you going?”

  “I’m opening the office back up. You don’t have to come back in if you don’t want to, but our work’s more important than a dumb prank.”

  I swiped through my contacts until I found John and initiated a voice call to him. A moment later he picked up.