by Elle Simpson
“—damage – direct hit – pulse cannon – tracking – energy signature – his Excellency’s craft – approaching planet – covert attack – fugitive B’oab Baakatarin—”
“Col,” I said, not looking away from Kal. “Can you?”
“Wait.” The hologram steadied again suddenly. “There.”
And “—protected planet.” Kal’s eyes flicked. Watching the inside of his visor, maybe? Reading? “Designation Blue Three. Planet is officially uncontacted. Request immediate fleet assistance. Uncontrolled landing in progress. Likely won’t—”
Kal had to stop then to heave in another breath. His face looked strained, his freckles dull. God, was he already injured by then?
(He was. Like, ‘almost all the blood that should’ve been in his body already not in his body’ kind of injured. So, so very much injured.)
“Be aware, if I survive, then capture likely. Affliction Class compulsion also likely. Please – please be aware. End communique. Attempt transmission.”
“Attempt in progress,” the computerised voice announced.
And then nothing. Around Kal, the hologram collapsed into fizzy, staticky emptiness, like the screen on the old analogue TV that Nan keeps in her spare bedroom. Only Kal’s face left. His pretty, dead face.
“Oh my god,” I whispered into the silence. My own face was wet again. I’d done more crying in the past twelve hours than I’d done in the past twelve years. “Sorry,” I told Col, wiping away the tears with my poor hoodie. “It’s just, I mean…it’s seeing him die again, you know?”
“Again?” Colin said, quirking a confused eyestalk.
Oh god, what a time to need a translation. “Again, yeah. Uh…for, you know, a second time? Once more. That sort of thing.”
“Yes, I understood,” Colin said, not much looking like he did. “I simply meant to inquire as to how the experience could be akin to seeing Helmsman Kal die ‘again’ when you have yet to see him die. I myself thought the helmsman looked much recovered – disregarding the obviously significant impact of Affliction Class compulsion, of course.”
I blinked like I had never blinked before. “Wh…what?”
“Pardon me?” Col said, returning the blink.
“Colin, what?”
Colin’s eyestalks went for a confuddled swing. “I am unclear as to what it is you need clarification on, Hannah.”
“It’s you that needs clarification, Col, oh my god. He’s dead! Cheekbones is dead!
“No, no,” Colin said. “He’s quite alive, I assure you.”
20
Which was news to me, oh my freaking god!
“But Creepy Bob! She said – she told me Cheekbones was a clone now.”
“And she was lying, of course,” Colin said. “Which I assumed you…” He trailed off, took note of the general amount of disbelieving boggle being sent his way, and then, “Which you evidently did not know,” he finished.
“Evi-fricking-dently, Col! Oh my god, how can Cheekbones possibly be alive? That was, like, all his blood that came out of him!”
“Oh, yes. I would imagine so,” Colin said, matter a fact. “Quite survivable, of course.”
“But…but…but…” I had to blink my brain into operation again. “How?”
“Well, first we must take into account that Helmsman Kal’s people are extraordinarily difficult to kill. They can survive total blood loss, depth of water to enormous pressures, extreme changes in atmosphere and gravity, the vacuum of space, dismemberment, decapitation—”
“How can you possibly survive decapitation?” I whispered in total and utter horror.
“—and in order to recover from what to any other being would be mortal injury, they simply enter into a healing state of such reduced biological and neurological activity as to be utterly indistinguishable from true death.”
I shook my head a little, trying to shake it into any kind of reality that made sense. “But then how do you know that they’re actually not just, like, actually dead?”
“It is that…” Col cleared some throats. “Ahem. Well, as I understand it, when the recovery process is not instantaneous – as it quite often is not – a mortuary technician waits with the injured person until a predetermined amount of time has passed and then, well, as I’m led to believe…”
(You know when someone starts a sentence and you also know that wherever it’s going, it’s not going to be good? That was me, right then.)
“…they then begin to prod the patient with a sharp ceremonial implement until they awaken, or do not awaken – or begin to smell.”
“Of what?”
“Well…decay, primarily.”
Horrified silence fell.
(And I don’t know how to convey to you how mega and totally epic that horrified silence was, so I want you to imagine the most mega, totally, epically horrified silence you can, multiply that by ten, and then just insert it here for a minute. You can do some horrified blinking too, if you want. Usually helps.)
“Like…” I said – eventually. “Urgh, Col.”
“I think that does about cover it, yes,” Colin agreed.
“But okay, the important point?” I gave my eyeballs a knuckle. “Cheekbones is alive?”
Colin’s own big, scaly eyeballs warmed with a non-mouth-involving smile. “Yes, he is. Most assuredly.”
“I…” Couldn’t get my head around it. Cheekbones was alive. Somehow, and in a way I didn’t want to think about ever again, Cheekbones was alive. “It’s just so…so…hold up, wait.” A freaked-out realisation broke through the alien zombie Jesus pointy-pokey shenanigans horror loop my brain was stuck in. “Why hasn’t he blabbed, though? About me? About the crash? Is this like Schwarzy’s thing, with the neural networks and stuff? Is Kal a hologram too? Or is he just faking? Because it didn’t look like he was faking. And he’s definitely one of the good guys – I mean, he is, isn’t he? Also, what in the name of the fricking tiny baby Jesus is affliction class compulsion? Because it so totally doesn’t sound good. Like, at all.”
Colin’s eyestalks had reared back somewhere in the middle of my freaked-out word flood. One came twitching forward hesitantly. “Which of those questions would you wish for me to answer first?”
Uh. “Last one,” I decided.
“The helmsman, given his training and unusual physiology, is immune to all natural forms of compulsion. But the compulsion currently upon him – Affliction Class, as you noted – is not a true form of compulsion. In fact, it is considered nothing short of torture.”
“So of course Creepy Bob’s using it,” I muttered. “Of freaking course.”
“Such compulsion can compel a victim into action but not speech or thought, hence why the helmsman hasn’t spoken of your meeting. It is usually administered through a control strip attached to what you might understand as the brain stem.”
“Oh god, yeah. I’ve seen it. Stuck up here, right?” I slapped the back of my neck. “Looks like a silver plaster?”
“Just so.”
“Oh my god.” Turning Deeke’s brain into scrambled egg, making my brain pop like a tin of baked beans in the microwave, torturing Kal every single second, and prepping for the complete and total destruction of the entire human race – all in a day’s work for Creepy Bob, apparently. “How does she sleep at night? Or no…I mean, how does she sleep at night the once every decade that she actually does sleep?”
Kinda distantly, Colin said, “There is very little limit, I have found, to what the truly corrupted mind can justify.”
Cheekbones’ hologram fizzed then, catching my attention. “That control strip. If I could just get my hands on it, rip it out of him…”
“Under current circumstances, if you managed to get close enough to do so,” Colin said as he swivelled an eyestalk to glance at the console, “I imagine that would be because Helmsman Kal was in the process of killing you.”
Uh…“Okay, so totally, very much sliding that plan to the back burner then.” I watched Kal’s hologram flick
er and fizz for a sec, his supermodel face caught in a ridiculously flattering freeze-frame. Still alive, my brain reminded me. God, Cheekbones was still alive. “Why was he even here, though?” I asked. “I mean, you I get. You’re the anthropologist to us down here in the rainforest shooting arrows at planes. But why Kal?”
“Following orders, I would imagine,” Colin said, still caught up with the console.
“Orders? Is he a soldier then?” I mean, I guess that made sense.
“A Watchkeeper,” Colin corrected absently. “Which is a soldier of a kind, yes. Primarily, though, the helmsman is a bodyguard – the chief bodyguard, in fact, of the President of the United Intergalactic Council.”
I took the news surprisingly calmly.
(Because straight up and no lie, the fact that I’d saved the life of the bodyguard of the president of the universe ranked pretty low down the list of freakshow, freaked-out nonsense I’d been exposed to those past twenty-four hours.)
But what I didn’t take calmly? The following thought: if the president’s bodyguard – the person responsible for, you know, guarding the president’s body – was on Earth at that exact moment, then that must mean…
“Oh god, wait! Wait! Oh my god! Col, are you the president of the universe?”
Both eyestalks swung towards me, gone as flat as Colin’s tone. “Hannah.”
“Why are you acting like that’s a weird question? It’s a totes legit question! You could be the president of the universe!”
(I mean, totally? Right?)
“I could. But I am not. And nor am I the President of the United Intergalactic Council.”
Good to know, but also, logically? “Oh my god! Then Creepy Bob must be holding the president of the universe hostage! That’s why Kal’s here!”
“It is not,” Colin said, maddeningly calm when he should’ve been freaking the frick out. “The president is safe and accounted for many billions of light years distant from Planet Earth.”
“Then if you’re not the president and the president’s not here either, why is the president’s bodyguard here?”
“I think it likely he was searching for someone and had the awful luck to run afoul of B’oab and her machinations.”
“Searching for who?”
“I…I do not know,” Colin said on a flutter. “A member of the president’s entourage perhaps. A loved one. Something of that sort. It is not important.”
“I think it’s pretty important!” I yelped. “Creepy Bob could be holding them hostage, Col!”
“She isn’t.”
“But how can you know for—”
I was totally ready to continue my interrogation, but the console interrupted. It started to bleep again – emphatically – and carried on bleeping until Colin reached over to silence it.
“What’s happening?” I asked, totally ready to freak out if and when required. “Something’s happening. What’s the something?”
“My ship is communicating to me that it has managed to extract and decrypt the relevant security codes contained within Helmsman Kal’s distress signal.”
“Is that what it’s been doing all this time?” I said, aghast. “Oh my god, took it freaking long enough.”
Colin quirked an eyestalk. “It has done in a few Earthen minutes what would have taken the combined power of every computational device that has ever existed on Planet Earth roughly fifty billion years to accomplish – give or take a millennia or two.”
“Oh…” I reached out and gave the console an apologetic tap. “Sorry. My bad.”
Colin indulged in some console tapping of his own. “I am bundling the repaired message and codes together,” he explained, “and attempting to send them anew.”
I watched him work for a few seconds before the need to interrupt occurred again. “But this is what I don’t get – you work for the Council too, yeah? Why can’t you just send the message with your own codes?”
“If I did so, the Council would likely think the message a hoax.”
“Why though?”
“The reasons matter not,” Colin said briskly. “Only the outcome.” He gave the console one last, decisive tap. “There. Done.”
I threw up a touchdown emoji. “Massed forces here we come, Col.”
“That is the plan, little one,” Colin said, and even he was starting to sound a bit more cheerful – until, that was, the console beeped at him again. “Oh no. Oh, the seven moons above.”
“Col, what’s wrong?”
Colin ignored me. “Of course,” he muttered. “Oh, of course. That’s why she was in no hurry to retrieve the message.”
“Colin!”
Colin flicked an eyestalk in my direction – but just for a microsecond before his concentration zeroed in on the console again. “At the far distant edge of your solar system, there is an emergency communications array. I need that array to transmit Helmsman Kal’s message, but B’oab has sabotaged it.”
Oh god. “Can you fix it?”
“Not from here. I will have to travel to the array to make the necessary repairs.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Roughly thirty-six Earthen hours.”
“Three days, Col!” I yelped, appalled.
“Slightly less than two, in fact.”
“Oh…yeah, okay. I’m not great at maths,” I said.
(Understatement of every century that’s ever been or ever will be, as all the traumatised teachers of Buckford Academy’s maths department will tell you.)
“In any case, it is longer than ideal, but we do have time. Agent Schwarz has intercepted such communications as to indicate that the leaders of your world plan to hold a gala in welcome of B’oab. But not until a human week hence. When she makes her move, it will undoubtably be then, when all of Earth’s leaders are gathered together.”
The guest list to the gala: that’s what Schwarzy gave Creepy Bob in the control room. Had to be, and it made sense. She was already sussing out who to compel – but Colin and Schwarzy? Seemed like they had Creepy Bob sussed out too.
“You’ll definitely be back in a week though, Col?” I asked.
“In thirty-six hours, barring unforeseen circumstance.” Colin was getting ready to leave. He picked up the extractor with one pincer and snipped at it with another. I watched as the neat slice he’d taken flattened and solidified into an oval shape. “This is a beacon,” Colin told me, holding it out. “Wear it about your person whilst I’m gone. When activated, it will transport you to a place of safety and begin to transmit a distress signal.”
I took the beacon from Col. It looked like a cross-section of some pretty white geode with a tiny hole bored through the top. Like a pendant you’d buy at some hipster craft fair.
“Even though the distress signal will be heavily cloaked, B’oab will notice it eventually. So activation is as a very last resort. Do you understand?”
I gulped and nodded at the same time like the multitasking master I was. “How do I work it?”
“Simply hold the beacon in your hand and voice the need for my help. The biometric security protocols will activate from there. And guard it carefully, Hannah. It won’t stand close inspection.”
“Could I, like…” I gave the beacon a little shake. “Mum and Toni?”
That got a swift eyestalk shake in return. “One person and one trip. That is all.”
“Oh…”
I tucked the beacon away in my pocket. I knew I wasn’t going to use it. Not properly. Worst case, I’d just activate the distress signal and throw the beacon away before it could beam me anywhere. Anyway, where on Planet Earth could possibly be safe once Creepy Bob got her non-existent, metaphorical teeth sunk in?
(Nowhere, as it turns out. Somewhat handily.)
“But I could maybe…you know, still tell Mum and Toni what’s going on?”
Colin was busy with the console but he answered all the same. “That is, of course, your decision to make, but I cannot hide from you the fact that tell
ing your parents will put them at great risk.”
“Yeah…” Kinda already knew the answer when I asked the question. “Can’t tell what you don’t know, right?”
“Indeed.”
“So ignorance is bliss?”
“For the immediate future and until I return, yes, I think it the wisest course of action.” Colin glanced over at Schwarzy suddenly. “You know what to do?” he asked.
Schwarzy nodded.
“Then do it, please.”
The fizzle of a transport beam and Schwarzy disappeared.
“Where’s he going?” I asked.
Col gave me a steady look, not answering.
“Oh, yeah.” I let out a little puffy laugh that I’m pretty sure is the kind of laugh books like to call mirthless. “Can’t tell what you don’t know. Got it.”
One last pincer tap and a hazy column of light started to form around me. This was it. “Col?”
“Yes, my dear hatchling?”
“Good luck.”
Colin nodded his eyestalks at me, just once, and then he was gone.
21
I spent the next however many hours basically just entirely on social media. My thinking? If anyone realised what was actually going down with our creepy evil alien overlords, then that’s where the news would break.
But in the end? No breaking news. Just people having internet hysterics and making bumtonnes of crappy memes. Not even a hint at any creepy evil alien shenanigans about to get underway.
That didn’t make me feel better, though.
Because it was ten in the morning the morning after the original creepy evil alien shenanigans had shenaniganed, and I still had a whole sixteen-ish hours before Col was due back. Had to figure that during a creepy evil alien invasion, a whole lot could happen in sixteen-ish hours.
“Oh god,” I whispered, like I’d been doing roughly every five minutes since Colin left. “Not good. So not good. So very much with the not good.”
It was probably lucky no one was around to hear me whispering to myself. Mum, entirely and completely predictably, was over at the Big Dish – or no, up in the Big Dish – changing a receiver or something. She’d been there since first light, happy as a clam.