by David Liss
“Always happy to be part of a cosmic science experiment,” I said. “None of which tells me how we would even start looking for one of these lost ships.”
To no one’s surprise, I have some brilliant ideas on that subject, Smelly said. It would be pointless to use your facile computer networks to search for an object that no primitive creature on your world knows to exist. We must, instead, integrate ourselves with the biosphere in order to sense its idiosyncratic radiation signature. We must also have the capacity to traverse great distances at high speeds, displace large and heavy objects, and move through normally prohibitive environments such as the depths of the ocean and the crust of the planet itself.
“And how am I supposed to do all that stuff?”
I shall help you construct a lightweight body sheath that will provide the necessary interactivity and physical enhancements.
“I’m going to build a supersuit?”
I believe, Smelly said, it is going to be da bomb.
Like everyone my age, I hated it when adults and artificial consciousnesses tried, pathetically, to use youthful jargon. “Can I ask you never to use slang again?”
Sad face, it said, and then, in case I didn’t understand, it projected a gigantic yellow frowning emoticon in my field of view, which looked as real as anything else in my room.
The sooner this thing was out of my head, the better.
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
Smelly and I got to work on building a supersuit, which gave me something to do and snapped me out of my depressive funk. That was the upside. The downside was that I had an unfathomably alien, not to mention extremely insulting, AI inside my head, yanking my strings like I was a puppet. We would be at a store, and I’d find my arms moving, against my will, picking something up off the shelf. Smelly was not the most patient whatever-it-was in the universe, and it didn’t fully understand the concept of paying at the register. A couple of times I had to argue with it as I walked to the exit, against my will, with my arms full of supplies we hadn’t paid for. After you’ve been on the verge of shoplifting while shouting hysterically at yourself, you can’t really go back to that store again.
Though Smelly found it less efficient, it finally capitulated and took to superimposing a hot-pink glow around items it wanted me to put in the shopping cart. I then had to explain that I didn’t much care for seeing things that weren’t actually there, either—I still hadn’t fully recovered from the train illusion. Smelly listened to my concerns and pronounced me a stupid meat bag.
Most of the equipment we needed was easy to get and not too costly. The most expensive item involved was a wet suit. I was a little freaked out about the prospect of walking around with a layer of rubber under my clothes, but Smelly assured me that it would be climate controlled and that there would be no discomfort.
I didn’t want to tell my mother exactly what I was doing, even if she might have been a little more open to the idea that I had an alien quantum iteration in my brain than most parents. At least she would have been less likely to assume I’d lost my marbles. Even if she believed me, though, I wasn’t sure she would be happy about it, and I knew she wouldn’t like the idea of the two of us plotting to unearth an ancient spaceship. Fortunately, she didn’t ask too many question. I think she was happy that I had some kind of project and was no longer moping around.
I spent my days in the garage, soldering wires and circuits to the inside of the wet suit. The code required to make it operate was another matter.
I could simply tell you how to input the necessary programming code, Smelly explained with mock patience, though by the time we finish, your species will likely have invented space travel on its own.
“What are you saying?” I asked, resigning myself to the inevitable.
You can either spend decades doing it yourself, or you can set aside your moronic objections and let me operate your motor functions and enter the code in a couple of hours.
However reluctantly, I let it take over my body so it could type what looked like long strings of nonsense on my laptop. I hated the feeling of not controlling my own body, but it was the only alternative to being stuck on Earth.
We finished constructing the suit in about a month, making the final adjustments the weekend before school started. With a little luck, I thought, we could be well away from Earth before the first bell rang on the first day of class. I sat in the garage late on a Saturday night, looking at it: a black suit with wires spiderwebbed all over it, microchips sticking out every few inches. It looked a little ungainly and fragile, but if it was going to help me rescue Tamret, I’d wear it proudly. Or at least willingly—and also secretly, because I looked extra dumb in it.
“So,” I said, “let’s go find us a spaceship.”
It will not be quite so easy, Smelly told me. We have only created the external framework. In order for the suit to function properly under extreme conditions, it will need to integrate with your biological systems. Attempts to use the suit before that would be pointless. You will have to wear the suit under your clothing every day until the process is complete.
It seemed a little late in the game to be telling me that I was not only going to have to go to school, but also that I’d have to show up every day with a wet suit under my clothes. “How long will that take?”
I am confident that if you wear the suit for twelve hours every day, it should be sufficiently operational within two months.
“Two months!” I shouted. This whole time I’d thought we would be ready to go as soon as the suit was done. Another sixty days would feel like forever.
Yes, so you know what that means.
“What?”
You are going to need a note to get out of gym class; otherwise, the other children will know you are wearing this ridiculous suit under your clothes. And, oh, how they will laugh!
• • •
So that’s how I ended up sitting at a lunch table, chewing my sandwich, thinking I was about to fight a guy who, under normal circumstances, would eat me for breakfast, though perhaps lunch was the better metaphor.
You have only been wearing the suit for seventeen days, Smelly warned me. I cannot guarantee it has sufficiently integrated with your biological systems. It may not provide enough of an advantage to prevent you from being completely crushed.
I shrugged. Smelly seemed to be able to mine my brain for stored data, like it was searching for information on the Internet, but it had no ability to “hear” what I was thinking in real time, which was mostly a relief but sometimes inconvenient. I’d asked it once why that was, and it had called me a pathetic worm but then explained that memories are stable, and easy to read, whereas thoughts are in flux. Once in a while, it said, it could pick up on my thoughts, especially if they were fueled by strong emotion, but these were momentary flashes, not a steady stream of information.
My money, Smelly continued, if I indulged in the ludicrous exchange of barbarian currency, would be on that other meat bag completely hammering you in a pulpy mass of humiliation.
I continued to eat.
I am stuck in your body, so I’d prefer you not engage in an activity that is likely to result in significant injuries. They might inconvenience me.
I really didn’t want to end up with significant injuries—I don’t like injuries, and I like significant ones even less—but I was done with being pushed around. Ardov had bullied Tamret right in front of me. Junup had abused his political power to exile me from Confederation Central and send my father to prison. Colonel Rage had separated me from the only human beings on the planet who really understood what I’d been through. Now this mammoth hunter wanted to hurt me for no reason other than that he thought he could. I was drawing a line in the sand.
If the suit is damaged, we may have to begin entirely anew, Smelly said, its internal voice becoming increasingly shrill. If your pointless existence is snuffed out while I am trapped in your consciousness, I shall perish as well! Don’t you realize
that you are putting me at risk?
I paused as I turned to my plastic bag full of grapes. Smelly was concerned that I was going to die. There was no way to explain that middle school kids did not generally fight to the death.
I cannot permit you to test suit functions at this point, Smelly said. Abort your plans for violence, you ignorant ooze-sack, or I shall make the contest impossible. You know I can control your body, but in this case I might choose to trigger certain biological functions. Tremors. Convulsions. Severe vomiting. It paused for effect. Releasing of the bowels.
That one got me. It was my first month in a new school, and I was not going to be the kid who pooped his pants. I hated that Smelly was turning into another bully who felt free to push me around. I wanted to stand up for myself, but not against an adversary who had the power to unleash potty time. Check and mate to disembodied intelligence. I gritted my teeth and nodded to let Smelly know I was giving in.
“You know,” I said to Justin, “while I am willing to fight you, we don’t really have to do this.”
The corners of Justin’s mouth twitched. I was backing down, and he was enjoying it. Maybe he would have enjoyed punching my face more, but a little public humiliation was also a lot of fun, and it carried fewer risks. “You chicken?”
“That term is offensive to domesticated fowl. Let’s call it cautious. I don’t want to get in trouble for fighting.”
“I think you’re afraid of me.”
Of course I was afraid of him—I didn’t want to get beaten up—but after all I had been through, I was not going to let fear rule my life. Maybe it would hurt, maybe I would look bad, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the obnoxious AI in my head that was determined to have its own way, which meant that I had to back out of this without making things worse for myself. Guys like Justin could smell fear, and if he thought he could make me squirm, I’d have to put up with him getting in my face every day until the end of the school year—or at least until the suit became fully operational.
Justin now leaned in so that his face was uncomfortably close to mine. “Get up, now, or I swear I’m going to make you cry in front of the entire lunchroom.”
I was still trying to figure out what I was going to say when someone else chimed in.
“If you don’t back away from him, I’m going to scream.”
I looked up, and there was a girl standing right next to Justin—hands on her hips, chin jutted out, eyes wide. I knew her name was Alice Feldman, but not much else. She was in my English and French classes, but we didn’t sit near each other and we hadn’t ever spoken.
Alice was pale, with a crazy tangle of hair so blond it was almost white. She wore thick-framed black hipster glasses, jeans, and a white long-sleeved shirt with gigantic cuffs, which I somehow knew, in spite of being an oblivious guy, was the sort of thing you bought at a vintage clothing store. Her lips were positioned into a sneer, like she was trying to act superior—or, perhaps, acting that way came naturally to her. A few times, maybe a whole bunch of times, I’d thought she’d been staring at me, but when I turned toward her, she looked away. She was cute, I guess, and it’s nice if a cute girl stares at you, but I didn’t want to have that uncomfortable conversation with her in which I explained that I wasn’t interested because I liked someone else, someone of a different species who lived on another planet—someone who had fur and whiskers—and who I was afraid I would never see again. Those conversations can be awkward.
Justin’s face twisted into a mask of indignation.
“I wasn’t talking to—”
“One more word,” she told him. “If I hear it, I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs. I’m going to say you engaged in”—and here she started ticking things off on her fingers—“verbally abusive behavior, intimidation, attempts to humiliate, threats of violence, and unwanted physical contact. The new guy here will back me up.”
Clearly there had been some kind of sensitivity training in the sixth grade that I’d missed. I was glad this girl had been paying attention.
Justin stared at her, his significant brow creased. I think he believed that this stare would cause the girl to collapse from fear, but she stared right back.
“A single word is all it takes,” she said. “I know you want to mock him, accuse him of not being able to fight his own battles, but you are still going to end up in the office. It will be my word and his against yours. And since you’re lucky not to be in juvie, guess which one of us is going to get in trouble? So, the way I see it, I’m doing you a favor.” She sat down next to me at my table. “Bye, now.”
Justin stared at us for a minute, like his cruel looks were going to make us cry. When that didn’t work, he waved his hand in disgust, announced that we were boring him, and walked away.
I turned to this girl, who I could see was a powerhouse, and I already felt exhausted just from being next to her. In class she always had exactly the right answer, and now she’d done exactly the right thing for the new kid. While I appreciated that, the prospect of a conversation was more than I could take. “Thanks for what you were trying to—”
“You’re welcome,” she said, interrupting me while she pulled the unruly tangles of her hair into some sort of bun. It looked more like a cloud, with loose wisps flying out in all directions. “That kid’s been smacking geeks around since kindergarten. I’m sick of it.”
“I really don’t think I come across as a geek,” I said.
“You’re wearing a Justice League T-shirt. If you don’t think that’s bully bait, you’ve been living on another planet.”
I felt myself blushing slightly at that one, but she got points because the shirt didn’t actually have the words “Justice League” on it—just had the logo. “Fair enough. Anyhow, it was nice of you to want to step in, but I’m not really in the mood for conversation or to—”
“I know you’re Zeke Reynolds. You’re obviously new to this school. What about to Boulder?”
It does not seem to understand your desire for solitude, Smelly observed.
That didn’t warrant a response.
“And where did you live before?” Her tone was clipped and authoritative, like she worked in a government office and was trying to find out if I was eligible for something. In fact I felt almost certain that these were not simply polite questions. It was like being interrogated by Colonel Rage all over again.
“Why are you asking me all this?” I tried to sound relaxed, but I could hear the tension in my voice.
She blew out a breath of air that made the tangles of hair above her eyes dance. “Just tell me, please. Where did you live before?”
“Delaware,” I told her. Answering her seemed like the easiest way to go, but I didn’t like how determined she seemed to be to get the information.
Now she grinned like my having lived in Delaware was the best news she’d heard all day. She slapped her hand against the table and then pointed her index finger at me like it was a gun. “Yes, you did! That is exactly where you lived before.”
“Thanks for agreeing with me.”
She ignored that and leaned in, like she was going to ask me to share a dark and conspiratorial secret. “You’re Zeke Reynolds from Delaware!”
“Uh, yeah. You got my name from roll call, which is pretty ninja and everything, but I’m not so sure why you’re acting like you’re ready for a victory lap.”
“Because now I know who you are,” she told me, quite pleased with herself.
“That can happen when you hear a teacher repeat someone’s name every day.”
“The point is, I know your name,” she said excitedly as she tapped her chest. “I put it all together. All the people out there who want to know it, and they don’t, but I do.”
“Who wants to know my name?” I now felt extremely uncomfortable.
“Lots of people. People in the community. I thought I recognized you at first,” she told me. “It kept bugging me. You were new, so I couldn’t figure out where I’d seen y
ou before. Then it came to me, and I knew it had to be you.”
“What had to be me?”
“You,” she announced, “are the Boy with the Stupid Haircut.”
The way she said it left no room for doubt that this was a title, with capital letters and everything. Self-consciously I reached up and touched my hair, which was shorter and less wild than it had been a year before. I didn’t think my hair was any more stupid than anyone else’s.
“Not, like, permanently. Your hair is different, but you’re him. Don’t worry. I am not going to go public. At least not if you tell me what you know.”
“What I know about what? What are you talking about?”
She sighed to indicate that I was being impossibly tedious and reached into her backpack, then pulled out her phone. She called up a picture and slid the phone toward me. I picked it up and looked at a black-and-white image of me outside my old house, talking to the president of the United States. It was last year, when the president had stopped by to convince me to go to Camp David and meet an alien. The picture was kind of blurry, and you couldn’t make out much beyond the two of us. I was slightly turned away, but it was clearly me to anyone who knew me.
My hair did look kind of stupid.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
Where did you get this picture?” I demanded. Panic rose up from my stomach and radiated outward. Was I in trouble now? Would Colonel Rage come looking for me to lock me up?
I couldn’t understand how this photograph had gotten around. I didn’t recall any of the Secret Service agents taking pictures, but I hadn’t been paying attention, and I wasn’t sure I’d have noticed what was going on in the background when the president of the United States showed up in my driveway.
I told myself to calm down. So what if people saw these pictures? The president met people all the time. No one was going to look at him talking to some middle school kid no one had ever heard of and think, I bet this is about aliens!