by Chris McCoy
“As someone who did a graduate thesis on human culture, let me say this—we have as much of a right to do what we did as humans have when they haul a gorilla out of the jungle or a lion off of the plains. We do this for the preservation of your species.”
The Ranger fell quiet for a moment, thinking. He loosened his grip on the wheel.
“But I appreciate that you’ve come so far to get her, and I believe you when you say her return holds a special importance to you.”
“Thank you,” I said warily. He was changing his tone, but something wasn’t right about this.
“We Jyfos may have pleasant exteriors, but I’ll tell you a little secret—our hearts are even warmer than our smiles,” said the Ranger, not grinning. “I’ll take you to the female right away.”
“If you want, another ranger can take me,” I said. “It’s a big park—I’m sure you’ve got extra staff.”
“Oh, I’m the only Ranger,” he said. “This is my world.”
He put his foot on the gas, and the vehicle zipped down the path, though this time he avoided the potholes he had been crashing into on purpose before, and his mood seemed to be lighter—maybe all I really had had to do was be honest with him.
I briefly allowed myself to think that he might have a wife or a girlfriend at home and could probably identify with not wanting to see somebody you care about abducted by a race with superior technology. My heart rate slowed, and against my better judgment—or against any judgment at all—I relaxed slightly.
“Thinking about all of this, I’ve got to say—I didn’t realize she was your date,” said the Ranger. “A date. Wow. That’s much more important than a Certified Receipt, in my opinion. It’s just that she’s so much more attractive than you, and it seems impossible to wrap my head around how you ended up with her. I’m not even human and I can tell she’s way out of your league.”
“I guess the heart is tough to study.”
“Nah, you just cut it out of the chest cavity,” said the Ranger. “Where are you two going on this date?”
“Prom.”
“Prom…that’s dancing, right?”
“There’s dancing.”
“And a fruit beverage.”
“Sometimes there’s punch, sure.”
“I read about this in one of my grad school textbooks. The males dress in black and look the same, while the females wear bright colors and paint their faces and smear color on their lips.”
“Guys wear tuxedos and girls put on makeup, if that’s what you mean.”
“Fascinating. I’m not just saying that.”
We reached a tall fence, beyond which were the boxy buildings and tasteful Spanish tile roofs of the massive mall complex. I could see a fountain illuminated by neon lights in the entrance’s circular courtyard, behind which was a Bloomingdale’s and a Tiffany. The buildings nearby held a Gucci and—most impressive to me—the largest Brookstone I had ever seen. I couldn’t help but think how good a vibrating massage chair would feel at that moment.
I had to hand it to the Jyfos—kidnappers or not, they had faithfully reconstructed a high-end mall.
A plump man in a ripped polo shirt was hitting golf balls, practicing his short game on the manicured lawn near the gate.
The Ranger stopped his makeshift jeep, hopped out the side, and walked over to a door in the fence. The golfer began lumbering toward him, curious about the reason for his visit.
“Are we going in there?” I said.
“Of course we are, that’s where your date is.”
“Can’t you call her over? I’m not sure I want to get in a cage with a man holding a golf club who is used to hunting down whatever new person you throw at him.”
“A man who thinks about golfing when he could be participating in the hunt isn’t someone you have to worry about,” said the Ranger. “Besides, your girl is too deep in the enclosure to just call her over. We have to go to the source and root her out. She’s a spunky one.”
The Ranger whistled as he unclipped a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the gate.
“Come on now,” he said. “Nobody waits in the car on my watch. That’s no way to experience nature.”
I climbed out of the vehicle and cautiously joined the Ranger, keeping an eye on the golfer, who had stopped walking and was tapping his club on the ground threateningly, staring at me.
“How about this—if you can go in and get Sophie by yourself, I’ll wait out here,” I said to the Ranger.
“Don’t you want to see what we designed for your fellow humans? It’s quite authentic. I’ll call off the hordes, I promise.”
“From where I’m standing, it looks like you did an amazing job, and I am glad to check out any literature that you have….”
The Ranger opened the gate, pulled his pistol, and fired potshots at the feet of the golfer—bang bang bang—forcing him to retreat from the fence. The golfer jumped away from the bullets and scurried off, looking back at us as he went.
“So just to reiterate, if I could wait out here, that would be great,” I said.
The Ranger picked me up by the back of the neck and looked at me.
“Then you should have brought a Certified Receipt. Don’t you understand we’re trying to help your species? Someone needs to think about you if you won’t think about yourselves,” he said, and chucked me inside the fence.
—
I never actually made it inside the mall; instead, I was forced to take shelter at a freestanding McDonald’s, where the Jyfos had constructed the most impressive PlayPlace I had ever seen. It was a solid square mile of climbing walls, four-story slides, zip lines, underground tunnels, foam castles, and—fortunately for me—a ball pit the size of an Olympic swimming pool, where I was hiding.
But let me backtrack for a moment.
Upon my initial entry into the enclosure, the golfer chased me until he exhausted himself, after which I was followed by a Boy Scout troop that had obviously been abducted years ago and outgrown their uniforms, parts of which they now wore stitched to the back of their Gap jean jackets like some sort of motorcycle gang. They tried to corner me near the entrance to a Macy’s, but it had been a long time since their hiking days, and they ran out of breath quickly. I left them behind.
I had never witnessed such an unhealthy group of individuals as those trapped in the enclosure. Jyfo scientists must have looked at the fact that fast-food restaurants could be found in any city and concluded they were a basic food source. As everyone in the enclosure became overweight and sweaty and aggressive toward their fellow inhabitants, the Jyfos perhaps concluded this was a matter of course for the human race.
Before I go on, let me make it clear that in no way do I have anything against people who are out of shape. And had I been stuck in the mall with the same food choices to which these cooped-up residents were subjected, I’m sure I too would have eventually found myself sitting around, staring down at my soft, ever-growing belly made of concentrated boredom and saturated fat.
Running through the enclosure, my pursuers reminded me of dogs barking at each other to give warning.
“New arrival on the way.”
“Coming in your direction.”
I sprinted toward the yellow McDonald’s M for no other reason than that it was the tallest thing around, a towering sign outside the main mall, standing like a roadside beacon.
As soon as I dove in, I knew that taking refuge in the PlayPlace ball pit was a poor strategic choice—if my pursuers found me, they would have the high ground, and the lack of secure footing meant I wouldn’t be able to quickly escape. But I was getting tired, and for the moment I thought I had created enough distance from my antagonists to buy a few minutes to catch some labored breaths among the plastic spheres.
Peering through the spaces between the balls, I could see an old hippie holding a wrench lumber out of the fast-food restaurant, responding to the commotion. He looked like a man who had been abducted straight from 1960s Haight-Ashbury—t
iedyed T-shirt, ratty gray beard, chewed-up sandals. A burnout on an epic scale. I wondered if he knew he was actually in space, or if he thought he was really, really high. If he had survived this long, he must have been doing something right—but then again, he might also just be an old guy who had disappeared, and now here he was.
“I think I saw him running toward the McDonald’s,” said a voice in the distance.
“He’s not over here, man,” said the hippie. “I checked out the entire restaurant, and it’s clear.”
“You checked the playground too?” said the voice.
“I checked everything. I am the manager of this McDonald’s. When an outside element has been introduced, I can feel it.”
“Hanging out at a fast-food restaurant all day doesn’t make you the manager. Get out here and help us look.”
The hippie grumbled to himself and toddled off to join the other idiots.
I was trying to figure out how the dynamics inside the enclosure actually worked. It seemed the society here was built from a mixture of cliques—for instance, this hippie was clearly part of a group for which he was guarding the McDonald’s, though he must have been the low guy on the totem pole to so willingly slink off to join the others when summoned. Everywhere you looked, there were individuals and allied twosomes doing their own thing. That the man who had greeted me was a golfer casually practicing his chipping appeared to be indicative of something—the Jyfos had set up a game to the death, and from what I had seen on television, Sophie was definitely being pursued, but it seemed like a great number of the inhabitants were too lazy to really get involved. Maybe they were just too comfortable to want to go home.
I bided my time in the ball pit, making sure the orbs were completely covering the top of my head so I couldn’t be seen, and pondered where Sophie might be and what to do next.
I heard the voice of the Ranger blaring out of the speakers installed around the mall.
“Creatures! There are two new inhabitants of your terrarium—the girl, of whom you are already aware, and the girl’s dancing date, believe it or not. If you eliminate one or both of them, you will get to return to Earth on our next expedition, and choose a friend to come along. How fun for you. I’m not too happy with these two individuals, if you couldn’t have guessed.”
I heard hooting and shouting—the barbarians were pleased now that they had two targets instead of just one—but the commotion was coming from far away. I realized I might be alone. I listened again, waiting until I was sure nobody was around before poking my head out of the ball pit. I opened my mouth to suck in an unobstructed gulp of oxygen…
…and nearly choked when a French fry shot at me out of nowhere, bounced off my tongue, and lodged in my throat.
“Ghag,” I coughed, trying to hack it out.
A whisper: “Bennett…is that you?”
It was her voice, no question.
“Sophie?”
I looked around, but I couldn’t find her.
“Shhh,” she said. “Sound carries out here. It’s because of all the damn stucco and tile….”
I scanned the playground, but I couldn’t see her. Wherever she was, she was well hidden.
Another French fry bonked me on the forehead, this one covered with ketchup, which I felt dripping down my nose.
“Look up, Bennett,” she said.
I looked up at a red-and-yellow foam castle that was the highest point in the PlayPlace. The turret on top had a small rectangular window cut in it.
A hand appeared in the window and gave me a come here! gesture.
Sophie was inside.
I checked the PlayPlace a second time to make sure I wasn’t being watched, then crawled out of the ball pit and scurried over to the rope ladder leading to the tower, feeling a bit like Rapunzel’s prince. At the top of the ladder was a plastic door made to look like a drawbridge, which I nudged open with the top of my head.
As soon as I was through, Sophie pulled me inside and hugged me.
“Bennett,” she whispered.
“Garhmpf,” I replied, because she was crushing my face against her body.
“Sorry,” she said. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re here. This is hell. I’d kiss you, but it probably wouldn’t be sanitary.”
She was right. There was a deep cut on her lip where dried blood had crusted. The knees of her jeans were ripped. Her hair was frayed. She had zits underneath her mouth—no doubt due to the grease from the fast food on which she’d been subsisting. There were bruises on her arms. One of her earrings was missing, and she had a puncture wound in the cartilage where she had pulled out her tag. Her nail polish had chipped off. She kept running her tongue over one of her teeth, and I could see it was loose.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.
“I wanted to make sure we were still going to prom.”
And there it was: “HA…hehhhhhh…”
Everything I’d been through was worth it to hear that laugh. She covered her mouth, and a concerned look crossed her face.
“The jerks out there didn’t see you come up here, did they?” she said.
“They’re on the other side of the mall, searching for me. And you.”
“I hate them. They’re like these dim-witted, slow-moving hyenas. I’ve been running from them for days. I think they’re trying to kill me.”
“Whoever hunts you down gets to go home,” I said.
“I assumed there was some kind of prize, but I couldn’t understand any of the announcements over the loudspeakers.”
“It’s because you haven’t had Spine Wine.”
“Is that the booze I see these freaks drinking? I’ve been avoiding it because this doesn’t seem like the best time to get drunk, though a lot of them certainly seem to actively partake of it.”
“I’d say that’s the right move on your part.”
“This isn’t even a great mall, by the way. If there was a pharmacy, I would have treated these cuts by now. There’s nothing useful here.”
We heard voices muttering underneath us.
“I wish this McDonald’s would bring back the McRib like the rest of them….”
“Do you remember the McLobster? I used to love the McLobster.”
“Never heard of it, but it sounds delicious. No way it had real lobster in it, though.”
Sophie shook her head at me and whispered: “All they ever do is talk about food. They’re legitimate morons.”
Beneath us, the discussion escalated.
“What do you mean, no way it had real lobster in it? You calling me a liar?”
“I’m saying what you’re saying don’t make any sense.”
“So you ARE saying I’m a liar.”
There were the umphs and smacks of a brief fistfight, followed by calls of knock it off from a chorus of male and female voices. I heard the door to the McDonald’s open and shut and then another group approaching.
The greater the number of pursuers who gathered at the McDonald’s, the more silent the group became as a whole. From the hmmming and the cop-show exhalations of now that’s interesting, it seemed like they were investigating something.
“Why are there balls scattered outside the ball pit?”
“Ask Catfish. He thinks he’s the manager and all.”
Catfish must have been the hippie.
“Hey, before I came to help you guys look for her, there weren’t any balls outside of the pit, man,” said Catfish. “I would have remembered something like that.”
“You sure?”
“I take pride in keeping that ball pit nice. That is the centerpiece of my establishment. I’m the manager.”
“You’re not the manager. And is that a fry in the pit?”
“Crap,” whispered Sophie. “They’re going to figure out we’re here. We’ll have to run. Wait for me to say when….”
“If there’s a fry in the ball pit, it means the new guy
must be around here somewhere. Two of you start digging. Everybody else, help me check the rest of the playground. Make sure you look inside the slides.”
“Keep your eyes on me and wait for my signal,” whispered Sophie, looking back and forth between my eyes and the ball pit. “I want them to space themselves out a little more before we go. They always separate in stupid ways.”
“Fan out toward Starbucks Number Eight. I want us covering as much ground as possible.”
“Told you they’d separate,” whispered Sophie.
We heard a gaggle of idiots hustle away. Sophie looked at me.
“Three…two…one…go,” said Sophie, throwing open the tower door before the remaining stalkers could trap us inside. Before I’d even moved, I watched her jump the rope ladder entirely, land on a plastic bridge, and make another leap, to a bench where a statue of Ronald McDonald was sitting with a frozen grin on his face.
She was already down from the tower, once again running too fast for me to keep up. It was a repeat of that awesome/awful night in the Roswell desert.
“Bennett, go,” she said over her shoulder.
I bolted out of the tower and free-fell down the rope ladder, threads of twine puncturing my palms. On the bridge, I tripped and scrambled over the planks to keep my momentum going forward, and barely managed to escape the outstretched hands of my pursuers as I shot past the Ronald McDonald statue and out of the PlayPlace.
Up ahead, I could see Sophie make a hard turn away from the mob into the outdoor courtyard of the mall. While the fastest of the louts had taken off in pursuit of her the moment she had emerged from the PlayPlace, the slowest of the bunch were now after me, wheezing so hard I could hear them as I ran. I looked back and saw nothing but twisted faces—women wiping sweat off their cheeks as they pushed themselves onward, men foaming at the corners of their mouths, triple chins bouncing on everyone. If I ever got back to Earth, I resolved to start a regular fitness routine.
By the time I reached the courtyard, my pursuers were spots in the distance, with their hands on their knees, sucking wind.