Enchanted by the Alien Explorer

by Ashlyn Hawkes

  He nods again and rushes away before I can even thank him.

  I stare down at the menu the woman gave us when we sat down and then look up at Ava. “It doesn’t say anything about all-you-can-eat sushi on here.”

  “That’s because it’s not on the menu.”

  I glance toward where the man disappeared in the back. “He wants to be known as the owner who had the Kurian here.”

  “Yes. I guess you’re like a celebrity.”

  “I doubt everyone would receive me so kindly.”

  “Maybe in more rural districts, you’ll have more of an issue, but around the military, people here know what’s what.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s what exactly?” I ask.

  She lifts her eyebrows but just shakes her head. From the corner of the table are paper menus for those ordering sushi, and Ava grabs two but only one mini pencil. Quickly, she marks down both papers and hands them to the waitress, who brings with her water and tiny little pitchers as well as a larger one.

  “Sake,” Ava comments as she pours some from the larger pitcher into the smaller ones. “Cheers.”

  She taps hers against mine and then drinks. I do the same, surprised by its warmth. It tingles in my belly.

  “Do you like?” she asks.

  “I do.”

  She lifts her chin, notices that I drank all of mine, and then pours me some more. “I’ve never had it myself before.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Ava takes another sip. “I think I do.”

  I laugh. “Good.”

  When the waitress brings out the sushi, there’s so much more than I expected. The waitress has to tell us which pieces are which, and there are rolls too. The first time I try to use chopsticks, the fish part comes apart from the rice bundled beneath it. Then the rice comes all apart too. With the next one, I’m able to eat it much easier.

  We polish off the food, talking a bit about nothing that important, but we enjoy ourselves. All in all, I think the date’s going fairly well so far.

  Once we finish eating, too stuffed to eat the dessert the waitress brings us, we profusely thank the owner, who beams and asks if we’ll come back.

  I glance at Ava. “I would like for us to.”

  She rolls her eyes, her lips almost curling into a tiny smile as she shakes her head.

  We leave the place, and she starts toward the centuricar, but I grab her hand.

  “Let’s walk for a bit,” I suggest.

  “Fine,” she says, but she pulls her hand free.

  We walk a bit, and I look around. She seems to know the area well, and she points out a few other places. We don’t walk inside any of the stores we pass, and more than a few of the vehicles slow down, the drivers and passengers looking at us.

  “Does it bother you?” she asks.

  “Does what bother me?”

  “The attention.”

  “No.” I pause. “Should it?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. You like everyone wanting to talk to you?”

  "I like to ask questions," I say. "When I came as a child, I used to ask my parents all the questions I could think of. I wanted to know why everything was the way it is down here, what was different, why didn't people do this or that. They thought it was amusing at first, but I think my questions started to wear on them, so I started to just talk to the Earthlings. A lot of them had no issue talking to me, but they treated me like a kid. They didn't want to give in-depth answers to my questions. It frustrated me."

  “Ah,” is all she says.

  Eventually, we head to a place where kids are playing, a bunch of swings and slides. We watch for a time, and the kids keep glancing over. Eventually, one comes over to talk to me, and then they all come over. I talk to them for a bit, and shortly after that, their parents collect them to go home. The place is ours, and I glance over at Ava to realize she’s not there.

  A soft laugh has me realizing she’s on one of the swings.

  I cross over to her and reach for the swing next to her.

  “I, ah, think you might weight too much,” she says.

  “Probably.” I grin.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “I weigh too much now, but I swung on some when I was little.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not here, but, yes. Well, on Earth, not Kuria.”

  “You don’t have playgrounds there?”

  “No.”

  “What do the kids play on?”

  “They just play on the soil. Climb the mesas. That kind of thing.”

  “Do you have trees at least?”

  “Not many.”

  “Wow. That’s…”

  "They don't know any better," I say, "but I have to admit that the playgrounds here are some of the reasons why I loved to come with my parents to Earth. They didn't always bring me and had one of their friends watch over me when they were gone. I didn't care for that once I was old enough to realize what was going on."

  She nods and swings her legs and flies up higher and higher.

  I move behind her, and when she swings backward, I push her forward. Ava gives a little shriek, and now, she's really flying.

  Back and forth she goes, and I push her each time. She goes higher and higher, and then she jumps. She flies up a little before she comes down, landing on one foot and almost the other knee, her back leg bent. Her hair is crazy, all around her, and she laughs as she stands and brushes her hair back, turning to look at me. Her eyes are sparkling.

  “Are you having a good time?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says.

  “Good.” I cross over to her. “Do you want to head to my ship now?”

  “Your ship?”

  “Yes. I can finish showing you the rest of the ship, finish the tour.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, there’s one room I want you to see.” I grin.

  I can’t help myself. She looks so damn beautiful, and I love the sound of her laughing, but I want to know what sounds she makes when she’s being pleasured, when she’s being fucked. I didn’t want to go on this date specifically to see if we’ll end up in bed together, but I can’t help it. That’s what I want now.

  There’s just something about her. She’s a loner, but she doesn’t have to be.

  “Let me guess,” she says dryly, “your bedroom?”

  “If you like.”

  Her face is an emotionless mask. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, and her eyes contain no spark. That can’t be good.

  “You thought that if I had a good time, that you would get lucky, huh? I guess I should give you credit. You didn’t stipulate that I had to give you sex to get the plasma morpher.”

  I open my mouth, but she holds up her hand and tosses me the ignitor for the centuricar.

  “You can drive it back, can’t you? You know the way? If not, I’m sure you can ask around since you make friends with humans so easily. Maybe you can find another female to fuck if you’re in the mood.”

  “Ava,” I call after her, but she’s already walking away. “Ava!”

  She just throws her arm behind me, and I know that I screwed up royally.

  Ovian.

  Fuck.

  8

  Ava

  It's a long walk back to my place, but I make it easily enough. Anger helps to fuel me, but I'm angrier with myself than I am Rix. How gullible can I be? Did I honestly think that he wouldn't want to have sex? How many guys—Earthling guys, that is—would want sex on the first date? Most of them. Rix isn't any different. If anything, his being part-Novan will make him want sex all the more.

  The waitress flirted with him, but he didn’t pay her any attention. So did some of the moms of the kids at the park, but he didn’t seem to notice. Probably because I was there, though. He’s probably out cruising now, driving around to find another woman to shove his dick into because I know all about the Novans. They have to ejaculate if they have an erection, and I doubt very many of them use their hands. What do y
ou want to bet that it’s the same for the Kurians? Or else they’ll just use their fathers as an excuse to have to ejaculate each time. I do know of a guy who pretended that that was the case for him, that he had to ejaculate if he got hard. I didn’t buy it, but from all reports, that is the truth for the aliens.

  The first thing I do once I return to my place is double-check that the plasma morpher is still there. It is. Then I look over and double-check my calculations. They all seem sound.

  By now, it's late, very late. While I could use my lamp to stay up and start to get to work, I'm too anxious and frustrated. From experience, I know that means I shouldn't work on anything. I tend to get upset, and when I get upset, things tend to break, and I've worked too hard on this particular project to risk anything happening to the pieces.

  So I lie down. Sleep doesn’t come easily, and I debate going for a walk to try to eat up some of my angered energy, but I don’t. Now that the moon’s made her appearance, I don’t want to leave the plasma morpher alone. It’s one thing for me to leave while the sun’s up. I have some measures to protect my stuff, cameras and more, but I just don’t feel comfortable. Not at all.

  Eventually, sleep comes anyhow almost despite myself, and I wake up feeling exhausted yet. Plus, I have a headache. Awesome. Just what I wanted.

  You would think that with my notes and planning, it wouldn’t take long at all for me to finalize everything, but that’s just not the case. It takes so much longer than I plan, and it doesn’t help that I’m so uneasy that I keep glancing around to make sure that no one is coming by, especially not Rix.

  It's not until dinnertime that I stop and get something to eat. I tend to do that, skip meals when I'm in the zone, and I just eat some more of that pig, and then it's back to work.

  This time, I work until the moon is high. Tonight, I sleep well, my muscles and brain especially grateful for the break, but I'm working again as soon as the sun rises. Around noon, I notice a shift in the air, and that's when I quickly sew the canopy using thread from a shirt. Thankfully, I get the canopy up before more than a few thick droplets hit me and the equipment, but the canopy is not just cloth. It's a material meant to keep everything beneath dry, and I return to work.

  Rix doesn’t come by. No one else does, and I stop looking. Two more days are needed, and then it’s all together.

  Unfortunately, I don't have the means to test it unless I want to try it out on myself.

  Which is crazy.

  Because I want to use the device to lift machines, metal. Not organic compounds. No. I don’t have the calibrations worked out for anything organic, and while that might be the next step, I would need a lot more equipment for that, namely protective equipment to keep me safe in case something should go wrong.

  It’s risky, so very risky, but I have a hope and a prayer that I’ll be able to do what my device is intended for. Maybe I should’ve just given into Rix. Maybe then I would have access to the centuricar again. Not that I should use Rix to get what I need. Plus, I shouldn’t just take someone’s centuricar and try to see if my device will work on it because if it doesn’t…

  But I need to see if this will work, and I carefully place my instrument into a wagon and wait for the rain to end.

  Unfortunately, the drought is over big time, and the rain lasts for hours. It's dark now, and I'm not about to risk relying on a flashlight to maneuver the wagon around the puddles.

  The next day, it’s still a bit wet out, so it’s a week total since I’ve seen Rix before I make my way to the scrapyard. I’m so giddy with excitement and anticipation that my fingers mess up the inputs, and I have to try again.

  And then I wait.

  And then the centuricmobile, the beat-up one that doesn’t drive anymore, levitates.

  Success!

  Now, the tricky part. Bringing it back down again.

  The landing is a bit rough, and I grimace. If this had been a brand new centuricmobile, the owner would not be too happy about that.

  Again and again, I try until I can get the landing to be gentler.

  There. I’m as ready as I can be. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to see about setting up a meeting with the general.

  Yeah, scoring that meeting is a lot harder than I wanted it to be, but finally, after waiting almost all day, I'm in front of General Spencer Moore.

  The general eyes me. “What’s your name again?”

  “Ava. Ava Kyle.”

  His gaze flickers to my hair and then back to me. I just grin. Yes, I dye my hair. Yes, it's colorful. I don't care that women are only just starting to dye their hair color again after everything with the Grots. For a time, women had only their natural hair color. They had to go white or gray because there just wasn't any hair dye to be had. As for me, I make my own, and I love it. The purple is so very me because I don't live life like others do. I'm not normal. I'm me, and I'm proud, and that's all there is to it.

  The general rubs his chin. “And you requested this meeting why?”

  I step aside so he can see my wagon. “I would like the meeting to be more of a demonstration, sir, if that would be possible.”

  “A demonstration?” he repeats. “A demonstration of what exactly?”

  I grin. “It would be easier to show you. Can we go somewhere a bit more…”

  He scowls.

  “Outdoors?” I finish.

  He blinks a few times, and I grimace. Did he really think I would ask for a place that’s more private? We’re in a tent, and people are walking about outside the tent, the flap wide open, but no one else is under this particular tent.

  “I suppose,” the general says, “but this is highly irregular, and I must say I don’t have a lot of time for this, whatever this is.”

  “Sir, this is a game changer. You’ll see. It’s going to change the way we live,” I say excitedly.

  He grunts and strolls out of the tent, and I follow behind him. My arms are getting a serious workout from dragging this wagon everywhere. The equipment isn't light, but maybe I can figure out a way to lighten it later, down the road, once everything's been perfected.

  It doesn’t take us long to reach a spot away from the tents, and the general starts to slow down. I glance around wildly and then grimace.

  “Sir, do you think you could have a centuricmobile or centuricar brought around?”

  “Why would we need that?” he asks dryly.

  “For the demonstration.” My hands are clammy, and I want to wipe them on my pants. Oh, great. These pants have an oil stain on them. I don’t have any dresses or skirts, like I told Rix, so I don’t have anything fancy to wear for the meeting.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Sir, it’s necessary,” I say firmly.

  He grimaces and shakes his head. “I’m afraid, Ava Kyle, that I’ve heard about you and your tendency to, ah, profit from others. How do I know that this isn’t an elaborate scheme for you to steal a vehicle?”

  I grit my teeth. So he knows about my record. At least he allowed the meeting in the first place. I guess I can’t be too unhappy about that, all things considering.

  “Now, I really don’t have the time—”

  “I can make do,” I say in a rush, and I hurry to lift the levitation device from the wagon. “Give me one moment,” I mumble as I recalibrate the equipment. It’s meant to lift something much heavier, but the wagon will have to work. “And… there.”

  I press the last button and straighten. A beam of light shines on the wagon, coating it in a faintly greenish glow as the altered plasma morpher combines with the anion preciever. The wagon begins to shake, wobble, and then lift inches off the ground, a foot, two feet… a hundred feet.

  Shit.

  The wagon keeps on shooting upward, and I race over to the device to dial it back down, but that also happens way too fast. The wagon’s crashing down far too fast, the wagon looking redder than normal from the heat generated, and I just manage to get it to slow down, but not in time for a perfect landi
ng. It’s rough, but not too rough. The wagon doesn’t bust apart at least.

  “Ah, well, I, um, had it all set for a centuricar or centuricmobile,” I say hastily, “but it would’ve worked better with one. It’s a levitation device, and it’s what we need, what the Earth needs. Think about it! We won’t need to worry about heavy roads, and all of the asphalt concrete shaping the Earth, and…”

  The general says nothing, and I swallow hard. I’m not so sure he thinks it’s as much of a game changer as I think it is.

  “If you just give me a little more time, I can lift and land the wagon with ease. Then, I can show you—”

  “I think I’ve seen enough.”

  I grit my teeth and do my best not to snarl or growl at the infuriating man. “I know that what happened was a little rough, but—”

  "We don't have time to worry about little trinkets like this when we need to focus on bettering our spaceships, or weapons in case there are any more hostile alien life forms out there… The Earth has had enough game changers, don't you think? We don't need anymore."

  I inhale deeply. “Respectfully, sir, I disagree.”

  “Well, the military isn’t interested in this project of yours. I must return to my work now. Have a good night.” With a nod, he walks away, his hands behind his back.

  I clench my teeth so hard that my jaw aches. The wagon's too hot for me to put the device in, and I grimace. Maybe he has a point. Not that the Earth isn't ready, but the device isn't. I need the device to be on the vehicles to maintain the levitation until it's possible to create multiple massive levitation devices all over the place. The massive ones will work together to levitate multiple centuricmobiles across extensive distances. Otherwise, I would need miniature ones in every vehicle. Either would work, but I'm not there yet.

  A prototype. That’s what this is, and it’s still a work in progress. I thought I was further along than I am, but that’s just not the case.

  Dejected, I sit on the grass and wait for the wagon to cool off. I'm not risking the prototype. I won't risk exposing it to heat like that. I thought I recalibrated the device to properly handle the wagon, but I clearly miscalculated or punched in the numbers wrong.