Alienation

by S E Anderson

  “What was that about?” I asked, staring at the place the green man had just been.

  “A fresh attempt to catch the attention of Millionials,” Zander said nonchalantly. “You coming?”

  I tried to match his pace, but his exhilaration made him take wide strides. I had to trot to keep up.

  “Oh, sorry.” He slowed down. “Sally, first alien world, first time out of your solar system, let alone your own planet. What do you want to do first?”

  “I don't know …. Everything? How much time do we have?”

  He caught me looking toward the bar where Blayde was probably making some new memories—or deleting them—and shrugged.

  “Don't worry about her. She's been a bit jumpy since all this happened.”

  “Since you got separated?”

  “Since I made a friend. It doesn't happen very often. Anyway, want to do food first? I’m not good at making decisions on an empty stomach.”

  “Heck, yes, how can I say no to food?” I laughed, wrapping my arm around his. It felt comfortable being around him once more, like nothing had changed in the past two years. Which, I guessed, for him, were just a few days. “Where are we going?”

  “In a way, it’s some kind of steakhouse? If you can call it that.” Zander indicated that we should walk toward the grand entrance, and my heart leapt.

  The passageway into the city was packed with people. I had assumed we'd take adventuring into the universe a little slower—that I would meet one race, then maybe another—but that was not the case. I couldn't even count how many different faces were here. There must have been thousands of different people, hundreds of different kinds of people, and humans were a minority.

  Though, I guessed, compared to the other races, we were a large group. But watching a reptilian couple-of-five crooning together reminded me that everyone and everything here was completely alien. No matter how many somewhat familiar faces I saw.

  “Zander,” I said, “there are humans.”

  “Distant cousins of yours,” he said, leading me forward. “Humans are known for being prolific, though with relatively short lifespans. Basically like, um, rats.”

  “We’re the rats of the universe?”

  “Oh, no, of course not. Only in this arm of the galaxy.”

  Ouch, that hurt.

  I was quickly distracted by the little ball of fluff on a leash dividing over and over again, a trail of tiny, fluffy balls following the original as its master took it for a walk.

  Unless the ball was the master? It was hard to tell who was leading whom.

  “Are there any robots?” I asked, pushing that information out of my mind. “Like, really cool robots? AI?”

  “So many. At least one in each shop; the city couldn’t run without them. Quite literally. There's an AI managing Da-Duhui, of course. The ICP.”

  “ICP?” I scoffed.

  “What?”

  “Come on, I see pee?”

  “Oh, real mature, Sally.” He laughed. “And, no, that joke doesn't work in every language.”

  “Works in mine. In any case, all this … it's amazing.”

  Now that we had passed through the tunnel lined with shops, everything ahead of us looked like a normal city. Well, normal by alien standards, I guessed. It didn't feel like we were miles above the planet's surface anymore.

  Like a kid at Christmas, I ran from shop window to shop window, trying desperately to take in everything.

  “Look at the technology here,” Zander said. “Air conditioning air sprays. You know, to cool down the room or heat it up with one quick squirt.” He pointed to the other side of the hall. “A clothing store with color changing cotton. Shoes that adjust themselves to the size of your foot; heels that reduce to nothing when your feet are painful. 3-D television—”

  “Oh, we have that on Earth.”

  “They have holographic televisions on Earth?” His eyes widened. “Wow, a lot happened in two years. Your TV seemed 2-D to me.”

  “Optical illusions and 3-D glasses do the trick just fine.” I shook my head. “Oh my gosh, I've seen holograms today.”

  Zander laughed again. How I had missed that laugh.

  Zander was alive. It hadn’t hit me until now. Two years of waiting, heartbreak, and doubt, and here he was, alive and just the same as he’d always been.

  And yet, it was like he wasn’t here.

  Maybe it was me. Too much coming at me at once that even Zander himself felt surreal. I stopped in the middle of the street, unable to take another step forward, overwhelmed by everything around me. The shops, the inventions, the aliens, everything was a whirlwind of color and beauty so indescribable that it rendered me speechless. I felt small; I felt tiny. The immensity of the universe that I had gone so long not knowing about just exploded in my mind, turning my world head over heels. I could suddenly see. I was suddenly aware—of everything, of a cosmos my mind could not contain.

  I was on another planet.

  “So?” Zander said, walking ahead, his arms held out to each side. Whether it was an invitation to follow or just an excuse to showcase the return of his once-favorite coat, I couldn’t tell. “What do you think?”

  “This place ….” I edged forward, trying not to stare at the kid with green webbed fingers who was obviously staring at me. “It's—”

  “A lot to take in,” he said quickly. “Take your time. It's not every day you get to see all this.”

  I struggled to breathe, but it wasn't panic that made me breathless; It was the enormity of where I was standing. Zander held out a hand and led me down the street, letting me take it all in.

  “Ah, this is the place.” He pointed at a warm and inviting looking restaurant. The doors were wide open into the street, as if calling to us, and I for sure wanted to go inside.

  “Fancy restaurants always serve the exotic stuff. The type of food you eat if you have interesting tastes or an overflowing wallet. No, it’s the snack bars and street vendors that have the classic foods, the ones teens and overworked employees eat during their lunch hour. The foods most intertwined with their culture.”

  “You seem to know a lot about food.”

  “Best way to understand a civilization. For example, if they serve vegetarian food across the whole planet, all roads indicate a culture that doesn't rely on other species for food. Either they revere animals, are prey to them, or they killed 'em off a long time ago ... or maybe they're just kind to other beings. If you're somewhere else and see an anthropophaginian menu, make a run for it, Sally. They're cannibals.”

  “What can you deduce about Da-Duhui?”

  “Well, they have pizza, so they know good food.” Zander winked. “But as for the rest? We'll have to wait and see a menu.”

  “Wait, didn't Blayde tell us to avoid the pizza?”

  He shrugged. “They may be bad, but at least they know what pizzas are. Always a good sign. You can trust a species that knows a good flatbread. There’s an odd correlation between yeast and hospitality.”

  “The one-eyed tree,” the sign above the door read. “Come for the food, stay for the purple giant and its million holes.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “I have no idea. Probably a pun. You want to check out the menu?” He indicated a list that hung outside the door with a flick of his wrist.

  A little sticker of Mr. Gilmag hung in their window. The city's office of commerce had given them some kind of award, but it was too small to read; probably a sign of good things inside, not that I wanted to trust my taste buds to Mr. Gilmag.

  “Is this still technically street food?” I elbowed Zander softly in the ribs. Not that a hard jab would have hurt him. One of the perks of being immortal.

  “Well, we're on a street.” He waved his hands in a wide arc as if to prove that, yes, we were standing on such a street. “The taxi driver recommended it.”

  “I take it this is a high-end snack place?”

  “Exactly,” Zander said. “Good food,
good quality, and a great idea of what to expect from the rest of the planet. Sound nice?”

  “Space bistro? Sounds brilliant.” My stomach growled in anticipation. Zander laughed, and the familiarity of that sound rushed back to me.

  My two years had been an eternity. A time I didn’t even want to think about, and at times, couldn’t even bear. There was grief and breakdowns and time lost to hospitals, trying to heal my shattered mind. Weeks that seemed like one very long day, and days that seemed to drag on for weeks. It had taken me a long time to heal, and I wasn’t even done yet.

  Not that I would tell him that. I wasn’t going to ruin our perfect evening by making him feel guilty for something beyond his control.

  Zander ran his hand through his hair like he always used to, all casual-like, driving it home that it had only been a few days since he had last seen me. It wasn't like he would change that much in such a short amount of time. He probably never even missed me.

  If his jacket was any indication, Zander could love something and lose it and forget about it just as easily. One day, I would be a memory to him, and the next, not even that.

  At least tonight, Zander would be a memory that stayed with me for the rest of my short mortal life. The thought both warmed and chilled me, and I forced a smile as I walked into the restaurant.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Turned on by a mystic space pizza

  The hostess—a small robot who looked like a kitchen bin with a little green hat—led us to a booth by the window, spewed two menus out on the table, let out a cheery jingle, and drove away, leaving us overlooking the freakishly long drop outside. We must have gotten closer to the edge without knowing it.

  We were higher now than when I had first seen the planet, and in a swankier part of town. But here, in this comfortable restaurant, the drop didn't scare me as much—not when there was a foot of reinforced glass between me and the fall. Still huge and daunting, it was now more intriguing than terrifying.

  From one wall of buildings, I looked across to the other. I couldn’t see the planet beyond. It all seemed to revolve around this one massive avenue. From here, it was as if the city planner had thrown up a mountain of design ideas, with the oldest buildings on the bottom and the newest ones on top, poorly stitching all his ideas together. Across from me were ultra-modern, or ultra-uber modern, fashionably designed buildings, while a long way down, the buildings were made of thick, re-enforced, and blocky concrete. It was like looking at a British trifle, with each layer looking and behaving completely differently.

  I felt quite happy to be at the top.

  A tall, domed structure with walls surrounding it sat even higher atop the neighboring building. Lights shone from behind the enclosure, as if a party of the most elaborate nature was taking place, a party that politicians and billionaires would be invited to and would be spoken about in the society columns of the local newspaper, maybe even the national one. And it wasn't much higher than we were.

  I looked down as far as I could see, until the darkness of a world without ads and cars made it impossible to make out anything lower. Did anyone even live down there, in the darkness the lights couldn't reach?

  “Any idea what you want to order?” asked Zander. His menu came to life in his hands. Letters and symbols hopped in the air before his face, lighting up in hues of blues and pinks.

  “Let me look,” I said, reaching for the heavy electronic contraption. As I opened it, holographic cartoons danced before my nose. I swatted them away to get to the actual list of food. This seemed to anger them, and they changed color violently in the margins.

  “Zander?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why is everything on the list pizza?”

  I wasn’t joking. Every single item was a variation of the word “pizza.” There was pizza, pizza-pizza, and even pizzaaaaa. The list became more creative as I scrolled.

  “Aw, your translator can’t contextualize,” he said, sadly.

  “What?”

  “You know how it works through brainwaves, right?” He closed his menu. “It’s top-of-the-line because it doesn’t need a repertoire of languages to translate to and from; it just tells you what foreign words mean to say.”

  “What does that have to do with the menu?”

  “Well, since your brain doesn’t have a point of reference for anything in there, it’s telling you what you want to see. Apparently, you want to see pizza. Don’t worry, I won’t tell my sister your subconscious is trying to spite her.”

  I looked down at the menu again, wishing for images of the food to give me something to go by, but the dancing mascots were getting in a fight and the letters were crumbling in their wake. Half the words were gone by the time the one with the red hat had beat the one with the tentacles into submission.

  “None of this is actually pizza?” I asked, desperate for clues for actual food. “Seeing as how we’re supposed to avoid them.”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” he said. “I just ask the servers for the specials and order whatever that is. I can’t read these things.”

  The waiter appeared. I was sad to see he looked as human as I was, his skin a pale gray, blemishless. I wondered if he was anyone else underneath it. Were skin wraps popular on planets where you could be anyone at all?

  “What can I get you?” he asked, waving his hands in the air. A dozen or so of the mascots followed his fingers as they trailed by, much better behaved than the ones in my menu.

  “What do you recommend?” asked Zander.

  “Oh, our flatbreads. Those are absolutely killer,” the man said, his eyes lingering on Zander. His index finger twisted the loose curl of hair that had fallen out of his ponytail. I guessed some things were the same across the entire galaxy, or at least in this arm of it—Zander wasn’t just charming to the people of Earth. “They can be topped with pretty much anything you like: three different kinds of cheeses, bacon strips, pepperoni, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, platarum, and special sauce. Shall I get you that?”

  “Aren't flatbreads just really thin pizzas?” Zander lifted an eyebrow. The waiter took this as a genuine interest in striking up a conversation and leaned a little closer.

  “Um-hum,” he replied. “A new hit food. They're bite-sized for our larger patrons, though substantially bigger for your average human. Not that that seems to be a problem for someone like you.”

  “Sorry, I'm not a pizza person.” Zander shook his head as if it were something to be ashamed about, though he loved the pizzas we had on Earth. Maybe Blayde’s warning had resonated with him, but I didn't have to listen. What they called pizza was probably something entirely different.

  “Well, I am,” I said, breaking the waiter out of his Zander-induced trance. “May I ask, though, when you say the pepperoni comes from—”

  “Pigs. Raised on Veen and brought in fresh daily. Would you like to meet them? “

  “The pigs?”

  “Yes. What else?”

  Pork. Pig pork. Though maybe what they called pigs and what I called pigs were different creatures entirely; I took that chance. I didn't want to meet my dinner before eating it.

  “I'll have that flatbread, then.”

  “I'll have the ...” Zander scanned the menu quickly, his eyes flying over the gadget, before jumping up and staring at me with wide, lemur-like eyes, asking quietly what on earth I had just done. Pizza? He blindly jammed his finger into the menu, squashing one of the animated characters, prompting the others to scream in horror at his hand. “The, um, this?”

  The waiter left with our orders, a huge smile on his face as his head turned back for one last glance at Zander. Our eyes met by accident, which led to an awkward connection. I pulled my gaze away and rested it on my friend instead.

  I wanted to ask him what I had always wanted to ask, what two years of waiting had brought to the surface. The questions that had been swimming in my mind since the day he blew up my workplace and disappeared with it.

  But I couldn’t.
I would not ruin this evening, for either of us.

  Keep it together, Sally Webber!

  “They always this flirty with you?” I asked instead. “The waiters, I mean?”

  “He was flirting? Really?” Zander seemed surprised, though how he could not have seen it, I didn't know. He’d have to have been blind.

  “Don't tell me you didn't notice the eyes he was giving you. He wasn't exactly subtle about it.”

  “No, I didn't notice.”

  He blushed, and I wanted to laugh. He could go from badass to bashful in five seconds flat.

  “Never mind.” I gave him a smile, a sort of mental Don't worry about it, but his face was still an impressive shade of red, nonetheless. “Wait—they have pigs here? Tomatoes? Onions?”

  “Why wouldn't there be?” He sipped his water.

  “I guess I thought they would have something, I dunno, crazier. I mean, it's too much of a coincidence for them to have the same meat and veg as they do on Earth.”

  “Why? If they have humans, isn't it a logical jump to think that everyone came from the same place, pepperoni and all?”

  “Do we even know?”

  “There are theories, but nothing's written in stone in the universe. Well, except maybe that huge stone tablet that predicts Blayde is going to go crazy and build a maze one day. It’s a fun tourist attraction. But no matter. In any case, the general line of thought is that the human race originated somewhere else entirely then spread through the galaxy and lost touch with one another, oh, billions of years ago. Truth is, I think I know the place, but there are many different lines of thought. There's a few thousand following the cult of the Green Star, living on planet Cupios—last I checked—who believe the universe was seeded by the great Duster. They also believe that everything that happens is in reaction to their own sexual frustration and rejoice in that fact, which is why there are only a few of them. That, and the fact their practices involve putting things in bins and taking them back out again, repeatedly, and to very dull, monotonous chants. They're frequently referred to as Bin-Heads. They don't like that too much.”

  “What does this have to do with pigs?”