by Neil Clarke
“That’s absurd,” he said, mildly irritated. “I told you, he’s not conscious, at least not naturally. Control is a conscious thing.”
“But what if you did something he didn’t want?”
“I don’t feel like doing things he doesn’t want. Like talking to you now. He must have decided he can trust you, because I wouldn’t feel like telling you anything if he hadn’t.”
Avery wasn’t sure whether being trusted by an alien was something she aspired to. But she did want Lionel to trust her, and so she let the subject drop.
“Where do you want to go today?” she asked.
“You keep asking me that.” He stared out on the landscape, as if waiting for a revelation. At last he said, “I want to see humans living as they normally do. We’ve barely seen any of them. I didn’t think the planet was so sparsely populated.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to have to make a phone call for that.”
When he had returned to the bus, she strolled away, took out Henry’s card, and thumbed the number. Despite the early hour, he answered on the first ring.
“He wants to see humans,” she said. “Normal humans behaving normally. Can you help me out?”
“Let me make some calls,” he said. “I’ll text you instructions.”
“No men in black,” she said. “You know what I mean?”
“I get it.”
When Avery stopped for diesel around noon, the gas station television was blaring with news that the Justice Department would investigate the aliens for abducting human children. She escaped into the restroom to check her phone. The internet was ablaze with speculation: who the translators were, whether they could be freed, whether they were human at all. The part of the government that had approved Lionel’s road trip was clearly working at cross purposes with the part that had dreamed up this new strategy for extracting information from the aliens. The only good news was that no hint had leaked out that an alien was roaming the back roads of America in a converted bus.
Henry had texted her a cryptic suggestion to head toward Paris. She had to Google it to find that there actually was a Paris, Kentucky. When she came out to pay for the fuel, she was relieved to see that the television had moved on to World Series coverage. On impulse, she bought a Cardinals cap for Lionel.
Paris turned out to be a quaint old Kentucky town that had once had delusions of cityhood. Today, a county fair was the main event in town. The RV park was almost full, but Avery’s E.T. Express managed to maneuver in. When everything was settled, she sat on the bus steps sipping a Bud and waiting for night so they could venture out with a little more anonymity. The only thing watching her was a skittish, half-wild cat crouched behind a trashcan. Somehow, it reminded her of Lionel, so she tossed it a Cheeto to see if she could lure it out. It refused the bait.
That night, disguised by the dark and a Cardinals cap, Lionel looked tolerably inconspicuous. As they were leaving to take in the fair, she said, “Will Mr. Burbage be okay while we’re gone? What if someone tries to break into the bus?”
“Don’t worry, he’ll be all right,” Lionel said. His tone implied more than his words. She resolved to call Henry at the earliest opportunity and pass along a warning not to try anything.
The people in the midway all looked authentic. If there were snipers on the bigtop and agents on the merry-go-round, she couldn’t tell. When people failed to recognize Lionel at the ticket stand and popcorn wagon, she began to relax. Everyone was here to enjoy themselves, not to look for aliens.
She introduced Lionel to the joys of corn dogs and cotton candy, to the Ferris wheel and tilt-a-whirl. He took in the jangling sounds, the smells of deep-fried food, and the blinking lights with a grave and studious air. When they had had their fill of all the machines meant to disorient and confuse, they took a break at a picnic table, sipping Cokes.
Avery said, “Is Mr. Burbage enjoying this?”
Lionel shrugged. “Are you?” He wasn’t deflecting her question; he actually wanted to know.
She considered. “I think people enjoy these events mainly because they bring back childhood memories,” she said.
“Yes. It does seem familiar,” Lionel said.
“Really? What about it?”
He paused, searching his mind. “The smells,” he said at last.
Avery nodded. It was smells for her, as well: deep fat fryers, popcorn. “Do you remember anything from the time before you were abducted?”
“Adopted,” he corrected her.
“Right, adopted. What about your family?”
He shook his head.
“Do you ever wonder what kind of people they were?”
“The kind of people who wouldn’t look for me,” he said coldly.
“Wait a minute. You don’t know that. For all you know, your mother might have cried her eyes out when you disappeared.”
He stared at her. She realized she had spoken with more emotion than she had intended. The subject had touched a nerve. “Sorry,” she muttered, and got up. “I’m tired. Can we head back?”
“Sure,” he said, and followed her without question.
That night she couldn’t sleep. She lay watching the pattern from the lights outside on the ceiling, but her mind was on the back of the bus. Up to now she had slept without thinking of the strangeness just beyond the door, but tonight it bothered her.
About 3:00 AM she roused from a doze at the sound of Lionel’s quiet footstep going past her. She lay silent as he eased the bus door open. When he had gone outside she rose and looked to see what he was doing. He walked away from the bus toward a maintenance shed and some dumpsters. She debated whether to follow him; it was just what she had scolded him for doing to her. But concern for his safety won out, and she took a flashlight from the driver’s console, put it in the pocket of a windbreaker, and followed.
At first she thought she had lost him. The parking lot was motionless and quiet. A slight breeze stirred the pines on the edge of the road. Then she heard a scuffling sound ahead, a thump, and a soft crack. At first she stood listening, but when there was no more sound, she crept forward. Rounding the dumpster, she saw in its shadow a figure crouched on the ground. Unable to make out what was going on, she switched on the flashlight.
Lionel turned, his eyes wild and hostile. Dangling from his hand was the limp body of a cat, its head ripped off. His face was smeared with its blood. Watching her, he deliberately ripped a bite of cat meat from the body with his teeth and swallowed.
“Lionel!” she cried out in horror. “Put that down!”
He turned away, trying to hide his prey like an animal. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm, and he spun fiercely around, as if to fight her. His eyes looked utterly alien. She stepped back. “It’s me, Avery,” she said.
He looked down at the mangled carcass in his hand, then dropped it, rose, and backed away. Once again taking his arm, Avery guided him away from the dumpsters, back to the bus. Inside, she led him to the kitchen sink. “Wash,” she ordered, then went to firmly close the bus door.
Her heart was pounding, and she kept the heavy flashlight in her hand for security. But when she came back, she saw he was trembling so hard he had dropped the soap and was leaning against the sink for support. Seeing that his face was still smeared with blood, she took a paper towel and wiped him off, then dried his hands. He sank onto the bench by the kitchen table. She stood watching him, arms crossed, waiting for him to speak. He didn’t.
“So what was that about?” she said sternly.
He shook his head.
“Cats aren’t food,” she said. “They’re living beings.”
Still he didn’t speak.
“Have you been sneaking out at night all along?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t know . . . I just thought . . . I wanted to see what it would feel like.”
“You mean Mr. Burbage wanted to see what it would feel like,” she said.
“Maybe,” he admitted.
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“Well, people don’t do things like that.”
He was looking ill. She grabbed his arm and hustled him into the bathroom, aiming him at the toilet. She left him there vomiting, and started shoving belongings into her backpack. As she swung it onto her shoulder, he staggered to the bathroom door.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “I can’t sleep here, knowing you do things like that.”
He looked dumbstruck. She pushed past him and out the door. She was striding away across the gravel parking lot when he called after her, “Avery! You can’t leave.”
She wheeled around. “Can’t I? Just watch me.”
He left the bus and followed her. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t care,” she said.
“I won’t do it again.”
“Who’s talking, you or him?”
A light went on in the RV next to them. She realized they were making a late-night scene like trailer-park trash, attracting attention. This wasn’t an argument they could have in public. And now that she was out here, she realized she had no place to go. So she shooed Lionel back toward the bus.
Once inside, she said, “This is the thing, Lionel. This whole situation is creeping me out. You can’t make any promises as long as he’s in charge. Maybe next time he’ll want to see what it feels like to kill me in my sleep, and you won’t be able to stop him.”
Lionel looked disturbed. “He won’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“I just . . . do.”
“That’s not good enough. I need to see him.”
Avery wasn’t sure why she had blurted it out, except that living with an invisible, ever-present passenger had become intolerable. As long as she didn’t know what the door in the back of the bus concealed, she couldn’t be at ease.
He shook his head. “That won’t help.”
She crossed her arms and said, “I can’t stay unless I know what he is.”
Lionel’s face took on an introspective look, as if he were consulting his conscience. At last he said, “You’d have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Avery hadn’t really expected him to consent, and now felt a nervous tremor. She dropped her pack on the bed and gripped her hands into fists. “All right.”
He led the way to the back of the bus and eased the door open as if fearing to disturb the occupant within. She followed him in. The small room was dimly lit and there was an earthy smell. All the crates he had brought in must have been folded up and put away, because none were visible. There was an unmade bed, and beside it a clear box like an aquarium tank, holding something she could not quite make out. When Lionel turned on a light, she saw what the tank contained.
It looked most like a coral or sponge—a yellowish, rounded growth the size of half a beach ball, resting on a bed of wood chips and dead leaves. Lionel picked up a spray bottle and misted it tenderly. It responded by expanding as if breathing.
“That’s Mr. Burbage?” Avery whispered.
Lionel nodded. “Part of him. The most important part.”
The alien seemed insignificant, something she could destroy with a bottle of bleach. “Can he move?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Lionel said. “Not the way we do.”
She waited for him to explain. At first he seemed reluctant, but he finally said, “They are colonies of cells with a complicated life cycle. This is the final stage of their development, when they become most complex and organized. After this, they dissolve into the earth. The cells don’t die; they go on to form other coalitions. But the individual is lost. Just like us, I suppose.”
What she was feeling, she realized, was disappointment. In spite of all Lionel had told her, she had hoped there would be some way of communicating. Before, she had not truly believed that the alien could be insentient. Now she did. In fact, she found it hard to believe that it could think at all.
“How do you know he’s intelligent?” she asked. “He could be just a heap of chemicals, like a loaf of bread rising.”
“How do you know I’m intelligent?” he said, staring at the tank. “Or anyone?”
“You react to me. You communicate. He can’t.”
“Yes, he can.”
“How? If I touched him—“
“No!” Lionel said quickly. “Don’t touch him. You’d see, he would react. It wouldn’t be malice, just a reflex.”
“Then how do you . . . ?”
Reluctantly, Lionel said, “He has to touch you. It’s the only way to exchange neurotransmitters.” He paused, as if debating something internally. She watched the conflict play across his face. At last, reluctantly, he said, “I think he would be willing to communicate with you.”
It was what she had wanted, some reassurance of the alien’s intentions. But now it was offered, her instincts were unwilling. “No thanks,” she said.
Lionel looked relieved. She realized he hadn’t wanted to give up his unique relationship with Mr. Burbage.
“Thanks anyway,” she said, for the generosity of the offer he hadn’t wanted to make.
And yet, it left her unsure. She had only Lionel’s word that the alien was friendly. After tonight, that wasn’t enough.
Neither of them could sleep, so as soon as day came they set out again. Heading west, Avery knew they were going deeper and deeper into isolationist territory, where even human strangers were unwelcome, never mind aliens. This was the land where she had grown up, and she knew it well. From here, the world outside looked like a violent, threatening place full of impoverished hordes who envied and hated the good life in America. Here, even the churches preached self-satisfaction, and discontent was the fault of those who hated freedom—like college professors, homosexuals, and immigrants.
Growing up, she had expected to spend her life in this country. She had done everything right—married just out of high school, worked as a waitress, gotten pregnant at 19. Her life had been mapped out in front of her.
She couldn’t even imagine it now.
This morning, Lionel seemed to want to talk. He sat beside her in the co-pilot seat, watching the road and answering her questions.
“What does it feel like, when he communicates with you?”
He reflected. “It feels like a mood, or a hunch. Or I act on impulse.”
“How do you know it’s him, and not your own subconscious?”
“I don’t. It doesn’t matter.”
Avery shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to go through life acting on hunches.”
“Why not?”
“Your unconscious . . . it’s unreliable. You can’t control it. It can lead you wrong.”
“That’s absurd,” he said. “It’s not some outside entity; it’s you. It’s your conscious mind that’s the slave master, always worrying about control. Your unconscious only wants to preserve you.”
“Not if there’s an alien messing around with it.”
“He’s not like that. This drive to dominate—that’s a conscious thing. He doesn’t have that slave master part of the brain.”
“Do you know that for a fact, or are you just guessing?”
“Guessing is what your unconscious tells you. Knowing is a conscious thing. They’re only in conflict if your mind is fighting itself.”
“Sounds like the human condition to me,” Avery said. This had to be the weirdest conversation in her life.
“Is he here now?” she asked.
“Of course he is.”
“Don’t you ever want to get away from him?”
Puzzled, he said, “Why should I?”
“Privacy. To be by yourself.”
“I don’t want to be by myself.”
Something in his voice told her he was thinking ahead, to the death of his lifelong companion. Abruptly, he rose and walked back into the bus.
Actually, she had lied to him. She had gone through life acting on hunches. Go with your gut had been her motto, because she had trusted her gut. But of course it had nothing to do with g
ut, or heart—it was her unconscious mind she had been following. Her unconscious was why she took this road rather than that, or preferred Raisin Bran to Corn Flakes. It was why she found certain tunes achingly beautiful, and why she was fond of this strange young man, against all rational evidence.
As the road led them nearer to southern Illinois, Avery found memories surfacing. They came with a tug of regret, like a choking rope pulling her back toward the person she hadn’t become. She thought of the cascade of non-decisions that had led her to become the rootless, disconnected person she was, as much a stranger to the human race as Lionel was, in her way.
What good has consciousness ever done me? she thought. It only made her aware that she could never truly connect with another human being, deep down. And on that day when her cells would dissolve into the soil, there would be no trace her consciousness had ever existed.
That night they camped at a freeway rest stop a day’s drive from St. Louis. Lionel was moody and anxious. Avery’s attempt to interest him in a trashy novel was fruitless. At last she asked what was wrong. Fighting to find the words, he said, “He’s very ill. This trip was a bad idea. All the stimulation has made him worse.”
Tentatively, she said, “Should we head for one of the domes?”
Lionel shook his head. “They can’t cure this . . . this addiction to consciousness. If they could, I don’t think he’d take it.”
“Do the others—his own people—know what’s wrong with him?”
Lionel nodded wordlessly.
She didn’t know what comfort to offer. “Well,” she said at last, “it was his choice to come.”
“A selfish choice,” Lionel said angrily.
She couldn’t help noticing that he was speaking for himself, Lionel, as distinct from Mr. Burbage. Thoughtfully, she said, “Maybe they can’t love us as much as we can love them.”
He looked at her as if the word “love” had never entered his vocabulary. “Don’t say us,” he said. “I’m not one of you.”
She didn’t believe it for a second, but she just said, “Suit yourself,” and turned back to her novel. After a few moments, he went into the back of the bus and closed the door.