Gladiator

by Barry Solway

  “They don’t know that,” Riley said. “You could be poisonous or have laser death eye-rays.”

  Mel laughed and noticed that the ape creature rumbled back. “Sure, I guess. That was weird when he stepped away. I’m not sure what happened. Angrycat girl looked pissed.”

  Riley nodded. “Is that her name now? I guess the fur looks cat-like, but her face is pretty human looking. Honestly, it looked like you were tickling him. But maybe that’s just me. I wouldn’t read too much into what the alien chick did. You have no idea what their expressions mean. She could have been bored to death. Or hungry.”

  “So, what next? They seem to be talking to each other, but we can’t understand a word they’re saying. I wish we could talk to them.”

  Jeff and Evan joined them, looking up at the big creature with a strange expression. “Man, I thought I was tall,” Jeff said. “If we had something to draw with, we could try making pictures, maybe figure out how to write.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t actually have anything. No paper, no pens or pencils or even crayons,” Riley said. “Any other ideas?”

  “You could bite your finger and draw on the floor in blood,” Nick said from behind them. Mel heard Sharon slap him on the arm.

  “That’s gross,” Sharon snapped.

  “You volunteering?” Jeff asked Nick.

  Nick shrugged. “You keep asking for ideas and then giving me a hard time when I try to help. Do you have any idea what that does for my confidence?”

  “You might try not being a clown for five seconds and take this a bit more seriously,” Jeff said.

  “He’s always been this way, especially when he’s stressed,” Mel said quietly to Jeff.

  “You two know each other that well, huh?” Jeff said. “It’s not very helpful right now. Especially when I have to listen to him.”

  The aliens must have been working along similar lines. The big one had turned to the squid-like creature and set off a steady run of rumbling grunts. The glistening flesh of the squid alien shivered slightly, giving Mel the chills. Moving forward on the five tentacles, it stopped in front of Mel. With the way it squatted, the creature was shorter than Mel by about a foot. But if it straightened its tentacles completely, it would be almost as tall as the ape creature. A single tentacle reached out towards Mel.

  Mel took a step back, but Riley lightly punched her shoulder. “Hey, fair’s fair, right? The big guy let you touch him. Anyway, what could something so small do to hurt you, right?”

  “Don’t be a dick,” Jeff said, glaring at Riley. “She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to.”

  “Sorry, “ Riley said. “In the future I’ll leave being a dick to you. I was kidding, obviously.”

  Mel shook her head at Jeff when he took a step towards Riley. “It’s okay, Jeff. Riley’s right. It’s the only way to get them to trust us.” Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath. Nodding towards the creature, she realized she didn’t know if the thing could see her or would know what a nod meant.

  The tentacle reached out and rested gently on Mel’s stomach. Her involuntarily flinch drew a rumbling laugh from the ape creature. Reaching out a hand, she gently brushed the tentacle. Surprisingly, it was soft and dry to the touch. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t place what. She rested her hand lightly on the tentacle when several strange things happened.

  The end of the tentacle bubbled. It spread out into several small lumps. The lumps grew and became thinner, turning into fingers and a thumb. Suddenly, a mirror image of her hand was resting on Mel’s stomach. The creature pulled the tentacle back and placed the “hand” onto Mel’s palm.

  Riley gasped behind her. “It’s a shape-changer.”

  Chapter 4

  “It looks just like your hand, even the color.” Riley touched the back of the tentacle hand, right where the slightly tan portion merged into the glistening white of the alien. “That’s weird. It’s not slimy at all. It feels like silicone.”

  As Riley rested his hand there, the creature took the palm of its “hand” from Mel’s and placed it on Riley’s. Color swirled in the hand and it darkened to a medium brown-black to match Riley’s skin tone. The fingers lengthened and thickened, until the hand pushing against Riley’s was a match to his own. Riley laughed in delight.

  The creature dropped the tentacle and moved slightly closer to Mel. The blobby thing on top of the torso that might be a head leaned in until it was a foot away from Mel’s face. And it started to morph. A round nub poked out below two dents. Below the round nub opened a gaping hole. Like running wax, the head started to flow. Mel’s lip curled at the sight but, in less than a minute, the recognizable outline of a human face appeared. The features shifted, with the “nose” moving down and the “eyes” slightly farther apart. Finally, the shifting and melting stopped and the creature opened its “eyes.” The mouth opened, although Mel realized it wasn’t actually breathing.

  Mel found herself staring at a bald, glistening white version of herself. Another breath and color started to fill in, until Mel was looking at a hairless version of herself as if in a mirror. And then Mel noticed the beginning of a fine stubble. Dark wisps that grew rapidly until, in less than a minute, the creature had replicated the neck- length, wavy black hair that was a mirror of Mel’s.

  “Damn, that’s gross,” Jeff said.

  “Damn. That’s. Gross.” The voice came out of the head, but not from the mouth. The mouth that looked like Mel’s hadn’t moved at all but the voice was Jeff’s.

  “That’s my voice!” Jeff said. “Weird. It looks like Mel and sounds like me.” The head looked at Jeff, but in a weird way, like the creature wasn’t actually using the eyes.

  “The. Cat-girl. Looked. Pissed.” The lips moved this time, but they weren’t really in sync with the words. Mel couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.

  “That’s impressive. But not very helpful. It’s copying your sounds, but I don’t think it understands any of it,” Riley said.

  “Probably not. This is so amazing, though. Freakish, but amazing,” Mel said. Laying a hand on the creature’s cheek, she held it as the alien gently closed its eyes.

  “Freakish. But. Amazing.”

  Mel withdrew her hand and pointed at herself. “Mel.”

  The creature looked at her, or through her in its weird way, for a moment. “Mel,” it repeated.

  Pointing at Riley, she continued. “Riley.” Riley waved for a second, then sheepishly lowered his hand.

  The creature waved the hand that still looked like Riley’s and repeated “Riley.” Then it lowered the hand and looked sheepishly at Mel.

  Mel shook her head and repeated her actions, first pointing at herself, then at Riley. The creature paused for a second, then made the connection. It pointed first at Mel, then at Riley. “Mel. Riley.”

  Mel laughed and nodded her head. “Yes!”

  The creature mimicked her. First, it pointed at Mel and Riley, repeating their names. Then it laughed and said “Yes!” The others joined them, laughing at how it mimicked Mel.

  “Maybe we can teach it English,” Sharon said.

  “I hope I don’t really look that dorky when I get excited,” Mel sighed.

  Riley slapped her on the back., “Afraid so. We’ve got three words down. What else do you want to teach it?”

  The cat-girl had moved to stand next to the squid alien and was murmuring towards the Mel head. She seemed to be arguing, but Mel couldn’t hear any sounds coming back from the creature.

  Before they could figure out what to do next, the doors opened. Three mechanical insects scuttled into the room, the stern alien striding purposefully behind them.

  The white ape-like alien growled and clenched a fist at the sight of the other alien. Two of the insect robots pointed their spears at the ape-like alien, causing it to take a step back. This increased Mel’s suspicion that the spears were some type of gun.

  The stern alien said something. Mel
was surprised that she could make out words, even if she couldn’t understand them. She noticed that his mouth didn’t move and when she looked closer, she wondered if it was really a mouth at all. On closer inspection, it looked like a ridge of bone that just happened to be shaped like a human mouth. The sounds he made came more from his throat, but she wondered how he ate without a mouth.

  The ape and cat aliens backed away against the wall as the robots covered them. A zombie man stumbled over to Jeff, who happened to be closest. This allowed Mel to get a much closer look. She was sure this was the man from the hotel. Sweat beaded on the greenish-gray skin of his face, highlighting a blistering rash that covered his cheeks, neck and the areas on his head where patches of hair had fallen out. Some kind of palsy had set in, and his muscles spasmed under the skin and it made his movements jerky. Wrinkling her nose, she leaned back to avoid the smell of the man—a smell of sickness and rot.

  Grabbing Jeff roughly by the arm, he held out a small metallic device. “Still,” he said in a rasping, halting voice. “Resist… will be… painful…”

  Jeff grabbed the man’s hand and they stood locked there for a moment. Walking over, the stern alien stared intently at Jeff. Mel thought it looked like a scientist preparing to dissect a lab rat.

  With a gasp of fear, Jeff pleaded with the zombie man.

  “Why are you doing this? Don’t do this.”

  The man swallowed, painfully. Forming words took an obvious effort and he enunciated carefully to be understood. “No choice. Translator. Let me or will be hurt.”

  Struggling out of Jeff’s grip, the man grabbed him by the neck. He reached up and pressed the metallic device against the back of Jeff’s left ear. With a grunt, Jeff tried to pull away, then clutched the side of his head as he screamed and rubbed the spot. “What did you do to me? This thing’s eating into my brain! Get it out, get it out!”

  The man held Jeff for a second as his yelling subsided. Finally, he let go as Jeff straightened with tears in his eyes. “Damn, that hurt.”

  The zombie man turned to Jon.

  Mel pulled Jeff away from the alien and the zombie. There was a slight raised red spot behind his left ear, but otherwise no sign of injury.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “It’s okay. Hurt like a mother for a minute there, though. Now I just feel… weird. Like something’s crawling in my brain.”

  The man had moved on to the others. Jon and Riley took it better than Jeff and hadn’t screamed. “He said it was a translator,” Mel said.

  Jeff shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything sounds the same so far.”

  Mel looked over at the ape and cat aliens. The ape nodded his head up and down but the cat alien shook her head in a very human “no.” Mel really had no idea what either one meant.

  Sharon screamed, loud and piercing, causing Mel to spin around. Attempts to push the man away had no effect; he just twisted her arm and pushed her against the wall. Mel ran over and grabbed Sharon, holding her.

  “Stop it, you’ll hurt her!,” Mel yelled.

  “Don’t let him do this… no… no… no…” Sharon stuttered. All Mel could do was hold her, letting Sharon bury her head in her shoulder as the man reached down and pressed the device against her head.

  Clutching at the side of her head, Sharon seemed ready to pull out whatever the man had put there. Her scream grew louder and higher pitched until Mel thought she might go deaf from it. Suddenly, Sharon’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed. Mel caught her as she fell and laid her down gently on the floor, making sure she was breathing okay.

  The zombie man looked at Mel. She met his eyes and held them for a moment, then pulled her hair back from the side of her head as the man pressed the metallic object against her head. A sharp jolt filled her head with an increasing wave of pain as the man leaned over close to her. His breath stank and his lips trembled. The look in his wide eyes was a mix of resignation, fear and madness.

  “Better… to… die,” he said. Then a wave of intense pain spun from one side of Mel’s head to the other. She shut her eyes as tears streamed down her cheeks, unable to reply or even to think. In a few seconds it passed, leaving her gasping. Jeff was right, it felt like something had dug its way into her brain, like a shadow or ghost hovering just at the edge of her awareness.

  The man shuffled past the alien. What had he said, right before the pain engulfed her? Had he even said anything or had she just imagined it?

  She had been the last one to get the treatment. Everyone watched as the alien took a flat device it was holding and swiped a finger across it. Shaking her head, she thought how weirdly mundane it was for an alien to be using a tablet. Mel took another deep breath to settle her nerves and walked to stand by Riley.

  “Doing okay?” she whispered.

  “Yeah. This thing’s going to drive me crazy. I hope it really is a translator.”

  “I guess. Why hold us prisoner and then give us a translator, though? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I guess we’ll find out. Keep on the alert. How’s Sharon?”

  Sharon lay on the floor, Nick and Jeff hovering over her. She was breathing normally and seemed fine, as far as it went.

  “She’s fine,” Mel replied. “Passing out is probably better than the alternative, honestly. And don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

  Riley flashed a smile at Mel as the alien finished manipulating the object it held. Poking at the device with a flourish, the alien turned to the others.

  Distinctive alien words came from the creature’s mouth, but they were almost lost as Mel jolted in surprise at the voice in her head. Gasps echoed around her.

  “My name is Kathor. You are on my ship, the Insight. Welcome. I am very pleased at the progress you have made. There is a great future in store for you. For those who survive. More shall become clear in time.”

  The creature laughed, then turned to walk out of the room. Trembling in fury and disgust, Mel could see that the others were having a similar reaction. The voice in their heads was Anna’s.

  Mel hadn’t processed what that meant as the alien nodded to two of the zombies standing by the door.

  “Bring me the boy.” The alien words melted into Anna’s voice in Mel’s head. Mel tensed, as two of the zombies lurched towards Riley.

  “No! You can’t take him,” she yelled, throwing herself at a zombie woman. The other one pushed past her to grab Riley. Mel and the woman fell in a heap as one of the insect robots pointed its spear at Mel. An arc of electricity surged from the spear point, catching Mel and the woman. They writhed on the floor, muscles spasming. A third zombie helped the first one drag Riley as a robot grabbed the unconscious zombie by the arm. Blood smeared the floor where the robot’s metal claw sunk into the woman’s flesh.

  Mel shuddered, still not in control of her movements. Fighting to not throw up, she let Jeff and Jon help her sit up. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring Riley’s form as he receded down the hallway. The doors closed and he was gone.

  Chapter 5

  They sat in various stages of shock. Sharon woke up and lay with her head in Jeff’s lap, while he stroked her hair. Blankly staring straight ahead, she looked nearly catatonic but for the occasional hiccup.

  There were six of them left. And the three aliens, she reminded herself. She shook her head. Anna and Riley… gone. Possibly dead. Maybe worse.

  The large, white alien sat near her and she turned to face it. Even sitting, he was so tall he would almost be able to look Mel in the eyes if she stood.

  Tilting her head back to look him in the eye, she wondered if she would be able to understand him now. “My name is Mel. What’s yours?”

  The alien rumbled and rotated its head in a circle. “Quite regrettably, names are difficult for the translators. My name is—” There was a rumble that wasn’t translated. “I would suspect there is no word in your language for my name. I’m afraid you’ll have to make up a name for me.”


  Mel got the distinctive thought that the white alien was a he. She wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but it was clear. Since she still heard Anna’s voice in her head, that made it even weirder. The sound of Anna’s voice was slowly driving Mel crazy, but she tried to ignore it. “Is it the same for you? You made up a name for me?”

  The cat alien leaned forward. “I have. I call you Mel.” The sing-song murmur of the cat-girl’s voice mixed with Anna’s. But she had that look of anger again.

  “But… Mel is my name,” Mel replied, confused.

  The cat-girl shook her head. “No. I gave you a name. The translator knows when I say ‘Mel’ that it means you, so it translates that into your name for you. If you give me a name, it will do the same for me.”

  Mel looked perplexed. “Oh. Well, you’re like a cat. That’s a…” Mel was going to say “pet,”, but realized that might not go over well. “Uh, it’s an animal where I’m from. Very graceful and athletic. But you look angry a lot. I kind of already started calling you Angrycat.”

  A look of sadness fell over the cat-girl’s face. “Why do you think I’m angry?”

  Something happened then that Mel didn’t quite understand. There was a sudden realization that the look on the girl’s face wasn’t sadness, but confusion.

  “Wait,” Mel said. “I thought you looked sad, but there’s this weird thought in my head that you actually look confused.”

  The ape creature wriggled his head. “Impressive. High end translators help with body language as well as words. Kathor must be quite well off to afford that kind of technology. And there was talk of banning the implants a few years ago, although few people can afford it. It may take some time to fully embed into your brain.”

  Mel turned back to the cat-girl. “That expression you have, that looks like anger. What is that?”

  The cat-girl scowled. “You mean like this?”

  Mel laughed. The expression was a scowl, but she immediately understood that the girl was laughing. All of her expressions seemed to be backwards.