Do you think I’m kidding? There he was, talking to this seven-foot hologram of a dude who had these huge, spherical black eyes. The giant gray had a broad forehead sitting afloat of this very skinny body.
“Michael, c’mon down for breakfast, honey! Time to eat!”
Breakfast. Humph. Yes, we still eat breakfast in our family. Actually, we still eat all meals in our family. But it’s not common or necessary. Why? Pills. That’s right! Red ones, green ones, and orange ones. Yes, they come in all sizes and shapes. Why? Because our food sources are running out. Only wealthy people seem to have an ample supply of it. Do you really think we have the space to grow enough food for a world with over twenty-seven billion people? C’mon, guys; think! Pills seem to work; just ask the people who colonized Mars and our schizophrenic moon. Why schizophrenic? Well, that’s another secret that probably isn’t a secret; Big Ben told me once that the moon is hollow and that little cone-shaped people live inside. They live in self-sustaining biospheres. Frigid, right?
I remove my Cary and the Cyborgs T-shirt, replacing it with my favorite pullover—the one with the logo for Harry’s Humanoids on the front. Nothing better than a cyborg-humanoid crunch-fighting in my bedroom; that will get your adrenaline up! In case you’re interested, crunches are kinda like ancient professional wrestling fights. People are still stupid; that hasn’t changed.
So fantasy is still in. Are you kidding? Reality is full of things like severe air pollution and an atmosphere that is quickly deteriorating. X-rays have shown that sulphation processes have led to prism formations. Translation? Well, I’ve gotta use another big word: Ettriingite has set in. Real translation: if we don’t clean it up soon, we’re goners. How ’bout that for truth?
But there’s still something worse. There’s a hazy scent—or cloud, if you will—of secrets going on in the Eisenstein house. I’ve known about my parents’ little puzzles for a while. Is there a better word? You know, like “conundrums” or possibly “riddles”? Actually, I prefer the precise word: “lies.”
More truth? I have an illness called ancestral mutational syndrome. Yeah, and it’s not good. The other term for my illness is genocidal psychosis. It’s kinda like being bipolar, an ancient illness, on steroids. That’s right. It means that generations and generations of my descendants’ involvement in mass serial killings has led to my particular scalding (really bad) condition. That’s why I try to stay up as much as I can. The alternative is severe depression and, well, you guessed it—suicide.
Are you still there? Hey, it’s okay. I’m feeling good today.
I begin petting Terby. I do that a lot when I’m feeling a little uncomfortable; some may call it paranoid. You see, the man I call Daddy leads a double life, and his covert deception has layers; one depraved layer lies over another. One shameful lie hides atop another until “father knows best” can’t tell the difference anymore. He knows things that no one should know. Apparently that’s my legacy—the Eisenstein legacy. Some people grow up with cartoons or kids’ fairy tales. Me? I exist in a twilight zone world, subsisting somewhere between my father’s fake humanitarian image and, well, bullshit.
Really? One violent act at a time. One weapon of mass destruction at a time. One massive explosion leading to the demise of a city, a country, or a continent. What’s next—An entire planet? Yes, I believe so. My father is like delicious whipped cream on top of a poisonous piece of pie. You always want to taste it, but in the end it will kill you.
“What kind of secrets?” you ask?
“Terby!” I utter, petting her gently.
Let’s see, are they political? Are they about these darned ETs? Or, here’s the kicker, is there something far worse? I vote for far worse and far more lethal.
“Anyway, Terby, answer me this, what does Benjamin Eisenstein know about rogue ETs absconding from the remote city?
Terby whimpers.
“Damn, even my computer is covering up!”
“There is no available information on the subject,” Terby spits out.
“Bullshit,” I say under my breath. You see, I’m no dummy. It’s true that I have memorized almost three hundred scientific and mathematical formulas dealing with important subjects like fusion, teleportation, basic gravity, and even earth’s magnetism. But something is very wrong this morning. I sensed it the minute I opened my eyes. By the way, I have a bad habit of perseverating. I keep saying this weird phrase over and over again in my head: “Puzzles and pieces and puzzles and pieces.” Welcome to my world!
“Hurry up, Michael, your grasshopper toast is getting cold!”
“Hey! Don’t get your pantaloons out of joint!” I say under my breath. To tell you the truth, grasshopper toast is yummy. By the way, I have this great T-shirt that simply reads, “Humans bite back!” Monica puts a healthy dose of cinnamon on my toast, mixed with sensory enhancement ingredients, such as flavorants and something called umami. Yum!
“All right, boy, I love my mom, but chill, right?” By the way, good ole Monica has many gifts, okay? She’s what some people refer to as right-brained. Basically this means that she can’t remember anything. When she speaks, her voice is like an angel’s—you know, like, really melodic. When she picks up a piece of charcoal, only conceptual masterpieces ensue. In short, she lives in her own cloudy, perhaps even foggy, surrealistic perception of the world. It’s a world of beauty and artistry. Yes, she is married to an Eisenstein, and that is wretched more than it is tragic, isn’t it? Wow, I just made myself a little sad. Let’s move on.
You see, we lived in a beach house on Las Tunas Beach. I say lived because about seven years ago, when I was a little boy of four, Malibu began to break off from the rest of California, and to make a long story short; we now live on an island. “Frigid, huh? Maybe.”
“Hurry up; your father wants to talk to you before he goes to work.” Monica urges. Why Monica? I always thought that the M stood for “madness.” And, well, the “onica” kind of rhymes with a song composed by an ancient comedian known as Adam Sandler. Honestly, if you get it, you get it. By the way, my mom considers herself an aficionado on ancient cultures; that’s sorta why I know this stuff. References to ancient culture have now become part of my own vernacular. Deal with it!
Anyway, my mom reaches into the cupboard, taking out a pill labeled “mind laughter.” Actually, I misspoke; Monica uses a treatment called optical cavity light energy (OCLE), which basically excites electrons into stimulating higher-energy emotional states; that’s the good news. The bad news is that it wears off in around three hours.
You see, Monica is also another kind of schizophrenic; she vacillates between the perfect mom and wife, and a closet philosophical worrier. After all, she’s married to the real Unabomber, except he’s a massive anabolic serial murderer. Okay, you’re certainly entitled to an explanation on that one. You see, Benjamin, along with the rest of the Eisenstein clan, figures out ways to keep our country strong. Translation? He blows shit up. In case you’re interested, this is the family business. It’s kind of like the Mafia, except we’re a lot more lethal—and scary. Just think; I’m living under the roof of the biggest serial killer in history—daddy.
Monica opens the curtains. She doesn’t particularly like what she sees. There they are; the little dudes are making their mad exodus! Those crazy little cone-headed mind stealers are now swarming like a flock of spooked large-eyed birds. You may be wondering what I’m talking about. Well, remember we’re like 363 years into the future. Aliens aren’t exactly common here either, but we’re not in denial; like, the spooky little guys exist. Trust me!
“Seriously,” you say? Please. It’s possible they’ve existed for billions of years, perhaps on billions of planets. “What the F [family]?” you say. My answer to you is “Grow up!” ET phone home? Hey, are you kidding? C’mon, everyone, we’ve got problems! Little planet—little problems. Big universe—big problems! Capiche?
&
nbsp; I hear the tinny, urgent sound of my phone. I pick it up.
“Ben, is that you?” The woman’s voice is like an angel’s. It’s so beautiful that I feel like my spirit has been lifted up to the heavens. A woman’s face snap tit-tats on the screen. It’s a snap tat, because things in life go rat-a-tat-tat… just like a snap tat. “Oh my God!” I hear in a trembling, unnerved voice. The picture disappears.
Ben’s paranoid eyes focus on his supposed target like an intense sniper; he concentrates on where he last placed his phone. He takes a deep breath, glancing quickly at my mother.
“Puzzles and pieces and puzzles and pieces” echoes menacingly in my head.
“Can I have my phone back?” Dad says, his voice shaking just a little bit. I notice that my mom is staring out the window, pretending not to notice what just happened. A sick, moldy lump of disgrace clogs my queasy stomach with unwanted, perverse adrenalin. Do you know what sucks? Pretending that nothing happened when, in fact, that nothing is shaking our family to the core.
“Harmless picture,” I whisper under my breath. I forgot to tell you that I got a pretty good look at it.
My dad stares at his phone. “It’s nobody—just a wrong number,” he utters.
I notice a small tear forming in my mother’s eye.
CHAPTER 2
May 28, 2378
9:16 a.m.
I wake up to a small box mounted directly over my head. Infrared sensors are streaming into my eyeballs, beaming something called intense light and remote sound sources to my brain. Some people like hearing the sounds of the ocean—you know, like the tide coming in softly. But I’m an ancient rocker enthusiast. I know; I’m weird. Instead I hear the melodic sounds of “Life on Mars,” a great selection by the ancient David Bowie. “Yeah, life is just ornate, which means really frigid,” I whisper to myself.
Well anyway—how’s that for a segue?—the government has been covering up something huge for the last three hundred years. Can I let you in on a little secret? Some of the ETs aren’t exactly peaceful. They have an angle. Doesn’t everyone have an angle? And let me tell you something else: they’ve been watching us! Even scarier, I think, are those dudes are watching this house. They’re studying us, evaluating us, and softening us for the kill.
Can you imagine it, though? A real species of people—well, let’s call them people—have been living right underneath our noses. I mean, like, our little island, maybe even our house, probably floats right over them! So what happens? The government is acting like it doesn’t know.
Okay, but guess who knows? Three guesses.
I mean, all of a sudden those diminutive dudes are buzzing out of here, just because! I have another shirt that simply says, “Super Saucers!” That one is kind of lame though. Couldn’t those marketing geniuses come up with something better? I’ll bet those moronic morphodites are even going to develop ET robots. Do you want to know what T-shirts I’d market? After all, ETs probably have been literally scoping yours truly my entire life. Do you want to know another secret? I’ve seen ’em. Not like actually seen them, but I’ve felt their image in my brain. You know what I mean—with the sensors that have been uploaded in my prefrontal cortex. Every once in a while, an image of one of these cone jobs pops into my head. At first I thought I was hallucinating. Now? I don’t think so. I’d come out with a T-shirt that says, “outre paranoia.”
I kinda should tell you guys something else. It has to do with my early childhood venture into inner and outer space. “Come here, Terby.” Sometimes I have the compulsive need to pet her.
“Michael, what’s taking so long?” Mom bellows. I love my mom, but she had this thing about me eating a really good breakfast. Besides, as I look back, I realize she must have had a few things on her mind.
I throw on my Purple Power shirt, which shows support for equality for artificial intelligence. I slowly approach the dreaded winding railing. I kick one leg over the top, hurdling onto the unsuspecting wood, nearly killing myself as I fly down the oak bannister, falling abruptly onto my butt; I arrive unexpectedly on the first-floor landing, narrowly missing my dad. Honestly, he looks pissed. I wipe a small rivulet of blood from my scarred mouth.
My father, Big Ben, appears somewhat startled as he avoids the impact by acrobatically jumping over me, maneuvering into a side roll on his shoulder, and nearly knocking over my mom.
“Eisenstein Big Bang!” I scream.
“What in the world has gotten in to you, Michael? You nearly killed your father!”
“Oh, lay off the boy. He’s just spirited; that’s all!” Benjamin retorts, appearing just a little bit disoriented.
I walk over to my father, reaching out with one hand, helping him up, while my mother shakes her head in amazement; then she stares out the window.
“Dear God,” she mutters.
You see, my dad, Benjamin, loves spirit and resolve at any cost, not to mention risk-taking. Mom always said that her husband’s playfulness and creativity were what paid the bills. If she only knew, I muse.
“Imagination is more than just knowledge,” my dad rattles off. “The boy has spirit!”
Okay, good. After all, if you’re a teenager like me, you’ll take whatever support you can get! Besides, my dad won’t stay very long this morning anyway; he never does! Where does he go? Remember the old Bob Seager tune “2 + 2 = ?” There’s your answer. Only the shadows know.
“Your boy needs to sit down and have breakfast! Ben, what is going on with these ETs anyway? Do we need to worry?”
My father shakes his head as if the sound of my mother’s voice was about as meaningful as his twice-heated coffee. Both were bitter.
I recoil. “Sorry, Pops! I didn’t mean it!”
Benjamin brushes off the dust from rolling around on the floor. He forces a smile. “We do have precedence for the ETs, you know.”
“Precedence for what? Aliens flying unwanted in our skies?” My mom’s face morphs cold. I shudder. I’ve seen this act before. With each hostile exchange, my so-called perfect parents look like two people moving into their own separate worlds, kinda like an artist-poet being thrust into the boxing ring with a mass murderer. Who do you think is going to win?
“Precedence? What kind of precedence can we possibly have for extraterrestrial life living right underneath us? It sounds pretty unprecedented to me!” Monica says sharply.
“To the best of my knowledge, we’ve disrupted their surroundings and they’re headed north to wherever they came from.” Ben responds, banging his coffee on the table.
Wherever they came from? P-l-e-a-s-e, I muse. It’s my guess that good ole Benjamin knows exactly where they came from. Actually, it wouldn’t shock me if the ETs were taking orders from him. Who knows?
By the way, my code name for my dad is Messa. Why Messa? It’s a Latin word that has been lost over the years that means “lying bastard.” Sorry. I don’t want you to think I’m a bad kid; just remember the words “puzzles and pieces.” Keep saying them over and over in your head, and you might begin to understand me.
Monica shakes her head. She once confided in me that only about 20 percent of what came out of Big Ben’s mouth was true. She flips our insect-protein eggs. I watch the grease splash sloppily on her apron. I stare over at my befuddled mom. I didn’t like it, when she got really, really serious. It wasn’t like her.
Have you ever listened to lyrics but couldn’t really place the lyricist? The words “Come to my tummy, oh so very yummy… Crack! Crack! Crack!” kept replaying in my head. I think it was just called “The I Love Eggs Song.” But I’m not sure. I have a T-shirt that simply proclaims “Egglectic.”
“Do these extraterrestrials have names?” I interject. “I mean, why do we talk about them like they’re some sort of mutant species?” Terby tells me that they’re genetic makeup is pretty close to our own.”
“Michael’s got a point,
Monica. For all we know, our neighbors—you know, Phil and Marianne—maybe they’re from another planet!”
Mom flashes a stern, well-calculated facial expression toward my dad. “Ya know, Ben, whenever you speak condescendingly to me, it’s always one of your so-called well-intentioned lies.”
“Monica, the government has known about them for years! Well, let me amend that; certain people have known about these entities for years.”
“Like you?” I theorize. I glance at Terby. Did you know that even computerized dogs can smile—wickedly? Wanna hear something weird? Terby is one of a robot class referred to as a CT droid. “CT” stands for “conscious thinker.” You see, I don’t just ask Terby to solve certain problems for me. Actually, Terby’s intelligence exceeds mine; ironically, she can think for herself. If you want to know the truth, Terby predicted the flight of the ETs was going to happen two weeks ago!
I remember asking him how he did that. His response was “Intuition.”
Monica’s face looks like a lethal weapon shooting daggers into Ben’s heart. “What about you? Haven’t you known? And if you did, why didn’t you say anything?”
My dad glances over at me, winking. “Because I’m a scientist, not a colonel!” he bellows. “Besides, they’ve probably been in their biosphere under the ocean for a long time. They haven’t hurt anyone yet, have they?”
My father is one of those people who fears nothing. Do you want to know something else? The so-called men in black—yes, they do exist—they’ve visited our house frequently. Yeah, they’re scary. How do I know? I’ve seen these dudes, right in my kitchen; they’re big guys who wear black fedoras, with chiseled, stoic faces and low, murmuring voices. Yeah, they’re the men in black, all right. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that if you pulled away their faces, all you’d find is wires and nanochips.
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