by Korey Troyer
Tyler curled up on his Batman sheets and covered himself with his blanket. As he slowly ebbed into slumber, he recalled the events of the day, especially how well he had played baseball! He smiled and finally drifted off to sleep.
‘Ring ring! Ring ring! Hey Mater!’ shouted Tyler’s Lightning McQueen toy cell phone from the other side of the room.
“What the…?” Tyler was jolted wide-awake.
He slid out of bed and stumbled across his bedroom to the desk where he picked up the phone and attempted to quiet the noise. The switch was already in the ‘off’ position! Tyler turned the toy over several times as he fumbled to stop the ringing, but no luck. As a last resort, he flipped open the handset and answered the toy phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi Tyler. It’s Ethan,” said the voice on the other end. “I didn’t want to startle you so I thought I’d give you a ring before I arrived.”
Tyler rubbed his eyes with his right hand while still holding the phone to his ear as Ethan explained. “Arrive? What do you mean, arrive?” he asked, yawning. “It’s really late and my Mom and Dad would get upset.”
“Tyler, do you recall my story of a secret mission? Do you find it odd that I appeared nearly everywhere? Remember I told you I was not from here? Tyler, Ganrea is not a country, Ganrea is a planet on the other side of the galaxy. We need your help. Now stand still, Tyler. I’ll be arriving shortly.”
Tyler stood frozen in the dull glow of nightlight s and focused on a purple blurry spot that appeared in the middle of his room. A couple inches in diameter, the blob rotated in a clockwise spiral. It grew and grew, swirled and swirled until it snapped to a stop, vibrating feverishly for only a second or two.
As if a balloon had popped, the purple swirling blur cleared revealing an outline of a giant soap bubble. A piercing beam of white light shot through a pinhole at the top. The reflection off the ceiling lit the room with a heavenly lucent haze. The pin of light began to zipper down toward the bottom. As the opening widened, a blaze burst out and then dimmed to a warm glow. Out of the aurora stepped Ethan, standing almost nose-to-nose with Tyler.
“What’s up Tyler?” Ethan said with a smile.
The bubble behind Ethan dissolved, collapsed onto itself and ‘poof’ – disappeared. The same blurry fog he'd seen from the restroom at the science museum lingered for a moment. Ethan backed one step away from Tyler to give him some space.
“Ethan! That was awesome!” shouted Tyler. He slapped his hand over his mouth realizing yelling would wake the entire house.
“Don’t worry Tyler, no one can hear you,” Ethan chuckled. “I placed a force field around the room. I know this sounds like stupid nonsense but Ganrea needs you.”
Tyler should have been scared beyond belief, for some reason he trusted Ethan. “Why would your planet need my help? I’m just a kid from Earth,” Tyler asked.
“You’re not just a kid from Earth,” Ethan explained. “You’re special. On Ganrea, you’re powers will be wickedly cool.”
“Like Superman?”
Ethan paused as if accessing information from somewhere else, blinked and continued his message. “Oh yeah, kind of, but not in the way that you think. You have the right mix of talents that can help stop interplanetary war.”
Tyler sputtered out a flustered, “Wha?!” as Ethan continued without missing a beat.
“Although Ganrea has mastered time and space, we have lost something over thousands of years of progress. Only a tiny amount of imagination is left on my planet. Imagination is the spark that catapults primitive worlds into advanced civilizations. Without imagination we can’t evolve.
“Sadly, once the technology reaches a certain level, creativity washes away. We’ve lost our dreamers because all our dreams come true. Ingenuity dissolves under the weight of an advancement. So we had to search beyond Ganrea and stumbled upon Earth. We discovered imagination is something Earth boys and girls have in abundance. But out of all the kids on Earth, you are the only one with the special combination of gifts that we need.”
Tyler had not moved from in front of his desk. He still held the Lightning McQueen phone pressed against his ear. Ethan reached out and put his hand on Tyler’s shoulder.
“Tyler, you’re okay. This is all real. You are not dreaming. Don’t you want to be a galactic secret agent?”
Tyler slowly lowered the phone, smiled shyly nodded.
“Awesome!” shouted Ethan.
Tyler dug down deep. Overwhelmed with a combination of pride and bravery, he puffed out his chest. “What do you need me to do?” he asked with super-hero bravado.
“Come with me to Ganrea to end a blockade.”
“But if I leave, my parents may think I ran away or worse!”
“As your great scientist Einstein once said, time is an illusion. We can leave for what seems to be weeks. But when you return, only a few minutes on Earth will have passed. We have mastered time and space. I promise, your Mom and Dad will not know you left. Trust me, you are in very good hands.”
“Are you a boy like me? Tyler asked. “Are you six or seven years old? Or are you a big kid, maybe ten or even eleven?”
“On Ganrea we mature differently,” Ethan laughed. “Although I appear to be about your age, I’m actually twenty-five in Earth years. If I were six on my planet, I’d be wearing a diaper.”
“How come you came to get me and not a grown up?” Tyler inquired.
“Well, my father is the leader of our planet,” Ethan proclaimed with pride. “He is the president. His name is Silhee Inglischkenigat, which translates to Arthur in your language. My Dad sent me because you’d be more likely to talk to a kid rather than an adult. Besides, the men on Ganrea grow over seven feet tall. Can you imagine a man over a foot taller than your Dad trying to blend in?”
“Yeah, he would have scared me,” Tyler chuckled. “I’m glad they sent you, Ethan. But I have more questions. Do you all speak English?”
“No,” Ethan explained. “I use a something which interprets any language being spoken nearby. The translator is a part of a device called a Hungadunga. The device has many capabilities, even manipulating appearances.”
“What do you mean Ethan? You’re able to change how you look?”
“Yep,” Ethan replied. “Here, take this Hungadunga. You’ll need it when we get to Ganrea.”
He handed Tyler what appeared to be a polished river rock, but was no ordinary river rock. The stone was so black that only the edge was visible. The dark patina absorbed into itself.
Tyler took the Hungadunga into his hand and felt deep warmth. The rock seemed heavy and dense, yet light as a feather at the same time. Such a strange sensation, being both light and heavy at once, thought Tyler.
In a flash, Ethan appeared much different than the boy who had been there a moment earlier. He still had two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, two ears, two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but his outfit outfit was one continuous emerald green suit. Not one seam or zipper anywhere on the garment.
The boy standing in front of him had all the parts in the right places, but he appeared peculiar. Ethan’s skin had turned a bright burnt orange color. Thick dark blue hair covered his scalp. He had no eyebrows or lashes. His eyes are big and round, but his eyeballs were vertical almond shaped and metal flake purple! His nose and mouth had the same straight shape as before, but he had dozens of baby-like teeth. Overall, Ethan’s true appearance was strange yet handsome.
“Cool Ethan! Awesome!”
“You’re not freaked out?”
“No, not at all.” .
“You know, with your Hungadunga you can change my appearance to anything you wish, as long as the shape is the same size as me. For example, you couldn’t change me into a school bus. But you could transform me into a chimpan
zee.”
“Hmm” Tyler said, “A chimp on a skate board would be cool.”
And without a blur or glitch, Ethan turned into a monkey on a skateboard! Tyler burst out laughing. Ethan’s appearance began to switch like TV stations to a channel surfer. Click, click, click, Ethan changed into one thing after another. Ethan quickly snapped into Spiderman, then Batman, then (for some reason) Little Bo Peep, then Anakin Skywalker. He then clicked through almost every one of Tyler’s favorite cartoon characters.
Tyler stopped when he got to Harry Potter. Not that he preferred Harry Potter over any of the other characters but because Tyler had dropped to the floor curled up in laughter. “Ha, ha, ha, ha Ethan! Please stop!” yelled Tyler. Ethan looked down at Tyler while still in his full Hogwarts uniform.
“Tyler it’s you who must stop. You have the Hungadunga. You are making this happen. Please change me back!”
With that one request, Tyler thought of the real Ethan and before him stood his new orange friend.
“Only someone with mad skills can take over the appearance of another person like you just did. It takes a ton of effort and concentration for an experienced grown up to have that much control. A Ganrean trains for years to accomplish what you pulled off. The most changes ever recorded in one sitting were three, which took hours. You did a dozen in seconds! I hoped you had the gift when I handed you the Hungadunga. Our intuition is confirmed, you have an extraordinary imagination. That is why we need your help,” explained Ethan.
“Ganrea is about to be attacked by another planet called Unu,” he continued. “We have the technology and power to destroy Unu rather easily. However, we have values and can’t harm them unless they attack us. Your special abilities may save us from destroying the Unu people.”
“What next?” asked Tyler.
“We should get going. Everything will be explained on the way.”
“Okay, but I need to get ready and pack a bag first,” Tyler said as he rubbed his chin in thought.
Tyler walked down the hallway to the bathroom to brush his teeth, wash his face and comb his hair. He had calmness and focus like a soldier preparing for a mission. As Tyler packed, Ethan told the story of the Unu.
The Unu once had a rich culture with art, music, technology and manufacturing. To this day ancient Unu music is considered to be among some of the best compositions in the galaxy. Their craftsmanship in goods and services was unmatched. Unu products had been in high demand.
Over time Unu effort and enthusiasm dwindled yet their pride soared. Generation after generation did less and less. Unu finally hit a breaking point when they virtually did nothing, but still commanded the highest fees in the galaxy. After many centuries they stopped creating art, music, products or offering any services. Planets eventually paid Unu simply out of tradition and entitlement.
After thousands of years, other planets still paid the population of Unu to do virtually nothing. The last known item the Unu sold happened to be a piece of cloth the size of a napkin. The fee Unu asked for the little napkin could buy a fleet of space ships and small vacation planet with a silly slide!
The rest of the galaxy finally woke up and turned their backs to Unu. The people of Unu grew into a very loud, brash and arrogant society. The entire planet’s economy focused on doing as little as possible for as much money as possible. Since the Unu became completely unmotivated, they no longer knew how to do anything. No art, no music, no industry, no technology...absolutely nothing. The Unu were the most overpaid lazy beings in the history of the universe. The Unu people descended into panic.
Out of the chaos rose a leader, Stankibakzide, the supreme commander of the Unu military. Stankibakzide had all kinds of weapons, sleek space ships, shiny robots along with snappy looking uniforms. So, Stanibakzide proposed the Unu find a weaker planet and merely take what they needed by force if necessary. Such aggression had not been seen in the civilized galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years.
The first planet consumed by Unu was called Nodomag. It was a small planet which had advanced technology but, as planets go, they pretty much kept to themselves. Nodomag never knew what hit them until it was too late.
The initial campaign was quite brilliant because it wasn’t an attack at all. Unu sent in agents to begin telling the citizens how they were under-appreciated. The Unu told the Nodomag people that they would assist them in revolting against their own leadership.
After a rigged election, a majority appeared to have voted for the Unu to help 'free' them. Once the Unu gained control of the Nodomaganian defenses, all the Nodomag people could do was submit. Over the next one hundred fifty years, Unu robbed Nodomag dry until nothing left but a desert planet.
Although the Unu are extremely lazy, they are clever. Unu’s new economy traded on unrest and agitation. Unu trained thousands of agents the art of being annoying. Their agents arrive on a planet, start causing trouble and the governments begin to give the Unu whatever possible to make them go away. Unu never had to fire a shot. Planets began paying the Unu to leave them alone, so the Unu became wealthy by scaring many, many, many planets.
Tyler returned to his bedroom, grabbed his Transformer’s backpack and packed a couple changes of clothes along with his toothbrush and toothpaste.
Ethan gestured toward the glowing doorway in the middle of Tyler’s room and said, “Come on Tyler, the adventure begins.”