My Friend is an Alien (niklas and friends)

by Niklas Edlund

  "Where is Jahv?" asked Niklas.

  Suddenly a voice boomed from one of the secondary rooms. After the arrival of Morik and Arion, Jahv and Keyro had fabricated several smaller dome-tents so everyone could have their own quarters. "SHADDUP OUT THERE!" This was followed by a long moan. "Keyro, if we have to have visitors, will you PLEASE tell them to tread lightly on the floors and keep their voices down?"

  Niklas laughed. "Hangover?"

  "A whopper." giggled Keyro. "He'll probably be okay in a day or so, then he'll apologize. Meanwhile, he's not very good company."

  "I HEARD THAT!" yelled Jahv.

  "Go to sleep or I replicate my old percussion set!" shouted Keyro.

  "All right, all right!" replied Jahv. "Just tell them to knock off the loud breathing, okay?"

  "Where's Arion and Morik?" asked Davy.

  "Well, given how insufferable Jahv's become, Morik decided to go on an extended exploration of the woods, and Arion decided to check the holo-program of his homeworld. He's using what used to be the old shuttle hangar. I'm sure he wouldn't mind company." smirked Keyro, giving them directions.

  "Keyro!" yelled Jahv. "Do something! The bedsheets are rustling too loud!"

  "Replicate some antennae plugs!" said Keyro.

  "The replicator's too loud!" complained Jahv.

  "Come on, anything's better than this." said Niklas, leading the rest of the group to to the holoroom.

  The doorway opened to reveal Arion's homeworld of Korras. The boys found themselves perched at the mouth of a cave overlooking a huge precipice, and jagged mountains rising in the distance. Arion swooped over as soon as the door parted. "Welcome!" he said. "If you're looking for some peace and quiet from the whining going on out there, come on in."

  "But — it's so high!" squeaked Ricky.

  "But," said Arion, " the room will let you fly."

  "Fly?!" exclaimed Ricky.

  "You're kidding!" said Davy. He had long envied Arion's ability to fly. was it now possible for him, even just in here?

  "Absolutely!" said Arion. "I found a way to negate gravity in this area. Wasn't easy. I had hoped Morik might join me, but given Jahv's mood, he decided to get out of here entirely for a time."

  "Is this safe?" asked Niklas. It looked like an awful long drop. His mind told him that none of this was actually real. His eyes and his nerves were telling him something else entirely.

  "I gotta try this!" said Davy, dashing into the room and instantly going airborne. It was fortunate that the holoroom was soundproofed, because if it hadn't been, the delighted whoop Davy gave off as he seemingly soared through the sky probably would've pushed Jahv over the brink completely.

  "He's — flying!" said Ricky. "How is that possible!?"

  "I think you'll find, with these guys, there's a lot of things possible." said Niklas.

  Ricky grinned. He could believe that. His world had just gotten a lot more interesting. He spent the next hour flying, his spirit soaring as much as his body, through the (simulated, but who cares?) skies of an alien world, along with his friends.

  Part 9

  One day Keyro invited Martin to come out and play and explore the woods with him. Martin liked Keyro. The young alien seemed no older than Martin himself, but came across as so much smarter. And Martin, a generally timid boy, somehow felt safe in the company of the lavendar-skinned youngster, and was usually willing to go along with whatever adventure Keyro might concoct.

  Martin arrived on his bicycle outside of where he knew the aliens' tent-dome to be after a long and rather hot ride. Keyro stuck his head out of the invisible, cloaked tent — which made for a very strange image of Keyro's head seemingly floating in mid air — and grinned. "Martin! Good to see you."

  "Uh, yeah." said Martin, not sure whether to laugh or be slightly disturbed. "Mind if I see the rest of you?"

  Keyro suddenly realized what he must have looked like, and blushed. He stepped out of the tent the rest of the way. He was, of course, naked. "I thought we might explore these woods today." suggested Keyro. "You know, we've never really been beyond the mud hole. And according to my readings, it's a huge forest."

  Martin looked into the dense woods. "Well, okay, but I don't wanna get lost in there."

  Keyro giggled. "That's impossible. These antennae of mine are not just for hearing. They're directional locators. Sort of like a built-in compass. Botarans do not get lost."

  Martin smiled. "Well, okay, then. Let's go!"

  Keyro put up a hand. "You're not going in like that, are you?"

  Martin sighed. He knew what Keyro meant. Keyro was not entirely comfortable around clothed humanoids of his own age. Botaran children routinely went around naked unless they needing clothing for special protection. The only problem was that Keyro tended to be a little too insistent that other kids around him went naked, too. "Keyro, I don't really like being naked except when we're in the mud pool, and then it just makes sense. Do I have to?"

  Keyro thought about this. "Perhaps a compromise?"

  The ball was back in Martin's court. Martin had to admit to himself it was a hot day, and the woods would make it humid. "Undershorts and shoes. I don't wanna step on anything nasty in there in bare feet."

  Keyro just nodded, grinning slightly. "Agreed."

  Martin tried to pry his T-shirt off. But his hot and rather damp body from the bicycle ride made this a more difficult proposition than Martin had expected. His own arms — and part of his head — were soon tangled in a half-removed T-shirt. "Uh — help?" pleaded Martin.

  Keyro didn't quite stifle a laugh. "See, that's why I don't bother with those things. When I do have to wear something, that's what's always happening to me. Hold still. This is a good time for me to practice."

  "Practice what?" came the slightly muffled and suddenly rather alarmed voice of Martin. As he watched, for his eyes were still outside of the shirt collar, Keyro closed his eyes, and when they reopened, they were glowing bright blue. Martin had seen that once before, but only on Jahv, just as the boy had shot a lightning bolt. Martin felt a brief moment of panic, but this soon passed as he suddenly felt the T-shirt lifted from his upper body. He also felt his shorts get pulled down around his ankles, nearly pulling his underwear down with them. "Hey!" said Martin, momentarily indignant. Then he looked at Keyro again. The boy's eyes had returned to normal, but he looked exhausted. "Are you — how did you do that?" asked Martin.

  Keyro let out a tired breath. "Remember the telepathic anesthesia I did on you once, when you hurt your leg playing in the mud?" Martin nodded. "That wasn't a specific trick so much as the fact that my telepathic abilities are a lot higher than normal. All Botarans can do some things. Mostly it's the language absorption trick. I've been practicing to see if I can move objects with my mind. Your clothes are the largest items I've tried so far."

  "Well, it worked." said Martin, carefully stepping out of the shorts around his ankles, and admitting to himself that he didn't entirely understand everything Keyro had said. Every so often the boy sounded way too grown-up. "Can we stash these and my bike in your tent?"

  "Certainly." replied Keyro. With Martin's clothes and bike safely stashed away, the two youngsters headed off into the woods. It wasn't long before they came across one of their favorite places to play — the mud hole. Martin didn't really like getting dirty and grimy all that much, but the mud was fun, more like playing with wet clay — all over the place — and Keyro was also fun to hang around with, who for all of his seeming sophistication enjoyed playing in this earthy morass as much as anyone. Both looked somewhat longingly at the mud pool, but both soon realized they were on other business today. They continued beyond, and further into the woods.

  "I wonder if we'll come across any wildlife?" speculated Keyro. "I've made a rather thorough study of the names of many animals."

  "I hope not." said Martin, who wasn't too worried. He recalled that, not long after Jahv had first appeared, he, Davy, and Keith had taken the young alien to the local mall,
and had caused a decided ruckus in the pet store when the assorted tame animals didn't care the least bit for the scent of the young offworlder. This was why Martin had, sadly, never brought his dog Fix out to visit the aliens. He really wanted them to meet the little mutt someday, but he didn't want to see Fix go nuts the way the animals in the pet store had. As for wildlife, most of it tended to avoid people anyway. Martin imagined that probably went double for alien people.

  Indeed, they didn't seem to encounter much more than birds as they went further into the woods. The trees grew larger and were packed more densely than at the perimeter area the boys were used to. There was enough sunlight, though, to keep the area from looking creepy, which suited both of them, especially Martin, just fine.

  At one point they came across a sloping, grassy hill. Both boys tried to run down it, but both of them also slipped, rolling the rest of the way to the bottom and coming to a stop with grass and leaves in their hair and green streaks on their bodies. "For an accident," giggled Keyro, "that was kind of fun!"

  Martin smiled. "Yeah, I guess it was. But, boy, are we gonna need baths."

  Keyro giggled again. "You worry too much about that. We can clean up at the end of the day. Meanwhile, it's no big deal."

  They continued their exploration of the woods, mostly just wandering around, until Keyro spotted something out of the corner of his eye. "What's that?"

  "What's what?" asked Martin.

  "I see some sort of building over in the distance." stated Keyro. "Let's check it out."

  "Maybe we shouldn't." said Martin timidly. "Somebody might be there that doesn't like kids."

  Keyro peered more intently into the slight gloom of the shadows. "Place looks old, and abandoned. But we'll be careful. Come on."

  Both boys proceeded at a slower place. Finally Martin could see what Keyro's far more acute vision had picked out. It looked like a very old cabin, that could've been in the area for a century or more. As they got closer, it was apparent that while the structure was more or less sound, it had also been somewhat burned out. The heavy logs comprising the cabin were partially blackened, as were the stones which comprised a makeshift chimney. The shingles which made for a roof had several holes in them.

  "What do you think?" asked Keyro. Martin was surprised to be asked an opinion. But he took a careful look. There was no sign of recent activity. No furniture of any sort around. No graffitti indicating the presence of gangs. Martin thought it was pretty possible that he and Keyro were the first people to pass this way in a very long time. "I guess it's safe enough."

  The two boys approached the cabin and found the door. It was closed. The holes that existed for one-time windows were very small. "Somebody wanted privacy." said Keyro, walking up to the door. It opened easily. Martin stood several steps back, rather nervously. "I can't see anything." stated Keyro. "It's like it's totally dark inside. Just a few slight shafts of light from the holes in the roof, but they're not showing anything. But I don't smell anything except musty air and rotted wood. No one's been here for a very long time. Maybe we can poke around and find something interesting, some sort of artifact."

  "Well, okay." said Martin, not at all enthusiastic about it. "But let's find a way to prop the door open. Maybe we can see a little better in there."

  Keyro found a large rock nearby and propped the door open. "I don't know if this is going to help much." he said. "I mean, for seeing what we're doing. It looks completely dark in there."

  "I wonder what could cause that?" asked Martin, as both boys stepped through the doorway.

  And found that the floor of the cabin was about six inches lower than the ground outside. Both Martin and Keyro went sprawling, and landed surprisingly softly on what felt like two tons of dust. It gave both of the boys sneezing fits for the next several minutes. Martin's sounded normal enough. Keyro's sneezes sounded somewhere between a whistle and a quack, a sort of "whee-HONK!" sound.

  "Wow." wheezed Martin when he finally stopped sneezing. He felt weak from all of it. "Now I know why my mom tells me to dust every so often."

  "I'm not sure this is just dust." commented Keyro. "Smells burnt. And it's making my eyes itch."

  "I don't think we're gonna find anything in here." suggested Martin. "And I don't wanna trip like that again."

  "Agreed." said Keyro. "Let's get out of here."

  When they emerged, the two boys looked at each other with astonishment. Their bodies were heavily covered in streaks of grey and black. If it had been even slightly worse, it would've been impossible to discern any color on either boy. "Soot!" said Martin. "That wasn't dust, it was a big mess of soot and ash!"

  "Is it harmful?" asked Keyro.

  "Not really, I don't think." said Martin. "Just real dirty." He tried to brush himself off, but this just made matters worse.

  "We were sort of getting that way, anyway." remarked Keyro. "But why would stuff like that be in there?"

  "Maybe a fire, a long time ago." said Martin, trying to wipe some of the grime from his face, at least. "But left the outside of the building standing. Weird."

  "So are these woods, at times." said Keyro, also trying to wipe his face clean a bit. "Let's continue on for a while longer, then head back."

  Martin nodded. The two boys wandered away from the old rotted cabin and further into the woods, with Keyro in the lead. The next point of interest they discovered was a huge mound of dirt, with some weeds protruding from it at various points. "Odd place for a hill." said Keyro.

  "Looks like somebody dumped this dirt pile here and then forgot about it." said Martin. "Race ya to the top of it!"

  The dirt of the hill turned out to be fairly loose, and slightly wet from either a recent rainfall or just the local humidity, and the boys' arms and legs sank in as they climbed. By the time they reached the top, they were not only covered with soot and streaked with grass, but had a fair amount of dirt on their arms, lower legs, and chests. Keyro won the race, but not by much. Additional strength doesn't do a whole lot of good when the surface you're racing on is that unstable.

  "If we get much dirtier than this, no one's going to know it's us!" said Martin.

  "Maybe that should be our objective!" exclaimed Keyro. "I mean, not so they don't recognize us. I think that'd be impossible." Keyro twitched his two antennae as examples. "But I wonder how dirty we can get before we head back and jump in the mud to finish it off?"

  "You're weird." giggled Martin.

  "But you like the idea?" asked Keyro.

  "I don't know how much worse we can get, but I guess at this point it don't make much difference." replied Martin.

  "'Worse'?!" protested Keyro, raising an arm in the air in an exaggerated fashion. "No, Martin, you don't understand! We are a culture unto ourselves today! A culture of two, for whom getting dirty is the desired objective! This isn't wrong, or bad. This is good! This is beauty!"

  "You been drinkin' orange juice or something?" asked Martin, trying not to laugh.

  Keyro pretended to be insulted, but ultimately shrugged and grinned. "Well, I thought it sounded good." The two boys tried to slide down the hill, ended up tumbling a bit, and wound up at the bottom in a cloud of dust. After a bit of coughing to clear their throats, they picked themselves up, Keyro having to prevent Martin from instinctively trying to brush himself off, and they continued further into the forest.

  At one point, exploring some tall grasses in the woods, Keyro put up his hand. "Wildlife!" he whispered.

  Martin gulped. That could mean anything from a chipmunk to a bear. "What is it?"

  "A member of the ophidia family." replied Keyro.

  "A what?!" exclaimed Martin, wondering not for the first time if Keyro was really as close in age to himself as he actually looked. The way Keyro spoke sometimes, it was very hard to know for certain.

  "A member of the ophidia family." said Keyro again. "In this case it is one of the limbless specimens of…

  "Let me see." said Martin. He had no idea what Keyro was talk
ing about. He'd never heard of an «ophidia». He edged around Keyro and looked about twelve paces further along, and saw the animal Keyro was talking about.

  It was, in plain language, a snake. A large one, at that.

  And Keyro was clearly clueless about it.

  Martin nearly wet his underpants. He didn't know if this thing was poisonous or not, and didn't intend to hang around long enough to find out. "Keyro?" Martin squeaked.

  "Yes?" asked Keyro.

  "RUN!" cried Martin, turning around and taking off at full speed, barely looking over his shoulder long enough to see if Keyro was following. He was. After a few minutes, the two boys stopped. "That was a snake!" said Martin.

  "That is the standard term, yes." agreed Keyro.

  "Some of them are dangerous!" said Martin. "And they're all creepy."

  Keyro blinked. "I didn't know some of them were dangerous. I haven't gotten that far in my reading yet. Was that one dangerous?"

  "I don't know." said Martin. "An' I don't care."

  The two boys slumped to the ground, Martin leaning up against a tree. "Keyro, how can you sound like you're so smart, act like you know so much, and then something like that happens?"

  "I'm still fairly new to this world." replied Keyro. "And there's a lot of animals on this planet."

  Martin sighed, and stood. "I gotta pee. I'll be right back."

  "Plenty of bushes around here." commented Keyro. "It's not as though I'll be offended."

  Martin just shrugged. Inwardly, he didn't really want to separate from Keyro. The forest seemed to be getting thicker. So he turned his back on Keyro, lowered his shorts, and aimed at the nearest bush. He could also hear Keyro stifling a giggle. "What's so funny?" said Martin once he had finished.

  "A very dirty you compared to a very clean butt." replied Keyro. "You sure you want to keep wearing those shorts?"

  "Yes, and stop lookin' at my butt." replied Martin.

  "Well, sorry, but the sun's glare off it was a little too much to ignore." giggled Keyro.