Kev

by Mark A Labbe

  “So have you. I’ve missed you.”

  She smiled an ancient smile, something you would never expect to see on a seventeen year old’s face, or on anyone’s face, for that matter. In that instant I realized I had peeked into infinity, and knew I was in the presence of much more than a girl.

  “Are you going to give me a kiss?” she said.

  I kissed her on the cheek and she turned her head and gave me a more proper kiss. “I’m happy you remembered me this time,” she said.

  “There were times when I prayed I could forget you like I forget everything else, but I’m happy I didn’t.”

  “Do you want to go somewhere?” she said.

  “No, not really,” I said. “Maybe we can just sit on the bench.”

  I led her to the bench where we sat for hours, and in those hours I felt like time had stopped, a static universe surrounding us. We talked about countless things, about her life and adventures, about what little of my life I could remember, about the universe and all of the strange places that existed within it, and about our love for each other.

  “I have to go now,” she said.

  “When will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know, Kev. You are becoming more difficult to track. You have to stop using that black cube all the time.”

  “What are you talking about?” I knew I had the black cube, and that it was in my pocket at that very moment, but I had no memories of ever using it for anything.

  “I can’t tell you. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Please tell me what you are talking about.”

  “I’ll tell you this. The more you use it, the more your memories will be messed up. Time lag. Also, it is much more difficult for me to find you when you use it, so don’t use it.”

  I pulled out the black cube and looked at it. The date on the cube was 2013. I pushed the button once and let go, and said, “It doesn’t do anything.”

  “Trust me, it does,” she said.

  “Why can’t you tell me?”

  “Rules are rules, Kev. Anyway, you’ll figure it out.”

  She gave me a kiss and then disappeared.

  I looked down at the black cube and pressed the button on the cube again, this time holding it down for a second. The date went from 2013 to 2012. I looked around and noticed that things appeared to have changed, but in what way I was not sure. I pressed the button twice and held it for a second and the date went up by one.

  Out of curiosity, I again pressed the button twice and held it, but this time until the number climbed to 3237 and stopped. Around me, the world had changed, although the park itself had not changed. Surrounding the park I now saw an immense city. In the sky above, I saw flying cars. In the park, I saw many people and some aliens. Nobody paid me any attention.

  I forgot what I had done, forgot about the girl and her warning, and forgot who I was. I looked at the cube again, and out of curiosity, I pressed the button once and held it until the number dropped to 2013. Things returned to normal, although, at that point, I did not remember them being anything other than normal.

  I had a habit of using the black cube this way, of taking myself back and forth in time, a kind of tick, something I didn’t realize I did. I had done this many times, but always forgot I had done it.

  A minute later, I remembered who I was and I remembered Uncle Joe and thought it might be a good time to go fly planes with him, so I returned to his farm.

  Pnukes

  Clive and I decided to go to college together, settling on MIT. We both chose computer science and electrical engineering as our major.

  I liked MIT, and really enjoyed living in Boston, and Clive felt the same way, but for some reason we both felt stifled. Still, we stuck to it, thinking we would be more engaged when we started taking higher-level classes.

  In that time, Clive only mentioned the girl once, asking me if I remembered the time she took us to other planets. I had no idea what he was talking about and he said he might have imagined it, dropping the subject. I immediately forgot he ever brought it up.

  At the end of our second year, we decided to drop out and continue our studies on our own. Clive’s said his parents didn’t really mind, and were happy to support him, provided he showed that he was working toward something that would get him a job. Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen wanted me to get my degree, but didn’t put up much of a fight. I had plenty of money from my father’s life insurance policy and the sale of my home, so there was no question about me being able to support myself.

  Clive and I moved to a sleepy town in Vermont, five miles from the Canadian border, buying a nice four bedroom house near the center of town, a town that had very little other than a small market, a bar, an inn, and a gas station. I took one of the spare bedrooms and turned it into a workshop. Clive turned the other spare bedroom into a library and study. We both agreed we had found the perfect place to figure out what we wanted to do.

  I had developed a strong interest in signal processing and communication devices while at MIT. Further, I had developed an interest in signals that could travel faster than light, something most thought impossible.

  I set out to build a device that could send faster than light signals to any point in the universe. For some unknown reason, I had a strong desire to make contact with alien life. Of course, I know now what motivated me, but at the time, I just wanted to see if there was anybody out there.

  Clive and I settled in to our new lives, each of us spending much of our time on our own projects. We didn’t play The Show anymore, Clive telling me he already knew everything he needed to know.

  Six months after we moved in, Canadian extremists killed Clive's father while he was visiting Atlanta.

  Canadian extremism had been a fairly recent phenomenon, Canadian terrorists attacking targets across the globe, but mostly in the United States. Nobody really understood what had pissed off the Canadians, their transition from a peace loving, open society into a belligerent, brooding one happening sometime around the time Clive and I started at Baker.

  The first documented act of terrorism committed by the Canadians was the simultaneous destruction of a number of sugar cane plantations down in Florida. Those responsible were captured. They claimed the only true sweetener that should be used was maple syrup, an odd twist on terrorism.

  After that there were several attacks on corn syrup manufacturers. Many were killed in these attacks, and the Canadians who were captured all repeated the same thing, that the only true sweetener that should be used was maple syrup.

  After that, the Canadians started attacking other targets, now not limiting themselves to targets in the United States. Places where sugar cane was grown were hardest hit. Those places included Brazil, India, China, Mexico, Australia, Thailand, and Pakistan, all major sugar cane producers.

  Despite the attacks, the sugar industry was able to stay afloat, having put security measures in place to protect crops. The Canadians adapted to this and started targeting places that sold products that contained sugar, like grocery stores, cake shops, candy stores, and so on.

  Officials in the Canadian government disavowed all knowledge of the attacks and took no responsibility for them, and, for the most part, the world bought into the idea that some fringe part of Canadian society was behind this madness.

  The attacks stopped six years after they began, after the thirty-seventh attack, an attack on a donut shop in Peoria, Illinois. Nobody knew why the Canadians had stopped, and everyone wondered if they were planning something big.

  Two years later, terrorists attacked a wellness facility outside of San Francisco. Three more wellness facilities were attacked soon after. However, the culprits were not apprehended. However, pretty much everyone on Earth believed Canadians were responsible.

  Clive’s father had been visiting a wellness facility in downtown Atlanta when a man wielding an assault rifle stormed in and killed thirty-seven people. The gunman, later identified as a Canadian, then took his own life.<
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  Following that, Clive developed an intense hatred for Canadians, and started a blog that chronicled the rise of Canadian extremism. He wrote countless diatribes and indictments. Eventually, the press heard about Clive’s blog and invitations for appearances on a variety of television and radio shows started coming in. He refused all offers, hating the press almost as much as he hated Canadians.

  Clive started drinking heavily, a regular patron at the local bar. I can’t count the number of times someone had dragged him home after one of his benders. When he wasn’t drinking, he spent his time writing computer viruses and deploying them on Canadian computers, viruses that would wreak havoc on the infected hosts, often wiping out all of their data.

  Clive hadn’t lost it completely, however. He still had a sense of humor. Sometimes, he would write viruses that did silly things and infect my computer with them. In response, I learned to write viruses and sent no small number of them his way.

  Meanwhile, I had made great progress on the communication device that I truly believed would allow me to make contact, completing my work on July twenty-third, two thousand, sixteen, at three thirty-seven. I believed my device, a six-inch on a side black cube connected to my computer, would change absolutely everything for humanity.

  I had prepared for this day, amassing a collection of digital media, a primer for any alien race that might get my messages. The package contained books, music, pictures, computer programs, jokes, and a variety of other digital media, along with a note from me.

  I had spent countless hours thinking of names for this device, finally settling on Cavendish, named after Henry Cavendish, the first scientist to calculate a value for Big G, the gravitational constant. The reason this name made sense was that my device used gravity to send its signal. Of course, this might not make sense given that most believe that gravity propagates at the speed of light. That is both true and false. Gravity waves do propagate at the speed of light in vacuum and through normal matter, but they propagate through dark matter, the stuff that makes up most of the mass of the universe, immediately. Dark matter is all around us, within us. In fact, most of what exists in the universe is dark matter and dark energy. Of course, I could have named my device after the scientists who first theorized that dark matter and dark energy existed, but thought Cavendish more appropriate because Big G was a major constant in my device’s ability to communicate immediately with everyone in the universe.

  I sent the signal out in every direction possible, the only way, in fact, to send the signal out, and waited.

  Thirty-seven seconds later, I received a response, quite surprised to find out it was in English. It read, “There you are, Kev. I’ll be right over. Don’t go anywhere.” I traced the source of the signal to a star some two thousand light-years away. I responded with, “How will I know you when I see you?” I received a picture in response, a picture of an alien’s head, pale blue and lipless with two bright orange eyes and what looked like a cigarette dangling from its mouth.

  Moments later, I received another response, “Hey, you up for a little intercopulation? Reply if you want me to come over. Love, Ruby. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO!”

  Following that, I received, “Need to fix a mistake? Want to see the birth of the universe? Want to travel in time?” The message contained plans for a small black cube that had a single blue button and what appeared to be a digital display. The device had two parts; a cube with a cylindrical hole and a cylindrical insert that I presumed went directly into the hole. I wrote back, “Where do you get the parts?” The response was, “I don’t know, but if you find them, send me a message.” I had vague memories of having a little black cube that resembled the one in these plans, a cube I had misplaced at some point.

  My last response came in a few minutes later. “Would you mind turning down the signal a bit? You’ve already killed three million of us. Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage?” I turned down the signal on the device and sent a reply. “Much better,” was the response.

  I ran out into the family room, finding Clive on the couch eating a bowl of sugary cereal, his favorite thing to eat. “Clive, you’re never going to believe this. I’ve made contact with aliens.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope they’re not a bunch of maple humping Canadian pigs,” said Clive. Clive’s body exploded, sending little bits and pieces of flesh everywhere.

  I stared at Clive’s remains, in shock, unsure of what had just happened. Was this a dream? It would explain many things if it was. I tried to wake up, but couldn’t. I didn’t think this was a dream.

  I grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

  “Yeah, what do you want?” said a woman’s voice.

  “My friend just exploded,” I cried.

  “Is your friend still alive?”

  “No, he exploded.”

  “So, he’s dead then. With whom am I speaking?”

  “Kev Pryce,” I said.

  “What kind of name is Kev?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’ll send someone over.”

  She hung up without asking for my address.

  An hour later, a police cruiser and an ambulance arrived.

  “Did he eat dynamite or something?” asked the first police officer on the scene. The two paramedics were staring at the walls and the floor, the furniture and windows, flesh covering everything.

  “I don’t know what happened,” I said.

  “Did you kill him?” said the police officer.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Several hours later, I found myself alone in the house. It had taken over a dozen techs to gather Clive’s remains. The house reeked and although they had managed to find most of Clive’s bits and pieces, everything was covered in blood, including me.

  Someone knocked on the door. I figured it was the police, coming to question me further, probably not satisfied with asking me at least a hundred times if I had killed Clive, and interested in asking me that question at least a hundred more times.

  I opened the door and saw a five-foot tall, pale blue alien with a lipless mouth and bright orange eyes, a cigarette dangling from its mouth, and a small, metal briefcase in one hand.

  “Well, are you going to let me in or what?” said the alien.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, moving out of the way.

  The alien entered my house and looked around. “Nice place. Did you decorate it yourself?”

  I didn’t answer. The alien sat on the bloodstained couch, placed its briefcase on the coffee table, and opened it. Inside I saw a single blue cube, which it took out and placed on the table.

  “What is that?” I said.

  “An object.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Things. Look, I don’t have a lot of time. I have a date tonight,” said the alien, getting up.

  I stared at it and it stared right back at me. “What are you?” I said.

  “I’m a Canadian,” said the alien. “Not a North American Canadian, a real Canadian. Now, if you don’t mind, I have needs, and those needs aren’t going to be met if I stay here answering stupid questions.” With that, the alien departed.

  I looked at the cube, remembering something about a blue cube, something important, but I couldn’t fully recall it.

  I still had bits of flesh all over me, so I took a shower and got into some new clothes. After that, I went to the bar, thinking more than a few drinks were in order, thinking this might be a dream, a horrible, detailed dream.

  The next morning, the coroner called and told me that Clive’s cause of death was definitely possibly unknown and hung up.

  Clive’s mother had died when she heard the news, or so I had heard from a mysterious caller who sounded like Clive, right after the coroner called. I wondered who had told Clive’s mother about his death, knowing full well that I did not ever have in my possession her contact information. I remember thinking it rather odd that I had never met either of Clive’s parents, but then lost that train of thoug
ht and in the process forgot a number of things, which I would not until much later remember I forgot. That was pretty typical for me, of course, so I thought nothing of it, primarily because I didn’t remember that there was anything to think much of. I think you understand.

  Clive had no other family, so I invited some of our friends from college up for a small ceremony. After the ceremony, we all went to the bar, where, at first, I forgot that I had been the one to invite them to Vermont, and then completely forgot who they were.

  I spent most of the time with them trying to remember names and faces, although I did manage to stay in the conversation in some odd way. They all knew I had serious memory problems, and had some laughs at my expense, but it was all in good fun. Most of the time, they talked about the crazy things Clive had done in college. Clive liked playing pranks on people and had pranked most of the guys that had come up for the ceremony.

  At one point, Bill Peterson, one of the guys Clive had tormented most during our time at MIT, a good natured guy who never took offense to some of the more ridiculous things Clive did to him, things I had long forgotten, took me aside and said, “So, Kev, does any of this seem like déjà vu to you?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Don’t you feel like this might have happened before?”

  “What might have happened before?” I said.

  “You know, Clive exploding and all that,” said Bill.

  “Clive exploded?” I cried. I had completely forgotten.

  “Never mind, Kev. Forget I said anything.”

  “Wait a second. Did you say Clive exploded?”

  “Nah, I didn’t say that. No worries. I’m sure Clive is just fine, wherever he is.”

  “Do you know where he is?” I said, remembering Clive, but totally unaware of where he might be. Hadn’t he been the one to invite the guys up for a visit? Where was he?

  In that moment, I remembered the horror of witnessing Clive’s death. Bill and the others did their best to comfort me, each of them saying things like, “Don’t worry, Kev. Clive is fine,” and “Maybe Clive will come back from the dead, Kev. You never know.” None of this really sunk in, of course.