MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets

by George Saoulidis

  Or was it just the unease that the man carried the Ekrignontes gene and could take him with him to the grave?

  Perhaps.

  Pollux’s sleeve chirped. “Oh, Her Brightness has posted a picture of herself. We must see it at once.” He fished out a comm from his pocket and angled it to Guillermo.

  She was stunning.

  A perfect button nose. Juicy lips that barely smirked. Powerful eyes. Bright red skin. Hair like a white star.

  And her body…

  Pollux bit his lip, then quickly typed a comment, ‘Your beauty and presence outshines this nearby star.’

  Guillermo saw the adoration count rise. His eyes glazed. That number couldn’t be real, could it? “Simply astronomical,” he whispered.

  Pollux let the image of the princess float around them in augmented reality. He quickly explained, “It is by royal decree that we must all witness Her Brightness’ for at least ten minutes.”

  “Uh-huh. Excuse my straightforwardness, but we don’t have time for anything else. Am I to understand that when the Princess posts a selfie, all her subjects are expected to stop what they’re doing and adore her for at least ten minutes?”

  “Yes,” the alien man said, clasping his hands together. “All four trillion of us.”

  Chapter 7

  Kyveli sighed and rested her head on her delicate fingers. The trip was long, far too long. Visiting these foreigners had been a rash decision at best. She was caught in the moment of wanting to see those felines everybody on that planet was so obsessed about.

  “I’m bored. Take us back,” she instructed the Teddy Bear beside her.

  “At once, your Brightness,” it nodded and gestured an instruction.

  The spaceship turned around instantaneously, not that the passengers noticed anything, and plotted a course back for Ekrignontes space.

  A red face popped up on screen. “Kyveli, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Kyveli sighed, audibly this time. What a bore. “Father, how lovely to see you. Not.”

  “Listen to me, you have to carry on with your journey. It was your decision to visit those savages in the first place!” Her father was in a meeting room full of his courtiers. He preferred it like that, but Kyveli liked a modicum of quiet. No more than fifty people around her at any given time, any more was simply too taxing.

  “I changed my mind,” she shrugged and spun around on her throne. It was a lovely carving of jade, tweaked at a microscopic level to make it easy on the bum.

  But they had missed a spot and her sensitive skin could feel the imperfection. She moved around on her throne.

  “No, you changed your mind the first time, when I told you to visit your cousin. Suddenly you decided to visit Erp or whatever it’s called. You need to learn to appreciate things.” Father brought up his fists before him. “Well now, you have started something by announcing your visit, and you have to go through with it.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” she said and crossed her arms.

  Her father got angry. “You will listen to me,” he spat out.

  “Or what?”

  The advisers behind her father cowered in fear.

  “Do you forget who you’re speaking to, young lady?” He was furious now. The courtiers cried out loud now and updated their wills. He turned around. “Shut up!”

  And of course, they did.

  “Seems you’re busy. I’ll do what I want, anyway, don’t bother. Bye, daddy…”

  She hung up.

  Her own court, just twenty people, kept checking their comms. She turned to them and waved away with her delicate hand. “Oh, come on, Daddy’s not gonna divide over something this small. Relax.”

  “Of course, your Brightness.”

  “Yes, your Highness.”

  “As you say, daughter of the stars.”

  She took in the adoration for a moment. Then she was bored again. “Teddy?”

  “Yes?” the Teddy Bear next to her asked.

  “Take us back to Earth. I decided I do want to see those felines after all.”

  “Setting course, your Brightness.” And the spaceship turned back towards Earth.

  Chapter 8

  Lorenzo babbled on about important things. Things Guillermo should probably pay attention to, things he needed to absorb in order to handle this monumental task.

  But his mind was elsewhere.

  Sweating profusely in that alien costume, he loosened the collar that was choking him.

  “Got all that?” Lorenzo asked, studying his expression.

  “Not really,” Guillermo sighed.

  Lorenzo turned around to the army of advisers that huddled in the room. His eyes met with Joaquin, the master royalty handler. The older man squinted and then clapped once.

  “Let’s give the man some room to breathe, shall we?”

  The advisers hesitated for a moment but then shuffled out of the room. Joaquin shut the double doors behind them with a loud thud.

  Guillermo breathed. “Thank you.”

  “Is there no drink in this place?” Lorenzo asked and looked around but came up empty.

  “No, it’s fine. I need my mind sharp,” Guillermo said. He turned outside to the view from the window.

  Joaquin puffed his chest. “I taught you well.”

  Guillermo stared at the press outside. They waited in siege, their vans and cameras and microphones on hand, ambushing every official-looking person they could find for a scrap of new information.

  But there was no real news at the moment, other than the simple fact that we were getting visited by royalty in a couple of hours.

  The alien delegation had arranged nothing. Normally, a princess’ tour would be an orchestrated thing, decided in advance, everything planned and proper. Guillermo knew about those, he had done a few of those before with Infanta Sofía of Spain, the second daughter in line of succession for the Spanish throne.

  “Come on, Guillermo, it’s nothing you’ve never done before. She can’t be harder to deal with than Her Royal Highness Infanta Sofía,” Joaquin tried to comfort him.

  Guillermo bit his lip. “Don’t remind me.”

  Joaquin laughed.

  “What?” Lorenzo perked up. “Is there something juicy about the princess?”

  “Excuse us, but a significant part of our role is to be discreet about these things,” the older man apologised.

  “Don’t let your imagination run wild. It was nothing, just a young spoiled girl acting out. If it happened in an average family you wouldn’t even bat an eyelid,” Guillermo waved away.

  “But her handler took the fall for that, as he should,” Joaquin said proudly.

  “You guys have such a weird job.” Lorenzo looked from one man to the other.

  “We do,” Guillermo said firmly. “That’s why I need you to get me up to speed. What else do I need to know?” He pulled his sleeves to straighten the wrinkles. They were yellow and blue.

  “Wait, wasn’t this yellow and green just now?”

  “Yeah… They must have changed the national colours again,” Lorenzo said and sat down. He preferred a specific sofa that had intricate patterns on it. Guillermo was certain that the scientist found them fascinating. The man found everything fascinating.

  “Come on! She can’t be that fickle, can she?”

  Lorenzo nodded. “She sure can. To say that the princess’ fickleness is legendary would be an understatement.”

  Guillermo turned to his mentor. “What have you gotten me into, profesor?”

  “It’s nothing you can’t handle.” Joaquin sliced the air with his hand.

  “Right. Okay, Lorenzo, let’s cram.” He pulled the sofa across him and sat down. “Hit me with everything I need to know.”

  Chapter 9

  The spaceship landed in Paris. Well, it didn’t quite land, it hovered at quite a height and reflected the city below.

  “The ships are all reflective to counter laser attacks,” Lorenzo explained, giddy like a chil
d.

  Guillermo grunted in agreement. He didn’t really care for that. His worry was about the big meeting. Joaquin had taught him that the first time you meet your charge is very important. But in this case, it was an alien.

  Sure, she was pretty and young and… Well, she was red. But she was just a rich girl, just like the rest. That was Joaquin’s advice. Guillermo had the nagging feeling that his mentor was as befuddled about this as anyone.

  He couldn’t blame the man. What can you possibly teach someone about this scenario?

  The spaceship came down slowly on the helipad.

  “Well, it isn’t that intimidating from this angle.” Guillermo breathed in the cool air. “No offence, Pollux.”

  Lorenzo chuckled.

  Pollux bowed, “I’m sorry, you misunderstood, this is just the passenger pod of the ‘Touch Her and You’re Dead.’ The Princess wouldn’t dare come to anything but a royal land on her first visit.”

  Guillermo turned to him. “What? Where is she?”

  “In…” he checked his wrist. “The United Kingdom, I believe. Is that where your Earth Queen is?”

  “Fuck!” Guillermo mumbled under his breath.

  Guillermo sat down across Pollux. Lorenzo called him a ‘lucky bastard’ and waved from below.

  “How long till we reach the United Kingd-”

  The air popped around them and he could suddenly see Buckingham palace.

  “Right,” he sighed. “Blink and you miss it.”

  Pollux smiled diplomatically.

  A monitor showed their surroundings. They rose up to a larger shiny blob in the sky. Guillermo gulped. Okay, now that was bigger. Blobbier, with the same shiny surface that didn’t let you gauge distances and volumes. But it certainly was big, and it certainly was alien.

  They docked.

  “Now remember,” Pollux said leaning forward, “you mustn’t touch the princess for any reason whatsoever.”

  Chapter 10

  The princess ate a grape. It was supposed to be an Earthen delicacy of some sort, but it was too squishy, so she had a servant squeeze it first to let the juice out.

  She snacked on a green one.

  Hm. Tasty.

  Maybe this planet had something to offer, after all.

  “I like this. Bring me the tree that bore this fruit, I wish to speak with it.”

  “As you-” Avatar Teddy communed with the ship and conducted a thorough investigation in an eye-blink. First, it snatched up the entire vineyard who sent this harvest. Then, it ran a DNA test on the juice left on the plate and compared it to all the trees. He was surprised to see that humans ran clones of it, but the ship would detect other small variances that allowed it to pinpoint the exact one.

  Then it brought the tree along with a two-meter-wide circle of dirt in the middle of the throne room.

  “-wish, Princess.”

  Kyveli raised her chin. “I wanted to thank you, tree of grapes, for this delicacy.”

  The tree remained silent.

  “Well? You may speak, now!”

  A shoving match took place next to her, and the smallest and most unfortunate of her courtiers was pushed forward. “Your Brightness, I’ve been informed that trees on this planet do not, in fact, speak.”

  “They do not?” Kyveli was furious. “I demand to speak to it, now!”

  “It’s not possible, your Brightness.” The courtier squirmed and practically knelt on the floor.

  “What is this savagery?” She puffed loudly and sat back down on her jade throne. “Trees that don’t speak. What’s next?”

  “I’m terribly sorry, your Brightness,” the courtier said, kissing the floor beneath her feet.

  The flaw in the gemthrone pricked her skin. “Ow!” She stood up and kicked the tray to the floor. Grapes rolled all over the place and the servant crouched on the spot. “And now you’ve got dirt all over my throne room!” the princess screamed. “Stupid tree! Clean it up.”

  The courtiers scurried and fell on all fours. They wiped the dirt from the floor with their sleeves, spat on their fingers and rubbed the shiny surfaces.

  Kyveli gritted her teeth. Anger. Fury. All sparked by an imperfection on a chair. She screamed like a madwoman and complained about everything. “Why am I still seeing your stupid face, servant? Didn’t I order you get a facelift? Why is my floor still full of dirt? Why am I surrounded by idiots? ARGHH!”

  The room doors slid open and an alien appeared, next to Pollux. They both wore the Ekrignontes proper clothes. But the man was weird. Pinkish. Tall.

  “What the hell is it now?” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Reality boiled around her. Her white hair seemed like it was glowing. Servants and courtiers cowered around her, some crying on the spot, others updating their wills to a remote storage a few light-minutes away.

  She started to divide. Anger, manifested. Atoms, divided. Spacetime, collapsing.

  And then the alien hurried close to her in deliberate, long steps and stood before her and slapped her on the face.

  Chapter 11

  The courtiers went pale, and that was a mean feat for people with red faces.

  Reality stopped boiling around Guillermo, and he felt the world’s largest lump in his throat. The princess had stopped screaming and she was touching her cheek with her delicate hand.

  It was pretty apparent that nobody, and I do mean nobody, had done that before.

  Guillermo knew from his profesor that he had to speak at that moment. “Compose yourself, princess.” He straightened his own jacket.

  Pollux recovered much faster than all the others, and cleared his throat. “Announcing Guillermo Reysolo, your assigned handler from the humans, your Brightness.” He bowed deeply with a flourish of his hand.

  Kyveli still had her palm on her cheek. She whispered, “Who is this man?”

  “Your Brightness, this is Guill-”

  “I heard that,” she whispered again.

  Guillermo bowed deeply then straightened up, quicker than protocol demanded of him in front of royalty. “I’m here to assist you during your visit to Earth, your Brightness.”

  She opened her mouth and stayed there.

  “It is unladylike to have one’s mouth open, your Brightness,” Guillermo said without a hint of derision.

  She shut it instantly. “Huh.” She turned to her courtiers and waved her hand, “Make sure the Earth liaison is accommodated properly.”

  “Of course, your Brightness,” a senior courtier said and bowed down to his knees. The others helped him back up.

  “I’m at your service from this moment on,” Guillermo said. “What would you like to see first on our lovely little planet?”

  “Everything,” she said, excited. “I heard you have some fluffy predators. Cats, I believe you call them.” Her eyes twinkled.

  Guillermo had to will his lungs to fill with oxygen.

  “We can arrange that, I believe.”

  “But first, I want to see what your princess wears.”

  Chapter 12

  The Tower of London seemed busy, even though it was empty. A gleaming spaceship hovering above, thousands of people outside, press storming the place and being kept out, and actual tanks forming a perimeter.

  Teddy the ship’s Avatar scoffed at all that. “Bah! This is what you call security? A waste of matter, you guys are.”

  Guillermo scratched his nose and thought what to say. “Excuse me, but who are you exactly? I’m afraid my briefing was very last-minute.”

  Teddy looked up from Guillermo’s knee. “I’m the ship’s avatar.” It pointed up, towards the spaceship.

  “Right,” Guillermo said, clicking his tongue. “So you fly the ship?”

  “No, stupid, the Mind flies the ship. I am the Mind inside this android body.”

  “So you’re not the Mind?”

  “I am the Mind. And I am the Avatar you see. My memory is holographic, I’m both a backup and the exact same as the ship Mind.”

&
nbsp; “And you chose to present yourself as a Teddy Bear?”

  “I’ve looked after Kyveli since she was a baby.”

  “I like Teddy like that,” she said and patted it on the head.

  A black bird descended down on the group and flew close to Kyveli. It was a raven.

  “Danger!” Teddy said and pointed it’s stubby hand at the bird. A laser beam shone from the ship above.

  “Please don’t hurt it!” Guillermo said, trying to stop the avatar.

  The raven squawked something that looked insulting and flew away.

  “I wasn’t going to hurt it!” Teddy complained. “I just scared it away. Why the hell do you have-” Slight pause, “-ravens flying all over the place?”

  “It’s an old legend. It’s said that six ravens must watch over the Tower of London, or the Crown will fall. Simple superstition, really,” Guillermo explained to them both. “These people with the fancy hats, they’re the seven Ravenmasters that protect the Tower ravens from harm.”

  “A protector. I can respect that,” Teddy said and took a hat from one of the Ravenmasters standing at attention, and put it on.

  Kyveli shivered.

  “What’s the matter, your Brightness?” Guillermo asked.

  She was quiet. “We have a similar saying. When the daughters that divide are gone, the universe will cease carrying on.”

  Guillermo saw that this was a touchy subject so he didn’t ask for more. He simply nodded, trying to comfort her, and made sure to ask Lorenzo about it later on. He opened the doors to the main exhibition and presented the Crown Jewels.

  They were showcased on top of red velvet that contrasted with the gold nicely. “Saint Edward’s Crown, the orb, the sceptres and the ring. The only complete regalia on Earth, worn by all British kings and queens at their coronations.”

  Kyveli seemed pleased. Smiling, even. She touched her nose and palm on the display case glass.