The Book of Ralph

by Christopher Steinsvold

  Jules hung up on him. Francis rolled his eyes and called him back.

  “Jules, listen—”

  “Non,” Jules said. “You listen to me. Someone who does not care about food does not call the executive White House chef. I do not call your office and tell you I don’t care about your insecurity, monsieur, you understand? You talk to no one that way. I don’t care if you are the president. You hear?”

  “OK . . . yes . . . Chef, I’m sorry. The pizza is great. We are all enjoying it. I promise,” Francis said. “But, Jules, I need to know: who ordered the pizza?”

  “Your friend Ralph ordered the pizza.”

  The picture got clearer. We already knew Ralph had hacked the internal phone system of the White House—he was talking to Samantha and me on the Beijing line before he came out of the cylinder—so for him to order a pizza for us seemed plausible. But, as friendly as the gesture was, it was intimidating.

  “So you spoke with him?” Francis asked.

  “Yes,” the chef said. “He called me this morning to remind me to have the pizza ready. I put the little note on it, just like he asked. He wanted a surprise for you.”

  “He reminded you?”

  “Yes. He speaks very good French.”

  “Jules,” Francis said, “when did Ralph order the pizza?”

  “Wait, only a moment, please. I got the advance order here somewhere . . . oui, deux semaines . . . Two weeks ago he place the advanced order for today, the twenty-eighth. Ralph said it was super, super important to have the pizza today. He called sometimes to remind me, no matter what happens today, I had to make the pizza and write the note. I don’t forget it, no way.”

  “Jules,” Francis asked with a hollow voice, “have you met Ralph?” It was borderline insanity for Francis to ask this question. My mind would have exploded if Jules had somehow said ‘yes.’

  “We only talk on the phone,” Jules said.

  Francis, speechless, quietly hung up and stared at Ralph.

  Obviously, to Jules Marrant, Ralph was just someone who worked in the White House. He might have assumed Ralph was Secret Service, or a secretary, or a politician—after all, he’s a chef; it didn’t matter who he was talking to. As long as the call came from an internal White House phone, Jules had no reason to be suspicious of Ralph, who, I had just learned, spoke French.

  I looked over at Francis, his visage pale and limp. Ralph and Francis had been playing a game of cat and mouse, and the arrival of the pizza made it absolutely clear: Francis was the mouse. If there was a home court advantage, we lost it two weeks ago when Ralph ordered the pizza.

  “Francis,” I started, somewhat shaken, “we already know Ralph can hack into the White House phone system, but how could he know, two weeks in advance, that you would be in the White House, here and now? How does he even know who you are?”

  Francis took a deep breath, dropped his slice on the table, and said, “He knows who all of us are. He knows because he’s had access to the Internet for . . . I don’t know how long. We are public figures, after all.”

  “And how do you know he’s been on the Internet?” Samantha asked. Francis picked up the rest of his slice and threw it in the garbage. Finally, he began to explain.

  “About three months ago, the NSA started getting chilling e-mails from an unaffiliated and unknown hacker. He called himself ‘Ralph.’ He kept sending his work, his hacking exploits, and we were blown away. Normally, I wouldn’t be involved, but his work was too good to ignore. No one at the NSA could explain how he did it.”

  Francis stopped to gulp down a mug of warm water. Grimacing, he continued. “He hacked into big governments and big companies. He had hacked into my personal e-mail account, as well as the president’s. I’d have to reveal classified material just to explain how near impossible that is. Suffice it to say, it was an unprecedented nightmare. But, as far as we could tell, none of the information was being used maliciously. In fact, he sent us a shocking amount of valuable information on people and nations America is unfriendly with.”

  “For example?” Samantha asked.

  Francis glanced at me, then looked back at Samantha and said, “Ask me later . . . We could only think of him as a huge potential asset. We wanted to recruit him. After a series of e-mails, he eventually wrote that he would be coming to the White House . . . today.”

  “And you didn’t tell us this why?” Samantha asked.

  “He didn’t mention anything about a soup blimp,” he said, glaring at Samantha. “In the e-mails, he promised more information in exchange for a visa, and I agreed. Obviously, I expected a more covert meeting, but White House security had been minimally briefed, which is why Secret Service wasn’t completely caught off guard. I couldn’t give them the full details, obviously, but they knew today was not going to be an ordinary day.”

  “You should’ve told me, Francis,” Samantha said.

  “I did not confirm it was the same Ralph until an hour ago when I spoke to him privately, when the two of you weren’t around.”

  “You were careful enough not to assume it was the same Ralph, but not careful enough to tell the secretary of defense who Ralph might be,” Samantha said, her volume escalating. “That’s just genius, Francis, totally fucking clever, and when were you planning on telling me he was a fucking alien from outer space? No, I gotta hear it from Markus, and I’d bet you manipulated him into telling me.”

  Ralph awoke, and it saved Francis from the verbal assault Samantha was mentally preparing. I understood Samantha’s rage but was too dumbfounded to share it.

  X

  ANSWERS

  Did you get the helium?” Ralph asked.

  “It’s coming,” Francis said.

  “I shouldn’t need it, but I feel safer knowing it is near. And my visa?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Well, I would like to establish residency. Nobody wants me to stay in this oval room forever, and I would like to meet your president.”

  “You said you wanted to mate with her,” Samantha reminded.

  “We don’t have to mate. We could just talk.”

  Ralph was a highly sexual being. None of us spoke of it at the time, but it was typically arousing being near him.

  “Meeting the president will have to wait,” Francis said. “And the visa can wait too. We have questions.”

  Ralph responded by reaching into his oversized chest pocket and pulling out two iridescent black sheets with white writing. His overly articulated handwriting oozed childishness. He would put a dot in the middle of every ‘O’ and put a circle, instead of a dot, atop the letter ‘i.’ Creepy smiley faces and other terrestrial doodles filled the margins.

  “These sheets contain the typical questions asked during . . . this type of visit,” Ralph began, trying to be serious despite his obvious excitement. “On this first sheet are questions I will answer. On the second sheet are questions I will not answer, but you may ask me why I won’t answer.”

  “What do you mean by ‘this type of visit’? What type of visit is this?”

  “126-84.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sorry, that’s one of the questions I won’t answer. Please look over the questions carefully. The list is here to make this part of our experience efficiently pleasant.”

  “But we can ask why you won’t answer?” Samantha said.

  “Correct.”

  “So, why can’t we know what a 126-84 is?”

  “We could spend all day discussing the nature of the 126-84, but it would be a waste, and there are more urgent matters. The short answer is: your people are carbon-based, more technologically mature than sexually mature, humorous, hairy, and violent.”

  “We are more mature technologically than sexually?”

  “I’ve seen your Internet,” Ralph responded.

  I seized on the questions he wouldn’t answer. Most were of a scientific nature. Dark energy, gravitons, P=NP, and many other subjects were off-limits.


  “These are questions you must answer for yourselves, just as we did.”

  “Then what are you, and what are you doing here?” Samantha blurted.

  “I am a visitor. It is my vocation. It is what I was trained to do.”

  “You’re a tourist?” Samantha asked.

  “Being a visitor . . . It’s the funniest translation I can think of, though I should probably say ‘xenoanthropologist.’ It is one of the more dangerous professions. I must say I am overjoyed to have made it this far. In fact, I need a hug. You don’t know how lonely it’s been.”

  We all sat still.

  “I’m serious. I would truly enjoy a hug right now, from all three of you. Be gentle, this suit is my only one, and it is a delicate form of protection.”

  I was already sitting close. I gave my fellow humans my best ‘why not?’ look, and embraced him gently, wondering if this was a joke. Samantha and Francis kept their distance.

  “Can you survive without your suit?” Francis asked.

  “I can, and I can breathe oxygen, but I prefer not to. It is mainly to protect me from your harsh and prickly environment, but this suit also protects you, of course.”

  Hug time ended as I stood up and backed off.

  “Protect us? Should we quarantine you?” I asked.

  The CDC had been outside testing the air around the cylinder for basic pathogens, but when Ralph emerged, I forgot all about them. Old fears and facts rushed to mind. Smallpox, brought by Spanish explorers, devastated the Incas and Aztecs. By one estimate, 90 percent of the entire native population of North and South America died from diseases brought by foreigners.

  Ralph laughed at the suggestion of quarantine. He laughed for a full minute, and his whole being bounced while he did—as if his entire body was laughing.

  “The likelihood of any difficulty is extremely low. I have been studying your genetic material, this DNA, for some time, and have taken all precautions to ensure I am bacteria free.”

  “I don’t like this,” I said, staring at Francis.

  “Do you people really think I’d come all this way to poison you, to infect you?”

  Ralph laughed but we didn’t join him.

  “We can’t quarantine him,” Francis said.

  “What do you mean we can’t?”

  “It would get too many people involved, and this must be kept secret.”

  I was in no position to argue, despite how irresponsible it was. I told myself: if Ralph is benevolent, he would ensure our safety from any alien pathogens. And if not, the battle was already over—the enemy king was in the castle.

  There was a knock at the window behind the drapes. I went over, peered outside, and saw two canisters of helium on a dolly. The marine who brought them was already walking away.

  “You can leave the helium outside. I won’t need it any day soon,” Ralph said.

  “How does this suit work?” I asked.

  “Sorry. That’s a question I won’t answer. It’s not much different than a human space suit, except maybe a million times more efficient,” Ralph said. “I can live in this suit for over a year.”

  “But is there an exhaust?”

  “No. No exhaust. My Earth suit is airtight.”

  “How exactly do you breathe? I mean, how does helium respiration work?”

  Ralph giggled and said, “This I won’t tell you.”

  “How do you know about our DNA? Have you visited Earth before?” I asked.

  “Everything I’ve learned about your people I’ve learned through your Internet. I’ve been accessing it for about a decade, using satellites to wirelessly connect. I learned your English language in two weeks, studied your pornography for four months, and took a full year to analyze your music.”

  “Why haven’t we picked up any radio signals from your people?” Francis asked.

  “Because we don’t want you to,” he said. “Our radio transmissions are encrypted and masked, making them indistinguishable from common microwave radiation.”

  I wondered what his people were hiding from, but right then, I didn’t want to know. By the end of our discussion, we’d all know.

  “Has Earth been visited by aliens before?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of, but I can’t be sure. I’d rather not talk about this. Only kooky people on your planet speculate about such things.”

  I stifled a laugh, and he turned to me.

  “Are you worried about anal probes?” Ralph was doing his best to deflect the gravity of the situation. He seemed desperate, maybe too desperate, to not be taken seriously. But his humor was a mask, and everything about him was unexpected.

  His energy permeated us. I could feel him emotionally, sexually, and physiologically. I was more energized than usual—it seemed time moved faster around him.

  I think his presence even sped up my digestion. Consequently, I had to use the restroom. I excused myself and avoided Francis’s eyes to ignore any disapproval of my exit.

  Alone in the restroom, I looked in the large mirror and saw a younger man. I jumped in the air and felt lighter. I grinned at my reflection, but my pleasure was punctured by a dark concern. It was a fantastic thought, but I had my reasons.

  I wondered if Ralph could read our minds. The possibility stunned me, and I was ashamed for not considering it earlier. I stared into the bathroom mirror and spoke.

  “Ralph, are you reading my mind?”

  I was alone, but still felt the thrill of embarrassment. I stayed still for a minute, wondering if I might get a response. I did not.

  When I returned to the Oval Office, Francis looked at me and looked back at Ralph. Samantha seemed to be choking on disbelief, and Ralph was giggling frantically, floundering on the couch.

  With a heavy tone, Francis said, “Don’t ask.”

  I didn’t.

  With trepidation, I said, “Ralph . . . I have to ask . . . can you read our—”

  “No,” Ralph said, and returned to laughing.

  Samantha and Francis looked even worse as Ralph’s giddiness overwhelmed the room, his capacity for laughter seemingly endless. When Ralph finally realized we were disturbed, he calmed and explained.

  “No. I can’t read your mind. Don’t worry.”

  “Ralph,” I said as if speaking to a naughty child, “we want to trust you, but if you lie to us about how powerful you are, it will be bad for our relationship. There are national secrets in the heads of Samantha and Francis . . .”

  “Trust me, I am no telepath. But . . . Like your successful poker players, my people are gifted at knowing what others think and feel. It helps to be near them and see them, feeling helps especially.” Ralph’s glow brightened, and he moved closer to me. “For instance, Marcus, I can tell that, for some reason, you are especially worried about mind reading, more than Samantha and Francis. And they should be more worried about it. But, somehow, you raised this question first. This tells me . . . a lot.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to make you angry. I should stop talking about this.”

  “Say it.”

  “I’m afraid to embarrass you. I want to be friendly.”

  After a pause, Francis diplomatically stood up and said, “Samantha, let’s take a short walk outside.” Samantha understood and went out the door to the Rose Garden.

  “We’re not going far,” Francis said.

  When I looked at Samantha, her eyes glowed with fear. Somehow, I realized Ralph had revealed, while I wasn’t there, something personal about her. The same was about to happen to me and I knew it.

  When they left, I moved close to Ralph. He reached out to me.

  “Tell what you know about me. Do it.”

  He put his hands on my shoulders and rubbed his helmet against my chest.

  “I have studied human mental illness. There is a certain delusion where one believes others are reading their mind. Someone you knew, someone you loved, had this delusion. This is why you thought to ask me. This is what caused your
question. I am not wrong, am I?”

  It wasn’t a question. His uncertainty was pretend, a type of etiquette. He knew, somehow. I exhaled my tension with a long breath. I was no longer angry. I was shattered and serene—the tear dribbling down my cheek was my response.

  When we were sixteen, my twin brother, Tom, woke me in the middle of the night. He told me aliens were reading his mind. “Shut the hell up,” I said and hid under the covers. Tom knew my fears. I thought he was trying to scare me. I woke up the next morning, went to the bathroom, and found his corpse in the still water of the bathtub.

  Ralph tightened his embrace.

  The media’s focus was brutal when we ended the investigation into the lunar advertisement. Of course, there were news articles on the Internet, about me, which Ralph could’ve read. One of them could’ve mentioned my brother’s suicide, and maybe his schizophrenia. But for Ralph to know that Tom suffered this specific delusion, clinically known as ‘the mind-reading delusion,’ was either an amazing inference, or something I didn’t understand.

  “I do not feel pleasant,” Ralph said. “I am unpleasant to have reminded you of these things. Please know, it’s not that I am reading your mind . . . but . . . rather . . . the distinction between our minds is . . . very . . . slowly . . . disappearing.”

  When he said it, I believed it, and it explained why I wasn’t disturbed. I wasn’t disturbed because I could sense Ralph’s intentions. I felt them—the way one feels an apple in one’s hand. I sensed that he wanted to help us, and himself, but I couldn’t tell exactly what his intentions were. In fact, I knew he was hiding something.

  “The rhythm of your mind is so familiar to me. It is clear and strong and beautiful,” one of us said, but I’m still unsure if these were his words or mine.

  I wanted to remain in Ralph’s arms . . . until I discovered his fear. When I located the horror in his mind, it surrounded my thoughts like a tornado. Ralph knew Earth was in imminent danger. As if I felt the future inside him, somehow I knew millions of humans were going to die.

  I jolted violently and pulled away, tossing Ralph off the couch as I pushed him and lunged myself backward. My breathing was heavy, and my pulse raced as I heard Ralph sigh and watched him stand back up, slowly.