by Derek Baker
So Alexander explained to him our situation. He emphasized that we’d been kidnapped with by aliens about ten months ago at this point, woke up aboard their ship with no idea what was going on, had experiments conducted on us, had been rescued by Chym and brought back to Mars. He explained how Wendra was an imperial race aiming to dominate trade and technology by brute force, with Earth being the next target. This necessitated the action of landing down on Earth, exposing alien life to humans, ending their long-held ignorance. The only way to defend Earth from the Wendrans was to work together with Mars. Unfortunately, everything would have to change on Earth in order to achieve that goal. The worst part was, we didn’t know when the attack would come. It could happen the next year, it could happen the next day. Either way, the time to act was now. All in all, Alexander explained it very well with extensive detail to the President.
“Well, this sure will leave a mark on my tenure in office, won’t it?” shrugged Fitzpatrick.
“With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure if you’re taking this with the severity that is required,” Alexander said.
“Well…that’s only because I know how to relax. Would you like to relax, my boys?” he asked us all.
We all exchanged looks of unease once more.
“Delvon, my boy, you look like a strong headed young man. Wouldn’t you like to get some of this stress off your back?” He walked toward me, patting me on the back. His face was close to mine, and then I could smell alcohol on his breath.
What a stressful life you must have, indeed, I thought.
“I uh…” I started. His smile widened ever more. “I suppose.”
“Great! Let’s go to my favorite parlor here in the White House and have a smoke, shall we?” Fitzpatrick nearly jumped for joy.
The whole situation was awkward, so I kept my head down, unsure of how to respond. Chym gave the President a suspicious stare but said nothing. We exited the chapel and made our way back through the maze of halls and rooms that filled the executive mansion, coming to a formal room with two long, earth-toned couches facing towards each other with a coffee table resting in between. A glass cabinet consisting of old antiques sat in the corner of the room. The walls were a dull blue, giving one a strange, friendly aura. A multi-colored rug completed the set on the wooden floor.
“Please, sit down folks. Can I have something ordered for the Martians…Chym? Anything for you, my boy? How about you, Alexander? Surely, Delvon, I could fix something up for you,” said the President, seating us in such a way that Alexander and I sat between two Martian soldiers while Chym and the rest sat on the other.
“I’ll just have water, thanks,” came Chym’s reply.
His comrades ordered likewise.
“Well, Alexander, Delvon, speak now…or forever hold your piece…haha!” cried the President.
“Um, no thanks, I’m fine,” came my reluctant response.
“Same here, but thank you,” was Alexander’s reply.
“So be it…teehee!” answered the delirious Fitzpatrick as he left the room.
Leaving us to ourselves, the first thing that was on all of our minds came from one of Chym’s companion’s lips, who had not spoken the entire time. His name, as I heard Chym say at some point before, was Wyn’Ta’Lum. “It appears that this man is delirious,” he spoke, “What think you, Chym’Buk’Tai?”
“I would have to agree. Alexander, if given the decision, where would you go from here?”
Alexander thought a moment. “I’d go to the UN, probably. They ought to be given more authority over this guy.”
“You suggest we go to them should our goals not be met with this Fitzpatrick?”
“That’s what I would do, yes.”
“That option will be kept in consideration,” said Chym matter-of-factly.
The conversation had to end there as the President returned with a waitress who brought the Martians their beverages. Her eyes bulged at the sight of them, quite understandably, as she handed each of them their glasses. A part of me almost wanted to laugh, but I refrained.
“Now, let’s relax,” said Fitzpatrick, pulling up an arm chair to the end of the coffee table, dismissing the waitress. “Have you boys ever smoked?” The question was directed towards Alexander and me.
“I can’t say I have,” I answered.
“Nor I,” added Alexander.
“Aw, what a shame.” He reached into his suit, pulling out two carefully polished silver cylinders. “Try these, it’s a mix of the finest leaves found on Earth. Go on, my boys, try it,” his creepy smile returned.
“Oh, it’s okay, sir…” I pled.
Then I remembered something. Something from before. Before I was abducted. Something about the Havenists, but I couldn’t exactly place my finger on the memory.
“No, no, I insist, my boy. Please. You wouldn’t deny the President of the United States, now, would you?”
A heavy sigh escaped from the depths of my lungs. “Alright, I guess…”
“Excellent!” he cried. His face must have been surgically altered to give him a permanent smile.
He handed Alexander and I each one of these cylinders, pulling out another from his suit for himself. “All you have to do,” he explained, “is press this button here, and then breathe from this end.” He followed his own instructions and took a deep breath, inhaling whatever was inside the cylinder. Thick smoke wafted out as he exhaled.
Alexander’s eyes narrowed. He remembered these narcotics. They’d driven him out of school in the first place, way back before this had all happened. Before I had even met him. Careful not to make a scene, though, he remained silent, failing to warn me. Oh, how I wished he had.
We each took a deep breath from the cylinders in unison. I felt the chemicals entering my lungs, causing me to cough heavily. Alexander reacted likewise. As I exhaled, I felt a tingling sensation begin to creep into my arms and legs. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one that made me all the more uncomfortable. My mind began to cloud up with all sorts of thoughts that had nothing to do with my immediate situation.
I looked around the room. Chym calmly sipped his water, watching Alexander and me in stern concentration. Chym knew nothing about what was really going on here, it appeared. The rest of his comrades kept their eyes down, marveling at the way in which their water was served, unaccustomed to our Earth-like ways. Fitzpatrick continued to puff on his own cylinder, leaning back in a kind of a trance.
Watching all these things, trying to process them, the tingling sensation grew in intensity. Then, wham! It hit me. An instant fog grew around me, I felt like my ears were ringing. Nothing was focused, just whirling around.
“Oh... shit… what…” I could barely speak.
A voice crept up on me: “Delvon… man… are you…okay?” It sounded like a familiar voice.
Who’s that? Is that who I think it is? No, it couldn’t be!? Alexander!? What’s he doing here? Wait a minute… where am I? Wait… who… who am I? What… is anything?
Alexander himself felt instant ecstasy. That was the thing with these drugs: bodily reactions varied among individuals.
I didn’t know if I was dreaming or if I was awake. Reality, or anything concrete, was gone. I lost myself. Something was horribly wrong, but I didn’t know what.
What are these ugly looking things here? This is some bad dream…let’s try to get out of it.
I struggled to find some sense of familiarity. I felt myself stand up; saw the world spinning around me. I looked out the window, it was dark. Dark. As opposed to light. There was something I knew.
No! Why is this happening!? This can’t be happening! Why? Oh god, why? This is horrible!!!
Was anything truly happening? Had I ever been truly in existence up until this point?
“What is going on?” I heard myself say.
Was that my voice? That I just heard? Who was that? Me?
I could hear my heart pounding. I reached my hand over my chest, but my skin felt like needles
, half numb. Nothing was going as I would expect.
“Delvon? Are you okay?” I felt an odd, disfigured hand grasp my shoulder.
Everything whirled around once more. The room grew darker and darker. All my senses were shutting down. My brain was going blank. I wanted it to stop, but every time I felt like I could start to piece things together, I was alluded once more.
It didn’t stop. Soon, everything was dark. Nothingness. Gone.
I was trapped in my own mind.
Chapter 18
My incapacitation set off a string of chaotic events. Keep in mind that I was figuratively in another world; so much of this is what I heard from Alexander and Chym at a later time.
“What have you done?” Chym shouted and pointed at the President, the first time Alexander had ever seen him angry.
Fitzpatrick coughed up a plume of the drug’s smoke from his lungs. “Sorry, heheh, but uh…some people can’t handle it.”
Alexander looked back at me, struggling and writhing on the couch in an attempt to say something, to grasp any sense of reality. Damn right some people can’t handle it.
He could feel the rage welling up inside of him. Why did these drugs have to exist? Were people so cynical about life that they felt the need to try to forget the gloominess of their circumstances? Was there no further pursuit of purpose in life? Hell, even the President was a god damn Havenist.
In his own stoned haze he perceived the shouting match now going on between Chym with his posse and the President’s secret service members.
“He’s clearly unfit to be a national leader if he’s under the influence of narcotics!” Chym could be faintly heard saying.
…More haze and ecstasy…
“This is all some sort of plot to take over the world! You just want to get rid of Fitzpatrick so you can take over!”
Images and words came to him in scenes.
“We’re not here to take over, we’re here to prevent just that! Why don’t you conceive our motive is to warn, not to conquer?”
“You’re gonna have to explain this to the whole damn planet, you realize that, right?”
“That is precisely what we seek to do.”
Seconds passed sluggishly, the minutes seemed to last an eternity. The waves of the narcotic slammed with each heartbeat, pulsating and throbbing. Gradually, shapes began to take on more sensible forms. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair felt like a mess for some inexplicable reason.
Oh man, what would my parents back in the Midwest think? No, no, I can’t let anyone find out. But what if they’re on to me? What if they know? What if they know? No, no… I’m ruined! All my aspirations, all my goals…ruined! No, no, it’s okay, Alexander, get a grip. It’ll be okay. You’re just…just…just…I guess we don’t know.
“Chym…” he struggled to get out.
All the faces turned towards him, however impossible to decipher between Martian and Human.
“Are you recovering from your ailment, Alexander?” Chym asked calmly.
“Y-y-yesss. I Think so.”
“I fear Delvon will need medical attention, but can you stand up, Alexander?”
He flexed the muscles in his legs. He imagined the very idea of standing up but didn’t suppose it sounded like a good idea. His head began to swim; standing would make him nauseous.
“Not… quite… yet.”
“Wait, where did Fitzpatrick go?” a voice asked.
Another throng of shouting filled the parlor they were all in.
“Where did he get to?”
“He must’ve taken advantage of the heated argument to escape!”
“How could he have just slipped out like that all of a sudden?”
The maniacal President was on the loose. Within moments the secret service agents were back in the parlor after searching the building.
“No sign of him, he’s no longer in the White House.”
“This is a disaster!” Chym exclaimed, bringing his hands up in frustration.
He spoke into his communicator: “Captain Gup’Dis’Sev, come in…any sign of Fitzpatrick on the grounds or in the vicinity of the city? No? Damn. Sustain the ships’ scanners on guard. We cannot let this mad man escape. What’s that? Yes, you heard me correctly; the man is unfit for duty. Well it would appear obvious, I have reason to believe he administered Wendran narcotics to our human counterparts.”
Wendran narcotics? I thought they were Havenist drugs, thought Alexander. Then again…
Things began to come together in his head…
~~~
A corridor stretched before the group, dim lamps hung on the wall separated by ten to fifteen feet or so. The floor was carpeted red, the walls were white with the streaks of the paint job faintly visible right where the lights were shining most brightly. Their yellowish glow gave an eerie feeling of discomfort to Alexander as he explained his discovery to the secret service agent, who had revealed his name to be Evan Coholte.
They were walking in an underground tunnel underneath the White House, one of many built for secret passage. The moment the world had been waiting for was coming: Alexander and the Martians were going to deliver a statement to the press. It would be the first time the billions of people on Earth would see another intelligent species with their own eyes.
It had only been about an hour and a half since the Martian fleet had landed, but to Alexander it felt like it had been a couple of days.
“Well, it seems pretty obvious to me,” Alexander said.
“I just feel like intelligence would have picked up on the fact that there were alien space ships orbiting Earth. Especially if they had been visiting with the President,” Coholte remarked dismally.
Chym chimed in: “I don’t know what contact the President might have had with the Wendrans, but I can assure you that the only man in the whole country that knew of my existence was the President himself. I never approached him unless he was alone.”
“Then why didn’t you know he was on narcotics?” Alexander asked.
“I never had the privilege to meet with this Fitzpatrick fellow who just took office a couple weeks ago. His predecessor, Allen Garner, was a clean man. He was indeed a very honest and thoughtful human. It pains me to know what hands this nation was left in following his assassination.”
“Like I said before, it was those damn Havenists who killed Garner! And it’s pretty obvious they controlled Fitzpatrick.”
“It would additionally appear that these Havenists worked in conjunction with the Wendrans,” Chym said.
“So what does that have to do with their alleged invasion you claim to know all about that’s coming?” Coholte asked, his face in a confused expression.
Chym’s face grew solemn. “It means they have been a step ahead of us. It means that their attack could come much sooner than I had originally calculated in my mind.”
“How long you suppose, then?” Coholte wondered.
“Perhaps by this Spring.”
~~~
“Are you ready? Know what you’re each going to say?” The man was balding, shaven, pale, the Press Secretary for the White House. He had waited for the group at the end of the secret passage, ready to expose them to the entourage of media representatives that piled in on the other side of the door, poised to see for themselves the report of their careers.
“I believe we are,” Chym replied, still trying to keep his composure upon seeing the shocked expression on the Press Secretary’s face when he first laid eyes on the Martians. Apparently he found it humorous.
Then the door swung open.
Blindness took over from the flashing photography. There were gasps of awe mixed with shrieks of terror.
“Tough crowd,” Chym murmured to Alexander as they approached the stand.
Alexander observed the cameras recording his each and every move at the back of the mob media. It suddenly dawned on him that quite possibly every single human that wasn’t asleep or drug induced was watching him. It was all so surreal that
he dared not question it for fear he would succumb under the already immense pressure.
Just do what you did back in the Martian legislature….just relax...find the appropriate composure, the right tone of voice…he thought to himself. He stepped up to the microphone, facing the multitude before him.
He felt the narcotic still meekly coursing through his veins, trying to block it out of his mind, attempting to utter words that made sense. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. The faces continued their hard, questioning stare.
~~~~
The night closed in around them, their lights falling dim around the mansion. No sign of life flickered from inside, but that didn’t make a difference to them. The mansion’s Victorian stature coupled with a chilly breeze gave one a haunting feeling from skin to core. Hairs raised on the back of one’s neck.
“All entrances occupied,” a voice over the comms said.
“10/4,” came the response, “stand by for entry.”
Agents had by now surrounded the entire estate of the infamous Johnny Haven, believed to be involved in traitorous plots that could speel the demise of the United States. First Garner had been assassinated in what had been called a “terrorist attack,” and now Fitzpatrick had gone off the deep end and ultimately was missing or had run away. Could Johnny Haven be responsible for this?
“Now.”
~~~
Chym looked over to his human counterpart, realized he would have to take over. He grasped Alexander by the arm, urging him over to the side while he instead took the stand. The people of Earth got their first good long look at the alien: the dinosaur shaped head, the dangly limbs, the bronze skin, the passive, intelligent complexion about him.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the human race of the planet Earth, allow me to introduce myself. I am Ambassador Chym of the family Buk of the city Tai, better known as Chym’Buk’Tai for short, or simply Chym, if you prefer. The time has come that it deems necessary for all inhabitants to know that, despite common fundamental and ignorant beliefs that were not entirely your fault, you humans are not alone in the universe; in fact, there are countless numbers of alien species that exist in the cosmos, and I am a member of one of them. My city of Tai lies kilometers deep under the surface of Mars, your neighboring planet. However, we are fond of calling our red planet Robhustare. Our planets share a rich common history that no one knows anything about. For that reason, along with what else I have to tell you, I along with my colleagues who stand here beside me come in peace.”