by Marc Landau
After she was done peeing she realized we were all standing there watching her antics. Again, she acted just like Poka did. It even seemed like she recognized both me and Kat. Her tail went into hyper-drive, her lower body wagging at light speed. Dang, that clone could move its dense torso!
Poka-clone made a mad dash for Kat, but before she could leap up and start licking her face uncontrollably, the original Poka stepped out from behind me blocking clone Poka’s path. Original Poka didn’t bark or snarl or sniff or anything. She just stood there, motionless. Like a bodyguard at a Gregon pleasure club.
The Poka-clone went from full gallop to dead stop in under a second, kicking up grass and dust as she slid to a stop right in front of the original Poka. The two of them were now about a foot away from one another, each in the same bodyguard position, each with identical stoic but also curious facial expressions. They were mirror images of one another.
At the same instant, they began sniffing and circling one another, trying to figure out what the hellvian each was looking at. For a second I thought I’d get confused about which was which, but it turned out I knew my Poka.
It was a relief. I’d feel like a jerk if I couldn't even tell which dog was which, like it would mean I didn’t love or care about my dog enough to recognize her.
Micro-expressions came to mind. As similar as they were, I sensed the difference between the two. Now I knew how parents of identical children must be able to tell them apart.
“They are exact, are they not?” the bot-alien said with a proud tone in its voice, like they were so perfect at creating everything.
“No, they're not as exact as you think,” I replied. “Turns out everyone’s got a unique personality. You can’t just run off Xerox copies of life.”
The bot blipped its dissatisfaction with my answer, but I could tell it was thinking it over, trying to find a loophole to my argument. Neither the walrus nor the alien could live with me being right about something. It would probably fry their software like the computer in the factual ancient documentary vid WarGames. The primitive correct? Impossible! Does not compute!
“They’re so cute,” Kat said, boiling it all down to what really mattered.
She was right. They were cute.
The original Poka was at least an eight or nine on the cute scale, and now there were two of them. Ugh. The realization hit me hard. How the hellvian was I gonna deal with two Pokas? I’d barely survived the one! I'd have to worry about that later. At the moment I was stuck with the two of them, like it or not. I wasn’t going to have the bot-alien kill the Poka-clone. Or any clone, if I could help it.
“It was the Ultra who commanded me not to cease the clone’s existence, not you.”
“Yes. I get it. You wouldn’t lift a finger to help me. You don’t have to keep reminding me. And if you won’t stop reading my mind, will you please stop responding to my thoughts?”
“No.”
“Ultra. Please tell your thing here to stop reading my mind.”
“Farmy?”
“Sorry, Ultra. I will disengage. It is hard not to read them. They are so loud and obnoxious and simple and…”
“Okay, Farmy. We get it,” Kat said.
“Apologies, Ultra. I believe the robot organism is attempting to interfere with my functions.”
“Technically, you’re interfering with its functions,” I replied. “You just took over and are puppeteering it without its consent.”
“Consent?”
“Yeah. Like what you’ve been asking from us to stay here until we croak. If you’re going to possess another being’s body and treat it like a rag doll, you might want to ask permission.”
“Permission?”
“Forget it.”
I turned to Kat. “How much longer do you think we need that thing inside the bot?”
She shrugged. “Depends on how much longer you want to talk to the aliens. I mean me.”
I was tempted to tell her to tell the thing to get out of the walrus. A high-tech exorcism. Begone, demon.
“So I can just tell you to tell it to leave anytime, and the Ultra will do it?”
“Sure, why not?”
The bot-alien blipped its disagreement. “Ultra. I do not wish to depart. You have not yet consented to remain in the paradise until the human’s expiration. Do you consent?”
“Now you know what consent means. And no, we don’t consent.”
“Then I request to remain in the body of this…appliance.”
Appliance. The alien hadn’t quite gotten the gist of our language. But I didn’t mind. I kind of liked that it had called the bot an over-engineered refrigerator.
“It prefers the term robot,” I corrected it. Though it would probably prefer to be called the highest intelligent life form in the human galaxy and beyond. “Fine. Let it stay. We might have some more questions, anyway,” Also, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was ready to deal with the robot. It would definitely be filing many complaints and protocol violations against me about having an alien entity controlling its programming.
“You can stay for now, Farmy,” Kat said.
“Thank you, Ultra.”
The two Pokas continued their mirror-image dancing routine. Sniffing, squinting, and wagging their tails. Then at the same time, each noticed something. Something more powerful than fear. Something neither could resist.
A stick!
Both leaped in unison, each grabbing a side and playing one of their favorite games. Tug of war. They tugged, growled and bit off pieces of the stick until it became smaller and smaller and they got closer and closer, Lady and the Tramp spaghetti-style. Soon they were mouth to mouth, gleefully pulling and running with the now-stump stick gripped tightly in their mouths. Neither was going to give in. Not until one passed out from exhaustion. I wasn’t going to place any bets, unless I could wager they’d both pass out at the same time.
Then, the best thing I could hope for happened. They each rolled over onto their backs—still holding the stick, of course, because there was no way either one of them was going to let go of that, since their lives depended on holding onto it.
They’d exposed their bellies to one another. It was the human equivalent of a hug.
My anxiety that they’d kill one another vanished, and my chest heaved with relief. Chalk one up for the good guys.
Kat nudged me with her elbow. “Looks like they’re buddies.”
“Looks like.”
“I’m relieved. I know how particular Poka is.”
“You’re telling me.”
I had often thought about getting another dog so Poka could have a buddy. But she was always a bit dog-suspicious. She wasn’t antisocial. She just liked who she liked, and really didn’t like who she didn’t like. I never knew who or why. There was no rhyme or reason about which people and dogs she’d bark at.
Also, if I was being totally honest. Poka was a handful and I wasn’t sure I could handle another dog on top of it. It looked like the universe had decided for me. It does that. Who knew what the world needed was two Pokas?
I smiled to myself. The walrus was going to lose its core programming module when it saw there were two of them. Its purpose in life was to rid the ship of the one. Instead, it was going to have to deal with two. Ha. The universe really does throw you some curve balls. Maybe karma does exist.
“Do you consent now?” the bot-alien asked again.
“Do you have to ruin everything? Can’t I just enjoy the moment? It’s been awhile since we had any fun and stuff wasn’t trying to kill us.”
“This is fun?” the bot asked.
I pointed to the dogs. “Yes. That’s called having fun.”
It bleeped and blipped. “This planet is fun. You should consent.”
“Nice try,” I replied.
It grunted and blipped, frustrated that no matter what it did I still wasn’t ready to consent. Then it began humming and whirring. A clear sign it was thinking. Processing. Trying to figure ou
t another way to get us to stay.
“Ultra, may I destroy the ship?”
“No!” We both yelled in unison.
The bot went back to making processing noises, clearly still trying to figure out a way to sway us. I mean the Ultra.
“That thing isn’t going to stop until we agree.”
Kat shrugged. “It’s still our call. We’re free to choose.”
“Only because you’re the Ultra. And for whatever reason, the Ultra isn’t willing to have them rip you out of it.”
“Good point. I gotta give the Ultra credit.”
“Yeah. It’s the only one around here so far that isn’t an arseholvian.”
“Shhh. The bot will hear you,” Kat giggled.
“Right. Let’s just enjoy the moment while it lasts.”
We held hands and watched the two Pokas frolicking in our alien-made Garden of Eden. A much-needed respite.
The bot-alien continued muttering its processing blips and whirs in the background. It wasn’t about to give up on its mission to get us to consent. Suddenly, it made a ping, sort of like a toaster popping up toast.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“What?” Kat replied.
“I think the walrus just got an idea.”
Chapter Thirteen
A Hula-hoop portal dropped down over us, and in the next moment we were falling through the air at a bazillion miles per hour.
“What’s happening!” I screamed into the wind.
Kat looked around, gauging her surroundings, then smiled at me. “It’s Horkan base jumping.”
“What?”
“We’re base jumping!”
What the frak?
Horkan was a favorite planet for mountain-climbing and base jumping. It had become universe-famous because the mountains actually floated in the sky. The Grand Stairway was the highest natural structure in the known galaxy. Its summit actually peaked in the exosphere, where it touched outer space and the few who made the summit had to switch over to spacesuits in order to reach the summit.
You couldn’t base jump from the top of the Stairway, for obvious reasons. You’d float off into the orbit of Horkan. A few had tried and had to be rescued by orbit drones. Embarrassing, but it made for a good vid feed.
Kat’s smile went from ear to ear. “Relax and enjoy it,” she yelled.
“Relax and enjoy it? We’re plummeting tens of thousands of feet at universe knows what speed!”
“I know. It’s awesome right?”
It wasn’t awesome. Not at all. I wasn’t any adrenaline junkie. I was a nap fanatic. I figured the bot-alien’s bug idea was to use our memories to make this place more pleasurable. It was trying the reward strategy to get us to stay. You get more glowworms with entrails than with lima beans, as the saying goes.
Clearly, this experience was plucked from Kat’s life, not mine. No way, no how, anyone would’ve ever made me base jump the Stairway. Except, Kat of course.
There was nothing to do but go along for the ride. For Kat, that included whooping, hollering, and hooting in joy. For me it was screaming in terror, and trying not to throw up as I watched the planet’s surface come into view.
How fast were we going? I didn’t know, but in about a minute I was going to be squashed flatter than a one-dimension Okor bug against the windshield of a mining ship.
Still, I had to admit, in the milliseconds between screaming and crying, it was pretty fraking amazing. I’d never base jumped and never would have. But wow, what an adrenalin rush! And the view! It was stunning. I could see half of the planet. Only a small part was actually developed for Kat and me. The rest remained a multicolored haze. A fog that I was sure was made of some kind of alien goop.
These dang aliens could make anything with their goop. It was a modern miracle. If I could just bring some of it back to Prime for some reverse engineeringI was sure they could use it to make anything and most likely solve thousands of problems, from biological to weapons development. And of course, bio-weapons development.
The planet’s surface was getting larger, fast. Too fast. How the frak did you stop? I’d never base jumped, but I assumed there had to be a parachute of some sort on my body. I looked everywhere but found nothing.
I rolled backwards and gave Kat my most panicked look. It was no joke. I was the most panicked I’d ever been. “Parachute?” I screamed.
She grinned wide and put her hand to her ear. “What?”
“Where’s the fraking chute!”
“What?”
Great. Now she can’t hear me. I pointed to my back like, “Hey. Where’s the parachute?” I think she figured out what I was miming and screamed something back at me, but at the rate I was falling, there wasn’t enough time left to do anything except say my goodbyes. And even that I had to do really quick.
The planet was getting larger fast. Really fast. I could see Poka and clone-Poka below. The fraking bot had finally gotten its wish. It had figured out a way to get rid of me in a “climbing accident.” Yeah, some accident. It had intentionally forgotten to equip me with a parachute. I could just imagine how it would explain it to the Ultra.
“Apologies, Ultra. The primitive did not understand how to use the landing gear.”
I closed my eyes hard and prepared to die for what seemed like the hundredth time in two days. At least I’d gotten to enjoy watching the Pokas playing.
In another few seconds, it was all going to be over. My brainstem was about to smash through my butt hole like a small fart. That’s what my life had come down to. A poof of gas.
I took a peek and watched the surface speeding at me at the speed of sound.
“GoodbyePokaandclone-PokaandKatandstupidbot-alienandfrakingplanetandmomandcoffee.”
I’m not sure what I actually said, because all that was coming out of my mouth hole was a blood-curdling scream.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” I screamed for so long that I lost all the air in my lungs, had to take a deep breath, then start screaming again. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“Wil,” Kat said.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh.”
“Wil!”
Chapter Fourteen
I peeled my eyes open and took a look around. I hadn’t died. Again. But when I saw where I was, I reconsidered my first thought. Maybe I’d died after all.
I was in Kat’s bedroom, back on Prime. And I was naked. So was she.
I rubbed my temples. “This is the first time we…”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder whose memory the walrus pulled this one from?”
“Maybe both of ours?”
I looked under the covers and checked my manhood. It was bigger than it should’ve been. Much bigger. “It definitely pulled some of this from my memory.”
“Why do you say that?”
I lifted the cover again and pointed down. She smiled. “Oh yeah. Definitely your misguided memory.”
“Hey, it’s not that much bigger.”
“If you say so.”
“I have to hand it to the walrus. It’s doing a good job making our dreams and memories real. It’s really pushing the envelope here. Trying to get us to stay.”
“I don’t like being manipulated,” Kat snapped.
“Me either,” I agreed, even though I was having trouble being as angry as Kat with her lying next to me, totally butt-naked.
Kat’s eyes went tight. She was pissed. “Farmy! Get in here, now!”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait a minute?”
“A minute?” She smiled.
“I meant like a few hours."
Kat kissed me. “I want to, but not like this.”
“You’re right. We should wait,” I agreed, not sure I meant it. I should want to wait. Logically, I shouldn’t be excited to have sex with an alien hybrid but my eyes weren’t seeing an alien, just a naked body. Pure, unadulterated, beautiful, human flesh. No alien tentacles whatsoever.
I’d been on the Outpost for over a year with no companionship. My
body was rebelling against my mind. Even her small, playful kiss was wreaking havoc on my nether regions.
Calm down. It’s an alien. It’s an alien, the little voice muttered.
“But she’s so fraking hot,” I whispered.
Remember the ten foot long worms.
“I’m trying to but look at her.”
Stop! It’s not her.
I know, but look at those soft…
You should be ashamed!
“I am.”
The bot-alien popped up through a portal, and that did the trick. Seeing the walrus was like having a cold bucket of ice water splashed on my crotch. I was half grateful and half furious.
“You beckoned Ultra?”
Kat gave the bot-alien a red-hot stare. “Farmy. Stop trying to seduce us to stay on the planet. We will make up our own minds.”
“But Ultra, I was only trying to show you the pleasures you can have in order to aid in your decision-making. Showing you how pleasant the remainder of your life cycle would be, if you would be so magnanimous as to consent.”
“I appreciate your focus. And the base jump was awesome. I haven’t done it since…”
“Beep. Since your parents took you as a child.”
“Right. But stay out of my memories.”
“Yes, Ultra.”
“And mine!” I reiterated.
“His too,” she said.
“Confirmed.”
“Thank you. Now, take us back to…”
And just like that, we were at the waterfall with original Poka and clone-Poka. I checked myself to make sure I wasn’t still naked. Thankfully, the bot-alien had put my clothes back on. And unfortunately, Kat’s also.
The two Pokas saw us magically appear, ran over and simultaneously jumped up on us, licking and pawing. We were back to where we started. In the alien Garden of Eden. With an extra dog and a possessed robot. All we had to do was figure out what to do next.
“Do you consent?”
“Not yet. But we might as well decide soon. There doesn’t seem much point in putting it off any longer.”
The two Pokas finally quieted down, or at least burned off some of their nuclear energy reserves and were laying casually, nipping at each other’s wagging tails.