Friday, October 29, 2010

TTU: My Friend June from the Planet Xartex, Chapter Three

Get ready for the next installment of...

True Tales from University: My Friend June from the Planet Xartex


CHAPTER THREE

Though I was, in a way, June’s student, I found myself trying to avoid her.
I felt really bad about it. But I felt really bad about her. I didn’t want to think about what I’d learnt. I wanted to forget about it, actually. In a way, looking back, that’s so hard to believe. I was drawn to the knowledge, but I was repulsed by it too. Everything I learnt, the more it hurt. It could never be me seeing these things. It could only be immortal Xartexans seeing the wonders of the universe.
One of the things June did show me was a guide to Xartexan soul types. I didn’t know you could categorise the soul, but like good little organisers, the Xartexans had invented types for their personalities. I skimmed through the material she gave me, translated into English. When I asked her why it was translated, she said it was to help Xartexans learn the language of their study subjects thoroughly, by using material they were already familiar with.
There were many different types of Xartexan. Sometimes the division depended on age and experience on other planets, but other times it was simple personality traits. ‘This just looks like any old human personality categorisation,’ I told June.
‘No,’ she said seriously. ‘Humans are much more complex. Xartexans are mostly single minded and clearly motivated. Humans, somehow, have become extremely convoluted. For example, did you know, we had no such thing as theatre on Xartex?’
I blinked at June in surprise. ‘No... no theatre? No acting at all? Not even film, or television?’
She shook her head seriously. ‘It never occurred to us to re-enact events in such a way. We would tell stories, yes, but story telling, even if it was a true story, was always, even from our earliest days, a very formal thing. Stories have a specific structure, and they are always told in the third person, as you would say here on Earth.’
I gaped at June. ‘Wow. Are you glad you came to Earth?’
She smiled, and I began to sense, behind the smile, something of the age of June. She was ancient. Her smile was not in the slightest bit patronising, but it had a warm, motherly fondness. ‘I have seen art and drama on other planets, Lou. But yes, I enjoy your human varieties. You see, humans are very talented at acting. You all do it almost every day. I have never seen any sentient species so conscious about the fact that they are acting all the time. Even if they aren’t meaning to be lying or manipulating.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, feeling a little defensive.
‘Well, for example, the other day I went to the supermarket. The checkout girl was obviously very tired and fed up. But when I came to her counter, she put on a big smile and treated me as if I was the most important person in the world. Now to me, that is lying.’
‘But, she was just –‘
‘I know, Lou. I know humans do it all the time. But it is a form of lying. The last thing she wanted to do then was smile and chat with me. And yet she did. Because you humans have set up a great...’ she paused, and shook her head. ‘No, I shouldn’t say anything else. It is too critical.’
But I knew what she meant. I had only been thinking the same thing the other day. ‘I know what you mean. We humans have set up a great fallacy. If we try really hard in life, and put up a brave face, it will get us somewhere.’ June frowned, and couldn’t quite meet my eye. ‘Are you telling me no other species has fooled themselves in a similar way?’
‘None quite so effectively as you.’
I bit my lip. It astounded me. June seemed to think humanity was the most complex species, psychologically, in the galaxy. Me? I just thought we were, frankly, damn stupid. Hungering for the immortality of the Xartexans, we set up a false system where after we died, there was a place for us to go and live forever in peace.
Surely, the existence of Xartexans, if not disproved, then at least heavily damaged the basis of most earthly religions. Perhaps there was a heaven after all. But why then, did the Xartexans live on? That was one question that didn’t seem to fit in ‘God’s’ creation.
So, with the realisation that humans were perhaps the most messed-up beings in the universe, I carried on reading the Xartexan Personality Types. They were simple enough to classify by motivations.
There was the youngest types of Xartexans. Some started off as the Little Angel Experience. They travelled to other worlds, intent on doing good to all they met. Sadly, not all interference for the better was wise. Sometimes a being had to help itself, and reliance on one of these little healers was addictive. In time, Little Angels changed. Either they wised up, and stopped trying to help everybody all the time, or they toughened up, became jaded, and looked at everything purely objectively in the future.
Surprisingly, I found that some young Xartexans did start off in the Superior Being Experience. These souls immediately considered themselves above every other life form, which would lead to blunders in fieldwork, such as treating sentient beings like animals. If these Superior Beings were not quickly broken in, they could rise against the established peaceful campaigns, and try to take over the galaxy. But it was very rare for any Xartexan, even an SBE, to rebel so hugely against the major Xartexan authority. They were good little citizens. Superior Beings changed in time, sometimes softening up and being more understanding, sometimes growing desperate in their search for other immortal species, or moving to fields of work which didn’t involve direct contact with the study specimens.
Most young Xartexans fit into those two types. As they grew up, they progressed into other sub-categories. Many Xartexans were in the Analytical Watcher Experience. They were most likely to be in the field, getting to know the study subjects. There were other watchers: the Sea-Dream Watcher, who stayed at home in Xartex, dreaming at the bottom of their ocean; the Eternal Watcher, who chose to float through space and dream, communicating every now and again with other souls; the Overseeing Watcher, who usually organised base campaigns for high above in the orbits of planets. There was an Overseeing Watcher in a ship above the Earth, or so June told me. It was his job to take all the information sent up from Xartexan agents, and compile it to send back to those in the Passive Reader Experience. Others were Active Readers, which were the equivalent of teachers. They taught the Xartexans of the first body about the wonderful places in the galaxy that they could visit after death.
This raised an important question for me. I asked June, ‘Since the afterlife is so wonderful for you Xartexans, you must have a lot of suicides on your planet.’
She shook her head gravely, and looked as if she were about to cry. ‘No.’
I was taken aback. ‘But...’
She gulped and looked away. ‘I told you the soul was indestructible. But that was only half true. It can be destroyed. If a Xartexan of the first body commits suicide, when the body is opened, the soul is gone. Completely gone. Whenever a Xartexan dies, their soul must be extracted from the shell. If the soul is ever exposed during life, the Xartexan will die immediately.’
‘So... wait... if you can’t see the soul before death...’
‘Then, yes, it looks as if those who commit suicide never even had a soul. That was a theory, once upon a time, among philosophers. But I know it is untrue.’ She sat down and took my hands. ‘I had a mate, it seems an eternity ago. I only ever had one mate when I was in my shell body. I never found another after him. He committed suicide, right in front of me. He exposed his soul. I saw it, the first soul I had ever seen, shining brightly, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And then I saw it fade from existence, and he died immediately.’
I clutched June’s hands tightly. It was a sad, terrible story. The tears showing in her eyes (how could a droid cry? In the back of my mind I was amazed) made me want to cry. ‘I’m sorry, June. You must miss him.’
‘You’ll never know how much,’ she said, warmly.
And she was right. I never would know how much. I might be falling for Silas, maybe. But if he died, even if we were soul mates, at least I had the promise of death waiting at the end of my life. We could be reunited.
June, in choosing to die naturally, meant that she had to stay, forever, on this, the physical plane. She would never see what was beyond it, if indeed there was anything, because she was indestructible.
I had my first breakthrough in a long time, at that moment.
What was the purpose of the Xartexan? They could never join the dead, not unless the universe collapsed in on itself, destroying everything. Then, they would be dead, maybe. And maybe there was something beyond, in that case. Maybe every sentient being did have a non-physical soul. Maybe Xartexans were the only species meant to have an immortal physical soul. They were the watchers. They could watch over the universe, and be the link between every planet with life on it. Maybe they were made for observation, not us.
Was it these thoughts bringing peace to me, or the physical link between June and me as she held my hands? She was so eternally sad, and yet she radiated peace, as she always did. I reached over and hugged her. ‘Thanks Lou,’ she whispered. When she broke away, she went back to her study, and I went back to perusing the pamphlet on Xartexan types.
I read through the whole thing, asking June a lot more questions. I felt more comfortable around her now that I had resolved within me my little dilemma. Yes, it made perfect sense to me. Xartexan second bodies were not ‘souls’, even though they used that word to explain it in English. They were physical manifestations of their personalities, able to navigate the universe for the entirety of its long life. Other species died, and went on to – what? Heaven? Dreamtime? The astral plane? The Xartexans were left behind as the True Observers. Like that documentary that described Earth as a perfect place for observation, the Xartexan body was made for observation. It was indestructible. It could pass through the gaseous substance of stars and come out unscathed, with a wealth of knowledge. That was the role of Xartexans. Just like it was the role of humans to see just how convoluted something as simple as a brain could become.
And if there were roles, that meant there was an orchestrator up above. A God? I wasn’t sure. I was never very strong in my faith, but I felt very high on some nice feeling that day. There had to be something higher than all of us, Xartexans included.
‘June?’
‘Yes?’
‘What type am I?’
She smiled that motherly smile on me again. ‘Like I said before. It doesn’t exactly work like that. Humans are very different. Your personality types are more accurate for you. These Xartexan types also define our occupations. They’re very exact. I don’t think you can categorise humans to such an exact extent.’
In a better mood, I looked through the pamphlet further. There was the Command Post Experience. Commanders of cells were in this type. The black man I had seen organising June’s cell would have been this type. There was the Expansive Consciousness Experience, where a soul was able, through a gift or through millennia of training, to expand their psychic feelers out and possibly do things that were, to us, supernatural, like telekinesis, or telepathy, or things like that. Super senses were included in this category. So that guy who saw me spying on the cell must have been an ECE.
Then I hit upon the All Angelic Experience. The pamphlet described the All Angels. They had most likely started as a Little Angel, and through time, wisdom, and a little bit of luck, they had become fully developed souls that radiated a sense of peace wherever they went. They could diffuse any situation. They cared deeply for every living creature, and accepted, eventually, the eventual demise of all life forms (bar Xartexans, of course). They could make anyone, anywhere, feel completely understood.
I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that June was experiencing the All Angel Experience.


I was feeling a little more comfortable around June after a week or two, but I still didn’t see her as much as I might have. And this was because I had a boyfriend.
Silas and I had really hit it off. The attraction we had given into so easily when drunk was still there in the sober interactions. I went for coffee with him when we had promised.
It was easier to enjoy myself now that the issue of my ‘soul’ had been cleared up. After all, how could this thing with Silas be explained on a purely animal level? Answer: it couldn’t. Most of our attraction was intellectual. We had very similar tastes in music. We were both into video games. We could both appreciate each others passion for our chosen subjects. He was one of those rare guys who start off a relationship really well. He did all the right things, as if he had read them in a book. For example, he asked me heaps of stuff about me, and I never felt like he was talking too much. He had the right level of interest in me: he wasn’t desperate to hang out all the time, but he wasn’t distant either.
Our next date was at the city observatory. He was trying to take an interest in my interests, but he didn’t have too put too much effort into it. He was naturally interested, one of those eternal student types. The next time I saw him we sat in his lounge watching reruns of ‘The Daily Show’, a news and politics parody show. I was laughing easily at everything, and when I didn’t understand some obscure thing about American politics, Silas was ready with an explanation.
‘Wow, you’re really good,’ I told him. ‘I used to think politics was boring as hell. But I’ve been laughing so much today that my jaw is killing me.’
‘It can be boring, if you don’t know what’s going on. But I reckon it’s really important, you know?’
‘So like, what are you going to do after university?’
‘Try and get into parliament.’
‘Wow!’ I breathed, amazed. ‘That’s extreme. But don’t you have to be good at debating and stuff as well?’
He nodded. ‘I’m in a debating club at uni.’
‘Cool, can I come watch sometime? I mean, I probably won’t understand a thing, but I wouldn’t mind seeing that.’
He grinned, and pulled me into a one armed hug on his couch. ‘That’d be cool. I’d like you to meet some of my friends.’
He kissed the top of my head and stroked my hair. ‘So what does that mean?’ I asked him shyly.
I looked up through my lashes at him. He smiled down at me. Quoting a song in his normal voice, he said to me, ‘I said, do ya wanna be my girl?’
I laughed. ‘Sure.’ I snuggled up to him, and that was that, pretty much.
Next time I saw him was the debating club night a couple of days after. He waited for me after my last class, and wrapped one arm protectively around me as soon as we stepped together.
‘Hey Lulu.’
‘Hi Si.’ I felt eyes on me. People were looking at us together. Why? He was pretty cute, yeah, but why stare at us? Was it the body language, maybe? His arm was around me and he walked with such confidence it bordered on smugness.
 Would I have noticed all this if not for June?
We grabbed some cheap dinner – well, actually, he paid for it all – of butter chicken from the food court in the quad. We didn’t sit across from each other, but he sat next to me. I felt a little bit odd in a way. Thanks to June, I was analysing everything. And I felt... what did I feel? I felt like he was treating me a little like a pet.
It was perhaps not the wisest decision to hide my feelings from Silas. I cared for him deeply and I didn’t have plans to break up with him anytime soon. But I did have a little bit of a problem with the way he acted in public. Holding me all the time, buying me dinner... these things were sweet, but problematic.
Or were they? I wasn’t sure what were my thoughts anymore, and what were the thoughts I thought I was expected to think.
Was I happy, or not?
I went with him to the debating club. The pet feeling increased. He was very proud to introduce me to his friends. But he always held me so possessively. He made sure I had the seat closest to his table, because I couldn’t sit with him while he debated.
I didn’t really understand what was going on in the debate. They were arguing about immigration or something. Silas had to argue on the side against open immigration. His points seemed to make a lot of sense to me, but so did those of the other side. Silas was a good debater, at least in my books; he put in equal amounts of passionate rhetoric and cold hard facts. He hadn’t told me whether or not he agreed with the standpoint he was representing tonight.
The debating club became a regular fixture on my Tuesday nights. It was pretty cool watching Silas argue points against others. He was quick witted and played to the audience enough times that he had their support, if not through his position, then simply because of his personality. I felt kind of proud that he was my boyfriend. I felt kind of proud that I was front row and centre, and everyone knew who I was.
There was just one shadow that came across our relationship.
It was a strange confrontation. I had no way of understanding it at the time. I came out of a class I shared with June. We were talking animatedly, and so it was that I completely missed Silas waiting for me. He came up and grabbed my arm. I was shocked at first, but then I realised who it was. ‘Oh, hi Si. Sorry, I didn’t see you.’
‘Who’s this?’ he asked me, looking at June in a none-too-friendly way.
‘This is my friend June,’ I told him cheerily, though already the cogs were spinning away in my head. Did they know each other? ‘June, this is Silas, my boyfriend.’
‘Ah, yes. From the party,’ June remarked, particularly coldly. It was so unlike her. Had he done something to make him dislike her at the party?
‘Excuse us please,’ Silas said, and pulled me away almost roughly.
‘Bye June!’ I waved behind me.
Once we had gotten around the corner, I spoke quietly to Silas. ‘Si! What’s the matter?’
He stopped short and we leaned against the wall. He looked around cautiously before he replied, ‘How much to you know June? I mean really, really know her...’
I stared up into his eyes. They were dark and angry. What was it he knew? I could never tell him what I knew. If I did that, I would die. ‘She’s just a friend,’ I almost squeaked. ‘We’re in a class together.’
‘Stay away from her, Lou. Please. I can’t tell you why. But it’s really important.’
As we walked away together, I was silent. What did he know? Surely he didn’t know what I knew? How could he have found that out?
And what if the Xartexans found out that he knew? I knew the first assumption they would make.
Another thing was worrying me. Was this anything to do with Xartex, or was it actually just that I had somehow got myself involved in one of those scary, possessive relationships? Was this guy abusive? He was definitely the jealous type, I could see that now. But how far did this idea of ownership go?
I said nothing to him about it.
And I said nothing to June about it.
I still saw her, of course. Silas, as nice as he was (most of the time), was not going to stop that. We still had class together. And June was still one of the funniest and most intelligent people I knew.
June said nothing about the strange confrontation outside of class that day when I next saw her. We passed notes in class as usual. Then, as we were leaving, she turned to me, her face grave.
‘Lou? Are you and Si serious?’
‘Serious? I don’t know. Maybe. Why?’
Not meeting my eyes, she grabbed my wrists, and expressed her urgency by squeezing it. ‘You know me,’ she said quietly. ‘You know that I see things about people around me. You believe me when I say those things, don’t you?’ She looked at me now, her eyes like headlights, freezing me.
‘Of course, June,’ I whispered. ‘W…what are you saying?’
Her breath was stifled as she continued. ‘I am telling you, Lou… watch out for Silas. He is a bad, bad person.’
‘Bad?’ I repeated, eyes locked with hers.
‘Yes. Bad.’ And with that she turned on her heel and left the lecture hall.
I stood there, frozen for a few seconds. What kind of bad? Was it true? Had my fears about him been founded? Was he one of those possessive, abusive boyfriends? Would he punish me if I disobeyed him?
It was hard for me to believe. Yes, he acted like I was some treasured pet, and that irritated me. But surely that wouldn’t translate into physical harm, would it?
I was strongly considering hiding then. I was sure he would be outside waiting for me. He had started off so well, not desperate, but now it was like if he didn’t see me everyday he would call or text me incessantly. My initial reading of him as easy-going had been very inaccurate. If only I had June’s powers of judgement.
But then, was June acting on ulterior motives? Was she actually the one being controlling? Did she think that, since I held her secret, she had control of my life now?
No, of course not. June was the All Angel. She loved deeply, but she was not the possessive type. Having lived – I realised I had never asked her just how old she was – as long as she had, she had learnt to let go of the ones she had loved. This warning of hers was no fabrication. She had given it to me as a choice. She hadn’t said ‘or else’, or anything along those lines. She knew I could defend myself.
And defend myself was what I had to do. I couldn’t hide from Silas. I had to walk out there and tell him to back off. Perhaps we wouldn’t break up, not at first, at least. I would tell him to sort his jealousy out, and give him a chance to do so.
I walked out and there he was. He approached me but I backed off. His face fell. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just... let’s walk, okay? Don’t hold me too close. It makes me trip up.’
We fell in step with each other. I found it hard, now faced with him, to summon up the words I was roughly preparing in my head. I glanced sidelong at him. He looked a little hurt, but also, he looked as if he was already closed off from anything I was about to say.
‘Si, I just feel like I need to get to know you better. You’re very nice to me, always. But I need a little... you know... independence I guess. I guess what I’m saying is, your chivalry is nice and all, it’s nice that you put in the effort, and I appreciate, really I do. I just need to be able to rely on me, okay? So you don’t have to buy me dinner all the time. And, and at your debating club, you don’t have to always involve me in the conversations. I know you try and make sure I’m always involved in the conversations between you and your club mates. But you don’t have to make me feel welcome. I like being there, and I don’t mind if attention isn’t drawn to me, you know? I’m a big girl. I don’t have to be babied.’
He paused for a moment, and I moved out of the flow of human traffic. He met my eyes after a while, and nodded. ‘I think I understand. I’ll try.’
‘Thanks Si. That’s all I ask.’ I reached for his hand and smiled at him, trying to lure a smile out of him. ‘What are we up to today?’
‘Well, dinner first – it can be your shout this time.’ I smiled at this. ‘And then I thought I’d take you to another one of my social clubs.’
We resumed walking, heading for the central quad again. ‘Man, how many clubs are you in!’ I exclaimed, laughing. But it wasn’t an actual question. ‘Which club is it this time?’
He tapped his nose. ‘A secret. You’ll find out when you get there.’
‘Ooh! I like secrets,’ I said, grinning. On reflection, I wasn’t too sure how accurate that statement really was.
As we walked and talked all the way to the food court, and while we ate dinner, I watched our conversation and body language as if from slightly above myself. Silas really was making an effort to be less possessive. He sat across from me, though his public displays of affection didn’t stop altogether. I bought the dinner that night, which I thought was only fair. I wondered if he really would be able to change, and settle into a more easy-going attitude with me. I wondered if June really had been right in observing that he was ‘bad’. How was he bad, really? I could do far worse.
We went to a computer lounge afterwards and I did some study while he surfed the internet, filling in time between dinner and the mystery social club. Then it was time. Still hampering him with questions and begging for clues as to what the social club actually was, we headed down stairs to the commons.
We headed through the large hall. I glanced at all the various social clubs, trying to guess which they were and whether we were heading to any of them. There were people studying in the commons, which I could never do: it was so damn loud. There were people in language improvement clubs discussing things in any number of languages. There were people playing card games and board games, and not normal playing cards or mainstream board games, more like games with wizards and elves and magic. There was even a knitting and crafting club in full swing. But we headed past all of these.
Dread sunk into my full stomach as we headed towards the group in the corner. They were the last people I would have imagined Silas socialising with. Most of them were very rough looking. Now, I wasn’t prejudiced. I knew a few punks and Goths. But these people all had some strange look in their eyes. It was like they were hungry. What for?
Among the tough members who looked like they might be skinheads or bikers, there were a few smaller people. There was one especially nerdy looking guy, with the thickest glasses I had ever seen. He tapped away at his tiny laptop perched on his knees, and looked completely comfortable beside one old, bearded guy with muscles like tree trunks.
To my surprise, a number of the frightening looking members nodded in a kind of friendly way to Silas as he approached them. I was thankful when he put his arm around my waist, though just a few hours ago I had told him not to. Oh no, on the contrary, right now I definitely wanted to be manoeuvred around. I wanted to have him in between me and these terrifying people.
‘So what kind of club were you saying this was again, Si?’ I whispered, my voice squeaking a little.
‘Just wait,’ he breathed.
So I waited. The other, more normal groups (and yes, I’m counting those Dungeons and Dragons nerds as normal) started to filter away as the night got later and later. Soon all that was left was the very chatty craft group, and they were sufficiently far away that they couldn’t overhear us.
Silas leaned forward. ‘All right team. As you can see, I’ve recruited a new member today. This is Louise.’ I wanted to protest his assumption that I was in this club, but I didn’t dare to. ‘I declare this meeting of the Anti-Xartexan Club officially open.’
Surely he would feel that involuntary straightening of my spine when he said the X word. If he had caught that one little movement, then he probably knew already. But of course, I couldn’t resist bluffing. ‘X-xar-what?’
My eyes found and focussed on the patch on the shoulder of the leather jacket of one of the skinhead males. It said AXC, and it had the picture of the typical, big headed alien with big eyes, with a circle with a cross on it. The message was clear.
Silas was indeed a very, very bad boy.
‘Xartexan,’ the nerd with the inch-thick glasses said, pushing the heavy frames up the bridge of his nose, and giving me a glassy look. ‘As in, a resident or native of Xartex.’
‘And... and Xartex is...?’
‘A planet on the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy,’ a chick with short spiked hair, several nose rings and eyebrow piercings answered me.
I blinked and tried to look as dumbfounded as I could manage. But that was hard. I wasn’t the world’s best liar, I knew that much. ‘Uh... is this a joke?’
‘Silas,’ the older guy with the beard grunted and moved his head to face my boyfriend, the first time I had seen him move all this time. ‘Why did you bring her here?’
‘Because, she’s my girlfriend. And I want to make sure she understands the danger the world is in. The danger that each and every one of us is in.’ He looked at me pointedly then, and explained, ‘Lou. I know it sounds crazy. But there are aliens living among us, disguised perfectly as humans.’
‘And... and what? Are they dangerous?’ I held his eyes, hoping to God that he couldn’t see through my ruse.
‘Very. If they can get you alone, they will kill you, and take over your body. Your own family could be Xartexans, and you’d never know.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ I said, deciding on my path. The only way I could get out of this predicament without giving June away was by pretending I didn’t believe a word of it. ‘This isn’t some sci-fi B-movie from the 50s, Silas.’
‘It’s true, Lou. You have to believe me. They’re among us. You never know who could be one.’
That’s right. You never could know, Si.
‘Oh yeah? Then how do I know you’re not one? How do you know I’m not one? How do you know all of these people aren’t Xartexan?’
‘There are signs, Lou. Xartexans have a mark on their shoulder. It shows the entry point of the Xartexan parasite that takes over the human brain. That’s just one of the signs. They’re also super strong.’
I tried very hard not to panic. He knew about the shoulder thing. He had it all wrong of course, and I tried not to show any emotion as I thought it through. He thought Xartexans were parasites that entered in through the shoulder. On the contrary, the shoulder, the left if I remembered rightly, was the seat in which the Xartexan soul sat in a robotic body. But I recalled one time when June had worn an off the shoulder top to a party. She had no such mark. It was a blatant lie. Someone had been misinforming Silas and his stupid club.
That was good.
He knew about the strength though, but I didn’t know how. How did Silas realise the existence of the Xartexans and still be alive? Anyone they told, anyone they confided their deepest secrets in, was bound by an oath not to betray them. If that person couldn’t be trusted, then their life was forfeit. So how were Silas and his little club even alive?
‘Si, this is dumb. Seriously, why are we here?’
‘I told you, Lou. This is the Anti-Xartexan Club. We protect the world from the aliens that have come to Earth in order to take it over.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ I repeated. ‘I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, okay? I’m sorry you brought me here.’
I walked away. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to face the rough crowd that Silas had managed to assemble and educate in hatred of a perfectly peaceful species.
But were they peaceful? Really, I only knew about them what June wanted me to know. But I couldn’t in my heart doubt her. She was, really and truly, the All Angel.
But my head was perfectly capable of doubt. And I knew the facts. I was only being given the information others deemed necessary. So my ideas about Silas could be wrong. Or, my ideas about June could be wrong.
Why, why, why did I follow you that night, June?
I made it out of the commons and into the quad, and that was when Silas caught up with me. I wrapped my jacket around myself as the cold wintry air hit me. He grabbed my arm and I swung around, half of me wanting to swing a punch at him.
‘Lou, please. Come and sit with us. Talk it out. I’m sure you will believe me if you just give the facts a chance.’
I looked at my watch. It was nine o’clock. I could see Venus in the west. The sun had set a good while before, but the evening star was very bright and still high on the horizon. She was so bright that not even the skyscrapers could defeat her light. Nine o’clock. On a Wednesday. That meant that Leigh would be home from her last class by now. I could call her, if I needed to. Just for my safety. Just in case something happened. The campus was practically deserted already.
‘I’m not interested, Si. Even if what you say is true, I don’t see what I could possibly do about some stupid aliens. And anyway, I don’t believe you and I don’t ever think I will. Please, don’t call me. I don’t want to speak to you ever again.’
As I began to walk away, I shoved my hands in my pockets, grabbing my cellphone in one hand and slitting my keys between my fingers with the other. Silas called out, ‘Just wait! Look. Look at this.’ I turned around and sighed. I don’t know why I did turn around. I frankly felt sorry for the boy, and all I wanted to do was go home and forget all about Xartexans for just one night.
He took a step towards me and showed me a picture. It was June, in daylight, talking with... was that the Commander? Yes, there was no mistaking his midnight skin. ‘Your friend June,’ Silas hissed venomously, ‘she’s one of them. And I’m worried about you Lou. I’m losing you to her.’
‘You’re only losing me to her because you’re vicious and making up stuff about her. Leave me alone!’
I swung around and started walking fast. He followed, calling, ‘You know! I see it in your eyes! She’s told you what she is! You’re next, Louise! She’ll get you next! She’s not as innocent as you think!’
I broke into a run and brought my phone out. I crossed the quad and brought up Leigh’s number in mere seconds. I pressed the call button and pressed the phone up to my ear. ‘Please pick up, please pick up!’ I whispered.
Two rings in, she did. ‘Hello?’
‘Leigh! Leigh, listen. Things just got freaky. I’ve told Silas to leave me alone, but he’s following me.’
She sounded absolutely shocked. ‘Where are you? Do you want me to call the police?’
‘Not yet. He’s still a far way behind me. But if he catches up and tries anything, if you hear him turn off my phone or yell at me or hit me or anything, please call the police. Please Leigh, just keep me talking. I need you right now.’
‘Where are you?’
I crossed the road between the quad and the park at a run. The road was largely empty right now. A glance behind me. Silas was still pursuing me, a horrible look in his eyes. ‘Where are you?’ Leigh asked me again, her voice desperate.
Not thinking, I stepped in and told her just as I did: ‘I’m in the park.’
‘The park?!’ she screamed in my ear. ‘What the hell are you doing in there?!’
‘Damn, Leigh, I don’t know. I’m just running. I’m not thinking straight right now.’
‘Lou, there’s all sorts of bad people in there!’
‘I’m already in a bit of trouble, Leigh, I don’t think it’s going to get much worse.’
‘Just try and get out of there soon Lou. Please.’
‘Okay Leigh. Stay on the line. Don’t leave me.’
‘I’m here Lou. I’m here.’
She was subjected to the sound of my heavy breathing as I panted, trying to keep up my run. I kept looking behind me. Silas was closing in, calling out for me.
I looked ahead of me. The park at night was a painting again, the dark bleeding out, absorbing the light. The trees were twisted, awful shapes. The grass was crisp and slick like ice. The path was freshly wet, reflecting the lamplight, echoing the distant sky which was, tonight, clear as crystal.
They came, bleeding out of the shadows. A bunch of guys, one with a machete. Hoods over their heads. They were heading for me, running much faster than me.
‘Leigh,’ I choked.
‘Lou? Lou, what is it?’
‘There are guys. In the park. One’s got a knife, there’s another with a baseball bat.’
‘Oh my God! Lou! Lou, run! I’m calling the police right now!’
The phone snapped off. I shoved it in my pocket and tightened my right hand around my keychain. I had wedged the keys in between my fingers and balled my fist up, so that I might be able to damage one of these guys if it came to that. I stopped and got into a defensive stance. Silas caught up with me, and stood in front of me.
‘Get the hell out of my way Silas.’
‘Run, Lou.’
I swore my head off. ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, you stupid prick! Get the hell away.’
‘You’re mine, Lou. These guys aren’t touching you.’
I told him in no uncertain terms to get the hell away, but he didn’t budge. But I didn’t have the resolve I thought I had. As they got even closer, I did what he said, and ran away.
And as I did, I mustered up the biggest, most blood-curdling scream I could manage.
I was quite proud of the glass-shattering sound that came out of my mouth. Remembering what I heard once in a women’s self-defence class, I started screaming and shouting the word ‘FIRE!’ Fire was, apparently, the only thing people actually came out to watch. Murder? Rape? Nope. Apparently the human race in general didn’t care much to help people about to be victimised. Maybe the Xartexans should take over the world. They’d probably care a lot more about us than we do.
There were some people coming through the quad now, and they came across the road at my screams. Cars stopped in the road, and a security guard came from somewhere. I could see him running just past the park gates.
Then came an awful sound. I turned around, now that I was close to the gates and the safe lights of the street.
Silas had evidently knocked one guy down. He was sprawled out on the ground. He punched another, and with an awful crunching sound, he hit the pavement.
Then the guy with the baseball bat came and hit Silas around the head. Even from where I was I could hear the crunch of bone.
I was screaming in earnest now. The security guard was racing past me now with his flashlight and baton. The kid with the machete, brainless, mindlessly violent, took one last slash at Silas and then the two conscious hooligans ran off into the bleeding darkness.
I called Leigh, finding myself on my knees. There were others around me now, trying to work out from me what had happened, trying to see if I was all right.
‘Leigh...’
‘Lou? Lou! Are you okay?’
‘We were attacked. Silas is down. There are people all around us now. I’m safe.’
‘Lou, I tried to call the cops. They thought I was kidding.’
‘It’s okay Leigh. Everyone’s here now, calling the cops and the ambulance...’
‘Is he seriously hurt?’
‘Yes,’ I said, not having seen him up close yet. I got shakily to my feet and started over. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
‘No. Please, don’t. I’ll see you at home.’
I walked forward, past where the security guard was handcuffing the two unconscious males together to a lamppost, over to Silas. ‘Miss,’ the security guard called out. ‘Miss, don’t interfere. This is a murder investigation scene now. He has no pulse. Please stay away.’
I fell to my knees again. A murder investigation. What had I done? If I hadn’t gone thoughtlessly running into the park, Silas would still be alive. He might have been bad. He might have been crazy even, with his dumb AXC. But he was a human being nonetheless, and he’d been my boyfriend for a few sweet weeks. The events of today couldn’t quite sully that.
I looked at Silas through my eyelashes and my hair, which had fallen over my eyes, a real mess. The security guard didn’t move me, but he stopped others coming to me. ‘Wait for the police to get here,’ he instructed everyone, frustrated.
I lost track of time. I just stared at his body. His head looked caved in on one side, where the bat had hit him. Before he had even fallen down, the guy with the machete had slashed at him and caught him at the very top of his left arm. A pool of blood reached all the way to my knees. I didn’t move.
I wasn’t aware of much at the time. I didn’t hear my phone ringing, or the security guard trying to comfort or move me, or the other students standing around, watching, guarding almost, feeling that this attack was a personal affront to them, to the university, to their safe little lives. I could sense all of this on one hand, but I was pretty numb and it didn’t register at the time. There were some of the Anti-Xartexan Club there, I could have sworn. But everyone was at a distance from me. Even the security guard moved away from me eventually, realising he wasn’t going to be able to budge me. Instead he went over to the two guys handcuffed to the lamppost, who were just beginning to come around. The bastards.
I reflected over the last few days. Silas had annoyed me with his possessiveness, yes. But I had never wanted this to happen. Maybe we would have broken up. But now I never had that chance. I had argued with him but I hadn’t properly broken it off when he chased me. Aside from feeling guilty about causing his death, I felt like I had no closure. Of course, it was very early still. I was in shock. But I felt angry. I had never been able to change his mind. I had never been able to see if it would work out. I had never been able to end it, with absolute certainty, and close that chapter of my life.
Silas’ blood, pouring out onto the black ground, cooled almost immediately. By the time it reached my knees and soaked through my leggings, it was freezing. I could hardly see any colour in it, in the darkness. There was only the vaguest velvet shimmer of red in the stream which spilled from the deepest gash that travelled across from his chest, over his armpit, to just under the shoulder of his left arm. I could see the horrible layers underneath his skin. I didn’t look away. I was repulsed, or disgusted. It had been a few minutes then and I was in a strange mood, totally distanced from all my surroundings. None of it seemed real.
I could see bone, fat, muscle. In the dark it was all dark too, shimmering with the moisture of meat. Reflecting the dim lamppost light.
Shimmering with the inner glow of blue.
I plunged my hand into the wound in his shoulder.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

TTU: My Friend June from the Planet Xartex, Chapter Two


Okay, so here is another installment of...

True Tales from University: My Friend June from the Planet Xartex


CHAPTER TWO

What the hell was this? Was June some kind of spy? Agent, Commander, meeting place... it was all seriously mysterious. I had to know then. I couldn’t possibly back out.
And I’d be silly to not admit that yes, I was very excited and I felt, childishly, like a spy myself, about to uncover a huge secret.
The three people with June in tow set off towards a far point in the park. I had no idea how long I would have to tail them for. Perhaps, if it had been a kilometre or two, I would have just given up and gone back to the party. But the journey was short enough that I stayed following.
The journey was short, physically, but mentally it was bloody light years. Every new tree I came up to, hoping to slink in its shadow, was a potential hazard. In the dark, anyone could be using that tree for a hiding place, besides me. But as it happened, my fears of the park seemed to be a little unfounded that night. I saw no one else in the park besides one laughing group lying in the wet grass in a pool of light. Obviously high. Students. Probably harmless. I ignored them and kept my eyes on the group of four.
They kept to the park’s paths, the soles of their shoes scraping with the sound of wet pavement as they travelled. They were all tall, and so was I, but I still had trouble keeping up with their long strides. Eventually, they finally turned off the path and walked on the wet grass.
Following them across the open was a no-no, so I had to try and keep up with them by hopping from tree to tree around the large, circular area of grass. I almost lost them. But then I saw them, in the remote part of the park, descending to the submerged concrete mouth of a tunnel.
Wow.
I had read about the tunnels before. Months ago, the student magazine had an article on the tunnels in the park. I had only briefly skimmed it, but I knew this much: the tunnels had been constructed during the Second World War. They were air-raid shelters. But they had been sealed off pretty much straight after the war. This city was never important enough to raid. Hardly any time after the tunnels were ‘finished’, the wooden supports began to rot. The tunnels had apparently been filled in then to stop the park from caving in. But different people had tried to reignite interest in this historic complex: engineering students and lecturers, tourism entrepreneurs, and others. There had been an article in the local rag a couple of years ago about a subsidence in the park caused no doubt by some collapse in the tunnels. But they were sealed. People couldn’t get in there: importantly, criminal elements and homeless people couldn’t get in there.
No, actually. They weren’t sealed at all. I had just seen June and three mysterious figures go in through a door which should have been sealed.
I wanted to run away then, and I should have. But the allure of the tunnels was too much for me. These things – supposedly – hadn’t been explored in years. And you know how much I’m into being the first.
I saw a hand draw the door to, with an ominous crunch. It took all I had not to run down there and grab it. But I was calm, and made my way down slowly to the door, under ground level. There was a short concrete ramp running down from the park ground level to the door, and there was a small barrier to keep people from walking or running over the lip of the small submerged doorstep. I gently grabbed the rusty door handle, scared that my passage was blocked. But it wasn’t. Opening the heavy metal door ever so slowly, I wriggled my way in.
I let my eyes adjust. The group of four were carrying on, not seeming to mind the darkness. I hung back, and then followed, letting each foot down slowly.
The tunnels were everything I could have asked for. They were terribly smelly. There were new supports, I could see, or at least I guessed they were new, because I didn’t see any wooden supports as were mentioned in the magazine article. The tunnel began as a narrow corridor, perhaps a service entrance. Finally it joined the main artery of the tunnels. This was more like it. Floods of people could have come through here, escaping an air-raid – the operative word there was could. They never did. The four people were walking towards what was no doubt a central area. I hung back in the shadows, relying mostly on my ears to hear their footsteps getting further and further away.
They passed out of my field of vision and I scurried after them. It wasn’t nice, being alone in this place, and I was already regretting my incursion. But I was too far in to back off now. And I was still a little afraid for June. Who were these people she had fallen in with?
They were heading into a lighted area, and I hung back even more than before. But they headed down some stairs, so I followed cautiously. They walked into the central, lit area, a round pit. I was about to back off, for fear of discovery, when I noticed there was an upper level, overlooking the round central area. Pressing myself against the cold wall, I slipped into this balcony-like area. It had arched windows looking out over the pit, like the windows around the Coliseum. There was no glass. I could peer over the top of the ledge and look at and overhear the meeting that took place.
June and her three companions joined a group of about twenty people. The one similarity between them all was their height. Besides that, they were all very different. All kinds of skin colour and different ages. There seemed to be an equal spread of male and female. They were just milling around, talking now, but eventually the tallest, the same deep voiced male who had spoken before, raised himself above the others, on a step. They all wrapped up their conversations and obediently went to sit on the bench-like step lining the circular area.
The leader, or Commander or whatever he was, was a man of blackest skin. But he had no accent, so I couldn’t with authority say what his background was. He looked African, but he could equally have been from the Caribbean or the States, or even England. He looked very young, surely less than thirty years old. His skin was very smooth, and his eyes were still the wide eyes of youth.
He clasped his hands together and smiled, his white teeth a shock against his skin. ‘Greetings to you all.’ The various people around the circle all gave him the strange gesture that I had seen June give him in the park. It was weird, and I hardly caught it, but it seemed to involve them bowing their heads to him and placing their hands over their necks. Was it a salute of some sort? He carried on, hardly noticing their formal gestures. ‘The Supreme Commander wishes me to relay to you how impressed and pleased he is by you all. So far we have had no incidences of blown cover or other such mistakes. I take it you are all settling in well? It has been a few years for most of you now. Now is the time for you to speak up and share with the circle any mistakes you might have made since our last meeting, or any urgent questions you might have.’
He sat down and looked around the group. A woman who looked maybe eighty was the first to speak. ‘Commander, the other day I went to the supermarket and a checkout worker remarked that I seemed very spry for my age. I was wondering, am I perhaps too unusual for the citizens to accept? Should I change assignments, perhaps?’
The Commander smiled. ‘Yes, you are rather spry for an eighty year old. It is rare here, but not uncommon. I doubt anyone can accuse you of anything based on how “spry” you are. Please carry on your assignment as you are. Perhaps in a few more years we may have to change you.’ The old woman just nodded, seeming pleased with the judgement of her superior.
What kind of place was this?! Did they use old women as spies? What kind of messed up organisation...
The next person to speak was a teenage boy. ‘Commander, I’m experiencing some very odd changes in my body. I was wondering if there wasn’t some defect in it.’
The Commander nodded sympathetically. ‘Yes, there can be some odd changes in these bodies, especially around the age your body is in. Agent August knows more about bodies than I do. Perhaps after this meeting you can have a discussion together?’ The boy looked over at a middle aged woman with auburn hair. She nodded to him, smiling. He nodded back, with a smile.
Then, to my surprise, June spoke up. ‘Commander, I may have a problem.’ She looked very worried as she spoke, and didn’t meet the Commander’s eye.
‘What is it, Agent June?’
June sighed and told her tale to the circle, looking around at everyone in it as she did so. I could see her quite well from my vantage point. ‘Well, you see, I’m taking a course in astronomy this semester at the university. I thought I would be fine at it. But unfortunately, I keep getting their names for the stars and planets mixed up with our own.’
‘That’s fine, Agent June,’ another agent reassured her. ‘They can’t possibly know that the words you use mean. They may just consider you an eccentric for a time.’
June frowned still. ‘I was embarrassed in front of a friend the other day. Her name is Louise, and I have formed a close bond with her. She was testing me on the name of things, for this astronomy paper, and I gave her all the wrong names. Then she asked me if I even knew what planet I was on. I panicked, and I told her Yalathos.’
The group all laughed politely, and June relaxed a little. The Commander smiled. ‘I’m sure it’s fine, Agent June. The humans have no idea that we call their planet Yalathos. She would have never heard of the name before. She will forget you ever said it. She will just think you’re a little crazy, which won’t hurt.’
I stopped looking over the ledge and stared at the concrete wall less than a metre before me. What had he said? “The humans have no idea that we call their planet Yalathos...”
‘Are there any other problems Agent June?’ the Commander continued. ‘Has your body been acting up again?’
‘As a matter of fact, it has, Commander,’ I heard June saying. ‘My soul is reacting strangely to my electronic components at times. I’ve never had such trouble with any of my manufactured bodies before, not even my Thayren body, despite all those tentacles.’ There were some murmurs of nostalgia or agreement here, but I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t be sure. ‘This human body is insufferable. The time when I mistakenly spoke of Yalathos to Louise, my droid body was experience something akin to a human migraine. That’s why I couldn’t concentrate, and why I gave away those names.’
I hadn’t moved an inch, but I froze all over again here. A drop of sweat ran in a straight line down my spine. I felt something brush against my consciousness. “Aha. There you are,” it said, its voice cold, male.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Agent June. After this meeting, we can look over your body again. Now, I was wondering, Agent April, Agent Octavius, have there been any more threats from the anti-alien-zombie-droid movements?’
‘Hang on a minute, Commander,’ came a cold voice, awfully familiar. It sounded like a middle aged man, but by this stage I wasn’t looking anymore. ‘Agent June,’ the voice came again. ‘Your friend Louise... she wouldn’t be the same person who happens to be spying on us right now from the balcony?’
I didn’t move. My muscles had all frozen stiff with fear. I heard the group murmuring, and then suddenly, I was lifted by one shoulder by an incredibly strong person.
The Commander held me in front of him and the rest of the group of alien-zombie-droids. I stared at them. Each and every one of them was... was one of them. Even June, the only one in the room whose eyes were registering panic.
‘Lou!’ she gasped. I couldn’t respond.
‘So, this is the one?’ the Commander asked, unnecessarily. He continued without an answer. ‘Agents Scorpio, Aquarius. Take her to the cell.’
‘Commander, I didn’t know!’ June cried out.
‘Of course, Agent June,’ I heard the Commander reply as I was dragged out of the room by two other aliens. I looked up at them as a silently struggled, incredibly weak in their steel-strong arms. Two normal looking people. People I would walk past in the street, never noticing any difference between us. Aliens?
I heard the voices of the aliens drifting down the corridor as I was taken into a narrower tunnel. I couldn’t identify voices anymore. I couldn’t identify June.
Funnily enough, even though I was the one in danger at this moment, I was still thinking about her safety at the time. Would she be punished for my intrusion? She knew nothing about me following her, but they might not realise that.
As the two men – no, not men – threw me into the ‘cell’, a tiny, circular room, and the metal grating came swinging down with all the force of a guillotine, I finally stopped thinking about June, and started thinking about myself. I was going to die, surely. No one could hear what I just heard and expect to live. I tried to take stock of the few things I could hold as true, though any cogent thought slipped right out my grasp in my current state of panic.
There were alien-zombie-droids living among us. I wasn’t sure about the zombie part (Why zombie? Were they undead? Did they eat brains?), but I could fully understand that they were aliens from another planet in electronic bodies similar to human bodies – droids. But why were they among us? Were they going to take over the world? What was their purpose?
If it was taking over the world, I couldn’t believe it. That was always what all the movies were about, wasn’t it? The aliens always wanted to take over the world.
But even now, in this cold, damp cell under the earth, I could never believe something so hateful of June. Even if she was an alien, a zombie, a droid, or all three, she was the most peaceful, understanding, and loving person I knew.
I just couldn’t be true.


My fears were unfounded. I’ve no idea how long I sat there in complete darkness, expecting some kind of monster to creep up on me. But it felt like a very long time, as I’m sure it would feel for anyone who has had to wait in a time and place like that, in mortal fear. The thing I was expecting never came. I was imagining a lot of things, but I didn’t imagine that the heavy metal grating might open again.
When it did, I got to my feet and scampered across to the other side of the tiny room. There were the two men again, at the door. My mouth worked by itself now, embarrassing me. ‘Don’t kill me!’ I shrieked. ‘I won’t tell! I promise!’ I turned to threats too. ‘People will know I’ve gone missing! You can’t just make me disappear!’
June came in from between the two men. She had an electric lantern with her, which she set on the floor, raising her shadow up on the wall behind her, skewed, the shape just like the monster I had been imagining. The two men locked the guillotine-like door into an open position, and departed.
‘Don’t worry, Lou. We’re not going to kill you. We’re not going to hurt you, even. So long as you cooperate. I told them you were likely to cooperate. Your curiosity impulse is much stronger than your violence impulse.’
I nodded uneasily. Of course, she was right. She always was right about people’s characters. After all the time she had spent with me, it was no surprise. Yes, I was curious. Very curious. Since she had just told me I was unlikely to get hurt, I was able to calm down a little, and stop acting like a cornered animal. Instead, my curious mind kicked in. I wanted to know everything I could. If they were truly aliens, what did they know? Where had they been? Where had they come from? What had they found? What was their purpose?
‘OK. Go,’ I breathed.
‘I’m at liberty to answer absolutely any question you have. Absolutely any question. But bear in mind that I’m just an agent. I don’t have any secret information or anything...’
‘... Except for the fact that you’re an alien.’
She looked at me apologetically. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, Lou. If there was anyone I could have told, I’ve have chosen you. And I’m glad it’s you here now and not someone else. I think you can handle knowledge like this. But we can’t just tell anyone. We only have permission to tell in extreme circumstances. And this is one.’
I had my arms folded across my chest, and I knew she was reading something into that. Yes, I was a little shut off from her. That hurt her somewhat, I knew, but she understood it. In order to not completely freak out, I was having to shut down any subjectivity and simply be objective. ‘Okay June,’ I said, with a hint of a sigh. ‘Question. Why haven’t you just zapped me with some kind of memory wiping device yet? Why tell me anything?’
She smiled now. Though she might be some kind of robot, she clearly did feel, like any human – no, not human. My mindset needed some rethinking. Like any ‘sentient being’ was the best I could come up with now. ‘We don’t have such a thing, Lou. The physiology of the human brain is still quite a recent study to us, you realise. We’re pretty much nose to nose with the human scientists in working out things about the human brain. Of course, in our own technology we are much more advanced, but we’ve only been studying humans for just over a century.’
‘So Roswell and all those sightings... were those you guys?’
She smiled again, and laughed a little. ‘No, no. Those were fakes. There have only ever been a few sightings of us. A few humans know of our existence.’ I wondered if she knew that the information hurt me. So, I wasn’t the first to know about these aliens. I was a little disappointed. But she continued. ‘Unfortunately, a few individuals had to be taken away because they threatened to unveil us. But they were unfortunate people, conspiracy theorists and the kind. They wouldn’t, couldn’t accept the simple truth about our mission.’
‘And that truth would be?’ I asked her. So much weighed on the answer she gave. What would I do, if it was world domination? I would have to be an excellent actor, fake my cooperation, and somehow get out alive and report them to... who? Who would believe me? And how would I get out anyway? I couldn't act in front of June. She would see through anything I tried.
June said, as simply as she could, ‘We are scientists, Lou. Scientists and explorers. We have no need to take over your planet or any of the other planets we quietly occupy in our studies. You would call us, in your language, anthropologists, although we study not just man, but other sentient species on planets throughout our galaxy. The one you call the Milky Way. Back home, others are working on technology to send us outside the galaxy. But for now, we have to stick to our native galaxy. Which, really, as I’m sure you know well, is not so tiny as to be boring to us. Maybe only one percent or less of the solar systems in the galaxy have life, and an even smaller percentage have sentient life.’
I did the math in my head. There was estimated to be over a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way. One percent of that was a billion. So that amount, or less, had basic life on it, and there were others that had civilizations on them. June and her kind had found them.
‘So you live among the civilizations you discover, learning about them. Like anthropologists.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Always in robotic bodies?’
‘It’s the only way.’
‘Then what are you, really?’ June sat down, and so did I. This brought us closer together. I came off the wall, and stopped being so stand-offish. I was really interested now. ‘You’re aliens, and you’re droids. But how are you zombies?’
June smiled, but it was with a touch of nervousness. ‘We’re zombies in the sense that we are, technically, dead.’
My mouth gaped open, and I politely closed it. ‘Dead? But how?’
‘Back on my planet –‘
‘Which is called?’
‘Xartex.’ I rolled the word around in my head as she continued. ‘Back on my planet, Xartex, we have two bodies. We have the shell. It is bipedal, like your own body, but the physical characteristics are probably closer to birds or lizards. It’s hard for me to describe. Perhaps I can show you a representation sometime. We were similar to your dinosaurs, except, of course, our planet had a much different composition and atmosphere... anyway. That’s going into technicalities. We live very long lives in our first bodies, something like a thousand of your Earth years. Once we finally reach a point of full consciousness, when we grow out of our infant stage into childhood, we develop our second body within our first. The second body is very small, and feels like jelly to the touch. It can be bounced like a rubber ball, and it can be moulded into shapes like clay or dough. But it cannot be destroyed, no matter what you try. Once the first body dies, whether tragically early, or naturally at an advanced age, the second body remains. For eternity.’
The gravity of June’s admission finally hit me. ‘Like... like souls?’
‘That is the closest translation in your language, yes. Our souls live eternally. In the past, before our people were technologically advanced, souls were sent to live in... well, the closest concept for you would be a kind of sea. Not exactly water, but you get the idea. There, our second bodies dreamed, and travelled non-physically across the universe, discovering other sentient beings. Once we were finally advanced enough to begin travelling to these other worlds, the souls could actually be used, in fake bodies. Droids.
‘The Xartexans of the first body would build things for us: ships and droids. We observed from afar at first, getting to know the languages of each world, knowing the basic customs and learning basic anatomy, allowing us to design the droid bodies so similar to the real thing. But to actually get to know what it was like to be another species, we had to get down on the ground level with them. And so that is what we have been doing all this time. Living with others, documenting our findings.’
One logistical problem occurred to me, and I was still, obviously, thinking in a paranoid vein. ‘But... if you Xar... Xartexans never truly die, won’t your planet become overrun with souls?’
‘The birth rate is very low in Xartex. Of course, yes, there are a lot of souls. But the ‘sea’ there takes up even more space on the planet than the sea of this planet does. And Xartex is a lot bigger than Earth too. But, of course, we always have options if we wish to expand. Some of us decide to just float through space, going on an eternal journey. Others have colonised planets without sentient life, or revealed themselves to the civilizations on other planets and asked for their permission to live among them. It’s happened before, maybe three or four times. We only ask the most peaceful of species. I don’t think we could ever ask the humans. Too many of you are... well, you know what you are like.’
It made me sad that she was right. There were people on Earth who would never accept the intrusion of aliens. But then again, so many other people never used to be accepted. White people used to think themselves superior to every other race. That much has changed (although, proving June’s point, there were still too many backward elements, unfortunately). Homosexuals were, and still are persecuted, but acceptance is growing. There were many prejudices in this world. They took time to overcome prejudice, and if there was anything that the Xartexans had, it was time. They had the whole of eternity. But apparently, over-population wasn’t one of their problems.
‘Any more questions, Lou?’ June asked, after I’d been silent for a long time.
‘Millions,’ I replied. ‘I just can’t think straight. I’m going to take like... forever to ask you everything I want to know. I can’t believe you’ve been out there. In distant space. I’m so jealous.’
She smiled, and I felt radiating from her the understanding of my jealousy. However ugly a feeling it was, she understood it was only me admiring her and wishing I could change places with her.
‘How many planets have you been on, June?’
‘Far too many for you to comprehend,’ she said. Well, that was easy enough. It was hard enough for me to even truly comprehend the number a hundred, really. The billion planets with life on them... I could say the word billion, but would I ever truly understand it? Never. Words. All words, clear concepts, but never comprehended. Hundred, thousand, million, billion. Life. Death. Soul.
‘I’ve been in many different bodies. The bodies can be destroyed. They are false replications, and feel nothing.’
‘Except,’ I began, unsure of myself, ‘You just told the others that you were feeling things in this body.’
For the first time I really noticed her physical presence. This outer shell – it wasn’t her. She was a bouncy ball of jelly, if what she said was true. But I had always associated this body with her identity. She was the intimidating height. She was the crazy hair. And yet, at the same time, she really wasn’t.
She frowned deeply. ‘Yes, that is true. It’s the first time in all my experience that I’ve ever had it happen. I don’t know how to explain it. All species in the galaxy feel pain, except for souls, and some rare individuals who have conditions blocking the sensation of pain. So humans are nothing special. But you do have an astounding understanding of your pains. Not many species have your capacity for science.’
I felt a little bit proud about that. I had heard before, in a documentary about astronomy, that we were in a very special place in the galaxy, one that meant we had the perfect position for observation. Our views of the galaxy were relatively clear, free of the massive dust clouds that would block out the view from other suns. We were at the outer edge of the galaxy, which meant we could see a significant portion of it. That was why, to the ancients, the Milky Way looked like a streak of milk across the sky. It was a galaxy, filled with stars, filled with light.
‘So how many of you are there on Earth? Or Yalathos,’ I added, watching her face.
She winced at my speaking of the name, but smiled. ‘There are small cells like us in most countries around your planet. Roughly five thousand of us altogether.’
I was amazed at the number. But I should have been expecting that. There were almost two hundred countries on Earth, but some of those countries were huge. So if every country had at least one group of twenty aliens in it, the number made perfect sense.
‘Come on,’ June suddenly said, breaking my reverie when she stood up. ‘The others should be gone now. They didn’t want to talk to you, so we had to wait for them to go. If you recognise any of them in the street, just ignore them, okay? They won’t acknowledge your existence. You are my responsibility.’
I nodded and followed June out of the cell. As we walked through the corridors with her electric lantern swinging before her, casting awful shadows, I thought about how serious the situation really was. I was June’s responsibility, and I understood exactly what that meant. She must have promised them I wouldn’t talk, so if I ever did, it would be on her head. She might be immortal, but I’m sure there were ways of punishing an immortal.
But it didn’t matter. No way in hell was I going to talk. I loved this new secret that I was keeping.
She turned off the electric lantern once we reached the exit. It had taken us not very long at all to get there, seeing as I wasn’t crouch-running anymore. We got out the door and she shut it and locked up securely. In the past, the tunnel entrances had been a haunt for homeless people, but the Xartexans must have done something about that when they moved into this new hideout of theirs.
Suddenly the park wasn’t such a scary place. I was in the presence of an immortal. Presumably, if we were attacked, her droid body – which was probably very strong, if those two male agents were anything to go by – would be able to defend us. I had many questions buzzing in my head.
I picked up her hand, and she was surprised by me at first, but then understood. I gently pressed her middle and fourth finger, and turned her hand over and prodded her palm. I dropped her hand. ‘It feels just like skin,’ I told her.
‘It is,’ she answered. She started leading me across the park as she explained, ‘The first droid to come down the planet was of course, not quite right. The texture of his skin was a little wrong, and he had no organic smell, so dogs and other animals were frightened of him. Touch and smell are two things we can’t judge from our surveillance up in space, or from our sea-dreaming. We always send one agent down first to take some DNA of the sentient species. That way we learnt what makes a human, and we were able to render correct texture of skin and basic smell. Of course, animals which rely on smell aren’t completely fooled by our smell. But it is sufficiently natural to fool other humans. And we can use perfumes and soaps and deodorants to further disguise ourselves.’
So she couldn’t sweat, I presumed. But that raised another question: energy. How did they get it? Where did it go, once they used it? ‘Do you have to plug yourself into the wall every night, or what?’
She laughed a little, and shook her head. ‘No, we’re self-sustaining beings. Our technology is sufficiently advanced that we can almost completely replicate normal human functions. Think about it. You’ve seen me eat.’
I realised this was true. I had no idea that robots could eat. ‘So a lot of your body is organic then?’
‘Yep. I lot. Except for the soul port. That part is electronic. It is located in my left shoulder.’
I stared at her left shoulder. ‘That’s the real you then? Just in there...’
She nodded, a little nervously it seemed. She was, of course, giving away a huge secret by telling me this sensitive knowledge. ‘I have real nerves and veins and arteries, but each is shadowed by a ... in your language nano-wire would probably be the best equivalent. Essentially we have two of every system in our body. Our organic organs have within them electronic parts. As such, these are the only mostly organic bodies that can truly be immortal. Or course, they can be destroyed by outside forces. But they will not age unless programmed to, and they will not “die”,’ she emphasised the word.
It was scary to think about. Here I was, talking to someone who, if she chose to, could occupy this body for the rest of forever. I, in comparison, would wither and die rather quickly. And then what? Would my soul fly through the ether forever? Human souls were a spiritual concept. They had no physical form like Xartexan souls.
‘Do any other beings in the galaxy have physical souls?’ I asked her.
She stopped and took a deep breath. I think she knew all along it was going to lead to this question. ‘This is what we have been searching for all along,’ she said quietly.
‘So...?’
‘No. We have been forced to watch all our study subjects wither and die, leaving no immortal remains.’
The way she said it struck me as a little selfish. She wasn’t the one who had to die, after all. But then I realised, in the next breath, what it meant to see so many die. It saddened her, no doubt. She had been to more planets than I could comprehend, immersed herself in the life there, made friends, possibly even had lovers and maybe – if it was possible – families. But she had seen them all die. The Xartexans were looking for another species with the same gift as they had. Did they realise that probably every sentient being alive envied them this? And yet eternal life surely had its disadvantages too.
Past the trees with their arms stretching out to claw us, past the giggling students passing the reefer around the circle, past the half-imagined shadows in the nooks and crannies. We made it to the gate of the park un-accosted. But I was assailed by an imaginary opponent. Something nagged at the back of my head, trying to worm its way through my excitement over today discovery.
I had never been a greatly religious person, although my family were churchgoing. I hadn’t attended any church since I moved out of my family house, into a flat closer to the university. But even though I wasn’t practicing, and not much of believer, one thing had stuck with me, among all the morals and life lessons.
The human soul.
Wasn’t it the point of all this effort during life? As atheist as I might seem to others, still the idea had stuck with me, always, that what you did on Earth was just a prelude. After all, what was the point of being a good person, of being charitable and kind and not backstabbing everyone on your climb to success? Heaven, that is the thing everyone, whether they know it or not, is subconsciously aiming for. To reveal the existence of Xartexans to the world would not be just mean a great political upheaval would take place. Religion would need serious rethinking. And the existence of physical, immortal souls would go against everything that a lot of people believed in.
No, not just that. It was much deeper down, striking fear to the very root of me.
It raised questions.
We thought we were so special.
We had no physical souls. The Xartexans, as peaceful as they seemed, couldn’t possibly resist looking down on us, and every other sentient life form in the galaxy, as inferior. After all, humans, discovering their sentience, began to subjugate animals and justify their subjugations on intellectual superiority. And yet all we do is die. Xartexans live forever. Nothing human lasts forever.
I considered, for the first time in my life, what it was like to be a dumb animal.
June could not have known all this, as we walked back to the party. No doubt she knew I was thinking things through in my head, but she surely didn’t know the angle my thoughts had taken. After all, a dumb animal couldn’t, shouldn’t be able to think these self-referential and existential thoughts.
And yet we do.
So why don’t we have souls?
‘Are all Xartexans peaceful?’ I asked June. She looked at me as if she was trying to figure out why I was asking the question. I was simply wondering about them. Were they all some kind of linked up consciousness, or were they individual?
‘There are some who are young and unsteady,’ she said softly. ‘Like your profiling types or star signs, there are methods of categorising the Xartexans according to the motivation of their soul. I’ll show you a guide on it, one day.’
We rounded the street corner and the bass of the party music rolled over us like a wave. I wasn’t sure that I was quite ready to walk into that mass of people, not when I was still stuck on problems of souls and other grave issues. But at the same time, I wanted to lose myself in the dizzy atmosphere. I didn’t want to think anymore.
June stopped me before we got too close. ‘Lou, in all seriousness now. I know I can trust you. You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not Leigh, not Gary, not Toby, not anybody, okay? I will have to kill you if the secret is revealed.’
She was serious, I could see that much. It saddened her to say that to me. I felt guilty for what I had done that night. Why hadn’t I just walked into the party? Why hadn’t I just left her alone?
‘Oh course, June. There’s no way I’d tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.’
She smiled, hugged me briefly, and we resumed our walk to the party. Leigh was sitting with a crowd on the front steps. ‘Hey!’ she said loudly, drawling a little. ‘You came back! Is everything all right?’
I nodded, and put on a brave smile. ‘Yeah. I found June. We hung out with some of her friends for a while, and grabbed a bite to eat.’
June was distracted by other friends now, and I used the opportunity to get inside and away from her. It was the weirdest impulse. I’d never felt anything but the want to be close to her and enjoy her company. But now I wanted to be far away from her. I didn’t want to envy her immortality. I didn’t want to hate her for it. But the things she had revealed had brought out some nasty emotions in me. I really regretted following her that evening. Everything I had learnt had come with an awful price.
I found the back stairs to the building and sat down, taking in big gulps of night air. I just wanted to be alone, but I wasn’t entirely sure if that was best. It wasn’t really my choice either. I heard footsteps behind me and hoped to God it wasn’t June. I turned my head to see who it was.
‘Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else,’ the guy said as our eyes met. He had dark hair. He was a lanky, tall guy, and his grey and black stripy jumper did nothing to stretch him horizontally. He carried two bottles of beer, both opened. I smiled weakly up at him. ‘Hey, are you okay?’ he asked, with a friendly kind of concern.
‘Yeah, don’t worry about me,’ I said. I couldn’t really explain it to this guy. I couldn’t explain it to anyone.
He sat down. I really wanted him to go away, but part of me knew that his company might help. I was feeling so small, compared to the rest of the universe. ‘Here, do you want this?’ He offered me one of the beer bottles in his hands. I knew I shouldn’t have, since I had to drive Leigh. But I wasn’t thinking anymore. Or rather, I was thinking, way, way too deeply, about other things. I took it, only because it was a Corona and it had a slice of lime in it. That’s pretty much the only beer I have. I almost snatched it out of his hand, and took a great swig, forgetting I was supposed to be the sober driver. I was subconsciously desperate to push all cogent thought out of my mind.
‘Thanks,’ I murmured.
‘I’m Silas by the way.’
I took his outstretched hand and shook it once. ‘Louise.’
‘Have you been out here all night? I haven’t seen you in this whole party.’
‘Oh no, I just turned up. I was here earlier, I just went for a walk with a friend.’
‘You go to uni?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m doing Political Studies.’
‘Oh? I’m doing Physics.’
‘Physics?’ He seemed a little amused.
‘What?’ I said confrontationally, though I was outwardly calm. ‘Astrophysics. You don’t think that’s a girl’s field?’
He raised his hands defensively. ‘I didn’t say that. It’s just not every day you meet a girl doing physics.’ He took a swig of beer. ‘Is it good? Do you enjoy it?’
‘I’m good at it. But it’s maths-heavy.’
‘I suck at maths.’
‘It’s not easy if you’re not good at maths.’
‘What made you take that?’
I gestured up at the sky, but when my eyes followed my hand the sky was still clouded over. ‘I’m just really curious about space. The more I learn, the more curious I become.’
He smiled warmly. ‘That’s the best thing then. A self-propagating interest. Surely you’ll never tire of it, your whole life.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping.’
And that’s pretty much all I remember.


Until the next morning, when I woke up in his bed.
I didn’t quite scream, but the shriek got caught in my throat just in time. I scrambled to hold down the covers on my naked body and stared wild-eyed at him. He looked just as confused as I was.
‘I don’t remember any of this,’ I told him flatly.
He rubbed his head, and looked a little hung-over. ‘I can’t say I remember much either.’ He grabbed his boxer shorts off the ground by the bed and got out of bed, putting them on. I looked away. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t think we actually did anything. As far as I remember, we were both so drunk we just came in, got undressed, and fell asleep as soon as we hit the bed.’
His back was turned to me as he added, ‘Do you like pancakes? I’m famous for them.’
‘Sure... thanks...’ I answered, unsure if I should stay or go.
He left the room and I scrambled for my clothes as soon as I heard his footsteps going down the hall. The second thing I did, after struggling back into yesterday’s smelly clothes, was get out my phone. No new messages. Was Leigh upset with me?
I called home. Leigh answered after several rings. ‘Lou? Is that you?’
I was quiet, trying not be overheard. ‘Leigh, Leigh, thank God! What the hell happened last night?’
‘You don’t remember? Geez, you must have been drunk.’
‘Are you sure I wasn’t drugged?’
She stopped, and I heard her breath catch as she thought. ‘No, Lou, I’m pretty sure you weren’t drugged. In fact you were hyper-active. And you were all over that Silas guy. I was excited for you.’
‘I just woke up naked in his bed.’
Her breath caught again. She sounded deliciously surprised. Usually it was her having the one night stands, not me. ‘You both left together. As far as I could see you were still pretty much functioning. He wasn’t dragging you out or anything. You hugged me and told me how much you loved me just before you left.’
‘How did you get home then?’
‘Well luckily June and I had the forethought to get your keys off you before you left. She drove me home and parked the car in the building. Then she walked home. I offered to pay for a taxi for her but she said she was fine... and you know, she’s so big I thought she would be.’
I breathed a sigh of relief, more for my car than anything else. June, I knew, could take care of herself. But the interesting thing was me. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
‘Okay Leigh. Sorry about last night.’
‘That’s fine, Lou. So long as you’re okay?’ She sounded genuinely worried about me.
‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. See you later today.’
‘Kay. Bye!’
I shut my phone and slipped it in my pocket. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and did my hair again, pulling my hand through the knots and retying my ponytail. I didn’t wear makeup, so I didn’t have to worry about panda eyes, but my breath was nuclear. I found his bathroom and borrowed some toothpaste, rubbing it against my teeth with my index finger.
I headed out to the kitchen. He’d thrown on last night’s clothes as well, probably too embarrassed to go back into the bedroom. His accommodation was small, possibly shared, but I couldn’t see anyone else living in the apartment with him. I looked out the window and saw the outside. Barely a second later I realised where I was: a road not too far from Harry’s flat, where the party had been last night.
He said nothing at first, giving me time to think. My decisions, silly as they were, made perfect sense. I had no soul. I really was just an animal, and so, like an animal, I had let my mind go and given into carnal imperatives. It was so unlike me, but made perfect sense, in an objective way.
It was so unlike me. But who am I, really?
‘Pancakes up,’ he said, and dressed the table with a pot of sugar, a bottle of maple syrup, and three plates: two empty, one with a large pile of pancakes. I came closer. They were perfectly round, flawless pancakes. I was impressed. I could never get my pancakes perfect.
‘Wow,’ I said, and sat at the table across from him. There was icing sugar, different fruits, all sorts of stuff laid out on the table. ‘No wonder you’re famous for them.’
‘Go on,’ he said, waiting for me to take the first pancake.
I did, eagerly. I drizzled maple syrup all over it, and got some strawberries and blueberries and dropped them on. Then I cut myself a slice and wrapped it around a sliver of strawberry. I ate it, trying to avoid his eyes. It was good. I smiled widely. ‘It’s great!’ I finally said once I’d swallowed.
‘I’m glad you like them,’ he said, and took a pancake for myself.
We ate in silence for a little while, and then finally, I had to say, ‘I’m sorry about last night. I must have been so drunk. I don’t usually go with anyone after parties. In fact I don’t usually drink. It tends to hit me pretty hard. I was just having such a bad day yesterday, I felt like I needed something to help me forget.’
‘I’ve no idea where you went before the party,’ he said, cutting up his pancake into thin strips, ‘but, even though I was drunk too, I made sure you took your boots off before you came in. They were absolutely covered in mud.’
I grimaced as I remembered why that was. I had spent a significant amount of time sneaking through the park on the wet ground. ‘Geez, sorry. I was a real mess yesterday.’ I still was a mess, inside and outside. I was very worried about my current state, both immediate, and eternal. ‘Thanks for the pancakes. They’re really good.’ Eventually the silence was too much for me. I spoke again. ‘How much do you remember of last night?’
‘How much do you remember?’ he threw the question back at me.
‘I remember sitting out on the back step, talking with you quite sensibly. The rest is just a black hole.’
He looked down, grinning slightly as he told me, ‘I remember a little bit more. I can’t remember much of what we talked about. Somehow we started making out. By that time we were inside the house. We got so heated that someone got really pissed at us and told us to get a room. So that’s when I invited you home.’ Our eyes met and we both looked away again. ‘Not that I usually do that.’ After a further moment’s silence, he added, ‘I can see why I did though.’ I quirked an eyebrow. He smiled awkwardly, and laughed uncomfortably. ‘Why don’t we do this properly, instead? Do you want to go on a date sometime? Or like, not even a date, we could just grab some coffee or something. We should both probably avoid alcohol for a while I think. But I’d like to get to know you. Sober, this time.’
I chewed my mouthful carefully and thought. Then I shrugged. ‘Yeah. Okay. Let’s do that.’ We exchanged numbers, and arranged to meet in two days time in a time between classes that we both had off. I was a little bit uncertain about this, since I had woken up nude in his bed this morning. But he was cute, and pretty easy-going, and he could make great pancakes. He was worth a try, I guessed. I could do worse.
And what did it really matter, anyway? In the back of my mind, all I could think was that there was no point in not doing it, because my life was essentially meaningless. I might as well do what I want, within reasonable limits. A date was a reasonable thing to do. It could even be fun, and distract me for a small time from the idea that my soul wasn’t a real thing.
We actually spent the rest of the day together. I had study I should have been doing, and I’m sure he probably had some he needed to do too. But I found he had some really awesome old games on his computer, and we spent the most of the day playing against each other. I got a very knowing look from Leigh when I walked in at dinnertime.
She probably knew far more than I did.