“Ah, um. Thanks. Really, thank you. Any longer out there in the snow and I would have died.”
Sharon asks, “Do you need anything?”
I would have thought that was obvious. I stare down at my slightly hairy chest, with my arms extending to just between my thighs, and say, “Clothes?”
Mark says, “Over there, in the drawers beneath that table.”
As I turn to scurry away, Sharon slaps my backside lightly, saying, “Cute ass.”
I can’t believe it. I’ve just been sexually harassed by a creature from another planet. Sharon’s always been so quiet and reserved. It’s surprising to see her so boisterous. I can’t help but laugh at the tables being turned on me. Given how I grabbed her ass and pushed her through the bars of a jail, I guess we’re even.
I open a drawer and there’s a bunch of tightly rolled cleaning clothes set neatly in three rows, but they’re tiny. They’re kids clothes.
“I, uh.”
“Give them a shake,” Sharon says.
A flick of the wrist and suddenly I’m holding an adult size, ironed Nike t-shirt. The material, even the weight feels significantly different. And it changed color from white to navy blue.
“I’m not going to ask,” I say.
I slip the shirt over my head, and Sharon hands me two more scrunched up rags. A quick flick and I’m left holding a pair of underwear and some jeans.
“Nano tech,” she says as I turn slightly to one side, still feeling embarrassed, and slip on the underpants and then the jeans. They’re pleasantly warm.
“DARPA, right?” Mark says.
“Yes,” I reply.
“What did you tell them?”
“Everything,” I say.
Mark laughs.
Sharon punches me in the arm again, saying, “You’re such a kidder.”
I wasn’t kidding, but I guess they know I knew nothing to begin with.
Standing there inside the quirky alien spacecraft with its wacky gravity sticking everything to the outer wall, I can’t help but wonder how many times I’ve already seen this only to have my short term memory erased. Once on the outward bound journey to the Moon. Again on the return to the coffeeshop. That’s at least twice, assuming direct flights. And I’m left wondering if this moment will be expunged from my memory at some point in the near future and all these memories will be lost again.
“They thought you were Russian spies,” I say, trying to be helpful.
“Is that why they shot Mark?” Sharon asks.
“I think that was an accident, a snatch-and-grab gone wrong.”
I’m in a precarious position. Although I’m on Sharon’s side, I’m not an alien. I’m human. I feel compelled to stand up for humanity even if we have screwed up First Contact with our paranoid, macho bullshit. “They were going to introduce me to the President.”
“You?” Mark says, raising an eyebrow.
“They think I’m one of you.”
Sharon takes my arm, leading me over to a table high on the curved wall. As we walk, the table slowly descends in front of us. In reality, we walked up to the table, not over to it, but the zany way gravity works inside the UFO screws with my sense of perception.
“Trust, remember,” I whisper in her ear as Mark retrieves something from a waist-high cabinet, leaving me wondering if I’m about to have my brain fried again. “You guys have to trust us at some point.”
Sharon squeezes my arm affectionately, but she doesn’t reply, which feels a little ominous.
We sit down at a table that wouldn’t look out of place in an IKEA store catalog.
Mark places a can of Pepsi in front of me. Pepsi. I would have taken aliens as Coke drinkers, personally, but Pepsi’s good. I crack open the can. It’s ice cold, which ordinarily I’d enjoy, but my insides are still warming so I only take a sip.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” I say.
Mark pulls a burger and fries out of the same cabinet, setting them down in front of me. I got a brief glimpse inside the cabinet. It’s quite deep and wide, and entirely empty, and yet the fries are warm—in stark contrast to the cold soda that came from the same cabinet moments ago.
I stuff my face with crisp, salty french fries. I can’t help myself.
“Oh, these are good,” I say with my mouth full.
Mark leans forward on the table, saying, “So they think you’re one of us?”
“Yes,” I say, taking a bite out of the burger. I chew for a few seconds and swallow before adding, “They ran me through some kind of scanner. An MRI, I think. I don’t know. I was unconscious at the time, but the officer talked about it later.”
“And they didn’t find anything,” Mark says.
“No. Which is good for you guys, right?”
“It is,” Sharon says. “But it does raise a question.”
“What?” I ask, feeling rather naive when it comes to intergalactic politics and stuff.
“How did they know about us at all?” Sharon replies.
Mark clarifies, saying, “Being Russian spies was our cover. They should have fallen for that.”
“They did,” I say, trying not to spit my food over the table. “But why choose such an antagonistic cover story in the first place?”
“Well,” Sharon replies. “It’s plausible.”
I nod, finishing the burger. I’ve wolfed down the bun, greasy patty, cheese and onion rings packed into the burger. A tinge of heartburn sits low in my throat, but it’s nothing a liberal dowsing of Pepsi won’t cure. God bless fast food.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My fingers are sticky, but there's no napkin.
Sharon and Mark look at each other knowingly. Are they telepathic? Is this the alien equivalent of talking behind someone’s back?
“I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
“What makes you say that?” Sharon asks, reaching out and taking hold of my greasy fingers.
“Well, for one, the way you’re holding my hand.”
Neither of them say anything, but the glances they give each other suggest there’s some deeper discussion going on between them.
“I mean. I can’t go home. The Feds, or DARPA, or the NSA, or someone will be looking for me. They’ve got my prints. Facial recognition will pick me up the first time I hit the subway. I’ve lost my job. I’m on the run.”
Neither of them say anything, at least, not out loud.
“I’m not an alien like you. I can’t go racing off through the Milky Way doing whatever alien things aliens do.”
I’m waiting for some reassurance that I’m overreacting, but that never comes.
“I’m like the celestial equivalent of Benedict Arnold.”
“You’ll be fine,” Mark finally says, but who is he kidding? From the look on his face, even he doesn’t believe what he’s saying.
“So, what next?” I ask, looking to Sharon for some encouragement.
“We anticipated something like this. We’ve changed your identity,” she says, but she’s ignoring my question. Sharon hands me a credit card and a driver’s license, saying, “The pin is the first four odd numbers 1-3-5-7. There’s a fifty grand limit. You don’t have to worry about money, there’s about two hundred million in the account.”
“Two hundred million,” I’m dumbfounded. “What are you guys? Drug lords?”
Sharon laughs, saying, “No, silly. We’ve been investing in stocks for hundreds of years. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
I look at the driver’s license. It’s my face, but the name is Jason Owen.
“But what about you?” I ask, realizing she’s still avoiding my earlier question.
Mark says, “We need to figure out how they stumbled on us. Mission parameters…”
And his voice trails off. It’s as though he’s only just realized he’s talking out loud rather than communicating telepathically.