The Alien Within Read online

  After firing her warning shot, she walked back to her group, her blonde hair swinging. Last year she wouldn’t have given Harry the time of day. Now, just because he looked good, he had an open invitation to join the beautiful people. But I knew there would be a time limit on that invitation because Jas was not known for her patience.

  We got our order and headed back to our table. ‘Good on you, Harry,’ I said quietly.

  He frowned. ‘I’ve never liked Jas or her friends. And I have a good memory, especially for how they treated me in the past. I know who my real friends are.’

  As we sat down again, I wondered if that included me

  ‘Was that Jas who came up to speak to you?’ Lou asked Harry, wide eyed. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Nothing important,’ he said, and took a sip of his coffee.

  ‘Nothing she says ever is,’ Kerri said, in a rare perceptive moment. ‘You did the right thing in leaving her group last year, Zoe.’

  I didn’t remind her that I was the one who’d been dropped, not the other way round.

  Lou nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re better off back with us. And now that Harry’s back it’s just like old times, isn’t it?’

  Harry gave me a real smile this time and said, ‘Yeah, just like old times.’

  As I took a bite of my cheeseburger, I thought maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Chapter Two

  I jumped back on the curb as a loud honk blasted my eardrums and a car rushed past me, missing my toes by a mere 5.6 centimetres. I glared at the vanishing Holden Commodore and then, glancing up at the lights, realised they hadn’t changed. How could I have been so careless?

  Taking another step back, I waited, the hot February sun beating down on my head. I had forgotten to wear a hat. In the past I never forgot anything, but now … now everything was different, especially me.

  I had a secret. No one knew except Zoe Brennan, not that she’d ever tell anyone. She’d probably forgotten about me by now. Besides, she never expected to hear from me again. And she never would. I owed her that.

  But in the end I hadn’t been able to leave. There were many reasons, but the main one was Zoe. Just to know we breathed the same mix of nitrogen and oxygen, looked up at the same night sky, lived in the same world, was enough for me. I wondered if she ever thought of me when she saw the constellation Orion in the sky.

  I had never expected to like her, and at first she certainly didn’t like me. We were opposites in every way. Then I discovered that I did like her, and what was even more surprising, I actually learnt from her. I had never anticipated that.

  But at least she was free now. And that’s what she had wanted since the day we’d first met. Now that she thought I was gone, she could grow up the way she was meant to. It was for the best. Really.

  Depression settled over me, something I’d never experienced when I’d been a disembodied, highly intelligent being for four thousand years. This wasn’t what I expected when I made the decision to become human several months ago.

  I was trying to learn about being human, about being an organic again. I knew my good fortune. I had been given a unique choice: return to my people or stay. I chose the latter, yet inside nothing had changed. Inside, I was still an alien.

  It wasn’t as though my people had totally abandoned me. I had money and a place to stay—we’re good at that sort of thing: organising. Years of having hosts that were bankers, financiers, businessmen and the odd corrupt politician or two had taught us a few things about survival. But I was starting to realise that surviving wasn’t living. Living was much harder to do.

  Sometimes—actually, most times—I found humans confusing and difficult to understand. I didn’t always know what normal was, and I no longer had Zoe to help me work it out. In fact, I think I’d gotten worse with the months of isolation.

  The light finally changed and I crossed the street, weaving my way through the stream of people crossing from the opposite side. Why weren’t they more orderly? I didn’t even bother to work out the answer.

  I sought the shade on the other side of the street and stopped to think.

  I’d assumed I knew all about being human when I first set out on my own, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d had many sleepless nights thinking about Zoe. Sometimes I was tempted to go back. Once, in a moment of weakness, I did go to her house. The light from her bedroom window drew me like a magnet. I’d even bought her favourite treats of hot chips and red liquorice strips. It would’ve been so easy to call out to her, to tell her I’d made a mistake, especially in leaving her. Everything could go back to the way it was.

  Except it wouldn’t. I left in the first place so she could be free to live her life as a normal teenager and not be burdened by having a relationship with a 4000-year-old alien. Nothing could change who I was. I might look like a human (actually, as I told Zoe, humans look like us rather than the other way around) but inside I was still an alien. So I turned away from her house and never went back.

  Reaching the small unit that had been my home for the last five months, I put my gym gear away, had a shower and then debated whether to continue the game of online chess I’d started yesterday or have lunch. The empty feeling in my stomach told me it was time to prepare food. Despite all my dietary advice to Zoe in the past, I hadn’t been careful with my own diet. Another first for me.

  Opening the freezer door, I took out a small, ready-made meal to put in the microwave. I knew I needed to start preparing healthy meals. And I would, once I worked out a calorie-controlled, balanced diet for one. In the meantime, fast food was just so … fast.

  Seven minutes and forty-six seconds later, as I placed the lasagne on a plate, there was a knock on the door. This was unusual for two reasons. Firstly, no one had ever knocked on my door before. Secondly, I didn’t know anyone.

  Surely it couldn’t be …

  It wasn’t Zoe. Instead, a middle-aged man of medium height, a perfect BMI and a serious expression stood there.

  ‘Greetings, Rion,’ he said, ‘how have you been?’

  I recognised the being. He had materialised several months ago in order to ‘rescue’ me from Zoe’s family by pretending to be my uncle.

  Using the human name he had chosen, I said, ‘Archimedes? What are you doing here? I thought you’d returned to the mothercloud.’

  He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a level stare from his grey eyes. ‘I did, but it was felt your need was greater than mine. You need a guardian, so I was sent back. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

  Too surprised to say anything, I opened the door so he could pass. He walked in and stood in the middle of the flat, looking around, shifting his gaze from the tiny kitchenette at one end to the living area at the other. I was suddenly uncomfortably aware of my breakfast dishes, which I’d washed but left stacked in the dish rack, and the steaming lasagne on a plate.

  Bending down, he ran a finger along the top of the coffee table, where I hadn’t dusted. He picked up a sock (clean) that had fallen from the laundry basket on the opposite chair and dropped it back in. Brushing some crumbs off the black vinyl sofa, he sat down.

  ‘I came as quickly as I could,’ he said, looking at me with a frown, ‘but not a moment too soon, by the look of things.’

  Lifting the laundry basket off the chair, I sat down. My bottom sank into a deep crevice and my knees nearly touched my chin. This chair, which I only used for storing things, clearly hadn’t been designed for any human frame I’d ever seen. I was feeling at a distinct disadvantage. I waited for him to speak, realising I was being assessed.

  He scanned me with his perfect 20/20 vision, which was enhanced by his ability to determine height, weight and other physical factors within seconds.

  ‘You’ve put on 2.65 kilograms, and that’s mostly fat, not muscle. Your skin has an unhealthy tan, which means you’ve been getting too much sun. You also have dark circles under your eyes, which could indicate a medical condition that
needs investigating. Either that, or you’re not getting adequate sleep. You do realise you have an organic existence now and have to behave accordingly, right?’

  I was beginning to feel like something under a microscope. Defending myself, I said, ‘I’ve been doing regular exercise and have had sufficient nutrients. It’s sometimes difficult to maintain a balanced diet when cooking for one.’

  My words sounded stilted, even to me, the way I’d first sounded when I became human. It was a lame attempt to excuse my dietary habits and I knew it. But I continued, determined not to let him get to me.

  ‘Also, a certain amount of sunshine is necessary for vitamin D. Perhaps, though, I do need to investigate my sleeping patterns.’ I certainly wasn’t going to tell him I wasn’t sleeping well because I was thinking about Zoe. I could just imagine his reaction to that. Not good.

  ‘Your unsatisfactory diet and sleeping habits need to be remedied immediately. Being human is dangerous enough without accelerating the problems. And I’ve made another observation. Your standard of hygiene is not what it should be.’ He looked around the room again.

  ‘My standards are very high. I clean quite regularly, and my personal hygiene is extremely thorough. I floss every day.’ I was starting to get annoyed. A few misplaced items and some crumbs didn’t mean I was grubby. Zoe had often told me I was a ‘neat freak’. Perhaps I wasn’t quite as tidy as in the past, but I was certainly clean.

  ‘We won’t debate those issues now. There are more important things to discuss.’ Archimedes sat back and crossed his legs. ‘We’ve noticed that you haven’t been using your time wisely in constructive pursuits. Playing games on the computer and watching TV is not what we expected when you chose a human life.’

  ‘I’ve been playing online chess, a game highly conducive to developing thinking strategies. I’ve also been learning Mandarin Chinese. And I’ve been analysing a television series to enable me to interact with humans more successfully.’ Archimedes made me feel like a mere youngster of a thousand years or so.

  He waved a hand dismissively. ‘You need to go back to school.’

  ‘You know that’s unnecessary. I’ve accumulated more knowledge than any human on the planet.’

  ‘If you’re going to be a human you have to live like one. You’re perceived to be seventeen years old and therefore underage. You need to finish school and attain a qualification that will enable you to get a job and provide for yourself. Surely you’ve thought of these things.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I thought I could go straight to university. I was giving myself some time to think about this.’

  ‘Time is up,’ Archimedes said, leaning forward and snapping his fingers in front of my face. ‘As you’re underage you need a guardian, and that is me. I will be looking after you.’

  That alarmed me. Archimedes wouldn’t have been my choice of an ideal companion.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I said. ‘If you materialise for too long it’ll be difficult for you to transform back into the pure-conscious entities of our people. That’s what caused my problems in the first place. Are you telling me you want to be human, too?’

  He gave a visible shiver. ‘Certainly not, I find this physical form limiting and tiring. I’m making a sacrifice for you, that’s true, but not the ultimate one. The very thought of becoming human on a permanent basis fills me with horror. But we have been working on the process of materialising in order to prevent problems of the very sort that landed you in this dilemma in the first place.

  ‘We have discovered that the maximum time we can remain organic without being adversely affected is three hours. So that means, if I dematerialise before that time I can regain my former, more perfect state of existence. Then, when required, I can materialise again. While I will be your guardian in terms of human requirements, it will only be for short periods of time. That will be sufficient to keep up the pretence that you have a human guardian.’

  He looked at the analogue clock on the wall. ‘And now I have approximately two hours, twenty-eight minutes and forty-two seconds left before I go.’ He looked at me with a pleased expression. ‘Forty-one now. We can do a lot in that time.’

  ‘So you’ll only be with me for short periods.’ I felt a surge of relief.

  ‘Did I not just say that? I really do fear for your intelligence now that you’ve been tainted by human life. It seems to have had a detrimental effect on you.’

  Archimedes was a millennium older than my superior and myself, but I was beginning to think that a little more humility on his part wouldn’t go amiss.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ I said, just a little impatiently.

  ‘First of all, we need to find more suitable accommodation. I can’t be expected to live here, even in the brief times I’ll be with you.’ He looked around the small unit with distaste. ‘I need a temperature-controlled environment and one that’s clean.’

  I let that last comment slide, but I had to explain to him my choice of home. I got the feeling Archimedes wasn’t very practical.

  ‘Accommodation is expensive and I’ve had to keep within the allowance allotted to me. There weren’t a lot of options. Renting has its complications. I had to forge some necessary documents, including a birth certificate. It was only because this unit had been empty for so long that the owner decided to let me have it on a month-by-month basis.’

  Archimedes waved a hand airily. ‘Your allowance has been increased now that I’m responsible for you. I’ve already arranged for us to live in a house close to the area where your uncle was supposed to reside.’

  ‘But that’s in the neighbourhood where my original host lives,’ I said, panicking.

  ‘I fail to see the relevance of that statement,’ Archimedes said, in a bored voice.

  ‘Zoe thinks I’ve returned to our people. She doesn’t know I’ve stayed human.’ For someone who had lived nearly five thousand years, Archimedes wasn’t showing a lot of wisdom.

  He shrugged. ‘You’ll just have to explain to her that you’ve changed your mind. Or I could alter her memory. A small thing, but it might make matters more convenient. Yes, I think that would be best overall. I’ll arrange it.’

  I looked at him and considered. Did I really want Zoe to forget who I was? Forget all the times we’d been together and the friendship we’d had? Did I want her to forget that I’d kissed her three times? Well, to be accurate, twice, because the second time she had kissed me. Yes, it would make things easier but …

  ‘Let me think about it,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t take too long to decide, because if I remove her memory of you I’ll have to do it before you see her again. I’ll return tomorrow to enrol you at the local high school, East Valley High.’

  ‘I can’t go there. That’s where Zoe and her friends are. They know me.’

  ‘Do her friends know who or what you are? Surely you were not so unwise as to tell them.’ Archimedes frowned.

  ‘Of course not—only Zoe knows I’m an alien—but they’ll remember me. You might be able to take away her memories, but you can’t take away the memories of the whole school.’

  ‘Not necessary,’ he said. ‘I’ll ensure that Zoe forgets you’re an alien and the memories associated with that, but she will still remember you as Rion. She’ll think what everyone else thinks; that you stayed with her family for a few months before your uncle came and took you with him on one of his trips. That’s the wisest course of action.’

  ‘Can’t I simply enrol in another school?’

  ‘No, the next school is quite a distance away, and you wouldn’t be in what they call the catchment area. I have looked into this, you know.’ He gave me another frown.

  I said nothing. I wasn’t feeling good about this at all.

  ‘Now, gather your possessions and we’ll leave,’ he continued. ‘While I’m waiting, you may get me some filtered water. The day is very warm.’ He sighed. ‘I hate these physical needs. And do make sure it’s in a glass that has been cleaned.’


  I wondered if I had been this irritating to Zoe when I first met her.

  Nearly two hours later I dropped my bag in the main living area of a spartan, white-walled house. There was a white leather sofa and a glass table with uncomfortable-looking chairs, but little else.

  Archimedes flicked on the air-conditioning. ‘I arranged for a few essential furnishings on an earlier visit. Providing you maintain the present standard of hygiene and don’t clutter the place with superfluous items, I can exist here for short periods of time.’

  I opened one of the kitchen cupboards, which was bare. I was guessing Archimedes didn’t think dishes and cutlery were necessary. Hopefully, he had thought about acquiring a bed for me.

  ‘It must be nearly time for you to dematerialise, Archimedes,’ I said. I would be more comfortable on my own, and there was also some shopping to do.

  ‘Yes, you’re correct. I am extremely fatigued. We’ll talk again in the morning when I return, and in the meantime you should think about what I said. You’ll need to make your decision about your former host, Zoe, by then. Once she sees you again it’ll be too late to remove her memories. I need to do it beforehand.’

  I watched him close his eyes, his brow furled in concentration. Slowly he faded, becoming fainter and then translucent. Then he was gone.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding, relieved to be on my own again. Archimedes was exhausting to be with. Hopefully, his future visits would be few and far between.

  But I had something more important to consider. Finally, after all these months, I was going to see Zoe again. Would I let Archimedes take away her memories of me as an alien? And if he did, what exactly would she remember? What did I want her to remember? My heart rate increased and I felt my temperature rise. Whether or not this was due to anticipation or fear, I wasn’t quite sure.