Chapter Eleven

“¡¿¡Es que ahora está toda mi familia loca?!” Luis Cielo attempted to withdraw from his living room with some kind of concluding dignity. His wife intercepted him at every turn, like a power forward trying to block his shot.

“¿¡Estoy loca por no querer ignorar lo que vi con mis propios ojos!?”

The Cielos’ home could have been clipped from a catalog. Everything was white or off-white. Chrome or hardwood. Couches, coffee tables, and kitchen islands turned the open-plan first floor into a waist-high maze. Luis was a rat inside it. 

“¿¡Vas a dejar que tus sentimientos por Ali te dejen ciego!?” Maria shrieked.  

He didn’t understand how he could have lost control of his family like this. It could have been last week that they all looked at him like Superman, even Alejandro. “¡Pero es que no vi nada!” he spat through gritted teeth. “¡Solo una luz morada en el horizonte!”

“¡En el cielo no hay luces moradas! Y si así lo crees, es que eres bastante estúpido para ser ingeniero aeroespacial.”

He stiffened. “¡Ni se te ocurra llamarme estúpido!” he bellowed as he strode forward.

She shrank as he advanced on her. Turned sideways and guarded her body with her arms. “Ponme una sola mano encima y me voy. Y me llevaré a los niños. Nadie me lo reprocharía.”

She was play-acting. Making him out to be some kind of monster to get her way. It infuriated him. He had never hit a woman, let alone his wife. What had gone on with Alejandro had been for the boy’s own good! What did she think would happen if they let him leave the house the way he wanted to dress?

“¿Ah sí? ¿¡Adónde te irías!?”

“Al rancho, en casa. Allí cuidarán de nosotros.”

Ugly laughter split Luis Cielo’s mouth. He broke away and spread his arms to encompass the Williams Sonoma opulence that he had provided her. “Claro, ¡y seguro que podrás seguir llevando el estilo de vida al que estás acostumbrada!”

“Sin amor, para qué quiero todo este lujo. No estoy de broma, Luis. Lo haré.” There was steel in her voice. Certainty.

It was suddenly obvious to Luis this wasn’t a ploy.  He stood motionless, then sat mechanically. It flew in the face of everything he knew about the woman he had been married to for almost twenty years, but he believed her. Oh God, he believed her.

It wasn’t fair. He had bought and furnished this stupid house with love. Genuine love. It was the one she had wanted. Her “dream home.” She’d picked every stick of furniture in it. Luis Cielo felt confused, betrayed, and lonely all at once.

Maria crept behind him, hissing like a serpent. “Y cuando estés solo, completamente solo, con todo este lujo y con tu esposa e hijos viviendo en una casa rodante, en lugar de estar contigo, ¿qué pensará la gente? ¿¡Te hará eso sentir muy inteligente!?”

He tore himself from his seat, no longer concerned with a dignified exit. “¡No mames, María! ¡Qué quieres de mí!”

She followed him into the kitchen, shaking her finger at his back. “Vente al rancho, a casa. Escucha lo que tienen que decirte. Y quizás entonces puedas aceptar las decisiones de tu familia.”

He threw up his arms. “¡Está bien, pues! ¡Está bien! ¡Iré al rancho de la chingada! ¡Aunque solo sea para que te calles!”

“Hmph.” She stopped and crossed her arms. “Ehmmm. ¡No es suficiente!”

“¿¿¡Cómo!?” Luis roared as he stumbled. He had to brace himself on the kitchen counter to stop from falling. Did she want him to beg? 

“¿Qué sentido tiene que vengas si solo te vas a burlar? Tienes que prometer que vendrás con la mente abierta.”

His head sunk to the counter and he buried it under his arms. “Haré lo que me pidas, pero por favor.... Ya no quiero seguir peleando. Estoy cansado de ser siempre el malo.”

They were magic words. Instead of more threats and insults, Maria wrapped her arms around him from behind.

“Luis, nunca has sido el malo. Solo estás ... confundido. Ya verás, pues.”

Resentment flared inside him. He resisted the urge to shove her away. What would it solve? 

“No soy el monstruo que crees que soy.” He sulked.

Maria nuzzled her husband’s neck. “Nadie cree que seas un monstruo.” She took him by the hand and turned him toward her. “Si no te respetáramos, no nos importaría tanto tu aprobación.”

Luis sighed and drew his wife to him. She came as tame and willing as a puppy. It was such a small concession: spend an afternoon with his son’s deviant friends and try not to say what he really thought of them. If he had agreed earlier, he wouldn’t have suffered this loss of face.

The two of them limped up the stairs to their bedroom without another word, arm in arm. Alice heard them pass her closed door. She heard the entire fight, even if she only understood enough to catch the general meaning. Her parents had always said that they wanted English to be her and her siblings’ first language, but Alice knew the real reason they had never taught her Spanish was so they could argue and tell secrets right in front of her face.  It was a good thing that the neighboring mini mansions were so far off, not that Alice gave a shit what the neighbors thought. All the screaming would have been ugly in any language.

Her room was antithetical to the rest of the house. Black walls. Posters for hard rock bands and Japanese cartoons. Dimly lit with discarded clothing everywhere. She had fought for years to get them to paint her walls black. It was one of the few fights where she hadn’t been able to win over her mother and then rely on Maria to do the serious arguing. United front or not, it wasn’t long after she started doing the job herself, with spray paint, that they caved and hired a professional painter. An unexpected benefit was that they no longer yelled at her to keep her door open at all times. If anything, they’d close it themselves now.

She lay on her back with legs drawn up. A titanium laptop rested on her stomach. Several pillows propped her head so that she could see the screen. A new bubble of text popped into her conversation with Michelle.

So, your phone’s totally busted?

Yeah. I’m messaging you from my laptop.

 Bummer.

A minute passed. The three animated dots that indicated the person on the other end was typing a response did not appear.

I’ve got enough money to replace the battery without letting them know. Hopefully that will get it to reboot. I don’t know when I’ll scrounge up enough to fix the cracked screen.

Still no response. Alice winced and typed another message.

You haven’t even heard the worst of it. Mom and Dad just had a huge fight and Mom won. Dad’s coming to Home Ranch. Even if I wanted him there, I never want to go back after what happened!

Several minutes passed. Anger and fear built in the pit of Alice’s stomach. Thinking it, she knew she shouldn’t type it. Typing it, she knew she shouldn’t hit Send, but she did it anyway.

What, are you fucking texting Tyler now instead of me? 

This time Michelle’s response was immediate. A block of brief, angry texts stacked into a column on Alice’s screen.

Fuck, Alice!

What do you expect me to say?

You’ve got yourself mixed up in some seriously spooky shit!

Shit I told you not to get mixed up in!

It’s none of your business who I choose to hang out with.

Especially since you haven’t been to school in weeks.

Am I supposed to get through high school all by myself?

Alice choked back tears. She knew it. She fucking knew it. All that was left was for Michelle to admit everything.

Are you two dating?

There was no response.

Freely sobbing, Alice banged “I guess we meant different things when we said we were going to be girlfriends” into her keyboard and hit Enter to send. This time, the green dot next to Michelle’s name turned gray, indicating that she had logged off.

Everything, everything in Alice’s life was falling apart. She wanted to throw her laptop across the room. That was when the screen went black.

“No!” Alice frantically wiped the tears from her eyes. “No no no no no no no!”

Even though her desktop and applications had disappeared, the computer wasn’t off. A small white cursor blinked on and off at the bottom of the screen. Before she could hold down the Power button to reset, the cursor typed out a message.

no be worry

resolve incompatibility machinery

ability talk safely

The syntax was all fucked up, but the letters looked normal. Not glitchy. Alice sniffled and rubbed her eyes. There was no point in being cautious. Life couldn’t be any worse than it already was. With trembling hands, she typed “Are you sure that this isn’t going to blow up my computer like it did with my phone?” 

She hit Enter. The cursor jumped to the next line and began to wink out a reply.

ability do not damage computer

we will talk safely

Alice took several deep breaths. She wanted to calm herself but almost wound up hyperventilating. “Who are you?” she typed.

One in spaceship

You attacked us!?!

i will not attack you

samyaza enters the base

he must go back or planet will be destroyed

“Destroyed!?!” Alice could just about figure out the alien’s dumb ET talk as well as she could understand her parents’ Spanish, but when it was something as important as “he must go back or planet will be destroyed,” she could only hope she was misinterpreting.

What planet will be destroyed? Yours or mine?!

yes

it might be both for planets

inevitably that yours planet destroyed

It couldn’t be Michelle. Fight or no fight, even if she was fucking Tyler, she didn’t have it in her to pull a prank this cruel. Even if she did, she was no hacker. Was the world in danger? There was no denying the UFO attack and all the insanity that went with it. Alice had been stone-cold sober during the whole thing, but it had happened two days ago and everything in the outside world had kept on going as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. There were over a hundred videos of “the event” uploaded to YouTube, but they had all been taken from town. At that distance, it just looked like grainy footage of purple lights blinking on and off in the night sky. Sure, it was a topic of conversation around town and on the internet, but people still went to work, watched football, fought with their spouses ...

Not to mention, if the world was going to be “destroyed,” what the fuck could Alice do about it? If this thing talking to her was an alien, what the fuck could it possibly want with her!?

Why are you telling me this?

in need yours help

you want become startouch

?

She gasped. When her fingers found the keyboard, her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t type. She was forced to make her response one letter at a time, hunting and pecking like a child who just learned to read.

More than anything.

will you to understand what meaning

 you are will left world

i will not come back

Fuck Earth and everyone on it. Alice didn’t type it, but her decision was immediate. Involuntary. Her own certainty scared her.

Yes. I’ll do it.

But why do you need me!?

difficult to communicate talking human beings 

myself can not warned 

can not open action 

need yours body

Alice kicked her laptop away and scrambled backward. It tumbled across the blankets, coming to rest, screen down, near the foot of the bed and forming a little glowing tent. Alice pressed her back against the headboard as if she were afraid the computer was going to lunge at her.

She stood there as the minutes ticked by. The laptop made no aggressive moves, but from the flickering light the screen emitted on her bedspread, she could tell that it was typing another message. She snatched the machine. It hadn’t been damaged.

no you worried

no yours permissible will no blend

myself in need you one thing precedent blend

subsequent blend you are a not pass barrier

Great. The alien was asking for consent before taking over her body. The fuck of it was, she was still talking. Oh God, did she really want this?

What are you asking me to do?

you can choose to rescue person

Rescue someone? Who?

this is a baby
newborn