SEVEN: A Little Delusional

The courses offered at the consulate were not, for the most part, popular.

There had been a two-week Artonan language intensive that was well-attended during the winter break, but now schools were back in session, and the people coming for extra classes in the afternoons and on weekends were mostly overachievers or geeks of some sort.

The ten o’clock class on Saturday was the only one that was full of relatively normal people. Alden and his friends stuffed their shoes and socks into the cubbies that lined the walls by the lobby elevators and headed upstairs to the small ballroom that served as their classroom. It was packed with other teens and twenty-somethings, and all of them were barefoot except for one girl in a cast.

It was rude to wear shoes or socks in the presence of an Artonan who was teaching you.

Bet she wouldn’t feel that way if she had to be here in person and smell the funk of a hundred pairs of human feet that were sweating in winter boots until a few minutes ago.

Alden took a seat between his friends in the back corner. Just after ten, the huge screen hanging at the front of the room flashed with a symbol similar, but not identical, to the one that always appeared on phones for Alden. And then their teacher was there, her image magically beamed in from another universe.

Even though it was confined to the flat surface of the screen, the video had a strange depth to it. It was almost like watching a moving bas-relief sculpture.

“Good morning, my students,” Instructor Pa-weeq said. Her voice would easily pass for human, and her face…might have. Her bone structure was too sharp, her forehead too prominent, and her pale brown skin had a violet undertone that was a little oversaturated. But the midnight blue facial tattoos were the real giveaway. “Welcome to our fifth session. Last time we finished our examination of the evolution of sentient life on Artona. Today, we will dance forward to the moment when that life began to understand the magic of the planes.”

She droned on, and the eyes of Alden’s classmates slowly glazed over.

This was “A History of Artonan Life.” Virtually everyone here was taking it for the same reason. Passing the test at the end of the course gave you college credit. And in many cases, high schools would count it toward your credits for graduation, too, so you could double dip.

It probably wouldn’t have been boring in a human teacher’s hands, but Artonans really had a knack for picking out the dullest parts of their own history. Alden had checked the syllabus, and the wizards from space had an entire two-hour session scheduled that focused on the development of irrigation on their planet.

Even Alden, who made a conscious effort to stay conscious in these classes, thought he might struggle in that one.

Today, instead of listening, he wrote “The Gorgon Problem” on top of his paper and passed the time by listing various animal-based foods. When he’d covered everything he could legally obtain and afford, he started a new section and wrote down a list of increasingly unlikely reasons why Gorgon would be unable to request specific food items.

It has to be just a spiteful part of his prison sentence, right? he thought again, looking down at the list.

Almost everything else that could have been a reason would have constituted a significant danger to society. And Alden couldn’t bring himself to believe the Artonans would make a potential nuke work as a desk clerk in downtown Chicago.

The next most reasonable option was that the restriction was to prevent Gorgon from requesting poison and ending his own life. But surely the alien had other ways if he was so inclined?

The third barely logical theory was that Gorgon’s natural diet was something so repugnant that the mere mention of it would cause a public outcry and demands that he be removed from Earth or executed. Like…if human babies were his preferred snack.

Again, that would make him too dangerous to keep around. Plus how would he even develop a taste for human flesh? There shouldn’t be any wherever he’s from.

Maybe it’s just kind of gross and not completely horrific?

He pondered the one housefly he’d seen Gorgon eat. An idea popped into his head.

Live prey only?

I mean, it would be weird if that was it, since he seems okay eating veggies. But he is an alien. Oh…oh, maybe he has to kill animals himself to make sure it’s done right? Like a religious thing?

He just gobbled that fly though…didn’t look like he did anything special to it first.

He wrote down, “Live bugs.”

He could find a pet shop or a bait shop and buy Gorgon some crickets if nothing else worked. Or maybe he should do that first? Confirm the cheaper theory before he dipped into his savings to buy out a butcher shop?

That’s a good way to organize the tests anyway. Start with the cheap stuff, work from there.

When the class finished up, he was busy making a new list entitled “Extremely Cheap Not-Vegan Foodstuffs for Nonhumans.”

Boe kicked Jeremy awake, and the three of them headed to a convenience store to scrounge up lunch. Alden grabbed a pre-made cobb salad, and they ate at a small counter beside the slushy machines.

“What’s something extremely cheap you can eat that’s not vegan?” he asked.

“Is this for your scary murderer friend?” Jeremy asked. “I thought you said he was vegan.”

“Save some of the toppings from your salad for him. That’s cheap.” Boe was squeezing mustard and mayo packets into his Doritos bag like a monster. “Kind of insulting, but cheap.”

“He says he’s not vegan. But he couldn’t eat any of the meat or dairy I’ve offered him so far.”

“I liked him being vegan better,” Jeremy muttered.

“Why don’t you just ask him what he likes?”

“He can’t tell me.”

They both stopped eating and turned to look at him.

“For real. He says it’s part of his prison sentence or something. He can’t tell us anything about Artonans or the System. He can’t make food requests, and when I asked if he only ate bugs he couldn’t even tell me yes or no.”

“That’s weird,” said Boe, frowning down at his chips. “I get why he can’t go around spreading arcane knowledge about the System, but a prohibition on asking for food? Why would that kind of restriction be in place? Now I want to try feeding him stuff.”

“Right? I spent the whole class trying to think of reasons for it. Other than it being a bizarre part of his punishment, I couldn’t come up with much.”

“Maybe he’d ask for something really nasty if he was able to?” Boe suggested.

“Like human blood,” Jeremy agreed darkly.

“He’s not a vampire, Jeremy.” Not that Alden had much ground to stand on since he’d briefly considered the baby-eater angle.

“Blood’s cheap though. If you use your own I mean. No idea what it would cost to buy someone else’s.” Boe used his teeth to rip open another mayonnaise packet. “And it’s definitely not vegan.”

“I’ll take it under consideration. Do either of you know where I can buy crickets?”

“You two are gross,” Jeremy said. “Forget what I said this morning. You’re the gross ones now. It’s official.”

###

After lunch, they split up. Boe was taking a culture class to beef up his transcript, and Alden and Jeremy were taking Beginners Wordchaining.

Jeremy had chosen it because there were no homework assignments. Alden had selected it because it reminded him of his mother, and it might be useful one day. If he ever went to medical school or nursing school like she did…or became a hero like Hannah…

I really am a little delusional.

He’d been thinking lately that maybe it was okay to be. It’s unavoidable, isn’t it? Everyone our age is in waiting.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Sure, it wasn’t likely that the System would choose you. But it might. And until you knew for sure, it was hard to let it go.

In the wordchaining classroom, Alden took his seat on a square pad that was decorated in mystical symbols that did nothing to disguise the fact that it was just a truncated yoga mat.

Jeremy flopped down beside him with an unnecessarily loud oof.

“Today is for our portion of sacrifice,” their teacher intoned. She was human, but it was clear she didn’t want to be. She had very sharp cheek implants and her foundation was leaning toward mauve. “We will begin with the gift of our peace of mind. Please, no shouting this time, Raquel. It doesn’t make the chain stronger. I will come around to monitor your inflection.”