Unidentified Funny Objects 7, page 8
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Chase: Sometimes you have to give something up to gain something more. You have to shed part of yourself to become someone new . . . someone better . . . just don’t give up too much, you know? And be sure to write down that I was winking when I said that.
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Naguib: In the end, Captain Franklin decided to cut him loose in one of our old picket craft. Something a little less phallic for him to ride around in.
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Chase: I even asked for a couple of extra chairs to be added on the command deck. Comfy ones, too. Seatbelts and the whole deal. Then I offered them to my new friends.
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Franklin: I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. When Chase left he somehow persuaded my best crew members to go with him. Indra Cain, Rhombus Aurelius, Hugh Mann. . . . The last we saw they were warping for Technobabel. I don’t know what kind of adventures they’re having out there but I like to think that maybe someday we’ll meet them all again. . . .
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This report prepared for general release by the Office of the President of the Galactic Union. Contributions have been translated into Union Vernacular where possible. Original transcripts available upon request.
Val Nolan lectures on science fiction and creative writing at Aberystwyth University. His fiction has appeared in Interzone, the "Futures" page of Nature, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction, while his story "The Irish Astronaut" was shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. His academic work has appeared in Irish Studies Review, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Journal of Comic Books and Graphic Novels, and is forthcoming in Science Fiction Studies.
Take Meme to Your Leader
Jennifer Lee Rossman
I always thought when aliens invaded, they'd have giant ships hovering ominously over the major world cities. They'd demand to be taken to our leaders, right? Or skip that step entirely and just blast us to hell?
That's what they were supposed to do. And then Will Smith would come and say something cool and we'd all be safe, at least until the sequel.
But nope.
They pick me, Maddie Espinoza, Youtuber.
And they choose to invade in the middle of one of my makeup tutorials. This huge, hulking, reptilian dude with giant eyes, just standing in the corner of my bedroom while I demonstrate the proper way to get the perfect smoky eye.
I scream, brandishing my curling iron like a gun and praying to Sephora, patron saint of cosmetics, that his planet doesn't have curling irons. He doesn't so much as flinch, just stands there like a cardboard cutout of a floppy-haired teen idol outside the FYE at the mall.
Wait. Is he a cutout?
He could very well be one of the xenomorphs from Alien, with a few extra arms. And, you know, the pink pussy hat. I stand up straight, craning my neck to get a better look. It's just like my damn roommates to play this sort of prank, but my dog doesn't usually growl at cutouts and OH GOD HE BLINKED.
What do I do, what do I do?
I decide my best option is screaming again and throwing a bottle of mascara at his head. In hindsight, maybe not Top Ten Greatest Ideas I've Ever Had material, but he doesn't interpret my actions as an act of war, so I think we're good. He just waves one of his six arms and opens his fanged mouth in a gruesome attempt at a smile.
"Much hello," he says in a tiny voice not befitting his whole seven-foot-tall murder-cicada aesthetic, "many peace."
I blink and lower my curling iron. "What."
"Much hello, many peace," he repeats. "I come to seek help from Earth. My planet is in danger from our tyrannical leader. He protec, but he also attac with nuclear weapons."
And just like that, the fear and wonder of first contact is gone. I'm talking to an actual extraterrestrial . . . and he's speaking in Internet memes.
"What," I say again.
"He protec—"
"But he also attac," I mutter. "Yeah, I heard you." I hit record on my computer because no one will ever believe it otherwise, and pick up Cashew before she escalates from growling to biting. "Okay, fine. Let's pretend I buy that you're not here to kill us all. You're about a thousand miles from anyone important enough to begin to help with your problem."
He nods. Should I be calling it a "he"? It sounds like a male voice. Maybe a male chipmunk, but still. Other than the hat, it isn't wearing a stitch of clothing, and its body is covered in a hard shell. Not a lot of visible genitalia.
Thank. God.
"Yes, but your queen has much security." At my blank look, he elaborates, "Queen Selena Gomez the First. I could not access her castle, so I went down the list and chose a smol duchess at random."
He produces a device that looks like a phone—from what pocket of his nonexistent clothes, I don't even want to know—and steps toward me. I step back, because that's what you do when an alien is walking toward you and you're all out of Reese's Pieces.
"Y u no trust me?" he says. I swear, I can hear the chatspeak in his voice.
"You're an alien," I say, trying to keep the fear from my voice. "Our culture teaches us to be afraid of . . ." I gesture vaguely at him. "Things like you."
He turns and stares helplessly at the computer.
"What are you doing?" I ask after a full minute has passed.
"Looks at camera like I'm on The Office." He does that awful smile thing again as he turns back to me. "We know all about your culture. Learned from your series of tubes." He indicates the phone, and shows me what appears to be a list of the most followed Instagram accounts. He has to scroll down quite a few pages to get to my name, but hey. If he thinks that makes me Earth royalty, I'm not about to disenchant him of that notion.
The alien bends down to look at Cashew. "And here we have a doggo," he says, sounding like a narrator in a nature documentary. "Notice its shiny wet boop-snoot, which is believed to serve the same function as a human nose."
I cover my face with my hand and take deep breaths, fighting back the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside me.
Aliens exist, they've learned English from social media, and they want my help to save their planet. Because Selena Gomez was busy. This is fine.
You know that thing where people say, "It's quiet in here—too quiet"? Well, it's way too quiet in here.
Alieny McAlienface (swear to god, that's what he calls himself) went downstairs while I changed into more professional clothes. Somehow, I doubt my narwhal-print pajamas will make the security guy at the Pentagon take us seriously when we ask to come in and talk to [important person]. Then again, I'll be with a seven-foot insect in a pussy hat. No one will be looking at me.
But I haven't heard a peep since.
I head downstairs cautiously, half hoping it was all a hallucination from moldy eye shadow. No such luck.
I find Alieny McAlienface standing in the common room, his buggy yellow eyes closed in what looks like ecstasy. He's foaming at the mouth.
I cling to the banister, unsure whether I should help him or defend the planet. "What's wrong?"
His eyes snap open and he gives me a fangy grin. "Nothing wrong. I am partaking in an Earthly custom." When I don't respond, he adds, "I have eaten the Tide Pods that were in the laundry room."
Any fear I have of this thing invading the planet fizzles away, and I find myself wondering exactly how wrong it would be if I asked Alieny McAlienface to do the cinnamon challenge.
"That's great," I say. "Good for you. That's totally not toxic." How is this my life . . . "So where are you from?"
His face lights up. "Why not visit Zoltar VII? We have murder noodles! Sandcastle rubble! Fire boi! Meow birds! Sister Mary Catherine! Bleeding thermometers!"
Never have I been at such a loss for words. "Okay then. Are you ready to go—"
Another alien appears in the room, just there in the blink of an eye without any special effects or anything.
This one's head scrapes the ceiling; he easily has two feet in height on Alieny McAlienface. And two feet in limbs, making the overall appearance even more buglike.
I should be afraid. I should be screaming my head off like Drew Barrymore meeting ET, but honestly. What's the difference between having one enormous alien in your house and having two? It's not like the day could get any weirder.
Pro-tip: I don't care how weird your day is. I don't care if you wake up to the sound of your pillowcases putting on a Hamilton parody called Shamilton, or if your betta fish suddenly develops the ability to speak in a voice that sounds uncannily like Patrick Stewart. If you value your safety at all, do not tempt the universe by saying your day can't get weirder. It doesn't like that, and it will find a way to turn the weird shit up to eleven.
In my case, that means Alieny McAlienface shrieks "He comes to attac!" while spraying detergent all over the room, and thrusts his head behind the coat rack.
The big one, for what it's worth, seems completely flummoxed by Alieny McAlienface's sudden disappearance, and whirls about dramatically shouting, "All your base are belong to us! All your base are belong to us!"
Now, I'm not the brightest lip gloss in the pack, but even I can take a hint. This is the leader, the one who protec but also attac. And now he's on Earth.
Rage surges in me, but I go and hide behind the coat rack because I'm a scared little cinnamon roll.
"This is good," Alieny McAlienface confides in me, grinning. "He can has Earth, and my people can be free."
Is he serious? "I'm not giving him Earth. It's the only planet with caffeine and Hemsworth brothers."
He blinks, his mouth drawn into a perfectly straight line. "Neutral face emoji?"
"No. Red face with symbols over mouth emoji. Besides, I don't have the authority to give Earth to an alien. You'd have to get Selena Gomez's permission."
Alieny McAlienface gives me a skeptical look. Out beyond the safety of the coat rack, if the crashes of broken glass are any indication, the leader has begun his conquest of Earth, starting with picture frames and tchotchkes.
I wonder if damage by alien overlords is covered by my pet deposit, but push the thought aside. "Why are we hiding behind a coat rack?"
"We do not have x-ray vision," Alieny McAlienface says, as if that explains everything. "He cannot see us through the clothes."
"Yes, but he saw us go back here—" I shake my head. Don't question the things keeping us from being killed. "Okay. So going to ask the government for help isn't an option. We need a more immediate plan of attack."
Alieny McAlienface holds up his communication device. "I will call my friend and he will charge in and valiantly defeat the enemy."
"Hang on." If they learned about us from the Internet . . . "Is your friend named Leeroy Jenkins?"
He nods excitedly.
"No. Something else." I think back to what he said about his planet. "You come from a place with sandcastle rubble and bleeding thermometers. Is it a desert? Is it hot?"
"It is all the hot."
"Tell me more. What can hurt you?"
He thinks for a minute. "Venomous snakes."
"Something I might have access to."
"Oh." He thinks again. A curio cabinet crashes in the dining room. "Cold," Alieny McAlienface says finally. "Cold wetness. We freeze into special little broflakes." He licks a bit of detergent foam from his lip, and an idea strikes me.
I grab his phone—it has a Hello Kitty cover, because of course it does—and message myself so I have his number. "Wait thirty seconds and toss this to your leader." Another crash in the dining room betrays the big guy's location, and I waste no time running to the kitchen.
"Warning!" Alieny McAlienface screams as I fill a glass with cold water and toss in a few ice cubes. "He is sliding into your DMs! And also your kitchen!"
I hold out my phone and start recording. The fate of the world is about to rely on an outdated viral video campaign. "This is the ice bucket challenge. I'm tagging the big cicada-looking dickhead who's about to murder me."
The ice water is a shock to my system, but I hit Send just as the Hello Kitty phone smacks the leader in the back of the head. My voice replays, tinny and distant, and he stops dead in his tracks to watch.
His shoulders slump in an uncannily human way as he realizes I've tagged him, and he walks toward me. I hold my breath as the tyrannical alien leader steps up to me, but he merely meets my eyes and growls, "I am bound by your decree to perform this ritualized baptism of ice and buckets."
He wrenches the glass from my hand and fills it, never breaking eye contact.
"So what happens now?" I ask Alieny McAlienface as we scoop the remains of his leader into a very dignified garbage bag.
"Now my people must learn to govern themselves. Rebuilding the government got me like—" He puts a hand on either side of his face and does his best impersonation of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. "—but we can do it. There are probably many YouTube tutorials about starting a democracy."
"You might try looking up an ancient series of texts by the great scholar Schoolhouse Rock."
His eyes light up. "Ooh, we shall indeed. And should we ever require your planet's assistance—"
"I know. You'll go to Selena Gomez."
"We will go to she with the most followers," he corrects, and points to my phone.
For a second, my brain refuses to acknowledge the number beside my name as an actual number, but it's true. I have close to two hundred million followers. I look at Alieny McAlienface, my mouth hanging open.
"Our population is numerous," he says simply. "It's over 9000!" He takes the bag o'dead leader and drops to one knee. "And now, Queen Maddie Espinoza the First and Royal Doggo Cashew the Floofiness, I must leave you with the traditional farewell of my people, which we learned of in your most sacred religious tome."
"Wikipedia?" I guess.
"The Urban Dictionary," he corrects. Alieny McAlienface takes my hand and Cashew's paw, and pauses dramatically. "Bye, Felicia," he says, and then he's gone.
Jennifer Lee Rossman is a science fiction geek who would never ever threaten to run anyone over with her wheelchair. Nope, not even once. (Happy now, Mom?) Her work has been featured in several anthologies and her novella Anachronism is now available from Kristell Ink, an imprint of Grimbold Books. She blogs at jenniferleerossman.blogspot.com and tweets @JenLRossman.
Contractual Obligations
C. Flynt
I was busy carving out a client's defense when my receptionist pinged me.
"Client," her orb twinkled.
I pushed the half-finished rune stones to the side of my desk.
"Send him in," I told her, as I settled behind my desk. By the time my new client sidled in I was busy straightening my name plate. It read "Hieronymus Glyph, Alchemist at Law" in whatever language my client understood. If the client was illiterate, it displayed my picture by a pile of gold.
This client was a nebbish with hunched shoulders, hangdog expression, twitching fingers, and pigeon toes. He was every stereotype of the guy who never gets a break. At first glance, you either wanted to exploit him or help him.
I felt sorry for him and hoped I could help. I had a premonition that I'd regret it.
"I-I th-th-think I m-made a m-mistake," he stammered as he shifted his weight from foot to foot and rotated a cloth cap in his fingers.
"Fixing mistakes is my business," I assured him. "My firm is the best in the city. What do you think you did?"
"I w-wanted to s-speak better," he explained. "So, I c-c-conjured a d-demon to help. I m-m-made a verbal contract with it."
Okay, that was a mistake. Verbal contracts are tricky, even if you can express yourself plainly and clearly.
Plainly, this guy could not express himself clearly.
"Did you get a copy of the contract?" I asked, fearing that he'd neglected this critical step.
He reached into the pocket of his sagging pants and pulled out a tiny skull. He set it on my desk and the jawbones clacked open.
"In that the party of the first part, Melvin Schmook, desires services from—"
I waved it silent.
"Let me borrow this to study the contract." I shuffled the rune stones to let him know I had plenty of clients. "Did the demon fulfill his obligation?"
"M-m-mostly. I used to st-st-stutter really bad."
"I see. Partial fulfillment. That's standard in these contracts. Were you to receive complete fulfillment upon final payment?"
He nodded. "I g-gave it a s-sacrifice as a down p-payment in the s-s-summoning."
"Animal or vegetable?"
"G-g-gold."
I raised an eyebrow. Offering gold would get him a decent grade demon. One that knew the basics of natural law and how to phrase the clauses. It could be a tough contract to break.
"Who did you invoke?"
"I c-c-called for Buh-buh-Bunny."
"Good choice. Buni's expertise is eloquence. He's efficient, but not cheap. What was the final payment? Your soul? Firstborn?"
"T-t-twenty years of my life."
That can be a tough clause.
"Did you specify which twenty?"
Everyone assumes they'll surrender the last twenty. Nobody worries about dying when they are old and infirm. Not specifying which years is a classic amateur mistake.
The nebbish shook his head. "The demon didn't say. Nuh-now, he w-wants the first twenty. I-I'd be t-two years old. I w-w-wouldn't know how to talk. I'd forget everything I've learned."
"You're best off reneging on the final payment and keeping your stutter."
He shook his head. "The demon added a th-th-thirty-year penalty clause. I d-didn't think I'd w-want to renege."
"You must have other options. Why do you want to speak better? There are worse fates than stuttering."
