Fear and Aggression (35 page)

The polls showed that only twelve percent of
the U.S. population believed that this video was of the actual
alien, without editing enhancement. Gramps said that he didn’t know
whether the video was accurate or not, but that it had backfired.
People were getting angry, and were starting to show their anger in
riots. He couldn’t understand what everyone was so upset about. She
seemed nice, and the other girl wasn’t scared of her at all. It was
weird that she sounded just like an American, and not even like a
foreigner. That’s what Tess said: “Dad says that she sounds too
American to be an alien. They could have at least got someone who
sounded alien.” The other thing was that she looked perfectly
human; not even ‘Spock ears’ or anything.

The weirdest thing of all was when they were
under martial law last week. The riots were pretty bad, but at
least he got a couple days off of school. Now they just had some
army guys with machine guns protecting the school entrance.

“
The aliens aren’t even
able to fly a plane, and we are getting ourselves all worked up
here. They have been up there for my whole life, and probably for
thousands of years, so now we are all freaked out.” Still, in just
a few years, he was getting out of here. He was going up there, and
he, and Steve would be making sure everything was fine. Gramps said
that it would all blow over, and people would get back to normal,
eventually.

Mark closed his book, and put it in his
backpack. He grabbed a handful of peanut M&M’s and walked out
the door. It was brisker than he expected, so he returned back for
a grey sweatshirt jacket. His mind was racing through all of these
thoughts as he walked on autopilot towards school. Other kids,
walking, or on bikes, or skateboards, were not an unusual sight, so
they all slipped into his subconscious while he walked. It was the
first morning that he had seen his breath, and that was the only
thing about the physical reality that had struck him this
morning.

“
Hey, man.” A few boys, a
little bit older than he, were in front of him. They had stopped
their bikes, and had thrown them down carelessly. Four boys started
making their way towards him.

“
Hey, man. You’re the big
celebrity around here, aren’t you?” said a fifteen-year-old lad
with short blond hair.

“
So was that hot chick the
real alien? What’s your brother say about that?” spoke a boy with
dark straight hair that was over one of his eyes. “Has your brother
sent you any other pictures? I want to see the pictures that you’ve
got. Show them to me,” he said as he shoved Mark in the
shoulder.

Another boy chimed in, “Your brother tough?
What if that alien chick starts doing her voodoo or alien karate on
him, will he whip her?” Then he gave Mark a hard two-handed shove
on both shoulders.

Mark stepped back two steps and dropped his
backpack. He could see where this was all going. The boys were all
older and taller than him. They had been around, as far as fighting
went. Mark was big and strong for his age, but he would be no match
for this set.

“
Why’d he capture her?
Don’t you think that he will make them all mad? They’re going to
come here and do all sorts of stuff to us. I think your brother’s
stupid just like you.” The blond boy landed a hard right hook
squarely onto Mark’s chin. The pain was delayed for a second, but
his heart raced instantly. The four boys formed around him, such
that if he went at any one of them, the others could all defend and
attack instantly. Mark started breathing hard, as his heart pumped
out of his chest.

“
Tell your brother to just
off her, and all her alien people. We don’t want them around. If we
are so strong, let’s just take them out.”

“
Like we are going to take
you out,” said the last boy laughing.

“
You better run, man,
maybe that cute girl you’re always with can help you.” Laughing
around the group ensued.

Mark wouldn’t run to save his life. He
didn’t say anything, either. He kept eyeing each one of them in
turn. He could feel the pain pulsing on his chin now; he wanted to
rub it, but didn’t dare show any sign of pain or weakness. His head
was already aching, and he was feeling sick to his stomach.

“
Looks like he wants more,
let’s give it to him.” The boys came in, and Mark got one good
swing off, and struck the boy with dark straight hair on the side
of the head. The others grabbed his arms, and the next thing he
knew, he was taking one hit after another; stomach, face and groin
were pounded indiscriminately. The pain was intense, and he was not
able to breathe. He could feel the blood in his mouth, and tried to
spit, but it just trickled out. He tried to keep his eyes open at
first, so that he could see where it was all coming from, but soon
he was cut on the corner of his right eye, and the blood oozed in,
forcing him to shut his eyes.

The next thing he knew he was on the ground
laying face up. He was still taking face shots, but he was fading
out of consciousness. The kick to the side, cracking three ribs,
woke him right up. It ached on top of the pain he felt all over.
“How do you like that? That’s what they are going to do to all of
us. We’re all toast, thanks to your stupid brother, and our stupid
President.”

“
Let’s get out of
here.”

He grabbed his side, and tried to rub it,
but was struggling with consciousness. He managed to turn his head
so that the blood could run out of his mouth, and not choke him. He
woke up about a minute after going completely out. He didn’t know
how long he had been out, and he tried to open his eyes. The right
eye was no use—too swollen—but the left eye was open and the world
was bright and spinning. He didn’t see anyone, and didn’t think
that he could do anything except lay there. He could at least
breathe now, but it was only with extreme pain where he had been
kicked in the ribs.

He focused with what consciousness he had on
breathing alone. He concentrated on minimizing the pain with each
breath. He could still fill the warmth of fresh blood on his face,
and he knew that he was still bleeding. He could also feel the
sensation of dried blood as he moved the muscles of his face. It
was strange that no one was around. The street was so full, he
thought, before this had all happened. Maybe everyone was scared,
with all the rioting, and just left. He heard a car go by, but it
did not stop. He couldn’t muster the strength to try and flag it,
and he certainly couldn’t shout.

It felt like a long time, maybe half an hour
(Though it was only seven minutes) before he heard a voice. It was
a man’s voice, and he was coming towards him. Mark partially opened
his eyes and saw the form of someone coming towards him. There was
a car also, but he had not heard it come up. Mark had actually
lapsed briefly into unconsciousness again just as the car had come
up.

“
Mark? Is that you? What
happened? Are you okay?” The voice was vaguely familiar but Mark
could not place it. He tried to turn his body and face towards the
figure, but in reality he didn’t move much. “Open the door—it’s
Mark—he’s hurt badly.”

Another voice could be heard, the voice of a
girl. Mark recognized that voice—it was Tess. Then he heard a
shriek, and could feel her by his side. He was losing consciousness
again, but could sense that his body was being picked up off of the
ground. He had not been picked up and carried in years, and it felt
strangely pleasant—except for the sharp pain that shot through his
ribs again. His body ached all over, and felt even worse as it was
moved.

He briefly awoke, again, and was in the
backseat of a car. He could hear Tess’ voice again, and that was
pleasant.

He woke again, and was on a cart of some
sort and being rolled by a man in green scrubs and a white lab
coat. He stayed awake, to some extent, but closed his eyes and
didn’t move. He felt at peace, knowing that he was under the care
of doctors. He didn’t want to stay awake any longer; he just wanted
to sleep off the extreme pain. Now, however, he seemed to be able
to keep consciousness. The cart came to a stop, and then he was
picked up again and placed into a bed. The pain was extreme, as he
was not placed gently, and the shock of the pain pushed his
consciousness over the edge again. He was out.

“
What
?”

“
I don’t get it either,”
Kenny shook his head. “I guess you’d have to be there. It’s easier
for us. We are here, and we know her. Everyone thinks that the
video of you and her is a fake. People are rioting in the streets,
and chanting, ‘Kill the aliens!’”

“
People are so stupid,”
Tammy muttered. “And bloodthirsty. So what’s the plan? I’m pretty
much done with testing protocols. I thought that we would bring her
back to earth, and let the world have a look at her—get to know
her.”

“
That’s not happening. I
don’t think that they have any idea what to do. For now, they are
happy for us to keep floating around this rock. At least that seems
stable to them. We can’t bring her back to earth; the world is
scared to death of her. We can’t take her back to her home right
now, because they are scared of all that she now knows. They think
that she will be able to share all of our technology, and then the
aliens will be on our doorstep the next thing that we know.” Kenny
took a sip from his mug, and kept leaning forward over his
drink.

Tammy was visibly
irritated. She felt that from the moment that she had realized that
she was pregnant everything had stopped going her way. Prior to
that, she was on top of the world, so to speak; but now it was all
crashing in. More than anything she wanted to take, Aspiria, to
earth. She wanted to be famous. The video that she had made had
only gotten everyone angry at the President, the Space Force,
Aspiria, and her people. No one had said anything about her, other
than that she was some model for this fake video.
I guess that is flattering
, she thought.

“
What other choice do we
have? Could we take her to a space station and study her
indefinitely?”

“
Maybe; but there is
concern, that by us continuing to hold her, we will risk angering
the aliens down there.”

“
They have no idea about
us, or where she is. She is just a missing person as far as they
are concerned,” Tammy answered back defensively, as if Kenny were
the judge and jury in this case.

“
We’ve been in 3D orbit
for a long time now. We are not invisible to them down there. On
earth, people hardly look up to the heavens anymore, but for a
people at this stage of technology, they likely spent a lot of time
looking up at the stars. They can’t think that we are a plane—they
don’t even have planes.”

“
Why didn’t we hide
ourselves better?” she responded

“
Mike kept telling us that
we needed to be more careful, but we really couldn’t study
them—observe them—without staying in 3D; and we needed a close
enough orbit.”

“
So they know that we are
here?”

Kenny shrugged. “They could. We haven’t seen
anything to indicate that they do, but what would we see? Smoke
signals?”

“
People, politics…we
should just do what is best, and let all the idiots back home get
over it.”

“
The President wants a
second term. He’ll do whatever it takes to get reelected. VP is who
got everyone all upset. He leaked that she knew about us—before we
got here.”

“
How can that man have a
security clearance? He couldn’t keep a secret to save his
life.”

“
The people love him. They
say he is the only honest politician in the world. The President is
balling him out privately, but publically he needs him now,” said
Kenny with a sarcastic grin. He picked up his mug for another
sip.

Tammy and Kenny sat in
silence for the moment, sipping and contemplating. “It’s
interesting, the parallels and intersections between us and them;
but I don’t buy that they know anything about us. They have
religious beliefs that are similar to Christianity, except that
their champion is from another world. I know this is a striking
convergence between our species, but it doesn’t prove anything.
Before this could mean anything, we would have to accept
Christianity as literal, and I think that that is the biggest
problem with the theory. Nothing surprises me anymore, but
that
would
really
surprise me. It’s
more likely to be another coincidence; add it to the
list.”

“
I take it that you are
not a believer,” asked Kenny.

Tammy rolled her eyes, smiled sarcastically
and shook her head slowly while bringing her mug up for a
drink.

“
I’m going to relieve
Captain Jenners on deck,” Kenny said after a few more minutes of
silence.

“
Let him know that I would
like to talk with him,” she said as he got up.

“
Will do.”

The anger began to build
within her.
Science has enough challenges,
but the prejudices of the people took the cake. Over the centuries,
religion and superstitions continually got in the way of scientific
knowledge and progress
, she thought. It
hadn’t occurred to her that the same people she was condemning,
were those whom she was seeking fame and fortune from. It was the
fact that she was not beloved, that was reason enough for her to
condemn their judgment. Beyond this, the sickness that she felt
from carrying this fetus within her was so irritating, not to
mention the consequences that she could face when the world knew.
She told Steve that she would wait a little longer to abort it—to
see what would happen after the videos were released. He thought
that maybe doors would be opened up, but instead, they were all
closing—fast. Even if the pregnancy was terminated, everything else
was still going all wrong.