Frankentown (22 page)

What are you doing here?
 

Frank was petrified.

There was no escaping this situation.

Friends?
he hoped.
The being closest to him was a small gray alien, no bigger than the one he had in his fridge.
It studied his face and heart for a few seconds, then bowed its head in approval.
If there was ever a time to ask questions, it would be now
∴

Why did you send me back in time?
The scrawny alien turned its head and squinted at Frank through its dark gray eyes, square in his face, and he could see his reflection in it. He was a Gray too.

 
This made him feel uneasy, and a little too receptive of every single thing around.
Despite appearing rather shifty, he didn’t feel judged by the being, and more importantly, soon knew the gray weren’t really evil.

And why would we be?

How subjective really is evil?

A product of your own acts?

Free will?

We have not seen you before
∴
said the gray on his right.

“Um. Hi.” He said, still shivering.

“I’m, er, Frank Cabella is my name.” He said as he raised his hand out, ready for the first inter-galactic handshake.
”I study squid at the University of Berkeley.”
It understood what Frank was trying to say, though it didn’t need to.
It just knew.
 

“Why was I sucked into your ship?”

Came by yourself?

Frank shook his head.

Unlike the beings at the base, he could not read its face. Its facial muscles, if it even had any, were all hidden under its soft, perfect skin. Then he realized his presence was a mere anomaly, and will not therefore be ignored for much longer. He will soon be ejected.

 
Perhaps he’d have time for at least a single question, so he dared to ask.

“Where are you from?”

The being must have thought it unfair to ask and walked away, out back into its chamber.

Chapter Twentysix

Cutting Time

Each of the beings inside the huge disc in the sky had a room of its own along its rim, arched and circular in shape. There were no doors or windows. The Gray didn’t need them; they transcended space and could move to and through any place. This fortress, inside of which Frank found himself standing, was suspended in time, or rather, stuck inside a single moment.
 

All the beings here, unlike those at the base bathed in bright light that followed them always and wherever they went. Though the Gray were all alike in appearance, each appeared just different enough from the last; one smooth and smaller in built, the other taller and with rounded features; some evidently much older and taller.

One was particularly tall, with dry, chapped skin covered in age-old wrinkles, but age is very difficult to determine when said being moves in time the way Frank moved to pubs and liquor stores.
 

Three particularly smaller figures also stood by, each carrying a yet smaller one on its shoulder. And yet, Frank felt no threat from these grotesque figures. No fear.
There was something angelic about them, and there was no question that it was they, who to some were messengers of God, and to some, Gods themselves.

Some even offered that they may be people from the future.

Free to move closer, and unsure whether it was of his own will or not, Frank moved further down the path that led around the inner rim, his lanky gray legs bouncing him in a way he was not used to at all.

A small group of grays stood side by side over a large, rough metallic object.

They stretched out their lanky arms, making smoothing motions over the shiny radial surface beneath and around them. Under the pressure of their concentrated energy, the rough surface straightened out like still water, and as easily as fabric straightens right out of a tumble dryer.
This they did by channelling energy from around them through the palms of their hands into the surface, which was the same material as everything else around. Each gray belonged to one of the round ‘rooms’ it found itself inside of, using them as controlling points for manipulating their environment by stretching and twirling their enormous (and creepy) four-fingered hands in fractal patterns.

These hands were particularly startling, as their middle two fingers were conjoined for the better flow of energy. In this way, they could altogether control everything around them.

They could command the mountains with telekinetic hand movement.
They were masters of space and time.
The middle of the disc was rocky and alive, flourishing like a coral reef, with its very own ecosystem. The very walls and floors were composed of wonderful, soft fauna and fractal curls of fern. It was like a ‘little park’. A piece of contemporary sampling of various species.
The small animals that moved around started looking familiar in their nautical appearance, until Frank recognized what could have been a cousin to a regular Humboldt squid, flying around the enormous disc in flocks. The biggest difference were their atypical colors, but the creatures had the univeristy's tags still attached.

By keeping them here in time, they can live forever in this disk
∴
Frank was devoid of any ability to speak, though inspiration was aplenty. He failed to even contemplate his situation, for he believed to have been dreaming. And though he wasn’t entirely wrong, he was actually there, watching and experiencing the beings muse without the need to speak. Frank’s simply hung in space, staring, coming to the realization that he can’t really control the alien’s body.
But Because he shared a radius with the elder, he could get into the gray’s head, at enough capacity to communicate.

You’re the guest. Shut up and learn
∴

Without a language, the creatures communicated only in concepts. That is a sort of difficult data to decrunch for the human brain, so it came to Frank in flashes of visual images.

No misunderstandings.
The army men are rude
∴
The younger of the two beings thought and shared.
Sometimes I think the species belongs with the rebels and
the rogue
∴
With no interest in evaluating the choices of the rebel grays that live bound to Earth, the elder gray stood in silence as he resumed smoothing of the surface of the metal pod, which was made specifically to travel long distances in time.

To contemplate where they belong was a pretty naïve thing to be thinking.

We must diffuse this situation
∴
The elder was a shaman. They were respected by most of their kind for their age and knowledge, for they have lived long, certainly many lifetimes by men’s standards. He was a gray, and the grays’ powers are nearly limitless compared to Frank’s, or even the world’s greatest athlete.
He could feel it flowing through and around him.
We should take immediate custody of the floor representatives
∴
 

A representative was a man or a woman. Anyone on earth. But they were not chosen; only born with certain predispositions in their genetic lineage that dictated who would and who would not become a representative, and Frank did not necessarily belong among them.

The Rebels cannot be allowed to spread to the surface
∴

The rebels had a very dependent relationship with ‘representatives’ and kept them close, for they too were bound to earth, condemned to live in their kingdom under the oceans, in bodies that wouldn’t die, deep under the ocean floor.
Unsuccessfully trying to break out of their confines, the Gray had passed into legend until man fought man for greed and through genocide of man against man had turned them into stuff of misinterpreted parables. People as a species had not had a real relationship with the gray for millennia, and the break-up part of that relationship did not end well either. Then, and since, gray had learned to become men too. Coming down from the discs in attempt to understand and guide humanity on earth was not an easy task, especially looking like a gray. So it was decided that they would come, in limited numbers, proportional to the human population density of earth.
 
They came to live in the empty parts of a man’s body and life.

Possessing.
With any human bodies at their disposal, they chose to be people as average as possible. The rebels had chosen mostly ‘the best of the genetic pool’ on earth, which, for those who dwell in dark recesses of the planet, was driven by greed.

But as you know, most rebels are still deep below, under the oceans
∴

They governed and ruled and often held some of the most unattainable statuses over hundreds and thousands of years. The rebel gray’s human doppelgängers saw time pass and viewed the change on earth through many lifetimes. The representatives were pawns in a game of chess between the two main denominations of the gray extraterrestrial race, whose members wanted a planet to call their own and to mingle. Frank wondered how much of what he had seen on the base related to that; when the encyclopedia showed the early contact. The elderly-looking alien then made a gesture that could have been interpreted as a shrug.

Some of that is just opinion
∴

We have truly declared ourselves
∴

the young one mused sadly.

They didn’t mean to harm anyone
∴
For the first time, Frank recognized sadness in the alien.
That was one of my best engineers
∴

The thought was too serious and had to be considered carefully, so they stopped smoothing, and got distracted. The young gray felt greatly worried.
First they drove us out, now they are attacking our engineers so we cannot demolish this nonsense
∴

Shaman knew exactly where the young one is coming from, but himself knew better than to believe it was going to be that simple. Before he could wonder about what happened to his best engineer’s body, the younger one shared his own recollection.

The finder is now also a recipient who had stolen the body for study
∴
 

We are quite alike
∴

Men want to protect the earth too
∴

They’re all just really rubbish at it
∴
Their own kind had, turned against itself a long time ago. The radical souls were very old and have visited many bodies over the 32 millenia they have spent bound to our earth.
Most were tens of thousands of years old, rooted in what may as well have been an eternity.

For you guys anyway
∴

It doesn’t matter. We are friieends.....

Something about how the gray conveyed the friendship seemed disagreeable.
Consistency was always paramount to their species, and it had been preserved that way for many millennia. They built ships that could travel long distances in time; back and forth.
They had absolutely no concept of ‘now’, other than the knowledge that they all exist at any point in time. Because of this, it was not easy for them to establish lasting relationships, and their continued existence was for the sake of existence. They compensated for this by being trusting of one another without having to spend much time together.
There was an unspoken understanding.
A feeling. A common desire for peace.

They had enough of that crap.

The Radicals were thought of as ever vengeful and always suspicious to the Rebels. Despite that they lived free, unbound to the earth, their bodies lasted shorter times than those of the Rebels.
It made sense to stay on the planet either way. Traveling time with earth as a constant is less dangerous than traveling all of space time.
Two thousand years we came and put more faith into people
∴
Obedience
∴
The thought was directed at Frank.
Two thousand years ago, the rebels took two birds with one stone. Then we came, stopped the rebels and drove them back to the depths...and gave many faith.
They wanted to be role models for us.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

For the singular unity of the species.

The shaman raised his hands and a stream of energy lit a path through the middle of his chamber. The spirit of the alien that had once been a puddle of liquid in Frank’s kitchen exited his body.
They were no longer as one, and Frank felt very much less like himself than usual on friday nights.
Then the impish gray that had inhabited Frank’s stinky dilapidated alcoholic shell spoke up, or rather ‘thought up’.

I’ve chosen this man to be my representative
∴
Our link to downstairs
∴
the gray shaman said to Frank.

Weird
∴

But he’s nobody. Just...kind of rubbish
∴
 

We cannot change the directive
∴
It’s too late
∴
The rogues have stuck us out
∴
They accomplished their quest
∴
We’ll draw out the radicals, but we must ensure the Earth’s native species is unaffected; unlike last time
∴
A great power started radiating behind them; a powerful ancient force that is present but not visible, that has decided to make its presence known. This made the younger gray feel more agitated, until he literally vibrated with energy.

A great golden falcon in festive robes, as a galant and understanding force flashed across Frank’s mind like a distant memory. which was now only inside his soul.