October 8, 1999
Silence was not golden. It was not silver. It wasn't even copper. Silence was a leaden chain, an iron gag. Silence was a bomb waiting to explode.
For the first time, Syx understood Maria's tendency to babble. Anything was better than this vast, unquenchable silence.
He glanced to his side. Kelly's head hung low. His right hand, greenish-nailed and webbed to the second knuckle, rested on his dislocated left shoulder joint. The blue boy reached through their bond. His brother was still in pain, but it had lessened from agonizing to simply miserable.
Not for the first time, he wished that they were telepathic. But no. Their bond allowed them to always find each other, to sense and even alleviate the other's pain, but it was a link of empathy, not telepathy.
He wished he could tell Kelly that it was okay, it was all going to be okay. But he couldn't do that without Takashi and Peterson hearing.
The blue boy sank lower into his chair. Takashi and Peterson hadn't said a word since their two extraterrestrial students had entered the office. How could they? What kind of principal was prepared to find two aliens in his school?
Suddenly Syx couldn't stand it anymore. He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, lifted his head. The other three inhabitants of the room stared at him. He swallowed again. "We… we didn't do this to hurt anyone."
The adults remained silent. Syx took that as a sign to continue. "We didn't disguise ourselves to- to- I don't know, to do bad things. We only wanted…. When we went to kindergarten, we didn't have the watches. We were bullied. Horribly. You've worked with children for years; you know how vicious they can be. We just didn't want to go through that again. So we made- okay, I made- the watches."
This time, the silence did not last quite so long. "Just to avoid bullies?" Takashi repeated warily.
"Just to avoid bullies," Kelly confirmed. His brother nodded. Schoolyard bullies and the bigger, stronger ones who had tried to take him.
"What are you going to do to us?" the blue boy whispered.
Takashi rested his head in his hands. "I don't know," he replied. "On the one hand, there's no rule against using holographic projector things to look… normal. And I've seen enough bullying to know that students can take it to extremes. On the other…." He waved his hand. "Holograms? In my school? I have to do something about that."
No one spoke. Syx strained his ears. People were talking in the hallways. He wondered how many reporters were swarming through the school.
The door opened, and a flustered Lee Ridgeway stepped through. He was followed by Dr. Philber. The ache in Syx's broken leg flared.
"Doctor, you need to-"
"-check Syx's leg, it's broken-"
"-push Kelly's shoulder back into its socket."
"Broken leg? Dislocated shoulder? What in the world have you two been up to?"
Takashi cleared his throat. "You don't seem very surprised by their… appearances."
The men from the prison gave him odd looks.
Syx squirmed. "Er… Kelly and I might have been using holographic projectors to disguise ourselves as humans for the past year or so."
Ridgeway sank down into a chair, hiding his head in his hands. "Holographic projectors," he repeated. "You two have been using holographic projectors. Talking fish and license plate tricycles and dehydration guns and genetic engineering just weren't enough. Holographic projectors…."
"Genetic engineering?" Peterson squeaked.
"Long story," Kelly mumbled. The ichthyoid rubbed absently at his arm, half-wishing that he'd stayed a fish. Fish didn't get dislocated shoulders.
As though he had read the piscine's mind, Dr. Philber grabbed his shoulder. The physician pushed down, forcing Kelly's joint back into place. The brothers yelped in tandem- the elder in pain, and the younger in surprise.
"I'll get a cast for you when we get home, Syx," he promised softly. "But for now, you two need to tell us what happened."
Kelly would explain if he was asked to. Syx could let his brother shoulder that burden…. But he had been the one to conceive of and invent the holo-watches. It was his fault, his responsibility.
In slow, halting words, he told about their desperate terror two springs ago, when the warden had announced that he'd signed them up for public school. He told of the summer of scheming, of the backstories they had crafted and habits they had cultivated to appear normal. He spoke of his terror on their first day. He spoke of Roxanne and Maria, of the brothers' pact to tell any potential soul mates the truth. He told them how terrified he'd been to tell that truth, how Kelly and Maria had given him a deadline. He told them of the meeting in the janitor's closet, how Roxanne had accepted him, how Metro Dude had ruined it. He spoke of being held captive in the gym, of his and Kelly's injuries, of how they had come so close to escaping.
And then he had nothing more to say.
October 8, 1999
Roxanne smiled at the camera as she related the story of how Syx had overcome his terror to tell her what he was. The reporter, Angie Anchor from KMPC, seemed unable to comprehend what was really a quite simple tale.
"No threats?" she asked. "No blackmail? No attempts at persuasion?"
The younger woman's smile became forced. "No threats, blackmail, or attempts at persuasion," she confirmed. "Just a teenage boy afraid his girlfriend would dump him for the color of his skin."
Angie's expression froze. That's right, Roxanne thought, I went there.
Her job was to sow controversy, to change this from a simple black-and-white case of aliens (aliens. Syx and Kelly were aliens. Who would have thought?) hiding out among schoolchildren to two frightened teens whose most carefully guarded secret had been exposed in the worst way possible. She had to paint the world in shades of gray, because if Metro Dude was the hero….
…The Auslanders weren't villains. They were definitely odd-looking and not exactly honest, and Kelly's teeth were somewhat terrifying, but they weren't villains.
"So why do you think they hid themselves like that?" Anchor demanded.
"I don't know," Roxanne retorted sweetly. "Metro Dude attacked us before I could ask any questions."
"Well, look at it from his perspective. He saw a pretty young girl in a hidden space with a blue male."
Her fists clenched. "Not really. I was leaning in to kiss Syx, you see, when he came in and grabbed him. I think that when he saw me about to kiss another guy, he kind of snapped."
"Are you accusing our city's future hero of petty jealousy?" Anchor hissed.
Roxanne nodded, firm and resolute. "Here are the facts, facts that pretty much everyone in Metro High can confirm. Metro Dude started expressing interest in me sometime last March. I turned him down- he's not my type. He thought I was playing hard to get and kept coming after me, probably because I was the only girl who hadn't swooned into his arms after three seconds. Things didn't change this year. He actually came to my apartment a couple weeks ago- in fact, it was the day I started dating Syx- and asked why I hadn't fallen at his feet. He even brought me flowers." She crossed her arms.
"So you believe that Metro Dude's… actions… were motivated by jealousy?"
"They were."
Several feet away, Maria and Bernard were in the midst of their own interview. The reporter, Lucas Burn of KSMP, had initially wanted only to interview "that fish-thing's" girlfriend, but Maria had been so nervous that she'd dragged her cousin onscreen for moral support.
Some people were just not meant for public speaking, and Maria was one of them. Her earlier outbursts against Metro Dude had been born of rage and directed at a personal enemy. Now most of her anger had been replaced by fear, and her rhetorical skills suffered the consequences.
"It's nothing like that," she told the reporter. "Kelly kept giving me the 'just friends' speech again and again and again. It took forever for me to convince him I didn't mind him being a Pir. And then he gave me the whole 'just friends' talk again, and it took another forever to convince him to date me. He's still really shy about letting me see him without his holo-watch- that's what they call them, holo-watches. He's still half-convinced that I'll freak out and run screaming for the FBI and Men in Black and CIA and all the other government acronym agencies."
"You called him a Pir?" the reporter probed.
"Yeah. He's a Pir. P-I-R. At least that's the transliteration. They didn't exactly use Latin letters. Syx jokes and calls him a space piranha- you know, because of his fishier… characteristics. It's gotten him the nickname El Piranha, which is kind of stupid, because he's practically vegetarian. Though he'll eat meat sometimes. Just not every day."
Bernard elbowed her. His cousin sucked in a noisy breath and ceased babbling.
"The door's opening!" a female voice screamed. All the stragglers spun. Their gazes fixed on the door to the principal's office, which was, indeed, opening.
A tall man with a graying mustache strode through the door. No one followed. Frowning, the man paused and turned. He gestured impatiently.
"Warden Lee Ridgeway." Roxanne jumped. She hadn't realized that Maria was by her side until the older girl spoke. "He's the guy who kept them out of Area 51, got them legal citizenship, and found them a place to live. They owe him a lot."
A large blue head poked cautiously out the door. Gasps erupted from the assorted media. Cameras flashed. Syx jerked his head back inside.
Ridgeway sighed audibly, marched back to the door, and fixed his blue charge with a glare. Blushing purple, the Vihiln hobbled into the hall, leaning on his brother (or whatever they really were to each other) for support. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was chewing his lips in an expression of absolute terror.
Kelly seemed intent on watching everything and everyone at once. His head was constantly in motion as he scanned the crowd. Even Roxanne, who wasn't anywhere near the siblings, could see that his jaw and neck muscles were tense.
A fourth man followed at the two brothers' heels. He was slightly older than Ridgeway and wore a white doctor's coat. "Marv Philber," Maria murmured. "He's been taking care of them since they were babies."
The camera flashes doubled in tempo. Reporters and journalists, microphones at the ready, pressed out of the crowd, screaming questions. Roxanne lost sight of Syx's face; he and the others had been swallowed up by the human crowd.
"Are you aliens, or are your abnormalities just the result of hideous birth defects?"
"What do you intend to do now? Will you take revenge on Metro Dude for exposing you?"
"How did you acquire those holographic projectors? Did you buy them, trade for them, or make them?"
"Did your mother do drugs during her pregnancies? Is that why you're so misshapen?"
"Back off, back off!" hollered Ridgeway. Surprisingly, the media vultures obeyed. "The boys will be giving a press conference on Monday. They won't be answering any questions until then."
Nobody seemed to understand his words. People resumed calling out questions: What are you? Do you come in peace? Warden, would you make a statement?
Maria shoved her way through the crowd just long enough to return Kelly's keys. Unfortunately, her actions reminded the media that even though the Auslanders weren't talking, they weren't the only source of information. They rounded on Maria and Roxanne like starving wolves.
The reporter-in-training (though after tonight, she wasn't quite as certain about her choice of career), squared her shoulders. Syx and Kelly needed time to regroup, to figure out how to present themselves to the slavering public. She did not. She knew nothing about the alien side of their natures, nothing that could hurt them. All she had were memories of friendship, of love, of laughter and play.
She would talk until her throat was dry and her voice cracked. She would make the strange aliens real, approachable, sympathetic, human. She would cast doubt on their accuser and vindicate their names.
She told the world about Kelly's skill on the stage and in the kitchen, about Syx's love of alliteration and exaggeration. She told them about the brothers' legendary closeness. She spoke of her relationship with the younger, of how afraid he had been to show himself to her but how he had done it anyways.
She talked until her angry parents showed up, pushed through the crowd surrounding their daughter, and demanded that she come home now. Roxanne went quietly- now was not the time to look like a whiny teenager, not when her own reputation could affect that of her friend and boyfriend.
They grounded her, of course, for making a scene- several scenes- in front of the entire city. She accepted the punishment silently. Then, when they had finished shouting, she retreated to her room, closed the door behind her, and hid her face in her hands.
Poor everyone. Their lives have kind of been ruined.
But don't worry, everyone. Things shall get better. I think.
-Corona