They called themselves "Humans," though Ruby couldn't really make sense of what it might mean. The ship's anthropologist had only shrugged as she tuned up the Universal Translator, saying they probably didn't know why they were called that any better than anyone on the crew could. But Blake was sort of… lazy sometimes, and maybe just didn't want to answer one of Ruby's questions.
Well, in spite of her young age, she was Director of Inquisition, straight from the Tower of Wisdom—it was her job to ask questions about these… weird, gross aliens that gave Ruby the willies whenever she looked at them.
It wasn't like the specimen was radically different from them, but that just made him… weirder. He looked like she did, in a rough sense. Two legs, two arms, two eyes, mostly hairless except for his head and with general bilateral symmetry and bipedalism. But even a cursory glance at his electromagnetism revealed that the two species couldn't be more different. He lacked a miphorzen, a corruvicor, and she couldn't figure out what exactly was going on with his allupercalon. It made Ruby shudder to imagine what life was like for a species that, as far as she could tell, couldn't alluverate, but… they managed, somehow.
Hearing the swoosh of the door, she turned to see War Captain Nikos, the sight of whom never failed to make Ruby's miphorzen go into overdrive to conceal her… feelings of professional admiration! For the War Captain's distinguished career!
But before Ruby could open her mouth and embarrass herself like she was a first-season acolyte of knowledge, the War Captain glanced at the subject and asked Ruby in muted alarm, "Is he… alive? I… cannot seem to read any of his alluverations and-"
"He… doesn't have any," Ruby answered, seeing how Pyrrha's entire bearing shifted to a proclamation of surprise, "He's almost wholly… existing in the visible spectrum."
"How does he..." he voice trailed, trying to think of what interactions were possible without reading the complex fields surrounding every being, even animals. But humans… humans just didn't.
Ruby could only signal her uncertainty. "That's what we're hoping to find out."
The War Captain stepped past Ruby to the observation window, gazing down upon the human for further visual inspection. It felt… intensely weird to look upon a thinking, sentient being only through the visual receptors, and Ruby was one enshrined to knowledge—intensely weird was her thing. For a War Leader like Pyrrha, he must have been something to be smashed.
She looked away, her miphorzen alight with the complex alluviations of her brilliant mind, surely keen to all the things a Warrior must know about this new species. Ruby could only hope that her research might prove helpful to one such as Pyrrha Nikos! O-of course, she meant this in the most professional and respectful sense! Obviously!
Pyrrha looked at the diagrams Ruby had drawn up of the species, noting the similarities of their inner organs and generally appearing to be normal… if some mad vivisectionist had simply cut out every organ necessary for… basic participation in society! It raised a hundred, a thousand questions in Ruby's mind! How could a species be so utterly similar and yet… so specifically different?
"Hold on..." Pyrrha said, suddenly going to the diagram Ruby had made of the subject's anatomy. "What is… what is this?" she asked, pointing between his legs.
Ah yes, Ruby had been thrown by that to—proof that there was more than just the lack of alluviations that made their species differ. She was a little relieved to see it, to be honest—more differences made Ruby feel more comfortable with the sense that these humans weren't like her. The little differences that reminded her she was dealing with another species instead of… some kind of freaky degenerated kin.
"Those are his gonads, ma'am," she explained, helpfully. She saw Pyrrha's entire being light up once more in shock and surprise—it was a freakish thing, simply massive, and completely without any reason for it. Compared to a normal penis, a human's was not evidently better in any way at its primary task of depositing semen. Perhaps, if human women had cavernous vaginas it might make sense, but human women had equipment practically equal to Ruby's own!
"His… this is his male reproduction tool?" she asked, as though she'd misheard.
"Yep. And it's not even stimulated. That thing can grow up to seven inches long." She shook her head as she underscored her point by measuring the distance with her hands. "Can't help but feel bad for Earth women if they have to endure that just to mate. Can you imagine what an Estrous Opportunity must look like on their planet? His harem probably can't even walk half the time!"
"Y-yes," the War Leader said, "Can hardly… imagine." And-
Ruby blinked in surprise. Her- her mind must be playing tricks on her, she hadn't… hadn't perceived anything like what she thought she'd seen on Pyrrha Nikos's corruvicor! The very thought would be scandalous, not to mention, wildly inappropriate.
So as Director of Inquisition, Ruby wisely chose to ignore that piece of unnecessary data. A mishap, most likely, not something to… to tell tales on! Pyrrha cleared her throat, snapping Ruby back to attention. "Investigator, have you conducted an interrogation of this subject yet?"
"N-no, Ma'am!" Ruby replied in surprise, "We weren't tasked with- the mission profile didn't require-"
"I'm… concerned," she said, "That this… lack of psionic presence might make him… dangerous in ways we aren't, ahem, prepared for. I would like to conduct my own investigation into his abilities."
Ruby paled, unable to prevent herself from broadcasting her sense of dismay. "I… I'll notify Helm-Commander Schnee of this change in-"
A sudden flash of intensity sparked across Ruby's being so hard, she felt it in her corruvicor. T-this was the presence of a War Leader, a command that a mere Enlightened could not possibly stand against! But as soon as it had struck her miphorzen, it had passed—Ruby was left almost out of breath, but fine, standing in her Chamber of Observation with War Leader Nikos, her regular, pleasant expression as plain on her face as though nothing out of order had happened.
"I… don't think it's necessary to tell the Helm-Commander about this. It's for my… personal curiosity, just… well, if you don't feel comfortable with it, I'll just conduct the interrogation myself, so you can-"
"War Leader!" Ruby gasped, still struggling to recover from the flash of presence she'd just encountered, "I must insist that any encounters with the specimen be-"
"No, no," she said, her voice placid, but emphasizing her point to the extreme with a shake of her head, "I wouldn't want you having to break any rules."
Reaching over, the War Leader disabled the recording camera right before Ruby's incredulous eyes. "I-it's no problem, really, it's not!" she protested, unable to believe what she was witnessing, "A-and you've just switched off the recording unit, I really must insist that I-"
"Ruby."
Her words were spoken as sweetly as a Vernal Maiden serenading the rising of the second moon on Haven IV, but her presence carried the hint of power Ruby had tasted a fraction of earlier that day. She did not want to analyze a second sample.
"I- I think I have a… meeting to… get to," she stammered out, stumbling to the door, "You just… make sure you leave him… intact!"
"Oh, I plan on it," Ruby heard as the door hissed shut behind her.
Specimens acquired, investigations undertaken, and the live subject had been returned, which meant the mission was finally over. They were heading home, and Blake really couldn't be happier. As Ranking Ethnographer of the ship, her work had really only just begun, analyzing the countless artifacts they'd acquired of this alien "civilization," but she didn't mind it, now that they were away from those creepy humans.
Just… uuuuugggggghhhhhh. Why did she always get stuck with the gross aliens?
Paging through human cultural materials, though, Blake had to admit that they did have their likable parts, even as discomforting as their bodies could be. They enjoyed falsehood quite a bit, creating endless artifacts of events that never happened—events that could never happen, but with a great deal of effort to make them seem as if they had! From being stationed so long amongst the Enlightened, particularly as an Investigator based out of the Tower itself, this devotion to dishonesty was a breath of fresh air. Blake considered herself a rather good fibber, but these humans certainly had her beat!
Ha, it was actually making her job difficult at time, making sure that this man on the screen, the "President" (their term for their Supreme Helm Commanders, though mixed somewhat with their War Leaders in… it was complicated), was a real man with real authority or just one of their fake characters. It was more difficult than most of her investigations, which gave Blake something to give her a faint crackle of fondness towards this expedition.
Though, that enjoyment was directly proportional to how many light years were between Blake and the humans in question. Even reading their artifacts, she would occasionally remember looking at a human and… euuugggggh. Her perception went right to their skin, the creepy little monsters.
But she had work to do. Another artifact to catalog… either Vivacious Vixens of Vegas 8 or… Wrestlem… Wrestle'em... mana… manina? Blake didn't even remotely know how to pronounce that gibberish. A glance at the Universal Translator confirmed there weren't any sparks flying from the machine, but it might just be another confusing human word. Eh… the first one seemed like another cultural documentary, something about the people of the Vegas, so the unpronounceable one was probably more universal in scope.
She readied the artifact for analysis, and began to observe another artifact of the inexplicable human culture. They were so noisy without psionics, but also seemed to have no logic behind their skin coverings—they weren't trying to conceal or amplify their alluverations, so Blake couldn't begin to guess why these two men, and apparently, only those two men, were showing so much of their skin. She sighed, adding it to the list of "unsolvable questions," only to hear the door open behind her. Glancing up, Blake smiled to see that it was Yang, just bursting her way into Blake's study without even a thought to what Blake might be doing. But even the barest glance at Yang's miphorzen explained that it wasn't a show of disrespect, but their deep connection. Blake's alluverations sparkled with happiness to see her friend as Yang took a seat, glancing at the ridiculousness of human bodies, and their creepy... blankness. Especially now that they knew it wasn't due to their technological limitations but their… biological ones.
But Yang, at least, meant some good humor. "Did you hear that Pyrrha requested further study of them?" Yang asked with a laugh, "I mean… she's War Leader, if she's seeing something there, I don't doubt she's seeing something there, but this specimen didn't seem any more dangerous than anything else we've seen of humanity. Honestly, think Pyrrha's just trying to find something to keep her in the field and not getting promoted to the Centurion Council… but…" she shook her head, "Man, she was just really passionate about not returning the specimen just yet. Makes it hard to think she hadn't found something there."
"Hmm…" Blake tapped her graphite deployment utensil against her head, "Perhaps it is because this species has no alluviation? They're wholly immune to any Psionic attacks, which might give them some unexpected abilities."
"Pfffft," Yang said, flashing her contempt across her being as she flexed her bicep, "Like I need my psionics to hand that thing its weirdly inexpressive ass. I told Pyrrha those stick-arms don't have anything we couldn't handle."
"And what'd she say to that?"
"Well..." Yang presented a surprisingly uncertain register to that. Uncommon for the brash warrior. "Pyrrha, of course, agreed with me. Gave me the regular warning that they might have 'more than you might expect than just arms,' which, well, she's being polite. But her alluviations were… well, they were too normal." That was interesting to Blake. Someone like Pyrrha Nikos might be a master of Psionic Warfare and had earned the title of Queen of Sorrow and War in the Ring of Endings, but she was not subtle. Very repressed, but not subtle. And Yang was pretty good at seeing past people's outer miphorzen. "And the things she was concealing," Yang continued, "I'd never seen before. Just a tangled mass of emotions that kind of reminded me of this woman I once saw, stumbling out of the neighbor's house wearing a Robe of Honored Visitation, even though it was the morning. I asked my Care Mother, cause I was super young back then, and she said it was the sign of a woman without self-respect. But who could possibly apply that to Pyrrha Nikos?"
That was odd. Blake… might have known what alluviations Yang's Care Mother was speaking of, the kind that… Blake might have been a bit more familiar with than admitted to her company. Might have been applying to enter the Harem of Adam Taurus for, and might have had a role in why she'd ultimately retracted her application when she heard more about the man behind the rumors. It was an emotion Yang knew nothing of, and one Pyrrha, esteemed of her Clan, surely should not have known anything of!
"It… it is odd," she agreed, wondering if she needed to have a conversation with Pyrrha about… certain things.
Yang tried not to show her uneasiness with a flash of bravado. "Eh, if we gotta fight 'em with these," she punched her fist into her palm, "So much the better. Though from Pyrrha, I think you gotta watch your legs? She was walking kind of funny, think the human might'a gotten a lucky shot on her... Hey! You found anything in your cultural study that talks about how they scrap?"
Happy for the change in topic, Blake was all too happy to turn back to her data drive and pull up the strangely named artifact she'd just started analyzing. "Actually, yeah! I think you're gonna like this," she said, "I found this document that charts what I think is their equivalent of the Ring of Endings—craziest thing, they let males compete."
"No way," Yang said, "I thought Ruby said they only had minor differences from our males, besides the lack of, you know, basic psionics."
Now that she thought about it, War Leader Nikos had made an interesting presence when Ruby mentioned that in the Acquired Wisdom of Biology stage of the debrief… but no, no, that was insane! It would be like- it would be unthinkable!
So rather than dwell on it, she merely hit play on the Wrestlem-thingy artifact and let Yang see the craziness Blake had to catalogue.
It was… strange, to say the least. A lot of humans, and, unlike the previous artifact with the President, a lot of humans showing their weird, gross skin everywhere, absolutely nothing covered by alluveration. Though these humans seemed… strangely aware of their insufficiency—this was a deliberate display. And, as she'd noted earlier, with no ability to communicate outside of sight and sound, they made a point to use the hell out of both senses. It was almost… relaxing, in a way, to see humans actually interact like normal people… and a glance to Yang showed that Blake wasn't the only one who was relieved to see something resembling normal behavior.
In fact, Yang looked to be more than relieved. She was excited. Though it made sense—once the yelling and waving finished, two men set into just slamming their appendages into each other. Such an intimate form of battle made Blake blush, but her much lewder colleague was clearly enjoying it, her miphorzen practically smattering into Blake's!
She liked Yang for that. So unlike her colleagues, a woman who held nothing back and had a grand appreciation of things that weren't true. Seeing her obvious delight at the raw physicality of the battle made Blake consider filing a request with Helm-Commander Schnee and War Leader Nikos to, perhaps, continue her tour with the company? There were many things to like about that possibility...
But the battle had come to an end, leaving one man standing… and Yang's emotions were entirely locked upon him.
"Who is this man!" Yang bellowed. "Is he a War Leader amongst their people?"
"I believe so," Blake said, hesitantly checking her analysis, "He's their equivalent of a Queen, a… a 'Titleholder' they call him, or," she glanced down to the readout her analytical processor was producing, "a 'belt-holder,' I'm not finished with my-"
"I will tell Helm-Commander Schnee that we shall return to Earth," Yang growled, "I will meet this… belted man, and we shall see who truly holds that title!"
Blake just chuckled as her hot-headed friend stormed out of her Chamber. Yang and Pyrrha insisting on a return would be hard to say no to, but Helm-Commander Schnee was a woman as frosty as her home comet. Turning to her data drive, Blake returned to her analysis. A new artifact came into view, one of the human "novels" as they called it. Ninjas of Love… what strange titles these human artifacts had!
Was there anything classier than a Federal building?
All stone and marble, polished floors with the Agency logo on full display in the lobby, men in suits walking deliberately as they flashed keycards to access classified rooms… in Special Agent Nora Valkyrie's opinion, there was nothing better than working at Headquarters in Washington.
Even if they stuck her department in a glorified broom closet in the basement. Also, rent was murder. And parking. But there were certainly perks...
"Alright," she said, stepping into the crowded Special Projects room, narrowly wedging herself between the filing cabinets, "Whadda we got here?"
Special Agent Ren looked up from the paperwork he was filling out. "I… told you over the phone what-"
Rolling her eyes, Nora looked at her partner. "For drama, Ren, tell me again for the drama."
Ren just blinked, owlishly, at her. With a sigh, Nora stepped forward to sign off on the paperwork before she could begin. Some people just lacked the pizzazz of being FBI.
"He's in Interrogation Room 4," Ren told her, "And… well, like I said, he seems like someone you'll be happy to hear from."
"All abduction claims are worth hearing from," Nora said, her voice suddenly severe… until her facade cracked into a wide grin. "So he's a nutter, huh? Did he say he got probed or did he-"
"You're… going to want to speak to him yourself," Ren said, trying to conceal the ghost of a grin that passed over his face. Nora loved her Renny for a reason—as different as they were, they both understood each other, Ren knew Nora's passion for the unknown and unexplainable, and Nora knew Ren's love of properly filled-out paperwork. Maybe other agents thought of them as kooks and weirdos, but so long as she had her Renny and her Renny had her, Nora couldn't ask for anything else.
Maybe a bigger room. Oh! And mind-wipe pens! She so wanted mind-wipe pens! But… for now, her and Renny as a team was all they needed!
Entering the interrogation room, Nora gave the subject the once-over. Ren had, as he said, given her his details over the phone and he definitely looked the part. Jaune Arc, a young man, a few years younger than the both of them, a music teacher, and all around ordinary, God-fearing American citizen. From the rest of his background, Ren assessed he wasn't the typical demo to claim an abduction, neither the sort to be desperate for attention nor the instability to crack and hallucinate a traumatic experience.
And from the look on his face and the way he gripped his styrofoam coffee cup, Nora was starting to think they had a very good chance that this was the real deal.
Ren was starting things off, reiterating key information for the record as Nora strategized what her angle would be. Just cause he looked like a real abductee didn't mean she didn't have to do her due diligence here.
"So," Nora started, cutting right through Ren's words and giving him the friendly smile she'd been practicing, "Let's start with getting a description of what your abductors looked like. If they were greys, little green men, you know the regular types..."
"They, um," he murmured, "the- this is going to sound crazy, but they… looked exactly like humans? Like I only got to, uh, 'meet' two of them, but they looked like… human women."
"Were they hot?" Nora asked, causing Mr. Arc to spit coffee all over the table.
"I..." he blushed, furiously, "I mean, the- the first looked like she was… way too young, but-"
"The second was hot. Ren, write that down," Nora said with a nod.
Mr. Arc's blush only got worse. They were on to something here! Many of her fellow agents thought her brusque approach was unprofessional, but it was all part of her method. Nora had gotten good at dealing with false reports, and if there was one thing she knew, people didn't handle wildly unexpected questions well—but this guy had the ring of truth to his awkward, scandalized response!
So, two reasons to think this was a real, live alien abductee. Nora fought to keep her excitement down as she continued her questioning. "And did they speak to you?"
"Um, yeah, but- but, I, um, I know this sounds crazy, but..."
Jackpot. Nora liked crazy. "It's alright," she reassured him, "Aliens are alien, and their behaviors, and understandings of human norms, are often very strange to other survivors. Please, just tell us what she told you."
"She, um..." He was redder than a tomato now! "She had this really breathy voice as she told me she'd, um, never met anyone who was so, um, so…"
"So…?" Nora asked, trying to prompt him to spit it out.
From his blush, Nora wasn't sure he had any blood anywhere but his space, but he was able to choke out, "She said I had a huge dick!"
…
Well, well, well! Nora had never heard this kind of story before, and-
"Would you consider that a factual statement?" Ren asked.
The poor young man just about died at Ren's question. Choking and sputtering, Nora honestly had to wonder if her partner's bluntness might actually kill him. Shame he had no idea how killer his comic timing was… but it was a fair question.
"If it makes it easier," Nora asked, pushing a glass of water to the witness and inviting him to drink, "you can just whip it out and we can-"
His response sprayed them both with water.
Wiping the droplets off her face, Nora decided to move along from that point and see what else he'd uncover. She really felt that this was the real deal, actual contact, and it could explain so much of humanity's place in the universe. "Okay, so, she complimented your junk and then… what? Commented on humanity, introduced herself—remember, specific details are key in how we assess these first contact scenarios!"
"Well, um, she, um, she got me naked, and-"
"She undressed you?" Nora asked, anticipating the upcoming probing.
But Mr. Arc just shook his head. "Ummmmmm, well, she, um, she asked me to get… to show her and she… she was taking her clothes off and then we, um, we..."
"You had sex with her," Ren nodded, making a note of it.
"I mean!" he threw up his hands, "What would you do! I've been going in and out of consciousness on a spaceship, and this gorgeous woman shows up begging me to make love to her and- what would Captain Kirk do? Huh? I just did what the protagonists of a thousand-"
"There's no need to get upset," Ren said mildly, "Please, do continue."
Mr. Arc still appeared miffed. "Well, if you saw her, you'd understand."
"I'll make a note of it," Nora said, doing exactly that, "Space… alien… turbo… hottie. Okay! Anything else you'd like to add about your experiences?"
"...she, um, she… she said I was the only man to ever make her, uh, well, um, climax, and that she'd try to return..."
Nora perked up at that. Partly to high five a sister for getting a good lay, but more so… a return. "Return to humanity or return for you?" she asked, an eyebrow raised.
"Kind of… a booty call? I… was mostly paying attention to, um, the sex."
Nora and Ren exchanged a look. In Nora's mind, it was a sensible reason to be a little inattentive, but she definitely got the vibe from him that Ren was skeptical of what utility further questions would have. She stifled a frustrated sigh—Ren didn't get it, this was a goldmine of information about extraterrestrial visitors! She'd given him the runaround, sure, but knocked off his feet, Mr. Arc kept to his story and clearly wished he was telling them anything else. Probing, vivisections, being told you were the destined herald of a new Age… those were the stories Nora heard that were primed by pop culture.
A hot alien babe telling a guy he had a huge dick? That came from porn, and people didn't really share those with her. It sounded so much like a wildly inappropriate boast, was so weird and embarrassing in a way that could only be real!
But as their questions continued, Nora got the clear sense that Ren would not see it her way. Finally, with a full interview concluded, they let Mr. Arc go, promising to continue looking into his story, compare his account to other stories from abductees or see if any evidence could be found, but… what could you really tell someone after an alien abduction? "The FBI will do all it can to keep technologically advanced starfarers from kidnapping you again?"
But with Mr. Arc gone, Nora heard the sigh she was used to. Turning on Ren, she folded her arms across her chest and gave him a glare that suggested they had a lead, as much as he might try to deny it!
"There's a rational explanation for this…" Ren ventured, but Nora shook her head.
"No, you don't… you don't understand, Ren. No… you don't want to believe. I want to believe, and so I can tell that there's something here. If we keep looking, one day… we'll meet our cosmic neighbors. We'll learn from them, but we just have to keep looking!"
She pointed to her X-Files poster on the wall, the I Want To Believe prominent beneath a fuzzy UFO. It'd be a long search through the skies, seeking to peer past the vast cosmic distances between humanity and… and whatever was out there, whether little green men, sinister conquerors, or hot, incredibly easily impressed babes. But Nora would be looking. Would keep looking until one day, she would discover the truth.
Thanks to Renarde, Six02, and StrangeIdea for feedback on this work!
And keep watching the stars :)