Well, that was a thing. So me and Aldaris have an understanding now, I think. Because of things. Things I'll be able to put in writing some day. In any case, Aldaris is calmer now. He's gone from seeing us humans as annoyances to seeing us as people-like beings. Maybe even slightly above animals. Hey, it's progress.

So I talked things out with Aldaris. Or rather, he did a lot of talking and I did a lot of sitting there. There was a bit of talking on my side, mostly from having to explain why I thought it was such a good idea to try and help Statkus get away with taking pictures. I had to confess that there wasn't much thought involved.

I explained that I'm not really interested in Protoss technology (other than looking at it - crystal based stuff is pretty), and that we humans have to figure out stuff for ourselves. Not to mention bad people getting their hands on it, or it not even working because we're not a psychic race. I was telling the truth (the Cold War clearly establishes technology in the wrong hands), but Aldaris might not have believed me. Even as I said it, I couldn't help but wonder if I'm a traitor. Even though I don't think Aldaris would attack Earth by his lonesome, in general the Protoss are potential enemies of humans. These are the people who destroyed planets on a self-righteous whim. If we were in the K Sector right now, my opinion might be different, but for right now I'm defaulting to manners. Manners mean no stealing.

Aldaris also confronted me about taking recording devices on the ship, and I assured him I wasn't going to film anything. Of course then he had to read my mind and figure out that I wanted to take pictures of space from his observatory window. Not that he meant to, but like he says, I have "loud thoughts." You're probably thinking that that's some lie he's using to pretend he's not directly reading my minds, but that particular thought seemed pretty loud to me. I was nervous, and I really do want to take a picture from the observatory. Charlie immediately shot down that idea, because if I got another sudden whim in my head, he didn't want me changing my mind and breaking my promise. That's really more than fair, and I didn't insist on it.

Now that I think about it, maybe I can get Aldaris to give me a picture of Earth from space. I don't know what I'd do with it, but it'd be pretty sweet. I'll ask him later, if he's still in his friendly-ish mood.

In case you're starting to think I'm some sort of FDR-type, ready to give in to Stalin's demands in the naive hope he's going to behave (seriously, Franklin Roosevelt only gets worse the more I read about him), I made some demands of my own. Mainly I insisted that he check in with us every so often. It's hard to have to wonder if he's there or not, or if he intends to trick us or not by pretending he's gone and then messing with something. Aldaris called this "laughable", because not only do none of us have any real leverage over him, but it's also a huge misrepresentation of his own actions. Apparently he regards Earth as no real threat. Even Earth in his universe isn't particularly a concern for the Protoss.

I get it. Starcraft started out with humans at the mercy of the Protoss. Starcraft has to have balance because it's a video game, but real life is not so equal.

Aldaris said that he knew I wasn't afraid of him, so it was worthless for him to threaten me. He asked if I knew how dangerous he is, and uh, yeah. I am fully aware. He then said, "I am inclined towards mercy in your case. Therefore I appeal to your good will. Bear this secret for the foreseeable future. Though I do not threaten you now, my old threats have not ceased. Do not require me to use more force than I desire. Grant me your word that you will not reveal anything of my vessel. There are consequences if you fail me in this, and though I do not speak of them, rest assured that these consequences remain."

Yeah, I went ahead and promised. It makes me even more concerned that I'm a traitor to humanity, but I wasn't in a position to say no. Good will is the most important thing about my actions here. Like, I'm trying to show that us humans aren't so barbaric that Aldaris can't stay here in peace. We can get along. If I don't show him good will, then my entire plan is borked.

The thing about good will is that it can go both directions. I said that I know we have no leverage over him, but I asked that he would do something for us - check in every week with one of us four, and then tell us before he leaves. Granted, this won't really stop him if he wants to do anything bad, but I don't want to be wondering where he is all the time. Aldaris looked at me like I was being completely ridiculous - but less disdainfully and more like I was a little kid telling her parent that I could boss him around because I'm pretending to be the president. Pretty sure he thought it was cute.

And still he was open to the idea. I don't know why. It seems most likely that he's at least a little lonely up there, and if his only social life is a random set of humans, then so be it. Though I'm not going to pretend I know how this guy thinks. I'm just glad he didn't kill us after that cell phone incident.

Technically speaking, we do have the tiniest bit of leverage over Aldaris: telling the truth to everyone. It is quite tiny. Aldaris could kill us all if we did, and even better would be if he didn't - nothing he's done can be specifically associated with the Protoss, so if he just left us, no one would ever be the wiser, and at best us four would be laughed at by everyone, just like like that one story from World War II where a navy ship allegedly teleported elsewhere for a few minutes and then came back. We'd be the freaks of a lifetime, our best outcome being parodied as kooky side characters in a World of Warcraft expansion, or something.

There was no need to tell Aldaris any of that. Actually, that's what most of his lecture to me was about. Basically how he really didn't want to harm us, and it was stupid of us to put ourselves in a position to be a threat to him. Now imagine that sentence restated a hundred different ways, in the most eloquent language you can muster. That was the lecture. I didn't say anything the entire time. For one thing, I was in a pretty vulnerable mood and Aldaris was technically correct. For another, if I said anything I would make the lecture go on longer.

On an unrelated note, Protoss chairs are pretty comfortable, even if you feel like a little kid when you fall asleep on one.

I got on the Skype call. I've never liked Skype that much. It was the only way to communicate with my now-ex when he was deployed, and it had always been so unreliable. Granted, it's probably been updated four or five times since then, so whatever. It seemed to work now as I logged in and waited for the other screens to fill. Why am I always the first for these things?

Toby kept me from reciting the names of the Lord of the Rings hobbits again, fortunately. "Oi, Bethany, how is it going?"

"Life persists," I said.

That's the standard answer I always gave to a question I never like to answer. Seriously, "how are you?" is an extremely personal question. How in the world did it end up being the standard greeting question in our world culture? Apparently there's a country where the equivalent is "where are you going?" which is much better. It's less personal, and likewise they don't actually expect you to give a specific answer.

"Any trouble with the British feds?" I asked to keep him from questioning my response. "You haven't been caught yet, have you?"

"No, not so far as I'm aware. Free and clear, on this side." Toby scratched his head. "I still haven't figured out how to explain Fu Hao why I left him so quickly when we were in China."

"Oh, what were you doing?"

"I was with him gathering some firewood from outside of the house. It had already been chopped, and we were just taking it from the side and putting it near the fireplace. Aldaris contacted me at that point, so I just hid behind some logs until I teleported away. Fu Hao gave me his email before that, and I've decided to contact him."

"Heh, you better not. I can see that going wrong really quickly."

Toby shrugged. "It's too late at this point. I gave him my email as well. For now I told him that a bus was coming and I had to catch it before it left. Honestly, I feel awful. Those poor people gave me fare to go to the train station and find my way to Beijing from there, but of course I didn't need it. I should have lied and told them I have my wallet with me."

"Maybe you can make it up later," I said. "Like buy his family a present."

"Oh, that's right! I can buy him some British sweets and tea. He'll love it. Hm, perhaps not the tea. They've tea enough in China, don't they?"

I nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Dude, I am so sad that you and me didn't get to go to a Chinese tea shop. They always have these cute little tea sets where they give out free samples and such. They have this whole little process they do, because it's all loose leaf over there. Though I have to say, there's something I've always wondered about your story. You said that you were out at a farming village or something?"

"I think so. Judging from how often the buses came, it might have been closer to a city."

"Huh. What I remember reading about China was that the citizens aren't allowed to move to the city. Like, everybody's supposed to stay where they are, or else the goverment will get mad. Like they want people to move out to the farms for agriculture instead of letting people have potentially more prosperous lives in the city." I paused. "Then again, most of my knowledge of China is based on the Maoist years. I don't really know too much about China now."

"It didn't sound that way when we were back there."

"Eh, I know how to sound smart, not how to be smart."

"That's the unofficial motto of our generation, isn't it?"

Another little square at the top of the page appeared, all black. Moments later, the tired and somewhat grumpy looking Statkus appeared on the computer. Oh yeah, time zone shenanigans. He did have to get up earlier than the rest of us. He rubbed his sleepy hair out of his eyes and blinked at the screen.

"Yeah, okay, here's how it is," he said. "And Bethany, I don't want any interruptions from you. This is serious. We need to promise here and now that we're not going to talk about Aldaris' ship to anyone. I had an...interesting conversation with him, and he is very serious about his technology. He will in fact kill us if we say anything about it."

"Wait, I don't understand," Toby said. "Did he threaten you?"

I didn't say anything. It was John's fault that we had gotten in trouble, so it wasn't my place to blab.

"I may have had my phone on me when we decided to go on the ship," John confessed. "And I may have decided to take a few pictures."

"I might have thought you would do something like that," Toby retorted. Exasperated, he threw his hands up at the camera. "I would have known better not to do that! What put that idea in your head? His ship's the only Protoss technology at this planet. Of course he's going to be very protective of it. Now he's going to be furious with us!"

"That can't be helped now." A vague warning of irritation lingered in John's voice, warning Toby (and probably me too) to leave it alone. "But yes, you're right. I haven't spoken to him in almost two weeks, but the last time I did...I still don't know what he did to my brain. I don't think he did any permanent damage, but it wouldn't be difficult for him. Everyone, we have to do something. This can't continue."

"That's where I disagree." Toby shook his finger a little too fast for the Skype screen to keep up with. "We need things to continue. The status quo was us not telling on him and not getting mentally attacked."

"The status quo is us being teleported anywhere and everywhere at random," Statkus retorted. "This can't go on. We have to have a plan-"

"Before we go off on any plan-related tangents," I interrupted. "I would like to point out that I was talking to our dear little friend just yesterday. There was significantly less in the threatening and mental domination department, might I add."

"I might have known," Statkus said. "He seems to like you the best."

"Yeah, but I did get lectured like an hour straight on how to not be dumb," I sighed at the memory. "Anyway, I talked to him about it, apologized, promised I wouldn't film his ship, and got him to agree to check in with one of us every week until he goes. Oh, and then he has to tell us before he leaves."

The boys exploded with disbelief in various expressions, all of which could be summed up as "how did you do that?" Frankly, if I haven't been able to talk about what happened in this record that no one but me has seen thus far, then I'm not going to be able to talk about it over Skype, either. This whole introversion thing kinda sucks. Or maybe it's just plain shyness, at this point.

"Long story short," I said. "Charlie got me out of an embarrassing situation. Since he felt sorry for me, he decided to be nice. That's why he agreed to the whole check-in thing. That, and maybe he gets lonely up there."

"I'm so mad," Toby shook his head. "Bethany, stop hogging the alien! Some of us want to be friends with him too."

"Be my guest," I shrugged. "I told him checking in with any one of us is fine."

"I hate this," Statkus rubbed his forehead like a magical lamp, messing up his hair even worse. "You know what? You win. We'll go with your plan and give peace a chance. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll like to make up for some missing sleep."

Hahaha. Me and Toby talked about a few things after that, but not much related to the alien in the sky. We've made it through so far, but who knows what will happen next? I hope he can find his way home. If we can't keep him hidden until then, well, it looks like we have an exciting future ahead of us.

\\\\\\\

Author's Notes:

- Okay, so this is the end of season one. This story may end up being pretty long, and I dislike having a huge story with too many chapters. Besides, each season of my work will have a specific purpose. This is my introduction season, and upcoming next will be the phase where...well, things start going wrong. Note also that it will get more politically incorrect as time goes on, because dear Charlie himself is not politically correct, and is not used to our hypersensitive society. It's unrealistic for him to behave in a way that is consistent with modern human culture.

That, and I hate political correctness.

Author's Notes New:

- Yep, end of part one. Those of you who read the first version will notice that this is completely different. I don't know what I was thinking with my first version. Besides the fact that I removed the memory erasure incident, I don't believe it would have been in Aldaris' nature to allow himself to be filmed by us. It makes no sense, and past-me should have known better. Frankly, she should have known better about many things, but that's neither here nor there.

In any case, I haven't got as much writing done on part 2 of this story as I had hoped. Life is a thing that exists. That being the case, I'm going to be taking at least two weeks off to work on this, as well as other things in the ol' life of mine. Since I did complete part 2 back in the day, it will get done. I have some serious structural stuff to get going on, but only one chapter to truly rewrite.

The aggravating thing about all of this is that I wrote this story originally as more of a journal, but I can't skip too far ahead, because recent world events aren't ignorable. I've bumped up a few things, but the fact is, I can't quite write this the way I used to. But the key is to remember my own immaturity. I started as a writer because I thought I was better than I was - I believed in the beauty of my ideas, even if my writing style was lacking. That's the only way to write, I tell you. It sounds so wrong, but works so well.

In any case, if I don't see you sooner, I should see you in May. Please feel free to leave behind a review, a flame, a personal insult, or a fun fact about sharks. I sure would appreciate it. See you next time!