CHAPTER FIVE

AGENT J:

"Did you draw these?" Zuri asked, looking over the sketches.

"Yeah," I answered.

"All of them?"

I smiled. "Yes, every one."

She looked up at me. "Does it take a long time?"

"Not usually. It depends on what I'm drawing, really."

She set the sketches down in a neat pile. "Why do all of your women have hair?" she asked.

I was thrown by her question. "I don't know. People do things with their hair that they think looks good."

"Hmmm," she mumbled. "On my planet, women shaved their heads. It was a symbol of beauty to show off your neck and shoulders."

"Well some women have short hair, or pull longer hair back behind their heads. See?"

I showed her a few sketches, pointing out the different hairstyles. "What kind of hair do you like?" she asked.

"I don't know," I answered.

"Most of your pictures have long blond hair."

"That's because most of my drawings are of the same person and she happens to have long blond hair."

"Who is she?" Zuri asked, looking over the picture in her hands. "She is beautiful."

"Her name is Deanne," I answered.

Zuri sighed. "You confuse me."

"Why?"

"You and Seta say two different things. Her with her words and you with your drawings."

"What makes you say that?" I questioned.

"She says that people here are more modest than I. But Deanne is not modest."

I smiled. "No, Deanne is not modest."

"Is she only immodest with you?"

I considered that for a moment. "No, I don't think so."

"Then that is wrong."

"Yes."

"But you allow it?"

I shrugged. "There's nothing I can do about it. If she wants to do something wrong with her body, she can do it."

She stared at me with a puzzled look on her face. "So is it not wrong then that you are immodest with her when she is not exclusively sharing herself with you?"

Ah, so that was where the confusion lie. Seta had tried to explain love and marriage to her. "Do people marry on your planet?" I questioned.

"Yes. When they are older than I am."

"And what do they do when they get married? Is there a ceremony?"

"Yes, they are blessed and wished a happy life and lots of children."

"Do you know what a honeymoon is?"

"No."

I searched for an easy way to explain. I didn't think there was one. "Traditionally, on Earth, a honeymoon is the time when newly married people become immodest with each other for the first time. In the past century or so, they usually do that before they get married."

She stared at me. "So are you married to Deanne? Or getting married to her?"

I shook my head. She'd missed the point. "No."

There was a moment of silence. "I am afraid I do not understand."

"But I haven't been immodest with her, either."

"She has with you."

"Not exactly," I tried to explain. "This is different, to me, than honeymoon-type immodesty. This is art."

"Why is sex not art?"

She caught me off guard for a minute. "Sex is... something different altogether."

"That is what you mean by honeymoon, is it not?"

I sighed. If she knew that word, why hadn't she said it earlier when I was struggling to explain the concept? "Sex is... different. Two people being immodest with each other. They don't have to love each other, and in fact, they may not both even consent to the action. That's called rape or molestation. It can also be something that both of them want, if they really love each other, and that's called a lot of things but for the purposes of explanation, it's called making love. But art, drawing, is not either. There's no touching involved."

"You're gonna confuse the hell out of that poor girl," a voice behind me said. I turned to see Agent Seta standing in the door.

"Perhaps you'd like to explain it," I invited.

"Sex is when two people join bodies, the man goes inside the woman," Seta explained.

"Oh, I know that," Zuri laughed. "That is how we are too."

"Immodesty is not sex," she continued. "Normally, immodesty leads to sex. And it's wrong to have sex with someone you don't love. So therefore, you don't act immodest with someone you don't love."

"But the girl in the picture is acting immodest..." Zuri protested.

"Art immodesty is like doctor immodesty. Remember when I explained that? It's different than regular immodesty because it's not about sex. It's about beauty in the case of art, and health in the case of doctors. It doesn't... turn the other person on, so to speak. It doesn't make them want sex."

Zuri nodded slowly. "I think I understand."

"Good. K wants to talk to you."

Zuri left quickly and Seta and I stared at each other for a moment. "I don't want to be the one who has to explain the concept of rape to her," she admitted.

"In all honesty, I'm surprised she doesn't understand it already. Maybe firsthand."

"Now, why would you say something like that?" she sighed.

I shrugged. "She's a really pretty girl."

"I don't think that they thought like that on her planet. If they were as turned on as we get by one another's bodies, we wouldn't have to explain modesty to her in the first place."

I looked away. She was probably right. Even if she wasn't, I didn't feel like arguing with her. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Okay," I answered. "I have a headache, but it's more annoying than painful."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the stack of drawings. "Wow," she mumbled. "These are really good."

I studied her carefully, not sure how to take the compliment. "Thanks," I finally answered.

"You only draw Agent D?" she laughed quietly. "Does she know that?"

"She's the only one who will pose for me," I answered. "People don't realize it's not a sexual thing, so I don't ever ask them to pose. She asked me."

"You think she realizes it's not sexual?"

"No. But it's not that I haven't told her. And if it keeps her happy, I'm all for it."

"You don't think it'll provoke her more?"

"What do you mean?" I questioned carefully.

"I mean, I'm assuming you don't want a physical relationship or you would've done that already. But she might take it wrong that you get such a thrill out of drawing naked pictures of her."

I felt anger spark somewhere inside of me. "It's not that kind of thrill," I defended.

"I know. But does she?"

I sighed. "She should. I've told her enough times."

"You think she'd get offended if she saw this?" she asked, holding up a sketch that was not of Deanne. I tensed.

"Why should she?"

"If she sees it as something sexual, she could think that you're seeing other people too."

"Who says I'm not? And for that matter, what makes you think I'm dating Deanne?"

She smiled slightly. "I know, it's against the rules. I'm not going to say anything about it."

"You didn't answer me."

She sighed. "I came in here this morning to see how you were doing. You were pretty drugged up and we talked a little bit."

I felt my face flush red. I didn't remember talking to her. "Talked about what?" I demanded.

She shrugged. "Nothing really important. I wasn't here that long. It wasn't like I was trying to pry or anything, so when you started to talk more than... what I thought you would've wanted me to know... I left."

I studied her carefully. "Why would you think that? What did I say?"

She cut her gaze to the floor. "I didn't feel right about trying to get information out of you when you weren't all there. And even though I wasn't trying, you were telling me stuff. But it didn't make a whole lot of sense so I asked what you meant and you said you didn't want to talk about it. So I left." She looked up at me again. "That's an end-all-conversation phrase for me. When someone says they don't want to talk about it, I shut up. And it wasn't like I was trying to extract any information in the first place so it wasn't really hard."

"What did I say?" I asked, my stomach twisting in knots.

She sighed. "I don't remember exactly."

"I don't believe that."

"No, seriously. I don't." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Something about how you don't like to kiss Deanne because she doesn't understand that it's not you. Or something like that. I don't know. Like I said, I don't feel right about talking to people who are drunk or drugged about things that I don't think they'd talk to me about if they were fully aware of what they were doing."

I stared at her for a minute. She looked away. "In all honesty, I'm sorry I stayed as long as I did. I kind of feel like I violated you in some way. That's all I came here to say."

Something broke in the space between me and her. For the first time in my life, I felt respect for someone other than K. I couldn't describe it, or explain exactly why I felt it. Perhaps it was because she was apologizing for doing less than most people would feel the slightest bit guilty over. Especially since she didn't understand what I had told her. But the fact that I had said it in the first place told me that I would've explained it completely if she had pressed me for an answer. She hadn't, out of respect. The only person who had ever given me that courtesy in my whole life was K, and even he pressed for an explanation once I intrigued him.

"Thank you," I whispered.

She looked at me, seemingly shocked. "For what?"

"For not..." I struggled, "...taking advantage of me."

She smiled slightly and looked back down at the picture in her hands. "Who is she?" she asked. "Did you not finish the drawing yet or is she supposed to be without a face?"

I studied the sketch. "She doesn't have a face," I answered hesitantly. I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her this. She could easily be lying about this morning. But something told me she wasn't.

"Why not?" Seta asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, what's the symbolism?"

I studied her for a moment. "I don't know. What does it mean to you?"

"Well," she started. "She's otherwise a very beautiful woman. As a cynical drawing it could be that people care more about her body than they do about her face or the expression on it." She glanced up at me. "She could be crying or screaming... or bleeding, but we don't see that. We only see... what we want to see. That the rest of her body is beautiful."

That was deep. It was a hell of a lot deeper than I'd ever meant for it to be. I felt something stir inside of me as we stared at each other. It was nothing sexual, but there was a definite spark that flew between our eyes. "But the real question is," she started, looking back down at the picture, "what does it mean to you? Since you're the one who drew it."

"She's a girl..." I tried to explain. "More of a... spirit. In my dreams. She doesn't have a face, she never has."

"Does she keep it covered?"

"No, she just... doesn't have one. She's not really tangible. That's why I say she's more like a spirit."

Seta looked up at me. "Do you talk to her? In your dreams?"

Why was I telling her this? I'd never told anyone about this! "Yes."

"About what?"

"Everything," I whispered. "Anything at all. When I talk to her, it's not like I'm talking to somebody else. It's like she's a part of me, and I trust her as much as I trust myself."

"Why a woman?" Seta asked. "And why draw her nude?"

"Because she's symbolic," I answered, not thinking before I spoke.

"Of what?"

"Of the..." I caught myself, surprised at how far I'd let this conversation get. Even more surprised that I was answering without considering my words first.

Seta stared at me for a moment, then looked away. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "You don't have to answer me, you know. I won't be offended."

I lowered my eyes to the drawing of the woman I'd made love to countless times in my dreams, the woman without a face, symbolizing the beauty and purity that I could never have. "It's a beautiful drawing," Seta whispered. She sighed. "I've had dreams like that, only not so... romantic, for lack of a better word."

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head slightly. "I don't ever see faces when I dream. I see figures, and I know that they're people, but if I recognize them it's more that I recognize their presence. And every so often, I'll dream about a child... A child I don't know."

"A young child?"

"Yeah. A little boy, three or four years old." She sighed and I noticed the distant look in her eyes. "I've been having the same dream for as long as I can remember. It used to scare me and I'd wake up screaming, thinking I was the child. But now I realize that it's not me. I'm just watching. And in a way, that's worse than being in his place."

"Why?" I questioned.

"Because..." she struggled. "He's... in a lot of pain. And he's crying, feeling so alone. And even though I'm not... him... I know how he feels." I stared at her, drinking in her words with amazement. "He feels alone. And violated. Like there's no end to the pain or the darkness. And there's always people who are walking past him. And sometimes the people chase each other and the one being chased hides behind him." Her voice trailed off. "Always crying..." she whispered.

"Weeping?" I asked. "Or silently?"

"Silent. But I can see inside him, too." She closed her eyes. "And his heart is just in... a million bloody fragments. And I can't figure out if I'm the only one who sees that or if I'm just the only one who cares."

"Maybe you're the only one he lets see it," I suggested.

She glanced at me and I saw tears brim her eyes. She really did feel for that dream. "Why me?" she whispered. "Why tell me when I can't do anything?"

"Why can't you? Have you tried?"

She cast her eyes down. "I'm too far away. And I'm not... a person. It's more like I'm an outside force looking into a crystal ball. Why wouldn't he tell the people who walk around him? Who might be able to do something?"

"Maybe because they just walk right by him. Because you're the only one who notices he's there."

She brushed the tears out of her eyes. "I don't know," she sighed, trying to regain her composure. "I know it's just a dream, but it really bothers me sometimes."

"Have you ever asked him why he's in so much pain?"

"Have you ever asked your faceless woman who she is?" she shot back. She wasn't being nasty about it, just reminding me how little I'd told her in comparison to what she'd revealed.

"I've never cared," I answered. "Who she is isn't nearly as important to me as what she does."

"And what is it that she does?"

I hesitated again. This was insane. I shouldn't be telling her all this. She could use it against me… "Teaches me."

"About what?"

"Things I forget when I wake up."

"Well, then, she's obviously not a very good teacher," Seta smiled.

"She's an excellent teacher," I replied. "She's just not real."

"Then you choose to forget?"

"Yes."

She shook her head slowly. "How can you say you trust her if you don't believe in what she tells you?"

"I do believe what she tells me."

"Then why do you make yourself forget it?"

There was a long silence as I thought of how to answer her. "She teaches me about things that exist in her world," I tried to explain. "But I don't live in her world. So when I leave it, when I wake up, I put it aside."

"Things like what?" Seta questioned.

"Love," I answered, again without thinking. I realized that I was once again saying more than I meant to. Ordinarily, that would've terrified me. I didn't like not being in control of my thoughts, much less my tongue. Why was I talking to this girl?

She must have sensed my uneasiness. She sighed deeply and flipped through the pictures again. "You sign all your pictures 'joshua'," she observed. "Was that your name, before you hired in here?"

"Yes," I answered, surprising myself again with my honesty.

She nodded. "When did you come here?" she questioned. "How old were you?"

"I was really young."

"Younger than me?"

"Yes."

She smiled. "They must've loved babysitting you almost as much as you love babysitting me," she grinned.

I smiled back. "I doubt that."

There was a knock at the door and Seta turned around to see K step into the room. "How are you feeling?" he asked me.

"Okay," I answered. "I've done worse."

"The weapon was a 624 pressure gun," he informed us, "not unlike the standard issue weapon I handed you. There's no physical evidence remaining that would suggest to anyone that the man who carried it was not human. But, obviously, we know otherwise."

"What are the police saying?" Seta questioned.

"They haven't released any official statement."

"Amongst themselves?" I asked.

"There are rumors. But no one has any kind of proof of anything so they're keeping pretty quiet."

"Do we need to do any kind of official cover-up?"

He glanced around the room. "I doubt it. He looked human enough. They just want to know who this guy was after. We got Zuri out of there so fast, no one knows who the target was or why. We got the security tapes and no one noticed anything abnormal about anyone in the store. We just need to lay low for a while and give people a chance to forget about this."

"What about the press?" Seta questioned.

"What about it?"

"What are they saying?"

"Who cares," he mumbled. "Nobody knows enough to give them any dangerous information." She nodded slowly. "This does, however, bring to light the problem that you were hired to solve."

"How's that?" she questioned.

He stepped away from the door and shut it behind him. He was getting ready for a speech, I could tell. "It occurred to us a long time ago that it was likely that Earth would eventually be visited by people who are... shall we say... more than human."

I watched him carefully, feeling a slight sense of Dejavu at this conversation. "While we hope that when they do come to Earth, they are friendly, not all people from any given race are nice. We're bound to get the bad with the good, as you can tell by this case involving Zuri. It's not going to get any easier as time goes by."

He turned and looked straight at Seta. "You are the very first agent to be hired for the sole purpose of enforcing the set of rules that our visitors must follow." She stared at him, shocked, as he turned his attention to me. "And you, J, are going to be the first to change your job description to the same position."

He waited for a reaction. I wasn't sure what he was looking for from me. I wasn't thrilled with the whole idea of inviting aliens to our planet in the first place. "If you choose to accept," he finished. "I'm giving both of you the option to turn this down. I can tell you one thing: if you accept, I'm gonna be harder on you two than I've ever been on anybody who's ever worked for or with me. I'm gonna put you guys through hell. But by the time I'm through, you will be the best. And you will be safe. I have the confidence in you and in myself to place this planet's care in your hands."

At that, Seta's eyes got wide. She suddenly realized how serious this was. "Why?" she choked. "Why us? Why me? I mean, I'm 13 freakin' years old!"

He turned to face her. "I want to train someone who's young. I look at it this way: In forty years, when I'm long gone, I want my students to stand in my place. If I train somebody who's thirty-something, that's not going to happen. I want you two to serve as long as possible, because I intend for you to be the best. And I've gotten permission from Delta to do whatever it takes to bring you to that point. So I'm warning you right now, you are not going to like what you're going to have to go through. It'll be hard. It'll be exhausting, confusing, time-consuming, and probably at times humiliating because I'm not going to hesitate to embarrass the hell out of you if it'll help you learn something."

He glanced back and forth, giving us both a chance to protest. Neither of us said a word. "You two are going to have to learn each other inside and out and trust one another with your lives," he continued after a moment of silence. "And if you can't handle that, speak now or forever hold your peace."

There was a long period of silence as he waited for our decision. I considered his words carefully. He had given me a lot to think about and not a lot of time to do it in. "I can't drop everything and run whenever you call, K," Seta mumbled, looking away. "I mean, not unless you can flash some light at my parents and make them forget that I was ever gone. It's not that I won't do it. I can't."

"I understand that," he replied. "And I wouldn't expect you to. In all honesty, I want you to remain living your life just the same as you have been as far as everyone else is concerned. We want you trained as an intergalactic cop, as it were, but we also understand the importance of placing you strategically into society. We want you in the schools. The one you're going to, in particular, because that's the first place we're going to send teenagers who come here. And they need to know that you're there to keep them in line. But nobody else needs to know that. Everyone else needs to see you as just another high school kid."

I hid my face in my hands, hearing his words all too clearly. "Just how close are we to coming to that point?" I asked. "Honestly."

"What point?"

"The point where we need an agent in the local school to keep an eye on all the aliens we're sending there," I sighed. "Because frankly, until a few days ago, I hadn't heard anything at all about foreign beings on our planet."

"There are three refugees on our planet at this time. Two of them actually work for Majestic, in our New York base. The third, of course, is Zuri. But we've been contacted before about the possibility of using Earth as a safehouse. For innocent people who are in danger on their home planet."

"If they want to send these people to a safe haven," Seta mumbled. "Then you have to figure that if the people who are after them want them bad enough, they're going to come here. Are we really prepared to deal with the possibility of a superhuman species coming to Earth and demanding that we hand over a refugee that we've been asked to hide?"

He stared at her, his eyes cold. "No. We're not prepared. And that's why we hired you."

"You really think that I will be able to stop an alien like the one from Independence Day if it decided to come here?"

He sighed. "First of all, we have never encountered anything like what you see in the movies. There are no tentacles or slimy skin or gigantic eyes. To the best of our knowledge, every species within our galaxy at least resembles humans more than cockroaches."

"And outside of our galaxy?" I challenged.

"They haven't come here yet. I have no reason to believe they will."

"Well, we've never laid out a welcome mat before, either."

He was silent. He raised his hands in front of him in protest. "You can tell yourself that closing the door on them would keep them from coming here, but that's not necessarily true," he mumbled. "But it is true that if we chose not to do anything now to prepare, we're leaving ourselves wide open for a hostile situation in the future if they do decide to pay us a visit. However uninvited they may be."

I glanced at Seta and saw her close her eyes, deep in thought. "What if we refuse?" she questioned.

K didn't answer. Seta opened her eyes and stared at him, but he said nothing. What was he supposed to say? He already knew we weren't going to refuse. He wouldn't have ever brought it up if he'd thought that we would even possibly say no. He knew me too well to not predict my reaction correctly. And even I knew, from what little I had seen, that Seta craved excitement way too much to turn this down. He'd pinned us. And I hated that he knew us so well.