Part 2 - Chloe
Come on, how could I resist? Especially after all the great reviews. Shout-outs to all of you. Everybody go read all their wonderful stuff. Just click on the red "reviews" blip. (I'm so old, I remember when there wasn't even such a thing as hand calculators, much less hypertext links....)
Dear Mom,
Yeah, I know this will probably never get to you. How am I going to address it, anyway? I know what state you're in, but I doubt the artificial stupids at the post office recognize "Stargate" as a PO box.
You weren't exactly easy to find. But you know your kid. Make it tough, and I get tougher. I guess I get that from you.
I just wanted you to know that I appreciate that. All the years I spent blaming you, resenting you, feeling like I was abandoned -- now I know why. And I couldn't be happier. Or prouder. For who you are, mom, even for what you had to do to dad and me -- I love you more than I ever could love someone who would take the easy way out, give up what she was, what she believed in, to stay behind.
No way would I ever do that. So I can hardly blame you for doing the same thing I would have done, now can I?
Oh, I'll find you someday, believe me. Just stay alive until then, okay? I want to go through the Gate with you. I want to see what's out there. I want to KNOW.
I want to tell you all about it. Face to face. Some day.
I want you to know that, as great as dad is, your daughter is still following in your footsteps, in all the ways I can. Have been since I was a kid. Always wondered why, until I found the trail that led to you last year. I'm a born fighter too, in my own ways. I thought I was just choosing to rebel, but this apple didn't fall far from the mom she barely knew. Whatever amazing stuff you're into, I can't wait to be part of it.
And hey, I don't think the Gate or whatever's on the other side would freak me any more than I've already been freaked. When dad got sent to No-wheresville, I thought my life was officially over. Instead, I found the weirdest things you can imagine. Amazing stuff! Incredible stuff! This blip on the map got hit by a freaking METEOR STORM over a dozen years ago, and NASA did its usual bureaucratic bungle and overlooked it with the "mostly harmless" routine.
Only it wasn't, harmless, I mean. These leftover meteor rocks are some serious bad news. You ever run into anything that glows green or red on the other side of the Gate, mom, they are not Christmas decorations. Steer clear.
We got boys turning into bugs, and girls going on a diet that would kill an elephant, and dead kids walking around freezing and dusting stuff with a touch, and you don't even want to know about the kid that split in half. Ew, gross, even for me. And I was DATING him. Yuck, it's a good thing I inherited a strong stomach, or I'd be replacing a keyboard right now.
But, mom? This Stargate, this is alien technology, right? I mean, I trade hacking tips with MIT and Cal Tech and Rice, and they all think the idea of a whatever-dimensional portal is really cool, but nobody believes we have that kind of power or tech yet. So that means there are Others Out There, right? Not just slime mold on other planets, or million-year-old bacteria fossils, but people? Well, whatever, even if they have tentacles or look like spiders (uck), they're intelligent, right?
I really need to know, mom. I'm really seriously considering hitchhiking all over the state until I find your top-secret whatever-it-is and bang on the door. Even if it's booby-trapped. Which it probably is. Because I really, really need to know if there are aliens out there. Intelligent aliens. Who might look like us.
Because -- this is going to sound really stupid, and so maybe it's a good idea that you're not going to see this any time soon, if ever -- I think I know an alien.
Shut up, mom. I never did like being laughed at. Just listen for a minute, okay?
You're not going to believe this. I didn't believe it myself for a long time. I'm not sure I totally believe it now. I mean, he's so cute (cute, my typing finger, he's gorgeous), and nice, and friendly, and serious, and clumsy sometimes. Not a tentacle on him. (I've seen him in a wet swimsuit. I had to rewrite the article about the swim team three times. Never mind.) He's more like a big dumb puppy than someone who came from Out There.
I can't believe I just wrote that. Keep your fingers away from the delete key, Chlo. Just remember to change your password and put it on screen lock.
But yeah. He. This ... boy. Clark looks like a boy, anyway. Like one of us. But he can ... do things. Not like the bug-boy and the fat-sucking girl and the dead jerks. He's ... mom, sit down and put down your coffee if you ever read this.
He ... Clark ... can move so fast he practically disappears. He busted the sound barrier once. There. I wrote that. I know what a damn sonic boom is. I know a damn sonic boom from a damn tornado, and I know way more about tornadoes now than I ever wanted to. And he ... Clark, the cute and clumsy nice-puppy one -- was moving faster than the damn tornado.
He can ... okay, I've seen world-wide wrestling. (I can't believe I just admitted to that.) Well, I've watched the Olympics, too. I've seen guys who can pick up some serious weight. But they're all BIG guys, right? Like, getting out of bed in the morning is weight lifting for them.
The cute puppy-dog looks-like-a-boy carries about as much weight on his bones as I do, even if he is half again my height. And mom, put down the coffee. I don't think any of the guys I've seen on the Olympics can lift a tractor. With one hand. And kind of, absently, while he was looking under the whatever-that-thing-is on the back. Like he wasn't paying attention. To picking up the tractor. With one hand.
No, mom, I am not doing drugs. Unless you count that awful coffee at the stupid kid's hangout. Okay, maybe they drug the lattes just to keep people coming back. Even our resident billionaire sometimes drinks the stuff, so obviously it has to be drugged. (Did I tell you we had a resident billionaire? Of course I did. Lex Luthor probably funds Stargate. Hopefully without his jack@$$ of a father knowing. Maybe he'll know where to find you....)
I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. I'm you're daughter, of course we think the same things. So we have bug boys and fat-sucking girls and dead kids walking, why shouldn't someone be just a little faster and stronger? And I did write "little" there just to try to snap myself out of this insanity. I need some decent coffee.
But mom, that's not the stuff that trips the weird-o-meter scale. See, the crazies around here don't even care that they're crazy. We had one guy, and he was a nutcase if there ever was one (except for his dad, who pushed the word "@$$" and "hole" to entire new levels, and if I'm ever assigned to one of his classes again, I will ask to borrow Lex's rapier). Anyway, this kid suddenly turned up with speed and strength to match Clark's, and he went berserk. And, like, who could blame him, with such an @$$ for a father?
And now you're saying, "get to the point." I'm trying, mom. But I bet even the Stargate doesn't prepare you for stuff this bazer. (That's how our Polish history teacher pronounces "bizarre." It's kind of caught on.)
Nice puppy-dog went after this nutcase, and got his stuff whipped. Broken ribs, face like a busted radish. And the next day he was perfectly fine. It was like nutcase and puppy-dog had changed places for a day. (And no, I did NOT watch that soap opera. Never. Not even after a home-brewed beer.)
But the point, mom, is that the crazies don't make a habit of hiding it. On the other hand, the cute, nice, clumsy puppy is so scared of anybody finding out what he can do that he sneaks around like a combat grunt on point in trip-line alley. (I learned that one from a book, so quit worrying. I bet you actually DO lead point in trip-line alleys, so I AM allowed to worry.) He doesn't just lie bald to your face when you ask a straight question, he HIDES. He hides EVERYTHING. He tries to hide his SHOE size, which is an exercise in futility (I always wanted to use that phrase), since he's got feet the size of a small yacht.
Clark ... I ran his adoption papers, he was adopted the day of the meteor storm. Are there still people out there that stupid? Well, yes, there are still a couple of people who vote republican. A kid shows up from nowhere, with no background, and I mean I checked the Romanian orphanages here, and is taken in by a couple (the Kents are really nice people, by the way, if you ever need a place to hang out or a great meal, I can point you the right way) who have just found out they can't have kids, on the same day that all of hell comes down from space?
When I write my Hugo-winning novel, I am not going to resort to such a tacky premise. As Marion Zimmer Bradley said, suspending disbelief does not mean hanging it by the neck until it's dead.
And there's something else really off about him and the meteorites. I'm not going to write about it here. That guy from Philly has already hacked my password twice. If ... when ... we meet face to face, mom, I have some other things to tell you about those things that are not decorations. Let it suffice (I can't believe I just wrote that) that bug boys and dead jerks are not the worst thing they do.
I'm not the greatest at biology, mom. I'm an investigator, though. Some people even say I'm a good one. I might could work pretty well with you. I could find out things. You could tell me what to look for. (Screw ending a sentence with a preposition. For doesn't count.)
But I need to know, mom. All I can find in the awful textbooks and the speculative (hah, I found a place to say speculative) sites that aren't pure garbage (even I know what a damn light year is), is that someone, something, like cute puppy-dog can't have been grown on Earth. Faster and stronger than anyone going for world records, that I'll buy. This is Weirdsville, after all. Cracking the sound barrier and treating a tractor like a toy plastic car, that doesn't fall within anything I've read about what DNA can do, and I'm including gorillas and whales and elephants here. (Okay, the big whales could do the tractor thing, but they weigh a little more than Clark. And I'm using the word "little" here again for perspective.)
Scared half out of his mind that someone will see him so much as playing a basketball pickup game, at his size, that rings my weird-o-meter bells.
Are they Out There, mom? Is my good friend, the clumsy nice puppy, who writes the most boring articles I have ever had the displeasure to review and correct, who makes tornadoes feel slow and throws tons of steel around the way I do a broken keyboard, one of those from somewhere on the other side of your Gate?
Is the boy I sometimes want to hug and sometimes want to punch out (though I suspect I'd bust my hand -- he doesn't seem to pay much attention to sharp objects, either) a boy at all? Or is he one of the reasons that you had to leave me?
I'll find you again some day, believe me. If only because I have to know. Is my best friend since I came to this insane town even a human being at all? Or is he one of yours?
It would be really cool if he was.
With all my love,
Your seriously coffee-deprived daughter.
P.S. Yes, I've read Slan. If he has antennae, they're hidden in that luscious semi-curly hair. I'd give a lot to run my fingers through it and find out.
Come on, how could I resist? Especially after all the great reviews. Shout-outs to all of you. Everybody go read all their wonderful stuff. Just click on the red "reviews" blip. (I'm so old, I remember when there wasn't even such a thing as hand calculators, much less hypertext links....)
Dear Mom,
Yeah, I know this will probably never get to you. How am I going to address it, anyway? I know what state you're in, but I doubt the artificial stupids at the post office recognize "Stargate" as a PO box.
You weren't exactly easy to find. But you know your kid. Make it tough, and I get tougher. I guess I get that from you.
I just wanted you to know that I appreciate that. All the years I spent blaming you, resenting you, feeling like I was abandoned -- now I know why. And I couldn't be happier. Or prouder. For who you are, mom, even for what you had to do to dad and me -- I love you more than I ever could love someone who would take the easy way out, give up what she was, what she believed in, to stay behind.
No way would I ever do that. So I can hardly blame you for doing the same thing I would have done, now can I?
Oh, I'll find you someday, believe me. Just stay alive until then, okay? I want to go through the Gate with you. I want to see what's out there. I want to KNOW.
I want to tell you all about it. Face to face. Some day.
I want you to know that, as great as dad is, your daughter is still following in your footsteps, in all the ways I can. Have been since I was a kid. Always wondered why, until I found the trail that led to you last year. I'm a born fighter too, in my own ways. I thought I was just choosing to rebel, but this apple didn't fall far from the mom she barely knew. Whatever amazing stuff you're into, I can't wait to be part of it.
And hey, I don't think the Gate or whatever's on the other side would freak me any more than I've already been freaked. When dad got sent to No-wheresville, I thought my life was officially over. Instead, I found the weirdest things you can imagine. Amazing stuff! Incredible stuff! This blip on the map got hit by a freaking METEOR STORM over a dozen years ago, and NASA did its usual bureaucratic bungle and overlooked it with the "mostly harmless" routine.
Only it wasn't, harmless, I mean. These leftover meteor rocks are some serious bad news. You ever run into anything that glows green or red on the other side of the Gate, mom, they are not Christmas decorations. Steer clear.
We got boys turning into bugs, and girls going on a diet that would kill an elephant, and dead kids walking around freezing and dusting stuff with a touch, and you don't even want to know about the kid that split in half. Ew, gross, even for me. And I was DATING him. Yuck, it's a good thing I inherited a strong stomach, or I'd be replacing a keyboard right now.
But, mom? This Stargate, this is alien technology, right? I mean, I trade hacking tips with MIT and Cal Tech and Rice, and they all think the idea of a whatever-dimensional portal is really cool, but nobody believes we have that kind of power or tech yet. So that means there are Others Out There, right? Not just slime mold on other planets, or million-year-old bacteria fossils, but people? Well, whatever, even if they have tentacles or look like spiders (uck), they're intelligent, right?
I really need to know, mom. I'm really seriously considering hitchhiking all over the state until I find your top-secret whatever-it-is and bang on the door. Even if it's booby-trapped. Which it probably is. Because I really, really need to know if there are aliens out there. Intelligent aliens. Who might look like us.
Because -- this is going to sound really stupid, and so maybe it's a good idea that you're not going to see this any time soon, if ever -- I think I know an alien.
Shut up, mom. I never did like being laughed at. Just listen for a minute, okay?
You're not going to believe this. I didn't believe it myself for a long time. I'm not sure I totally believe it now. I mean, he's so cute (cute, my typing finger, he's gorgeous), and nice, and friendly, and serious, and clumsy sometimes. Not a tentacle on him. (I've seen him in a wet swimsuit. I had to rewrite the article about the swim team three times. Never mind.) He's more like a big dumb puppy than someone who came from Out There.
I can't believe I just wrote that. Keep your fingers away from the delete key, Chlo. Just remember to change your password and put it on screen lock.
But yeah. He. This ... boy. Clark looks like a boy, anyway. Like one of us. But he can ... do things. Not like the bug-boy and the fat-sucking girl and the dead jerks. He's ... mom, sit down and put down your coffee if you ever read this.
He ... Clark ... can move so fast he practically disappears. He busted the sound barrier once. There. I wrote that. I know what a damn sonic boom is. I know a damn sonic boom from a damn tornado, and I know way more about tornadoes now than I ever wanted to. And he ... Clark, the cute and clumsy nice-puppy one -- was moving faster than the damn tornado.
He can ... okay, I've seen world-wide wrestling. (I can't believe I just admitted to that.) Well, I've watched the Olympics, too. I've seen guys who can pick up some serious weight. But they're all BIG guys, right? Like, getting out of bed in the morning is weight lifting for them.
The cute puppy-dog looks-like-a-boy carries about as much weight on his bones as I do, even if he is half again my height. And mom, put down the coffee. I don't think any of the guys I've seen on the Olympics can lift a tractor. With one hand. And kind of, absently, while he was looking under the whatever-that-thing-is on the back. Like he wasn't paying attention. To picking up the tractor. With one hand.
No, mom, I am not doing drugs. Unless you count that awful coffee at the stupid kid's hangout. Okay, maybe they drug the lattes just to keep people coming back. Even our resident billionaire sometimes drinks the stuff, so obviously it has to be drugged. (Did I tell you we had a resident billionaire? Of course I did. Lex Luthor probably funds Stargate. Hopefully without his jack@$$ of a father knowing. Maybe he'll know where to find you....)
I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. I'm you're daughter, of course we think the same things. So we have bug boys and fat-sucking girls and dead kids walking, why shouldn't someone be just a little faster and stronger? And I did write "little" there just to try to snap myself out of this insanity. I need some decent coffee.
But mom, that's not the stuff that trips the weird-o-meter scale. See, the crazies around here don't even care that they're crazy. We had one guy, and he was a nutcase if there ever was one (except for his dad, who pushed the word "@$$" and "hole" to entire new levels, and if I'm ever assigned to one of his classes again, I will ask to borrow Lex's rapier). Anyway, this kid suddenly turned up with speed and strength to match Clark's, and he went berserk. And, like, who could blame him, with such an @$$ for a father?
And now you're saying, "get to the point." I'm trying, mom. But I bet even the Stargate doesn't prepare you for stuff this bazer. (That's how our Polish history teacher pronounces "bizarre." It's kind of caught on.)
Nice puppy-dog went after this nutcase, and got his stuff whipped. Broken ribs, face like a busted radish. And the next day he was perfectly fine. It was like nutcase and puppy-dog had changed places for a day. (And no, I did NOT watch that soap opera. Never. Not even after a home-brewed beer.)
But the point, mom, is that the crazies don't make a habit of hiding it. On the other hand, the cute, nice, clumsy puppy is so scared of anybody finding out what he can do that he sneaks around like a combat grunt on point in trip-line alley. (I learned that one from a book, so quit worrying. I bet you actually DO lead point in trip-line alleys, so I AM allowed to worry.) He doesn't just lie bald to your face when you ask a straight question, he HIDES. He hides EVERYTHING. He tries to hide his SHOE size, which is an exercise in futility (I always wanted to use that phrase), since he's got feet the size of a small yacht.
Clark ... I ran his adoption papers, he was adopted the day of the meteor storm. Are there still people out there that stupid? Well, yes, there are still a couple of people who vote republican. A kid shows up from nowhere, with no background, and I mean I checked the Romanian orphanages here, and is taken in by a couple (the Kents are really nice people, by the way, if you ever need a place to hang out or a great meal, I can point you the right way) who have just found out they can't have kids, on the same day that all of hell comes down from space?
When I write my Hugo-winning novel, I am not going to resort to such a tacky premise. As Marion Zimmer Bradley said, suspending disbelief does not mean hanging it by the neck until it's dead.
And there's something else really off about him and the meteorites. I'm not going to write about it here. That guy from Philly has already hacked my password twice. If ... when ... we meet face to face, mom, I have some other things to tell you about those things that are not decorations. Let it suffice (I can't believe I just wrote that) that bug boys and dead jerks are not the worst thing they do.
I'm not the greatest at biology, mom. I'm an investigator, though. Some people even say I'm a good one. I might could work pretty well with you. I could find out things. You could tell me what to look for. (Screw ending a sentence with a preposition. For doesn't count.)
But I need to know, mom. All I can find in the awful textbooks and the speculative (hah, I found a place to say speculative) sites that aren't pure garbage (even I know what a damn light year is), is that someone, something, like cute puppy-dog can't have been grown on Earth. Faster and stronger than anyone going for world records, that I'll buy. This is Weirdsville, after all. Cracking the sound barrier and treating a tractor like a toy plastic car, that doesn't fall within anything I've read about what DNA can do, and I'm including gorillas and whales and elephants here. (Okay, the big whales could do the tractor thing, but they weigh a little more than Clark. And I'm using the word "little" here again for perspective.)
Scared half out of his mind that someone will see him so much as playing a basketball pickup game, at his size, that rings my weird-o-meter bells.
Are they Out There, mom? Is my good friend, the clumsy nice puppy, who writes the most boring articles I have ever had the displeasure to review and correct, who makes tornadoes feel slow and throws tons of steel around the way I do a broken keyboard, one of those from somewhere on the other side of your Gate?
Is the boy I sometimes want to hug and sometimes want to punch out (though I suspect I'd bust my hand -- he doesn't seem to pay much attention to sharp objects, either) a boy at all? Or is he one of the reasons that you had to leave me?
I'll find you again some day, believe me. If only because I have to know. Is my best friend since I came to this insane town even a human being at all? Or is he one of yours?
It would be really cool if he was.
With all my love,
Your seriously coffee-deprived daughter.
P.S. Yes, I've read Slan. If he has antennae, they're hidden in that luscious semi-curly hair. I'd give a lot to run my fingers through it and find out.