Disclaimer: I own nothing but a lawn gnome. And how does that help me?
6. The Introduction of Sam, Tim, and Alvin
Thursdays have been ruined for me. If I even hear the word Thursday, I swear, I'll go to therapy with Liz.
Why, you wonder. Why are Thursdays ruined for the beautiful Morrick? I'll tell you. K'ata may well kill my best friends. You know K'ata. Anyway, they might die today, and all she can do is listen to the Numa Numa song on repeat. Alas, I thought it was funny at first, but if I hear "Mi ah he…" one more time I swear to Mother Flame and Father Universe I'll…
Ahem. Well, the good news is that I remember everything from that summer, and we - K'ata and I - were able to puzzle out what I was programmed for. She wasn't very happy with me for waking her up at four in the morning, but it was necessary. "To forget and lead a normal life, wiser, yet remembering nothing of it," my foot! She dragged me back out to the ship, which had had the atmosphere changed in places so I could come aboard, how considerate, to scan me again. Remember, it causes mild temporary insanity? Llama song, with lime dancing, I think she recorded me doing that too. At least I stayed conscious the whole time.
Thursday, waiting for my friends to show up. We sat in the living room, watching Name That Fruit on the tele. She was relaxing in the recliner, I was on the couch, biting my nails. Just… waiting.
"I think your friends are here," she said.
Her hearing must be a lot better than mine, too, because I only heard the rumble of three four-wheelers when I went out on the deck. They weren't even visible yet. I watched as the front two played Swerve, the game of undrunken driving they'd apparently made up. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye… or a limb, I'd said then.
Tim, the spy, with short black hair and transitions lenses, wearing his trademark black leather ensemble, was in the lead, followed by Sam, the bouncy girl with short red hair and pink mascara, wearing almost nothing. (A bathing suit top and shorts.) Alvin, my favorite black guy in the whole world, with short dreads, turquoise eyeliner, and just shorts on, drove a bit more sedately behind the other two, not inclined to play Swerve. We all thought Tim was mad for wearing leather in summer, but he, being an anarchist, really didn't care.
"Ahoy, me laddiebuck!" Sam yelled at me. "How goes the fort?"
"Aye, Captain Sam, all goes not well, as there be terrible things afoot… and aship, too, for that matter," I replied. Her Pirates of the Caribbean obsession was infectious. Really, it was just an excuse to maul and warp the English language.
"Y'all made me miss lunch," Alvin said grumpily.
"Raid the kitchen, Claudia just shopped," I said. "Just get in the house, now."
"Why?" asked Tim. "Doth there be dragons here?"
"Worse than dragons, and she happens to be in the house, so c'mon."
That was all Tim needed. He was, after all, our resident cryptozoologist. Weird crap was his specialty.
We went to the kitchen, and Alvin proceeded to raid, pillage, and plunder as I poured iced tea for all.
"Uh, little buddy, what're the ages for the fair?" Sam asked me. I was avoiding looking at her, because I invariably ended up looking at the wrong parts. And, as a result, getting slapped.
"Cavaliers' France and Imperial Rome," I said. "We're in the French bit."
"Y'all might be," Alvin said around a sandwich. Hearing someone with a British accent say "y'all" is frightening at first, but he says it so much… "I'm a Roman cavalryman, tunic and all."
"You might not be going," I said to all of them. I was greeted by a suspicious look from Tim. He was the only one paying attention to me, as Sam and Alvin were discussing their outfits.
"Why won't we be going?" he asked slowly. "It has something to do with what's in the house, doesn't it?"
"It has as much to do with you as it does with her," I said softly. Let the other two yap. "Tim, do you believe in aliens?"
His eyes went wide. "You know I believe in everything."
"Aliens, Tim. Surely, surely you believe in their presence on Earth. After all, you have proof, proof you've seen with your own eyes," I said intensely. What can I say, I'm a ham.
"How--?" he asked. "How did you know? That can't've been you with that thing--"
"That thing is a friend, and her name is K'ata, and she will kill you for spying, unless you apologize," I said into sudden silence. Sam and Alvin were watching me now. I blushed. "Well, you'll all have to meet her anyway," I mumbled.
"Dude, you've got an alien in your house?" Alvin said Britishly. Sam shook her head and started humming some Celine Dion song.
I heaved a world weary sigh. "She's in the living room. Not yet!" I said as Tim dashed for the door. "You'll all be polite, I trust. She won't like it if you're rude, or stupid."
"Duh, now can we go?" Tim asked. I released his arm. We all looked into the living room before we went in. We found K'ata flipping through the channels, growling dissolutely every now and then. "Oh, Holy Mother of God," Tim whispered. (As you can see, he's a Catholic. Poor Tim, can't join our cult…) He started praying.
Alvin and Sam gave each other their we're-conversing-mentally look. They looked at K'ata, then back into the other's eyes. "As the world is ending, will you marry me, Sam?" Alvin asked solemnly.
"Certainly," Sam said. And then she fainted, and Alvin caught her as she fell.
By this time, K'ata had noticed us. Watching us, she started laughing quietly. "'T ain't funny," I said to her as Sam was carried back to the kitchen by her new fiancé. Tim was on his knees now, praying for deliverance, I recognized.
"Yes, it is," she giggled at me. She threw the remote at me and said, "Fix it," meaning the child lock. She wanted to watch the second Predator movie. I complied, and returned the remote to her.
"Tim, get up. You know there's no one god," I said at him.
"You only think that because the fairies brainwashed you," he said.
"That's truer than you might think, Maehe-ronnim," I said, using his old name, the one we used back when we were little children.
"Crap," he said. "What, has the brainwashing worn off?" I nodded. "Crap," he said again.
"Find another explicative," K'ata told him.
Tim tried to jump on me, and failed miserably. "It talked to me," he said, frightened.
"I'm a she, not an it," K'ata said. "Morrick and I established that on my first night here." She glanced at his wide-eyed, gaping expression and said, "Naughty-minded boy."
"Ew, Tim, that's just disgusting," I said, guessing what she meant.
"Oh, sorry," he said. "It just sounded, well, a bit, you know…"
"Yeah, and I wish I didn't," K'ata said.
Alvin returned with a tipsy Sam, who wasn't really drunk, but just liked pretending, leaning on him. "Nice dreads," he told K'ata.
"Same to you," she said.
"Are you a robot?" Sam asked. When K'ata shook her head, she said, "So, you're really an alien?"
"Yes, and so are you," she teased. I thought she was being remarkably nice to them.
"You've been around Morrick too long," she returned. "You're beginning to sound like him."
"How dare you," I said in mock anger. "I said not to be rude."
"Yes, that's very insulting," K'ata said, mimicking me. We laughed at the chastised look on Sam's face. I even pointed.
"If you want that to remain intact, m'boy…" Sam said threateningly.
"Alien!" Tim moaned.
"Would you like a sandwich?" Alvin asked K'ata. I explained that human food sickened her. "Oh. Pity, that." He went off to get another one, and Tim followed him, asking if Alvin would hold off on the pickles.
"And then there were two," K'ata intoned soberly.
"Are you carnivorous?" Sam asked suspiciously.
"Moi?" she asked. "Surely you jest." Seeing that all was not a merry jest, she said gloomily, "Sadly, no. We prefer chemicals just as much as any other race of higher beings. I'm not going to eat you!" she snarled.
"Sam, give it a rest," I said. "I'm alive, ain't I? And I have the worst luck of any one of us! And I'm tastier…" You don't want to know.
"No, I don't," K'ata said with a shudder.
"What?" Sam asked blankly. I drew a blank for a moment and then remembered the telepathy. I told her about it. "Eww…" she said. "You mean," she said to K'ata, "you can go into his mind?" Nodded. "Does he really love Liz as much as he puts on?" Nods. "She'll be thrilled," Sam said dryly.
"Spy," I muttered.
"You know you love me," she said, grinning evilly. And off she went to get a snack, which left me alone with K'ata.
"Are you going to kill them now?" I asked softly.
"No." She had that Morrick-is-in-trouble-I-shall-laugh look though. Probably because of what she was going to tell Liz. Bloody telepathy. "I shall scan them," she said wickedly.
"Spot on," Alvin said from behind the door. "So long as you don't kill us, we're spiffy." He and the other two came back and colonized the sofa. Tim gave me a sandwich.
K'ata pointed at Alvin, looked at me, and said, "I'll be taking that one with me when we leave." Alvin ignored that, and continued to watch Sam.
"Uh, why?" I asked. When we leave? Oh, crap. We? I am doomed.
"You, Liz, that one," K'ata said, "you'll relieve the boredom. My first plan isn't going to work. The messenger drones I send messages to are equipped with the space equivalent of Star-69." We'd redialed the people who constantly call for the Chinese take-away and asked them for pizza. "It may take them awhile, but when my superiors get my messages, a recovery fleet will arrive en force." She looked at the present company, which was watching her, and said to me, "That was highly out of character for me."
"You're getting into the part too much," I said.
"Upshut, you two," the director said.
Alvin made a rude hand gesture at him. The British version, anyway. This was getting weird.
"That was weird," Tim said. "Hey, why aren't you taking us?"
"Sam has to marry some Gou'ald guy, and you have a television show to start. In other words, you have destinies. Not much of one, for you," she said to Tim. "You get abducted by the Asgard aliens."
"YES! At last! Where can they be contacted? They can have me NOW!" And then Tim fell silent. "Wait, how do you know this?"
"The writer talks to me," she said. "And they can't have you now because the one who does the abductions is still in jail."
"Oh."
"Oh, I will never marry, and I'll be no man's wife, 'cause I'm a stayin' single, for the rest of me life," Sam sang. K'ata chuckled. "Well, I'm not marrying anyone. Especially whatever you just said I was gonna marry."
"Riiight." K'ata looked towards the door. "Liz is here."
"Hide me!" I yelled as I dove behind the couch. I was certain that Liz wouldn't find it at all odd that my human friends and my alien friend were all here and I wasn't.
The door opened and closed, and everyone was quiet. We all knew how Liz could be after a lengthy therapy session. I heard the clipping of her boots, too. She was bound to be in an unpleasant mood.
"Well," the love of my life said, "aren't we all comfy cozy here?" I heard a bar stool being Liz-handled. "Aren't we just having a wonderful time here, obviously doing bad things because-- Morrick, I can see your hair!"
"Aah!" I was pulled out by Alvin, who insisted that if we were going to be ranted at, we should all be present.
Now that I could see her, I noticed that she was wearing stiletto pumps, not boots, as I'd thought. She'd been shopping. This was getting much, much worse. "Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?" she asked us patronizingly.
"Faire le son de cochon," Alvin said cheerfully. Lucky Alvin. He can always pretend not to know English when we're being fussed at.
"Shut up!" Liz screamed. "What did he say?" she asked the rest of us.
No one answered. We don't know French. K'ata seems to, though. "Make the pig sound," she said, carefully neutral.
"What?" she asked in disbelief.
"Make the pig sound," K'ata said again.
For one shining, crystalline moment, we saw the very essence of rage embodied in Liz. Then all crumbled into an oblivion of laughter, followed by hugging, and Alvin making more sandwiches.
"So," Sam began cautiously, "how'd it go?"
"Same old, same old," Liz said. "New prescription, new shoes, new diagnosis. Sylvia suggested that all of you come to therapy too."
"Did you tell her we'd rather bang our heads against brick walls and stab ourselves repeatedly with salad forks that talk to her?" Tim asked sweetly.
Liz was silent. Then, "Um, Alvin, how'd your swim meet go?"
"You didn't tell her that?" Tim demanded.
"Je suis venu. J'ai nagé. J'ai donné un coup de pied le bout de singe," Alvin said happily.
"Went that well, did it?" I asked. We don't go by the words, we go by the expressions and the tone of voice he uses.
"Oui."
"We love our dirty Frenchman," Sam said lugubriously. "Even if he does change his underwear too much to be a real Frenchman."
"Last time he tried to be truly French, (by not changing his underwear for three months) , we had to subdue it (the underwear) with hammers," I told K'ata.
"Thank you for that beautiful image," she said sarcastically.
"We still have the hammers, don't we?" Alvin asked me.
"Uh, I think I buried them. We aren't going to need them again, are we?" I asked.
He shuddered. "I hope not. Sometimes I forget…" His very fragile attention span was drawn away by Tim struggling with a bag of Cheetos. "Regarder le singe meurt," he said with a laugh.
"Well, either Morrick has no scissors, or they're all shoved…" And then the bag opened. "Never mind."
"Claudia hides the scissors from me," I said sadly.
"Riiight," Alvin said, winking conspicuously at Sam.
"Oh, Liz, Morrick loves you," Sam said as though she'd just remembered to.
Liz gave me the I'll-deal-with-you-later look and nodded at Sam. "He also loves bad pizza. What's new?"
"Trovo questo budino per essere abbastanza... malvagio," Tim said, referring to my Fear Factor Jell-O pudding.
"Don't eat that," I said. "Don't touch it. You might lose a finger."
"Why's it in your refrigerator if I can't eat it?" he asked glumly as he put it away.
"Do your parents just not feed you or something?" I asked everyone.
"You could do the same if you ever came over to our houses," Alvin said. "We have leftovers." Yes, and get food poisoning too.
The phone rang. Sam, being the telephone addicted chick that she is, answered it, and gave it to me, saying it was Claudia. Claudia proceeded to yell at me for having a party. What, what I ask you, is wrong with her?
"Morrick, when I get home, there'd better be only you in that house," she said menacingly. "I mean it."
"You don't own it, hippie," I said obnoxiously. "We're going to have strippers, and you can't stop us, you Commie!"
"Morrick--!" And then I hung up.
"She's gonna kill you," Tim said after a brief, respectful silence. "She won't do it now, but she'll find some way to get you later. Classic female revenge-getting technique. I've seen it at least fifty-eight times." Sam and Liz threw pillows at him. To my surprise, so did K'ata. She grinned when Tim huddled in his corner of the couch in the fetal position.
I sighed. "I shouldn't be so mean to her. After all, she can't help it if she is a lower life form than I am."
"Vanity is a sin," Tim said disdainfully.
"If this is a sin," Sam said, "I don't ever wanna be good."
"You ain't right."
"Amen to that," Sam declared as she stretched out across the sofa, using everyone as a pillow. "So, do we really get strippers?"
"Eh, no," I said. "Unless Alvin wants to play Rocky Horror?"
He shuddered eloquently, and told us never again in this lifetime would he don the ceremonial fishnets, heels, and gloves, strut around singing, and leap in the pool with full makeup on. Liz applauded.
"Morrick does that," K'ata said wickedly. "I have some of it filmed." You evil trollop! "Am not," she said at me.
"We wanna see," they all said in some form or another. And she showed them a hologram of me in that dress, putting my hair up. It was really almost funny when I looked at it from a… Alright, it was infuriating. I'll find a way to get you back, I thought.
A/N: Sorry for being so slow. A Stargate idea grabbed ahold of me and well… Argh.
Zappy: Monopoly is easy, once you change the rules to your own liking. : )
Olafur: Okay, two points here. One, Morrick is 14, and he's already committed to Liz. K'ata is way too young to be having any romantic notions of any kind. And two, even if K'ata was older, why would she settle for Morrick, when there are plenty of other guys that are actually her species roaming about-- Oops, you aren't supposed to know that yet. Just forget you read that. And OF COURSE there'll be someone from the government. Morrick's dad works for the Stargate program, for gods' sakes. Er… oops. Forget you read that as well…
Mousewolf: Your overwhelming enthusiasm is an excellent encouragement. :D
An advisement, plot twist ahead. New aliens, too.