This is only loosely based on Date A Live. How might such an event play out in our world?
An Unexpected Arrival
It was a warm and sunny Sunday, and he'd felt like taking a motorcycle ride. After a leisurely twenty minutes he was cruising through a light industrial area, scattered small businesses in one- and two-story buildings on both sides of the road. Familiar territory; he'd traveled through here hundreds of times.
Up ahead, familiarity ended. Something was wrong with the street. He pulled the clutch and hit the brakes; he'd been riding long enough to be wary of unexpected road conditions. He downshifted to first gear and saw that the pavement was broken up for at least thirty yards ahead. He had almost stopped a few yards short of the edge when the engine died.
He frowned and pushed the starter button. Nothing happened. He checked, and all of the little lights were dark. He turned the ignition key off, then on, and tried again. Still nothing. He clicked the bike into neutral and looked around. The broken pavement cut across the road at an angle, through the curb and across most of a parking lot off to his right.
He tried the ignition and starter a couple more times, growled a few Very Bad Words, got off his machine and pushed it into the parking lot, backed into one of the remaining intact spaces, flipped down the kickstand and rested the bike on it. He tried the ignition and starter again, with no better results. The motorcycle seemed to be completely dead. He grumbled more Bad Words.
On the road behind him a car drove up to the broken area and stopped. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic this morning. He pulled out the key and stuck it in his pocket, took off his helmet and set it on the right saddlebag, then took a longer look at the damage zone.
It appeared to be a shallow crater, over two hundred yards across and maybe ten feet deep in the middle. Within it trees, cars, buildings, pavement, even the ground itself were crushed, smashed, mangled and churned. Outside it, nothing seemed disturbed. The boundary cut through at least two buildings and another one was completely gone. Nothing was sparking. There was a whiff of gas in the air, but no rushing or roaring noises so nothing major was leaking. He'd never seen or heard of anything like it, and couldn't imagine what might have caused it.
Somebody was standing in the center. The figure looked like a woman with long purple hair, wearing a dress with a wide puffy skirt, holding something long and thin in her right hand. In another parking lot across the crater and to the left were two police cars. She was facing toward them. She took a hesitant step to the right, away from them, and a shot sounded. She flinched, and stopped. She didn't appear to have been hit, but her shoulders slumped, and her head bowed a little. From the back, she looked utterly dejected.
What the hell was going on? He'd nearly forgotten his annoyance with the stalled motorcycle, his attention consumed by this new mystery. Something had chewed a big bite out of the neighborhood. He was familiar with a number of phenomena that could make holes in the ground, but this didn't square with any of them. An explosion would have blasted tons of debris out of the crater. A collapse wouldn't have torn everything to pieces and flung them about. What sort of force ripped fifty-foot trees apart and left their splintered remains within a well-defined boundary? What could remove part of a building without affecting the remaining structure?
When did it happen, whatever it was? There was dust over everything but none in the air, and two police cars on the scene, so it had been at least five or ten minutes ago. Not much longer, or there would be more. More police, the fire department, ambulances and paramedics, bomb-sniffing dogs, water department, gas & electric company — even on a Sunday the place would be swarming within half an hour. So far, though, there were only creaking and grinding noises from the damaged buildings, a gurgle of leaking water, and rattles of falling pieces.
He walked up to the rim of the crater. It was a sharp edge, a drop of about a foot, with only bits of debris on the undamaged area. He examined it carefully, then cautiously stuck the very toe of his boot across the line. Nothing unusual happened. He raised his foot, slowly put it completely inside the crater and set it down. It felt…exactly like stepping onto crushed parking lot. There was a gravelly crunch as he put weight on it. His second step was equally anticlimactic. Whatever had happened here appeared to be over. All that remained was the crater and…somebody.
She had to be connected to it somehow. Two unusual events, at the same place and time? The police obviously thought so. There were at least two of them, taking cover behind one of their cars, all their attention focused on her. They didn't seem to be accomplishing anything, they didn't seem happy about it, but they couldn't seem to think of anything better to do.
His attention returned to the woman. Why was she just standing there, looking miserable? Why didn't she drop that thing and raise her hands? Why weren't the police making more effort to arrest her, or demand that she surrender, or at least talk to her? Nothing about the situation made any sense, and things that didn't make sense really bothered him.
'The Elephant's Child is strong with this one' somebody had said to him once, and it was true. He had a wide range of interests, and what he didn't know, he tried to find out. Nobody could know everything, of course, but he liked to say that he knew something about almost everything. That Most Insatiable Curiosity had gotten the Elephant's Child into a lot of trouble, but it was also behind just about everything we know. Without it we'd still be living in caves and getting eaten by leopards.
His own inner Elephant's Child was fully awake now. He wanted to know what was going on, and it looked like there was only one way to find out. The cops would just tell him to get lost, and they didn't seem to know much anyway. The only obvious source of any answers was the woman. Most people would consider approaching her stupid, even insane, but was it? She wasn't doing anything to the police, and they were shooting at her. Why would she be a threat to someone who wasn't attacking her?
He walked cautiously out into the crater. The phenomenon had left chunks of buildings and vehicles here and there, and he used them to stay out of sight of the police. They certainly wouldn't approve of what he was doing. He stopped about twenty feet from the woman, beside the nearest object — a piece of roof propped up by a half-crushed air conditioner. He could see her clearly but she hadn't noticed him; all her attention seemed to be on the people shooting at her. No surprise. Any sounds he made had been lost in the general background noise of settling wreckage, and a gradually diminishing hiss of escaping refrigerant.
She looked really good up close. Just about his own height, curved in all the right places, with nothing un-human about her except her very long, slightly wavy, vivid purple hair. She wore a fancy purple, black and silver outfit that looked part armor, part dress with two-layer translucent skirts, metallic-looking purple-and-silver gauntlets and boots, and a hair tie that looked like a white, purple and black butterfly on top of her head. White light shone from her skirts, and parts of her dress. The thing in her hand was a four-foot longsword with edges made of purple light, its point nearly touching the ground.
She raised her head and lifted the sword a little, and there were two more shots. This time, he saw two bursts of purple sparks in the air in front of her. She had a force shield. His suspicion that she came from somewhere else grew to a solid conviction.
He was certain that nothing like this had ever happened before. Somebody, somewhere would have said something, and there would be a whole raft of web sites about Mysterious Craters With Hot Space Chicks In The Middle. Every aspect of the situation would be irresistible to UFO fanatics and conspiracy-theory nuts alike. Or, if the conspiracy nuts were right, and the government was keeping this Extra Secret, they'd have whipped up some sort of response by now, something a bit more comprehensive than a couple of cops and their sidearms. He looked around. The sky was blue and clear, not a Black Helicopter in sight. No convoys of black SUVs raced down the roads. Nobody was calling those cops and telling them to do more, or less, than what they were doing.
Hard as it was to believe, this had to be a genuine First Contact.
He'd had misgivings all along, but now his misgivings were starting to have misgivings. Even the Elephant's Child was having second thoughts. Had she done — whatever — to the landscape? How would she react to him sneaking up behind her? Should he just sneak away before she noticed? It would be the safe move. He thought about that. Then he thought about something else.
Whatever he did, in the next minute or two, would change the world.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
The line from an old Rush song ran through his head. This wasn't what Geddy had meant, but it certainly applied. Backing out, leaving the decisions to somebody else, was a choice. Was it the right one? What made him qualified to change the world?
Well, what made anybody else qualified? It wasn't like anybody anywhere had any experience with this situation or anything like it. What were the Job Qualifications for First Contact With Purple-Haired Space Babes? He was drawing a blank.
And, 'somebody else' was another cop-out. It would be the government, and like any good American, he didn't trust the government. Government is all about power and control. Its purpose is to force people to do things they don't want to do. Some of that is necessary — criminals won't stop robbing and murdering if asked nicely. But you have to give that power to people. Most people with power want more, and desperately fear losing what they have. Not all of them, of course. Good people go into the government too, but they either become part of the system or it spits them back out.
Did he really want the government to decide what to do with her? She had power, and they would want to control her. Could they? He didn't think the police could, and they didn't seem to think so either. If she really had made this Chewed Crater, the Army probably wouldn't fare any better. If they couldn't control her, they'd want to destroy her. Could they even do that? And if they really, really pissed her off, what could she do to them?
What if she was some sort of emissary? An ambassador, or a scout, or even a scientist, here to assess the natives? What kind of impression should she get of our world? What impression would the government give her? They'd certainly done a great job so far; they were shooting at her. Could he possibly make a worse decision than that?
Okay, what were his qualifications? He was well above average intelligence; he was a computer engineer and general tinkerer. A problem solver. He thought about things. Most people wouldn't even be standing here right now. He wasn't refusing to accept the implications of what he saw right in front of him; that alone put him ahead of over ninety percent of the human race. And, he'd been reading and watching science fiction for more than thirty years.
He'd contemplated the ideas of the world's most original thinkers, some of them on this very subject. Most of them were pretty smart, and the best were genius class. He at least had some really good ideas to work with, and he also knew a lot of bad ideas to avoid. He wasn't hog-tied with a load of policies and regulations written by micromanaging bureaucrats convinced that they Knew Everything and nobody else knew anything.
Besides, there were really only two possibilities.
If she came here with hostile intent, we were probably screwed. She had some very advanced technology, and she wouldn't be here alone. Bullets had no effect on her, and most modern weapons are essentially bullets. They destroy targets by smashing chunks of metal into them. Some use more chunks, or bigger chunks, or smash them harder, but that's about it. Our only non-bullet weapons are some pretty pathetic lasers, poison gas, and The Bomb. He doubted that lasers would work against soldiers armed like her, and even if gas or atomic bombs would stop them, we would have to use them on our own cities. We might as well just let ourselves be conquered.
If she wasn't hostile, it was absolutely imperative to avoid making her hostile. Shooting at her was not a good way. Locking her up wasn't a promising approach, either. The government, composed of people accustomed to solving problems with force, prone to panic over any threat to their power, would insist on one or the other. Once they decided she was a challenge to their authority, they would never be able to back down. Every time they failed to put her under their control, they'd feel compelled to reach for a bigger hammer. In the end, he was pretty sure an atomic bomb would be as useless against her as a .45 ACP, but the Bigger Hammer Bunch would never believe that until they tried it themselves, at least once.
Somewhere along the way, he had made up his mind. He wouldn't leave this to those who sought power over other people. He would do his best, and hope it was the right thing.
He took off his sunglasses, put them in his pocket, and called to her. "Who are you? Why are they trying to kill you?"
She turned and looked at him, startled, and took a step back. She had a striking, exotic beauty. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were a darker purple than her hair, her purple eyes a shade in between. At least her lips weren't purple, but a lovely deep pink. He couldn't make even a wild guess at her age beyond 'probably about thirty'.
Her expression was of despair and loss, now turning to fear. She raised the sword between them, but it didn't take a master to see that it was a defensive move, not an attack. Apparently the police didn't know even that much. Three shots, three purple flashes in the air beside her.
He lowered his voice. "Do you understand me?"
Her lips moved, silently, then stopped. She tried again.
"Do…you…kill…me?"
Her voice was as beautiful as the rest of her; sweet and warm, rich and clear. The words, however, were halting, disconnected, as if they were her first words in English. Or…her first words, ever.
He shook his head. "No! I am not going to hurt you. I don't want anybody to hurt you."
He wasn't sure she understood completely, but she seemed to get the idea. Her look of fear faded.
"I don't think you want to hurt anybody, either."
"No. I…don't want…to hurt…anybody." Her delivery was smoother this time, but still hesitant.
"I believe you." Strangely, he did. He smiled at her. "I think I can help you. If you'll let me try."
Her expression changed again, now hopeful but cautious. "Help me," she pleaded.
She seemed to believe him, too. There was a kind of innocence about her, a sense that she told the truth, and trusted him, because it simply never occurred to her to do otherwise. So much for any lingering doubts that she came from another planet.
He peered around the roof section, at the police. From here he could see there were three of them. He nodded decisively. "Yes, I'll help you. We need to get them to stop shooting at you." His eyes narrowed. "They don't just shoot for no reason. They sure as hell don't keep shooting. And that one's got an AR-15."
He looked at her. "Did you do something they might have seen as a threat, or dangerous?"
She seemed uncertain, and embarrassed. "I think…yes. They," she waved her left hand in a beckoning gesture, then pantomimed holding a pistol.
He said slowly, "They approached you, holding guns. Pointing them at you. Yelling at you to drop the sword, put your hands on your head, and surrender. Or something close to that. And you didn't understand one thing they were saying."
She nodded. "I," and lifted the sword just a tiny distance, "they shoot."
"You raised your sword toward them, and they started shooting. You've got some sort of force shield around you, right? It blocks their bullets somehow. I see sparks when they hit it. Your shield stopped the bullets, but you would have been surprised, maybe scared."
She nodded again. "Force shield, yes. Blocks bullets, blocks…sparks?" She gestured with her left hand.
He thought and said, "You mean energy?"
She nodded. "Yes. Energy…not bullet."
"Directed energy weapons, like a laser? Um, a coherent photon beam?"
"Yes, directed energy. Laser and, not laser."
"Other kinds of energy weapons that are beyond our primitive technology," he mused. "Then you did something that made them back off, and hide behind their police cars?"
She nodded again. "I did something to the gun." She pointed at a black lump lying on the ground thirty feet away. "Then, one other thing." Her confidence and speaking ability grew with every sentence, and she seemed to understand almost every word the first time she heard it. Either she was a hundred times smarter than anyone he had ever heard of, or she was getting some high-powered A.I. assistance from…somewhere.
"OK, what 'one other thing'?"
She looked embarrassed. "They hide behind the cars, and I…" She made a chopping motion with her free hand.
He took a harder look at the police cars and saw that the far one was…wrong. The ends didn't match up. The hood pointed upward at an angle, and the trunk pointed up at a different angle. It took a few seconds to make sense of it — the car had been neatly sliced in two on a slight diagonal and fallen down in the middle. While the cops were using it for cover. No wonder they were freaked out.
"They took cover behind that police car, shot at you, and you split it in two. From here. Bet that got their attention!"
She just looked more embarrassed.
"That might complicate things." He chuckled. "I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time."
She grimaced. "No idea, no think, just do. Good, not."
He looked at the cops again, then returned to her. "Can you expand your shield? To keep the bullets away from me, too?"
She gave him a little smile. "Yes."
There was a barely-visible shimmering in the air and a faint prickling sensation.
He took a deep breath. "I guess it's showtime. Could you lose the sword? I think it makes them nervous."
She looked at him uncertainly. "I don't want to lose—"
"Sorry. Slang expression. I mean put it down, or something, so you look less threatening."
"Yes." With a single quick motion she swept the sword around, as if sliding it into an invisible scabbard at her left hip. Two shots, two flashes, several feet farther away this time. The sword had disappeared completely.
He was astonished, and speechless. He finally managed to say, "Neat trick." He added, "I think you've got something that's bigger on the inside."
She looked at him, confused.
"Never mind." Trying to explain Doctor Who, right now…no way.
He moved out nervously into the line of fire. He trusted her, could see her shield stop the bullets, knew they probably wouldn't shoot anyway, but it was still one of the hardest things he had ever done. He stepped directly between her and the cops, and spread his arms straight out. There wouldn't be any point yelling at them; they'd all be half-deaf for a while. He swung his right hand in front of his face, palm forward, and waved it up and down. If he remembered right, it was an Army signal for 'cease fire'.
Maybe it was, maybe they didn't want to hit a civilian, maybe they were just tired of shooting at her without effect, but they held off. He waited long enough to be sure they weren't just reloading or taking better aim, then gave them a big thumbs-up. That one was pretty much universal.
"Hey, I think it worked." He turned around just in time for her to run into him, almost taking them both to the ground. She threw her arms around him and squeezed with unexpected strength.
"You help me, you help me…" She was almost exactly his height. She was trembling and there were tears in her eyes.
His arms were around her before he had time to think. Any uncertainty was erased when she sighed and…snuggled against him. Her arms relaxed a little. He had held women before, but never one who felt so completely right. He hoped that she really was as human as she seemed.
"Move away from the suspect, sir!"
Of course it couldn't be that easy. They had decided she was a suspect, even though there was probably nothing specific she could be charged with. Well, besides that old catch-all, resisting arrest. That wouldn't matter to them. It was for the courts decide her guilt or innocence; their job was to haul her off to jail no matter what it took. They would always reach for the Bigger Hammer. He didn't see any easy way out of this.
Even so, he had to try. He let go of her and tried to step back, but she held on. He belatedly realized that her armor and gauntlets were gone. She must have sent them wherever her sword went. What else might she have stashed there, and what was 'there', anyway? A parallel universe? Some sort of pocket dimension? Out of phase? A few microseconds ahead or behind in time? Various scientists and authors had speculated on many ways things could be there-but-not-there.
That could wait. He reached down and tugged at her arms. "I need to go over there and talk to them. All right?"
She shook her head. "Don't go away."
"Okay. Let's both go talk to them."
She thought it over. "And you don't go away?"
"No. I'll stay as long as you want me to."
She hugged him tight, then stepped back and smiled. He thought she'd smiled before, but that was because he'd never seen a real one. Her dress was pleasingly form-fitting without the armor. She took his breath away, his head floated, and all he could do was stare at the most beautiful girl in the world — well, in some world, anyway. Stay with her? There was nothing he wanted more.
"Now move away!"
That yanked him right back to earth. "Is your shield still on?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Keep it on." He held his hand out to her, and after a few confused seconds she mirrored the gesture. Her neatly tapered fingernails were bright purple, of course. He smiled, and took her hand in his. "Let's go talk to them. I just don't know if it'll do any good."
He turned, and shouted, "Let's talk about this!"
He started toward the police, and she walked beside him after a short delay. Her hand was warm, and felt perfectly normal to him.
He lowered his voice. "I don't think I can get you out of this. I promised to help you, and I'll try, but I don't think it will be enough. They want to arrest you and put you in jail, and they're not going to listen to me."
She thought that over for a few steps. They walked past the lump she had indicated earlier, and he saw that it had once been a plastic-framed automatic pistol, probably a Glock. It was hard to tell because it was partially melted. She squeezed his hand and waved her other one at the surviving police car. "Can that…" she made a swooping, ascending motion.
Her question surprised him. "You mean, can it fly? No. Strictly a ground vehicle." He chuckled. "Flat ground, at that. It's meant to run on pavement," he kicked at the rubble, "like this used to be."
Now she had a cunning little smile. "They can't arrest me."
She had surprised him again. "You mean you can fly?"
She nodded. "Yes."
He gave a short laugh. "Well, why not? Force shields, vanishing energy swords, what's a little flying?" His amusement faded. "But, why didn't you fly away?"
She gave him a sad look and gestured vaguely. "Fly away?"
He understood. "Of course. You don't know anything about our world. You've got no place to go." They were approaching the police, who watched them warily.
He told her, very quietly, "Don't let them capture you. If we can't get them to let you go, you fly away. Leave me here. I'm a citizen, I've got rights, and I haven't broken any laws. Even if they arrest me, don't interfere. They can't hold me very long. Promise me that, please."
She just looked stubborn.
He insisted. "Please. Fly away, and don't try to help me. If you did, I really would be in trouble, and I wouldn't be able to help you at all. Will you do that for me? Trust me?"
She finally answered, reluctantly, "I…I will."
He squeezed her hand. "Thank you." They kept walking.
"That's close enough!" The cop closest to them yelled, louder than necessary; as he thought, shooting at her had done a number on their hearing. His name tag read NELSON and he appeared to be in charge.
They stopped. He'd been about to stop anyway. Officer Nelson had a notebook and pen out, the other two still held a pistol and the AR-15 on them.
"What's your name, ma'am? Let's see some ID."
She looked at him, then back at the cops, opened her mouth to reply, and stopped. She stood there frozen for several seconds. "I…I don't…know." Now she looked confused, and lost. She gripped his hand, hard. "I don't know!"
The officer looked extremely skeptical, but turned to him. "Do you have ID?"
"Yeah." He started to reach up with his right hand, then stopped. "Just getting my wallet."
The cop nodded. He pulled the wallet from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, then found himself in a pickle. She didn't seem inclined to let go of his hand, and it would be impossible to remove his driver's license without it. To hell with it. These weren't some third-world federales; they'd leave his money and credit cards alone. He tossed his wallet onto the car trunk.
"It's in that flip-up thing. Yeah, there."
He looked at it, took it out, and wrote in his notebook. "Daniel Evans."
"That's right."
"Forty-one years old."
"Don't remind me."
Nelson half-smiled. "Is this your current address?"
"Yep. Twelve years. I hate moving."
He wrote some more.
"How do you know the suspect?"
"I don't. You just saw me meet her for the first time. Ever."
He looked at their hands, even more suspicious. "If you don't know her, why is she…cooperating with you?"
"Because I talked to her instead of shooting at her? Just a guess, of course."
Nelson scowled at him but kept writing. He mentally kicked himself. Don't be a smart-ass. Not helping. That wouldn't be easy. Sarcasm came as naturally to him as breathing.
"And she didn't tell you her name."
Dan shook his head. "We're still working on basic communication." And getting you to stop shooting at her. "We haven't got around to introductions."
The officer turned back to her. "What's your name? Where did you come from? What are you doing here?"
She squeezed his hand, shuffled closer and pressed against him. "I don't know."
Dan said, "Hey, take it easy. She doesn't know much English."
Nelson turned to the officer with the AR-15. "You give it a try."
She looked at him, then back to the purple-haired woman and demanded, "Quien eres tu? Que haces aqui?"
She just looked confused and repeated, "I…don't know?"
Dan turned to her. "What she just said was in a different language. Don't get it mixed up with English, the language we're using now." He looked back at the cops. "I think she's from a lot farther away than Mexico." Yeah, a few dozen light-years farther!
The third cop spoke up for the first time. "I know some Italian."
Dan waved his hand frantically at him. "No, no, you'll just confuse her! You're not going to find anybody that speaks her language."
Officer Nelson looked up from the notebook to bestow a dubious look upon him. "How would you know?"
"Call it…an educated guess." He tried to look at them appealingly. "Look, will you let me try talking to her? I've been doing pretty good so far. I'll try to get her to tell you what you want to know."
Nelson looked at the other two, and when they didn't object, returned his attention to the woman. "All right. I'll let you give it a try."
Dan nodded. "Thanks. Ask your questions, and I'll try to explain them to her."
Nelson looked at the purple-haired woman and asked, "What is your name?" very slowly and distinctly.
She turned to Dan. "Why did police talk…like…that?" She mimicked his tone and pacing perfectly.
"He thought it would help you understand what he said."
She looked…put out. "Did police think I do not understand?" She sounded testy, too, and looked back at Nelson. "I understand, but I do not know. I know what a name is, but I don't know my name." Her longest statement yet revealed a slight accent, like nothing any of them had heard before.
Dan added, "I think she's trying to tell you she's not stupid."
She smiled at him. "Yes! Thank you." She turned back to Nelson. "Not stupid, just much things I do not know."
"Well, what do you know?" he snapped, frustrated.
"That I'm here. That I don't know what here is. That I don't know who I am…" she shook her head. "That is all."
Dan said, diffidently, "Do you mind if I ask her some questions?"
Nelson looked at him, even more frustrated. "Go ahead. Maybe you can get something out of her."
He smiled at her and asked gently, "You're trying your best to answer us, aren't you?"
She gave him a strained smile back. "Yes, but there is so little I know, so much I do not know."
He squeezed her hand and looked at her reassuringly. "I think the biggest question they have for you is, did you do," he waved a hand at the Churned Crater, "this?"
She shook her head. "No." She thought for a few more seconds. "I do not think so."
"Did you see it happen?"
She shook her head again. "No. It was like this when I first saw it."
He had a sudden thought. "Was there a lot of dust in the air, when you first saw this?"
She nodded vigorously. "Yes! Dust. The air took it away…" she waved a hand eastward.
"Then you must have been here very soon after it happened."
She nodded thoughtfully. "That is…" She gestured vaguely.
He chuckled. "A logical conclusion?"
She nodded decisively. "Yes! Logical."
His voice was gentle again. "What did you do, when you found yourself standing there?"
Her sad, lost look was back. "I didn't do anything. What could I do? I look, but saw not a thing I know."
"What about before? What do you remember, before you were standing there?"
"I…" She frowned, concentrating. "I do not remember anything before."
"But… you had to be somewhere, before you were here. You had to get from there to here, somehow."
"Yes, that is logical." She was still frowning. "But I do not remember any other place, or how I was put here."
Nelson looked impatient, and Dan started to feel a little desperate. "Is there anything you can remember, anything you can think of that might help?"
"No." She looked at him helplessly. "I think I must be not from your world. This place is not right to me, there is not a thing I know here. I do not know how I come to be here, or why."
Officer Nelson frowned. "Aaannnd now she thinks she's E.T. I've heard enough." He snapped open a pocket on his gunbelt and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. "You're going to have to come with us, ma'am."
Dan's stomach fluttered with anxiety. "What are you arresting her for? What could you even charge her with?"
"Resisting arrest." He pointed at the sectioned police car. "Destruction of government property."
"You were shooting at her! She panicked!" Dan waved his hand at the crater, feeling a little panic of his own. "She didn't do this. She doesn't want to hurt anybody. She's just lost, and scared, and more alone than you could possibly imagine. She doesn't need to be thrown in a cage with a bunch of violent criminals."
Nelson made his way around the police car, cautiously. "Move away from the suspect, sir."
Dan tried one final entreaty. "You don't have to do this. Please, can't you just let her stay with me? I'll take full responsibility for her. She won't break any laws, and she won't go anywhere."
Nelson gave him a hard look. "Are you trying to interfere with me, Mr. Evans?"
He did his best to look defeated. It wasn't hard. "No. Of course not." He looked at the woman's tense face, then back at the officer, and swallowed nervously. "Will you let me try to explain this to her? Tell her what's happening?"
"Make it fast."
Dan looked at her and shook his head sadly. "They're going to arrest you. They don't want to listen to me. He's going to put your arms behind your back and lock those handcuffs around your wrists, stick you in the back seat of that car, drive you to jail and lock you in a cell. They'll use force if you don't cooperate, and they might even shoot you. I'm sorry I can't be any more help."
She glared angrily at the cops, then turned, wrapped herself around him and kissed him, pushing her tongue into his mouth insistently. It felt very good, but he got an impression that there was more to it than just the kiss. She finished, and her lips brushed his ear as she whispered, "Thank you for your help, Daniel. Now I can find you."
She stepped back, looked up, and shot into the sky. In seconds she dwindled to a tiny dot and disappeared.
They all stared up after her until they heard three loud POP's from the crater. They turned, and saw sparks falling in three places, rising wisps of smoke, a flickering blue-white glare and a loud crackling, buzzing noise to their right, and a final bright flash near the far edge accompanied by a much louder POP. They watched nervously, but the fireworks seemed to be over.
"What was that all about?" the second policeman asked.
"Wiring, shorting out," Nelson informed them.
"Yeah, but why now?"
Nelson shook his head. "Don't know."
The woman cop turned to look at Dan. "Where did the suspect go?"
He frowned at her and pointed. "Up!"
She wasn't amused. "Where is she going?"
He was still frowning. "I don't know! How would I know? You threatened her, and now she's gone."
"She said something to you. What was it?"
"She thanked me." He let his expression mellow a little. "And said she's sorry. About everything."
Officer Nelson looked at him. "What else did she tell you?"
"Not much. You heard everything, too. I needed more time! She was talking to us, and I thought I was making progress."
Nelson huffed. "Well, I didn't, and we have a job to do."
Dan sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You've got your rules and procedures and you have to follow 'em whether you want to or not. Trouble is, this time they were all wrong."
The cop looked up, then back at him. "Why are you here? How did you get involved?"
"Was riding down Balboa and had to stop because the pavement's all busted up. Then my bike stalled, and wouldn't start. I pushed it into a parking lot, took a look around and saw—" he waved at the Crater, "—this."
"Where were you going?"
"Just out for a ride. It's a nice day." He looked eastward, then back. "Probably would have wound up out on Old 94."
Officer Nelson now looked at him very sternly. "Why did you step out into our line of fire? That was stupid, and can be considered obstruction or interference with law enforcement. Those are serious crimes."
He said, carefully, "Well, I saw what was happening. She was just standing there, and I thought she looked scared and confused, so I went out and talked to her."
The second male cop asked, "Why didn't you talk to us?"
He chuckled nervously. "You would have just told me to buzz off."
All three cops chuckled back. Nelson said, "Go on."
He continued, "I asked her what she was doing, and after a few tries she said she didn't want to hurt anybody, didn't mean to do anything wrong, and didn't know where she was or what was happening. I believed her. I thought if I could get you to stop shooting at her, it would make the situation better."
Dan looked back and forth at all of them. "I was just trying to help." It was true, too, only they weren't the ones he was helping. "I did get her to put the sword away, come over here and talk to you."
Nelson sighed, seeming to concede the point. "And then she," he shook his head in disbelief, "she flew away."
He gave the man a commiserating look. "Nobody could have stopped her from doing that. Who would have even thought of it?" I wouldn't, if she hadn't told me.
Nelson shook his head again, conceding that point as well. "Are you sure you don't know where she's going?"
Dan shook his head too. "I really don't. How could I? She doesn't know where she's going. She's got no place to go." He looked around at all of them. "She lost her memory. She's never been in this country before. She's lost, and alone, and scared. I don't know what's going to happen to her."
The woman cop grumbled, "If we're real lucky, she'll go back to wherever she came from."
He looked at her. "If she can."
Officer Nelson gave him a shrewd look. "What do you think she'll do?"
"Me? Hmmm." Dan looked up at the sky thoughtfully. "Probably get away from the city. Away from people." He looked around at them. "Away from cops, for sure. After that? She didn't seem to be carrying any food or water, so she'd have to find those. Place to sleep, eventually, unless she can sleep while she's flying." He thought some more. "Long term, I just don't know. Fast as she took off, she could be in Mexico in ten minutes. Then she'd be their problem."
"If she got across the border."
Dan chuckled. "I don't think she'd have much trouble. The Border Patrol is not really equipped to deal with flying women." He shrugged. "I guess the short answer is she could go anywhere, and there's not much anybody could do about it."
She could go anywhere, and he had no way of knowing where, or finding her. He clung tight to one bit of hope. Now I can find you. What did she mean? Had her kiss tagged him somehow, like a wild boar? He almost cracked a silly grin, but caught it in time. No, no, no. They couldn't be allowed to suspect that she might return to him. He had to be helpful, but resigned and uncertain. They would keep an eye on him anyway, just in case. Anxious as he was to see her again, he hoped she would stay away from him for a while.
They were all interrupted by unintelligible words from inside the surviving police car. The second man yelled, "The radio's working!" He opened the front passenger door, jumped inside, picked up a microphone and started talking excitedly.
Nelson opened the driver's door, got in, and started typing on the computer. "Huh. Computer's up too." He looked very relieved.
"The radio wasn't working?" Dan asked.
Nelson flapped the notebook. "Why do you think I'm scribbling in this? Radios, computers, cell phones, everything was down. Now it's all back."
Dan mused, "She must have been emitting some kind of interference, and now she's out of range. Probably didn't even know it was happening."
Nelson looked unconvinced and continued typing, referring to the notebook. He read the computer screen, working through several pages of data, then looked up. "Clean. Not so much as a parking ticket. You're a regular Boy Scout."
Dan said with some annoyance, "I stay out of trouble. It's not that hard."
Nelson scowled sourly. "It is for some people."
"Hmph." He thought about that. "And they'd be the ones you have to deal with all the time. That explains a lot."
The officer was still scowling. "Explains a lot of what?"
"Your attitude. You expected lies, so when you heard…unusual things you just assumed we were lying. You got any idea how frustrating that is?"
"Hah. You're telling me about frustration?" He got back out of the car and shut the door. The other guy finished with the radio and got out too.
Dan grimaced. "I suppose. None of us got many answers, here." He looked around at all of them. "But not believing the truth is as bad as believing lies."
The other two cops scowled some more, but Nelson looked thoughtful. After a minute he mused, "Then what is the truth?"
Dan snorted. "Probably not what any of us think it is."
Nelson fixed him with another shrewd look. "What do you think it is?"
Dan said cautiously, "Do you really want to know? Will you listen, and think about it, and not just instantly say 'Bullshit!'? 'Cause it's gonna sound pretty far-out."
Nelson looked up, then back at him with a grimace. "I'd be surprised if it didn't sound far-out. Hell, I'd be disappointed."
Dan chuckled nervously. "Well, I'm not going to disappoint you." He looked around at all of them again. "Don't get pissed at me if some of this is wrong. I'm sure some of it will be wrong, and I don't even know which parts. I don't really know any more than you do. This is all based on deduction, speculation, and a lot of wild-ass guesses. You still want to hear it?"
The other two moved closer. He could see that the woman's nametag read MORALES, and the other male cop was ROZZA. They both looked suspicious, but interested, and all three nodded and made positive noises.
Dan took a deep breath and blew most of it out. "Awright. I'm going to start by assuming she told us the truth." He waved down their protests. "I know, I know, you're convinced it was bullshit, but think about it. She flew away. She could have done that any time. Did she need to lie to you? And if she did want to lie, why that one? If she didn't want to make you suspicious, amnesia wasn't the best choice."
There was general agreement on that point, and a few guffaws. He continued, "So let's assume she was telling the truth, and then let's assume she was right about not being from this planet, and see where it goes." This time he didn't even try to suppress the protests.
After a minute Rozza summed it up. "So you think she's an alien."
He shook his head. "No, I think she's completely human, but she came here from some other star system—"
He interrupted nastily, "Yeah, well, how about the flying? She's gotta be from Krypton!"
Dan chuckled. He'd already thought about this. "I don't think she's Supergirl. I think she's got some sort of device or machine that lets her fly."
"I didn't see anything."
"It might not be anything we'd recognize. She could be wearing it under her dress, or maybe it's woven into her dress." Or it could be implanted into her body. Best not to mention that. Supergirl is one thing, but I don't want 'em thinking she's the Terminator. Besides, she's way prettier than Ahnold, or even Krystanna Loken. "Wherever she came from, they've got technology we've barely started to dream about."
Rozza's voice was completely flat. "Technology that lets her fly like Supergirl."
"And a lot of other things. Where did her sword go? That armor she was wearing?" Morales grumbled something, but that was all. "I was watching when she did…whatever, with the sword. It was there, and then it just wasn't. I'm sure she can bring it back just as easy."
Morales asked, "Back from where?"
Dan shook his head. "I don't know. Some writers have ideas, some scientists have theories about alternate dimensions, time displacement, phase shifting, but we don't know of any way to make things just…not be there."
Nelson said, "But you think she does."
"Well, whoever built the tech she's using did. Before she lost her memory she might have known, or not. You just used a computer, how much do you know about how it works? Could you explain it to a caveman?"
That made Rozza think, and worry. "Caveman? You think they're that far ahead of us?"
Dan shrugged. "Maybe ancient Roman. Thing is, she's got stuff that's so advanced we can't even guess how it works, or what it can do."
"But you still think she's human." Rozza sounded half-convinced now.
Dan nodded again. "Did you see anything non-human about her? I didn't. Except the hair, and we've got women right here dye their hair purple." He didn't mention his own conviction that her hair color owed nothing to dye. He laughed. "She didn't even have pointy ears, so she can't be an elf or a Vulcan."
Nelson had gone the other way, and looked even more skeptical. "How do you know she's not an alien and just looks human? How would you tell?"
Dan did his best to look positive, and convincing. "Because of some very well-respected theories that say there's no such thing as parallel or convergent evolution. Put simply, it means there's no reason for aliens, evolved on an alien planet, to look like us. Maybe sorta like us, but exactly? No way. Why would their faces, and their ears, be shaped exactly like ours? Why would their arms, hands and fingers be precisely like ours, with identical articulation and exactly the same proportions? They wouldn't. And as far as I could tell, she's completely human."
Rozza said snidely, "Oh, was that what you were doing? And here I thought you were just feeling her up. You've got the hots for her. Admit it."
Dan laughed. "Jeez, didn't you? She looked like Salli Richardson with purple hair. Don't try to tell me you weren't checking her out."
Rozza cringed as Morales laughed at him, forcing him to admit, "Yeah, okay, maybe a little." He cracked a sly grin. "Besides, she looked like Mila Kunis." That gave them all a chuckle.
Nelson got them back on track. "Okay, so you think she's human, and you think she's from outer space because she's got some fancy gadgets."
Dan raised one eyebrow, just like Spock. He'd taught himself to do that when he was twelve years old. "Ever see somebody from this planet just up and fly off without an airplane?" He pointed to the divided car. "Ever see anything like that?" He waved at the Crushed Crater. "Or that?"
They looked, too, and grudgingly admitted that they hadn't. He continued, "And I saw something else, up close. How many times did you shoot at her? Ten? Fifteen? And completely missed, every time? Do you believe you're all such lousy shots?"
This time they growled resentfully, defensive. Dan shook his head. "You didn't miss, the bullets did. Something stopped them before they hit her. Every time you shot at her, there was a purple flash in the air the size of a silver dollar." He added derisively, "That's a real Eisenhower dollar, not one of these new things that's the size of a quarter."
"What are you saying?" Nelson sounded like he had a pretty good idea, but wanted to hear it.
Dan nodded, acknowledging the straight line. "I'm saying a force shield. Deflector shield. Whatever. An invisible barrier that stops dangerous stuff from getting to her. I asked her about it, and she said it stops lasers and other directed energy weapons too. We didn't discuss what other kinds of energy weapons she meant. I asked her to expand it around me, before I stepped in front of her."
Officer Morales got it immediately. "So you were inside her…shield."
"Yep, I was perfectly safe." His mouth twisted. "It was still scary as hell." That got silence, and maybe some grudging respect.
She frowned. "But how could she be from outer space, if she's really human? It's a, a, paradox, that's what it is! It can't be."
Rozza nodded. "Yeah, you can't have it both ways, either she's from Earth, or she's from outer space. Can't be both."
Nelson looked…patient, and didn't say anything.
Dan held up three fingers. "I see three ways a real human being could come here from outer space. They're all pretty common themes in science fiction—"
Rozza snorted derisively. "Sci-fi? Star Wars? Now I gotta call bullshit—"
Dan cut him off in turn. "You see anything today that wasn't science fiction?"
Morales snickered, Rozza made a grumpy sound, and Nelson looked at him inquiringly.
He took their reactions as an invitation to continue. "Okay, the first one is the Lost Empire scenario. There was an advanced civilization in the distant past that sent people out to the stars and then vanished, leaving no trace of its existence, at least nothing we've ever found. There are a lot, a whole lot of reasons to rule it out."
He didn't give them time to object. "Second one is the Lost Colony. Our distant ancestors came here from some other planet, lost their technology and their history, and we just thought we were always here. The fact that our DNA is closely related to every other form of life on this planet from monkeys right down to bacteria kind of shoots that one in the head, too."
None of them were trying to interrupt now. "Third one is Human Transport, where a small number of people somehow got taken to another planet hundreds or thousands of years ago, and she's one of their descendants. That's the one I'm going with." He chuckled. "I think it's the least impossible possibility, anyway."
"How could they get to another planet?" Rozza sounded a little bewildered.
Dan shrugged. "It could be some sort of natural phenomenon we don't know about, or aliens could have done it."
"Now you're bringing in aliens, without any evidence," Nelson sounded very skeptical.
"She came from somewhere, somehow," he insisted. "If she came from our world, where did she get technology that must be thousands of years ahead of ours? If she didn't, where did she come from, how did she come to be there, and how did she get here? I think aliens are the least impossible explanation."
"Why would aliens take people to another planet?" Morales asked.
He shook his head. "Don't know. There could be a lot of reasons, but I remember a line in an old science fiction story: 'Thing about aliens is, they're alien'. We might never understand why they'd do things."
"But you think that's what happened," Nelson said.
Dan spread his hands in bemusement. "I can't think of anything that's not even more impossible."
They were interrupted by the arrival of three more police cars that parked a short distance away. Nelson pointed. "Rozza, go tell them thanks for the backup, but the suspect's gone. Have them set up a perimeter, and see what they can do about getting SDGE and the water department out here to shut off the gas and water. We got leaks, big ones."
Rozza nodded and trudged off, accompanied by crunching noises. Dan looked at the ground, then waved at the Crater. Water was beginning to collect in the middle. "I've got some ideas about that, too. I don't think she came here in a space ship. I think she was teleported. Not like they do in Star Trek, where they turn you into energy and send you down on a beam of light. I'd say it's more like Stargate, some sort of interdimensional transposition, where they connect two distant points in space, only they didn't need a gate on our end. I'm not sure why it made such a mess, though."
Now they both stared at him like they might be mentally measuring him for a straitjacket. He held one hand up, placatingly. "Hey, I said far out, remember? You all agreed." That got nods and chuckles, if not complete acceptance. Officer Morales looked like she could still be contemplating the straitjacket. Neither of them came up with any specific objections to such a load of weirdness.
Encouraged by their silence, he went on, "Well, that covers 'what' and 'how' so here's my wild-ass guess about 'why'. I think she wound up here because something went really wrong."
They both looked thoughtful at that, Nelson in particular, but neither of them objected. Dan continued, "Nothing about her being here makes any sense. Why would she be sent here? What's here that she, or anybody, would want? She didn't even know why she was here, and she's completely alone. She's got no backup, no support, no supplies, no contact with her people, and no clue what she's supposed to be doing."
Now Morales had an objection. "If she was telling the truth."
"Yeah, if." He nodded agreement. "I told you why I think she was, but you have to make up your own minds about it."
Nelson suddenly looked suspicious again. "If she lost her memory, why does she still know how to use her gadgets?"
"She probably trained and practiced with them until she didn't have to think about it," Dan speculated. "Have you ever heard about people with amnesia who can still, oh, play the piano, or juggle, or some other acquired skill? It's a different kind of memory, a lot harder to lose."
"If you say so."
Dan shrugged. "Look it up on Google. Anyway, that's what I think. Even if I'm wrong, it's a place to start."
Nelson summed it up. "You think she came here from some other planet, by mistake, with gadgets and weapons like we've never seen before…and you think she's human. You think you understand her."
"I'm sure she's human. That makes her as easy to understand as any other woman." He gave them an ironic chuckle. "Meaning, hardly at all."
He snorted at that. "You don't think she's a threat."
"You threatened her, you shot at her, but she only fought back once," he pointed at the split car, "and she told me she regretted it. She didn't kill anybody, or even hurt anybody. She could have killed all of us easily, but instead she flew away."
That gave Morales another thought. "She's got a sword that can chop a car in half from a hundred yards away, a force shield, a flying…something, who knows what else — you think she's some sort of soldier?"
Dan chuckled. "Maybe she was a secret agent. 'Bond. Jane Bond.' Super-spy from outer space." That got them all chuckling. After it died down he asked, "What now?"
Officer Nelson studied him critically for a long minute. "You've been pretty helpful, and I don't think you know any more than you've told us. You got here after we did, so you're not even a witness. You don't plan to leave town any time soon, do you?"
He shook his head. "No. I'll be here."
"Then I don't see any reason to detain you," Nelson concluded. He glanced at Morales, but she didn't disagree. "We might have more questions for you later, though."
"I'll give you the best answers I've got," he promised. "If you find her again, and you want my help, I'll do anything I can."
He nodded. "You are aware that if she contacts you again, you're required to report it."
Dan looked at him curiously. The way you phrased that, I don't think you expect me to actually do it. He responded with some careful phrasing of his own. "I'm the only person in the whole world she trusts, and I'm supposed to use that against her. To show her that she can't trust anybody. What kind of person would I be, if I did that to her?"
Nelson made another oblique statement. "If you don't cooperate with law enforcement, you can be charged as an accessory."
"If I turned her in, and somebody tried to arrest her, what do you think would happen?"
They all looked at the sectioned car and Nelson said reluctantly, "Nothing good. If they were lucky, she'd just fly away again."
Dan asked them, "Wouldn't it be best if we could resolve these problems and get her out of trouble with the law, so nobody needs to arrest her? That's what I'd like to see."
Officer Nelson scowled sourly. "I'm sure a Jane Doe warrant will be issued for her by tomorrow. If somebody wanted to get her out of trouble, they wouldn't have much time." He was clearly aware that Standard Police Procedures wouldn't be much use against a woman who could stop bullets, or just fly away if she felt like it.
"That's a problem, considering none of us know where she went, or how to find her," Dan groused. My only hope is that she finds me. Although if she's still jamming cell phone signals, that could provide a way to track her. They were sure to think of that, but just in case they didn't, he wasn't about to bring it up.
Morales didn't react. Nelson looked at him speculatively, but didn't say anything. He thinks I know more than I'm saying, but I don't think he's going to call me on it. It looks like he's going to wait, and see what happens.
"Still going on your bike ride?" was what Officer Nelson finally asked.
Dan frowned. "If the damn thing starts. If not, I'll be dealing with a dead bike. If it does…it's still a nice day, and now I've got a lot to think about. Either way, I should be home this afternoon."
"You'll need this." He picked up the wallet and driver's license and held them out.
"Thanks." Dan slid the license into its holder and put the wallet back in his inside jacket pocket. He looked around, and then up. "Kind of hard to believe that all actually happened, now."
Both cops chuckled without humor and Nelson tapped the squarish black camera on his chest. "Got the proof right here." Morales nodded agreement. He looked around and said resignedly, "Well, we've got a…a scene to deal with. Maybe not a crime scene, but it's sure as hell a scene. Good day, Mister Evans."
He nodded. "Bye." They all turned and walked away.
Dan thought furiously but uselessly on the walk back to his motorcycle. There simply wasn't anything he could do towards finding the purple-haired woman. This zone of destruction was their only point of contact, and she wouldn't come back here. If the bike started, going for a long ride would be no more or less constructive than anything else he could do. She would have to find him. If she wanted to.
His motorcycle sat in the parking space, exactly where he'd left it. The car that had stopped in the road earlier was gone. He got on the bike, stuck the key in the ignition switch and hesitated, nervously wondering what would happen. The usual lights came on when he turned it. He pushed the starter button, it cranked for a few seconds and the engine fired right up.
He grinned and chuckled with relief. Putting the sunglasses and helmet back on took less than a minute. Shifting into first gear, he rode to the driveway and looked both ways before deciding to backtrack and avoid going through the edge of the crater. Old 94 still sounded good, and there were a number of other ways to get there.
He mostly stayed off the highways, preferring the larger secondary roads. Traffic was pleasantly sparse, and half an hour later he was cruising at a comfortable speed through the rural hills, the tranquil morning disturbed only by the occasional speed demon, or small groups of them, zooming past on their overpowered 'rocket bikes'. Once upon a time, that might have been him, but these days the notion of speed just for its own sake held little appeal. He stayed to the right side of the lane to give them room; no sense risking a collision.
His thoughts still churned ineffectually, keeping him from finding the relaxation that had been his original intent. He couldn't stop trying to think of a way to find the strange woman, even knowing that there was nothing he could do. It was an insoluble problem but he couldn't help picking at it.
As he rounded a curve, he saw somebody standing beside the road up ahead. He hit the brakes just as a gust of wind caught long purple hair. He pulled off the road and stopped a few feet from her. She had changed from her fancy glowing dress into a near copy of his own clothes. Black leather jacket, dark blue pants, even a feminine version of his motorcycle boots. Her blouse was purple, instead of green like his shirt. She gave him a dazzling smile as he dropped the kickstand, shut off the engine and hopped off the bike.
Author's Notes
As you may have noticed, this is not really Date A Live. I took some of the basic ideas, and went in a different direction. The main character is similar to Tohka, but she's not the same. Her background is completely different, and her powers come from a different source. She can't do some of the things Tohka does. Her hair is a much brighter purple, instead of almost black. She doesn't have any culturally-programmed responses to social situations, because she doesn't have any memories.