In The Beginning...
©Mimi Wolske, March-April
2014
All Rights Reserved
The report sent to me stated on line 49:
It was created from some
sort of organic life substance, but there was intelligence behind its creation.
Good God! It was everything that was against nature as humans
know it and I wonder what the hell I'm going to do if this one evolves into
something else on my watch.
It can only be referred
to as the Big Bang of the Brain.
Those words pop out on line 129 because I never subscribed
to the Big Bang theory. I know; that puts me with all those religious fanatics
of past centuries just before the war. But, I mean, chimps have problems with
the abstract—even when they are taught our language, so how could I believe?
Okay, I'll give you Dali. That man was surreal enough to have gone through some
sort of mythological bang or intervention by ETs.
"You have to be kidding!" I throw the report on
the ground. In all probability, this thing in my partner's arms is going to have
the same DNA as humans. Seriously. These theorists and scientists want me to
believe some alien genes were grafted into humans by the very beings this thing
was spawned from?
"I did not come
from that!" I grumble, and I spin to face Ren and the dead monster lying
behind him. I point a nervous finger at thing on the ground.
Renardo Gumbo is the name Ren gave me when we first met, but
we both know I don't believe him. He says, "How can you say that? Just
look at this baby. It looks every bit as human as you."
For a single guy, he's holding that thing pretty
confidently. But, Ren isn't one of those pre-twenty-fourth century macho types...at
least not when it's just the two of us.
"I need proof, not theory," I complain, and reach
into my bag. I need my drugs; I'm getting what the medical authority can only
call something close to a migraine. Pointing at the dead thing that had given
birth to the surviving thing in Ren's arms, I say, "It's going to grow up
and look like that!"
I pop two Topamax tabs and swallow. It's an antiseizure
med, but they'd prescribed all the Triptans before any medical authority would
admit nothing seemed to work. Damn! I kept telling them that. I'll never
understand why doctors don't listen.
My names Morgan, I'm thirty-two, still single—by choice, thank
you very much—and work for INALSEAD. That's the acronym for International Alien
Search and Detain. It's sort of like the bounty hunters of twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, only we go after beings who mate with humans.
Some human guys get high and they'll screw anything. Even
an ugly alien.
It's the male aliens that scare me. Well, I've seen the
length of their reproductive organ. Good Lord! It must be two feet long.
Blaahhhhh. That kind of crap gives me the shivers and makes
me want to puke.
Well, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter what I think.
Alien sex is against international law.
"Man! I never knew you were prejudice!" He shakes
his head and exhales a heavy sigh of disbelief. "Man!"
His laser gun slings low on his hip, he draws that little being
closer to his chest, turns his back to me, and walks away. He couldn't look
further from some modern-day cowboy rounding up aliens.
"Where you going? Get back here!"
"I'm taking this baby to the ship where it's warm and
where I can find something to wrap it in."
We round up law-breaking aliens, not alien orphans. I can
see Ren getting too attached and I have to figure out a way to get rid of that
thing without seeming I have any animosity towards its.
Its kind. Ha! Blasted aliens went from simple bacteria-like
organisms to beings far more complex than humans. They brought their diseases
to this planet and killed off about a third of the world's population, and not
even the strongest anti-alien-biotic works on them. After two centuries, we're still trying to coexist. They're just existing.
Enough postulating. I take off in a walk-run over the large
rocks so I can catch up with them.
"You know that thing has a dad that's probably still
living—if its mother didn't eat him."
Ren ignores me and keeps walking. We're close to the ship
when he rounds on me. His head cocks to one side and by the look in his eyes, I
know I'd give into any request from him.
"What?"
"They don't eat us and you know that. Your prejudice is
still showing. Or, should I say your ignorance?"
"Fine! Sorry. You just don't understand what it's like
trying to find your place in this world when you're half alien, half human."
I think the Topamax is beginning to kick in. I have that
distinctive ear ringing and it's becoming difficult to concentrate and keep
focused. God, I love drugs that work.
"If you really mean
that, you'll marry me and then we can adopt this cutie."
I make a dead stop in my tracks.
Marriage?
To Ren, who's one of the few men on this planet who's a one-hundred-percent-certified-card-carrying
human being? Is he serious?
"Are you serious?"
To Be Continued
