Another Time, Another Place by Y. M. Roger Alternate Facts contest entry |
I checked the rear-view mirror one last time as I turned onto the narrow dirt road that my GPS insisted I should. With the farewell to asphalt, I had this vision of the realtor’s snide face at the closing.“You do realize, Ms. von Trappe, that neither my company nor Mr. Meadows have any liability here?” Gosh, he had the most awful personality in dealing with people. “Buying a property sight unseen leaves you responsible for any expenses incurred from this point forward. My client is free and clear.” I’d nodded. Not like I had much of a choice, but the owner seemed genuine enough in our earlier interactions. He’d said the house was in definite need of repairs but that it should be ‘livable’. But I wasn’t wearing rose-colored glasses here – his assessment was assuming no natural disaster had hit as Mr. Meadows hadn’t even been to the property in nearly twenty years since his wife passed. “Yeah, I understand.” I’d kept everything about myself cordial but completely detached. I didn’t want anyone here to remember anything about me beyond this simple purchase transaction. Not anything. We both looked at our phones when the bank notifications echoed loudly in the small conference room. The realtor smiled his smug and satisfied grin, but my entire insides relaxed. “Transfer confirmed.” I’m pretty sure his voice could not have gotten any more irritating. “Here are the keys, missy.” What a condescending jerk! But I had smiled and taken them calmly from him. “Thank you.” He just sniffed as he gathered up all the papers we’d just signed, shaking his head in a show of disapproval. “For some reason, Mr. Meadows has arranged for the electricity and water to be turned on tomorrow for you.” “Please thank him for me.” I stuffed all of my official copies into my folder. He hadn’t acknowledged that last comment as he exited the room. Following the road into the trees, I shook my head to clear any doubts that had been trying to creep up on me. The house and forty-two acres were now the property of one Eloise von Trappe, my new identity thanks to the modern world of dark web technology. And, truth be known, I was beginning to get comfortable in my new Goth look complete with faux tattoos, a lot of very interesting jewelry, and shiny blue-black dyed hair cut in the choppiest way my OCD-self could stand to look at in the mirror. I looked nothing like the reserved, conservative twenty-eight-year-old that had just escaped The Program. It was a new day. Or late evening, rather, as I followed the dirt road deep into nowhere – the shadows lengthening even as I drove. To be honest, there was a certain air of relaxation I felt knowing that there was no one out here but me. No one to make sure I ate the right amount of calories. No one monitoring my water intake. No new intercepted codes in which to immerse myself for a chance to earn a weekend pass (complete with Program bodyguards). Sure, there was also the trepidation that I was out here completely alone. And who knew what animals lurked in the dense forest on either side of this…road, if that was what one would call it. Although, the GPS clearly identified it as Salter Creek Road, so it had to be on some map somewhere. And then my mind began wondering through the many news stories about females being abducted all across the country, never to be heard from again…I swallowed hard. My thoughts were thankfully derailed by an electronic voice that seemed a lot louder than it probably was… You have arrived at your destination. Your destination is on the right. I squinted at the even narrower dirt driveway to my right. The one with the huge pine tree felled across it. “And so it begins.” I chuckled to myself. “Just call me Lei– ” I bit my lip as I opened the door and stepped out. That wasn’t me anymore. I was no longer Leila Stevens, top secret cypher and code-breaking expert from The Program. I cleared my throat as I shut the front door and opened the back. I was now Eloise von Trappe, introverted botanist (Funny, I knew absolutely nothing about plants!) who just wanted to be left alone and fix up her newly-purchased old, abandoned house. “Let’s try that again, von Trappe,” I chastised my new self. That name would take some getting used to, but it seemed an appropriate choice at the time. I reached in the backseat and grabbed the sleeping bag and my backpack that contained everything I owned in the world (plus snacks). Hoisting it over one shoulder, I stood and shut the back door. “Just call me Eloise of the Evergreen Forest!” The driveway quickly became quite a steep climb, and I wondered if the car would have been able to make it had the tree not been in the way. When the curvature in the driveway ended, the house finally came into view. And all those whispering doubts began screaming inside my head. Immediately, I was transported back in time ten years to the day when I was told that if I did not join The Program, my mathematics scholarship would be rescinded. Okay, so maybe they didn’t come right out and say those exact words, but that’s what I and my mother, Lord rest her soul, had heard. Either Leila agrees to work in our Program as a human cypher or she’ll never see the inside of a university classroom. Yep, my stomach had felt like lead at that moment, too – the moment my life had ceased to be my own. The Program had only granted me one full day’s leave when Mom had passed because ‘we were on a deadline’ and I was ‘crucial to the critical path’. That is, whatever the critical path had been at the time because it changed regularly. There was always another intelligence fire that needed a code broken, or another crime spree pattern that needed the next crime predicted, or another crowd panic pattern that needed predicting based on past behavior and current culture, or who the heck knew what else. Some folks specialized in one or another area of analysis. I did it all because I could. I was told I was special. I was told I was golden. I was told no one had ever come close to my cognitive cypher abilities. I believed them just about as much as I believed that they were always looking out for my well-being. Bullshit. All of it was bullshit, and I knew it. They were looking out for themselves. For The Program. This time, I told the doubts to either shut up or get out. That I was not afraid. That I was doing this. Yes, I would concede that the two-storey, wooden house in front of me looked like it was about to fall down. Maybe it would look better in the light of day – it was practically night. Aaaand, perhaps, it might take more cash to fix it up than I had managed to ‘extract’ at the last ATM. In answer to that thought, a sizeable bird pulled itself out of a hole in the roof and squawked at me as it flew past. I sighed. Perhaps a whole lot more cash. I managed a chuckle as I continued to march toward the structure. Either way, it was better than the alternative. Yep, I could work with all of those negatives because I was a free woman. An intelligent and quite tech-savvy free woman. Suddenly, the ground began to rumble. It wasn’t violent, but it was there. It rolled in slowly and then it was gone. Neither the birds nor the multitude of insects had stopped their nighttime-welcome songs. Huh. I’d have to look up seismic activity in the area. Which brought up another question: Would I actually be able to get an ISP out here? I chuckled again as I mounted the front porch. “Oh, yeah.” I pulled the pet leash free of my jeans pocket – the thing that served all good Goths as their key chain – and inserted the key into the lock. “Eloise of the Evergreens to be sure!” ~~~~~ Did you know that night time in the middle of nowhere gets really, really dark? Pitch black to be exact. At least there was a bit of skyglow that lit the room for a while as the last sun’s ray was blocked by the mountain that faced the house. I hadn’t realized this place was nestled in its own little valley of sorts. Nothing Eloise of the Evergreens couldn’t handle, though…right? I didn’t want to burn my phone batteries (even though I’d brought extras) using it as a flashlight, so I just opened the sleeping bag and curled up on the plastic-covered couch. Seems Mr. Meadows had been honest: the house was fully furnished just like he’d left it twenty years ago. But I would explore that tomorrow when the sun came up and the electricity was turned on. Tonight, I just wanted to go to sleep…and it didn’t take long to get there. ~~~~~ But I didn’t sleep well, if at all, except for that first hour or two. There had been strange noises that resembled footsteps and metal grating on metal a number of times throughout the dark night. One time, I was quite sure I heard some sort of grunting followed by a door slamming. I reassured myself that the door slam was impossible because the one thing I did do before laying down was make sure I re-locked the deadbolt in the front door. But the most disconcerting thing was the rumbling. It was always paired closely with those other noises and then it would dissipate almost as quickly as it had begun. And, after experiencing it a few times, I wasn’t convinced that it was seismic, but I certainly couldn’t figure out what else it would be. There were no mining operations in the area, and this was hell and gone from any military bases. So, I had just lain there, silent and still, because there’d been no way I was getting up in the veritable blackness to investigate any of it. “Everything always looks brighter in the morning,” I mumbled groggily to myself as I checked the weather and my emails. Of course, I was just happy that I could begin to see around the room with the early sunlight that had appeared in the sky. I laughed as I read the message from the electric company. No electricity for at least three to five business days as there were no longer active lines on Salter Creek Road. Hooray…not. In the midst of my self-pity party, I realized I had to go to the bathroom. Pocketing my phone, I grabbed the tissues out of my backpack along with my Coca-Cola I’d brought and headed out toward the back of the house. Eloise of the Forest, right? And no running water… But the kitchen area brought me up short. It wasn’t the old stove that would probably never work again or the sink that had vines growing out of it. No, it was the huge, room-size metal cage that took up the whole breakfast nook area. Oh, I’m not talking cute little rabbit cage here. I’m talking large zoo animal, thick-metal-bars cage complete with some complicated cypher lock. And the most unusual thing about that lock? There were no actual digits. It was covered in symbols or words (I couldn’t tell at first perusal) that I could not begin to identify. It was a whole bunch of squiggles and geometric shapes. At least the cage was empty...? Okay, yeah, that would be my self-assuring take away for the time being. But the lock was definitely active because a bright orange light shone from underneath each symbol and the large bright rectangle to the right of them glowed neon green. Of course, my cypher mind was drawn to the lock as a child to candy until my body reminded it of our intended destination: I really had to pee! Shaking myself out of my curiosity trance, I practically dove for the back door and ran out behind the nearest tree. I had the good sense to take my phone out of my pocket before tossing the tissues and Coke aside. I lowered my jeans as quickly as possible and my backside immediately after … and sighed in relief. Seconds in, however, I found myself laughing at the fact that I’d hidden behind the tree for no reason! “Who’s gonna see, ya crazy Goth girl?” As if in answer, another round of rumbling began. I looked around, finishing up as quickly as I could. But the rumbling had passed by the time I’d gotten my pants back up. I was about to just shrug it off again – after all, that locked cage in my kitchen still required my attention – when something caught my eye. At first, it looked like a tree stump or an old fence post, but then my pattern-oriented brain determined that it stood in the exact center of a circular clearing about fifteen feet in diameter. Huh. I stepped toward it and stopped about a foot or so from it because the thing was clearly not organic, and it was topped with the same ‘lock face’ as was on the cage. Hmmm, I was intrigued alright, and I could not resist getting a closer look. Studying it visually, I opened my Coke and drank a few big swallows hoping the caffeine would kick in soon. I knew there had to be an activation code, and my brain began analyzing how some symbols were a bit more faded than others. Hmmmm. I capped the Coke, squinted my eyes in concentration, and propped my palm on the rectangle for support as I focused. Suddenly, the rumbling returned, and a distinct feel of low-voltage electricity coated my entire body. I caught my breath, but that was all I had time for before the yard disappeared. Next thing I knew, my butt hit the seat on what reminded me of one of the subway cars in D.C. But there were no windows here, and the lights seemed three or four times brighter such that I could barely see. “What the hell…?” I tried to stand, but, with nothing to hold onto, I was thrown back into the rather large seat with considerable force as the vehicle’s speed increased in the direction I was facing. My panic was rising faster than my curiosity when a gruff ‘voice’ interrupted my looming hysteria. “Grwwwwddher murbuuudree, fthhheeeepps?” Before I could even begin to process that nonsensical speech, a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses plopped into my lap, and the car was filled with a burbling that my disoriented brain labeled as some sort of laughter. Why? I did not know, but it just seemed appropriate… “Mugggduerr, fthhheeeepps!” More nonsensical noises that sounded like a large man trying to yell at me through Jell-O. “Grwwwwddher sssigtth ferreezzzzz!” I put the glasses on. After last night in the blinding blackness, I wasn’t about to spend time in the blinding brightness if I didn’t have to. And then I almost wished I hadn’t. Because I could now clearly see the subway-operator – the larger-than-myself, greenish-brown skinned with-spikes-protruding-from-his-head subway operator! Then I glanced up to his rearview mirror where he was clearly eyeing me with a set of reptilian-like amber eyes that topped his lizard-shaped face. His dark gray lips were bared to reveal some serious-looking teeth, and he looked ready to eat me… “Fthhhheeepps?” He grumbled with much less fervor this time. In fact, I’d say it was close to the inflection of a question. I didn’t scream, and I didn’t try to get up again because I was still pinned in place by the car’s velocity – I could feel it. But I did pinch the hell out of my arm to make myself wake up because this had to be a freaking dream. The pinching had always worked for my nightmares back in The Program… “Wake up! Wake up!” I mumbled to myself as I kept pinching and my heart rate kept increasing. I knew my wrist was going to bruise, but I didn’t care – I just wanted to wake up from this insanity. That’s when his lip fell to cover those deadly looking teeth and what my mind equated to his own brand of real panic flashed across his lizardly features. His skin seemed to brighten into much greener tones, and he pressed some big button on his control panel. All the lights in the ‘car’ went pink, and my dark glasses made things too dark. As I removed the glasses, he grabbed some communication orb and began growling more gibberish, looking rapidly yet methodically between his control panel and my reflection in his rearview mirror. He continued to make minor adjustments to the panel as he ‘spoke’. I felt our speed slowing, and I was able to sit up straight. My body registered the moment I could stand and run for it, but my panicked brain realized there was nowhere to run. Not only did this thing have no windows, but it had no door. I was trapped with Leo the Lizard. And, no, I had no idea of his name at that point, but Leo it would be for now. As he stood, I realized I was on a platform of sorts and that his operator’s chair had been a few feet lower because, stepping up, Leo was a good eight-plus feet tall – easily more than two feet taller than my scrawny five-foot-five self. But even with those deadly-looking claws, his approach reminded me of a big man trying to coax a feral cat…and I was the cat. When he grumbled some more gibberish and took a step toward me, I leapt up and scrambled over the back of the seat. I needed to put some distance between us. Yeah, Goth girl had taken personal defense training in The Program – it had been mandatory – and the first rule of self-defense is to get away if you can. That had always been my go-to choice. Finally, our forward motion stopped as he took another step toward me but also somewhat sideways, presumably to try to pin me in. It was then that I noticed his large tail, and I finally processed that Leo wasn’t a lizard at all, he was a dinosaur! I leapt back over my seat and dove into his abandoned driver’s chair and started pushing every button and twisting every knob I could. “Help! Somebody help me, please!” I shouted into the orb I’d seen Leo communicate into earlier. Some strange sounding noises that might have been music had I been in the mood began blaring throughout the enclosed area. Then a voice, if that’s what it could be called, began chirping through the small speaker in the driver’s control panel. It sounded like a collection of cicadas and crickets although I could pick out distinctive clicks in the cacophony as well. Either way, it did not resemble Leo’s growly sounds at all! Before I could hope to accomplish anything else, Leo lunged toward me and tried to grab my shirt. I yanked away and scrambled out from under him, ripping and leaving my shirt in his claws. Grateful for the Goth choice of layered clothing, I leapt back up on the platform and darted toward the back. As I scrambled, I ran my hand along the wall in desperate search for a door or any way out. I stopped short of pinning myself against the back wall and turned just as Leo righted himself down beside the driver’s chair. He began to step up to the platform area when I decided it was time to negotiate, if that were even possible. “Stop!” I put my hand out like some traffic cop. Leo froze, and we just stood there staring at each other for a few seconds, that awful music-like din blaring around us and that insistent chirpy-voice going on and on. But, of course, my brain had already focused on the voice and found one pattern that was repeated in-between the others. I put my hands over my ears. I waved my hand intermittently in Leo’s direction to indicate that he turn off the terrible music-noise and attempted, aloud, to put together that one, distinct pattern of clicks and chirps – the one the chirpy voice kept repeating. To myself, I sounded more like a sick chicken scratching in a bed of click-beetles, but I didn’t care. That particular pattern must have some sort of meaning to Leo – it had to. My babbling seemed to get Leo’s attention, so I repeated my chicken-beetle noises. Again, I motioned for him to kill the horrible music-noise that threatened my hearing and my sanity. Leo side-stepped to his control panel, his clawed hands deftly executing a series of adjustments, and all the noise ceased. I felt my body relax slightly as a breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding rushed out of me, and I lowered my hands from my ears. I nodded my head and tried to smile, but my nerves had me shaking like a leaf. I pointed directly at Leo and, again, I made that one distinct combination of chicken and beetles sounds. As I did so, I raised my eyebrows at him in question. He raised his clawed hand to his chest and patted it, nodding slowly. He bared his teeth as they had been when I first put on the glasses, and that burbling I’d heard earlier sounded throughout the space again. Only this time, I knew it was laughter because Leo’s entire torso shook with the sound. He continued to laugh a bit more before pointing at me. As he did so, he made a grunting sound that my crazy brain registered as “and yours?” I patted my chest. “Leila.” Leo laughed a bit more and then put his hands on either side of his jaw about what would be considered the corners of his mouth. He closed his eyes like he was deep in concentration. “AaaaaayRuuh.” He opened his eyes. I laughed nervously and nodded quickly over and over again at the most beautiful pronunciation of my name I’d ever heard. “Yes.” I patted my chest repeatedly and tried to sound and look as friendly as possible. “Leila.” Good Lord, I was talking to an intelligent dinosaur! Leo’s whole body seemed to relax, his skin fading back to a deeper brown. But before we had a chance to ‘converse’ further, the enclosed space exploded outward, and Leo and I were surrounded on three sides by heavily armed sol-…wait. Those weren’t soldiers that I recognized – they only partially stood upright and had multiple legs. Their faces were… no! They were bugs – really big bugs! Okay, so they weren’t quite as big as I was, but a four-foot bug is still a big bug especially when it is armed! And, yes, they had their weapons – or what I surmised to be weapons – trained on me. Forgetting all about the unarmed Leo, I started backing toward the one wall that remained behind me. Self-defense classes wouldn’t help me here. I pinched myself very hard one more time in the event that such a desperate measure would work. It did not. “Oh, God, I really don’t want to die.” I whispered. My stomach lurched, and I shook my head, wishing beyond hope that this was one of The Program’s mental punishments for my escape last week. Moving faster than I would have thought possible, Leo was in front of me, his big tail knocking me sideways as he turned to face the Bug Patrol. I didn’t have time to say or do anything except squeal in surprise as he grabbed my arm to keep me from falling backward. Then he pushed me onto the floor behind the seats. He pointed at me and hollered more of his growly language I didn’t understand, but the demanding message was clear: stay down. I could do that. No problem. Leo reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out some sort of bright purple, octagon-shaped jewel. He held it up high in one hand and started spouting off all sorts of his growls and gurgles with very forceful inflections. Peeking around the base of the seating, I watched the bug patrol slowly lower their weapons as their ranks parted to allow a somewhat taller yet hefty-looking fellow through. Towering a good foot or more above the bugs, he carried his large stature quite gracefully, and he was flanked on either side by two smaller dinosaur characters. Clad in dark gray, I noticed the large fellow’s arms were longer and his legs shorter than that of a man and, as he drew nearer, he looked to have a beard and a… oh, dear. He wasn’t a man at all – he was an orangutan. Of course he was. Because that made just as much sense as everything else. I knew pinching wouldn’t do any good at this point. I closed my eyes for a moment to breathe. I needed to concentrate on speech patterns, find other words – maybe it wouldn’t do any good, but it was what I knew, and it allowed me to center my anxiety somewhere. As the guy in gray reached the side of what was left of our vehicle, he began conversing with Leo. Although I was just beginning to find small pieces of recognition to Leo’s speech patterns, I found it easier to piece-down Clyde’s. Again, I had no idea of his real name, but Clyde it would be for now. With my brain fully engaged in code-recognition, their voices bombarded me faster than any exercise at The Program. Knowing that my mind worked better without my hindering it, I disengaged my wandering thoughts from the cypher process as I had always done for auditory exercises back in The Program. I pulled myself up to sit with my back against the seats, still hidden from Clyde and the Bug Patrol. Oh, and Clyde’s two dinosaur minions. They would make a bigger hit movie than Despicable Me, I mused. I pictured an entire cartoon lab filled with the smaller dinosaurs and Clyde presiding over the mayhem they would cause. I chuffed amusedly to myself. I think Leo heard and looked down at me, but I didn’t pay him much mind because Clyde picked up their conversation again. I looked down at my thin, black undershirt, my ripped and bleach-scarred jeans, and my bare feet complete with toe rings and Sharpie marker tattoos. I held out my hands to examine my neatly-painted black nails, admiring my spider and web tattoo that ran nearly the entire length of my left arm. The entire motif had taken me a good couple of hours to draw. I had thought about doing it in red when it started to fade in a week or two... I shook my head in a distracted laugh. “Not likely now,” I mumbled. I wondered if the cage in my kitchen had been for people like me. But then I ventured into questioning where this vehicle had come from? I traced the spider web as I thought back to the final minutes I had still been on my property and felt something sticky on my arm. What in the world was…? My Coke. I guess I dropped it when– Female. Fault. See. No. Eliminate. No. Spoke. Need. Female. Eliminate. Understood. No. Our. No. Team. My brain had identified some patterns. I closed my eyes and returned my full attention to Clyde and Leo’s conversation, allowing my brain to fill in the words it had begun to recognize. Of course, my brain’s understanding inserted the English words – they were still speaking completely in their own language. [Leo] “growlygrowly…My…growly…Spoke…growly…Understood…No Eliminate…growly” [Clyde] “ugghdoknork…No Fault…uggsanddoks…No Spoke…Need No Female Our…uggsanddoks…Yes Eliminate” [Leo] (sounding exasperated, if that was possible) “No Eliminate… growly… See Female Understood My… growlygrowly… No Fault…growly… My Team… growly… No Need Eliminate…growlygrowls” They were talking about eliminating a female…me! Panicking, I knelt up and peered over the seat, ready to duck back down at the slightest indication of trouble. Or weapons fire. “No, Clyde!” I hollered and the entire area fell silent. “You will not be eliminating this female!” I ducked down and peered up at Leo. I patted my chest and shook my head. “Not Leila, Leo! You can’t let them eliminate Leila! I’ll be on your team, I promise.” I had no freaking idea what I was promising, honestly, but I’d say just about anything to stop this ‘elimination’ talk. I peered back over the seats at Clyde who now wore a face of shock that I would not have imagined possible on his hard features. Even the Bug Patrol gaped at me with their ‘mouths’ hanging open, if that’s what those gaps near their proboscides were. “Look, Clyde!” I continued, not even attempting to negotiate, “Leo here picked me up – I didn’t come looking for you! Hell, I didn’t even buy a ticket for this crazy ride – all I did was buy a house!” I was shaking again, and I couldn’t seem to stop this time. “An old, broken down house with a cage in the kitchen and birds that fly out of the freaking roof!” Clyde said something to his minions and they took off at full sprint on those strong hind legs. The crowds that had begun to gather parted for their passage, and they disappeared through the big double doors at the back of the large room. “Probably off to get some special thing to ‘eliminate’ me with.” I chuckled darkly to myself as I sat back down and brought my knees up to rest my chin on. My shaking continued and the tears had started to fall. I’d gotten out of The Program only to end up in some twisted sort of Hell. Dinosaurs. Insects. Apes. All of them so far advanced that I couldn’t even begin to guess how any of this had happened. Or where I actually was. But figuring out any of that wasn’t going to matter since I was probably going to die here. Fitting, I supposed, since The Program had not allowed me to go to church in years. What was the basic rule they’d pounded into my head in Sunday School as a little kid? Go to church, or you’ll go to Hell! Well, I was finding out that was the truth today, wasn’t I? I laughed a wet and tearful laugh as I watched a pair of small, dinosaur-minion feet approach Leo’s much larger clawed feet. They retreated almost as quickly as they had come. Suddenly, Leo’s face was right in front of mine. I pulled my head upright and let my eyes examine his face up close like this. His amber eyes with that reptilian slit really weren’t that threatening. Why? I don’t know – I just didn’t feel as though he was dangerous…at least not to me. He had wart-like protrusions across his snout with those on his forehead getting larger as they transitioned into the spikes that I knew covered the back of his head. He had an odor about him that my olfactory couldn’t decide was fishy or floral…weird, huh? Although he spoke in his usual growly manner, my brain comprehended the short series of growls as “No Eliminate, AaaaaayRuuh” as he shook his head slowly and bared his teeth. A smile. That was Leo’s smile. I chuckled and nodded as I wiped my eyes and face quickly on my jeans and sat up straight. Then I noticed the thick, black metal bracelet he held in his hand. My panic must have registered on my face because Leo dropped the bracelet immediately and held up his wrist to show me an exact replica on his own arm. “See. My…growlygrowl.” He pointed to his bracelet and then reached slowly down to retrieve the one he dropped. “AaaaaayRuuh…growlygrowl.” But those ‘growlies’ had been exactly the same, so I guessed it was the name of whatever the bracelet was. Still unsure, I held up a finger to Leo to indicate that he pause for a moment. Then I knelt up to peer cautiously over the seats again. The crowd had increased and now had other species of animals mixed in with the three I had already identified. It looked like some masquerade ball or a Disney-adaptation of some whacky fairy tale. Only it was real – very, very real. Maybe this wasn’t Hell after all – maybe I had simply fallen down the rabbit hole like Alice… I shook my head gently, pulling my focus back to the matter at hand. I strained to get a good look at their arms. Sure enough, every creature out there that I could see had a black bracelet on some part of a limb. Satisfied, I sat back down. Leo gurgled one of his small laughs when I held out my arm. “Grwwnnther Fmurepps … My Team Our…growlygrowly,” he said as he clasped the bracelet onto my arm. He held my hand tightly as the bracelet shocked me a few times, and I tried to pull away from him. I began to fight him. But he held firm to my arm and continued to speak over my struggles. “growlygrowlGrndhefmurruusst and acclimate you could understand me.” I froze – my ears and my brain in shock as I narrowed my eyes at Leo. “What did you say?” I asked in complete awe. Leo gurgled again, his teeth fully bared this time as he released my arm. “I said” – He stood and offered me a hand – “If you would stay still and give it time to adjust and acclimate you could understand me.” He pulled me up to a standing position beside him. The masquerade ball had not broken up yet since the main attraction – that would be me – was still there to gawk at. “Oh.” I was so very overwhelmed. “Now.” Leo motioned me forward, although I was hesitant to approach Clyde since he had wanted me eliminated. “Who is Leo?” I stopped and smiled sheepishly. I was about to answer when a much friendlier sounding Clyde added, “And who is this Clyde?” “Ummmm…” My stomach growled loudly. It obviously was in need of more than a few swallows of Coca-Cola. “Could I get something to eat first?” Even the Bug Patrol laughed. ~~~~~ From that point forward, my ‘processing in‘ was pretty standard. That is to say, it was quite boring. I suppose red tape and bureaucratic paperwork is legitimately a universal thing. But I will say that, without a doubt, I am excited to be part of this particular program. And, even though by now I’m sure the birds occupy three-fourths or more of Mr. Meadows’ (my!) aging house, it provides a great holding cell location for violators awaiting extradition with the newly-added bonus of electricity and running water. You see, the EP Office of Special Investigations is amazing! My Team Lead, Leo – whose real name translates to Borgorgd – insists that the excitement will wear off soon enough. And, yeah, he lets me call him Leo – it’s our thing, I suppose. Besides, he looks out for the lone human in this grand scheme because, according to Leo, I’m his Team’s ‘amazing living cypher’ and, more importantly, his friend. And he’s definitely mine. Oh, and as I’m sure you’re wondering, EP stands for Evolutionary Pathways. Remember how we were taught that the conditions for human evolution had to be perfect to bring us to where we are today? Well, turns out those experts were one hundred percent correct…on that part, at least. Because there are multiple Evolutionary Pathways in existence out there – each following its own timeline – sort of like parallel universes. For instance, in Leo’s EP, conditions were perfect for dinosaur evolution such that dinosaurs evolved into the dominant and, eventually, the most advanced species. Same goes for apes on the Ape EP. Or for insects on the Insect EP. And all of these countless EP’s can be accessed by the Portal Vehicle System (PVS) – the one whose ‘cars’ have no doors or windows and feature some of the most awful music-noise ever composed. I’ve been assured that it sounds better under water since the composer was a shark, although I’ve never been bored enough to find out. The PVS was designed by EP Head-Quarters ages ago. I haven’t been here long enough to learn the entire history of EP-HQ, but I know it’s been here for nearly seven hundred Earth years. Some species have been working here longer than others. Some of them I’d never heard of because they had gone extinct millions of years ago on the Human EP. And I’m pretty sure one of the dinosaurs invented the PVS and, thus, founded the EP-HQ. From what I can glean, the Dinosaur EP is the longest, or the oldest, however you prefer to look at it. As such, there are more dinosaurs throughout the ranks of EP-HQ than any other species. So, in technical terms, the statement that ‘dinosaurs died out millions of years ago’ is a fallacy due to the fact that humans do not fully comprehend the universe as it truly exists. But, just as your children believe in Santa Clause when they are little, we here at EP-HQ are willing to allow the belief to linger just a bit longer… until you are old enough to learn the truth.
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Y. M. Roger
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