Kaito dropped soundlessly to his knees, all the better to inspect this strange creature. "I knew it," he whispered. "I knew aliens existed!"
The grey creature didn't look very impressed. But it was hard to discern any particular expression on its face, which was abnormally large and hairless, with twin vertical slits for a nose. Its eyes were twice the usual size, and on its forehead was a brilliant blue mark – a pattern of intricately overlapping circles and triangles. Its skin was the color of newly laid cement. If it was a child, it was certainly a grotesquely malformed one. Which could explain why it had been hiding in a sewer.
Or it was an alien, like Kaito had suggested. He knew plenty about them, and this was a perfect example of the Grey variety. It was even dressed in some silvery type of material, which corresponded perfectly with his knowledge.
There was a soft sighing noise as Abigail slumped to the ground in a dead faint, wings askew. Kaito glanced at her once, mentally shaking his head. She was clever, but a bit narrow-minded. It had taken a week to convince her that her wings were real enough, and another week to coax her to try and learn to fly with them.
"Hello," he said, hushed. Which planet was it from? he wondered. Mars, perhaps.
"Hello to you too," said the alien. "And I'm not an extraterrestrial." Really.
"Then what are you?" asked Kaito, suspicious.
"'Then who are you?' would have been a much politer way of saying it," said the creature, blinking at him with its curious large eyes. They were completely black, and when Kaito looked closely he could see two enormous pupils peering back at him, focusing and unfocusing visibly like a camera shutter. "I am Blathnat," it said. "Envoy of the Greys. I was sent to offer you assistance on the part of our race."
Kaito blinked. "What?"
"You need help finding the third and fourth survivors, don't you?" said Blathnat, getting to the point. "We can provide that help."
"You can speak English really well," mumbled Kaito, a little dimly. Then, "There's a fourth?"
"Apparently so," said the creature. "We've located them. One's trashing the Silver City and the other is taking over a supermarket in Italy." The Silver City - !
"The Silver City!" exclaimed Kaito. "Where is it?"
The creature's eyes took on a crafty glint. "Wouldn't you like to know," it said, baring its sharp little teeth in a grin. "So. Do you want our help? It was us who turned on the lights, you know. Once we knew there were survivors of the Night, we let the electricity flow again, but just where they went." Kaito blinked again, glancing at Abigail. Should they accept? It was a rather strange situation, but…
"Yeah," said Kaito, smiling. It came out a little lopsidedly. "We could use some help." And he'd been in stranger situations than this. Count in 'waking up with gills'. Besides, these Greys seemed to know a lot about them. Perhaps a little too much for comfort.
"Very good!" said Blathnat, clapping its four-fingered hands together. Then it looked back down the manhole and made some peculiar noises, a bit like a wooden stick tapping in Morse. It was probably calling to some other Greys. Kaito wondered how many more were there, and what would have happened if he had refused.
He shivered. This was a completely new race he was dealing with, and not even the sites of information he relied on had anything on Grey weaponry. Was it advanced, or medieval?
The ground beneath them began to rumble, and a square patch of earth next to the truck started shivering, the pebbles bouncing on the barren ground. Then it simply moved aside, and a metal platform rose up. On it were four more Greys, supporting a human-sized stretcher between them. They didn't look very different from Blathnat, except for the marks on their forehead, which were of different colors and patterns. They stared at Kaito unashamedly, jaws agape.
Blathnat made a few more sharp tapping noises, and they got to work, padding over to Abigail and trying their best to heave her onto the stretcher. Kaito came over to help them, which they seemed grateful for, though they didn't say anything. It was a tough job getting her wings to stay on the stretcher, and they were wary of bending them in too much, worried that they might hurt her. So in the end they decided to leave them as they were – trailing on the ground. Then they heaved it back up on their shoulders and stepped onto the platform, Blathnat following them.
"Come," it said. "This is the way down to our world. It'll be something you'll want to see."
Who couldn't resist an invitation like that?
…
The platform descended through a vertical shaft. The patch of earth slid back on top of them, and parallel rows of tiny lights flashed on, illuminating the tunnel. The walls of the shaft were covered with metal panels shaped like jigsaw-puzzle pieces.
"If you're not an alien," said Kaito, "what about all those sightings? What is Area 51?"
"Occasionally some of our more law-ignorant people like to go above ground and scare humans," said Blathnat. "At other times, like that poor Andreasson person, they give them powerful hallucinogens. As for Area 51…" It snorted. "That was a faulty sky probe. But there were no personnel onboard. The creature you see on those 'leaked' videos is no more Grey than mutilated Teletubby."
Kaito nodded absently. "Sky probe?"
"We use them to keep an eye on you," said Blathnat offhandedly. Then it chuckled at Kaito's expression. "Our story goes back a long way. We were nomadic creatures who fed on lightning till you discovered how to tame it. Then we settled underground and fed on your resources. Since we didn't see any reason to fight, we progressed at a faster rate. We're advanced, grant you. But we could never shake off our fascination with you humans. You saved us from certain extinction, and we enjoyed watching your little squabbles." It chuckled again. It sounded a bit like marbles clacking against each other.
"Squabbles-?"
"You're like little children, really. First there was all that fuss about some Austrian prince, yes? Then there was that orator who didn't like a certain bunch of people, so he killed them. Around the same time all those unhappy people from… ah, I remember, Asia! They started hurting each other because they believed in different things." Kaito noticed that the Grey used its hands a lot as it talked. "Then there was the twin earthquakes in – oh, these dratted names. I forget. But it was sad, because they were brilliant people." It shook its head sadly. Kaito stared at the metal wall, scarcely believing that this little Grey had seen all of these events. These creatures… there wasn't a word for it. Not a word he knew.
"But recently they're more comic than distressing." It laughed. "Especially your efforts to repair the environment. Those are the real jokes." Jeez. Kaito tried not to snap at the Grey. It was understandable, but not any good for one's self-esteem.
"We're here," said Blathnat, just as the platform came to a stop. The panel in front of them was darker and much larger. On it was displayed, 'Welcome to Rvdan.' Then the panel slid into the shaft wall. Beyond it was… after all the grey blandness of the platform shaft, Kaito had to squint to see against all the violently clashing color.
They walked out through the doorway, onto a small platform. The view from the platform was enough to give a hawk vertigo – stretching out for some three kilometers to all sides was a simply enormous cavern, corners meeting at precise angles. It was a bit like being inside a white box the size of a small country. The ceiling was covered with striplights – the light inside flickering like trapped sparks. Lightning, perhaps.
They had come down through a shaft in the ceiling; Kaito could see where other shafts broke through the striplighted ceiling and led out to little balconied platforms just like theirs. Below them, on the ground, were around a dozen large buildings – several layers of floors simply squashed together and bound with metal rods. They were all a bland white and didn't deserve much attention. What did, however, were the walls.
They were vivid and full of changing pictures. Image after image ran so fast they left a burning afterimage in your mind that made it a dazzling, slightly hypnotic experience. Bright scenes of moonlit nights and vivid rainbows made way for flawless war footage, armies stomping dutifully with their guns. Kaito leaned against the railing and squinted at the grey sky in the footage. Was that what he thought it was? No way. The military biplanes – ancient geezers, really – had swastikas on their tails.
This is wild, he thought. Then, color footage?
"Footage from your Second Great War," said Blathnat, placing a cold hand on Kaito's. "Those are the Axis powers. Our videos from back then are as good as yours are now, so we've got more than enough for a brilliant war movie." He didn't know what to feel, let alone say. Awestruck? Of course. Slightly disgusted? Definitely.
The stretcher-bearers had stepped onto another platform, which carried them to the base of the pillar supporting the little balcony. Kaito hurried after them, not wanting to lose sight of Abigail. It was a tad reluctantly, though; the wall screens were simply mesmerizing.
When they reached the ground, there was a crowd of Greys standing there to receive them, all of them around four feet tall. Every one of them had a unique pattern on their forehead, which must've been the way they differentiated between themselves. They jabbered excitedly as they caught sight of Kaito, and quieted suddenly when he looked at them. Several of them raised tube-shaped devices that held a vague resemblance to video-cameras.
"What are they waiting for?" hissed Kaito.
Blathnat shrugged. "They expect you to say something. You are the first human to come down here with their own consent, and they want to make sure we didn't pull you down here like we had to before, when we had to cure those 'abductees'."
Oh-kay. So here goes…
"Hello," he said, a bit lamely. There was an audible sigh from beside him, where Blathnat was shaking its head sadly. The entire crowd broke into excited chattering, scanning him carefully from head to sneakered toe. It sounded a bit like a large steel barrel, if it were filled with ball bearings and sent rolling down a hill.
"Hello!" they all responded, speaking in a chorus. Their voices sent cold chills down his arms, making the scales there rise as the skin underneath erupted in goosebumps. Could it have something to do with the fact that they fed on electricity? It probably did.
"Do they always do that?" he asked, puzzled.
"No," replied Blathnat, gazing vacantly at a point above its head. "They don't. They are unsure about several things, especially regarding your intellectual level-"
"They think I'm stupid?" It was out of his mouth before he could think twice.
"The last human who came down to a Grey city was screaming random things and crying for Mama," it replied, perhaps a little sharply. "You may just be the first one they've seen who isn't a blibbering idiot."
He shut up. He was in unknown territory, and it would probably be wisest to keep quiet. Besides, Blathnat did have a point there. But it wasn't like he could be completely blamed. When he woke up that morning he hadn't even known of these creatures. Or that they had feelings.
The crowd parted in the middle, allowing another Grey on a hovering platform to come through. It wore a red cloak fasted at one thin shoulder, and a golden Greek omega glowed on its forehead, as if lit from within. It looked rather… leaderlike, and Kaito immediately knew that it was some sort of dignitary.
"President Gutxi," introduced Blathnat, "this is the human Kaito. He is friendly." Kaito himself had a suspicion that the last three words held more meaning than they might've revealed literally.
"Good to meet you," said the President, coming forward and extending a long-fingered hand. Kaito shook the hand gingerly, and it grinned amiably, almost radiating an aura of efficiency and comfortable confidence. This guy didn't look very powerful, but it certainly knew how to put people at ease. He felt that he would be perfectly safe under the Greys' care while the President was around; though as to whether that was their plan all along or whether they were being genuinely friendly, he couldn't tell.
"I don't think we can talk here. What about the Offices?" he asked, smiling at him in much the same way a human President might've smiled at a boy around his age. The Offices were probably Grey lingo for their version of the White House, or something like it.
Kaito shook his head. Some uneasy fear had been prodding him at the base of his neck all the while the Greys had been milling around, and now it surfaced. Abigail!
"Very well," said the President, chuckling. "You want to see your winged friend first. This young lady will escort you there," he said, gesturing carelessly towards Blathnat. "Afterwards, the Offices. For lunch. Okay?"
"O-kay," replied Kaito. Eh - Blathnat was a girl? Somehow that name hadn't struck him as one a girl might have… The President turned on his little hovering platform, and floated away. Most of the crowd of Greys followed him, some of them thrusting little pads his direction. Were they asking for autographs?
"Come along," called Blathnat, striding out of the crowd. "The infirmaries are this way."
"Coming," puffed Kaito, stepping carefully around a couple of little Greys who were examining his shoelace-tip thingies – aglets, he thought they were called. "A thumbprint!" they squealed, and caught hold of his left thumb, jamming it down on a metal pad one of them held. The squiggly egg-shaped image appeared on the screen, and they 'ooh-ed' and 'aah-ed' over it. Blathnat chided them with sharp clicks, and they scampered away, making tapping giggling noises.
"Who were they?" asked Kaito, a little spooked.
"We don't have fingerprints. They just took your autograph, sort of." She grinned. "They are what you'd call… fangirls."
"Ew."
"Get used to it." She headed to a series of small, squat buildings. Above the entrance was a board marked 'Infirmary'. Under it were a bunch of Braille-like dots and lines. She walked in the door, and Kaito followed her quickly, trying not to hit his head on the doorpost. He failed, and pain exploded dully at a point right under his skin.
It was anything but drab inside, the walls painted with violent colors and designs most unsuitable for sick people. The anteroom had a series of large screens near the ceiling, and a Grey in a white uniform sat behind a low metal desk. It was examining the text on a paper-thin sheet of metal. Must've been their version of the iPad.
"We're here to see the Human," said Blathnat, taking a small disk out of a pocket and placing it on the desk. The Grey took it and ran it in front of the computer. There was a low beep, and part of the adjacent wall slid open sideways, revealing a larger room that smelt like Ambi Pur. The Grey peered at Kaito, then turned back to the metal sheet, as if it had seen stranger things it its time.
Kaito stepped through into the adjoining room. It was a lot like a room in human hospitals, except for all the color. The sheets had rainbow stripes and the walls had been painted clashing shades of lemon yellow and baby blue. He blinked once, then focused on the strange contraption in the centre. Five gurneys had been welded together to form one large hospital bed, on which they'd placed Abigail, wings outstretched. She slept on her stomach, like she did most of the time. A Grey stood by her, ticking off things on a thin metal checklist.
"Is she okay?" asked Kaito. She seemed to be perfectly fine, but Grey medicine probably wouldn't work for her. Come to think of that, did Greys even have diseases?
"We're professionals, dear," said the Grey beside Abigail. "We've been treating your sort since the eighteen somethings. And this young lady here's very well-behaved, tell her that."
Gender:
Points: 1094
Reviews: 10