Gene Doucette: The Spaceship Next Door

“Five minutes, at most. I need to piggyback the signal, but I already know what I’m sending.”

“Ed?” It was Laura. She was looking over the side of camper. “Don’t think we have five minutes.”

“Here comes the Army,” Sam said. “Looks like they’ve decided we’re a threat.”

“Hot damn, I do get to shoot somebody,” Oona said.

“HEY!” Annie shouted. The tinny echo came back on her as if to underline how alone she was inside the ship. She was always alone, in a manner, because the alien was only as there as a computer program or a TV show. He was an idea of a thing instead of a thing, which should have made him less real but somehow didn’t. Somehow it felt like he was much more real than she or anything on the planet was.

Perhaps he was rubbing off on her as much as she was clearly affecting him. His voice had gotten deeper, he started using contractions, and it felt like she was talking to an actual person, right up until he decided he was done with her.

Not that that wasn’t also a very human quality.

“You still need my help,” she said. It probably wasn’t true, and she didn’t even sound convincing to her own ears, but it was worth trying. The only other option was to suffocate.

Unless that’s not the only option , she thought.

The ship responded to her before. She got a glimpse of the outside, and maybe the alien didn’t even realize that had happened. She was also still carrying the entire operating manual in her head.

Annie started thinking of an idea. It was a simple idea, of a ship with an aperture that pumped air in, and a filter that scrubbed CO 2. There wasn’t a lot to it; if she wanted to take the ship into space she’d have to come up with a better idea, but this one would keep her alive for a while.

It worked. There was no telltale hiss and the air quality hadn’t devolved sufficiently for a change to be notable immediately, but she could sense the handoff. The idea had been uploaded in some kind of invisible exchange, and the ship acted. She was going to be okay for a little bit longer.

“Annie.”

“Oh, hi. Where’ve you been?”

“Did you do that?”

“What, turn the air on? Yeah, I didn’t want to die.”

“Not that. The drones are missing.”

“Uh… I don’t really know what that means. You lost contact with them?”

“Based on their feedback, each of them was bodily relocated outside of Sorrow Falls at the speed of light. This is possible for one such as myself, but not for one such as you. They also can’t leave through the shield I’ve placed over the town, so it’s impossible for them to be where I’m told they are. Therefore, they weren’t relocated at all and something else has happened. Did you do this somehow?”

Violet is here.

“No, but that sounds like a cool trick.”

“I THINK IT WORKED,” Sam said.

The fact of this was self-evident, because the camper stopped rocking and Oona, Sam and Laura weren’t shooting any more. That they had to take any shots at all became necessary once the soldiers tried scaling the sides, something the townsfolk reportedly never tried during an earlier siege.

They were shooting to wound, in theory, but ultimately the goal was to get the zombies off the side of the camper by any means necessary. If an arm or a leg could be disabled, great. More than a couple of times, it was a head or a heart, though, and there wasn’t anyone to blame for that, aside from whatever being was inside the ship with Annie.

“They’re just wandering around,” Laura said.

“This is funny as hell,” Oona said. “Like they all got drunk at the same time.”

Their movements reminded Ed of what someone might look like when missing the bottom step on a staircase. Their feet weren’t finding land where they were expecting to.

“Looks like phase one worked, Violet,” Ed said through the open trap door. “Ready for phase two any time you are.”

ANNIE DECIDED she wanted to see outside again, so she asked the ship and the ship showed the outside to her. The zombies were still there, but they were acting less zombie-like and more staggeringly drunk-like. She also saw Oona and Laura’s camper and understood exactly what happened.

For some reason, the alien hadn’t figured out his daughter was the only one with the technology to do what they just did, and had been using his zombie network for information for long enough he forgot he could just look out the proverbial window.

“So what’cha doing?” Annie asked.

“I’m performing a diagnostic of the ship’s systems. They’re clearly malfunctioning.”

“Okay. Hey, can I ask you a really dumb question?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you just go out and be a new idea for some other civilization? If what you’re missing is that sense, like you said, of being something new, just go out and be that for someone else. I mean, if you’re right and that’s why Violet came here—and I think you probably are—what do you even need her for? Make your own memories and all that.”

“I am the greatest idea that ever was. There is no civilization prepared to fully grasp all that I am.”

“What happened to the ones that were?”

“They’re gone.”

“But why?”

“Great ideas have many uses.”

“So you’re saying they all destroyed themselves.”

“I’m saying some did. Some grew out of a need for me. I’m still a part of them, but a historical part. I continue to exist in the minds of others, but as an idea that no longer provides value and doesn’t change.”

“So you’re kind of a snob, basically.”

“I’m sure I don’t understand.”

“You could involve yourself just like Violet did, but you don’t think we’re worthy of your big, total idea-ness.”

“My offspring didn’t involve herself in the way you describe. She isn’t an idea that exists within this civilization. If she were, I’d have found her immediately instead of having to engage in this puppet show. She remains a self-contained idea, engaging ones such as yourself for reasons I won’t fully appreciate until I have her back and can ask.”

“I don’t know.”

The alien sighed. The emotion of exasperation was a new one for him. Annie was definitely having an impact, because she heard this tone from every adult in her life at one time or another.

“What is it you don’t know, Annie?”

“I don’t know how great an idea you actually are.”

“…I would cause your mind to explode.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not.”

“Look, you already dropped the ship’s entire design into my head, and that included a ton of things nobody with my kind of brain ever experienced. That didn’t wreck me.”

“You didn’t understand what you were shown.”

“Dim the lights.”

The blue lights dimmed slightly.

“That is unremarkable.”

“Fine. Give me a second.”

Mariachi music began to play inside the ship.

“What is that sound?” the alien asked.

“When I was ten my dad took me to a Mexican restaurant in Athol for my birthday. This is the song they played for me. It’s kind of repetitive; I don’t remember the whole thing, so it’s on a loop. I can also turn off the defensive shield from here, I’m pretty sure. And a few minutes ago I thought about what the government archives for this machine must look like, and the ship dropped a bunch of emails into my head. So maybe it’s just that I carried Violet around, or maybe the human mind is a little more advanced than you think.”

“…All right. But why would I do this?”

“I don’t know, you seem lonely. I mean, we’ve only just met, but if I were an idea too and I were hanging out wherever ideas hang out, I’d say you need to get out there and introduce yourself to new species. Change things up.”