Terry Neale - Jo-el

The doorbell rang.

Damn! Damn and more damn.

I speedily rearranged my clothing, clicked off the video feed and shut the door to the family room. I hurried down the corridor to find Betty beaming at me from the threshold.

“What?”

Betty was startled backwards by my curtness and almost tripped and fell off the top step. I tried to calm myself and took a deep breath. Her usual charming smile replaced by a look of concern.

“Are you sick, Dave?”

Oh, thank-you, Betty. Of course, I was.

“I think so.” I hoarsely replied, faking a red-raw throat.

“I’ve got the best thing for flu.” She said, her face lightening up once more.

I raised my hand like a stop signal. “Betty, I’m taking stuff, I can’t take anything else.” I croaked.

Disappointment leaped across her face. “Thanks anyway, I really need to be alone for a bit.” I continued.

She was lost for words for a moment, then decided to retreat. Yes!

“I’ll catch you later, Dave.” She left. Short and sweet, what on earth would she think. Not much of a friend.

Back in the family room, the card thing was still hanging in the air where I’d left it. Luckily my alcoholic intake was just kicking in and I accepted the strange phenomenon as perfectly reasonable. I opened the computer and restarted the video.

“Ask the computer to turn on.” Said Ka-el.

I foolishly looked around the room as if some other computer had suddenly appeared. For a moment I was dumbfounded and just stared at my laptop screen. I’m sure if Ka-el had been watching me he’d have thought I was a raving idiot and they’d picked the wrong guy for saving the world. Ha! A moron, you chose a moron.

Nothing happened and I stood staring into space. What did he mean, ‘ask the computer to turn on?’ I was lost. How many times had that happened to me with simple instructions? Maybe I was over thinking it. Gingerly I said to no one. “Computer, turn on.”

The business card sprang to life. I fell backwards and landed on the sofa, dumfounded once more. When I say, it sprang to life, it just lit up and projected a three-dimensional image in front of where it was hanging in mid-air. Ka-el’s was center stage, a calming smile across his thin lips. Behind him was a vision of what seemed like his world, taken from space. What was truly amazing was the definition. It was as though he was there, standing in my family room, the three-dimensional image was quite simply perfect. He held out his arms and turned his palms towards me, like he was defending his speech and indicating that he was not a dangerous person.

“Good.” He said, mechanically. “You can shut down your computer, you are now attached to our system. Everything from now will be explained from our system. You can use voice commands to operate the new system. It is vastly superior to what you have on earth currently. It will understand everything you say and query you if there is any ambiguity. I will no longer speak to you directly. The system can speak to you and show you whatever you need to see on the screen. When you have set up the eye-buds you will have a holographic screen in front of your vision that can only be seen by yourself. To shut the computer down, simple tell it and then carry the card with you. There is much to learn and it will take many days to master the system. Good luck David.” And woosh! Ka-el disappeared.

I gulped! No, I really gulped, a giant swallow.

Time for another Black Label.

I woke at about seven the following morning. My head was throbbing like the sound of a bass sub-woofer in a low-rider car parked on top of my skull. Extra Advil during the night had not rescued me and I accepted my fate for the start of the day. It was Thursday and as per usual I had nothing more important that day than to make sure I was fed and lubricated.

I hadn’t thought anything during the night about the events of Wednesday, due to my self-inflicted stupor. As I fixed a pot of coffee in the kitchen I began to recollect the words of Ka-el and craziness that had now seeped into my life. Instinctively I felt for the belt around my waist. It was still there, comfortable and inert. Perhaps I could remove it and bury everything in the garden, but I knew there was no chance I would do such a thing. Whichever way I twisted things around in my head I couldn’t escape the fact that so far all the espousing by Ka-el had been born out by my actions in finding the container, with its bizarre contents. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my fists and tried to forget just for a minute and re-enter the real world. The aroma from the coffee pot inspired me enough to elicit a slight grin across my mouth. It was quite simply unbelievable. At that moment in time I had no possible conception of the magnitude of what actually was happening to me and the effect it would have on the people of planet Earth.

I needed a walk. I needed to clear my head, to think carefully about what I should do next. I slurped down the final dregs of my coffee and threw some clothes on. Showering could wait, I often skipped the chore, wondering why our society had felt the need to wash so often. I’d heard that peasants in China only washed once or twice a year. I guess that would change when the soap, deodorant and perfume companies got their teeth into them.

The sun fought hard with the clouds to brighten up the dank air that covered Golden Gate Park. But it was losing, rain clouds were closing in from the west and the impending storm was emptying the joggers and strollers in all directions. I headed to a coffee shop, checking first that my tiny umbrella was in my pocket. The clientele were cold, and mostly old, I saw myself in their eyes. It felt wonderful to be away from my family room and amongst normal people. My head had stopped throbbing and the madness of the past day was beginning to assemble itself in neat sections in my mind. Why me? kept looming up on one side. From what was I supposed to be saving the world? That I pigeon holed as my next question. And then the technology. The 3D screen, no doubt common in their world but in its infancy on earth. What else was there? Ka-el had said it would take many days to master the system. What was the system? What were eye-buds? What technology were they giving to me? I thought of the container and its weight. Light as a feather to pick-up, yet the contents were heavier. As if gravity worked in a different way on the various items. I ran all this through my head realizing that the answers were back in my family room. The desire to discover those answers battled with the comfort and normalcy I felt in the coffee shop.

I reached home with little need for my umbrella. The container sat peacefully on the carpet, its contents strewn over the coffee table. I sat down in my usual spot and took a deep breath. Time to take it to the next level. Then somewhat self-consciously I said, “computer on.” The business card-like object on the table lit up. I picked it up and placed it in mid-air, quite expecting in to drop to the floor. But, there it remained, instantly reminding me that what I was dealing with had no semblance to the real world.

“How do you do that?” I said.

“Do what?”

The voice was female, I gasped prematurely and pushed back in the sofa as if I was trying to get away from it.

“Stay there!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, you mean in mid-air?”

“Yes.”

“Anti-gravity,” was the reply, the voice sounding like she was talking to a child. I guess she was.

“Who are you?” I said and before she could answer, quickly added. “Why the female voice?”

“I thought you’d figure that out?” I didn’t reply. “Intuition, plus eighty-seven percent of men in America chose the female voice on their car GPS.”