Black Iris: Chapter Twenty-Eight
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I wake up back in the mayor’s mansion with Kweena still between my legs, her hands still on my thighs, and her artificial human eyes still locked onto mine.
“You’re an alien. This answers a lot of questions.”
“Well, let me answer a few more.” She gets up from the floor and sits on the arm of the mayor’s recliner. “My crew and I are from a star system called Zeta Reticuli. We’re in the middle of an intergalactic war with a race of beings from the Draco constellation that Earthlings commonly refer to as Reptilians.”
“We do?”
“The ones who know about aliens do, yes. The Zetans and the Reptilians have been fighting for centuries. My team and I are soldiers in this war, or at least we were until we went AWOL.”
“Why’d you come here?”
“For the low gravity and for the sex.”
The mayor puts his hand on her leg. “Kweena has a bit of an Earthling fetish.”
She slaps him playfully. “Stop. There are other reasons, too. Breathable air. Favorable microorganisms. Most importantly, though, humans are similar enough to us anatomically that we can hide among them. Our culture takes loyalty and patriotism seriously, especially when it comes to military service. The penalty for desertion is public execution. On top of that, the leader of our battalion, General Grey, has always hated me personally so he’s not going to just let us walk away.”
“Why does he hate you?”
She laughs. “Because I’m a shitty soldier.”
“What she means,” The mayor says, “is she’s too compassionate. She doesn’t like killing people, which is a problem if killing people is your job.”
“We were a reconnaissance team, so we didn’t have to very often. But one time, our cover was blown at a Reptilian public library, and we had to kill an innocent civilian. I couldn’t sleep for a month afterwards. None of us could. We decided we never wanted to do anything like that again, so we took off. Four months and 39.17 light-years later, we landed here.”
“You traveled almost 40 light-years in four months?”
“We could have done it in one, but we took an indirect route to make sure we weren’t being followed.”
“Damn.” Aaru has the technology to instantaneously travel between dimensions, but our fastest spaceship can barely reach the speed of light.
“The problem was we were so excited to be free that we acted like college kids on spring break. We’re just lucky there was only one pregnancy.”
The mayor puts his hand on hers. “Nonsense. This is a blessing.”
She laughs. “That’s the hormones talking. You weren’t saying that two months ago when you first found out what was happening.”
“So… what exactly is happening?” I ask. “Last I checked, human males can’t get pregnant.”
“In Zetan reproduction, all genetic material comes from the female,” the mayor says. “Males are just incubators. Apparently, some of her stuff crawled up my urethra and found its way to my peritoneal cavity.”
“Huh. Just like in Junior. But if it went in through your penis hole, how did it get to the peritoneal cavity?”
“Our zygotes are ambulatory,” Kweena says. “They’ll crawl around inside the body like spiders until they find a nurturing environment.”
“Gross. So, if all the DNA comes from the mother, does that mean it won’t be a hybrid baby?”
“Yes and no. While Zetan females pass down 100% of the genetic material, the environment does play a significant role. Will our baby end up with Dick’s regal nose or lantern jaw? Probably not, but there’s definitely going to be some of him in there.”
The mayor beams with paternal love. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
Kweena scratches her rubbery cheek. “Yeah, we’re all very excited, but uh… the pregnancy does complicate things for us. Zetans are empaths, and when a child is born, it releases a big blast of psychic energy. Living around other Zetans when thousands of children are being born every day, we don’t even notice it. But since we’re isolated here, and Grey is already looking for us, the psychic energy from the baby’s birth might be enough to give us away.”
“It complicated things for me, too, obviously. I’m the mayor of Kibble. I couldn’t go out in public like this, but I also couldn’t be MIA for two months.”
“So, you threw a mayor mask on a guy the size of a small child and tried to pass him off as you?” I ask.
“It was the best we could do,” Kweena says. “The Reptilians can shapeshift, but we Zetans have to rely on disguises.”
“Hey, it seems to be working,” the mayor says. “Or, at least nobody’s saying anything, which is all that matters.”
“But if you’re still running the show from behind the scenes, why have there been all these policy changes?”
The mayor glances over his shoulder at the door. “As you can imagine, this has been pretty hard on Annette. In an effort to smooth things over, I agreed to let her take the reins while this gets sorted out. She’s doing a good job, don’t you think?”
I scratch my chin “Depends on who you ask.”
“Honestly, I haven’t been paying all that much attention. I guess I just have other priorities now. In fact, I’m up for re-election next year, and I’m not even sure I want to run.” He pats his belly. “From what I hear, being a mom is a full-time job.”
Kweena forces a smile. Knowing that her face is literally made of plastic makes her hard to read. Is she being insincere or is she just struggling with the mechanics of shaping her mouth?
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she says. “There’s a lot we still have to work out.”
“This empath thing,” I say. “Is that how you erase people’s memories?”
“No, we use technology for that.”
“What about just now when you restored my memory of that night?”
“I was using my empath skills, but technically, I didn’t restore your memory. Once the memories are gone, they’re gone. What I did was share with you my memories of that night.”
“But it was from my point of view, not yours.”
She smiles. “Normally, it would be from my point of view, but in this case, I used a little bit of artistic license. I thought you’d enjoy it more that way.”
“What about the flowers?” I ask.
“Flowers?”
“Your vagina. Everyone you messed around with seems to be drawing pictures of it. Some people are drawing mushrooms, which I assume are Zetan dicks.”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She turns to the mayor. “Did that happen to you after we hooked up?”
“No,” he answers. “But I woke up the next morning in a pool of my own vomit, with a 106-degree temperature. I was pretty out of it.”
“Well, I’ve been obsessed with that image for months,” I say. “It wasn’t just the next day.”
The mayor shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with me being pregnant, or… well, I see that vagina every day now, so I guess I don’t feel the need to draw a picture of it.”
A worry crease forms on Kweena’s forehead. “So, when you say everyone’s been drawing my flower… exactly how many people are we talking about?”
“Six that I know of, including me. How many people did you guys hook up with?”
She looks down at the ground. “Hundreds.”
“Hundreds?” Dick and I say at the same time.
“We were really out of control. But we did random audits of the people we engaged with to make sure their memory wipes were successful, and this is the first I’m hearing about any problems. The truth is this technology has always been problematic. In the past, brains were melted, and people were turned into vegetables. Rejji worked hard to develop a model that didn’t do those things, but there could still be side effects he isn’t aware of yet.”
“Well, you might want to consider doing more of those audits, because some of these people are dying.”
Kweena and the mayor look at each other.
“Dying?” Kweena asks. “How?”
“Suspiciously. One woman was hit by a train even though she was completely sober. Another guy sleepwalked his way into the zoo in the middle of the night and got devoured by a bear. In my case, someone dropped an air conditioner on my head.”
“Wait, you died?” Dick asks.
I nod.
“But — ”
“Nine lives. Now, I know these might sound like random accidents, but it wasn’t just the flower thing we had in common. We also all saw the same hypnotist, and that’s just too much of a coincidence for me. Do either of you know a Dr. Nehrashani?”
The mayor furrows his brow. “Never heard of him.”
Kweena shakes her head.
“Well, at least six of the people you visited were seeing him for help recovering lost memories. The bear guy? He was treated by Dr. Nehrashani on the very day he died. The guy had no history of sleepwalking, which is why it’s so suspicious. I saw Dr. Nehrashani that same day, but luckily I couldn’t be hypnotized.”
“How do you know about these people?” Kweena asks.
“I talked to the shrink who referred them to Nehrashani. Turns out people find it unsettling when they have unexplainable gaps in their memory and suddenly develop new obsessions. I know I did.”
Kweena takes my paw. “I’m so sorry. We never meant for any of this to happen.”
“I believe you. But there’s more. I also talked to a reporter that was hot on your trail. He broke a story about aliens getting drunk in the park back there, and guess what? That reporter is dead now. He was hit by a car right after he came to talk to me.”
“Why would anyone do this?”
“Someone doesn’t want the world finding out about you. The question is, who besides you would care so much about keeping your secret?”
The mayor scratches his chin. “One of the intelligence agencies, maybe? Or the military?”
“Well, I have been followed by men in black recently.”
“I don’t know, though. I’m not a fan of the federal government, but this doesn’t seem like their MO. They’re not that efficient. That’s the thing these conspiracy nuts don’t get. The government can’t take a leak without pissing all over its own shoes.”
Kweena slaps her forehead. “Tommiss.”
“Who?”
“Our pilot. He was in disguise as one of the mayor’s interns, and he’s gone missing.”
“Missing?”
“He went out with the other interns after work one night and never came home. We’ve been trying to stay optimistic as we look for him, but with each passing day, it seems more and more likely that something bad happened.”
“And you think whatever it was could have something to do with these — ” I stop when I hear voices coming from down the hall.
“He already knows,” Zoloz says. “There’s no point in wearing those awful suits.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” says a voice I don’t recognize. “They’re itchy.”
“Well, I don’t trust him,” Annette whispers when they’re right outside the door. “I think you should put your costumes back on and erase him again.”
The door swings open, and Annette and her houseguests enter the room. Though I knew to expect it, there’s a moment of shock when I see the aliens in their natural form. Facially, they’re almost identical, though one of the two males is fat and in the middle of eating a hot dog. Despite not wearing human skins, they’re all dressed in typical (human) summer clothing — shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops, with the two females in form-fitting tank tops.
“You must be Snowball,” says the chubby alien, wiping a greasy hand on his shorts before shaking my paw. “I’m Rejji, our team’s science officer. I’m also the doctor, in case you need me to look at that noggin of yours. I understand you ran head-on into our ship.” In two more bites, the hot dog is gone.
“I think I’ll be ok, thanks.”
Annette eyes Kweena, her husband, and me suspiciously. “What’s going on here?”
“The short answer?” the mayor says. “We told him everything.”
She sighs. “That’s what I thought. Well, don’t blame me when your alien faces appear on the evening news.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Kweena says. “He’s a detective. Maybe he can help us find Tommis.”
“That’s a terrible idea. It’s bad enough he knows what’s happening; we don’t need to make it worse by getting him involved.”
Dick takes his wife’s hand. “You want this all to be over more than any of us, right? Well, they can’t leave until they find their pilot. Why not hire the best detective in the city to look for him?”
She rubs her forehead. “Whatever. I can see I’m outvoted here. Again, if something goes wrong, it’s not my fault.”
“So, what do you say, Snowball?” Kweena says. “Can you help us?”
“Uh — ”
“Honestly,” interrupts the mayor, “after you trespassed on our property and snooped around our house, I kind of think you owe us.”
“Uh — ”
“We’ll still pay you, of course.”
“Well, then. I guess I’ll do it.”
The Zetans fill me in on their missing pilot. It turns out that he was a big fan of Earth life and even liked his job in the mayor’s office. It made Kweena nervous when he hung out with the other interns outside of work, but he convinced her that it was an important part of fitting in and keeping his cover.
When he disappeared, they couldn’t just hang up a bunch of flyers or put his face on milk cartons. They had to be discrete, which meant they were on their own. Even involving the police was risky, though they did file an official Missing Person Report in case someone other than Kweena’s crew found him.
Kweena’s inability to locate him psychically could mean a number of different things. On the positive side, no news could be good news. If he had died — especially a violent death — there would have been a boom similar to when a Zetan baby is born, which would have been hard to ignore. However, the lack of signal could also mean he’s heavily sedated, stricken with some illness, or stuck behind some kind of electromagnetic barrier.
The other possibility is that he doesn’t want to be found. He could either be hiding out on his own somewhere or worse — working voluntarily with whoever is killing off all the witnesses. Kweena can’t bring herself to consider either of these scenarios, so I’ll have to do it for her. At this point, we can’t afford to rule anything out.