Manipulate (Alien Cadets) Page 3

  “We’ve discussed your strengths many times," he said impatiently. "You read humans extremely well, you discern weaknesses – ”

  “You said I was a natural communicator, that I was good at steering a crowd toward a common viewpoint.”

  “Exactly. A manipulator. I do not see why we are having this conversation,” Greg said. His eyestalks twitched.

  “Just…don’t call me a manipulator, okay? It has bad overtones.” A cold feeling seeped up Sam’s back. He knew he shouldn’t take Greg’s word choice too seriously, the alien didn’t understand English nuances, but somehow this assessment scared him.

  “The riots in the Midwest stopped,” Greg added.

  Sam blinked. “Riots?”

  “Yes, some protestors were killed a few weeks ago, but the riots have stopped now, because of your return. They’re waiting to see what happens. That’s why we spaced out the cadets’ return – Los Angeles, Sao Paolo, Hong Kong, Moscow… We’ve got a little time, probably a matter of weeks, before the rioting resumes.” Greg paused. “You’re part of our team now, Sam. We showed you to the world as our human spokesperson, and there is no turning back. Not for you. Not for us. From now on you will be apprised of the major obstacles in our path.”

  “I already was on your team,” Sam said.

  “I appreciate that,” Greg said, turning muddy purple, “but you haven’t been challenged yet. It’ll be harder to support us now that you’re home.”

  “You mean with all the accusations of brainwashing?”

  “We did brainwash you, Sam,” Greg said slowly.

  Sam glanced at Downy. Was this some kind of test? “What – in what way?”

  Downy looked as baffled as Sam.

  “We took you away from your home as a child. Essentially you were a prisoner of war. We taught you from a position of complete power. That’s one method of brainwashing.”

  “Is it – did you lie to me?”

  “No. But something that is true to us is not necessarily true for humans. In their eyes, we’ve taught you nothing but lies.”

  “I guess I knew that already,” Sam said.

  “Yes. But you haven’t felt it. You assumed that you’d be a hero, or at least a popular celebrity, but they’re going to hate you, too. Their fascination and pity for you won’t last long. Then they’ll get angry.”

  “And humans are stupid,” Downy added helpfully.

  “Thanks," Sam said. “Any advice?”

  Greg grimaced. “You’ll find your way, I’m sure. You’re dismissed. Downy, please stay. I have a communication from your father.”

  Sam rose to go. Downy’s father was the Spo emperor, and Sam for sure didn’t rank high enough to listen in on that.

  Downy was one the emperor's younger sons and Sam had heard that Downy chose to attach himself to Greg to become an expert on humans.

  Sam hesitated at the door. “Has anyone contacted Paolo’s family yet, to give them his things?” he asked. “I had to tell the press that one cadet died, and all the cadet families are going to be nuts until they figure out who."

  “That’s taken care of,” Greg said.

  “I would like permission to call them. I’m sure they want to know about Paolo, the last few years before he died. Like how he loved diving in the chemical groves…”

  “It is unnecessary. His family died eight months ago.”

  Sam felt punched in the gut. “All of them? There’s not anybody?”

  “They died in the firestorm that took out La Paz.”

  “So – what? There’s no one to tell Paolo is dead?”

  “At least they won’t suffer his loss,” Greg said. “You’re dismissed.”

  Chapter 4

  Claudia heard the TV turn on in the clinic lobby as she wheeled the sedated bulldog into an examining room.

  “Could you turn that down?!” she yelled to the receptionist. She hated hearing the news while she worked, particularly Monday morning, when she already felt depressed. The TV quieted, and then her receptionist was at the door.

  “Claudia, did you see the footage of the spooks today?” she said. “They’re showing more about…”

  Claudia blew some hair out of her face. “I’ve got to do a colonoscopy on this bulldog before his owner gets back. Feels like he’s totally blocked, or possibly an advanced edema.”

  “Oh my gosh, you didn’t turn on the TV yesterday? The cadets from Los Angeles are back! Wasn’t your brother one of those kids the aliens took?”

  Claudia fumbled the syringe of painkiller for the dog, her fingers suddenly numb. She lunged and caught it before it hit the floor.

  “They’re back?” Claudia said. “When?”

  “They just arrived yesterday. Go watch! I’ll stay with the dog for a minute.”

  In the lobby, a small TV hung from a corner of the ceiling. Claudia grabbed the remote off the counter, turning up the sound as she approached the screen. A young man stood confidently on the stage. He was very tall, almost as tall as the spook next to him. A dark tattoo sprawled across his cheek, distorting the symmetry of his face. He had dark skin, sharp cheekbones, Native American… Could that be Sam?

  “- learned a lot from the Spo. Their language, their culture- and we’ve taught them a lot about us."

  Claudia squinted at the TV, trying to make the resolution higher by sheer willpower. Was that her brother? A bar of text scrolled across the bottom of the TV. “Weekend News: Children taken by Spo returned to Los Angeles. Head cadet known as “Sam” speaks of their capture. Says children have not been abused. Breaking news …..

  Claudia gasped. “That’s my brother,” she said. “That’s my brother. Oh God, that’s Sam.” Tears filled her eyes and she wiped them with her forearm.

  “Really?” said the lady who’d brought in her Siamese cat, “The one answering questions?”

  “Yeah."

  He looked so different. He’d been a short twelve year old when he was taken, hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet. He was tall now, like their dad, and despite the crazy tattoo on his face, she could see traces of the little boy she remembered. Claudia had been home after her second year of college when he was taken. He wanted to play video games with her all summer, and she’d humored him a little. He was starting to get interesting, or at least not continually annoying. Then the Spo showed up, and she never saw him again.

  Sam’s interview was over all too soon for her, and yet not soon enough. She clenched her gloved hands into fists while he defended the Spo. At times over the years she’d obsessed about what was happening to him. She’d worked to reconcile herself to a changed Sam, should she ever see him again. But seeing it confirmed made her so angry she could hardly bear it.

  Claudia took deep breaths, managing the pain of futility as she often had in the past. Deal with it, she repeated her mantra. You can’t change it. Deal with it. When their father left, when Sam was taken, when her mother died a few years ago – Claudia had dealt with it. She was nothing if not resilient. She knew how to handle pain.

  When the live broadcast was over, the news went back to weather coverage. “Evacuations are underway in northern China for the coming earthquake. Spo are predicting an 8.9 and complete loss of infrastructure…” Claudia muted the TV.

  “They’re in Los Angeles?” Claudia asked the cat lady. “Did they say at the beginning of the broadcast?”

  “Yes, the first spook said the cadets would live at Pepperdine University, in Malibu. I think it’s only a few miles from their headquarters,” she said.

  “Malibu…” Claudia went behind the counter and got on the computer. Tickets from Arizona to LAX weren’t too expensive. Tourists didn’t go to Los Angeles anymore.

  “They don’t want family to go yet,” the lady added. “You’re wanting to visit him, right? I’m sure I would too. But one of the spooks said no family yet. They want the kids to “readjust as a unit” or something. They’re going to announce when the cadets’ families can come visit.”

  Claudia
gritted her teeth. Six years gone and she was supposed to just ignore the fact that her brother was home? Not so much.

  ***

  Sam sat in the back of a limousine next to Downy; Greg and Nat sat across from him. Nat leaned back in the corner and closed her eyes, her hands limp in her lap. They’d gone from press event to press event in the last forty-eight hours; Greg introducing his protégés to the world. Nat and Sam handled the press well, and Greg wanted them to start growing their face and name recognition for the future.

  Jonathan was lucky, Sam thought, he got to lounge around campus until the trial, which admittedly, was enough stress to crush a Spo trounce, but at least he got to relax until then.

  “I’d like you to handle this one,” Greg said to Sam, as they approached the justice building. “The whole meeting is yours.”

  Nat lazily opened one eye.

  “With the governor?” Sam asked.

  “However you want to do it,” Greg said.

  “Huh.” Sam ran his hands through his hair. “Will it sound ungrateful if I ask to go back to Spo instead?”

  Greg growl-laughed. “After all the fuss you made about getting back here?”

  Sam laughed. “I forgot what people were like.”

  Downy looked at Nat. “You weren’t exactly alone.”

  “Nat isn’t people,” Sam said.

  “Gee, thanks,” Nat said, closing her eyes again. “Wake me when we get there.”

  She looked so comfortable, so relaxed. Sam wished he could sit next to her, hold her hand, and close his own eyes. He missed Nat.

  When they were first taken for the exchange program, the girls, particularly the younger ones, naturally turned to her. Most of the girls were twelve or thirteen. Nat was fourteen, and old for her age. He couldn’t remember how quickly it happened, but after the first year or two, she was the mom of the group.

  He hadn’t thought much about it until one day they were alone in the garden, and suddenly she began to cry. On Earth Sam would have backed off, but on Spo, what could he do? He remembered seeing his sister Claudia crying after school, and his mom comforting her. So Sam put his arm around Nat and when she stopped crying, they finished fertilizing the last row. Before she left, Nat asked him to talk to Greg about changing Melanie and Jia’s room assignment. They were fighting and Nat thought it would be easier to move them than make them stop.

  Sam did, and somehow he and Nat became a team.

  The first time they left the Spo planet on a short trip to Merith, when Sam was sixteen and Nat eighteen, Sam maneuvered a spot for them in front of a wall window. Armen helped him keep the seats free, and Oh Li kept everyone in the other compartments. Sam even talked Greg into altering their jump trajectory slightly. When the ship jumped, the planet Merith leaped into the center of their window. As they watched, the sun slid around the edge of the planet, and Sam kissed her.

  She’d been surprised, instinctively looking around like they might have an audience.

  “It’s just us,” Sam said. “For once.”

  Nat had grinned, looking from Sam to the sunrise and back. “Very dramatic.”

  Sam touched her cheek, and they kissed again. She’d been happy and they’d held hands while the alien sun crept around the glowing planet.

  “It sounds silly here, but, will you go out with me?” Sam said.

  Nat squeezed his hand. “Yes. But you have to ask my father.”

  “Um.”

  “Just kidding,” Nat said, and she’d kissed him once more before the ship began to swing into position.

  Armen warned them when it was time to dock, and they joined the others. Sam kept Nat’s hand while they went on their first tour of a Merith space station, even though Greg had gazed at them the better part of the day.

  Sam jerked out of his reverie when the limo stopped at the curb. Nat opened her eyes and realized he was staring at her. She blinked and looked away, watched Downy climb out of the car.

  Cameras flashed as they walked up the steps of the Justice Building in downtown Los Angeles. Stumps lined the pathway where trees were cut for firewood during the cold winter after the explosion. Only a few palm trees remained, too inconvenient and unpleasant to burn. Sam shook his head, he’d wasted the few minutes in the limo daydreaming instead of planning his tactics for this interview. Time to focus.

  At the top of the steps, the interim governor of California awaited them. He had a kindly, serious expression pasted over gritted teeth. The man’s jaw quivered as he forced himself to smoothly shake Greg’s hand. This guy hated the Spo. That wouldn’t help the press conference at all.

  Sam placed himself between Greg and the governor as he shook hands, keeping his place when Greg would have moved him forward. Nat made her own conclusions, and greeted the mayor on his right, drawing him a step further from Greg and Downy.

  He and Nat were a good team. They knew how to maneuver things to their advantage, without showing it. They learned it from the Spo, and they were good students.

  The reporters still shouted, but Sam didn’t respond to them. He clipped a wireless mike on his shirt. Nat made small talk with the governor, kept him turned away from the aliens.

  “Will the Spo ever leave?” a man shouted.

  “Tell us about the alien academy!”

  “When will the Spo go home?!”

  “Quiet please,” Sam said into the mike. He took a deep breath. “As tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of the Hadron explosion… I think it would be appropriate to have a time of prayer before we start.” He saw the mayor’s look of surprise but didn’t wait to see if it was a good surprise or not.

  Downy chuckled, but broke it off when Greg’s eyestalks shifted in his direction.

  Sam closed his eyes. “God in heaven…"

  He kept it short. He wasn’t trying to make a religious statement. Well, maybe a little. But mostly he just wanted to pray before he started.

  Sam had prayed back on Spo, too. Some of the Spo thought the human cadets should be broken of their indigenous religions, but Greg disagreed. He’d argued that it was a cultural norm on Earth, and would help the cadets fit in better when they got back. Greg might be regretting that now.

  “I know we’ve all lost extended family, good friends,” Sam continued after his prayer. “This is the first anniversary I’ve been home for, and I’m glad to be here. It seems appropriate that this is the seventh year since the explosion. Seven has always been a number of change for humans. The ancient Greeks would fast for seven days in mourning. Creation ended after seven days. Human body chemistry changes completely every seven years. I’d like to think that this could be the beginning of a new cycle for us.”

  Sam paused, cleared his throat. Wow, that was good. He’d been pondering the seven-year thing last night when he fell asleep, but it hadn’t gelled until just now. Maybe Greg was right about Sam’s manipulation skills.

  “I think…” Sam started.

  A car leaped over the curb, engine shrieking. It jumped onto the sidewalk, roaring toward the front of the building. Reporters screamed, scrambling away. Sam’s mind went blank, he couldn’t figure out where to go.

  The car swerved but didn’t stop. It clipped a cameraman and spun him around. Then it went into a sharp turn, and Sam saw a hand emerge from the rear window as the car swerved back toward the street. The hand threw a bottle with a burning rag dangling from it.

  The bottle arced straight into the wall next to Nat and shattered on the brick. Burning alcohol splashed out and her clothes ignited.

  Sam shoved Nat off the steps and into the grass. The car sped off at an angle, throwing up clods of dirt, and bottoming out as it jumped off the curb back onto the road.

  Sam fell on top of Nat. He pushed her back down as she screamed and tried to get to her feet.

  “Roll!” Sam shouted. She thrashed on the ground, rubbing her burning pants in the damp grass. Sam roughly kept her down, helped her beat it all out. She must not have gotten much, Sam thought, or it would ha
ve been impossible. The bushes by the building still burned.

  “Are you – ” Sam said, but Greg pulled her up and grabbed Sam’s arm. Her clothes were black and torn, but not burning.

  “Come Downy!” Greg yelled. He pulled them both to the limo, shoving them inside. Nat fell on top of Sam. Greg jumped in over them, literally, and Downy swung in behind, his legs everywhere.

  The limo zoomed forward as Nat got her knee off Sam’s stomach and huddled in a seat, her breath coming in sobs.

  “What about the others?” Sam said, staring out the rear window at the chaotic scene.

  “Nat, you’re hurt?” Greg asked.

  Nat hunched over, hugging her knees. Her black eyes were big. She tried to speak, but couldn’t catch her breath. She just shook her head and started shivering.

  “The hospital,” Greg said to the driver.

  Nat shook her head again, but her painful breathing began to ease.

  “It’s not that bad, barely second degree maybe,” she whispered. She sat up slightly. Her clothes were blackened and whole patches burned away, with red skin underneath. Downy reached a hand forward and Nat glared at him.

  Greg nodded. “We have to be more careful. I didn’t expect this level of antagonism. We’ll still go to the hospital. Burn ointment, at least.”

  “Do you think they wanted to hurt us? Or you?” Sam asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Greg said. “We can’t afford to let this violence escalate. Earth’s trial is in two weeks, and these sort of attacks only prove humanity is unfit. The prosecutors have an easy enough job without any more evidence of human instability.”

  “Do you think this is related to the hate message?” Sam asked.

  Greg pondered. “The style is different. The vandal worked alone. He wanted immediacy, knives, and an ambiguous message. This was at least two people. They wanted a public panic, a clear message, and distance from the crime.”

  Downy snorted.

  “My guess, not the same.”

  “But the same motive,” Sam said. “They hate you, and we keep getting in the way.”