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Alex Manes gets a parade in exchange for ten years of his life and one half of his leg. He squints at the sun above, trying not to make it obvious when he checks his watch. His father glad-hands with the sheriff and Alex’s capacity to listen to old high school bullies’ thank you for your service is dangerously low. His uniform is stiff, starchy at the collar. He’s endured worse heat than this, but the sun feels blistering for some reason. Sweat collects behind his neck, the dip of his spine, the bridge of his nose.
He grins and shakes another faceless form’s hand, inclines his head as the platitudes wash over him and presses his mouth together as if he’s so completely, overwhelmingly grateful for their gratitude, he’s rendered speechless. If he has to do it again, he might lock his knees and try to faint.
The very next thing that occurs is pointless, but it’s the only concrete detail of this day he’ll be able to recall, later on. There’s a kid on the sidewalk with a snow cone. That’s all, just a boy, maybe eight, in a Transformers shirt and bright red sneakers. A scoop of phosphorescent blue clutched in his little hand, pale sky ring of sugar staining his mouth. His sticky fingers crimping the tiny paper cone. Watching the parade with about as much interest as Alex feels being the mascot of it.
And for a moment, something tugs under Alex’s ribs—a longing for simplicity. To switch places with that boy, to go back , start over, do it all differently. To be eight and living in a fair world that allows him to drip sugar all over his shirt.
And then, in the next moment, an enormous, glittering spaceship appears directly above all of their heads.
It materializes without a sound, so massive it blocks the sun, casting them all instantly in shadow. There’s a breath where the collective human consciousness of dozens of individuals crashes and reboots in pure disbelief. Chaotic fear lumbers from their brain stems, and in the next second everyone scatters with screams. Chairs topple, someone clips a post-box with their car, people are shoved and scooped up, fleeing with hands held tight. Jesse Manes immediately begins opening fire—at least Flint takes a moment to start directing civilians into stores.
The mad rush moves around him like a river, but Alex stays rooted. His head swivels to the sidewalk, heart stopping and restarting in quick succession. Alex clocks a smear of snow cone on the ground, and then a few feet away the boy’s face, tucked in the shoulder of his mom as she sprints him away from the panicked crowd.
The spaceship—it’s a sleek design, smooth and matte black, propulsion source not easily identifiable. Long, flat wings with a thin nose; it hovers quietly above, churning out only a low hum from its engine. It’s rocking forward and back, angling slowly, carefully down, past the edge of the shopping center. Alex hops off the stage and shoulders his way through the tide of running bodies, toward the ship. He can’t speak to his own mind, in this moment. All he knows is the ship is landing and he wants to see what comes next.
Sure enough, the ship settles, kicking up a massive dust cloud. Alex turns his face, breathing into the crook of his arm, and walks through the wave of sand. The ship has kicked out something similar to a cargo aircraft door; long, black metal tongue rolling to a stop in the dirt, betraying nothing in its dark depths.
Alex stops a few feet from the door and peers up inside. His heart is racing, but he feels the calm and steady focus of being in a fire fight as he says, “Hello?”
A commotion of sound—clanging and stumbling and a low, mumbling voice. Then:
“Hey there! Are you the envoy—oh, hello.” A man—he’s just a man, or he appears to be just a man—comes bounding down the ramp, hands clapping together excitedly. “How are you doin’, darlin’?”
“Um,” says Alex, dumbfounded for the first time in quite a long time. Then a missile is launched at the side of the spaceship, creating a spectacular explosion, and everything goes dark.
-
Alex wakes up lying on the deck of a spaceship, mildly concussed.
“Hi,” says a man, different from before. “Sit up slowly, alright? You took some shockwave damage and brunt force trauma. Nothing life threatening, but I can heal you with verbal consent, now that you’re awake.” The stranger smiles, all aggravatingly tall with 90’s romcom lead hair. “If you want.”
Alex allows himself to be guided up, bracing himself on a control panel of some kind as he stands. “That’s… okay. I’m fine.” He glances around, considers if this is all an elaborate Jacob's Ladder break of reality, decides that’s alright, and says, “Care to explain why you’ve parked your ship on top of my town?”
“Oh, um, that’s not really my—Izzy!—my department, uh… hey Iz!” He cranes his neck, shouting down a corridor.
“Is he awake? Oh my God , Max!” A whir of blonde and gloss rushes into the room, glaring at teen-idol. She stops with a huff, skidding in front of Alex, and takes a deep breath. “Hel-lo,” she articulates slowly, reaching out her hand. “I am Isobel of Antar, emissary of my people, here to assess and negotiate Earth’s alliance with the Cosmic Guild. It is an honor to meet you, human, and a great glory to welcome you aboard our ship.”
“Okay,” says Alex, stalling the word a moment to process. “Hi. I’m Alex. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Yes,” she delights, grinning. “It is nice to meet you. May I expose your innermost thoughts to my mind?”
Their feet shake beneath them as the ship shudders, another missile impact Alex assumes. He steadies himself, bracing for the next hit. “I don’t know if now is really the time for that.”
In front of the control panels they’ve congregated near, the ship has thirty-foot vertical screens with complex input flashing, and below—though alien beyond belief Alex can still recognize it—is a cockpit. In the pilot’s chair is the man from before, on the loading door, and he spins to grin madly at them all.
“Yeah, Iz, can we maybe, um, get the fuck outta here first?” His eyes meet Alex's. “You mind if we temporarily kidnap you?”
“Michael.” Isobel hisses, then spins on Alex with a syrupy smile. “Alex, we would never detain you beyond your comfort, but should you be amenable—”
“I’m happy to go.” Another explosion rocks the ship. “Like, now, preferably right now.”
Max pulls Alex into a chair flanking Michael and secures him in place, a thick fabric belt with a magnetized clip set snug against his chest. Isobel and Max lock themselves into chairs on the other side of Michael and as the next missile thunders through the hull of their ship, Michael reaches for the control stick, and then they’re flying.
-
Michael sets them in an invisible holding pattern several miles above Roswell. Invisible , because that’s. A thing their ship can do. Their alien ship, from another world.
Alex leans forward, breathing into his knees.
“You okay?” Michael glances at him from his seat. “Guess this is a lot, huh.”
“It’s something.”
“Well, hey, you volunteered for the gig.”
“Not… really.”
“What you just… randomly walked up to the first alien craft your species has ever seen?”
“Well.” Alex grins at the absurdity of it all.
Peals of laughter echo through the ship, a long, bright noise.
-
“Okay,” says Isobel, voice getting higher with every sentence. “Okay, this is fine. This is salvageable. I mean—is it ideal? No. Of course not. But it’s fine! It’s totally fine!”
Max sets his hands on her shoulders. “Izzy, breathe .”
Alex sucks in a breath.
“Ouch,” whispers Michael, wincing.
Isobel’s eyes thin to steely knives. "Max. We have so thoroughly bungled our first Outreach mission for the Guild that we got missiles fired at our ship.” She brushes him away, hands fluttering in a facsimile of explosive debris. “If for some reason we don’t start an intergalactic war today we have at the very least ruined this planet’s First Contact impression of the Guild and disappointed mom!”
“And we kidnapped a local.” Michael adds cheerily.
“And we kidnapped a local!” Isobel shouts, arms springing into the air
Alex shrugs, scanning the ship’s navigation system with interest. “I’m not gonna press charges, if that helps.”
“Thanks, Alex.” Max grins at him, then regards Isobel warmly. “Listen… it’s not that bad, Iz. It’s not a great start, okay. But Earth is level-3 on the Guild’s list, surely that means these are well reasoned, rational people. We can still salvage this and set up a strong alliance here, welcoming them into the next phase of their evolution.” He glances at Alex hopefully, searching for backup. Michael spins around in his chair, looking unconvinced but curious as he regards Alex. Isobel eyes are huge and intense and Alex freezes with his fingers over their ship’s controls.
“Uh.” Alex looks between the three of them. “Sure.”
-
“Well that was a cluster-fuck,” says Isobel.
“TARFU.” At Isobel’s look, Alex adds, “Totally and Royally Fucked Up.”
Michael grins. “Now that’s a Saturday night.”
Max, who is writhing on the medical table with a gunshot wound, says, “Will one of you please hand me the acetone?”
-
Alex sits cross-legged on the floor, watching Earth rotate passively, a perfect globe of blue and white, small enough he feels he could reach out and spin it with the tip of his finger.
Michael collapses next to him, tapping the screen to zoom in, highlighting North America. “Sorry you got caught up in this mess.” He zooms in again on the Southwest, and it’s all pale mountain and dry green brush, textured deserts and cracked ravines. Another zoom brings farmland and silver cities into focus, the view of an airplane cruising over his home.
Alex shrugs. “That’s alright. You guys were just trying to do good. I’m sorry my… I’m sorry humanity wasn’t ready.” He reaches out and zooms out again, adjusting the scale to view earth at the distance they’re actually floating at in space. A spec of light in darkness.
Michael parrots a shrug. “They will be. And we’ll be back when they are.”
“Yeah.” Alex breathes through the dull, burning sensation in his chest. “When are you dropping me off?”
“Oh, um,” and Michael turns away for a second, color flaring on his cheeks. “See, Isobel and Max and me were talking, and uh, well. We contacted some Guild officials and presented your case and we thought—um, it was decided that—if you want , obviously—that you could stay. If you’d like.”
“Stay?”
“On board the Airstream with us. We’re serving our five years as Guild members, helping connect the universe and advance our understanding of existence, blah blah. I'm in it for the travel." His smile is sharp, eyebrows raising. "And all the fascinating folks I get to meet." Alex nearly laughs out loud, thinking of his Air Force recruiter's spiel in that old, humid office what feels like a lifetime ago. Go new places, meet interesting people. "And anyway, you handled yourself pretty impressively, back there. I mean, Max’s idiocy can’t be contained, but… things would have turned out a lot worse, if not for you."
Alex chews on the thought before repeating, “Five years.”
“It's not required, but before we’re technically eligible to inherit our status back on Antar, we have to serve in the Guild for at least five years. Now, Max will probably make a career out of it, but I’m gonna—”
“Inherit your…” Alex lifts his hand, waving it in the air like a visual record scratch. “I’m sorry, what?
“Max and Iz are children of the crown on Antar. I’m more like cousin of the crown, but there's still a whole ceremony." Another quick grin. "We love any excuse for a party.”
“So you’re… you’re literally space royalty?” Alex’s voice hasn’t hit this octave since puberty.
“I mean, Izzy’s the only one who’s actually going to lead anything. It’s mostly just,” Michael flaps his hand flippantly, “titles. But, if you stayed, you’d have a home there, too, with—with us.”
Alex stares back out at Earth. Or rather, the clusters of pixels detailing his home and every person he’s ever known. He considers his life and every possible future for himself. Then he looks at Michael, blushing and staring into his lap, curls in his face and the entirety of the universe in his palm, being offered to Alex.
“Okay,” says Alex. “Where are we headed next?”