The Prom Goer's Interstellar Excursion (14 page)

“Certified Receipt?”

Thighbone cocked his head at me.

“Oh man, you don't think you're going to walk into the Ecological Center for the Preservation of Lesser Species and ask for one of their specimens without proof of ownership, do you? You need a Certified Receipt for your date if you're going to get her back.”

“But she's not
mine
,” I said. “It doesn't work that way where I'm from.”

“You better
pretend
she's yours, if you don't have a Certified Receipt. I'm telling you right now, it's going to be almost impossible to bluff your way through this. I've tried.”

Thighbone unclipped a phone from his belt. It was a huge piece of equipment, like one of those enormous hand-cranked field telephones soldiers had hauled around in the Vietnam War. I had noticed it already, but I'd assumed it was used for carrying tools.

“You'd think they'd have streamlined this technology by now, but interplanet calls need a lot of juice,” said Thighbone,
dialing a number and handing me the receiver, which was even heavier than it looked. “But I know I need to upgrade. The idea of going back out on the dating scene carrying this phone is embarrassing.”

The ringtone wasn't like the
bring bring bring
of Earth—instead, it sounded a bit like rain on a tin roof, which I found soothing. A brief respite from the oddness of my environment.

Somebody picked up.

“The Ecological Center for the Preservation of Lesser Species,”
said the Jyfo on the other end, in a singsong female voice.

“Hi. Yes. Great. Listen—I think you have a girl in your park who doesn't belong there. She's actually…with me.”

“Wait—the new girl who runs all over the place is with you?”
said the voice on the other end.
“What does that mean?”

“She's my…date.”

“Oh jeez. That is terrible news for us. Our ratings have gone through the roof in the last couple of days because of her, and the other members of the enclosure are finally managing to close in. Do you have a Certified Receipt for her?”

“Of course I have a Certified Receipt. I never throw away my Certified Receipts.”

“At least that makes the paperwork easier. You wouldn't believe how many people call here telling us that we picked up one of their humans, only to have it turn out that they don't have Certified Receipts. Especially for this girl—the television audience has fallen in love. Everyone wants humans as exotic pets because they don't bite much and they taste great if you decide you'd rather eat them than have them in your home.”

“
None of that is comforting to me.”

“I'll transfer you to the Ranger, but just to warn you—he's not going to be happy about this. The new girl has been great for our advertising rates. I almost wish she'd just stay alive forever.”

“Me too.”

I heard the
beep
s and
boop
s of different buttons being pressed, followed by hold music that was—coincidentally—an old ballad by the Perfectly Reasonable. The song seemed to be Skark singing to himself in the mirror. His voice had a lovely, innocent texture to it, different from the way he sounded now.

I'd already learned what being drunk all the time had done to his mind, but this was the first time I'd realized what it had done to his body. He was still terrifically talented, but the song on the phone was something almost
mystical.
He needed to stop it with the wine.

The phone clicked back on.

“The Ranger here,”
said a deeply annoyed voice.
“I hear you have a Certified Receipt for the new girl, but I hope it isn't true.”

“I do, and I want her back immediately.”

“Not to criticize your decision-making skills, but maybe you should have kept an eye on her instead of letting her run around the New Mexico desert. Everybody knows that's where we get most of our humans. It's not like we try to hide it.”

“She can go wherever she feels like going. I want her
back.
”

“She's tired from running, and everybody wants to see the end of the hunt. You understand. All we're doing is applying your theory of survival of the fittest here.”

“Put her on the
phone
,” I said, losing it. “I have a right to talk to her. I want to make sure she's okay.”

The Ranger grumbled.
“Let me see if I can put you through. We just started filming her for tonight's episode of her show, so keep the conversation short. Our viewers hate when humans talk on camera. Whiny voices.”

I was put on hold again.

“Is there a television around here?” I asked Thighbone, who was trying to examine his bald spot in the reflection of his brandy bottle.

“I think there's a TV in the opening band's trailer,” he said, pointing at a tin shed with antennas poking out of it. “But I'm not sure they'll want you storming in. Most artists like to unwind after a show.”

Hauling the heavy phone, I sprinted to the shed and barged through the door without knocking.

Inside, three skinny figures wearing suits were on the couch watching television, though I mean that loosely. Their faces were blank—no eyes, no mouths, no eyes as far as I could tell. They were probably terrible. I can't stand watching instrumental performances, even though I know I should develop an appreciation for jazz and classical compositions. I always need some vocals.

“Would you mind turning on the All-Universe Nature Channel?” I said. “I'm sorry I didn't knock, but it's important. My prom date is on and I need to make sure she's okay.”

The faceless guys pointed at the screen—it seemed they were
already watching the All-Universe Nature Channel. Sophie's show was a hit.

The camera was focused on Sophie as she sat on a staircase inside the glass-ceilinged atrium of the mall. Her hair was sweatily matted to her, and her clothing was torn. She only had one shoe, but she seemed composed—no tears, no panic.

Brinnnnngggg

A phone began ringing inside the mall. The sound of it was barely audible through the television's speakers—this wasn't a full-wall set like the one I'd seen in Cad's dressing room at Berdan Major, just a normal flat screen hanging on a metal hook—but the ringing was there, echoing a moment after the rings I heard on my phone.

Brinnnnngggg

It was my call.

“Is someone there?”
said Sophie, looking around the atrium. It was strange to hear her voice again. She sounded exhausted.

“Hello?”
she said.

The camera tracked her as she made her way through the mall, looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody was following. She walked through a food court—passing Cinnabon, Pizza Hut, Orange Julius—the ringing of the phone increasing in volume with each step.

Sophie stopped in the doorway of a J.Crew and peeked inside. I didn't blame her for not wanting to enter. Even though the open corridors of the mall left her exposed, I could see how they seemed safer than a store, where anyone could jump
out at her from under a table or behind a display case and prevent her from getting away. At least in a corridor she had room to run.

The phone continued to ring until Sophie finally dashed inside the empty store, darting around racks of cardigans and tables of jeans, and grabbed the receiver next to the register.

There was a
click
and suddenly I heard her on the other end.

“Hello? Hello hello?”

“
Sophie.
It's
you.
Holy
crap.
It's Bennett Bardo.”

“Bennett. Oh my God. You need to help me. I'm trapped in this mall with all these sketchy people who are after me. Where am I? What's going on? Are you here?”

“I'm not there, but I'm watching you on TV right now. Somebody is following you with a camera….”

“I think I've seen the guys with cameras, but anytime I try to look at them, they hide themselves. Where am I?”

“You're in the Ecological Center for the Preserv—Never mind where you are, it's difficult to explain. You were abducted by Jyfos when we were in the desert, and now you're being hunted—but don't freak out.”

“Jyfos? Being hunted? Don't freak out?”

“I'm going to find a way to get to you.”

“Why haven't you come yet?”

I knew what I was about to say next wouldn't sound good.

“I'm kinda on tour with a band….”

“You're on tour with a band and I'm running for my life? What's wrong with you?”

“I know it sounds bad, but it was the only way I could get into space. I'm figuring out how to get them to come for you, it's just been a little difficult. You need to trust me.”

The camera rotated to reveal a group of bearded truckers and thick-armed lunch ladies lumbering into the J.Crew like catatonics. Sophie ducked behind the checkout counter.

“When will you come?”

“As soon as I can, I promise.”

By this point, the band members who were sitting in the room with me appeared to be getting excited that I was
actually talking
to the subject on the screen, though it was hard to tell for sure due to their lack of faces. They were perched on the end of the couch, shaking a little, looking at the phone and back at the television screen every time Sophie and I said something to each other. I turned my back to them in some sort of attempt at privacy.

“Help me,”
Sophie whispered.
“They're coming in.”

“I'll be there right away. I'm going to figure out how—”

From outside the opening band's trailer came a strange vibration, followed by a series of earthquakes above and below us that shook the room and knocked the television off the wall. Something was wrong with the Dark Matter Foloptopus.

Thighbone ran inside the trailer and snatched the phone away from me.

“The dam is
coming apart
,” he said.

I ran out of the trailer and stared at the structure. It was crumbling, on fire. I heard the
VRUMP
sound of the Perfectly
Reasonable stopping their set short, followed by Skark speaking to the crowd.

“Okaaaay…everybody stay calm,” said Skark, his voice muffled by the gooey walls of the Foloptopus's stomach. “Seriously, don't worry about the dam. I
assure
you trained technicians are fixing it right now. The band and I are going to take a quick intermission and we'll be back to finish the set….”

Skark turned to Cad and Driver but didn't get far enough away from the microphone, which picked up what he said next: “We need to get out of here
now.
That wall is about to come down. Head for the bus.”

When the crowd saw the band turn and run, there was hysteria. Hordes of concertgoers trampled each other as they sprinted for the lot where their shuttles and spacecraft were parked—a lot located behind where I was standing, which meant the mob was rushing directly at me, howling for me to
get out of the way.

On the other side of the stomach, I could see the Interstellar Libertine lift off from behind the stage. The band had made it inside, but I was nowhere near them and they didn't seem to care. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't push my way
against
the onrushing swarm, because I'd be knocked to the ground and crushed. But if I ran
with
the throng, I would just be moving farther from the bus.

Both options seemed terrible, so instead of picking either, I ran
away
from the mob sideways and pressed myself up against the lining of the Foloptopus's stomach, which smelled like a
slab of meat that had been left out in a powerful sunbeam, rancid and old and foul.

There was a series of
pop
s from the dam, and I watched it split. A flood of bile poured through the break, dissolving concession booths and fans as it filled the Foloptopus's stomach cavity.

I had bought myself a few extra seconds of life by getting away from the path of the bile, but it would soon reach me too. I attempted to climb the walls of the Foloptopus's belly, but there were no handholds on the slick surface, and the creature was thrashing too violently for me to keep my footing.

I saw the Interstellar Libertine rotate in the air, heading in the opposite direction from where I was standing, searching for the exit.

Nobody on the bus had spotted me.

“Hey!”
I shouted.

The bus drifted away.

I watched as a tidal wave of stomach acid consumed the metal lighting fixtures at the front of the stage and the merchandise stands hawking bootleg Perfectly Reasonable T-shirts and beer koozies. In the parking lot, it gobbled up the vehicles that had been unable to get off the ground before traffic snarled, and it gobbled up the vans that had crashed together in the rush to escape. The wave devoured Thighbone, who appeared to be in the middle of an argument with his ex-girlfriend, which seemed like a silly way to spend one's final moments.

The bile pooled near me in the dents and craters of the Foloptopus's stomach, steadily getting closer.

It was all deeply unfair. I had always considered high school a purgatory that I had to endure while waiting for real life to begin, but if I was to perish
here
, it would turn out high school
had
been my life. That was it. I had gotten
so far
, found my way into space, figured out where Sophie was being held, and made
contact
with her. Part of me was beginning to believe that I was going to be a hero, but if this was the way things ended, I would exit outer space the same way that I went into it—thinking about a girl.