Scepticism

by Angela Olah

I’m so terrified that I can’t even remember the code, even though I was the one who set it up, my own home’s coordinates, something I should know by heart. But I was so sure those idiots would never figure out what the number meant that I only treated it as a joke.

A joke, a prank, and now here I am, standing in front of the door, desperately trying to recall it. I mess it up twice. I can’t understand why I never wrote it down somewhere or saved it in my phone, like that idiot Peter did.

On the third try, I finally get it: 217.429, -62.679. The alarm doesn’t go off. I take a deep breath and slip into the stairwell as quietly as possible so no one notices me. That would be a disaster. By now, everyone is aware of the interstellar object passing by Earth and collecting data. It’s here for my data, the data I’ve been gathering.

And they’ve probably already figured out that my secret code is the coordinate where the space shuttle came from. They’re not so stupid that they couldn’t connect the dots. I try to enter the apartment just as quietly, so I don’t wake my roommates. Jim has probably already seen through me. He’s perhaps called NASA or the police by now, and they’ll take me to some research facility and dissect me into tiny pieces, or who knows what they’ll do.

But I’m hoping that around three in the morning, I can still sneak into my room unnoticed and send a message: the heat is on me, get me out now, send the teleportation permit, I’m close to being exposed.

Of course, I suspect the guys are in the living room playing video games; they always are. And no matter how much I protest, they always try to drag me into the game. At first, it was funny, how I’d instantly grasp the mechanics and beat the whole thing in seconds, leaving them staring in disbelief, wondering how the hell I did it. At first, I even played along, not caring. But then I started being more careful.

Lately, they’ve been sending me messages whenever they get stuck, asking me to help. I haven’t been able to work or collect data for months without one of those idiots poking their head into my screen, telling me to stop working so much, that it’s not possible to do this much from home office, that COVID ended ages ago, and why does a taxi driver have to sit in front of a computer for hours anyway?

When that happens, I switch into a more cautious mode and help them out, but I’ve been more careful lately. In the beginning, I boasted about it, telling them everything, hinting that they should pay attention to me because I’m an alien. Of course, they thought it was a joke and called me the “funny guy.”

They’ve probably figured out by now why I’ve never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Things work a bit differently for us. Even though I have a perfect human body, physical touch doesn’t work. There’s something strange, something… off about it.

But enough of that, there are bigger things to worry about. Today’s events, the alien shuttle’s closeness, it’s bound to draw suspicion. And as I step into the apartment, I already see the bluish light spilling from the living room. Of course, they’re both there, controllers in hand, and there’s someone else too, judging by the voice, a woman.

I listen to their voices, wholly absorbed in the game, while I try to slip quietly into my room. I need to check out of the whole system. I’m not about to screw myself over like ad756 did. He lived here for about sixty years without a problem, and then suddenly snapped and revealed himself in his complete form, without the synthetic skin, green and unmistakable. And then he was shocked when it wasn’t the humans but our kind who showed up and shut him down.

I still don’t understand what he thought would happen. That they’d give him a medal here? Or that over on Centuri B, they’d just let him expose every single embedded operative?

I turn off the automatic connection points and reset the computer’s codes to eliminate any trace of my activity. Luckily, I don’t have to enter them all manually; there’s an emergency script I wrote long ago for precisely these kinds of situations, the ones where I’m sure I can’t stay any longer.

The script runs quietly. I watch the strings of numbers scroll past, and I almost feel sorry that it’s over. I hate teleporting. I always throw up at the end. And I’ve always hated the total darkness; my lenses automatically adjust, but there’s that brief in-between moment when the nothingness around me feels almost solid, tangible, and terrifying.

Just as I’m mentally bracing myself for it, I hear a soft knock. It’s coming from the window, and I don’t even need to open my eyes to know it’s Mary, the girl next door, who thinks nothing of climbing across the windowsill, even though I’ve always been rude to her. I hesitate for a moment, inhaling the burnt smell from the teleportation system warming up. Even the scent alone stirs a wave of nausea in me.

Oh, fine. I’ll hear what she has to say one last time. Then I have to press the button, and I’m gone.

Like a cat, she slips into the room. I close the window behind her. I’m sure she smells the burnt air too, but she acts as if she doesn’t care. She strips off her clothes, lies down on my bed, rests her head in her hand, and sizes me up.

I’m supposed to be surprised, or at least pretend to feel something, but all I can think about is the teleportation unit slowly warming up, and how if I don’t start it soon, there’ll be a point where it shuts itself off, loudly. And how the hell would I explain that?

Mary’s body is somehow different from what I remembered, or somewhat different from what I expected, since this is the first time I’ve seen her like this. She’s all smooth curves. I start to turn away, planning to leave and pocket the teleporter, when the door bursts open and loud laughter fills the room.

Peter and Jim flop down on my bed and tell me they have something important to say.

Mary looks embarrassed, trying to pull her clothes back on, but they’ve fallen to the floor, and picking them up would mean bending over while the guys are staring. Instead, she yanks my bedsheet out from under them and wraps it around herself.

Meanwhile, another girl walks in. She seems familiar, but I barely pay her any attention; my mind is racing. They know everything. Any moment now, the police will show up and haul me off to some experimental facility. And of course, it would happen just as I was about to leave. Do I still have enough time to escape with the teleporter?

Peter takes out his phone and starts tapping on it. The unfamiliar girl bursts out laughing and leans in close to me. “Remember me?” she whispers.

But I can’t take my eyes off the phone, waiting for him to show a picture of my planet, Centauri Proxima b, or maybe call someone to tell them it’s time, that they’ve figured me out, that they know who I am.

“What are you staring at so desperately?” Peter asks. “Do you remember Laura?” He gestures toward the girl next to me with his phone.

I keep staring at the phone, occasionally glancing at Mary, wondering what she has to do with any of this. She looks just as confused as I am.

Finally, Peter shows me the screen. “Crazy how far tech has come,” he says. The image brightens, and it feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. It’s a picture of a black hole. I’m sure it’s not real, must be a simulation, because no camera has ever been close enough to take such detailed images.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Laura asks beside me. “Gorgeous, right?”

At last, I turn my head toward her, staring into her large blue eyes as if I could read in them what they’ve figured out, what exactly they’re after.

“Quantum physics,” Peter says. “Laura’s studying it at university.”

Laura smiles, and I notice the tiny freckles dancing across her nose. I feel a little dizzy but hold myself steady, gripping the teleporter tightly in my pocket. A vague memory surfaces, being very drunk, staring at her face just like this, the freckles reminding me of a starry sky. I can’t remember what I said back then, but I wonder now, what might I have let slip?

“You once said something about teleportation that stuck with me,” she murmurs. I grip the device tighter as the dizziness swells, the burnt smell from earlier is still in my nose, and my brain feels like it’s shifting into a different mode. The nausea is getting harder to fight.

“You must be a physicist, knowing as much about particle physics, you are like my mom’s gardener, who was a chemist, back in the little country he came from. Where was it you said you were from?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer, shoves a bottle of vodka under my nose. “Have a drink.”

I lift the bottle carefully. Fine, one last drink can’t hurt. Laura watches as I take a long swig. “See? I knew I was right. You’re a physicist, but you couldn’t find a job here, so you drive a taxi.”

I grunt, take the bottle from her again, drink, and maybe even nod. The room starts to spin. And I think to myself, they’re idiots. Nothing fazes them. What could I expect? Even my faintly glowing skin in the dark, within minutes, they’d already found some perfectly logical explanation for it.