Now

“Your species is called human?”

“…”

“Recalcitrance is pointless. Answering will not betray your kind. The god hair you emerged from marked you as such. We merely seek confirmation in your own words to establish a baseline for this process.”

“Um… I’m not exactly too clear on how the spires are doing the whole, universal translation thing, but did you refer to them as your gods’ hairs?”

“The translation system’s shortcomings are known to us and are irrelevant to current proceedings. Answer the question or face compliance.”

“Fine, fine. No need to ruin a nice conversation with threats.” Cal kept his face carefully neutral, kept his pulse steady. Over the past few weeks he had risked numerous, quick peeks into his alien captors’ minds. What he had observed led him to be optimistic about getting through his current predicament intact, physically and mentally. Threats notwithstanding, the aliens, or the Threnosh, a word in their language that translated simply into People, weren’t the torturing kind. “Yes, I am human, as are the rest of my kind. See, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Cal shot his best, charming smile at the two Threnosh. To no effect.

The aliens simply stared impassively at him. They stood as rigid as the thick, bulky power armor that encased their small, frail-looking forms.

It was nearly a full minute, going by Cal’s internal count, before the alien on the left finally blinked and continued.

“What is your designation?”

“My what? Uh… I guess I’m an office admin, at least I was until the spires started popping up and all that went away.”

“What are you called?” The alien on the right took a turn.

Cal wasn’t sure and he didn’t want to risk a look into the alien’s thoughts, who knew what sort of advanced technology they had scanning and recording every inch of him at the moment, but he detected a hint of annoyance in the usually emotionally flat aliens.

“Ah… nope, sorry. I don’t quite understand the question.”

The alien on the left gave the one on the right a deliberate look. It was the first time either had shifted away from the rigid posture toward Cal since the interrogation began. He suppressed a satisfied feeling.

“What do others of your kind call you?” Left alien turned their attention back to Cal.

“Well… it really depends on a lot of different variables. The person, the setting, the time of day, and other things.” Cal frowned. “Listen, guys. I really want to help you out here. If only in the interest of continuing to foster beneficial dialogue among our two peoples. I mean, it’s really unprecedented. To think that we thought ourselves alone in this universe, yet here we are, two different species, sentient beings, sitting and standing across from one another.”

“Your dissembling will cease immediately.”

“Apologies, Righty,” Cal grinned. “It must be the universal translation system. I don’t think it’s a hundred percent accurate. Maybe if you guys gave me some context.” He waited a beat for the aliens to speak. When neither did, he forged ahead. “Okay, so, like, what do you call each other? Let’s say you,” Cal indicated the alien on the left with a tilt of his head, “need you,” he nodded to the alien on the right, “to go on a beer run… what do you call—” Cal was about to say him, but he realized it would be presumptuous to assume the aliens had the same concepts of gender. Instead he abruptly clapped his mouth shut.

The silence stretched on for another few minutes.

“Interrogator Ebbing Tides 2337, is my designation.”

“Interrogator, wh—”

The alien on the left turned to look at the one on the right, quicker now. “That is Interrogator Ethereal Loaming 5623.” They fixed an unblinking look at Cal. “That is sufficient to clarify your confusion. You will reciprocate.”

“Wow, weird name, but we can probably chalk that up to the translation.” Cal cleared his throat. “I go by Honor.” He kept his pulse even with practiced ease. At the same time he kept Calmin Honorio Gerzan Cruces, his real name out of his mind, thanks parents for going for uniqueness over something else that schoolyard bullies couldn’t sink their cruel little claws into. He wasn’t about to give his real name out. Who knew what the aliens could’ve done with it, especially ever since space magic became something real and tangible.

“Your designation is the abstract concept of the adherence to accepted standards of conduct?”

“Yeah, I guess, Interrogator Ethereal Loaming 5623,” Cal said as he tried to shrug his shoulders. “Your, ah, designation is a bit of a mouthful. Any chance I can shorten it… respectfully, that is?”

“Direct address is unnecessary.”

“Sure thing, Loaming,” Cal respond solemnly.

“Designation: Honor.”

“What is it, Tides?”

Cal noticed the Interrogator stiffen. The movement would’ve been imperceptible prior to the changes he’d undergone in the past four years. Now he could perceive much more than humanly possible. He kept the earnest look on his face, like a student eager to please and be rewarded.

“Now that the preliminaries are concluded we will begin.”

“Okay,” Cal said.

“Why did you come to our world?”

Then

The brave hero held his stance. His feet were planted into the thin layer of wood chips that covered the ground. His hands were next to his face, in loose fists. His body was relaxed, yet ready to explode into action at a moments notice. Eyes were steady, focused on his gargantuan opponent’s protruding brow.

The villain loomed large over our diminutive hero. The brute had over a head and a half in height and must’ve been twice as wide. None on the yard dared contest his dominion. Except this time, he had finally gone too far. He cocked his head to one side, confusion written clearly on his porcine face.

“What’d you say?”

“I said that’s enough, Jaden!”

An ugly sneer formed across the villain’s pudgy face. “Oh yeah? And you’re gonna do something about it?”

“I’ll stop you!”

“Ha! You’re a stupid baby! With a stupid name, Calmin,” Jaden spat out the name, “what’d your parents do? Forget how to spell your name right? Or maybe your stupid country just has stupid names!”

“I was born here just like you,” Cal said in a low voice.

The foul villain mistook the hero’s tone. He thought that his verbal salvo had landed, had drawn first blood, he thought wrong. “I’m going to make you shit your pants,” he cracked his knuckles, an evil look grew in his eyes. “Shit is brown, just like your skin! Everyone’s gonna call you shitskin!”

The gathered crowd said nothing. It wasn’t what the villain was expecting and he glared around for a brief moment. None dared meet his eyes for none wished to risk his ire. He had crossed a line, most had realized this, yet better his ire be focused on poor Calmin, than on them.

“Sticks and stones, Jaden,” Cal lips twisted into a wry grin. “I’ll let that go, as long as you give Bethany her doll back and apologize.”

The hero didn’t dare look at the sniffling girl standing behind him. He didn’t want to take his eyes off his opponent, but he chanced a quick glance to the corner of a wall in the distance across the playground. Mrs. Brackenridge had disappeared around it some five minutes ago. The yard duty had a terrible habit of taking time out of her responsibility to watch over them for a leisurely smoke. At least that’s what the kids guessed judging by the foul stench that always clung to the woman.

Cal made a mental note to tell his parents about Mrs. Brackenridge’s dereliction. The crisis situation he thrust himself into would never have happened had the yard duty simply did her job.

He had watched Jaden eyeing Bethany as the small girl played with her doll. She had proudly brought it in for show and tell and had steadfastly kept it within her reach at all times. Apparently it was an antique of sorts. It belonged to her grandmother and she was quite concerned about something happening to it. She must’ve figured it would be safest at her side. The poor girl didn’t account for the malicious and opportunistic villain pouncing as soon as their minder was off on her unauthorized cigarette break.

As soon as Jaden moved, Cal moved too, but he was too far away to cut the villain off before he cruelly snatched the doll out of Bethany’s hands. Cal cursed himself. He saw it coming. He should’ve acted quicker instead of reacting. As it was he reached the scene of the crime right as Jaden waved the doll above his head, much too high for Bethany’s futile attempts to reach for it.

“C’mon, Jaden,” Cal grinned, “Mrs. Brackenridge is going to be done with her cigarette soon, just hand the doll over or you’ll get in trouble.”

The villain’s fat head swiveled quickly to the corner of the wall in the distance before he caught himself and just as quickly turned his beady-eyed glare back to Cal. “Nah, she’ll be gone long enough for me to teach you lesson.”

“You can’t,” Cal said. “She’ll see what you did. The others will tell on you, I will tell on you.”

The villain shook his round head with disdain. “I’ll tell her you fell. You’ll say you fell.” He raised his voice. “Everyone will say you fell.”

“She won’t believe that,” Cal said.

“My parents own this school, she’ll believe whatever I want.”

“Fine, just hand the doll over. It was Bethany’s grandma’s.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Cal knew that he had erred. The evil gleam in villain’s eyes told him as much.

“So if something happens to this stupid thing,” Jaden tossed the doll up in the air, higher and higher, “little baby Bethany’s gonna cry some more?”

Cal tried to ignore the growing wails coming from Bethany behind him. “C’mon, Jaden, don’t be a di—”

“You want this so bad, here… catch!”

Of course Cal saw the move coming. For all their brawn, villains of Jaden’s size lacked nuance in their thoughts and actions. All their goals centered around dominance and cruelty.

The doll flew at Cal’s face with the speed of a tightly-thrown spiral, as expected from the budding future quarterback. Cal caught the doll with his lead hand, the left, while at the same moment he dipped lower and shuffled a step forward.

The villain had rushed in with a powerful two-handed shove ready to unleash on the much smaller hero. It was predictable, Jaden was fond of the move, conquering dozens of his victims much the same way over the school year. Even Cal had been the victim of it in the past, but this time things were different. Cal wasn’t fighting for himself, he was fighting for the innocent.

Just like his uncle had taught him. Cal unleashed a powerful straight with his right. He acted with instinct born of countless hours of practice. The blow started in his legs, then traveled up the rest of his body, through the turn of his hips, his shoulders, his arm, until it finally exploded from his fist.

The villain let out a whoosh of air with a pained gasp. His momentum blunted, Jaden fell to his knees and promptly vomited his lunch all over himself.

Cal looked at his clenched fist in stunned silence. It actually worked. The feeling of it plunging into the villain’s soft underbelly was quite satisfying, much more so than hitting the mitts or the bag.

“Thanks Cal!” Bethany wiped her eyes with a sleeve while grabbing her doll out of his hand.

Before he could reply the stench of Jaden’s vomit finally reached his nose. Soon Cal was gagging, struggling mightily to avoid joining the villain in his fluid, chunky disgrace.

Now

“That is disgusting.” The slight crinkling to Loaming’s smooth, barely-there brow, betrayed the flatness of their voice.

“I know,” Cal said, “two other kids also threw up and I threw up a little in my mouth. Had to swallow it back down to avoid ruining my image.”

“You failed to answer the question,” Tides said.

“Wait!” Cal tried to raise his hands. “You wanted to know how I ended up on your world, well it started with that one single fight decades ago.

“We seek the factual events that led you to emerging from the god hair,” Tides said.

“What happened to this Jay-deen?”

“Well, Loaming, as it turned out, nothing,” Cal sighed ruefully.

“How is that possible? He was the clear aggressor. Furthermore, what kind of barbaric civilization allows a much larger juvenile to mix in with smaller ones in their nursery creche?”

“To answer your questions,” Cal spoke quickly before Tides had the chance to get the interrogation back on track, “Jaden was right. His parents were rich and had just recently donated the money for an upgrade to the school gym. Naturally the administrators didn’t want to upset them and since no adult was around to see the entire event, it was easy enough for them to dismiss the kids’ accounts. As for your second question. I’m guessing it’s going to be hard to explain. You see, Jaden was technically a grade older than the rest of us. His parents intentionally held him back a year because there was a superstar quarterback in his proper grade and they didn’t want the competition.” He nodded sympathetically at the confused look on Loaming’s face. “I know, it’s stupid. Why are you bothering going to the effort when your kid is only in first grade? I mean there are so many different variables to take into account at such a young age, which renders looking for a competitive advantage moot.”

“Par-en-tss? What is this word?”

“Uh… you know, mom, dad.” Cal took in the flat look on the aliens’ faces. “Right, well a man and a woman do the thing and nine months later out pops a baby.”

“You speak of reproduction?”

“Wait… isn’t that how you guys do it?”

“Interrogator Ethereal Loaming 5623,” Tides said flatly.

“Anyways,” Cal continued to ignore Tides, “fortunately my own parents weren’t without means, so the school didn’t want to outright expel me. I got suspended for a week. Worst part though was what my parents did. I couldn’t play video games for a month and they canceled my Christmas. No presents for little me that year, had to watch my younger brothers open theirs up. At the time I didn’t think it was worth it, but upside was that for the rest of the year Jaden didn’t risk pulling his usual crap whenever I was around, so in the end I was mostly satisfied with how things turned out.”

“Comply.” The word was short, clipped, from Tides’ mouth.

“Okay, relax. I was getting to that part,” Cal said. “It was about four years ago… uh, on my world a year is three-hundred sixty-five days. A day is like one revolution of the planet on its axis. Not sure how yours works.” The look on the alien’s face made him want to smirk, but he tamped the impulse down. “So, anyways. It was night time…”