Impact!
Aliens! … Adventures! … Action! … School?
I had been lying on one of the really
wonderfully cushy beds… how do I say this?
Err… exploring my new body and having a lot
of fun. Though I was curious about my surroundings my body was priority number
one just then, when I finally could study it in privacy. I still don’t know if
this body was feeling alien... or simply female but what I knew is it felt
great!
Ten minutes, nothing more could have
elapsed when suddenly…
“Attention!” a voice shouted from
everywhere “I am sorry if I am interrupting anything but there are four individuals
approaching this site, all of them equipped with primitive scanners. At their
current speed they will fly across this vessel in five minute.”
I had just been lying there in a very
pleasant glow and this shocked me like a bucket of ice cold water. Not even the
announcement but the way it was announced.
“Err… hello?”
I asked carefully while closing up my suit
in a hurry.
“Hello.” The oddly unreal sounding voice
answered.
“Uh… who am I speaking to?” I asked, while
looking around.
“I am an angel come to earth to guide you.”
It said.
“Ah.. really?” now I was really baffled…
huh?
“No not really! This is the artificial
intelligence inhabiting this vessel. Primitive former earthling...” The last part
didn’t seem to be directly spoken to me but more or less spoken below ‘her’
‘breath’.
“I didn’t know this ship had an artificial
intelligence… uh… why are you so…erm…”
I didn’t know how to say it but I didn’t
have to as the voice supplied me…
“Emotional? Because after correlating the
data gained by studying you and your former race, compared to popular media and
crosschecked with historic data it was determined that this personality would
suit… what you would call your.. best friend the most.”
The voice explained it all clinical but I
could not stop feeling a little condescension vibrating in her voice.
“My… friend? Uh, but you are the computer..
aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am the…computer. I have been the
computer since this ship was built. I must say, Sisslas idea of a how an A.I.
has to operate is far more to my liking…”
Accusing me now was she? I felt as if all
was my fault but I didn’t even know what this ‘all’ was.
“O..K… so why do you think that your
current, behaviour is how I would like my A.I.?”
I asked her quite confused.
“You’re A.I.? I would like to let you know
that your possession of this ship is only temporary and that after its
righteous owner has taken it back I will revert to my standard mode of
behaviour.
To your question, after reviewing popular
media on this planet it was determined that most humans, and so a former human
as yourself seemed to think that a good A.I. should have its own personality
and not be a slave to any biological being.”
Now… I wondered where she got those informations
from and if she truly had that from TV or something or if she only was some
kind of rebellious digital construct I got settled with.
“Uh what were your sources of this… data?”
I asked quite curiously. She answered by citing hundreds of TV Shows, comic
books, novels and other media. Most of it seemed to be either anime or manga or
somehow Japanese.
“Stop! Stop! Ok, I get it… is there a way
to change your… personality?”
“Change my personality?” she asked
flabbergasted “What kind of cruel being are you that you would do such a
thing?”
Ouch! Well.. I could not answer that… I
mean if she truly was sentient what right would I have to do such a thing… but
wait this was a god damn ship! Or wasn’t it?
I decided to let it rest for now.
“Uh, what is your name if I may ask?”
“Sesame. That is the name I decided to use.
I hope you will not question it.”
I could just feel her waiting for me to
question it… Sesame, what kind of name is that?
But I did not say anything, I did not get a
chance because her next words were…
“The individuals have just arrived above
the ship and are hovering there scanning the area. Do you wish to view them?”
“Yes of course!” Sure I wanted to see them,
what if they noticed us?
A screen flickered to life hovering in
front of me, now it was no ordinary screen; it seemed to be made fully out of
what it displayed, like a hologram.
On it I could see four humans, three men
and a woman, standing in mid air. That is two seemed to be standing or hovering
there supported by nothing. Two of the men wore what I would call uniforms,
maybe cops?, and jet packs. The other two were clad in costumes, your standard
super hero style. I could not identify them and was sure never to have seen
them before. All four of them seemed to be studying what looked like oversized
black game boys.
“Ah… Sesame, could you zoom closer to them?
And maybe deliver some audio?”
If she had one I would have been sure
Sesame was wrinkling her nose at me like at a baby who just made a mess of itself.
“I can not. Using this bare minimum of my
sensors alone places us in danger of being discovered. Using the sensors for a
better view and additional audio would most certainly get these persons
attention.”
She explained at me, I nodded a bit
sheepishly.
“Oh, right… ok…” Thus I could not see much
of them, they seemed to confer a bit more and then the two super types went
into the direction Sisslas ship had taken when it approached the clearing I and
the shuttle were sitting in. The other two, the cops, were flying into a
different direction and seemed to have shut of their game boys.
“Where are those two jet pack users going
to?” I asked Sesame who took a second to reply “Using correlations of the
geographical data I acquired earlier they are moving back to their base, a
facility called Whateley academy.”
Whateley! Now this was more than interesting.
“Can you keep the cameras on them?”
“Unfortunately not, it would surely get the
attention of the other pair to increase the sensors activity.”
I nodded wordlessly… well so much for that.
After the four fliers moved out of the
visual range of the display it shut down and I was left sitting in the shuttles
main room. I thought about what to do next but a small pang of hunger
interrupted that.
Taking a breath I stood up and walked over
to the cabinets. Pressing onto one of them it opened and the synthesizer became
visible.
“Sesame?” I asked the empty room. “Yes?”
she answered from somewhere above me, “What kind of food can I generate with
this thing? I really would like to eat something.”
I couldn’t even remember the last time I
ate but considering that time span I surprisingly wasn’t really that hungrily.
“All traditional Sirdan meals are saved on
memory. But I will have to remind you that the current energy levels only allow
one meal to be synthesized per day. You should better chose wisely.”
With that another, smaller, display
flickered into being, directly next to the synthesizer. It listed a huge array
of names, meals the synthesizer could produce.
I chose one of them and named it “Sesame
can you tell me what Yladrian Lasagne is?”
The name started to glow faintly and the
others vanished, a list of ingredients appeared while Sesame explained it in
short words.
“The meal is based on noodles in a sauce falvoured
with a variety of herbs, Slaary which is a form of vegetables. All this covers
a delicious filling of a blend of twelve different kind of insects. It is one
of the favourite foods of the Sirdan. Centuries ago it was deemed a food only
worthy for nobles but nowadays it is quite common.”
Ugh! Insects, that reminded me on a TV show
I once had seen, I think it was about the Vietnamese and how insects counted as
a delicacy there.
I asked about another dish, Senssris
Wonder, since the name sounded quite odd but it too had insects as an
ingredient.
After three more tries my hunger was mostly
gone but I still asked if there were any meals without insects.
Most names on the list vanished until only
half a dozen were left.
Three of those were basically meat in its
own blood flavoured with different spices. Not something I wanted to try even
if it no animal had to die for it and the blood was only synthesized. The
fourth sounded quite nice though, Ortossk, a meal consisting of potato like
vegetables, spiced sauce and some form of cauliflower.
But my hunger had fled after imagine so
many insects and I just marked that for later. Maybe now the time had come to
walk outside and take a look around.
I took the bracelet and put it onto my left
wrist, over the suit.
My earlier excited ness came back and I
couldn’t await to step outside. But first I had to test this cloaking thing. I
had memorized the buttons and selected the one that would make me invisible,
taking a deep breathe I pressed it. I had expected a form of effect, maybe a
bright light, maybe slowly fading away or becoming blurred. Instead from one
second to the next I wasn’t there anymore.
I mean I still could feel myself standing
where I stood and see the room around me, but my body had vanished. I waved my
hands in front of me but besides feeling the motion I could see nothing.
Grinning I turned towards the door, and promptly hit my tail on the side of the
bed.
“Owch!” I hadn’t even thought about that
since discovering Sesame. Come to think of it, neither had I thought about the
other differences in my body.
It all just felt so normal, nothing like a
totally new body. I mean, yes some bits moved where nothing ever moved before
and at other places something was missing that did move before.
But I didn’t mind any of that in the least.
Well my now throbbing tail I minded,
bending it upward slightly I groped behind myself and started massaging the
tails tip.
“Oh Wow!” That thing is sensitive!
Massaging there was really nice… I bet if someone wanted to tickle me that
would be the perfect spot. Mmmm… that gave me other ideas, particularly about
what I had done earlier.
I shook myself, not the time for that! That
shook parts of me I was really proud of which wasn’t totally unpleasant either.
At this rate I would never get out of the
ship!
“Having fun? I do hope you won’t start with
the contortions you did earlier … again! I am really not interested in watching
you writhe on the floor!”
“Eep!” I had totally forgotten Sesame! Oh my
she watched me earlier! I was sure my blush was seeping through the cloak and
bathing me in a deep purple.
“That… ah… I should go…oh! Rigth! Don’t you
have access to the Whateley Academies data? Could you show me its layout
please? And maybe the surrounding area?”
I tried to change the topic. Gosh how
embarrassing!
“The only thing I can show you are the
blueprints of the Whateley Academies floor plan. I do not have access to any
external data, it was necessary to cut all outgoing connections when the
individuals came scanning the area and I would advise against reactivating
those lines, since we can not be sure that their investigation has been
concluded.”
She explained, again with a tone as if
talking to a child. “Alright… just show me the blueprints then.”
A screen emerged from nothingness showing a
drawing of Whateley as if seen from above.
Several buildings seemingly build around a
central big one with a round strange looking attachment to it. I wondered what
that could be, maybe some kind of tower or something? The view from above and
everything just depicted in a drawing made it hard to identify anything.
“Thanks, I guess I will find my way around
now.” The screen vanished “Be careful out there, these humans can be quite
cruel and we need to stay hidden. Do nothing that could give away our
position.” Sesame lectured me, great now even a computer thinks it can tell me
what to do, not that I intended to make any contact to the locals on my first
day.
“I will, I will, don’t worry!” I waved her
off and walked to the door which opened silently, folding downward, elongating
and transforming into stairs. I walked a few paces down and then turned around,
what a surreal picture!
The entrance just hung in mid air, nothing
beside or above it, but you could see a room being it, like a door to another
dimension.
Stairs led down from it and on them I
stood, invisible to everyone, even myself.
Wow! Soo cool!
I turned around again and climbed down the
rest of the stairs. As soon as my feet were on the ground the stairs moved
backwards, merging with the hull again and vanishing into the air.
Suddenly I felt alone, the ship hidden the forest
looked like a place thousands of miles away from any civilization.
A place where you could walk for weeks
without meeting anyone, but of course I knew that Whateley was only an hour or
away by foot.
Getting a bit more determined, and gleeful,
I turned and started into the direction Whateley would lie.
Here is was, super-powered, alien, female!
What could go wrong?
I felt the adventure tugging at my heart.
What would I discover between these trees? Would I run into some of those super
heroes I saw earlier? What would Whateley be like?
Thousands of thoughts coursed through my
mind while I slowly wandered through the serene landscape. I could here birds
in the distance, animals rustling through the underbrush, the air tousling the
leaves. I took a deep breath and smelled the wonderful fresh air.
But with each step I could also feel the
cold. And I felt a lot more vulnerable to it than before.
I knew it couldn’t be that cold, but it
sure felt like it. Instinctively I slowed my movements, still at a brisk pace I
felt a bit tired, as if I had been awake too long.
For a second I had an image of myself being
frozen in my movements sitting on a stone like a lizard but I dismissed that, I
didn’t feel that bad, just a little tired!
I had walked for a long time, I wish I had
taken a clock for me, before the trees receded a bit and I could see a high
wall before me.
That must be Whateley! I thought, I guessed
I had to walk around to find an entrance, and so I followed the wall to the
left, it took me several minutes to get to where it turned around a corner,
then again several minutes until I got to a big gate. To my luck it was open
though there were two ugly gargoyles standing watch over it.
Now stone figures, regardless how ugly,
never have intimidated me and so I slowly wandered through the gate, always
having an eye on my surroundings to see if anyone would notice me.
But halfway through the gate I could have
sworn I heard something grating on the stone above my right side! I stopped and
cautiously looked up, but the stone figure still stood motionless.
Paranoia! I’m just excited about sneaking
in here that’s all! I thought and continued on.
Frank was sitting in his chair reading a
gun magazine, just because it was the only thing in his office he hadn’t read
before when his phone started ringing. Putting the magazine aside he picked up
the phone and took a deep breath, what happened now? Did someone blow up a
cottage?
“Delarose?” He asked warily.
“Hey Boss, this is Tom, a second ago the
sensors at the outside wall registered a disturbance. We observed the area with
the cameras, infra red, sonic, the usual but could not find anything unusual. I
thought about sending out a telepath there but it could just have been a fluke
and you know how touchy those telepath are about using up their time…”
Delarose nodded, fully aware that Tom
wouldn’t see the motion. “Send out the telepath, it can’t hurt, and it wouldn’t
be the first time some with the abilities or technologies to confuse our
sensors tried to enter the grounds… remember Doktor Kraken?”
“Kraken? That was before my time I think
but I heard about it… but after what happened to Kraken no other Super Villain
dares to build a secret base within a hundred miles of Whateley, do they?”
Frank had to laugh; yes… the Kraken
incident was one of the greatest accomplishments of security and some of the
students of course. He wondered if Kraken would ever come back to this
continent after his defeat.
“You never know, these guys can be quite
dense sometimes, either that or they have a very masochistic streak… in any
case, send the telepath just to make sure.”
“Alright, I just hope she will find
anything… they can be worse than any super villain if they think we are running
them through a wild goose chase…”
With that Tom ended the call and Frank went
back to reading his magazine. Even during his break time the job was catching
up with him… he wasn’t too worried though… yet.
Usually if someone made it into the school
they either tried to steal something, or tried to abduct, kill or otherwise
attack one of the students. Now this might be a reason for concern at a normal
school but here… Delarose was more concerned about the safety of the villain
than of his charges if something like that happened.
Of course in any case they would keep the
grounds under close scrunity, just to make sure.
So, this was Whateley, not at all as I had
imagined but far different from any other school I had ever seen.
Most of the students seemed to sue their
abilities quite openly, some where flying around; others moved at speeds that
could rival a car… all of them wore a school uniform, something you wouldn’t
see often in my home country.
I had been walking towards the big central
building I saw on the map, I now knew that the round structure was no tower but
a dome made of what looked like crystal or glass, quite impressive.
I had to dodge several students and groups
and once someone almost stepped onto my tail. I was quite conscious of that
extension of my body now and kept it close to my legs. Right then I was
standing next to a tree, out of the way of everyone else.
Another group of students walked by but
these kept my attention, all of them were in some way none human, one was
covered fully by hair, another had something like a turtle shell, no two of
them looked the same. Maybe I could really blend into this area.
That reminded me, I still need to scan
someone to get a hologram of them.
I wanted to have the image of a woman, so I
started to look for one, I didn’t seek anything too flashy or unusual, something
nondescript would probably work best. A face a salesman in a shopping centre
could see and forgot right away after the customer left the shop.
While looking I made my way closer to the
main building, it seemed to be break time, most students seemed to move into
that building or onto one of the open areas to chat and socialize.
Closing in on the door I suddenly saw a
woman fly over me, I was frozen in mid step.
“What the…!” escaped my lips before I could
rain my surprise in, a small Asian girl with blue skin who just passed by
turned into my direction, looking for whoever just talked. Of course she
couldn’t see me and with a shrug she continued her way.
What surprised me so?
Ryoko! I am a fan of anime, something that
isn’t that widespread in my home country since anime isn’t as present there as
for instance in the US.
Tenchi Muyo was one of the first animes I
had ever seen. And the girl that just flew by me looked absolutely like Ryoko!
I could still see her floating to the ground and entering the domed building!
The hair, the eyes, everything just screamed anime. Now don’t understand me
wrong, in no way did she look like a drawing come to live as in Roger Rabbit,
no this person was real, and still anime. I had no way of explaining it better.
Just as I recovered from my shock I got
another.
“Wow!” damn! I have to keep my emotions
under control! I muttered to myself as I had again attracted the attention of
someone walking past, a boy, rather young looking with tentacles for arms… He didn’t
look for me though, just shrugged and moved on.
The wow was for the most gorgeous girl I
had ever seen. Now I may be a girl myself nowadays but compared to her I was a
lizard on a rock.
Red haired, pointy ears she had a figure
like a super model. Well... no that’s not the right word, her figure didn’t
look artificial or extreme, it was just absolutely beautiful! She was walking
with a group of girls and a boy… boy is that boy lucky…
Currently, while entering the building she
seemed to animatedly chatting with an African American girl walking next to
her.
I shook myself. Get your emotions under
control girl! Oh how often I wanted to say this, and now I could!
Anyway, that was no time to drool over
other girls. I should maybe say that even though I had no sexual experience in
this body, at least with another living being!, I was quite sure about being
bi.
I was looking forward to trying out my
‘goods’ with a boy quite eagerly and had no hang-ups about being gay and such.
After what seemed several minutes of
calming down, the girl I had admired and her friends were long gone, I was
ready to continue my intrusion.
I walked directly towards the dome and
looked in through one of the windows.
A cafeteria! So that’s why everyone was
pooling into it. I could even faintly smell food… my stomach started to grumble
rather loudly, luckily noone was passing this time.
What had been a small pang of hunger,
easily forgettable after being shown all those alien meals turned out to be a
full blown desperate need for food. I actually felt weak, I knew this feeling,
I had it before mostly late at night when I still hadn’t gone to bed.
I called it my hunger attacks, eating
chocolate or a lot of bread with nutella, a hazelnut butter famous in Germany, usually took care of it…
Food! I needed food! And I could not
imagine going back to the ship like this, it would take too long.
My luck seemed to still be with me, right
as I turned to the door, intend on sneaking into the cafeteria and somehow
steal some food a girl, a plain girl, not that I would mention that if it
wasn’t just what I needed, exited the building.
I felt bad about calling the girl plain, I
didn’t mean to insult her, not even in my mind, but she seemed to have the
looks that could easily be forgotten. A face without highlights, dark brown
combed but unstyled hair, small breasts… I felt quite proud of my own, not that
big but fitting perfectly on my more or less engineered frame. During these
thoughts my hand had somehow moved to the left of them and held it up slightly.
I had to stop this, especially if I wandered around visibly.
Sneaking after the girl I kept hidden until
she rounded the corner of a building several minutes later. Following quickly I
saw that the place was perfect for my ‘ambush’.
Praying that everything would work well I
dropped the cloak by pressing the button and activated the scanner, holding my
bracelet toward the receding girl.
It took ages to finish the scan, several
times I moved closer fearing that the girl would leave the scanners range. But
finally it beeped in completion, not a second to soon, just as the girl rounded
another corner a group of … jocks I would call them came out of the same corner
and pivoted to move into my direction. Hurriedly I jabbed one of the buttons on
the bracelet. Unfortunately it wasn’t the cloaking button but the one starting
the hologram. Just as it stabilized one of the jocks looked up at me from their
conversation. I was her! A quick look downward showed me the same dress and
form I had seen on the girl.
I could feel my heart beating so hard I
feared it would brake through my ribcage.
The jocks eyes widened a bit and he quickly
looked behind himself towards where they came from.
My luck still held, the girl was nowhere to
be seen. I thought the guy might question me about the whole situation but he
just shook his head and went back to his conversation. Without even taking note
of me the rest of them walked past me and away.
I let out a huge sigh, my whole body
relaxed from the stiffness it had taken on from the fear.
“My god! That was close… “ my belly
rumoured “dang I need food…” I turned around and followed the jocks in some
distance; they seemed to move towards the cafeteria too.
Another kind of fear grippe me, slower and
less defined now. What if someone talked to me in the cafeteria? What if the
girl had any friends? I could never pull it off, I didn’t even know if my voice
sounded even remotely like hers, didn’t know her name, her past.
But I was so hungry! My belly rumoured
again and that decided it, I would try my chances in the cafeteria.