Interview: Allan Part 2

Allan: I guess I’m early, I guess I can work a little more (pulls out a note pad and doodles)

Edgar: my god I love it when you work like that. It’s almost like you don’t know I’m here. Yes, keep ignoring me, like a walker on a church day. Regardless of how I move my hips you pretend I’m not there, holding your glances till your wife looks away.

A: you have problems, sweetheart.

E: damn it you’re not pretending.

A: don’t we have an interview?

E: we could do other things while I ask you questions. Look if you don’t get naked I’m going to feel silly sitting here in the nude.

A: I can draw you like the French boy you are.

E: I’m Irish you arse weed. And you’d better strip fer the interview of so help me I’ll take a rubber band to you.

A: I’m not taking my clothes off.

E: aw bollocks!

A: that’s not Irish.

E: fuck off!

A: that’s better, shall we begin?

E: of course my love, where did we leave off? Yes, I remember now. You said something about aliens. Tell me about the first experience you had with an alien.

A: well my first non-human experience was when my father went on a haul mission to Tumlia, a T.R.E.E. went down and he took me along for the ride. I was six and she was tebetebe, which is seven in earth years. The Tumlians are a race that doesn’t live past ten years, so everyone there was near my age. We also call them the Phoenix people because they burst into flames and leave behind a transparent egg with two offspring. If for any reason the offspring touch while in the egg only one will be able to produce an egg. Turns out my new friend was the unlucky twin.

Since they live such a short time their minds grow rapidly, so when she explained this to me I didn’t understand at the time but I knew I was supposed to be sad with her. I kept in communication with her and when it was time for her to go my father took me back to Tumlia and she allowed me to keep her ashes as a way to remember her. Hopefully I have the chance to someday take her back so she can rest with her own kind.

E: so you can’t return to your time yet?

A: no, my machine needs maintenance and for now this world doesn’t have the materials I need to go back.

E: you mean forward.

A: Ed I will slap you in the balls.

E: feisty, I like it. Now I suppose the question we’ve all been waiting for.

A: I was wondering when you’d ask.

E: what part of my body do you love the most… or at least top three.

A: (smiles) mind, eyes, and legs.

E: they are quite tone aren’t they. Oh dear I can hear the readers yelling at us. I suppose I should ask, how did you meet Solace?

A: I was twenty five and on my own running a business. We received communication from Yveo Nine that a Weather inducer was leaking Dense Matter from the cold-wave coils, being my invention I went to fix it. When I got there the inducer was causing massive thunderstorms, big enough to disrupt the electromagnetic field of the planetoid. Luckily the workers of this mining planet had gone on strike before this happened.

It was hairy stuff but I was able to land safely near the inducer. Half way to it a monstrous bold of light struck the machine. The light did not dissipate, it was constant.  The bolt throbbed and pulsated, slowly disintegrating the carbotanium shell of the machine. I could see a silhouette flicker in the light, and then it shot towards me. This mass of singed flesh crashed into me, winding me and almost denting the craft I came in. I scurried into the ship to retrieve the med kit but by the time I came back out he was standing and brushing off his clothes. I will never forget his first words to me, ‘is this the Mercenary Bar and Grill?’

When I told him where he was, he didn’t bat an eye. When I told him the year he sort of chuckled and pulled out a flask. He handed it to me and made me tell him everything. I talked the whole ride back to Mars and when I was done he looked disappointed, not with what I said but just for the fact that there was no more. I introduced him to my father and after Solace and I Picked him up off the floor we all agreed that we needed to find a way to send him back. It took some time but we found a way to modify an inducer, and tested it out on an apple first. Guess you can say I helped Galileo out, I mean I would. When we tested it on solace I sent him a little too far back and he ended up in your time.

E: with those robots?

A: no, those were already there. But when you two came back my father had the idea of retrofitting a Gyrating Hexodym to the lighting modulator, and as you know it worked wonders. I was only supposed to send him back but he took me aside and offered me a job. I thought it was a great way to study the past for as long as I’d like and still be able to return to my time without missing a thing. Too bad the machine had such a little shelf life. And seeing as my father hasn’t come to help I can only assume my design could not be replicated.

E: and now we have come to the end of the interview, thank you love for putting up with me.

A: hey your naked I can’t complain.

E: would you like to finish me… I mean the interview.

A: both, till next time (insert sign off here).