20. Home
1511 Words
7 hours later...
Flying creatures the size of my arm are chasing me down the beach trying to eat me with their large sucker noses. I jump in the shuttle. "WHAT THE HELL?"
"Those are insects."
"No they're not. Insects are as big as my fingernails. That was something else."
"I will make a note. Sorry for the confusion, ma'am. Returning to the ship."
I nod fast and sit on my seat. "Well s**t. I forgot a souvenir again."
"I will remind you next time."
"Thank you."
"My pleasure."
I go back into the command room. "I want to go to a planet that has people that look like me. But the planet needs to not be advanced. Not like my old planet. I want somewhere like I was used to. And I don't want to cover my skin. Please try to find somewhere where girls don't wear veils."
"Of course. What would you like to eat?"
"Whatever we have a lot of. I don't want to run out of anything. I'll eat anything we have a lot of."
"Of course."
The brain comes out with some salad that looks like runny shredded paper. I take a bite, and it's not good.
"You don't like it?"
"Not at all."
"I will get you something else."
"No." I yank it back. "I will eat it. I don't want to waste anything. Please never bring it again though."
"Yes, ma'am."
I eat it, and it's fine in my stomach. It did not taste good. I eat some bread to weigh it down and move over to the captain's seat. I watch out the window for hours again. We slow down through another galaxy. I'll never get over the beauty of this. The planets and suns. Everything together in chaotic harmony. So many beautiful colors.
I open my eyes and can barely move. I sit up and try to stretch. The brain looks at me. "You fell asleep last night, ma'am."
"Next time please lay me on the floor."
"Yes ma'am."
Another brain faces me. "How are you feeling today, ma'am?"
"Like I need a shower and back surgery." I nearly fall out of the captain's chair. Then I stumble into my room. I take the longest hottest shower ever. It takes forever for my muscles to loosen up. They finally do.
"Would you like assistance seeing everything this room can do, ma'am?"
I pull my hair back. "Yes please. That would be helpful."
The brain explains the tv until I understand how to watch something and search for shows. Then it goes over the menu while I eat food that came out of a box on the wall. It explains the blinds and the doors. How to get books and blankets and things. Then we go into the bedroom. It explains the whole cupboard system. The clothes are so different. I'm blown away by the hair and make-up buttons. I spend an hour on each of them watching myself changing in the mirror. Then it goes over the washer and dryer. I wash and dry a dress to prove I understand it. The bath is still a bath except now it fills itself. And the water seems to stay warm. Showers I already understood, and the ship even has its own shampoo and soap. So that's nice. I didn't have to grab it. I guess I didn't need underwear either. The toilet is the same idea as the 1 on my planet now, so that I understand.
After that, the brain takes me to 3 large buttons on the wall. It explains disguises and let's me play with them. This is the most interesting technology I've ever seen. I push a button and I look 100% like someone else.
"Boys button is on the left, girls is on the right, the middle button will take disguises off."
I turn into a boy and laugh at myself. Then I take it off.
Then we go to my office. There's another food box. And there is a table that is amazing. It's a conference table, but things float in the air above it sometimes. I pull up a map of where we are in the universe, and it shows the ship parked beside a planet. There's 1 sun here and about 15 planets in the solar system. I touch the planet we're parked beside. "Analysis not complete."
The brain faces me. "Once the analysis is complete you can read the information about the planet from here."
"I'll have to do that before I go down."
Then we go to a big dining room. There's 1 big table. I count the chairs and it would fit 30 people. I don't even know 30 people. This room makes me feel lonely. I go back up to the command area and sit down.
I get some tomatoes and dip delivered for lunch. While I'm eating, a brain shows me a black box. "These are premade outfits. It's the same concept as disguises. Except your body wouldn't change. Only your clothes. For example, this is a ball gown outfit. Select it here, then touch the button."
I do it, and suddenly I'm in a long beautiful yellow ball gown. I nearly choke on a tomato. I cough everywhere.
The brain smacks my back. "Now it will only stay on for 12 hours, and then you go back to what you were wearing. Resetting it every 10 hours is suggested if you need to be in an outfit for a long time. There are 30 programmed outfits for you to search through."
I take the box and try on every single outfit. They go from full gowns with high heels to shorts and t-shirts with tennis shoes.
"Now this is the hairstyle section. Several different hairstyles are premade as well."
I go through all of them. Long and straight to short and curly. There are even some weird colors like blue mixed in. I pick long straight white hair.
"This is the disguise section. This is a disguise like the buttons on the wall, but the disguises here are not random. You can design your disguise in the black boxes. We have 1 premade for you. She is an older teenager about your size. But she looks different and her skin is lighter. You can adjust your disguise as you want. It is suggested that you keep the dragon on her. This will prevent you from always having different disguises."
The lights light up brighter for a second. "Incoming transmission."
"What do I do?"
"Sit in the captain's chair and accept it if you would like."
I sit down. "Accept."
Dipak is sitting in his captain's chair. I can see him on lasers that take up half the view. They make it seem like a big screen.
"Where did you run off too?"
"My ship."
"When are you going home?"
"I am home."
He looks over his black box at me. I can tell he's watching me on the screen. That is so weird. I lean over to see better and nearly fall off the chair. His eyebrows shoot up. "So, how's it going so far?"
"Well... A brain scared me to death. I ate something disgusting. I slept in this chair and could barely move the next morning. I also got chased off a planet by giant elephant bugs. So, I'd call it amazing."
"Alden misses you."
I shake my head.
"What are you doing now?"
"Waiting for a planet analysis to get done, so I can go down there."
He pushes buttons on his box. "The shuttles can go nearly invisible. It's called camouflage. Tell them to do that when you are near a planet. The brains can also do it. Tell the 1 beside you to go camouflage."
I stare at it. "Go camouflage." It disappears, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
"Now say show yourself."
"Show yourself." It pops right back into my view.
He smirks. "Shuttles do the same thing. That will keep people from seeing a weird flying box come out of the sky. That could scare a whole planet if you're not careful."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. And you should think about going back. They do miss you."
I shake my head. "I'm going to make my own way now. This is home."
"Ok. I'll do this again in a couple of days. See how things are going."
I smile at him. "Ok, bye."
"Talk later." Once the lasers go away. "Can I get some food please?"
"Of course." The brain brings me something that looks like bugs. "It's rice. It's a type of pasta. It has bits of chicken and vegetables in it."
"DON'T KILL MY CHICKENS. I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH."
"1 chicken is enough for 8 meals. We will not run out. The chicks are growing well."
"Ok." I eat the rice stuff. It tastes good, it just doesn't look good. "How much longer on the analysis?"
"1 hour and 47 minutes, ma'am."
"I'm going to bed."
"Yes ma'am."
- Writer
