America's Got Talent

This story has a significant sci-fi element; if that's not your thing you should pass!

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Typically the favorite summer TV show in the United States is "America's Got Talent (AGT)," although the name is a misnomer since there have been acts that originate in many other countries including Australia, Lebanon, Germany, South Korea, and Columbia. There are many fans who would love to participate if they had an unusual act, even though the chances of winning are similar to winning a state lottery.

One such person who loved AGT was Lucinda Connors, nee Baker. She had been a gymnast in High School and college, even winning the NCAA Division I vault championship her senior year at Cornell University. However, she could never come up with something that was unusual enough for her to even apply to audition, during the three years she had been married to Brandon Connors. Brandon is a successful businessman, three years older than Lucinda who got his MBA at Cornell when Lucinda was an undergraduate -- which is where they met. While Brandon espoused support for Lucinda's dream he never did anything to actively encourage it, and secretly thought that it was absurd.

One person who didn't think that there was anything at all absurd about Lucinda was Brandon's younger brother by four years, Kyle Connors. Kyle had a crush on Lucinda almost bordering on obsession, for reasons that he was never able to adequately analyze. Maybe that was because Kyle wasn't into intellectual pursuits like Brandon was, but was more into physical fitness and athletics. His impressive, but not overdone, physique was attractive to many young women, but Kyle's secret obsession with Lucinda precluded him from establishing a long term romantic relationship with any of his female admirers.

Despite Kyle's attempt to be subtle around Lucinda, being a perceptive female she sensed his feeling about her but never did anything overt to encourage them, nor did she take advantage of Kyle. She was secretly pleased with his opinion of her because like many females his muscular body and kind manner were intriguing. Brandon, on the other hand, was totally clueless about Kyle's secret affection toward Lucinda, and unwittingly sometimes pushed them together in one-on-one situations.

One such occasion occurred during a time when Brandon rented a cabin on a pristine mountain lake and invited his business partner and her husband, and Kyle and a date, to join him and Lucinda for a long weekend. Because of travel schedules and circumstances Kyle would pick Lucinda up to take her there while Kyle's date Cathy would travel separately, while Brandon travelled with his business partner Judith and her husband Malcolm.

Over the three years that Kyle had known Lucinda he had developed some techniques for not making a fool of himself around her in one-on-one situations. These included always (unless it was totally absurd) wearing sunglasses, wearing compression underpants to keep his girthy male member in place, avoiding all topics even tangentially related to romance, sex, or male-female relationships, and -- most importantly -- when he felt himself starting to be overcome with desire pushing his thumbnail into his palm to cause enough pain to snap him out of it. As a result he had collected a series of what he called "battle scars" on both of his palms.

As Kyle drove Lucinda to the lake house, through almost virgin forests, he was having a particularly difficult time in dealing with his feelings for Lucinda. For one thing her shorts were too -- well -- short! For another, she had done something to her hair that made her look even more delicious to Kyle than normal. Also, she occasionally complained about Brandon not taking her seriously or giving her enough attention or crediting her with as much intelligence as she possessed.

At one particular remote part of the forest they were traversing while Kyle was digging his left thumbnail into his palm to distract him from the way Lucinda's thighs looked as she put both of her bare feet on the console of his pickup truck there was a flash that appeared to be some object that passed right in front of them and seemed to crash a couple hundred meters to the right of the unimproved road that they were on.

"Did you see that?" Lucinda excitedly rhetorically asked. "What was it?"

"Beats me," Kyle responded, bringing the pickup to a halt.

"Let's go see," she excitedly said.

Kyle had less curiosity about it than did Lucinda, but always anxious to please her he locked the differentials on his truck and proceeded through the forest toward what appeared to be the crash site. Fortunately in the old growth forest the trees were widely spaced so with only a few reverses he was able to drive the roughly 200 meters into the forest, where it opened up into what appeared to be a mud pit. In the mud pit was a small silvery craft.

Kyle and Lucinda almost fainted when three small humanoid figures appeared from what resembled a hatch on the craft. Kyle instinctively reached for his shotgun, but Lucinda put a restraining arm on him. "Let's not be hostile unless they are. You're twice their height and four times their weight -- they're not a threat." With that Lucinda popped out of the vehicle and Kyle quickly followed.

The three humanoids were sitting on top of their craft as it appeared to be slowly sinking into the mud pit, making all sorts of gestures. They appeared to be terrified of Kyle, but since Lucinda was closer to their size, although still significantly larger, they appeared to warm up to her as she made pleasant sounds, smiled, and even tried sign language on them.

Although the parties were not really able to communicate well, Lucinda soon came to the conclusion -- not really a startling one -- that the small humanoids desperately wanted to extricate their craft from the mud pit. In an apparent attempt to facilitate this one humanoid went into the craft and soon thereafter several what for lack of a better name could be said were handles popped out of the craft's skin.

Kyle's pickup truck had a winch mounted on the front. He threw a weight attached to a string, which in turn was attached to a cable and a strong carbineer, to the humanoid who appeared to be most with it. While the creature would never be a baseball player, he/she/it was able to grab the weight before it and the string went into the mud pit, and following Kyle's hand movements and directions clipped the carbineer to one of the handles. Lucinda motioned for the humanoids to go back inside their craft, and once there were back in Kyle activated the winch.

While it was a slow going removal of the craft from the mud pit it was effective primarily because the craft was not as heavy as Kyle expected. After about fifteen minutes the craft was on a grass patch safely spaced from the mud pit, and Kyle shut off the winch and removed the carbineer and cable from the craft. A few minutes after that the humanoids exited the craft and actually went right up to Lucinda and hugged her legs much like a human child might, while making sounds similar to purring.

Lucinda smiled; Kyle was flabbergasted. He took a step toward Lucinda but that caused the demeanor of the humanoids to quickly change and they hid behind Lucinda. "I think that they're scared to death of you, Kyle; better stay away for now," she laughed.

"What are we going to do now?" Kyle asked. "We can't take them with us. Should we call NASA, or the police, or what?"

"Let's try a while longer to communicate with them," Lucinda smiled.

The word "them" had been out of her mouth for only a few seconds when suddenly a similar, but larger, craft noiselessly appeared above them, and it gently set down on the mud pit, without any indication that it would sink, apparently held up by a blue glowing light that looked almost like a jell.

Two humanoids between Kyle's and Lucinda's size exited the craft, seemingly stepping right through it, and made some comments to the little humanoids -- who were obviously of the same species -- that caused them to act -- if their expressions and body language could be read correctly -- between chagrined, chastised, and scared.

Then one of the larger humanoids cautiously approached Kyle and Lucinda, while the other took the three smaller ones into the craft that had just landed. He/she/it activated a device on its chest and a mechanical voice in English said "Thank you for assisting what you would consider our teenagers. Their exploits are akin to earth teenagers stealing a car and joy riding, although the consequences could be even more serious."

"We were happy to help," startled Lucinda replied. Kyle just stared in awe.

"Unfortunately, we do not have a memory erasing device like in your movie 'Men In Black'" the humanoid continued maybe making an attempt at humor. "We would like your discretion in not reporting what you have seen to others, although we offer no threat because we are part of a peaceful society and your species is too violent at the present time for us to establish meaningful communication with. However, what we can do is offer you an incentive not to report what you have seen."

Lucinda was now actually flummoxed but after a few seconds she had a Eureka moment. "Do you have real powers much greater than humans on earth have?"

"Yes, we do."

"I want to go on AGT but I need a unique act; can you help with that?"

While the humanoid was somewhat familiar with AGT -- like almost everything else about earth -- it required more information. Lucinda took out her phone and played videos of her top ten favorite acts on AGT. The humanoid somehow sped them up so that he/she/it only had to view each one a couple of seconds before it had consumed the information about them.

The humanoid appeared to stroke its chin and smile -- although both may have been just what Lucinda wanted to see -- before it looked at Kyle. "It appears that you are an exceptionally muscular and strong human, correct?" it asked Kyle.

Kyle meekly replied "Yes" while Lucinda jumped right in and reported a litany of Kyle's maximum lifts, most of which he didn't know that she knew.

Again the humanoid appeared to smile. He touched something on the device on his chest and soon two other large humanoids exited the large craft with a device and what appeared to be two bottles.

From the device holograms were displayed that showed a facsimile of Kyle tossing a facsimile of Lucinda high in the air while she did all sorts of tucks, spins, flips, and other maneuvers like a diver, gymnast, and circus performer combined. Lucinda and Kyle watched in awe for the roughly two minutes that the holograms were displayed.

After the display, the humanoid who appeared to be the leader took the two bottles from one who had recently exited the craft. One bottle was silver in color, the other purple. "In these two bottles are elixirs that will allow you two to replicate the feats of the holograms which were just displayed, and which now are in the form of a video on your device female human," it said now looking at Lucinda.

Again looking at Lucinda the mechanical voice continued: "You as the female should take only two milliliters of the elixir from the purple bottle before practicing or performing, and you as the male," the humanoid continued looking at Kyle, "should take only three milliliters of the elixir from the silver bottle before practicing or performing. The effects of the elixirs will allow you to duplicate, or enhance, the maneuvers just displayed by the holograms. The effects of the elixirs will be available roughly one of your minutes after ingestion and will last for roughly twenty of your minutes before dissipating. There is enough elixir for twenty practice sessions or performances. Use them wisely."

"Is this for real?" Kyle asked.

"Test it before we leave," the lead humanoid said.

Attached -- perhaps magnetically, perhaps by some other force -- to the bottles were devices that could be described as automatic eye droppers. Lucinda easily withdrew and ingested two milliliters from the purple bottle, and Kyle three from the silver bottle. They reviewed the video on Lucinda's phone for two or three minutes, and then cautiously tried a few tricks.

Kyle's first lift/throw of Lucinda he expected to move her two or three feet into the air -- she went ten-twelve feet. He easily caught her as she more glided, then fell, to earth. They both got big smiles on their faces and tried an ever-increasing number of tricks and heights. When Kyle's throws started to taper off and Lucinda's spins started to slow they knew that they were twenty minutes in and terminated the session.

Kyle got an instant boner when Lucinda jumped into his arms giggling and laughing. Trying to mentally calm his raging cock Kyle looked around and saw that the two crafts and the humanoids had silently vanished. He put Lucinda down and said "They're gone!"

Both were surprised by the quiet departure, but they just shrugged it off. They judiciously placed the bottles in a container in Kyle's truck that had a padlock on it, and then carefully wound their way back through the forest to the road they had been on. Just before they turned in the direction of the lake house Lucinda grabbed Kyle's arm. Shaking with excitement she said "We can't ever tell anyone about the humanoids -- and you've got to promise me that you'll practice with me and go on AGT."

Despite Kyle's trepidation that he may not be able to control himself from ravishing Lucinda in the coming weeks if and when they had much one-on-one time he was buoyed by her exuberance and the thought that he could help her fulfill what had previously been an impossible goal in her life; so after a pause he smiled and said "My lips are sealed, and I can't wait to start practicing!"

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Things did not go entirely smoothly in the coming weeks despite Lucinda's diligence in finding out everything possible about AGT procedures, even talking to a half dozen previous contestants. She and Kyle did, however, achieve success in planning out their performances so that the twenty minutes of practice they had each session had no wasted time. After the twelfth practice session Kyle was throwing Lucinda over thirty feet into the air, she was performing at least a dozen twists, rolls, flips, and other maneuvers on her way up and down, and they had no mishaps whatsoever.

After the twelfth practice session -- which they videoed -- they decided that they needed a little more pizazz, so they hired a professional choreographer to give them a few ideas.

When the choreographer first saw the video she was sure that it was fake and chastised Lucinda for wasting her time and tried to return her check. Lucinda and Kyle had to do an actual performance for her before she would believe them, and then took a half hour to recover from the shock.

Eliza, the chirographer, finally recovered from her shock and the next day started working with Lucinda on maneuvers that would make the act even more exciting. Kyle and Lucinda used the 14th through 16th practice sessions to perfect their techniques, and then were ready for AGT, which was having tryouts in two weeks.

Another problem arose. While Lucinda was being vague about what she was doing with her time when practicing for AGT a suspicious Brandon followed her during the fifteenth practice session and for reasons known only to him was incensed. Because he saw the practice session with his own eyes he had to believe it -- although he thought that there must be some trick, such as wires and winches.

Brandon tried to get Lucinda to forget about the AGT performance. This led to a number of arguments with both parties staunch in their positions, netting them nothing but frustration.

Having no luck with Lucinda, Brandon tried to get Kyle to bow out. Although Kyle was a lot nicer about it -- at least at first -- in essence he was as unfaltering as was Lucinda, ultimately resulting in harm to the relationships between the two brothers.

Finally, as a minor concession, Lucinda and Kyle agreed to Brandon's demand for them to wears masks during the performance and to give themselves a name, rather than calling themselves "The Connors." Actually, the latter fit in nicely with what Eliza had been promoting along with a ruse to go along with their act to give it even more zest. Lucinda and Kyle adopted the name "Skydancer," and decided to pretend that Lucinda was a controlling bitch and that Kyle was her obedient surf.

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Skydancer had just enough performances left to get to the finals of AGT when another issue arose. When their video was presented to AGT for the first part of the vetting process the AGT personnel didn't believe that it was real. They demanded a live performance for Skydancer to even get to audition. That meant that there was no way that they could win, but since performing before an audience on AGT was Lucinda's real goal -- not winning -- they decided to do something unique after their audition before the judges.

Of course once Skydancer performed live for initial AGT personnel they moved on, even though the personnel were not convinced that there were no tricks involved since even with tricks it was a unique performance. Skydancer got one concession for having to do a live introductory performance. They got a contract that said that if they got four yeses from the judges at the audition that their entire audition would be televised during the actual show, no deletions.

Finally the night of the performance arrived. Lucinda and Kyle were staying in a hotel in Los Angeles feeling a few butterflies, but the butterflies did not affect their confidence. They talked with Terry Crews just before going on stage and each drank their designated amount of elixir. Being a devoted fan of the show Lucinda anticipated the questions the judges might ask before the performance and she and Kyle were well prepared.

"Please introduce yourself," Heidi politely asked as Lucinda held a microphone and Kyle stood stoically behind her, both with flamboyant masks on that did not hinder their performance.

"I'm Skydancer from Venus," Lucinda deadpanned.

"Where is Venus?" Heidi chuckled.

"The second planet from the sun," Lucinda replied with a straight face. After audience laughter subsided Heidi continued. "OK, Skydancer from Venus, who is with you?"

"He's not important -- he's just dumb muscle." After some more audience laughter and smiles on the judges' faces Heidi continued.

"What's his role?"

"He does whatever dumb muscle thing that I want him to."

"Why does he do that?"

"Because I'm Skydaner, of course."

Simon interjected "Since you're in charge Skydancer, please instruct the dumb muscle to respond to my question; why do you put up with Skydancer's attitude toward you?"

Lucinda nodded that Kyle could answer; so he did: "In the course of human experience many philosophers have pondered various aspects of the unpretentious but multifaceted question 'Why.' For an unostentatious human male like myself, concerned with mundane things rather than esoteric queries, I lean toward uncomplicated ripostes. Therefore, in genuine response to your inquiry, the answer is 'Because she is Skydancer!'"

After the audience laughter again subsided Simon said "OK, not much of an answer, but clearly not that of dumb muscle, Skydancer what will you be doing today?"

"Things that are impossible; but before we start I would kindly ask that Terry Crews come on stage and confirm that there are no wires or any other devices that are part of my act, and that everything performed is without mechanical contrivance."

Terry went on the stage and after a minute or two of inspection and moving his arms around confirmed that there were no wires or mechanical contrivances.