An Interview with an Alien

Edited by Michael Leonard

Prologue

There were plenty of vacant seats at the bar. I was seated in my usual spot; from here I could see all the action and still maintain a certain degree of privacy. I was early, nursing a beer, waiting for the regulars to dribble in. I'm a newspaper journalist. Or at least I was until the paper began to experience a deluge of red ink requiring a paring back of its reporting staff. I was one of the lucky ones; however, at least I landed on my feet and found a position as a freelance journalist for a group of monthly and quarterly magazines. It wasn't the reason I got into journalism in the first place, but at least it put food on the table, a roof over my head, and allowed me the chance to maintain my friendships with the people I had worked with for over fifteen years.

Those were the people who would be coming through the front door any minute now. It was nearly five o'clock on Friday, time to kick back, raise a glass or two, and complain about work before leaving the city for home. Being single had some definite advantages. I had nowhere to be and no one to answer to, so I could come early and leave late, and hopefully not alone.

Upon finishing my beer, I was just about to order another, when in walked one of the most stunning women I had ever seen. She was tall, exceptionally tall, wearing a short black dress and four inch heels. She was a brunette, her shoulder length hair framing her face perfectly. Walking down the length of the bar, she effortlessly slid onto the stool on the corner, giving me a really good view of her incredibly long legs. This women was no stranger to exercise, her shoulders were wide, her waist narrow and her butt appeared to be solid, no jiggles at all. She ordered a beer, took a sip and seemed to be lost in thought.

'Now what would such a classy lady be doing in a place like this,' I thought. 'She's got to be waiting for someone, or she's a high class call girl, who's hiding out, killing time before she has to go meet her "date" for the evening.'

Either way I knew in my gut she would not be interested in the likes of me.

I kept my eye on her, waiting for her to get up and leave or for some equally good looking guy to join her. When neither event happened, I threw caution to the wind and, picking up my nearly empty glass, sat down on the stool next to her.

"Can I get you another drink," indicating that her glass was also nearly empty.

"That would be very nice of you Mr. Evans. I was wondering how long I was going to have to sit here before you decided to venture over. May I say it took you long enough; I was beginning to develop a complex. I thought maybe I was losing my touch."

I didn't know what to say, which is very unusual for me. She was obviously here to meet someone and that someone was me. I must have had a puzzled expression on my face because after draining her glass she laughed, looked me straight in the eye and said,

"Drew, I can call you Drew right? Drew, I have been reading your stuff for quite a while, and really like your style. I have a story that I'd like you to write. It's a biographical piece." She paused for effect, and then continued. "It's about my life. I've been thinking about this for a long time and I think now is as good a time as any for people to learn about me."

Skeptically I answered, "What makes you think that your story is so interesting that people will want to read it?"

She sighed as if she was expecting my response and said in a hushed voice,

"Well, I'm over two hundred years old and I'm not from this planet."

"Check please."

Chapter One:

With a statement like that, I'm normally out the door as fast as my legs will take me. But this was different; she was so beautiful and sexy and appeared to actually believe what she was telling me was true, that I had to hear more.

"Finish your beer and we can go to my place. After you hear my story, if you still think I'm crazy then you can leave and you'll have a good story to sit here and entertain your friends with."

Standing she grabbed hold of my arm and not waiting for my answer, she practically dragged me off my stool and out to the parking lot. The Phoenix sun was still high in the sky and doing its best to fry everyone and everything foolish enough to venture outside. I tried to lead her to my car, but with her long legs eating up pavement with each stride, it was her leading me to my car, a 1967 Chevy Camaro.

At least she let me drive.

"Get on Scottsdale Road and head north to Shea, then east to Fountain Hills. I'll tell you where to turn."

My mind was going in a thousand directions at once. 'She's a nut case, what are you doing? She's an alien, she's going to eat you and suck out your brain. She's gorgeous, just look at those legs.'

I almost missed her instructions as we left Scottsdale and began to climb into the hills. The road seemed to snake its way up the side of the mountain. Back and forth we traveled until I thought we would be running out of road at any moment. Ahead there was a sign,' Private Driveway, no admittance.'

A gate blocked our path, however, with a push of a few buttons, the gate swung open and we continued around the bend in the road. Her house was magnificent, built into the side of the mountain, there was an open air car port under half of the house. The other half of the lower level appeared to be an above ground basement, with high concrete walls, no windows and only a single doorway which appeared to be an elevator entrance.

I parked the Camaro next to a Ferrari; there was also a Bentley and a vintage Rolls Royce.

'She may be looney but she's certainly loaded.'

She caught me eying the other cars. "Those over there belonged to my former husbands, the Ferrari is mine."

With a turn of the key the elevator doors opened and she pulled me inside. The car ascended smoothly and silently. When the doors opened again we were standing in the entrance of a spacious open area. There was a kitchen to the right and the living room straight ahead. We entered the living room, there was a large stone wall with an impressive fireplace on one side, and the opposite wall was covered, floor to ceiling, with windows. The shades were draw, shielding the room from the effects of the sun. With a push of a button, all of the shades began to rise as one, revealing a spectacular view of the Central Valley below.

The towns of Scottsdale, Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria glistened like small diamonds on the desert floor.

"Spectacular isn't it. My husband, Colin, built the house twenty years ago to take full advantage of the view. It's even more spectacular at night with the city lights surrounded by the darkness of the desert. Get us a couple of beers from the fridge while I get changed into something more comfortable."

I couldn't help staring at her magnificent ass as she slowly walked out of the room and down a hallway which I assumed led to her bedroom.

'I don't care if she's crazy or not, I've got to get to know her a lot better.'

I was seated in a small grouping of comfortable chairs facing the windows, when she returned. She had changed into a pair of snug fitting jeans and a casual man-tailored shirt, the top three buttons of which were undone, allowing for just a hint of cleavage to show. I stood as she approached, her hand extended in greeting.

"I don't think I ever introduced myself, I'm Eve, Eve Marshall."

I accepted her hand, her grip was firm. 'This is a woman who's used to giving orders and getting what she wants.'

"Drew, have a seat. Where should we begin?"

"How about you give me a little background information first," I said pulling out my trusty note book and pen which I had taken from the back seat of the car before we came inside.

"Back at the bar you said you were over two hundred years old; how old are you?"

"Well I lied a little bit; in earth years I'm actually about 225 years old."

"Okay, you said you're not from this planet, where are you from?"

"The planet I come from is located on the other side of our galaxy. I won't give you its name simply because in your language it would be unpronounceable."

"Why are you here?"

"Our mission was to colonize the earth, so we could save our species by starting over."

"Let me get this straight. You're saying that you're two hundred twenty five years old, from another planet from the other side of our galaxy and that you were sent here to colonize the earth in order to save your species. Is that right?"

"Basically that's correct."

"You know, of course, that that's totally unbelievable. " Getting up from my chair I took one last long pull from my beer and said, "Thanks for the beer and the great view, I'm leaving."

"No wait; I know it's hard for you to believe, your world has barely entered the space age, but I can assure you that everything I've said so far is true. Come follow me, I'll prove to you that I'm not from this planet."

Taking my hand she dragged me to the elevator and pressed the button marked "G" which I assumed stood for "Ground", but when the car stopped instead of the door behind me opening as I expected, the door in front opened, revealing a large gym. Eve led me inside, directly to an area covered with thick mats and an extremely heavy looking bar bell which more resembled a train axil than a set of weights.

"My husband got these especially for me. They once belonged to a gym that catered to Olympic hopefuls. The bar has been specially made to hold additional weight without bending. With the bar, that's a little over 900 Kilograms or about 2,000 pounds. Would you agree that no human female who looks like me could lift a ton over her head?"

Always the skeptic, I walked up to the bar, thinking that it was made of Styrofoam or something equally light weight, positioned my feet, I placed my hands in the proper place, took a deep breath and tried to jerk it off the mat. It didn't budge, in fact, my efforts pulled me forward and I fell over the bar landing on my face.

"Are you ok, I hope you didn't get hurt?"

"Other than my male ego everything appears to be okay."

Eve smiled and took up the same position over the bar. With what appeared to be little effort, the weight came up off the ground as she straighten her legs and back, the bar resting at her shoulders. She then proceeded to press the bar over her head not just once but a dozen times in quick movements, before returning the bar to the mat with a loud thud.

I stood absolutely spell bound as she calmly approached and stood directly in front of me. I was looking directly into her dark brown eyes when she said,

"I think that went well. Let's go back upstairs and continue."

I didn't know whether to run away or jump up into her arms. Instead I followed her into the elevator and back to the living room.

"How did you get so strong? How could you lift that much weight and make it look so easy?"

"That's because I'm not from this world. Do you believe me now?"

"I guess I have to; but it's just so unbelievable..."

"Instead of more questions, I think I should just give you some general back ground information about my world and I'll use human terms to describe everything from now on. Our sun is one hundred times larger than yours. The planet, which is larger than Earth, revolves around our sun but its orbit is similar to that of Jupiter in that it takes about twelve of your earth years to travel completely around our sun. Additionally, our planet rotates on its axis about four times faster than the earth; therefore our day is only six hours long. The reason why I'm so much stronger than a human being is that our planet is about ten times denser than Earth and so our gravity field is ten times as strong. Our bones and muscles have to be that much stronger so we can exist in our world just as you do in yours."

"That makes sense, I guess."

"Now that I'm here on Earth, where the gravity is one tenth as strong as what my body is built for, I can do things that you could only dream of doing. I can lift immense amounts of weight; jump over houses and out run horses. It took a long time for me to control my power. At first I was always breaking things or bouncing like a ball instead of walking like normal people. I had to learn to control myself so I could stay hidden."

"Your race is obviously much more advanced than ours; what was it like living in your world."

"You're correct in stating that we are much more advanced than humans, that's because we've been around for a couple thousand years longer than you. You humans have been around for close to 200,000 years in one form or another, but technologically speaking, less than one hundred years. Look at all the advances you've made in that time compared to the time before. The pace of your advancement is accelerating at an astonishing rate. Just think how much further you will advance in the next two thousand years. That will give you some idea as to how far we've advanced.

"Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek only got some of it right, our computing capabilities are far more advanced, our world has abandoned war as a solution to conflict, currency and capitalism are no longer needed, instead we replicate everything we need or want. It was truly a Utopian way of life. We created Artificial Intelligence; our computers could now think, reason and learn on their own. We built Androids to do the jobs that we didn't want to do. We allowed them to enforce our laws, resulting in the elimination of most of the crime. Life was good; even procreation of the species was made easy. Females no longer had to carry the unborn and give birth. A couple just had to go to a birthing center, an egg was harvested from the female and sperm from the male, the egg was fertilized and placed in a growth chamber. The child's DNA was examined, re-engineered to fulfil the parent's wishes and four months later their custom bred baby was ready to go home."

"What a minute did you say four months?"

"That's right we've been able to shorten the incubation period to four months through genetic engineering."

"It sounds wonderful, why would you want to leave there to come here?"

"It was wonderful, until some scientists merged the technologies of A.I. and Androids. Over time it resulted in Androids who could learn, adapt and think for themselves. They began to take control of our lives. It was small things at first, but over time we began to lose more and more of our freedoms to these machines who felt they knew what was best for us."

"Are you saying that the machines were taking over the planet? That's unbelievable."

"Unbelievable but true. That's when a group of scientists got together and devised a plan to travel to other worlds and in essence start over. We had already developed the capabilities necessary for interstellar space travel. We'd been doing it for thousands of years. We had even visited Earth a couple of times."

"You've been here before?"

"Absolutely, about three thousand years ago we traveled here and lived among the Egyptians. They were an advanced race for their time, far more so than the rest of the world. Then about eighteen hundred years ago we returned, this time to the area that is now in modern day Peru. It was from there that we scouted for a location for possible future colonization; finally settling on the area that would become the American Southwest as an ideal location from which to start the colonization process."

"Colonization process?"

"I'll explain later. So, this group of scientists began a twenty year project to launch a mission to earth for the purpose of saving our species. Earth was chosen because it was such a remote place compared to other worlds which were much closer to our own. Each could sustain life, so we felt that the A.I. would have little interest in such a small insignificant planet like Earth. Our scientists felt that it was only a matter of time before the A.I. determined that our species was no longer needed and would set out to destroy us. They devised a plan to breed twenty four individuals who would be the start of a new civilization here on Earth. The stated purpose of the mission was one of exploration and reconnaissance. We were coming here to determine how advanced your society was and what threat, if any, you posed to the advancement of our A.I. driven world. "

"You said 'Breed', what exactly does that mean?"

"Each of us was created at a specially created birthing center. We were engineered to very strict specifications tailored to the role each of us were going to play on earth. The females were engineered to be beautiful, sexually desirable and most importantly, to have an intense maternal instinct. Our males were all strong and viral. We were all raised in the absence of most of our higher technology. Only the males received training in piloting our ship."

"Why was that?"

"Because we were coming here to live as you do. We were going to start over, develop our technology over time, just as you did. Except we were going to have a major advantage in that we would already know much of what was possible and what the potential risks would be. Our prime objective was to steer this world clear of the disaster that befell our world; to never let machines take away our humanity."

"What happened; what went wrong? Why are you here all alone; assuming that you are all alone?"

"Yes, you're right; I am the only survivor of the mission. Although the scientists did the best they could to disguise the true nature of the mission, I'm afraid their efforts were unsuccessful. As launch time drew nearer, one of the older scientists believed that the security of our mission had been breached. He devised what he termed a fail-safe plan. Without informing anyone he installed a mechanical override to the environmental systems that protected us in our suspended animation chambers that we used during the long, ten year voyage to earth. He was only able to connect two of the chambers, mine and one of the males. If, by accident or otherwise, the systems ceased to function, the backup system would be triggered. Anyone or anything monitoring the systems would be unaware that two of the chambers were still functioning. On the day of the launch, he placed a small recording devise in the chamber of the male which was designed to begin play back when the chamber shut down."

"When the chamber shut down? Wouldn't that be too late?"

"No, you see the male, who I named Adam, was the pilot of our space craft. His chamber was designed to begin the resuscitation procedure when the ship dropped out of Hyper-drive. After twenty four hours the body was totally reanimated and the person regained consciousness. He could then open the chamber. The recording made by the scientist warned that there may be a problem with the environmental systems and urged him to put on a breathing mask. He was to check on the life support systems within the spacecraft and then check on the rest of the crew. If, as he feared, the A.I. had sabotaged the mission by shutting down the chambers, he was to immediately come to my chamber, begin the reanimation procedure and prepare the escape pod for evacuating the ship. He feared that the A.I. had also changed the ships navigation program which would make it impossible to enter Earth's atmosphere and doom the ship to travel forever deeper into space. Adam did what he was told, and after checking on the crew, he opened my chamber and placed my nearly lifeless body into the escape pod. There was no room for any supplies or equipment. Adam started the launch timer, climbed in on top of me and closed the hatch. We were jettisoned out of the ship and began our free fall towards Earth propelled by its gravitational pull. We continued to circle the Earth in an ever shrinking orbit as tiny thruster brakes slowed our forward momentum. Once we succeeded in traveling through the upper atmosphere a parachute opened and we drifted down to the ground landing in a dense forest."