The ship's main plasma screen burst into life, a ream of text appearing in bright green letters.
"Captain? We've found something!"
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WARPHOLE OPENING DETECTED ZONE TAUREO-15
ALIEN MATERIAL ALERT
DISPATCHING RETRIEVAL CRAFT
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"Let me know when the computer knows what it is. We've found some pretty freaky stuff lately with all this unusual warphole activity."
-0-
Part I: Alien Abduction Days
I have a secret: I like sci-fi. Lasers, droids, grand space operas, all that stuff. And of course, those corny stories where beautiful alien girls say things like "Tell me more about this Earth think called 'kissink'." For some reason, these girls always have some kind of vampish East European accent. Can't get away from the Cold War, I guess, even in what was meant to be 60s and 70s escapism.
But yeah, anyway. Those stories. They had, on occasion, helped me while away a half-hour or so of delightful masturbation, as hordes of breathtakingly gorgeous warrior princesses would plead and beg to be allowed to make love with me in order that they could carry out highly important but strangely unspecific scientific research. Nothing wrong with that, just healthy fantasy.
But then you start to wonder. About all those stories of alien abduction. I mean, obviously at least half of them are simply cries for attention. And another quarter are quite clearly just mad. But then, there are a few, where you just get the creepy feeling down your spine that, well, maybe there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
After all, the laws of probability suggest we aren't all alone in the universe. Even if life on Earth came about through a quite gobsmacking number of sheer coincidences that could have been disrupted at any point by some quite small, seemingly insignificant event.
So yeah, I guess I do believe that sometimes, just sometimes, these stories have more to them than meet the eye. Although obviously, I'm not holding my breath for my perfect girl to decend in a beam of glowing light and say "Ve haff become fascinated with your mating rituals and now vish to undertake ze physical tests."
Huh? What's that? Do I have a story of my own to tell?
Um, well, now you've asked, I suppose I do. This one is true, I swear. But it's also not your usual alien-abduction fantasy thing. No, sirree. This one is a whole lot hotter, at least for me. This is like winning the lottery, receiving a call telling you you've won the Nobel Peace Prize and getting the hottest oral sex in the world – all rolled into one.
Wanna hear about it?
***
The object from the warphole had been placed in quarantine, where the ship's robots could deal with it and prepare it for analysis. It was a small, silvery disc, around five inches in diameter, with a hole in the middle.
The computer screen flashed into life again.
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ANALYSING SOURCE MATERIAL
ULTRA-CARBON DATING AND SOURCE DATA:
ORIGIN: EARTH, 21ST CENTURY
NATURE OF OBJECT:
DATA CARRIER
ANALYSING>>>>>
DATA IS VISUAL MATERIAL
DECODING
PLAYING>>>>>>>
****************************
"Captain? You wanted to know when the computer found out what the object was? Well, it's --- interesting. Oh, and you mentioned the word 'freaky'? Get ready to find a new word to replace it."
"Wow. That's hot."
-0-
Part II: Beam Me Up, Stacy
I'm so glad you want to hear about it. Make yourself comfortable. You may want to loosen some clothing.
So. There I was. A rainy Thursday night at home. Nothing doing. Nothing on television, half-heartedly cooking dinner, nothing flash. Idly pondering the thought of spending some time on Lit. Remembering that I had to take the rubbish out. Mundanity writ large.
And then it happened. There wasn't a bright light, nor was there a strange rumbling. There wasn't anything too distinct at all, just a momentary sense of dislocation, a brief mist that affected the brain as well as the mind, and all of a sudden, I wasn't at home anymore. No, I was quite clearly a long, long way from home. Although I still had a spoon in my hand that was covered in bolognese sauce. I held onto it tightly, a familiar object in an unfamiliar world.
I was in a corridor, made out of what appeared to be some kind of oddly pearlescent marble, with gently glowing and, overall, quite soothing lights within it. The walls curved away ahead of me; I looked back over my shoulder to see a similar prospect. My heart was racing, but as the moments passed and I wasn't immediately eviscerated, exterminated or otherwise severely inconvenienced, my breathing slowed.
I couldn't just stand there, could I? I had to walk forwards. I mean, I tried the whole clicking-my-heels-together-lets-go-back-to-Kansas thing, but no dice. So I put one foot in front of the other, and kept on going. I followed the gently curving corridor, and the lights moved along with me, gently shepherding me onward.
I emerged into a wider, open space, with screens built into the walls, covered in squiggles, symbols, flashing lights. I blinked, trying to take it all in, trying to commit to memory this most unusual turn of events. And then, I saw that in front of me was a high-backed chair, facing away from me. The chair started to turn, slowly ... I felt my heart racing again, drawing in breath sharply, preparing to flee, quite where I don't know, but that whole fight-or-flight adrenaline thing was kicking in.
The chair completed its turn. And, hard as this may be to believe, a woman was sitting in it. Not a 6-foot Amazon queen, not some kind of catwalk model. Just a normal woman. Pretty, when I thought about it. Nice eyes. And curvy too. Curves in all the right places, that hint of sin in slight overabundance. In fact, gorgeous. Just not out-of-this-world gorgeous, even though that's precisely where we were.
My one-track mind was shaken from this appreciation of my host's appearance as she spoke.
"Hi. I am Sprakkkgos8utjgalslg23. But I understand this is hard to say in your language. You may call me Stacy."
"Stacy?"
"Stacy. Now. I must apologise for having so peremptorily – um – borrowed you from your home. But I am engaged on a mission of vital scientific urgency. And you can help us."
It was at this point that I wondered about the mushrooms I'd put into the bolognese. Or whether I had simply fallen asleep. Or whether I had gone mad. I mean, I know the difference between fantasy and reality. And this was quite clearly off-the-charts fantasy.
"On the contrary, it is quite real. And do not worry about your - bolognese? - whatever it is. This is not fantasy."
"How did you do that?"
"Brain-wave scan technology is quite easily developed. A small adaptation to the neural networks means we can assimilate language and knowledge virtually instantly."
"So why do you need me?" I asked, although I already knew the answer.
"Because without physical experience, knowledge is passive. It is, if you will, a form of masturbation."
I gulped.
"And what exactly can I do on this front?"
I liked the glint in her eye and the naughtiness in her smile as she replied, adopting a sudden, sultry accent: "Ve vish to study your primitive matink rituals."