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Alien Ground
Lois Tilton
How it started:
Derrick's room filled with an eerie, pale green light. A voice spoke from some place just inside his head, behind his ear: Do you want to come with us? We need people like you.
Derrick sat up in his bed but there was no one to be seen, only the light, which pulsed faintly with a sound like wind disappearing down a very deep, very distant tunnel. But he figured he knew who they were. What they were.
He thought briefly of school, of his parents, who wouldn't ever know where he'd gone. "But it serves them right." Because Derrick wasn't in his room of his own free choice. He was grounded for the whole weekend on charges that were untrue, or at least unfair. Who would want to hang around in a place where there was no TV, no games to play?
"Sure," he told the voice. "I'll go along."
What Derrick expected, more or less:
That the aliens would use some kind of beam to bring him up to the spaceship, that there'd be a command bridge full of flashing lights and strange beings and more wonders than he could even imagine.
Why Derrick supposed the aliens needed him:
Because no one else could help them defeat their enemies. Because no one, absolutely no one was better at computer combat games than Derrick Rothermel. Space combat games, street fighter games, naval warfare games--he was the best. Now the aliens were going to hook him up to their combat laser computers and have him blast away at their evil opponents.
In short:
Derrick had spent way too much time watching TV.
What really happened next:
The green light started to grow brighter, so bright that Derrick had to close his eyes, and still it was blinding him. And at the same time, the wind started to pull him into the tunnel in space, whistling all the time in his ears, stretching him--stretching him out so far that he felt like he had no weight at all, and his head was all the way across the universe while his feet were still back on Earth.
Then there was a kind of snap, and he opened his eyes and found himself sitting on his own bed, in his own room.
"Hey!" he said, looking around, blinking in confusion. What was going on? Had it just been a dream? Well, it must have been a dream. Here he still was, in his stupid room. Grounded for the whole weekend with nothing to do! For a moment he wished the aliens really would come and take him away. Out of this place. Anywhere.
Until the voice in his head spoke again: Welcome. Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
Then Derrick started to be scared. Either he was crazy, or someone was playing a mean trick, or...
Really scared.
"Hey! What's going on?" he demanded, but his voice squeaked like a frightened little kid's.
The voice in his head had only repeated: Welcome. Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
Derrick jumped off his bed, looked around the room frantically. This was his room. His bed, with the stain on the quilt, the desk in the corner with his homework and his magazines, the laundry basket full of clothes that he hadn't put away. His movie posters on the ceiling. All his stuff, just the same.
Except--the window. He remembered (he was almost sure he remembered) the blinds had been closed, before. Now, they were open.
Suddenly, Derrick didn't want to see what was behind that window. He spun around, ran for the door.
It was locked.
Derrick lost it. He jerked and pulled on the doorknob; he kicked the door, screaming, "Hey! Let me out of here! Mom! Mom! Come open the door!"
But no one answered. No one but the voice in his head, repeating: Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
What Derrick really wanted to do next:
Cry.
And scream for his parents to come and get him out of this place.
Why he didn't do it:
Because he didn't want to act like a little kid while they were watching him.
And he knew, down to the cold lump in his gut, that they were watching him.
Instead, he told himself: "Get a grip. You can figure out what's going on here. You can handle this." The door, he could see now, wasn't really a door after all. It was never meant to be opened. This rally wasn't his room. He was in some other place, meant to look just like his room.
And the window...
Derrick really, really didn't want to turn around and look at that window. But he did it. He turned around. He made himself open his eyes. And what should have been the view down into the Nicholsons' back yard, with the deck where Amy Nicholson would sometimes come out in her bikini to get a suntan...
...was blank.
"Oh, man!" Derrick whispered, except his mouth was so dry that it came out as kind of a strangled croak. He swallowed. He took a step closer to the window. Another step. "Oh, man!"
Because it wasn't really a window there at all. Instead, it seemed to be kind of like a video screen, except that it was a darker, silvery gray color. A slowly swirling gray color, almost a little bit like clouds passing across the screen. And if you looked at it closely, very closely for a while, you could start to see them looking back at you.
Watching.
"No!" Derrick screamed, and he hit out at the screen, hit it with his fists, as hard as he could, not even thinking that the glass might break and cut his hands. But the glass didn't break. Of course it didn't, it wasn't glass, it was some alien material so hard and indestructible that it didn't even break when he picked up his desk chair and tried to smash through it.
"Stop it!" he cried. "Stop watching me!"
But there was nothing he could do to stop them. He was an exhibit now in some kind of alien zoo. Sealed up in this room that looked like his own room, except that the window had no blinds--
He turned around, stared back at the screen. No, the window had no blinds, it had no curtains he could close to shut off their view. But he could still do it!
Derrick went to the bottom drawer of his desk, hoping it was real, hoping the aliens had duplicated all the contents. Yes! There it was, his dad's staple gun that he wasn't supposed to use, that he especially wasn't supposed to have in his room. But right now he didn't care. He grabbed the quilt off his bed, climbed up on the chair, and stapled the quilt to the wall, covering the screen. Now they couldn't keep watching him!
Then he retreated back to his bed, underneath the sheet, and hid his head under the pillow. What was he going to do now? What was going to happen to him? Even if the aliens couldn't watch him anymore, he was still locked up in here, wherever this place was.
"I want to go home!" he sobbed.
The voice in his head answered him: Please go on about your daily routine as usual. Derrick ignored it.
Again: Please go on about your daily routine as usual. This time he thought it seemed kind of annoyed, and he kind of grinned a little, even as miserable as he was, because it meant the quilt had worked, they really couldn't see him now. Not that the rest of his problems were solved. His knuckles were bloody and swollen where he'd pounded on the screen to try to break it, and he was hungry, and he thought he had to go to the bathroom--but there was no bathroom here!
Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
Derrick took the pillow off his head and sat up. "I want to go home!" he demanded out loud. "I don't want to stay here in this place!"
For a moment there was no response. Then, a pale green light began to fill the room.
What Derrick hoped would happen then:
The aliens would take him back home to his real room, back home to Earth, and he would never hear from them again.
What happened instead:
The light grew brighter, and Derrick's body seemed to grow heavier and lighter all at once, stretching out to an infinite extent.
Then there was a snap, just like before, and he opened his eyes and found himself sitting on his own bed, in his own room. Or was he still back in the alien copy of his room? There was one way to tell, but he was afraid he was going to see the swirling gray screen instead of the familiar view from his own window.
But the voice in his head answered the question: Welcome. Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
"No!" Derrick cried. But it was true. It was the gray screen instead of the window, it was the false door, it was exactly the same. Except for one thing. Derrick ran to his desk to make sure, but the staple gun was gone.
Now he was mad. "I'll show you," he said under his breath, because he wasn't sure whether the aliens could really hear him or not. The voice in his head, he realized now, was only some kind of stupid recording. He shoved his bed over toward the window, until it was right next to the wall, and then, with an effort, he raised up the other end until it crashed upright, resting on the headboard, with the mattress up against the wall, blocking the window completely.
"There!" he said with some satisfaction, sitting down on the floor. That would fix them. And sure enough, the stupid recording started in his head again: Please go on about your daily routine as usual. "No!" he yelled out loud. "I won't! I don't want. to stay here! I want to go home!"
And when it repeated the message, he even said, "You go to hell!"
But he noticed something while he was sitting there waiting to see what they were going to do next. The knuckles on both his hands had been all swollen and bloody from hitting the screen, the last time. Now, they looked perfectly normal. He flexed them, and they didn't even hurt. And that worried him.
Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
"No!"
But of course it didn't last. Eventually the green light started to fill the room again, and Derrick was being pulled into the tunnel again, stretched into infinity. Then snap, and there he was. Again.
And this time, he knew without checking that he way still in the same place. Only this time, the bed was fastened to the floor so that he couldn't even move it an inch.
What Derrick tried to do next:
Crawl under the bed to hide from them.
It wasn't very comfortable under there. The bed was kind of low, and there was as much dust and grunge underneath, just as there'd been back in his real room at home. But Derrick was stubborn, and he refused to come out, no matter how often the voice in his head told him to go about his daily routine. Not until the light started to turn green again.
Snap.
And there he was again. Back in the same room, sitting on the same bed, only now with some kind of force field that kept him from crawling underneath it.
Welcome. Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
"I can't!" he told it. "Don't you idiots understand? This is my bedroom! I sleep here. I do my homework here sometimes. But there's nothing else to do! I've got no TV! I've got no video games! I can't do any daily routine in here!"
Please go on about your daily routine as usual.
"Argggh!" he screamed. But of course they were idiots. Or they weren't listening. Or they didn't care.
Derrick threw his pillow across the room, straight at the window/screen. He picked up the laundry basket and threw that, too. He kicked the footboard of the bed.
Nothing happened.
He went to his desk, pulled out all the drawers, flung the contents across the room, threw the drawers, threw all the books, threw his chair. He threw the reading light and heard the lightbulb shatter. He trashed the place, wrecked everything he could get his hands on.
Nothing happened.
Sobbing with frustration and fury, he flung himself back down on the bed. The gray screen was still there, they were probably watching him, but now he didn't really care any more. He wasn't ever going to win, he wasn't ever going to get out of this place!
He hit the mattress. Then he flexed his hand, held it up for a closer look. How had it healed so fast, anyway?
What was really going on in all this? What happened to him when the green light came and he felt like he was being stretched so thin he had to disappear?
Was it a kind of time warp? Were the aliens bringing him back to the same point in the past, over and over again? Or maybe they really did take him apart and put him back together. Or maybe he wasn't real; maybe he was just a copy of himself. Maybe the real Derrick Rothermel was still back in his room on Earth. Or maybe, he thought--and now he was starting to scare himself--maybe he was just like a character in a computer game, and every time the aliens pushed the reset button, the game started all over again.
But what was the game? Watch Derrick in His Room? What kind of a stupid, boring game was that?
Derrick got out of bed and searched around the mess on the floor until he found a thumbtack. He used it to scratch an X on the back of his left hand. Then he sat down on his bed, with his back to the window that wasn't a window.
After a while, the light began to turn the same familiar green color, and he was being pulled apart and snapped back together again.
He opened his eyes. There he was in his room, just the way it had always been. All the mess was gone.
And his hand. He slowly lifted it so he could see.
The X had disappeared.
So it was true. He was only a copy of himself. And the aliens could copy him over and over again, as long as they felt like playing the game.
What Derrick finally realized:
The very worst possible thing had happened. Here he was, a kid from Earth, transported away into some alien dimension--just the kind of adventure he'd always hoped would happen to him.
But instead, he was in his own room. With no TV, no games, nothing to do. Grounded--forever.