The Displacement - Ch. 7

7. A Forced Companionship

              Skye Electra sat on her knees in the center of a large, round forest clearing, the floor of which was covered with sweet-smelling pink grass. To any Pink harvester with half a brain, finding such a patch was like hitting a jackpot, for few were as large and thick as this one. But as she sat there, the rare pink grass and the money it would bring were of little concern to her. Her mind was focused on something else -- something wildly different.

              Skye had her arms held outward perpendicularly from her body, and the markings on her metallic bracelets had begun to glow with a faint white light. Such were the signs that she’d come to look for; after all, what she was presently trying was something she had attempted countless times before. She had a feeling, however, that today -- after all these years -- this time would be the charm.

              “Come on,” she thought to herself, squinting her eyes as she focused. “Concentrate. You can do this, Skye.” Sure enough, as she fixated her mind further and further on the task before her, the bracelets’ glow intensified gradually. After a few long minutes, she had managed to clear her mind of all but the bracelets -- as was necessary for the next step.

              “This is it,” she thought, a purposeful feeling beginning to envelop her. “No going back now... Intertwine with the Fourth Dimension!”

              She began to move her hands together, breathing methodically as she went. Soon, as her palms came closer to touching, her bracelets’ glow had reached its maximum intensity, and then, just before the gap between her hands was about to close, a tiny speck of white light materialized in the dead center.

              “Yes!” she shouted aloud, unable to contain her excitement. This was what she’d been waiting for, and it had come more easily than ever. Isolating herself in nature, far away from the stress of her daily life, really had helped -- she was getting somewhere now. Next, however, was the hardest part; the one hurdle she’d never been able to surmount.

              “Here goes nothing,” she thought. “If there’s ever a time... it’s now!” She swallowed, gathered her confidence, and began to pull in Honouran energy.

              Little by little, the light grew larger and brighter as power flowed in from the air around her, feeding steadily into the growing orb. “Yes,” she said to herself once more. “Yes! It’s working! More... MORE!” She focused with all her might, feeling the invisible energy as it surged through her body and poured into the orb before her. For a moment, its rate of growth surged exponentially; by the next second, it had reached the size of an apple. Then, however, it came to a sudden stop, and the glowing ball refused to grow any bigger.

              “No!” shouted Skye. She attempted with all of her willpower to force more energy into the ball of light. Cascades of the power were swirling around her; enough, almost, to make the grass around her sway, as if being pushed by a gust of wind. She channeled more and more of it into the orb, but for some unknown reason, the orb wouldn’t take it.

              “Come... ON!” she bellowed, suddenly throwing every bit of her gathered Honouran at the orb in one giant sweep. She had no idea, however, that this was the worst thing she could have done. There was a flash of white light, accompanied by a loud boom, and Skye was knocked onto her back as the ball of energy exploded before her. Once the light had faded, she refused to move for the longest time; simply lying there, staring into the sky, overcome with frustration.

              It had been another failure -- one more to scratch onto the list of hundreds that had come before it. As hard as she’d always tried since the day she had discovered her bracelets’ power, she could never get the Honouran to work with her. With every energy ball she had ever attempted to make, the results were always the same -- no matter how hard she focused, it would just stop growing, and then there was nothing she could do. Even isolation in the woods, being surrounded by nothing but the peace and quiet of nature, hadn’t helped her in the end.

              “Why,” she groaned to herself as she finally got back to her feet. “Why won’t it work?!” She cast a look of fury down at her right bracelet, the light of which had long since faded out. “I’m stuck with you, you know,” she spat condescendingly, as if the devices on her wrist could hear her speaking. “You know how many times I’ve tried to get you off. I always told myself I had you for a reason... yet you won’t ever work with me! No one knows what you are, no one knows what you’re for... not even Luxa. And I think I know why. Because you can’t do anything! You’re just two big, fat pieces of JUNK!”

              Skye sighed as she flopped back onto the ground, pressing her hands against her face. For the longest time, she thought furiously to herself. There had to be something she wasn’t doing right. Perhaps it was that she needed only to meditate; to maintain a clear mind for a longer period of time before she got working. That would be bothersome, she knew, but it was worth trying. After all, if that wasn’t the issue, it was that she was simply too young for the Honouran to work with. In that case, she would simply have to wait for God-knew-how-long, and there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about that.

              Skye was sixteen years old in standard rotations -- years of 365 days, that is, which had been established as the standard as soon as the Skaylian race had begun moving to other planets in the system. Going by plain old Skaylian years, she was only twelve, but when people asked, she preferred to tell her standard-year age, which made her feel grown up. She was a slim girl with a fair, if not slightly sun-tanned, complexion. She had a round, girlish face, a pair of wide, lively blue eyes, and a yellowish shock of hair that she never combed, for she had little time for things such as that, and in addition, she rather liked the way it presently looked. Put simply, she was not a girly girl; nor was she the type that took great enjoyment in personal hygiene. In fact, she usually neglected it. Being in the forest had not helped anything for her, either. At that moment, she looked like a wild woman and smelled positively awful, but if anyone on Skaylia would not have minded, it was Skye.

              She had spent almost three days in the Northern Forest, in the uppermost reaches of the Honourvillian District -- two days and two nights had already passed by, and she’d soon be able to scratch off this day as the third. She had never allowed herself to stay in the woods for much longer than that, for as much as she liked them for their solitude and peace, she began to grow sick of them after a while. There are certain aspects of staying in a forest, after all, that no one in their right mind -- not even Skye -- could ever truly get used to, and the Northern Forest was by no means exempt from them.

              There were the nights, for one, which were pitch-dark and unbearably cold. There was the very real threat of forest beasts -- panthers, bloom-bears, ruffids, guangras, acid-spitting mole-snails, and a whole multitude of other fearsome things that her six Thelan martial arts would be little help against. And then, of course, what the two combined could only entail: sleeping in trees. That was Skye’s least favorite part of the whole ordeal, and knowing it was necessary made it none the more appealing. She would have slept in her van were it not for the third, final, and probably worst of her concerns: being busted by the authorities. A van full of illegally harvested pink grass would be enough of a prize for an Honourvillian cop on a scouting mission to run across in the dead of night; best for her, she knew, to be missing from such a picture.

              Skye sighed as she slowly sat back up, brushing the bangs from her eyes. This may have been her last day in the forest, but before she could leave, she knew she would have to finish her job. She eyed the pink grass beneath her as it swayed in the breeze. With her Honouran experiment over, she had begun to take a whole new interest in the original reason she’d stopped in the clearing. Not even in her worst of moods would she ever have turned down an opportunity like this.

              “Well, then,” she said to herself, as she often did before she began working. “Guess it’s time to get going with the serious business.” Crouching low to the ground, she reached out her hand, plucked a clump of pink grass out of the dirt, and then began to examine it. She sniffed the grass momentarily, taking in its sugary scent. Finally, she took a blade and popped it into her mouth, chewing it slowly to inspect the taste; indeed, she was more than satisfied. She knew the makings of a good patch, and this one was quite the fine specimen.

              Before she got going, however, she knew she would need to check for the presence of others. She was an illegal harvester, after all, and she had plenty of concerns when it came to being caught. Prime as this forest was as a destination for harvesters, two or three coppers were almost always on the prowl somewhere, and indeed, she’d heard tell of a few unlucky souls being ambushed and dragged off. As for her own case, she’d made quite a bit of noise in the last few minutes, and if anyone had been in earshot of that explosion, they would be on their way toward the source by now. It would be in her favor, she knew, to ensure that she was truly alone.

              Placing a palm above her eyes to shield out the sunlight, she began to dart her head around, looking and listening for anything out of the ordinary. But after a short while, she was confident that she had no company in these woods. If anyone else, Skaylian or otherwise, was anywhere nearby, they were somehow managing to make no sound whatsoever, and she was quite aware that such a feat was virtually impossible -- especially for a bumbling cop.

              “Alright, then,” Skye said, smiling faintly. All signs were good. Needless to say, then, she wasted no time in getting to her work. She got back to her knees and began to tear the grass out of the ground, slipping each handful into her messenger bag. In her newfound determination, she was making good time with her task, plucking and stuffing with more vigor than usual. She had no plan, after all, to stay for too long. It was getting late in the afternoon; before long, the blue star Catholia would begin to set in the sky. She was being waited for back at home, too -- she had been gone for longer than usual, and if she didn't return soon, her family would begin to assume things. She focused hard on her work, gritting her teeth as she went on; plucking and stuffing, plucking and stuffing. As of then, all she needed to do was fill up her bag, and then she could leave this place.

              Suddenly, however, she heard an unmistakable sound that nearly made her jump -- in the forest surrounding her, heavy footsteps were approaching. Someone was out there, and that someone was heading right for her!

              Stiffening in alarm, she let go of the grass she had in her hand, dropped her messenger bag, and leapt frenziedly to her feet. But by then it, was too late to do anything more, for the intruder had arrived. She had been caught mid-stride, with a tell-tale bag of pink grass lying at her feet.

              “Oh, no,” she thought to herself, taking a step back. This was the worst thing imaginable, the one thing any harvester knew to dread -- and now, after all these years, it was happening to her! She was out of all options but to stand her ground and attempt intimidation. Hastily, as her heart beat a mile a minute, she made two fists and held them up in a menacing stance.

              “Stay back!” she shouted. “You have no idea what you're dealing with!”



              If the truth were to be told, Nes didn’t have a single idea of what he was dealing with. All he could see was that the girl standing before him, who looked like the kind of person who could beat him to a pulp, had taken a fighting stance upon his arrival, and the tone of her voice made it clear that she wasn’t happy to see him.

              “You,” she said, leering at Nes like a bull about to charge. “I know what you’re here to do.”

              “Wait!” he interjected. “What do you mean? I'm not here to... to...” He realized then that he had no idea of what the girl thought he was there to do.

              “Well... what do you think I want to do?”

              The girl, it seemed, had not liked that particular response. “Don't play stupid with me,” she retorted. “You’re not a cop, I know, but you know just as well as I do that harvesting pink grass is illegal!” For a while, Nes was silent, not sure how he would respond to that -- for, in all truth, he had not known that at all.

              “It is?” he finally said.

              The girl scoffed. “If I let you go, you'll go straight to the Honourville Police and rat me out,” she snapped. “And then there'll be one less source of cash for my family. I'm doing this for their sake, you know. We’re desperate! It’s not like I have any other options! But people like you don’t care about that. You don’t. Do you?” She raised a finger, and, in a sudden action that made him flinch, pointed it straight at his nose.

              “I... I...” Nes mumbled, a little shaken up and quite a bit confused. “I don’t think I have any plans to-”

              “Just as I thought,” said the girl. “If you need convincing not to go and blab to the police, I have my ways of doing that.” She stepped in closer, clenching her fists threateningly.

              “No!” shouted Nes, holding out his arms and turning his head back. “I understand! I’m not going to turn you in! I don’t want any trouble! Please!” The girl, much to his horror, did not stop advancing.

              “I don’t care what you say you’ll do!” she snapped. “You’ve already seen everything! I can’t let you go. Not without a few good scars to stop you from-”

              Suddenly the words dropped out of her mouth, and she froze dead in her tracks -- she had noticed Nes’s shirt. Slowly, she mouthed the name. Pillar.

              “You,” she said, a whole new fury in her voice. “You work for Pillar Enterprises, don't you?!”

              “Pillar Enterprises?!” he said, his eyes going wide -- due, for the most part, to the sheer impossibility that yet another person knew the name. There was something different, however, about the way this girl said it. She seemed to loathe it with every fiber of her being. And here he was, alone in the woods with her, stuck wearing its insignia on his shirt. If he had been in hot water before, now his chances of survival would have been better if he had walked into a giant mouse’s cage dressed up like a wedge of Brie.

              “I don’t work for Dr. Pillar!” he countered indignantly. “You don’t understand! I’ve got nothing to do with him! I was just... sent here, in a test! It was all a mistake! It's not like I'm under his orders! I’m telling the truth... don’t take this the wrong way! Please!”

              The girl said nothing. She stepped toward Nes, placed a hand on his shoulder, and glared directly into his eyes.

              “If you don’t work for Pillar,” she said, “then take off that shirt and burn it. Maybe you don't know it, but I know full well what that man’s done. He’s a monster, and my family and I have been hiding from him for years. So if you really don’t have anything to do with Pillar Enterprises, give me something to make me believe that.”

              “I get that Pillar’s not a good guy!” snapped Nes, quite exasperated by then. “He sent me here, after all!”

              “Sent you here?!” the girl shouted incredulously. “From where?”

              “It doesn’t matter,” Nes said. “Look... you. What’s your name?”

                For a second, Skye only stared, bamboozled. She wasn’t quite so ready to believe what he said about Pillar, and if the boy really did work for him, it’d be bad news for her if he got a hold of her name. Thinking quickly, she prepared a fake one and spoke it hastily.

              “My name is... Leeza.”

              There was a short pause before Nes spoke. “You're lying, aren't you?”

              “You don’t have any proof of that!” yelled the girl. “Why would I give you a fake name, anyway?”

              “I know you’re lying,” he stated. “I can tell it from the tone of your voice.”

              The girl laughed caustically. “So you've got some sixth sense for lie detection. Wonder who gave that to you? Hm... Pillar?” Nes sighed.

              “I’m telling you, I don't work for Pillar!” he shouted in exasperation. “How many times do I have to say that?!” The girl shot him a distasteful look. He was well aware that if he couldn’t convince her soon, things were going to get ugly. He had already gone through enough on that day -- almost lost forever in space, and then held at gunpoint by four angry men. He didn’t want to add being beaten to a pulp by an enraged alien girl to the ever-growing list.

              “I’ve already told you,” said the girl. “If you’re telling the truth and you don’t have anything to do with him, give me something to make me believe that! You walked in in that shirt, after all, so it’s going to have to be something good.”

              “Look!” he snapped. “If I walked in in an apron and a visor, that wouldn’t mean I worked at McDonald’s, would it?” The girl stared in absolute confusion.

              “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot... you wouldn’t... Never mind.” He smashed his hand into his forehead, urging himself to think. It was what he did best, after all. Why in the world couldn’t he think right now?! Think, Nes, he told himself. Think!

              “Time’s running out,” barked the girl. She began to rub her palms together as she smiled wickedly. “One class-A stomping coming right up in five... four... three...”

              “WAIT!” Nes suddenly shouted. “Just... listen to this! I may not work for Pillar, but I was just ambushed by four goons that do! A really big guy and three others... I heard them say they were from Pillar Enterprises. And they had guns! BIG guns! They tried to shoot at me, too! So if Pillar’s hunting you down like you say he is, then I think it’d be best for both of us to get out of here!”

              The girl looked unfazed. “Pillar’s ground unit? Here, in the forest? What business would they ever have-”

              “Just listen to me!” belted Nes. “They asked me about something called... benders, and the way they talked about them, it really sounded like-”

              “What?!”

              This, it seemed, had done it for the girl. At the mention of the benders, fear had crept into her voice. Gone was all evidence of her anger; his last statement had replaced it with new thoughts of panic and distress.

              “They want my benders?” Skye inquired, darting her eyes frenziedly around. “But... but...” She was wholly perplexed and immensely terrified. This boy -- how could he have even known about the benders? No one knew about the benders; not even Pillar -- not as far as she knew.

              “Your benders?” Nes asked. As the girl paced frantically around, he noticed that a series of odd, glowing markings had appeared on her metallic bracelets.

              “There’s no time,” she said, turning back to Nes and staring him down. “You know more than I thought you did. Now... I want you to look me in the eye and tell me from the bottom of your heart. Can I trust you?” Nes nodded; after what had almost happened a minute ago, however, he himself was a bit unsure whether or not he could trust this girl.

              “Good,” she said, hastily throwing her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go. We have to leave. Now! If they find out I'm here, we're crunked!” She grabbed his arm with the force of an alligator’s jaws, and then she began to run, pulling Nes helplessly behind her.

              “Wait!” he shouted. “Where are we going? And... what does ‘crunked’ mean?”

              “I'll explain everything later! Just run!”

              The mysterious girl, whose name Nes still didn't truly know, dragged him through the forest at a blazing speed, following some route that it was apparent she’d memorized. It was either that, he knew, or that she had no idea where she was going, and God knew he hoped it wasn’t that. Whatever the case may have been, however, the girl didn’t seem too inclined to take her time. She seemed to have an endless supply of stamina -- something Nes could not say the same for. This seemingly endless lope was leaving him out of breath.

              “Can we please just stop?” he finally asked. “Just to take a rest?”

              “We're almost there,” urged the girl. “We can't stop. Not by now.”

              The last leg of the run took the biggest toll on Nes. If he was going to stay with this girl, he thought, it was becoming apparent that he’d need to get used to running -- that is, if she was even going to let him stay with her. For all he knew, she was already plotting a way to ditch him the minute that she had gotten herself to safety, and what with the way she’d first taken to him, that thought didn’t seem too outlandish. He wasn’t sure whether or not to trust her, but at that point, he had no choice but to keep running -- on and on, for however long it was going to take to reach whatever place the girl aimed to take him.

              Nes soon found out, however, that their destination was not a place but a vehicle: a minivan, parked in a large clearing. The van had undoubtedly seen better days. Its metal frame had once been painted blue, but presently, the elements had all but completely reduced to its original shade of dull gray. In some places, Nes noticed, it was even showing substantial signs of beginning to rust. The thing looked ancient by Earth standards. On a planet with laser gun technology, it could have very well been centuries old.

NOTE FOR RESEARCHERS:

The van in question was not centuries old; not even one century, for in fact it was quite modern, with an efficient Honouran reactor core and all of the other great perks that came with the latest Skaylian vehicle technology. One must think of it, rather, as the Skaylian equivalent of those replicas of old cars that enthusiasts on Earth seem to enjoy keeping in pristine condition in their garages but never actually driving.

              “Here we are,” said the girl. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Without a word, she heaved open the door and threw herself into the driver's seat, tossing her bag in behind her. Nes, however, didn’t move.

              “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Are you gonna get in or what?”

              “There aren't any seats,” he pointed out. It was true. The only seat present in the van was the driver's seat; the rest had been ripped out to make room for a multitude of other things shoved into the back. But the girl didn't seem to care about Nes's predicament.

              “Get in the back!” she said, more forcefully this time. “Don’t forget, we’re trying to get out of here! I could just leave you behind, you know.”

              Nes didn't need to be told again. He opened the back door and sat down on the floor, squeezing himself in between a pile of clothes and a large plastic bag filled with harvested pink grass. The smell inside the vehicle was positively revolting -- a mixture of the overly saccharine scent of pink grass and a reek that must have been a mixture in itself; one of so many different things that Nes couldn’t pull out any single one. He noticed another anomaly almost immediately -- looking from where he sat in the back, he could see no evidence of an ignition keyhole anywhere.

              “How do you get this thing to start?” he asked. The girl looked at him as if he had come from the moon, which he technically might as well have.

              “Like any other car on the crunking planet,” she replied. She placed her hand in the direct center of a small, circular screen in the middle of the dashboard, which lit up at her touch with a bright white glow. The van’s engine powered up on the spot, beginning to emit a faint whirr far softer than the familiar roar of an internal combustion engine. The quiet, however, was short-lived; in the next instant, the radio came on, and some sort of earsplitting music -- hardcore rock of some kind, with an overabundance of synthesizers -- came blaring through the speakers at a deafening volume. To Nes's surprise -- and dismay -- the girl began to sing along as she hit the acceleration pedal and began to charge the van through the forest at a dangerously high speed.

              “A three-star hotel on a planet where the stars mean nothing!” she belted out, in a voice that was certainly not the best.

              “What are you doing?” Nes shouted at her, interrupting her singing. “Turn that down! I thought we didn't want to get caught! And... what are you doing driving so crazy for? We're in a forest, for crying out loud, not the Autobahn!”

              She jerked her head around and flashed him a glare that would have made a Rottweiler cringe. “So I guess you'd like it if we just slowed down and listened to classical music,” she said in a drawn-out, sarcastic manner. “Am I right?” Nes shook his head to the last part of her offer. He did not want to listen to classical music. However, he did want very much for her to slow down.

              As she turned her head back around, the girl swerved the van to the left just in time to avoid slamming into a tree, sending Nes tumbling sideways as she did so. Given how dangerously close she had come to certain death, she seemed practically unfazed. Nes, however, was possibly more terrified now than he had been while flying through space.

              “Please!” he shouted, hurrying to right himself. “For the love of God, slow down!” By some miracle, she finally listened, pulling her foot off the acceleration pedal. She certainly didn’t seem happy about doing so, however, and as she turned back to face him, a look of intense displeasure was plastered on her face.

              “So,” she said flatly, “you don't trust my expertise, and you certainly don't like fun of any kind. I know that much about you. Now, would you perhaps mind telling me your name?”

              “Not until you say yours,” he stated flatly. “And I know it’s not Leeza.”

              “Fine, then,” she said. “I can trust you, I guess. You did help me out there, warning me about Pillar’s goons and everything. So if you’re so insistent, I guess I can tell you. My name’s Skye Electra. That's S-K-Y, like the Big Blue, with an E tacked onto the end... for good measure.”

              “That’s a funny name,” thought Nes aloud, then immediately regretted his words. But Skye didn’t seem to be angered. Instead, she simply shrugged.

              “Everyone says that,” she says. “I don’t know why I have it. Skye... It doesn’t mean a thing, as far as anybody’s ever told me.” She paused before going on with a question of her own. “So... what’s yours?”

              “Nes Garrow,” he answered.

              “Nes Garrow?” Skye let out a chuckle that made Nes blush uncomfortably. “Well, look who’s talking about funny names! I’ve never heard that one, that’s for sure.”

              “Well,” Nes said, “I’ve never met another Nes... if it matters.”

              “Hm,” mused Skye. “How about it, then. We’re not so different after all. Guess that helps if we’re going to be stuck with each other.” She paused for a moment, then turned back toward Nes. “We... are going to be stuck with each other, right?”

              “I guess so,” Nes replied. “It’s not like I really have anywhere else to go right now. I... don’t know this place very well.”

              “I could tell that,” said Skye. “Kind of like how you say you can tell I’m lying. I could see it in your eyes... y’know?” Nes gave a short nod. “You’re not from around here, are you?” she then asked.

              “Not exactly,” Nes said. “That reminds me... I meant to ask. What do you call this place?”

              Skye gestured out the window at the trees moving by. “The Northern Forest, of course.”

              “No, your planet. What's this planet called?”

              “Skaylia,” she answered, and to imagine the way she said the word, you must simply imagine how you yourself would respond if a grown, educated man asked you the answer to two plus two.

              “Skaylia,” he repeated, pronouncing the word slowly and letting it roll across his tongue.

              “Well, now that you've been enlightened,” Skye said, “do you think you’d mind telling me what exactly you were doing out there in the middle of nowhere? You said Pillar had something to do with it. What happened to you?”

              “Well,” he began. “The first thing you should know is... I'm not from this planet.”

              “Well, which one are you from?”

              Nes gawked. He certainly hadn’t seen this question coming, and Skye asked the question so casually that Nes was almost horrified. “Kitiar?” she asked. “Granarius? No, I bet you're from Xoraal. That black hair is a dead giveaway.”

              “Um... no,” was all that Nes found himself able to say.

              “Then where? Some moon colony? I've covered all the majorly habited planets.”

              “Well,” he answered, not quite sure how he was going to word this. “It’s a planet you've… most likely never heard of. It's called... Earth.”

              Skye gave a loud, snorting laugh. “Earth? As in... dirt?” Nes nodded.

              “Some nuts the guys back there must be,” she said. “Thinking that’s a good thing to call a planet. You’re definitely right, though... I’ve never heard of it. It’s definitely not here in Catholia. What star system is it in?”

              “Uh… star system?” Nes wasn’t sure how he might answer this one. “Well... the Sun.”

              This made Skye laugh once again. “THE Sun? So they name their planet after dirt, and then they come up with that creative name! I bet if your planet had a moon, it’d be called THE Moon.”

              “Well, actually…” Nes began to reply, but before he could go on, Skye cut him off.

              “So you're from really, really far away, huh? I didn't know there were Skaylians that far outside of the Catholia system.”

              “I'm not a... Skaylian,” Nes said, thinking it only common sense, but he didn’t realize how outlandish the words would sound until they had left his mouth. Skye, rightfully enough, was now in utter disbelief.

              “Wait... what are you saying?”

              “I'm... a human,” he stammered. “People from Earth are called humans. And... that’s what I am. Sorry if that’s... weird or something.”

              “So,” she replied, “You’re telling me you’re some kind of space alien?”

              “Well... from your perspective... I guess I am.”

              Skye was silent for what seemed to Nes like forever. He knew she must have been thinking hard about what she’d just heard -- he knew he would be if someone had come up and told him he was a space alien. That kind of news wasn’t easy to take.

              “This is becoming one weird day,” she finally said. “One moment I'm picking pink grass without a care in the world, and now I'm driving away with an alien boy in my car. Of all people, of course this would happen to me.”

              “This doesn't mean you won't let me stay, does it?” he asked. “I really don't have anywhere else to go.” There was a long silence. Nes waited tensely for her response.

              “You can stay if you want,” the girl finally said. “It’s no big deal to me. There doesn’t seem to be anything weird about you. We'll have to see what the others think, though.”

              “The others?”

              “My family,” she said. “Luxa, Mandy, Holly... you’ll meet them all eventually. You’ll like them, I’m sure. The question’s just whether they’ll feel the same about a space alien with a Pillar Enterprises shirt.” She fell silent again, returning her eyes, much to Nes’s relief, to the terrain ahead of her.

              Ten minutes of driving, silent in all but the now slightly less blaring radio, went by. Before long, the forest had ended and given way to a new landscape: a wide, open plain that stretched out to the horizon. Skye increased her speed; here, without a single tree in her way, she could go as fast as she wanted. The look on her face told Nes that she liked that. He himself, however, was beginning to feel a little queasy. The bumpy ride, combined with the low gravity, had done a number on his sense of balance. In an effort to relax, he picked up a stray tuft of pink grass and began to toy with it.

              Wouldn’t you know it, he thought to himself, staring out through the back window at the receding forest. I’m on another planet... in a van with an alien. It was a fact, he knew, that should have chilled him to the bone; let alone after the less-than-enviable circumstances he’d been through on that day. But, for whatever reason, as he sat there in the back of Skye’s van, it didn’t. There was something about this girl that made him feel safe; made him feel like nothing could hurt him. This may have been Planet X, but for what it was worth, he had made a friend.

              Slowly, he turned back around, watching Skye as she worked the steering wheel with the expertise of a New York cab driver. It was almost bewildering to watch her drive -- the girl couldn’t have been any older than him, yet it was as if she’d been driving for years.

              He was unable to overcome the urge to ask the vital question. “Aren't you too young to drive?” Skye looked back at Nes and gave a smug smile.

              “Laws don't always apply to me,” she said. “I'm kind of an outlaw, really.”

              “But... isn't it dangerous?”

              At this, Skye gave a long, hearty chuckle. “For what it’s worth,” she replied, “danger and I are pretty good friends.”

              As if to prove her point even further, she shoved her foot down harder on the gas pedal, and the van rocketed forward at what must have been close to seventy miles an hour. It was then that Nes began to reconsider. Perhaps he wasn’t so safe after all.