Chronicle - Mel and Chris Ch. 03

"What the hell...," Mel's voice trailed off as she unwrapped the brown paper to find a lined piece of notebook paper covered with fine handwriting and something solid wrapped in thin, cotton cloth. She handed the paper to Chris and unwrapped the item from the cloth.

She held it up with one hand, it wasn't heavy enough to be solid metal, but one side of it was a thin, glass plate. The opposite side of it was some sort of hard material with a very slight texture to it, in the center about a quarter of the length from one long end were a couple of round holes a quarter of inch or so in diameter.

"Okay," Chris said, "really, what the hell? Hey, hold it."

He reached out and held Mel's wrist, turned the not glass side so he could look closely at it.

"This is a lens of some sort," he said, "a camera? This small? How the hell? But hey, I know lenses!"

"This side is glass," Mel ran the fingers of her other hand along it, tapped it with her fingernails, "there's a couple of tiny holes on this side, on this long end closest to that 'camera,' one centered, the other off to the side of it."

"What is this material," Chris said, it didn't scratch with his fingernails, "ah, kind of like, fibreglass! Tight seal between the layers."

The item was about as thick as two panes of glass, not quite a foot long and about two-thirds as wide, with rounded corners. There were no obvious switches or buttons they could see as Mel rotated it.

"Too heavy to be hollow, I think," Mel said as she used her hand like a balance, "maybe, weighs, like, a dinner plate. Yeah. One of those heavy plates in fancy places you never take me."

"Huh. Ok, wait," Chris opened a second desk drawer, rummaged around, pulled out a small magnifying glass. He looked down each side of the item in turn.

"Some sort of markings under the glass this edge, here, here and here," he said, touched three spots along one side, flipped it, "and this really looks like a tiny camera lens, and a, hmm, flash? A light?"

He set the magnifying glass on the desk, they looked at each other.

"What the fuck is this thing," Mel said, "and where did Asha get it?"

"It's half glass, fibreglass, seems to have a camera...," Chris said, paused, "fuck. Here, trade me."

Chris offered Mel the letter and she handed him the item. He held it vertically in his left hand with the 'camera' side up, used his palm to balance it. He put his index finger on the right side where the 'lowest' 'button' would me, then he rotated it ninety degrees, put his fingers along the bottom as if they were on a keyboard.

"It was on some sort of glass computer," he said, "a glass... computer. With writing."

"What?"

"Jess... remember? 'Tall, pale,' she'd said..."

"No. This? How?"

"Ok, stop," Chris put the item on his lap, "we should read whatever Asha wrote before we get too nuts."

Mel unfolded the paper, held it in both hands. It was written in a smooth flowing script.

"Wow," Mel said softly, "I thought Jess had nice handwriting. This... is... beautiful. Compared to your handwriting... Do you close your eyes when you write?"

"Well, people are impressed when they see yours. Until they find out it was you and not a hungry otter promised all the yummy oysters he could eat if he dragged a pencil across the paper!"

"Read it," said Chris as he forestalled a reply, "that kind of handwriting deserves to be read aloud."

Her expression assured him a reply would come. It would be, epic.

"I can't do Asha's voice," said Mel, Chris shrugged, "it's too high and clean! Oh, well."

She read.

'Dearest Devil Girl & Leather Boy,' Mel snorted, 'I hope this finds the both of you well. Please know that because of you two no virile man or woman on this campus is safe now that a skinny math geek has had her cherry popped. She has the taste and plans to sate it. Often.'

Warm smiles on two faces.

'Unless I misunderstand the both of you, and I rarely do that, you've been poring over my gift before you bothered to read this. My guess is you know what it is you just won't admit it to yourselves. I will explain but I ask one thing. Please burn this once you've read it and forget from where this item came to you. Dave & Roger told me your theory about their friend so this is my offering to help you help them find closure.'

Mel paused, looked at Chis, who shrugged.

'Neither I nor my brother know how it works. Nor do we even know IF it works. It was in our parents effects and we discovered it only after they had entered the land of shadows. We had never seen it before, our father had mentioned to Aron they existed, a 'padlet' he'd called it, Aron says, but hadn't told him we had one. My brother says to not turn it on, not that we know how you'd do that or if you can now. It may be dead. But, if you do manage to Aron says dad told him it will try to connect to some sort of network, an ultranet, with some sort of radio.

What is a fucking 'Faraday Cage?' Fuck you, dearest brother. He claims you'll both know. Whatever.

Maybe I won't make his death quick.'

"I've never seen 'fuck' and a death threat written in such pretty letters," Mel chuckled, Chris nodded, smiled. Mel continued.

'Sorry about that.

We don't know why our parents had it. They stole this item and caused deaths and were scared of meeting them again. As a point of reference our parents were murderous psychopaths so them being scared is not to be dismissed. It was before our time so know this item has been around a bit longer than us.'

"Deaths? They were what?" Chris injected.

"'Murderous psychopaths' she wrote," Mel said, scrunched her face quickly, "that's... wonderful. Pissed off aliens? No wonder she wants to get rid of this. What, they're twins, juniors, a year behind you?"

"Yeah, what she told Dave," Chris nodded, "twenty, twenty-one, I guess, dunno their birthday."

"How is it," Mel's expression distant, "we know TWO sets of boy-girl twins sorta involved in this? I never met any growing up!"

"Me neither," Chris shrugged, caught her thoughtful eyes, "must be you. My black cloudness just blows things up..."

Mel laughed gently.

"Ok, just a bit more," she added.

'There is one tall, pale 'person' [quote, unquote] we know of on earth who you could ask. I think you two know who that is. Why she's here, we don't know. Our parents left us with the impression that we should never want to duplicate their encounter. In the case she has knowledge of whatever happened with our parents if you decide to discuss this item with her I implore you to keep us out of it.

It's your padlet now.

Love, Asha.

Postscript: Please don't say anything to Dave about my parents. I wish to tell him in my time.'

"There are aliens. Fucking aliens with glass computers," Chris picked up the computer, pad, whatever you wanted to call it, rotated it, "in orbit. But if Asha is right, whatever happened with her parents was before those anomalies seem to have appeared, that was only a decade or so ago, if the Mallomar folks are right."

"I reviewed their photos, none of us could find anything older than 1975, nor could any other observatory. But yeah, you and me talked about they probably sent probes before that."

Chris nodded, mouthed a 'yup' as he continued to rotate the device.

"And one, the pale, tall, green-eyed lover of one of our best friends is one of them," said Mel, "not much doubt who she means."

"No," Chris laughed, "it would be someone we're all familiar with, the way she hints. Of course, this could be an elaborate prank."

"Sam's the only one we told about Jess's story," Mel said in a serious tone, "under my torture she admitted talking about us and Shelly, nothing else. She prefers to think we're a bit, you know, ga ga, when it comes to the alien stuff."

Mel stuck her tongue out and folded it, flicked the tip up a couple of times, put her index finger to her temple and swirled it, Chris sniffed in light laughter.

"Yeah, you 'tortured' her. Where the hell we going to find a Faraday Cage?" Chris jerked an eyebrow at his lover, his mouth opened slightly.

"Well, no way we're turning it on unless we're in one," Mel said firmly, "and there's gotta be one in your building or mine. Somewhere. Basement or something."

"Might be a moot point. There's no port for a power cord or anything. Battery? No idea what kind though or how to charge it, unless she's lying or wrong it's over twenty years old. But yeah, there's gotta be a cage somewhere in the bowels of the engineering building. Hell, there's a baby nuclear reactor down there!"

Mel set the letter on the desk, folded it flat, patted it. Chris put the glass computer on top of it. They looked at each other, shrugged. Mel took his hands.

"Let's go downstairs, get some ice cream," her eyes glittered, "we have some searching to do this weekend!"

Chris leaned in and kissed her, had it returned, their tongues touched, they separated.

"But, sweet demon, you forget what tomorrow is? We'll be busy. And unless you want to stand up my parents we're going there for dinner on Sunday."

"Wha? Oh..." Mel smiled crookedly, her tongue visible in the corner of her mouth, "hell of thing to forget."

Chris stood and walked to one of the closed sliding doors of 'his' closet.

"Your mom called me a few weeks before Christmas," he scrunched his eyes to again forestall comments, Mel obeyed for the moment but scrunched her eyes back.

"She had a specific plan but I convinced her to make one modification."

Chris slid the door open and there was a large box in colorful wrapping paper, a large bow on the top of it. Mel's mouth slowly opened.

"It's kinda half Merry Christmas and half Happy Birthday. But, well, with that thing sitting on the desk maybe it's a bit anticlimactic."

"What is it? I got plenty of stuff for Christmas..."

"Not one of these. Your actual birthday is in, what, oh, ninety minutes, so we can wait. Or, I guess, I just couldn't wait after what we just saw."

Mel stood and walked to the closet, elbowed Chris in the stomach.

"That's for not hanging up on my mom when she called to no doubt have phone sex with you."

"Well, once we'd handled business I described in very thorough detail how I'd sneak the vibrator out and shove my cock up her ass while she played with it... If only they'd actually followed through on the video phones from the sixties!"

That got him a loud and wet raspberry. Mel tore a strip down the front of the box, her mouth dropped open.

"A FruitTree Computers RedFruit Plus," she read the large lettering slowly.

"I've shown you the couple of RedFruits up in the lab," Chris said, Mel nodded as she dragged the box from its hiding place and stripped the paper. Unlike the grey, blocky office machines that had proliferated in businesses and that Mel had used at her temp jobs the RedFruits were colorful, rounded and with the highest definition screens built for graphics that existed.

Even the box exuded a sense of 'cool' that the blocky and dull grey Inorganic Brain Makers office systems that she, and almost everyone, used for work just didn't have. Would never, could never, have.

"This new 'Plus' model was just released this month, and is cheaper than the previous model, more memory, better screen, expandable, better software for you to do papers. With the graphics we could write a real sweet orbital simulation program. I convinced your mother it'd be a better buy to wait for this one. Fortunately, as you know, I'm related to many people and one of them is having an affair with an electronics wholesaler. In return for me, um, not telling on her, we were first in line. And got the wholesale price!"

Mel wrapped her arms around Chris's shoulders and kissed him hard and deeply, he grabbed one ass cheek with each hand and pulled her tightly. When she released him after a long, long time he spoke softly.

"Everyone's coming over here for the party tomorrow and dinner at my parents on Sunday. We won't be able to get both of these computers set up this weekend! This one here isn't as slick and tiny as that thing on the desk..."

"But this one, big as it is, might actually work," she said, kissed him quickly again.

"Yeah. Now, let's get that ice cream. Then we can set it up and try it out."

"And then I'm going to torture you until you admit you had phone sex with my mom!"

"If you think you can suck it out of me, feel free to try," Chris laughed at Mel's loud 'hah!'

*****