How to Save the Planet 01

"You trusted it before that?" I asked. I didn't know what to think, especially after that stunt with the drill forced me to accept that it was way more than a student project. But I did know I wasn't ready to accept our benevolent alien overlords.

"Think about it," Kate said. She jerked her head at the twisted drill. "With that kind of technology, if Cybeline wanted to exterminate all humans, she could. Have you ever heard of the gray goo scenario?"

She got five blank stares in response.

Kate sighed. "Cybeline has some kind of nanotechnology at her disposal. If you can make something to take apart a drill like that, you can make something that will use the materials it leaves behind for construction. And that construction could include more of those same machines, so you have nanobots building more nanobots, which also begin to build more nanobots..."

"Which would lead to exponential growth?" I looked at Evan, surprised he was following along. He shrugged. "I'm taking a bio lab this semester. Bacteria work just like that, apparently."

"Yes!" Kate said, pointing at him. "Except instead of needing a petri dish with a controlled ecosystem, the machines could work in any environment. And we'd have no good way to get rid of them, even if we realized what was happening, so they could replicate and expand forever."

"This doesn't sound reassuring," I said. Her description, Evan's reference to bacteria, and the name 'gray goo' itself all conjured up a horrifying image of a planet covered in metallic slime.

"But it is!" Kate beamed. "Because Cybeline could destroy the world, and she hasn't. Which means she doesn't want to."

"No," Justine said. "But she wants to give us the power to do it."

Kate frowned. "Maybe. All that stuff could be a risk, like fallout from nuclear waste. But having the ability to work on that scale, if we use it safely, could seriously change the world."

"Is there any safe way to use alien technology?" Lace cut in. "And are we really the people to figure it out?"

"Why not us?" asked Kate. "We're smart. We're mostly compassionate --"

"What are you looking at me for?" asked Evan, smiling a lopsided grin.

"-- and most importantly, we're here," Kate finished. "We found this, not anyone else."

"Is that really enough of a reason?" I couldn't quite believe how quickly Kate had moved towards the conclusion that we should awaken some kind of alien AI. Especially an alien AI with abilities that she was comparing to nuclear weapons. "Look, shouldn't we think about this a little more?"

"What happens," Rosemary wondered quietly, "if the government finds out about this?"

It was a sobering thought. The Euphrates mercenary scandal was in the middle of breaking, and I know it came to all of our minds just then.

Kate gripped Rosemary's hand. "I think we should accept the offer," Kate said. "We don't have to use anything this AI tells us, or gives us. But it'll give us the option if we need to."

"I agree," Rosemary said. "But I think we should put it to a vote."

"Do we need to?" I asked. "We don't all have to be... involved. Even if some of us want to mess around with it --"

"We all know about it," Lace interrupted. "If any of us start talking with it, and the government finds out it exists, we're all in danger. Not to mention the threat of making a mistake and gooing the planet."

"But doesn't that mean it's too late?" I felt a knot of dread settle in my stomach. "We're already talking with it."

Lace looked at the flower. "We could always destroy it."

Cybeline remained silent.

Kate looked like she was biting back a shout of protest, but she nodded. "Is that your vote, Lace?"

"I think so," she said. "Yeah. If the rest of you want to see what it has to say, I'll go along, but I think we're all safer without it."

"Okay," Kate said, looking like someone had just threatened her puppy. She pointed at Rosemary, who nodded. "Two for accept, one against."

"Two against," I said. I surprised myself a little. I didn't know that I'd made up my mind until I said it. "This... this is just too much. I don't want any of us to get killed over this. How did we even end up making this decision?" I stopped, with an effort. It felt as if my head was spinning.

"Evan?" Kate asked. She sounded worried.

He shook his head. "This is all too much. I'm not used to being this serious about things." He tried to smile, but it fell a little flat. "Besides, I don't want to end up with a tie. Leave me out, and Justine can be the deciding vote."

Well. That decided it. I turned to Justine, ready to hear her say --

"Cybeline," she asked, and there was a strange note in her voice. "Why are you here?"

"To offer you these tools, and my help --"

"I remember that," Justine interrupted. "But why are you offering those? Why do we need your help?"

There was a pause. "My information is currently limited."

"Tell us what you do know." I'd never heard such a hard edge to Justine's words before.

"Your civilization is in danger." Cybeline sounded almost apologetic. It was hard to make out the finer details on the small screen, but I thought her face looked sad. "Recent analysis puts the odds of its imminent partial collapse above ninety percent. The odds of complete collapse are above seventy percent. The odds of extinction or near-extinction of your species are around twenty percent. The odds of broad disruption of the biosphere --"

"That's enough," Justine said. The voice from the flower cut off instantly.

We all stood stunned.

"Whoa," Evan said. For once, there was no humor in his voice. He just sounded scared.

"We have to take it," Justine said, sounding defeated. "Cybeline, what are the odds if we accept your help?"

"I'm not able to update those calculations," she said. "They're based on a large amount of collected data, about both your world and the statistical trends seen in others. I don't have access to that database."

"Wait," I said. "If the stakes are this high, shouldn't --"

"Cybeline," Justine said, ignoring me, "we accept your help."

The screen on the flower pulsed. The colors cycled, shifting too quickly to really see. The metal petals flexed again, twisting and curving in.

And the flower severed itself from the beam and fell to the floor.

"If you would pick up this vessel," Cybeline said, now slightly muffled, "we can leave for a safer location."

- - - - -

Justine, Lace, and Kate shared an apartment. Evan and I did too, and ours was closer, but we had other roommates as well. The girls didn't, which was a plus when it came to keeping secrets about the alien technology you were bringing home.

We arranged ourselves around the living room, filling the small space to the brim. It felt even more crowded because nobody wanted to sit too close to the little coffee table, where Justine set down the flower. The screen was dark, Cybeline's avatar temporarily vanished, but it still felt as though it were watching me.

"What's the plan?" Lace asked at last. "Interrogate the robot a little more?"

"We need to know more," Justine said. "About why it's here, about how it wants to help us." She was huddled up on the couch, not touching me. She looked very small and scared, but somehow I didn't know how to comfort her. Somehow, I was worried she didn't want me to.

"And the impending end of human civilization," Lace said. "That little detail."

"Maybe we have to know," Evan said, stretching, "but I'm not sure I could stand to hear any more tonight."

"Evan," Kate said, sounding shocked, "this is important."

He nodded. "Important enough that I want to be sober for it," Evan said. He sounded serious. "We've all had more than a little to drink, and it's late as hell."

"So we just... ignore it? Put it off until tomorrow?"

"Kate," Rosemary said, touching her arm, "I think Evan's right. You all started talking about tech stuff, and I was totally lost. We can all sleep, get coffee, and meet here in the morning."

Kate looked stunned. Not upset, exactly, but certainly shocked that her almost-girlfriend wasn't ready to dive into our little gift from the stars. "What do the rest of you think?" she finally managed to ask.

I shrugged. "Kate, this is kind of a lot to take in. I'm not even sure I really believe it's happening yet."

She opened her mouth, brow furrowing, ready to launch into a real argument.

"Yes, the drill proved it," I said quickly, trying to head her off. "I dunno how it could have been faked, I dunno how anything human could have done that. I just mean... it hasn't sunk in yet, you know? I've got no idea what questions to ask. I don't even know what we need to know."

The others were nodding along, except Justine. She was just sitting, hunched in and silent.

"Fine," Kate said. "But I want to start this again in the morning."

"Hangovers," Evan moaned.

"You're not that drunk," Kate growled. "Chug some water tonight and as much coffee as you need tomorrow, because I want to see you here by ten. Got it?"

He put his hands up, miming surrender. Kate looked around the room, making sure the rest of us nodded our agreement as well. "Good. Then get some sleep."

Kate grinned. "Tomorrow, we've got a planet to save."

Evan groaned, muttering something about drama queens, and dodged the pillow Kate threw by ducking out the apartment's front door. I almost got up to follow him, since we were heading to the same place, but I looked over at Justine and reconsidered. She wasn't taking all of this very well. I couldn't leave her that way.

"Rosemary," Lace said, "do you want to crash on the couch? Kate has some blankets somewhere."

"It is a long way back to my place," Rosemary said. "I wouldn't mind skipping that walk."

"Take my bed," Kate said absently. "I'll sleep on the couch."

Rosemary's face fell.

Kate's good with people. Really she is. There's a lot of nerdy stereotypes that she falls into perfectly, but 'antisocial and unwashed' is not one of them. But somehow, she was the one person in the room who couldn't hear what Rosemary wasn't saying, her clear desire not to be sleeping alone.

Or maybe it was deliberate, and Kate was trying not to address the issue. So much had just happened, Kate might have just wanted to be alone. I couldn't blame her for that.

Lace stood with Rosemary for a moment, watching Kate rummage through the tiny linen closet. Then she patted the tall girl on the shoulder in a way that I'm sure was meant to be reassuring but didn't quite manage to be, and slipped into her bedroom without another word.

"Hey," I said softly, resting my hand on Justine's shoulder. For a moment, I thought she was still lost in whatever mess of emotions she was feeling, and hadn't noticed. Then, she reached up and covered my hand with her own. Her fingers were cold, and when she met my eyes, there was something unsettling and distant about it.

"You should sleep," I said. It sounded lame and awkward, but I didn't know what else to do. Justine was worrying me.

"Come with me?" Her voice was small, quiet. She didn't sound scared, exactly, but there was something similar there. Stress, perhaps. She sounded thoroughly overwhelmed.

I looked around, a little nervous. It wasn't that we were pretending to save ourselves for marriage, or anything like that, but we'd never spent the night in her apartment with any of her roommates around. It seemed kind of rude, and I didn't know how any of them would take it.

Of course, if we were ever going to be excused for spending the night together, the most dramatic night of our lives would probably do it. Lace and Kate shared a room, though it sounded like it was going to be Lace and Rosemary tonight, but with one roommate missing, Justine had a bedroom to herself this semester.

"Yeah," I said to Justine. "Of course."

She reached up, and I helped her off the couch. She leaned against me down the hallway, resting her weight on me as if a heavy wind was blowing straight through the walls, threatening to push her over. I nodded to Rosemary as we passed her, feeling awkward, but she smiled.

"Good night," she murmured. And have fun, she mouthed silently. The smile became a smirk, just for a moment, and I felt my cheeks growing warm.

Then we were into the bedroom, and I pushed the door closed behind us.

Justine turned, and leaned into me. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close, and for a long time we just stood like that in the dark. I couldn't sort out what was wrong, and I couldn't think of any way to ask. It was a weird night, of course, but it had hit Justine so much harder than it had hit any of us.

"Thank you," she whispered at last. Somewhere out in the living room, I heard a door closing. Rosemary must be heading to bed.

"I don't feel like I did anything," I admitted.

"You did," Justine said into my chest. "You still are."

She pulled me towards the bed, gently but firmly. It was a twin, so fitting two people in was no easy feat. Lucky that we liked each other, or it could have gotten pretty uncomfortable.

Justine turned us around, not letting go of me, and pushed me down onto the bed. I tried to pull her down, on top of me, but she pushed my hands back down to my sides. "No touching," she whispered.

And she started to undress. It wasn't a striptease, really. There was no music, and she wasn't dancing. There were no dramatic flourishes, no coy little covering or turning away to prolong the suspense. But she took her time, and the little light filtering in around the edges of the curtains lent the whole affair an air of mystery. I could see her, but only barely, and it made me long to explore her with my hands and mouth.

If I had been a little less distracted, I might have wondered more about the complete reversal. She'd gone from huddling silently on the couch to completely taking the lead once we got into the bedroom. And I did think about it, just a little. Then her shirt hit the floor and I stopped.

Justine was wearing a black bra, a nice one. It was lacy, delicate, and sat low enough to expose quite a lot of her modestly sized breasts. Below, her jeans sat tight and low on her hips, showing off a long flat expanse of pale skin. In the dimly lit room, her hair appeared the same color as her bra, though in brighter light it was a deep, rich brown. The effect was intriguing, turning her almost into a black-and-white portrait in motion. It gave her an ethereal quality, as if she wasn't quite there, as if she were floating through the room instead of standing on the floor.

And then she pulled the bra free, tossing her hair back, and all my appreciation of the artistry of the scene before me became pure lust.

I had been turned on since the hug. Justine was beautiful, and it had been a few days since we'd been able to get away alone. But as soon as the bra came off, I was as hard as rebar.

Her breasts were perfect handfuls, and I was just aching to hold them. From the little smile on her face, I could tell she knew what I wanted, but rather than step into arm's reach she began to peel off her jeans. They came free slowly, agonizingly slowly, exposing black underwear that matched her bra and slim, pale legs that gleamed in the dimness. Her hair fell over her chest as Justine bent to free her feet from her jeans, and in that moment she looked like a dream.

She stood again, nearly naked before me. I was itching to leap up off the bed and take her in my arms, but if she told me to stay put she meant it. She was a small woman, though not tiny, slender but not without her own striking curves. I could have picked her up and tossed her on the bed without any particular effort.

But that night, she was the one in control.

"Stay there," she said, voice husky. Then she climbed onto the bed, behind me, and pulled my shirt over my head.

I might have wondered, before that, if she was going slowly because she was less eager for me than I was for her. But she nearly ripped my shirt off, and I could hear the shift in her breathing as she did so. She was restraining herself, keeping her own desire in check, letting the anticipation grow and intensify in us both. And it was working.

She unbuckled my belt and dealt deftly with my pants. She laughed, soft and eager in my ear as her hand brushed over my erection, and I had to fight back a moan that the whole apartment would have heard. Justine dropped nimbly from the bed, and I barely had time to lean back and raise my hips slightly before she pulled off my jeans and boxers in a single motion.

Then she was on top of me. Somewhere in the middle she'd lost her panties, and this time I did moan as I felt her pressing against my shaft, wet and hot and teasing. It was quiet, but she put a finger against my lips, laughing almost silently.

"Eager boy," she breathed against my ear. "Shhhhh."

I reached up for her waist. My heart was pounding, my cock was aching. All I wanted was to lift Justine a little and bring her back down on top of it, thrusting all the way into her again and again. But she pushed my hand down, firmly enough that it was almost rough. "No," she said. "Not tonight."

She had a condom ready, which I hadn't expected. This could very well have been her plan from the start, well before our night was interrupted by strange alien visitors. Any other night, I would have accepted the condom as a necessary evil, as neither of us were interested in parenting our way through college. Tonight, I was glad I had something to keep me from exploding after the third stroke.

But even once the condom was in place, she didn't start riding me right away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my neck, leaning close against me, breasts pressing against my skin. She ground into my lap, up and down, tracing small circles with her hips until I could feel her wetness running down onto my legs. Neither of us had ever been so ready for it, so hungry, even our very first time.

And still, Justine didn't start fucking me. She kissed me instead, hard, pulling my face into hers with a hand on the back of my neck. She rose up, out of my lap, forcing me to look up to kiss her, almost at the same angle she had to take if both of us were standing. Her legs pressed against my chest to either side, and she held my cock firmly in her hand. She didn't stroke it, or move at all. She just held it, at exactly the angle it would have to be for her to sink down onto me.

"Tell me what you want," she breathed.

"I want to fuck you," I said. "I need to fuck you."

She was breathing hard, and bit her lip with a smile. But she shook her head.

It clicked, and I grinned, throbbing in her hand. "I need you to fuck me."

And she did. My hands were still at my sides, her hand still on the back of my neck, now pulling me in to kiss her breasts and her neck as they moved downwards past me. She didn't pause for an instant when her pussy met my cock, already gleaming with her wetness from long teasing. She slid me into her, neither fast nor slow, just one long, steady stroke that made me see stars.

She pulled me in for another kiss as she came down to the base of my cock, and it was a good thing she did. Both of us moaned into each others' mouths, and I wasn't thinking about what Justine's roommates might hear anymore. Her breath was coming in pants and gasps, and mine sounded ragged in my ears.

Then, a moment later, she started to move.

We were still a new couple, and we didn't have much practice in matching each others' orgasms. Every time we'd had sex, one of us would finish first, and then the other would settle for hands or mouth or a break before a second round. We were getting closer, though, and with some effort and focus we had almost come at the same time the weekend before.