From literally anyone else on the planet, that would have been a come-on. But Al wasn’t from the planet, and that had been a genuinely innocent request, and it turned out that Judewasgoing to die, but instead of getting crushed to death, his heart was going to explode thanks to a clueless little alien who happened to look like every man that had ever been in one of Jude’s fantasies. Al would quite innocently drop his pants so Jude could give him his approval, and he would simply pass away.
“Shall we get out of dodge to get away from Bumfuck Nowhere, New Mexico desert, Earth now?” Al asked.
Doing his best to hide his trembling hand, Jude stuck the key in the ignition and turned the car on with a rattling groan from the old engine.
“Yeah,” he said, forcing himself to stare out of his windshield and not at Al. “Let’s go.”
4
Ξ.A.kr’ξ??’p
Al
In the short time Al had been on Earth, he had already formed a list of things he very much liked, and things he very much did not.
Dislike: Cars. Al did not like cars. They were loud, usedgasolineof all things (no wonder the atmosphere had looked so polluted during his brief orbit), and were simultaneously way too slow, but way too fast for how dangerous and fragile they were.
Like: New Mexico. Al wasn’t sure how big New Mexico was—the only place he’d seen much of was Bumfuck Nowhere, and he wasn’t sure how large Bumfuck Nowhere could be—but the arid desert with the expansive sky full of star patterns he didn’t recognize was cozy and kind of reminded him of home, which was nice, given that he was not sure when he would see his home again.Ifhe would see his home again.
Dislike: English. He had far from mastered the strange language, but he knew enough of it to conclude that it was stupid. The grammar was inconsistent, the turn of phrases confusing, and also it was not nearly as aesthetically pleasing to the ears as his mother tongue.
Inconclusive: Human bodies. He had not inhabited one long, but his initial assessment was that they had their advantages and disadvantages. His internal temperature was better regulated, and he felt reasonably warm even with minimal covering, which was good, as all he had to wear in this bulky body was the bottom half of his spacesuit and a garment Jude had lent him that he had called a “hoodie.” That said, having only two arms was wildly inefficient, and the amount of hair he suddenly had was disruptive and unfamiliar. The dark locks he’d created for himself kept falling into his eyes, partially obscuring his vision. He’d repeatedly pushed it back only for it to fall into his face again. Annoying, but not exactly worthy of correction. Transmutation was an exhausting ordeal, and it didn’t seem particularly worth the effort to go through it just to change his hair. He would need to ask Jude if there was a means of shortening it without transmutation.
And speaking of…
Like: Jude.
Al liked Jude. He liked him very much, and it wasn’t only because of the strange reaction he had gotten when they’d touched. That was a factor, certainly, and one that was still rattling him, but first and foremost, Al liked Jude because he was kind.
If what Jude had said was true, and there were humans out there right now searching for Al with the intention of harming him and his beloved ship, then it was safe to conclude that kindness was not a trait inherent to Jude’s species. Jude was kind because hechoseto be, and Al, who had been the victim of more than a few unkind acts in his lifetime, found this to be highly honorable. Jude was helping Al when he had no obligation to do so, and while he might not yet have the vocabulary to adequately express his gratitude, Al nevertheless understood the weight of that decision.
Yes, he liked Jude. The whole mess Al had gotten himself into was fraught with uncertainty, but that was one thing he did not doubt.
The drive out of Bumfuck Nowhere, New Mexico, Earth was long. Or, perhaps by Earth standards, it was short, but back at home Al could have been halfway across the planet in a matter of moments. The “highway,” as Jude called it, was one long stretch of nothing, the desert scenery fairly uniform and bathed in darkness, and Al was admittedly impatient, wanting to see more of Earth than sand and brush.
“There are twenty-four hours in one Earth day,” Jude explained when Al had inquired about how humans kept time. “An hour is sixty minutes, and a minute is sixty seconds.”
“How long is a second?” Al asked.
“A second is…” Jude faltered. “A second is one Mississippi.”
“But how long is a Mississippi?”
“One Mississippi is… the length of one second. Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk about something else. How about TV? I know alotof reality TV trivia.”
And so the remainder of the extremely slow—though perhaps fast in Earth standards—car ride was passed by Jude explaining the plot of some form of Earth entertainment entitledHate at First Sight: Survival Edition, wherein contestants went through a personality assessment that paired them with their least compatible match, and were then put in a remote location in the wilderness where they had to work together to survive. The pair that lasted the longest won five hundred thousand dollars, which Al, using context clues, assumed must cover the income the contestants would lose for participating in the entertainment program instead of going to work.
“In my home world there is a form of entertainment called, er, I think the best translation would bePlanet Hoppers?” Al said after Jude had finished telling him about a pair that had lost the competition due to one contestant trying to stab the other contestant in their sleep. “It is a game that has nine individuals that are given spaceships and race each other to different planets. On each planet there is a task that provides information of the whereabouts of the next planet. Not long ago, the government wanted to make the game cease due to the many,manydeaths that occur, but there was much anger about this decision, and they decided to allow the game to continue. It is my most favorite entertainment to observe.”
“You’ll definitely have to tell me more about that one, but bookmark it for now. We’re almost to my place,” Jude said, and Al perked up, peering out the window. He had been listening so intensely to Jude talk about Earth entertainment that he hadn’t even noticed that their surroundings had changed dramatically. Now, instead of a dark, desolate desert, there were suddenly buildings and lights. Ahead of them there was a large pole which stuck out at a ninety-degree angle over the road. The arm bore a rectangle with three circles, two dark and indistinguishable, and the third made of solid red light.
Jude stopped his bad vehicle not far from it, and before Al could ask why, the red circle switched to a green one, and Jude began driving again. A form of transportation control, Al reasoned.
Up ahead and to the left, there was a cement lot covered by a shelter that had a series of six double-sided stations from which dangled hoses attached to holstered nozzles. At one of these stations was a parked vehicle that was in much better shape than Jude’s. A human stood beside it, holding a nozzle against its parked vehicle. The hose attaching the nozzle to the station dangled uselessly in the air.
“What is that human doing with that hose?” Al asked. They drove past the lot, and Al pushed himself up and craned his neck in order to keep watching the scene unfold out of the back window.
“Huh?” Jude asked, glancing over his shoulder to see what Al was talking about. “Oh. That’s a gas station. She’s putting gas in her car.”
