Helios High (eBook)

Chapter Two

“This is incredible.”

The earthling gazed in astonishment at the preternatural scene above her. I could feel our mental bond growing, as bursts of information came crashing through my subconscious like waves against a rocky shoreline.A swirling cloud of mental images spun around overhead.

“These are your memories, Lee,” I responded, rather proud of myself. The earthling tensed up.

“How do you know that name?”

“Lee?”

The word was crawling around my psyche. It was so inescapable, I had difficulty focusing on anything else.

“It must have special meaning for you?”

“No one’s called me Lee in a very long time,” she said, lowering her head.

I may have disliked humans, but I felt guilty for drudging up something so personal.

“I don’t think we were properly introduced earlier,” she said with a smile. “My name is Hadley. Hadley Hambrick.”

“Yes, I know,” I replied, still upset that she got me into trouble. “I’m Krod.”

I felt my hearts skip a beat, and found the sensation completely unsettling. Thripis leaned in closer before I could sever the connection.

“Make her tell you how she got here.”

“Yes,” Skreex seconded. “I demand you proceed.”

“I can’t make her do anything,” I insisted. “That’s not how the bonding works.”

“You better do something quick, Squeeb, before Mr. Flupple catches on,” Orustie urged.

I glanced over at Mr. Flupple’s office window. The head librarian sat at his desk strategically raking strands of seaweed-like hair across his white scalp in an attempt to obfuscate his receding hairline. Fortunately for us, he was oblivious to the spectacle taking place just outside his window.

“Think about the events that took place right before you got here,” I prompted.

Hadley inhaled sharply. The fuzzy mental pictures floating above our heads coalesced into a single frame. You could barely make out some kind of movement within its nebulous, rubicund hued borders. It was slightly out of focus, and hard to distinguish. After several agonizing moments, she opened her eyes and gasped.

“Bigfoot!”

“Excuse me?”

“Bigfoot,” the human repeated, eagerly pointing towards a bank of shelves in one corner of the data center.

Standing there towering high above the rows of metallic storage shelves was a large bipedal student. He was covered in thick brown fur, with a domed head planted atop muscular shoulders. The student cradled a shiny data cylinder in his massive palm, making the device look considerably smaller than its actual size. He looked annoyed with us.

“Bigfoot is my dead name,” the hairy giant responded in a reedy tone that contrasted his colossal frame.

“I’m sorry,” Hadley repented. “I meant no disrespect.”

The shaggy behemoth glared at us for a while, before his attention gradually returned to the glowing, holographic contents of his data cylinder.

“That is so racist,” Orustie rebuked with exaggerated scorn.

Hadley’s face reddened as everyone frowned at her. In all fairness, there was no way the earthling could have prepared herself for the complexities of interspecies relationships in a matter of hours. Still, I got a kick out of watching her squirm. Helios High’s close proximity to the third planet in the solar system meant students often visited there. They knew the risks involved, but the novelty of having a breathable planet in our own backyard proved too great a temptation.

I had zero desire to see the place for myself. From what I heard, it was teeming with barbaric hominids keen on destroying themselves in every way possible. Students were officially barred from traveling there unless it was part of a school sponsored field trip. However, that didn’t stop a few kids from sneaking off to Earth on the weekends. In fact, it was a favorite pastime of our resident Chiye Tanka population, like the one standing there in the data center. Their people had enjoyed hunting and fishing in the lush forests of Earth’s wilderness for centuries. Vacationing there was like returning home for them.

I learned in my Interspecies Studies class that the Chiye Tanka were some of the first extraterrestrials ever to visit the planet. As such, they were steeped in earthling folklore. They went by many names, including Kecleh-Kudleh, Yeti, Sasquatch, Madukarahat, and several others. But, Bigfoot was a term deemed highly offensive to the Chiye Tanka’s cultivated sensibilities. Their race’s true name was widely unpronounceable by most other species within the Interstellar Community. Therefore, these fur-covered giants adopted the human designation Chiye Tanka, which I was taught roughly translated to Elder Brother.

The Chiye Tanka once enjoyed peaceful cohabitation with earthlings. Unfortunately, xenophobia proved as virulent as any disease. Humans feared anything that didn’t remind them of themselves. Suspicion metastasized between the two races and before long, Chiye Tanka no longer felt welcome there. There is an old saying on Draconis about desire increasing when the object of its lust becomes unobtainable. The same held true for the Chiye Tanka students attending Helios High. The fact that Earth was off limits only made the backwater planet more attractive to them, and anyone else looking for a bit of weekend recreation.

“How was I supposed to know the term Bigfoot is offensive?” Hadley pleaded. “Now, I feel awful. It reminds me of all the names I’m called back home.”

With that, the blurry lines of her thought projection sharpened. The image appeared to be that of a hallway here on campus. You could make out rows of lockers bathed in artificial light, the bustle of activity swarming around them as amorphous silhouettes filed past. The scene was unmistakable, and yet there was something decidedly alien about it.

As the picture came further into focus, my suspicions were confirmed. It was a classroom hallway all right, but not one found at Helios High. It was far too primitive looking, with round combination locks jutting out of each metal door, rather than the digital scanners that came standard on our own school lockers. Plus, the corridor was lousy with earthlings. There were no Luneriens, Birkwan, or Chelpo of any kind, just wall to wall humans. It was enough to turn your stomachs.

At the epicenter of the commotion stood a solitary individual, a stack of rectangular thingamajigs tucked under her skinny arm. Unlike the sleek data cylinders employed at Helios High, these were made entirely out of paper. I marveled at the prospect of anyone getting a proper education using such ancient learning materials. Somewhere in the back of my mind, and most likely the product of my mental bond, came one word: books. Yes, they were called books, and they were dangling precariously as the young woman manipulated her combination lock. A cluster of female classmates approached her from behind. One of them reached out and tugged on the books, causing them to fall to the floor. Facing her assailants, the protagonist’s identity was revealed within the spectral images playing out above our heads. It was the earthling Hadley Hambrick.

“Is that you, Hadley?” Thripis asked, squinting at the picture.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Hadley answered, her voice heavy with regret. “But, if these are my memories, why aren’t we viewing them from my perspective?”

“It’s the bonding,” I explained. “The stronger our connection grows, the less we view ourselves as individuals. Take these memories, for example. You and I are both the observer and the participant. I know I didn’t experience these things for myself, and yet I can feel the emotions they provoke.”

Hadley watched as the otherworldly vision of herself bent over to collect her books. A second girl placed some kind of sticky note with the words ‘WIDE LOAD’ emblazoned on it. I had no idea what it meant, but it caused her companions to burst out laughing. Another girl chanted the word ‘badly’ over and over again in a rhythmical voice, mocking Hadley’s name. The lead girl pushed Hadley to the ground and stuck her foot out in front of her.

“You like my new shoes, Badly?”

This sent a chorus of wild cackles into the air. The spectral vision of Hadley made a vain attempt to compose herself, while present day Hadley turned ashen as she relived the memory playing out overhead.

“Not my finest hour,” Hadley remarked under her breath.

“Want me to sever the link?”

Hadley considered it for a moment as she stood there watching herself get bullied.

“Why that big, wooly rat!”

Orustie shot up out of his seat and moved to intercept the Chiye Tanka student as he lumbered towards Mr. Flupple’s office.

“Hey, Size Twenty-Two’s!” Orustie shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m reporting you guys to Mr. Flupple,” he lilted indignantly. “Who can...