September 26, 2013, early morning
A loud series of knocks rattled Carol’s door.
What time is it, she wondered, sitting up in bed. Only the orange glow of a streetlight outside shone through her window. She checked her phone: 3:22 am. What the hell?
Another round of knocks echoed throughout the building.
“Carol, let me in,” came an urgent whisper.
“Nic?” she asked.
“Obviously,” was Nic’s reply.
She sighed as she clambered out of bed and over to the door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
She messed with her finicky lock and, as soon as she managed to turn the little knob, he shoved the door open and slammed it closed behind him.
Nic was quite tall, had dark hair, and brown eyes. He had been Carol’s closest acquaintance for over a year, ever since shortly after they had met at an orientation tour, and they had been dating for several months now.
“I'm fine,” he said, pausing to take in her stunned expression.
“Jesus, Nic. People are asleep.”
“Not on this floor. Can I turn on the light?”
He flipped the switch without waiting for a response. Carol winced as her eyes adjusted.
“What are you doing here?” Carol repeated, annoyance rising in her chest. “It’s three in the morning!”
“Rose is coming!” Nic said in an excited half-whisper.
Carol stared at him. “What?” she said. It occurred to her that she might not be going back to sleep for a while. “Wait, what?”
“She—she’s coming here!”
“The Rose? As in the alien?”
“Yep, Rose Statton. But she’s not technically an—”
“Oh my God, Nic, I know.” Carol shrugged him off, though his excitement was contagious. For the past two years, Rose Statton, the alien, had been the most famous being on the planet, yet little was known about her. She was reptilian, red, and avoided sunlight, but physical description paled in comparison to her mental abilities. “What do you mean, ‘here’? Like, she’s visiting Oxford for a lecture, or…”
“She’s going to be a student! Here, at Lincoln!”
“No she isn't,” Carol retorted. She turned to pace around the room. “No way. You're messing with me.”
“She's moving here today.”
“To Lincoln?”
“Room six-twenty-two.”
The six-hundred staircase was right across the quad from Carol’s.
“How do you know this, all of a sudden? What were you even doing up so early?”
“I haven’t gone to bed yet. Josh found out they were coming to England around twelve, and then I got online and…”
“So she said she was moving to Oxford?”
“No, but—”
“You don't even know she'll be here?”
“She is coming,” Nic insisted. “They've been speculating all night, and there's a bunch of security here. I had to get patted down at the gate, and they looked through my backpack. Anyway, the internet people found out that the security centered around Lincoln and that a dorm was reserved last week, a month after everyone else signed up.”
“You woke me up at three, based on that? Because she might be coming?”
“Um, no,” Nic said, an edge of defiance in his voice. “I also saw Emily,” the college’s rector, “and she asked if that was why I was here. They searched my backpack!” he repeated.
Carol considered his words. A relevant memory resurfaced in a new light: A week before, all Lincoln College residents were given a mandatory survey that included questions about their tolerance of the alien and her horrifying array of telepathic powers. At the time, Carol had written it off as just another campus climate survey to be completed and ignored, but it had been oddly focused on that one topic.
Nic isn’t joking, she realized, the sour taste of adrenaline seeping into her blood. The alien is going to live in the building across from me. I'm going to see it around campus. The main body of Lincoln College was tiny, just three little quads surrounded by buildings. Avoiding running into someone—or something—was impossible.
“Is she coming alone?” Carol imagined the lizard-creature struggling to open the door to her building. “How will she talk?”
“She knows sign language,” said Nic. “And I think William is coming too.”
William Statton, the alien’s human voice-box. He, at least, was around the college age.
“How long will they be here?” Carol asked. “Will I have to move?”
“No, of course not, I mean, I doubt it… but I’m not sure how crowded it will get.”
Nic took out his laptop as he spoke and placed it on Carol’s desk, and she watched him in silence. She couldn’t imagine how her parents might react to the news. Would she have to move?
Of course Nic’s going to try to meet them tomorrow. Should I try too? Nic was clearly doing something that he felt was important, but Carol couldn’t tell what. Of course he’s going to make me ask.
“So, what’s the plan?”
Nic turned his head just enough that she could see his grin.
The world-famous Stattons stood in the arched hallway of stone between quads, alone. No bodyguards, no crowd of early rising graduate students.
Nicolas must be pleased, Carol thought. Everything was going exactly as he wanted, so long as he didn’t count Emily, the rector of Lincoln College, standing next to him on the sidewalk. At least she’ll help introduce us.
Carol’s eyes remained fixed upon William’s familiar, human face. She was unable to make herself focus on the red shape next to him: the red shape that had indeed turned out to be a real creature that stood directly in her view. As long as it remained in her peripheral vision, it could have been an oddly colored dog.
The rector leaned towards Carol and Nic and spoke in a low tone. “I don’t know how you found out about this so soon, but are you aware of why the Stattons have chosen to come to Lincoln?” Her voice betrayed a note of pride.
Carol, thankful for a reason to look away from the alien that was making its way around the lawn, turned to Rector Emily.
“They're taking classes here?” Nic asked before Carol got the chance to respond.
“Yes, but in addition to that they will be teaching a course in the Oakeshott room this semester,” Emily responded. “You can ask them all about it when you help carry their luggage and move them in. You are available the next few hours, aren’t you?”
“The plan is we help them move their stuff in and become best friends,” Nic said while he waited for his laptop to boot up.
“Seriously?” Carol sighed. “I think they already have enough friends, and it’s not like they’ll need help carrying luggage if they have security everywhere.”
“Do you think they’ve been able to make real friends over the past two years?” Nic asked. “They’re gonna get here in about… three and a half hours. Hardly anyone will be awake. So we’ll be the only people their age out there.”
“Isn’t Rose six?”
“She’s seven. You know what I mean.”
“You think they’re desperate for undergraduate friends, and showing up early gets us on the short list?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Do you have a better idea?”
Carol ignored the question. How to befriend the mega-celebrities was only a minor concern. Much more important were questions regarding their mortal safety in the near future. “What are you doing now?”
“Pulling up videos of Rose,” Nic said as he typed. “We should study her expressions when she talks.”
“Don’t you watch that monthly stream she does?”
“This is mostly for your sake. Do you have a better idea?”
“You should probably get some sleep,” Carol suggested.
“I don’t know,” Nic pondered. “Maybe.”
Carol picked up her phone from the nightstand and sighed. It was only four in the morning.
“Don’t text anyone about it,” Nic said quickly.
“I’m not! Just checking the time. When are they supposed to get here? Seven?”
Nic nodded in assent.
“I don’t want to spend the next 3 hours watching Rose’s livestreams; that would be weird if I met her tomorrow,” Carol protested. “Shouldn’t we both just go to sleep?”
Nic sighed. “I think maybe I should. But you, you need to at least catch up on the news.”
“What news?”
“Exactly!”
“Ugh,” Carol sighed. There was no way she would be going back to sleep this morning. “How will you sleep?”
“I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours; I think I could pass out right now if I closed my eyes.”
“Do you want to go to the Lair?” Carol asked. “I’m going to get a shower in a bit.”
The Lair was her and Nic’s secret hideout: room three-twenty across the hall. During the previous semester it had been vacant, so Nic used his newly-developed lockpicking skills to claim it for its bed since he lived several blocks away. It soon became a storage space for both Carol and Nic, and over time more and more of their junk had found itself in the room. Along with the junk was what Nic called his secret science project, but the thing never worked and had sat untouched for weeks. It hadn’t been claimed yet for the new semester, so they had introduced it to Carol’s friends on campus and were in the process of turning it into a proper hang-out.
“Actually, could you go to the Lair?” Nic asked. “Your bed is comfier.”
“Sure, fine,” Carol reluctantly agreed. She grabbed his laptop and turned to the door. “Anything else?”
“Just wake me up at six-thirty,” he answered. “And make coffee!”
“Hi!” A male voice cheerfully shouted from across the lawn, before Carol or Nic could answer the dean. Would that be William or Rose?
What accent was that? she wondered. Carol had seen the news; she knew the trick, but with one syllable it was difficult to tell. Lacking a voice of its own, the alien typically used the nearest telepath as a dummy used a ventriloquist. Was it speaking to Emily, or her? Or to Nicolas, who looked as frozen as Carol felt?
William Statton, the eldest of the three Statton children, was almost always seen accompanying and translating for Rose in public. It was his family that had raised the alien they had discovered in secret for several years. Rose Day, two years prior, had been deliberately timed to take place at the end of his senior year of high school. After that, he had traveled around the globe with Rose, spreading her influence everywhere they went. William would be somewhere around Carol’s age, despite only now beginning his freshman year at Lincoln. Rose, on the other hand, was probably setting a record as the youngest person to ever enroll in Oxford.
“This is to be your next-door neighbor, Carol Ward,” Emily explained to the newcomers in a pleasant, casual tone. “Her friend Nicolas may as well be. Carol is a student in psychology, so I believe you might have a lot to talk about. Nicolas attends Balliol, north of here.”
Next-door neighbor? Carol vaguely wondered. Did across-campus really count as next-door?
“It’s nice to meet you,” said William’s mouth, with a deliberately exaggerated English accent.
That must be Rose speaking, Carol thought, making note of the tone and dialect.
Distinguishing between the Stattons during TV interviews had been easy; the clips were edited to focus on the one that was doing the talking. In person, it would be more difficult to tell. She forced herself to look directly at the red creature making its way around the lawn on the sidewalk. Its awkward gait reminded her of a show dog’s, rather than the crawl of a lizard like Carol would have expected.
Her gait, Carol reminded herself. The creature was sapient, and perhaps more intelligent than humans, but here on the lawn her mind kept trying to write it off as William Statton’s animal sidekick.
The thing had a long neck and a horrifyingly snake-like head covered with a set of fleshy ear flaps. If it weren’t so small, it would have certainly been killed for association with the devil, not that people hadn’t tried. Its eyes were a sickly shade of yellow instead of white, and were several inches across. Thankfully, they weren’t pointed at Carol while she inspected the alien in person. Nic was right: the alien was a lot smaller than she had expected. Carol had imagined it being the size of a large Komodo dragon, but in person it was quite small, excluding its wings, which hovered just above the ground as the alien walked towards them.
The Stattons finally stopped, only a few feet away from Carol, Nic, and Emily.
“Did you know that, Carol?” Emily asked. “Rose and William will in the dorm live right across from you; I believe it's room three-twenty.”
Carol’s head snapped towards Nic in surprise. His eyes met hers, the expression the same. Room three-twenty was full of junk, being none other than the unoccupied room they called the Lair.
Shit.
“If they’re already unpacked by the time we get out it’ll be your fault.”
“Just give me a second!” She dabbed some makeup under her eyes, her hands performing the routine automatically while she inspected her face in the mirror. The first light of the morning was bleeding into the sky outside, and Nic was pacing back and forth. “Where did you see them?”
“I creeped by the entrance and they were inside,” Nic explained. “Rose is tiny. I think she might have seen me through the window.”
“And you ran away?”
“No, I played it cool.”
“You pretended not to notice, turned around, and walked away?” Carol rolled her eyes, a clear picture of the scene in her mind.
“Maybe. There were many security people.”
Carol began the final steps of her expedited morning routine. “Do you think they can hear us right now?”
“You’re afraid of that, when she can literally read our minds?”
“Oh yeah, did you—”
“No, I didn’t feel anything. Recognition code nine-two-seven, et cetera. Come on!”
Months before, Nic had come up with some kind of mind-control proof messaging system, but Carol had willfully ignored him, as the system relied upon far too many unknown or unprovable assumptions to work. Apparently even he realized how silly it was.
“I am kinda freaked out,” she admitted.
“Is that why you’re stalling?”
“No,” she fired back. “I mean — I’m not stalling.”
“Right,” Nic deadpanned. “As if you haven’t had all morning to prepare.”
“Can’t we just see them later?”
“Carol, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll just stop by and say hi—”
“—and offer to carry their things and be their servants for the rest of our lives?” Carol retorted.
Nic’s voice became strained. “Yeah, and that too.”
“That isn’t how you introduce yourself to people!”
“Well, it’s now or never,” he shrugged, checking his phone. “It’s already 7:15!”
Carol sighed, and her breath had a noticeable quiver. Shit, I am stressed. She tried to clear her mind, but she couldn’t think of anything but the creature that lurked somewhere nearby.
“Alright, coming,” she said. She returned to the entrance and slipped into some shoes, conscious of her appearance. Will Nic say anything?
“Let’s go!” he grabbed her hand without so much as glancing at her face and took off, nearly pulling her face-first down the stairs.
When he turned the corner he came to an unexpected stop. Carol, at a running speed, became aware of a figure at the bottom of the stairs. She threw her hands up to clumsily brace against the stone wall.
“Rector Emily, how do you do?” Nicolas asked.
“How do you do?” Carol heard herself saying half automatically, to both the human and the creature next to it. The alien inspected her for a moment with its uncomfortably large eyes, head cocked to the side like a bird. Carol imagined it reading her mind, but knew it couldn’t do that, at least from a distance. Probably.
She met its gaze for a moment, forcing a polite smile, before making her eyes move back to William again. He, like Rose, was more intent on his surroundings than on Carol.
To the Stattons, Oxford would be a new and exciting place, just as it had been for Carol two years before. The management of Lincoln College happened to be particularly obsessed with perfecting the art of gardening, but Carol had lived there long enough to tune out the impossibly short and dense lawns and the lush clusters of ivy covering the walls.
Carol’s breath shuddered involuntarily, as though she had been crying. What is wrong with me? she wondered. Anxiety over meeting the alien had been escalating all morning, but Carol’s current feelings were surprisingly unmanageable. She focused on controlling her breathing.
“I’m pretty good,” the William’s mouth said again, directed at Carol. An American accent, so it would be the human speaking. “Did Emily wake you up?”
“No, I had already woken up,” Carol said, immediately regretting it.
Now what? I tell them I woke up at 3:30 and prepared for their arrival? Nic! Say something! she thought. Nic was just standing there, contributing nothing to the conversation. Telepathy would come in handy now.
“You’re studying physics, aren’t you, Nic?” Emily asked, noticing the lull.
“Uh, yeah,” Nic stammered. “With a focus on hyperphysics, actually.”
“I bet you’re excited we’re staying here, then,” said William or Rose. “It’s nice to meet you.”
An English accent this time, so the alien—the dragon. Rose.
Carol made eye contact with it once again. She had seen it on TV and the internet, but she hadn’t expected the thing to look so fake in real life. Its orange-red scales had a plastic quality and its bulbous, yellow eyes belonged in a cartoon. Unfortunately, reminding herself that the creature was real did nothing to ease Carol’s discomfort. The oversized lizard’s head had the shape of that of a pit viper. Its mouth was closed at the moment, but Carol had seen a picture of its sharp, blatantly predatorial teeth. Everything about its demeanor suggested that, despite its size, the alien could kill a person in seconds. The bright coloration of its body was surely a warning.
Carol had previously harbored the opinion that naming the alien’s species “dragons” had been silly and misleading, but in person she had to admit the title fit. Its dark wings reflected the sky in an unnatural way, unlike any material she had seen. It wore a green blouse and khaki pants, but human clothes were comically out of place on its quadrupedal figure. Carol tried to see how the blouse connected on the back despite the wings, but the dragon’s torso was raised, in a sitting pose. Its eyes were squintier than Carol remembered, and constantly twitching. It would seem that even the sunless morning sky caused it a good deal of pain.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Nicolas was saying. “I’m a really big fan. If you want help moving your luggage, I’m free all day.” He extended a hand down to Rose. When the creature began to extend a forepaw to meet Nicolas’s, Carol felt an instinctive, protective urge coarse through her body. When that thing touched you—
Nicolas bent down and shook hands with the little alien, a warm smile on his face. He and William shook hands next, and Carol realized it was her turn. The yellow eyes watched her.
Carol unclenched her right hand and shook William’s before the situation could get more uncomfortable. She realized how tired he looked. It would have been a red-eye flight to Heathrow. Would he be angry that his room was currently occupied? And where was their luggage? All he carried was a single backpack.
“You must be exhausted,” she said.
Wait, she corrected herself, they wouldn’t fly on a commercial plane, would they?
Carol hoped she didn’t look afraid when she turned and bent down to shake Rose’s hand/paw. Before she could think, three fingers and two symmetrical thumbs were wrapped around her hand. Despite the anatomical difference, she was startled by a warm and uncannily human squeeze.
She watched the blood red, grotesque claws let go of her hand and return to the oddly shaped sandal that had been left on the ground. The dragon wore four leather sandals, but the front two were essentially loose gloves.
“We got here pretty early to avoid being seen outside,” William said, though Carol remained in a daze, still staring at Rose’s shoes.
As the alien shifted its weight back, panic seized Carol. She had completely forgotten about telepathy! She tore her eyes from the ground and accidentally made eye contact with the creature again. It still had that strange, almost inquisitive expression on its face.
Carol didn’t remember anything unnatural occuring in her head during the handshake, so relief washed over her. Not that she ever truly believed them, but it was good to know that the mind-control conspiracy theories weren’t true. Probably. The alien’s face appeared to soften a bit around the eyes.
“It’s okay,” Rose said through William’s mouth, still staring at her. It was surprisingly easy to assign the fake English accent to the dragon, now that Carol had already been making eye contact with the creature. Lacking a voice of its own, the dragon dipped its head along with the speech to aid in the ventriloquy act. Emily and Nic turned to Carol, concerned looks on both their faces.
“I’m sorry,” Carol began, suddenly worried that her frightened look might have hurt the alien’s feelings. She is a person, she reminded herself again. “I—”
“It’s alright, really, everyone freaks out the first time they see me. You should have seen William’s grandmother,” Rose began, continuing to articulate William’s voice with her own facial movements. Carol had actually already heard this story from Nicolas, who had seen it in some interview. “She was so scared she—Oh, you’ve both heard this story before, haven’t you?” The alien interrupted herself.
Probably not real mind reading. She’s just good at that, Carol remembered. Can you hear me? she asked in her head, casually glancing away from the alien.
No response, not that it proved anything.
“Yeah, I remember you talking about it on the Nolan Show,” Nicolas said, apparently not at all interested in pretending he wasn’t a huge fan of the Stattons.
“Oh, yeah,” Rose said, but her face didn’t move. No, wait, an American accent, so that would be William. Carol shifted her gaze to the brown-haired human. “We tell that story a lot, but Nolan was fun since we actually met him for the first time on stage.”
“Huh, I always thought that was scripted,” Nic commented.
“Nope! That was actually the first time he saw us,” said William. “He was pretty cool about it though.”
Emily cut into their conversation. “I’m going to have to leave you for the time being. There is still much to do before this evening. If you need anything, I’ll be in my office.”
After the Stattons thanked the rector for her hospitality and assured her that they would be alright with Carol and Nic, Carol realized that she and Nicolas were blocking the path to the newcomers’ dorm.
“Let us show you to your room,” said Carol.
She winced inwardly, remembering that the room was in use. What would be a good stalling tactic? Breakfast? No, in an hour. Luggage? Don’t know. Incessantly asking questions and abandoning all hope of them ever liking us and ruining Nic’s life?
Nicolas interjected, nervously scratching his head. “Actually, your dorm is kinda… occupied right now.”
Carol turned on the lights in the Lair, opened Nic’s laptop, and pulled up the internet browser before sitting down.
[Rosé “Rose” Statton (hatched 24 October , 2005) is a dragon musician, composer, writer, educator, physicist, anthropologist, and philanthropist, world famous as the only known member of an extraterrestrial species to currently reside on the earth. She is also the only denizen of earth believed to have made direct contact with a true alien. Since revealing herself to society in May of 2011, she has dedicated herself to spreading knowledge of extraterrestrial philosophy, language, telepathy, and science, the latter bootstrapping the field of hyperphysics.]
This is pointless. Carol thought. What would be the best way to use the next three hours? I could read her blog, or news, or… watch videos. She was tempted to go back to sleep. Lucidity would be important today, too. What would Nic say if she let them both sleep through this opportunity?
Carol initially resolved to sample all kinds of information on Rose, but she ended up spending most of the next few hours researching conspiracy theories and groups that declared themselves Rose’s enemies.
While Rose maintained an outward appearance that seemed amiable enough, it was easy to empathize with those who feared her. For starters, the story of her abduction by another dragon was about as far-fetched as could be conceived, but then her descriptions of certain alien technologies ended up being experimentally validated. Unfortunately, no other claims about aliens could be tested since Rose maintained that the Earth was completely isolated from the rest of the universe.
Carol also sympathized somewhat with the groups who believed that Rose was a demon, some bold enough to claim that she was the devil or anti-Christ itself. Although Carol was more inclined to take the sci-fi story at face value, she couldn’t deny the superstitions that some part of her clung to. Rose was an evil shade of red, she was a serpent, she ‘spit fire’ (metaphorically)... the list of religious connections went on and on. Certain religious groups that accepted the dragon’s claims came up with more interesting ideas, revisiting a trove of biblical passages that might have harmonized with Rose’s version of ancient history. Serpents were, after all, present in almost every ancient mythology. It was a non-coincidence the alien pointed out herself, on multiple occasions.
Rose’s personality itself was cause for suspicion: she was far too open, but far too inaccessible, her attempt to appear genuine and relatable having the opposite of its intended effect. She expressed frustration on numerous occasions that her innate empathic and predictive abilities made her seem manipulative, and Carol had to agree. Rose was clearly intelligent. Whenever she spoke in an interview, told stories, or even rapped freestyle (she did so a number of times, just to prove she could), her words sounded as though they had been pre-selected. While speaking ‘naturally,’ inserts such as “um” and “uh” were placed to seem more human. In fact, the dragon openly admitted to the fact, alleging she couldn’t speak any other way.
Now faced with the reality of meeting the alien, Carol’s primary concern was telepathy. It obviously existed, which meant it was possible that the other telepaths were simply puppets under Rose’s control, or that they were a hivemind together, or something sinister like that. All of the telepaths made the same claims about its near perfect safety, but that didn’t alleviate anyone’s fears. According to the couple dozen telepaths on the planet, the skill was a permanent connection that grew organically between two individuals. Initially, one had to make physical contact with another telepath to be sown with the seeds of the power. After several days, it would be possible for the two to transmit simple messages, but the connection could become stronger through practice. If the telepaths’ words were to be accepted at face value, it was simply impossible to telepathically control another person (of sound mind) without their consent. Both minds had the ability to throttle the connection at any time.
Privacy seemed more of an issue, as most said it was difficult or impossible to lie, and hiding ideas only drew attention to them. Carol couldn't think of any specific secrets she would fear escaping, but the thought still put her on edge.
At the very least, if all telepaths were puppets, assertions that telepathy required both sides to initiate contact seemed valid. Otherwise, why was Rose’s evil plan to dominate the world taking so long?
“What?” the Stattons asked. The alien’s eyes constantly flitted back and forth between Carol and Nicolas. Its overlarge pupils tended to move just slightly too slowly. Carol noticed that its tail made several loops around William’s ankle. Could constant physical contact be a sign of her fighting for telepathic control, like some people said? Might it be possible to separate William from the alien to learn his true perspective?
“We’ve been using that room as extra storage for the past few months,” Nicolas explained. “So it might take a few minutes to get everything out. Sorry.”
“Has it been open?” William asked, examining the key in his hand. Carol was vaguely aware that he had been nervously fiddling with it for the past minute. Was he particularly impatient?
“No, we just figured out how to get into it after a while,” Nicolas continued. He gestured for everyone to follow him inside the building, and Carol turned to lead the way up the staircase. “We can make it up to you by moving all your luggage.”
Suave.
“Perfect,” said William, “We didn’t want to set a weird precedent, but now you have a good excuse to be our servants for the morning… I assume that’s what you were planning anyway?”
Carol glanced back down the stairs, once again at a loss for words. William was looking down at his phone and a sheet of paper, and Rose lagged behind everyone, her wings taking up the entire staircase. She met Carol’s eyes, and Carol’s heart jumped into her throat. They reached the second floor and stopped outside the Lair.
“Yeah, pretty much. Perfect,” Nicolas agreed, pulling his tiny lockpicking kit out of his pocket. Of course he would take this opportunity to try and look cool instead of just letting William unlock the door. “Here’s your room.”
A bit of wiggling, and the door opened to reveal the Lair. A TV and game console sat to the side, with some old chairs and a beanbag in front. Several plants hung in the window.
“Wow, nice setup!” William exclaimed, dropping his backpack to the floor and relaxing as though he had finally released a huge burden. “We hate to come and break it up like this; we know you weren’t expecting anyone to move here.”
He sure does have to say ‘we’ a lot, Carol noted.
Rose looked to Nicolas, for permission apparently, before opening the door and going into the bedroom, again reminding Carol of a dog when she walked. Although the humans all wore shoes, Rose had left her sandals at the entrance.
“Oh, jackpot!” William said as he peered out the window.
“What?” Carol and Nicolas both said together. That window had a lovely view of the dining hall roof and nothing else.
“The liquor! You’ve built up quite a stockpile,” William said.
Right. Rose could see their extensive collection on the shelf in the bedroom. There was a veritable stockpile, but most of it wasn’t Carol’s or Nic’s, as their friends had all stored their spirits on the same shelf over the summer.
“You think it will take a few minutes to get everything out?” Rose added in jest, the English accent coming across as pointedly sarcastic.
“Uh, I wasn’t thinking about that. Do you want any?” Nicolas offered the newcomers.
“It’s not even eight,” Carol protested, before remembering to whom she was speaking. “But if you do want any, feel free.” She noted how normal the conversation felt, despite being possibly the most abnormal event in her life so far.
“I'm not even eight,” Rose retorted, though if Carol remembered correctly, alcohol had no effect on the alien. She reentered the room and squished the beanbag experimentally, again looking to Nic for his nod of permission before curling up on it. One of her wings draped over the floor, covering a surprising large area. “Was that a teleporter?” she asked.
Carol had forgotten about Nic’s little contraption in the other room. Thankfully the alien didn't seem too concerned with the mildly illegal, mildly dangerous device’s presence. Where are we supposed to put that?
“It's supposed to be,” he said. “Right now all it does is make a weird noise.”
William walked into the bedroom to see for himself, and Nic followed. After a moment’s indecision Carol followed too, making sure not to make eye contact with Rose as she passed.
“It’s open air?” a Statton observed. “Are you trying to get it to run hot?”
“Yeah, that's the goal,” Nic responded.
“We can go over it with you later, if you want,” offered William. He gently touched the copper frame. “It's been a few months since I've done this.”
Nic said nothing, instead exhaling a lungful of air a bit historically. He looked at Carol with wide eyes.
Carol had attentively listened to Nic’s explanation of the device, but the mathematics of how teleporters actually worked were beyond her. All she knew was the idea behind his experiment: to get it working without making the thing super cold first. Hundreds, if not thousands, of labs were working on the same problem around the globe, but Nic maintained that nobody had tried his approach.
“You can leave this here for a while. We won't tell,” Rose offered.
“How much of your luggage is there to unload?” Carol asked.
“Not too much; we could probably get everything in two trips,” William responded. “The security guys carried everything to the entrance already.” The entrance to Lincoln College was a short walk from anywhere that a car could park. “Most of our stuff will take a while to get here, so don’t worry about getting your stuff out quickly. We’d rather just have everything already here in the room as soon as possible.”
“That’s a relief. My room is kinda small, so we might have to move some stuff to Nic’s,” said Carol. She scratched her head. “I don’t know what we’ll do with the TV…”
“Aren’t the other two rooms on this floor unoccupied?”
“They’ll both have students this week. Yours was the only empty room in the building this semester.” Nic gestured towards the door. “Shall we?” he asked.
“If you could go ahead, that would be great,” said William. “We both need to use the restroom. Just get, uh, actually get whatever you can carry, I guess.”
“Sure,” said Nic.
Nic walked out of the room, and Carol followed him, awkwardly waving goodbye to the Stattons as she left. Once the door closed behind her she sighed involuntarily.
Nic continued down the stairs ahead of her, glancing meaningfully back at her briefly. The message was clear: “The moment we leave the building, I am going to rave.”
They stepped into the sunlight and it wasn’t until a few strides later that Nic broke the silence.
“Holy shit! Holy shit!” he said. “Holy shit!”
“That was, uh, something,” Carol agreed.
“That worked out so well!” he said, maybe a little too loud.
“Doesn’t Rose have really good hearing?”
“Yeah... oops,” Nic said, dropping his voice. “Do you think they liked us?”
Carol thought about their encounter for a moment. “It’s hard to tell, everything was so polite. Rose was kinda… informal. Maybe she was just gauging our reactions to everything.”
“Honestly, I think that was tame for her,” he said. Nic actually kept up with Rose’s twitter account, monthly blog, and weekly livestream, so he probably knew her (projected) personality well. “Didn’t you watch any this morning?”
“I thought it would be annoying,” said Carol, “so I mostly looked at stuff on dragons and telepathy.”
“And?”
“I think the telepathy stuff just ended up making me more freaked out. I was pretty scared of shaking her hand… paw.”
“Hand,” Nic insisted. “I didn’t notice anything when we shook hands. Did you?”
“No. Didn’t expect it to be so warm. It was kinda gross, to be honest.”
“Ho-ly-shit,” he repeated after a brief pause.
“Yeah,” Carol agreed. “I wonder if they’re mad our stuff is in their room.”
“I don’t think they minded too much. Let’s just make sure to get the sheets out as soon as possible. And the… um… microwave.”
A security officer passed them on the sidewalk and seemed to inspect each of their faces. He stopped when he saw Nic, giving him an appraising look. Carol and Nic paused briefly, but the officer waved them on and kept walking.
After a few moments later, they resumed their conversation, discussing lighter topics such as where to put the TV and the future occupants of the other two rooms on Carol’s floor.
As it turned out, Rose and William did not have very much luggage at all, for two people. If Rose had helped, they could have carried everything in one trip. Upon realizing this, William suggested that Carol could stay with Rose while he and Nic fetched the remaining items.
Unable to find an excuse not to, Carol found herself alone inside with the alien. She prayed that Rose couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Considering how the alien’s supposed empathic abilities worked, Carol felt exposed, as though her mind were already being read.
“Couldn’t your security people have carried everything all the way?” she asked.
Rose scribbled on a small whiteboard with a dry erase marker and held up the result: [They would have if we asked, but we hate the weird power dynamic our fame creates.]
She’s definitely just gauging my reactions.
“This is fine,” Carol assured her. “We’re making up for stealing your room.”
Rose nodded and wrote again. [The main problem is that people have no problem uprooting their lives to get close with us. Sound familiar?]
Well…
Rose had lowered the board and was already writing before Carol could respond. The text appeared impossibly quickly, in almost perfect handwriting: [You have nothing to worry about. We’re both in the market for friends here, and I’m sure it’s something you’d both want. Even still, the dynamic never goes away.]
“It’s an uncomfortable inevitability,” Carol supplied.
Rose nodded, her eyes lingering on Carol’s.
“I think most people will be happy you’re here,” Carol continued. “Even if you stole our room.” She hoped Rose could tell she was joking. Did dragons have a sense of humor? Rose certainly made jokes, but could she recognize them easily? It was strange speaking to Rose alone now, without William to moderate. Now there was confirmation that it hadn't been a puppet show, that this animal was truly sapient.
[You’ll have to go through security every time you leave campus.] Rose wrote.
Carol repositioned herself to see the writing without making Rose turn the board around. In truth, it was more so that Carol was no longer sitting directly across from Rose. The current conversation felt oddly more formal than the one with William and Nic, though Carol couldn’t imagine why. Maybe she realized the casual stuff didn’t put me at ease?
[Speaking of uprooting people’s lives, we’re going to teach a course on telepathy this semester,]
“Oh yeah, I forgot to ask about that,” Carol interjected.
[and we would like to invite both of you to enroll.]
Carol said nothing. Earlier in the morning, when she had realized that learning telepathy might be a distant possibility, she had decided to consider it later. Letting others (but especially William and Rose) see her thoughts was an uncomfortable concept.
“I don’t….”
Rose noticed her hesitance and wrote [We’d like both of you spend some time considering it, of course. They aren’t publishing anything about the class, so you won’t get any more unwanted fame other than whatever happens when people learn where we’re going to school.]
“We should probably go through our social media and delete things,” Carol said.
[Probably.] wrote Rose. [You should know, Nic said he would like to enroll the moment Will finished asking him.]
“Of course he did,” Carol responded. God dammit.
“Well, that’s the last of your luggage,” Nic pointlessly explained to Rose, who hadn’t moved from the beanbag. “We could start getting rid of our stuff, or we could leave if you—”
“Stay!” said one of the Stattons. Carol was pretty certain it was Rose. “You haven’t eaten breakfast yet, have you?”
Now that she mentioned it, Carol was pretty hungry.
“They serve breakfast from seven-thirty to nine on weekdays,” she explained. Would William and Rose just walk into the dining hall like everyone else? Did they have student IDs yet?
“Could we… ask for another favor?” the Stattons timidly asked. “We’d obviously have to make it up to you somehow.”
Nic was on top of it. “What’ll your order be? They always have eggs, cereal, and pancakes or toast, along with some... random other things.”
Carol rolled her eyes as he spoke and accidentally made eye contact with Rose, who had apparently been studying her. Somehow, she managed to look away casually, without flinching.
“Of course there’s tea and coffee, and I bet we could smuggle you out some milk somehow,” Nic continued.
“I’ll just have a glass of milk,” said Rose. “And get me a roll or something, and coffee,” William continued. Rose quickly turned her head toward him and they stared at each other for a second before William rolled his eyes. “Fine, don’t get me coffee. Just water or something. We had some food on the ride here.” Something had clearly exchanged between them.
Carol glanced at Nic to see if he had noticed, but William began speaking again.
“I’m pretty tired, so Rose thinks I should sleep until dinner,” he explained. “I always thought the best way to fight jet lag was to stay awake as long as possible, but whatever. Just don’t show Rose around the campus until I’m awake! We promised each other all exploring would be together.”
Did he assume that they would be willing to spend all day with Rose? Carol glanced at the dragon apprehensively. Yet again, the thing’s eyes were locked on hers.
In Carol’s mind, there were somehow two Roses. Both were amiable in a self-conscious, polite way, but while one spoke aloud and made jokes and lightened the mood, and one sat on the beanbag, quietly judging her.
Carol and Nic entered the dining hall in silence, Nic downing several gulps of coffee before touching any food. Of course he had agreed to spend all day with the alien; how could he not? Why do I hate that idea so much? Carol wondered.
“Did you notice Rose?” she asked Nic. “I felt like she was staring at me the whole time after you got back.”
“I did see her looking at you,” Nic responded. “And I think I know why.” He paused to take a bite of food.
“Why?” she asked, impatient.
“She was trying to get a read on you,” he said through a mouthful of biscuit. “You know how she is, empathetic and all.”
“You mean manipulative?”
“Empathetic,” he insisted.
“Why would she be trying so hard to ‘read’ me except to manipulate me? We’re already being their servants, and we just met!”
“Woah,” Nic swallowed, his eyes widening. “I don’t think it’s that complicated. She just ‘reads’ everyone, and you’re being hard to read. Whether or not she’s manipulative… we’ll find out, I guess.”
“I’m not the hard to read one. She has zero facial expressions!”
“I was gonna say, you were kinda staring too.”
“Were you not?”
“I mean, yeah, but you looked afraid.”
“I am afraid,” Carol admitted. “She looks… off.”
“I know,” said Nic. “Just try to treat her like a normal person.”
Carol sighed. “Was I really that obvious? I thought you said I was hard to read.”
“Maybe, I don’t know. There’s reading people and then there’s reading people. I’m sure they get that reaction with every other person they meet.”
“And how many of those people go on to have this exact conversation once they’re out of earshot?” Carol wondered.
“Most, probably. Good point: What can we do to set ourselves apart?”
Carol thought for a moment before responding: “I think my new goal is just getting used to Rose. I need to stop jumping every time she looks at me.”
“You’ve completely ruled out her being an evil puppet master?” asked Nic.
“If she were, we’d be puppets by now, right?”
“Maybe. I’m definitely taking their class, so I’ll tell you if I end up becoming a vegetable when they actually use telepathy on me.”
“Right,” Carol thought. “That’s goal number two for me: deciding on that.”
“Come on, we’d finally have a class together.”
“But… that class?” she asked, eyeing Nic suspiciously. “Are you taking it because you want to, or because you feel like you have to?”
“For hyperphysics?” Nic asked. “Yeah, it would be great to get my info from the horse’s mouth, but how could you not want telepathy? It’s the solution to… just about everything. And you’re a psych major! You told me just yesterday that you’re considering dropping Dr. Tucker’s tutorial for something else!”
“It feels like a slippery slope, I don’t know,” Carol said, although now that he mentioned psychology, the case studies on telepaths revealed a surprisingly small amount of deviation from normal human cognition. She sighed. “I’m sure I’ll warm up to it over time.”
“Just like you’ll warm up to Rose?”
“It’s not that bad,” she insisted. She realized her conversation with Rose lacked an important detail: “Did William tell you what time the class was?”
“Monday-Wednesday-Friday from nine to ten-forty-five,” Nic replied. “We’re both free then!” Had he looked up her schedule since learning of the class, or did he already have it memorized?
“I’ll think about it!” Carol conceded. She switched the subject to Nic. “What’s your main goal?”
“Now that I’m in the class, I really don’t know,” Nic said. “I guess the more long term goal is to start talking to them about physics and the… thing in the room.”
“What about short term?”
“If you’d asked me earlier I would have said the same as before: just brown nose them, but that clearly makes them too uncomfortable.”
“It’s a tightrope,” Carol agreed. Act too friendly, and the Stattons would hate them. Act too distant, and the Stattons would ignore them.
“My short term goal is to find the right balance, then,” Nic decided.
“How is that a short term goal? I meant like today.”
“Well, for today that would mean finding something to do that lets Rose get to know us but also doesn’t seem too clingy,” he explained.
“How about we up early to bring them luggage and food?” Carol asked in jest. “Nah, we need to think of something weird… just hanging out and talking is off the table.”
“Actually that’s good. I bet most people just ask her questions nonstop.”
“But don’t you want to ask her questions nonstop?”
“That can wait,” Nic conceded, though it clearly pained him. “What’s something that would interest her?”
“You’re the expert.”
“We could... watch a movie or something,” said Nic.
“I doubt she wants to watch a movie with some random people she just met,” said Carol. Though it would be a nice mental break.
“I’ve been thinking about things to do without exploring the campus,” Rose said with William’s voice. “Honestly, if we could just watch a movie or something, that would be perfect.”
“Ow!” Carol said as her ribs were unexpectedly poked by Nic’s elbow. Rose’s eyes rapidly flickered back and forth between Carol and her boyfriend, absorbing God only knew what information about their relationship.
“A movie would be fine,” said Nic. “We could move this TV into Carol’s room, or there’s a big TV near the entrance.”
“Do you mind if we use your room, Carol?” William’s possessed mouth asked. It felt strange to hear it saying her own name for the first time.
Only a few minutes later, Carol, Nic, and Rose were crammed in Carol’s small room, her TV beginning the Lord of the Rings, of all movies, on the floor. Rose brought a whiteboard and dry-erase marker in case she needed to speak, but she hadn’t used it once. Certain things, like that Carol and Nic would sit on Carol’s bed while Rose would take the chair, were agreed upon without need for communication.
It took a surprisingly long amount of time for Carol to notice that Nic had fallen asleep, his light snoring jolting her out of the focus she had been giving the screen.
Alone with the alien again.
She braced herself for the onset of panic, but none came. Maybe she’d already used up her reserves of adrenaline, or maybe her comfortable blanket was having an effect, but for the first time all day, Carol felt content.
She glanced back at Rose, who made a face, squinting her eyes for a moment.
That has to be smiling.
The little dragon-creature was just trying to be friendly. She had moved to a new place and was surrounded by strangers. Maybe Nic wanted to be a fanboy, or just learn about physics, but Carol was Rose’s new next-door neighbor. The least I can do is reciprocate.
Carol performed her best warm smile at the freaky little alien creature and returned her gaze to the movie.
I need to tell Dr. Tucker I won’t be taking his course this semester, she decided. I’ve found something more important.
