Fangirl, Rip and The Alien

Galactic might versus Terran intelligence...

The two of them- one extremely tall and gangly, the other short and underweight- marched with determination towards their destination. One might have thought they were mismatched, but this was not the case.

They had known each other for nearly their whole lives, and were as devoted to each other as two girls of their generation could be.

Although Morgan Robertson, the tall one of the pair, was extremely beautiful and athletically built, she was neither a beauty queen nor a jock. She was far too intelligent in mind to limit herself like that,

for she was extremely smart. Her Achilles heel was that she was afflicted with Autism. As a consequence of this (along with her emerging womanhood), she was prone to vicious and unexpected mood swings at the least provocation, even though she regularly took pharmaceuticals designed to “control” them.

False assumptions about her mental state among her peers had prevented most of her peers from befriending her- save one.

Roberta Ripley- or, rather, plain “Rip” to Morgan- had been dealt far worse physical hands in life than her friend, but, unlike Morgan, she did not worry about or bemoan her fate. Born prematurely and asthmatic, and underweight because of it, she suffered from the further indignity of a club foot, which forced her to get around on a cane, not unlike Dickens’ Tiny Tim. Her eyes were two different colors, her teeth so grotesquely “buck” that no braces could mend them, and her voice a raucous, almost masculine rasp, in contrast to Morgan’s more feminine (if occasionally hysterical) tones. Yet she would always be the first to tell jokes about herself when she entered a room- if only to prevent others from doing the same, or worse.

If that didn’t work, Morgan would come to her aid, for the taller girl possessed a noble virtue as a consequence of her Autism- firm, unbreakable loyalty. Nobody else had dared do that for Rip, and it had sealed their permanent friendship many years ago.

The other aspect that sealed it was their joint interest in the literature concerning itself with impossibilities and improbabilities- science fiction, fantasy and horror. They were classic “geeks”, who were avid readers as well as adventurous and accepting seekers of film and TV narratives of the same kind. Morgan had received the derogatory nickname of “Fangirl” for daring to try to talk to more “popular” kids about her great love, while Rip generally kept her mouth shut about it outside of Morgan’s company for that reason.

However, they were not content to view speculative entertainment as merely that.

Morgan and Rip maintained the belief that the stories they witnessed were reflective of events that could have happened in the past and had every opportunity to occur again. And they intended to be there when they did-no matter what it took.

This is how they got into the predicament which befell them.

*

As was often the case when they walked together, Morgan’s longer legs and wider stride meant that she had soon established a wide gap between herself and Rip, and her distracted train of thought meant she did not notice this. On these occasions, Rip would either holler or whistle at Morgan so she would get it. She chose the latter option this time, startling Morgan in the process.

“What the….?” Morgan uttered as she spun around, only to see Rip taking a “hit” of air from the device required to keep her asthma at bay.

“Oh,” Morgan said, when she realized what had happened. “Just you again, Rip.”

“Who else would it be?” Rip asked, rhetorically.

“I don’t know,” Morgan said, missing the rhetoric. “It might have been something important.”

“As in something other than me?” said Rip, sarcastically. “What, are you cheating on me? You know- seeing another “best friend” on the side?”

“Of course not, Rip!” Morgan retorted angrily, missing the sarcasm this time. “I told you that you were the only best friend I’m ever going to have, and I mean it!”

“Whoa!” Rip calmed her friend down. “I was just fooling with you, Morg’!”

“Well, don’t! You know how I am with sarcasm.”

“Sorry. I keep forgetting that. That’s something you Auties have trouble with.”

“Don’t CALL me that!” Morgan snapped. “For us, that’s like me calling you a “cripple”. Or a…..a…. “gimp”! Would you like that?”

“No,” said Rip.

“Then I rest my case.”

“Speaking of resting cases, do you think we could rest ours for a while?” She looked down at her sweat-stained yellow shirt with a Star Trek insignia on it. “I’m getting sweat on the old velour.”

“You’re right.” Morgan looked down at her own sweat-stained red shirt, with a vintage ‘60s-‘80’s Doctor Who logo on it. “I’m getting tired myself. I’m thinking today wasn’t the right day to go hiking up here. It’s too hot.”

“Well,” Rip said, after taking a “hit”, “it is summer. We got the whole winter to curl up with the books and the videos and stuff. Outside of school, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Morgan.

“Besides, it helps to be around you, Morg’. My parents say you’re a “positive influence” on me, but I know that just hanging around you.”

“Awwwwww!” Morgan cooed. “Rip, you always say the best things about…..”

She was interrupted by a blinding flash of light that seemed to come out of nowhere out of the sky, and vanished just as soon as it had arrived.

“What was THAT?” Rip uttered, as soon they both recovered from the shock.

“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “But I’m game to find out. You in?”

“Of course,” said Rip.

“Good,” said Morgan, as she whipped out her smart phone from her brown corduroy pants, the same color as her now sweat-drenched hair (and Rip’s, as well). “This could be important. We might, finally, be able to get some actual evidence of the spirit world or space, and show people we’re not nuts.”

“Or you’re not, anyway,” Rip said, teasingly.

Her mirth ended abruptly, however, when Morgan looked at her with her “game face”.

“Shut up and come on,” Morgan ordered. She walked forward, with Rip following obediently.

They wandered over to the glade where they had seen the lights originated from. They girded themselves for potential battle, prepared to face anything from a tentacle-laden monster from outer space to an evil sorcerer banished from a fantasy realm.

What they saw was nothing of the kind.

It was a girl about their age, or slightly younger, about the same size as Rip, wearing patched-up old clothes and carrying a bindle on a stick over her shoulder, like an old fashioned hobo. Nothing supernatural whatsoever- or so it seemed.

“Ah, it’s nothing big,” Rip whispered to Morgan. “Just a kid like us, lost in the forest. We should help her get out.”

“Are you crazy?” Morgan hissed, her confidence eroding as her Autism suddenly took control of her consciousness. “You know how bad I am at meeting new people.”

“And yet,” Rip retorted, “you say you’re always ready to confront the things that woman was not meant to know. ”

“That’s different!”

“Be reasonable, Morg’. She doesn’t look like she’d hurt a fly.”

“All right. But if she does hurt a fly- i.e. us- let me be the first to say “I told you so.”

“She won’t. She’s probably from Gallifrey.”

That insult directed at her favorite TV hero’s homeland was something Morgan was only prepared to accept from Rip, just as only Morgan could get away with sassing the “Enterprise” crew in Rip’s presence and not risk angering the latter.

“You,” said Morgan, “are terrible. Let’s go.”

Their approaching footsteps made the girl turn around immediately, fearful of being attacked. However, as soon as Morgan and Rip introduced themselves, all was well.

“I’m…Sibyl,” the girl said, evasively. “Just got in from….away.”

“Don’t you have your family with you?” Morgan asked.

“I’m a…..” Sibyl groped for the right word to say, as if English was not her first language. “I’m that….thing….where your parents die before you and you have to fend for yourself…”

“An orphan,” supplied Rip.

“Right!” Sibyl slapped her forehead. “The word was right on the tip of my tongue.”

“How old are you?” Morgan asked.

“How old are you?” Sibyl answered.

“Twelve,” said Morgan.

“Same for me,” agreed Rip.

“What a coincidence,” said Sibyl. “So am I. Listen, do you know a place where a girl can get a room?”

“Sure,” Rip said, trying to be friendly. “There’s a hotel in….”

“No.” Morgan overruled her friend.

“What do you mean, Morg’?” Rip asked.

“I mean that she belongs in the orphanage.”

“Orphanage?” Rip queried.

“No way!” Sibyl objected to the idea. “Orphanages are for BABIES!”

“No, they’re not,” Morgan said. “Any minor who hasn’t obtained their majority, and doesn’t have parents or guardians, the way Rip and I have, has to be remanded to the care of the State until they obtained that majority…”

“Smart, isn’t she?” Rip said. “She remembers a huge ton of whatever she reads. Wish I could do that.”

“I’m not going there,” Sybil declared.

“Yes, you are!” Morgan answered.

“In my land,” Sibyl said, “everyone is free to act according to their own free will and intelligence….”

“We’re not in your “land”, wherever it is,” Morgan raged. “Here, we obey the LAWS! And so will you!”

“You gonna make me, STILTS?” Sibyl challenged, balling her fists.

“If I have to!” declared Morgan.

Before violence could break out, Rip stepped between them.

“It wouldn’t be that bad, really,” she said to Sibyl. “You get looked after for a few years, and then you can be on your own again, like you want. And you…”-here she addressed Morgan, “BEHAVE YOURSELF!”

Morgan stood down.

“Sorry, Sibyl,” she said. “I know you’re not from here, so I just wanted to….”

“I got it,“ Sibyl dismissed the comment. “I have to learn about this place. Maybe you could help me learn about it.”

“Maybe we could,” agreed Morgan.

*

It was a small and simple matter for Morgan and Rip to introduce Sibyl to the local orphanage director, explain her situation, and get her taken on as a boarder. At the same time, Morgan and Rip hoped to become friends with her, over time.

This would prove not to be the case.

When Morgan and Rip arrived at the orphanage the next day to visit Sibyl, they found her in what, to them, was a rather unorthodox position on the floor. Still dressed in the same patched-rag outfit she’d been discovered in, Sibyl was sitting beside her bed in a gesture resembling a child in old-fashioned nighttime prayer to God, before sleep. However, what she was uttering was not prayer, but, rather, a one-way conversation.

“I got in fine,” was what she was saying as Morgan and Rip entered the room. “No trouble. The thing runs like clockwork….No, no issues with the humans. Found a couple of kids my age in the woods to help me with the plan. Perfect patsies- they got no idea what…..DAMN! Gotta go!”

She had, at this point, discovered the presence of her erstwhile “friends” in the room, and rapidly took pains to conceal whatever it was she had been speaking into. That something was a black, clarinet-like stick with an earpiece of the same color attached by a hook. Sibyl accidentally dropped it, and it rolled on the floor towards Morgan, who picked it up.

“Hey!” said Sibyl, viciously. “Don’t touch that!”

“How come?” Rip asked. “It doesn’t seem like much. Just an old telephone.”

“Because…” Sibyl began.

Immediately, she regretted saying this, because Morgan, always alert to when things got “wrong” in her presence, pounced on the evasive excuse.

“Because why, Sibyl?” she demanded.

Sibyl realized immediately that her powers of deception were no match for Morgan’s powers of intelligence, and confessed.

“All right,” she said. “You got me. I hid why and how I came from, and I shouldn’t have.”

“No,” Morgan agreed. “You shouldn’t.”

“But I can make it up to you,” said Sibyl. “I’ll tell you the truth. You deserve that much, for trying to befriend me and all.”

“So tell, already,” said Rip.

“You better have a good excuse,” added Morgan.

“Not here!” Sibyl hissed.

“Why?” demanded Morgan.

“Because I don’t want anyone else to hear it except you two,” she said. “This is important stuff. And you’re the only two people I know here who can handle it. You’re the only two people I know here, period, but that’s not the point. Can you handle it?”

Morgan and Rip nodded.

“And, after I tell you, you will not speak a word of this to anyone else. Agreed?”

They agreed, again by nodding.

“Fine,” said Sibyl. “What say we reconvene in ten minutes, out where you found me?”

That was agreed to, as well.

Ten minutes later, Sibyl spoke to them in the new venue.

“Okay,” she said. “I told you I was twelve and an orphan. That’s true. But the rest of it is….I’m an alien.”

“An immigrant?” Rip asked.

“No,” said Sibyl, with a raised left eyebrow, in a don’t be more stupid than you already are tone. “An alien. As in, a being not of this Earth, as your Hollywood would put it.”

Morgan and Rip looked at each other, briefly and excitedly, as if they’d had met a favorite pop singer by chance and by accident. This was the moment they had been waiting their whole lives for! However, they were quick to retain their normal demeanors.

“How did you get here?” Morgan asked.

“The flash of lightning you saw before I came. Obviously, you’ve never heard of the Starlight Express. Fastest rapid transit system in the galaxy. You get in and out of places in seconds, no question asked. The trip from Ziltox to Earth is pretty fast even by those standards.”

“Ziltox?” Rip asked.

“My home planet. And…”-suddenly and fiercely, her voice took on an acidic, Satanic tone, “…the one that will soon reduce yours to ASHES!”

“WHAT?” Morgan and Rip shouted, backing up from her in genuine horror.

“DAMN IT!” Sibyl slapped herself on the forehead. “I gave it AWAY!”

“What?” Morgan asked. “Your plan for conquering the Earth?”

“Yeah,” said Sibyl. “I got too much of a loose tongue. See, I’m the advance scout for the Army, and I’m supposed to see whether they can take you Earthlings in a fair fight. But, from what I can see, you can’t do anything of the things we Ziltoxians can do, so it should be easy.”

“What can you and your kind possibly do that people on Earth can’t?” said Morgan.

“Well, among other things….”

Sibyl expelled a beam of light from her right hand, which landed in a nearby tree and reduced it to a flaming ruin. This freaked Morgan out.

“YOU……” she shouted, in shock.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Sibyl.

Abruptly, she picked up Morgan and Rip and juggled them in the air, as if they were balls or clubs. Rip was simply reduced to awed silence by the act, but Morgan, who was reduced to gibbering panic, started screaming almost as soon as she was lifted up in the air.

“AAH!” she shouted. “PUT US DOWN! PUT US DOWN!

PutusdownputusdownputusdownPUTUSDOWNNN!”

Eventually, Sibyl agreed, and they were placed on the ground. Outraged by the alien’s insensitive treatment of them, Morgan moved towards her.

“HOW DARE YOU!” she stormed. “Rip and I were trying to be friendly, and you….treated us…..like…..DIRT! I don’t care if you are an alien, or what you can possibly do to us or to Earth! I will not have myself and my friend be treated like TOYS for your amusement….”

“PUT A SOCK IN IT, EARTHLING!”

Sibyl’s voice and face darkened with these words, which drove Morgan back towards Rip.

“Now,” Sibyl said. “Here’s how it’s going to be. In one day, you two will come back here, and explain exactly why Earth should be spared the wrath of the Ziltoxians. Because what I just showed you is a mere fraction of what we are capable of doing to this pestilent rock. And, if the insolence you just showed me is the best line of defense Earth has, then it’ll be over faster than that your Six Day War was in the 1970s.”

“How do you know about….?” Rip began.

“We just know, okay?” said Sibyl. “The first rule of war is “know your enemy”. You’ll need to know that in the future. If you live.”

“How can you just decide to get rid of us?” Morgan sobbed weakly. “Don’t you care about..?”

“Hah!” Sibyl growled. “In our experience, Earth has never cared about the civil rights of any alien race! So why should we care about yours?”

She stormed off into the forest, turning back only briefly, to say one more thing:

“Remember. One day. OR ELSE!”

*

Having no other choice in the matter, Morgan and Rip resolved to meet the following morning to discuss what, if anything, they could do to save the Earth before Sibyl and the Ziltoxians chose to destroy it.

When they met at the agreed time, Morgan looked as if she had barely slept at all, by Rip’s gathering, fueled by the coffee that still lingered on her breath. Worse still, the half-crazed expression she sported on her face meant that, in the rush to accomplish everything she wanted, she had forgotten to take the pills that typically kept her emotions in check. And, if Sibyl somehow set her off, or vice versa, something bad was going to happen.

This is going to be interesting, Rip thought to herself. But, to her friend, she simply said:

“You…slept okay, Morg’?”

“What does it LOOK like?” the taller girl shrieked. “Yes! I slept like a BABY!”

“No, you didn’t,” Rip replied, stating the obvious.

“Don’t you know SARCASM when you hear it? You use it all the time on me, and I….”

“….can’t “get” it ‘cause you have Autism. Yeah, I know that. I also know that you’ve been pulling an all-nighter. That’s not like you, Morg’. You’re usually so prepared….”

“Not this time, Rip! I couldn’t find it.”

“Couldn’t find what?”

“The INFORMATION!” She began pacing the street in front of them, almost ignoring Rip in the process.

“What information…..?”

“About Ziltox! I went through the Internet and all my reference books, and I couldn’t find it anywhere!”

“All of ‘em?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing about Ziltox anywhere. I’m starting to think we hallucinated when we saw those lights in the sky, and we somehow dreamed Sibyl into existence because we wanted to meet an actual alien….”

“Morg’….”

“I mean, people do have those kind of experiences, when they’re on cocaine, or marijuana, or hashish or opium or something like that, and they read about far away or fictional places, but we were both totally sober when we saw those lights and we met Sibyl, weren’t we?”

“Uh, Morgan….”

“And everything she said was so plausible! Aliens stronger than men and women, capable of killing us all! But there’s no information related to the planet at all, ANYWHERE, let alone a scientific study of it. How can we understand the Ziltoxians if there’s no information about them at all?”

“Morgan!”

“Oh, this is HOPELESS! We can’t talk to anybody because of that gag order she put on us, and, even if we did, they would just laugh at us and say we made It up, or someone else made it up, like they USUALLY do, even though this time our butts are REALLY on the line…..”

“MORGAN!”

This bellowing cry from Rip was enough to scare Morgan and stop her in her tracks. Which was its intended effect.

Rip took a needed “hit” and then continued.

“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” she said. “It’s not important that we know anything about Ziltox if we want to deal with Sibyl.”

“But that’s where she comes from!” said Morgan.

“She’s not there, right now. She’s HERE!”

“You mean….?”

“I mean, we need to think about what things are here on Earth to stop her.”

“Rip, there’s no way we could get other human beings to help us stop her. She said so herself.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I believe we’re both well-acquainted with H.G. Wells’ The War of The Worlds?”

“We are. But how will that help us?”

“Remember the end of the story. Why the Martians didn’t win.”

For the first time that day, Morgan’s fear dissipated, and she became calm and rational again.

“I see what you mean,” she said.

*

“Well,” Sibyl said, when Morgan and Rip met her. “I see someone’s been pulling an all-nighter.”

The all-nighter reference was clearly aimed at Morgan, causing Rip to aim an “I told you so” glance at her friend. Morgan simply ignored the remark.

“It was worth it, though,” Rip said, with a Cheshire Cat grin. “She found out the kind of stuff that’ll make it much easier for you to take over Earth.”

“Really?” said Sibyl. “Do tell.”

“We can’t,” Morgan answered, with a Cheshire Cat grin of her own.

“How come?” Sibyl demanded. “What is it? You blackmailing me or something? ‘Cause you know what I can do to….”

“No!” Morgan said, failing to hide the fear now emerging in her voice. “I mean….”

“We just want to convey our information to you in the same way you did to us- secretly,” Rip finished on Morgan’s behalf. “This stuff is so secret we got to whisper it in your ear.”

“Fine.”

Sibyl walked over to Morgan and Rip until they were only inches apart. Sibyl expected the two of them to begin telling her what she needed, but that was not what happened.

Morgan and Rip spat in her face, at exactly the same time, from two separate angles.

Repulsed and angered, Sibyl started to withdraw.

“How disgusting are YOU!” she proclaimed. “If you’re going to act like pigs, then you might as well die like them. Nobody spits on a Ziltoxian and…….URRRGGGGGHHHHHH!”

Abruptly, she clutched her throat, and began rolling on the ground in agony. Morgan and Rip simply stood and watched.

“What’s going on?” Sibyl croaked.

“Nothing,” said Morgan. “Except you getting your just desserts!”

“But how….?”

“You’re an alien, right?” Rip explained. “Well, it stands to reason that you’ve never been exposed to the microorganisms of Earth. Therefore, if one of them gets inside of you, you get sick immediately, and, ultimately, you die.”

“What do you mean, “ultimately”?” said Sibyl. “I’m dying now!”

It was true. While they were talking, Sibyl’s bones had begun to give way, reducing her body to a gelatinous mass. But she still had fight in her, and crawled threateningly towards Morgan and Rip.

“Serves me right for trusting you two!” Sibyl snarled.

“Well, you betrayed our trust first!” said Morgan. “We don’t like that.”

“Besides which,” Rip added. “This is what happens to any alien that gets sick on Earth. Even you supposedly mighty Ziltoxians aren’t a match for the germs of old Earth. That’s why nobody can invade Earth successfully- ‘cause they forget that.”

“You BITCHES!” Sibyl cried. “I’ll………uuuuhhhhhhh……”

“RUN!” Morgan shouted. “She’s gonna blow!”

Indeed, Sibyl’s body had started to burn up and was threatening to explode.

Carrying Rip in her hands, Morgan was able to escape the forest before the explosion happened, but only barely.

Once they were safe, Morgan returned Rip to the ground.

“You were right about the microorganisms, Rip,” said Morgan. “They certainly took care of her. Only I didn’t expect her to go off and out like that.”

“Well, I did,” said Rip.

“You did?”

“Yeah. I knew she was a ball of fire the first time we met. I just didn’t think she was that LITERALLY!”

All they could do after that line was laugh and go home.

Another Morgan and Rip adventure: