TOC MetaStories: Ineen Aldrop's 'He Stood taller Than Most'

Part 10 -The Complex-

Paulie stood slowly to his feet, arms going high over his head as the four trembling alien guards trained strange weapons at his chest.

The lead guard audibly swallowed, their breathing orifices fluttering as they sucked in a heavy breath, their neck craning back as Paulie stood head and shoulders over their head.

One of the other aliens spoke quietly, but not so quiet that Paulie missed it. “Holy Nastrica..”

The lead alien gestured to him and spoke quickly as they waved a hand at him, as if afraid they would lose their nerve to speak. “S-show us your hands, you are being placed in detention!”

Paulie slowly lowered his hands and held them out, palms up, towards the alien. Paulie was not sure what he was in trouble for but didn’t want to cause any trouble while so many guns were trained on him. The lead alien nodded to the officer standing to his left and then at Paulie. Seemingly signalling them to restrain him.

The snakelike alien lifted a blocky device from their belt slowly with their long boneless looking arms, the ends splitting into four tentacle-like fingers as the strange colorful petals surrounding their feline face peeled back in some stressed emotion. The device glowed faintly, a light blue line around the circumference pulsing slowly.

As they got close, Paulie spoke, his breathing more measured now that he had had a moment to recover. “I apologise for causing trouble. But those guys were trying to kill me for some reason.”

The snake alien recoiled as if he had struck them, their fingers losing grip on the device they had been holding as they fumbled for their holstered sidearm and the fleshy petals that surrounded their face flushing a deep scarlet. The pink otter jerked back as well, their neck-mouths opening and closing silently for a few moments as they looked at the other two guards.

“It speaks?!” It coughed, their tone as incredulous as one might have been had they just witnessed their entire home turn into a solid gold brick before their astonished eyes.

By this time Paulie had now become thoroughly confused. “Yeah? And so do you, what’s your point?”

The guard shook their fuzzy, otter-like head, mouthless face going through several iterations of surprise or perhaps terror. They held their gun on him with slightly trembling hands as if that would suddenly dispel whatever had occurred to frighten them. “Y-yeah, but I am.. wait, you can understand me too?”

Paulie frowned. What was this guy so freaked out about? He decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, he had probably never seen a human before. Paulie slowly and carefully gestured to himself, his eyes laser focused on the barrels of the weapons that were still trained on him. Acutely aware that to move in a hostile manner could be his end. “Yes. I guess I might as well be polite, hello. My name is Paulie, I’m a human from the planet Earth. I got abducted by some zen’kkalkians who apparently sold me to some crazy person named Oomoo or something like that.” The words came out in a rush, Paulie was just relieved to finally have somebody to talk to that wasn’t trying to kill him or use his bones to make alien viagra or some shit.

The pink otter hissed at the snake creature and then gestured to him. “Urrenians don’t speak, apocalypsers can’t form sapience. It has been proven that the jargon-worms don't take.. How? How is, are you, possible?”

Now it was Paulie’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean we can’t form sentience? My species has been sentient for a hundred-thousand years! We have been making art and telling stories for at least half that time and have been civilised for nearly ten-thousand of those years. How do you all think we built cities and landed men on the moon?”

Once more the aliens jerked as if struck. “What? Ten-thousand.. no, that’s not possible. You are lying! Get down on your knees, I am taking you into the station!” Their growls took on a tense tone, their stress showing obviously in the way their muscles tensed and tail lashed.

Paulie rolled his eyes but complied a moment later. “Okay, okay. You don’t have to shout. But keep an eye out for those goons that were chasing me. I'm pretty sure this Oomoo person really wants me back.” He didn’t have the time to stand around in the middle of the room, if they wanted to take him to the authorities then great. Perfect in fact, he had been trying to get to them anyways.

Once more the snake alien slithered up to him and with a deep penetrating stare that could have been anything from anger to fear they snapped a set of what looked like high-tech handcuffs on him, the same device it had been holding before. After a moment they made a beeping noise and adjusted to his wrists, squeezing tightly but not uncomfortably as the pulsing blue glow switched to a solid green.

He lifted his hands and took a closer look. “Oh cool, I assume these are made to fit a wide variety of species? Makes sense really, otherwise you would have to carry like a hundred different types on you all the time.” He chatted idly as he was prompted to his feet once more.

One of the other aliens whispered, the creature looking like one of the upright dog aliens he had seen earlier. “It is wounded so and yet speaks as if it is in no more distress than one would be ordering lunch. They really must be an apocalypser.” The guard or police man next to them seemed to nod, though it was hard to tell with their very alien features.

He stood and motioned towards the leader, the pink skinned alien once more having to crane their long neck to look into his face. “Alrighty then, you got me. Lead the way, good sir.”

He was making his best attempt to be polite, but it was becoming harder and harder for him to focus. His belly still burned and every muscle ached. He had pains in places he hadn’t even known he had, bruises upon bruises and the partially healed wounds inflicted upon him were cracked and oozing dark blood that slowly soaked into his clothing. It wasn’t enough to really worry about, but Paulie still liked to keep his blood on the inside as was customary.

He was led outside and back into the street where he at first made some attempt to hunch down, this was dissuaded by a stiff prod in the back from the upright dog alien. He shot them an annoyed look and they blanched, shrinking back as an unseemly whine escaped their muzzle and the small ox-like tail tucked between their legs. He hadn’t been trying to scare them, but he had to remember to take into account that his people had some sort of savage reputation or something.

His mind still balked at that, his every instinct telling him that there is no way the GGI would have deliberately eschewed his race from contact or even discovery. He thought about the kind of resources it would take to keep something of that magnitude quiet for as long as they seemingly had. Thousands of years he had said, and the otter alien had called him a liar.

He felt his fists clenching as the anger built in him. How many people had been taken like him and never heard from again. How many thousands, tens of thousands of innocent lives had been taken over humanity's long history. Missing people were not uncommon, in fact he could think of two dozen unknown circumstance missing people cases from the last six months alone that he had read about in the paper.

He growled low under his breath, damn those bastards. Damn them all to hell or wherever they burned in their alien culture.

There was a pinging sound followed by a loud snap as his restraints broke, his tensing muscles seemingly too strong for the device to contain. The remains of the device slipped from his wrists and fell upon the ground with a clatter.

He stopped and looked over at the snake alien whose eyes were bulging in their sockets. “Uh, whoops? My bad, I didn’t mean to break em. I swear.” He was a little wary, how were they going to react to him breaking out of his restraints. Would they fire on him, shoot him down in fear?

It didn’t seem so, though the petals on the snake-like alien were folded all the way back and their feline face was scrunched into a sort of snarl. It made them look like a tiger in a daisy costume a little and he almost chuckled at the ridiculousness of it all.

The pink skinned otter-like alien just shook their head and gestured to the other aliens behind him. “Please re-restrain our.. friend, Sasfren.”

The snake-like alien, Sasfren he supposed their name was, grabbed another one of the devices from their belt and approached. He tried not to stare at them this time, something about his eyes seemed to unsettle the alien and after another moment he was restrained again. Though now they all knew the bonds were a simple formality.

The group proceeded once more, Sasfren picking up the remains of his first cuffs and placing them in the pouch she wore where their waist would have been were they human. The throngs that littered the street parted smoothly before the lawmen and after not more than a minute they had arrived at a much larger and more physically impressive structure. The walls looked to be a dark grey natural stone, but he suspected it was just texturing.

He was led inside unceremoniously. Many of the other uniformed aliens gave him wide eyed looks. Those that seemed to have eyes anyways. The pink otter alien led them through some long halls with clinical white tile floors, through a large chamber with many bench-like objects sitting before a raised plinth, and finally to a hallway lined with doors.

He was thrust through one, the small white room had only a single stool bolted down in the corner and what he assumed was a cot, though it looked more like a cross between a hanging nest and a hammock the more he looked at it. Paulie hung his head as he was told to stay put and not cause any trouble, Sasfren hesitating as she was instructed to remove his restraints.

And so he sat.

Paulie waited. He waited for what felt like ages, the hunger in his belly and the stinging pain from his many wounds started to get to him. Now that he was no longer in any danger, the adrenaline that had been sustaining him stopped flowing and he actually gasped as the pain hit him like a punch to the gut. He doubled over, a little blood leaking from the corner of his mouth as he bit his cheek. The crunching noise of his flesh tearing lost amid the groan of his stomach.

He needed to eat something, to drink some water for sure. He was definitely dehydrated, looking around the room he saw what might have been a toilet with a sink placed atop it. He shouted in jubilation as he reached it and pressed the button at the apex, a stream of sparkling cool water water exuding from the faucet.

He wanted to dunk his whole head in the flow, to drink greedily till he burst, but he knew that could very well make him sick. So he sipped the water as if it were expensive wine. It might as well have been, for he could never recall a moment in his life where plain water had tasted so good. It tasted like life.

With his thirst now taken care of he gave a heavy sigh and sat back on the stool, his fate was unsure but he felt secure. Surely he was safe from harm in the middle of what must be the equivalent of the police headquarters. What had the little clam-like alien called it? The adjudicator’s complex, he shook his head. Sounded close enough to the police for him.

He moved around the room and finally settled on the hanging bed hammock thing. It was comfy enough, and as he sat upon it he felt his eyes immediately growing heavy. He was filthy, in a desperate need of a wash, food and clean clothing. But he was too tired at this point to care.

He yawned and then turned his back towards the main door. If somebody was going to come and disturb him, then he didn’t want to see them coming. He just wanted to sleep.

Paulie closed his eyes as he breathing slowed. His thoughts flashing with bright colors and the sounds of shouting. The fear of being pursued haunting his fitful dreams as he fell asleep.