Becoming Alien by Rebecca Ore Read Free Book Online

coming out. Translation machines?
    I heard the Ford coming back and cleared up all the peculiar drawings before Warren could see them. All the rest of the afternoon, the alien chirped and koo’ed, acting pert when Warren tried to make him load the pill mill faster.
    “Damn, Warren,” I said, “I’d rather take getting shot than doing this forever.”
    “Hush, Tom. Your little buddy’s quick on tones. Don’t you encourage his fussing. Thought I’d broke him good.”
    “Damn machine’s gonna jam.”
    Yelling, muffled voices in a haze of speed dust, Quaalude powder. Worse than factory work, buried underground working. Warren reached into a bag and took another pill, swallowed it down with a beer, and began staring down the basement tunnel as if he’d heard something. God, his hair’s turning gray—I hadn’t noticed that before.
    Then he looked at the alien, and they both jerked their heads down, not nodding, not at all friendly.
     
    The alien wanted to leave now and kept shoving little drawings of the Fairlane at me when Warren wasn’t looking. He must have stayed up late, drawing little cars on paper scraps, filling his pants and shirt pockets with them.
    He wore shirts in the cold, slit from elbow down to the waist for the webs, which he kept close to his body except when he reached out to hand me one of those little drawings. Then the web would dangle out, raw and cold looking.
    Carefully, when Warren was out, I checked for inside alarms and searched for Warren’s money. He’d hid it inside his stereo. I only found it because the screwheads looked a bit too used and the stereo hadn’t worked in years. Who’d have thought someone would mess up a thousand-dollar stereo and tape deck for a stash, but the stash was around $20,000. I took $5,000, trying to persuade myself it was my money, too. And it was, really.
     
    While I found the money, the alien, eyes glittering, watched Dr. Who and sang to himself, spreading his arms periodically, blood pulsing into the web veins. Warren came back about fifteen minutes after I’d taken his money and said he was going to deliver pills to his Atlanta connection tonight.
     
    As we got set up to pack the pills, Warren gave us both plastic surgical gloves, which didn’t fit Alpha well. He managed to cover his fingers, though, and we all scooped pills into double plastic bags, then dropped each bag into a barrel half full of chicken shit. Warren showed the alien how to top off the barrel, and then we soldered the barrels shut.
    Two barrels of pills. Warren got the camper-back off the pickup and laid down planks so we could roll the barrels into the truck bed. Didn’t look like much, just a couple of chicken-shit drums for some organic farmers.
    We watched Warren drive off, me thinking about the guys who killed over the drug business, Alpha dancing around, glad to see him go. The alien and I re-set the road alarms after Warren passed the electric eye, then started packing.
    Alpha got the shotgun and shells from Warren’s room. We had a TV show on, playing loud to keep me a bit distracted from what I was doing. The alien came up to the screen, watched the humans a bit, then raised the gun, grinning his alien grin. Blam!
    After I realized he hadn’t actually blown the set away, I took the gun and shells away from him. He danced around me, flipping his elbows out, whacking me with them.
    Warren had fixed the Fairlane so you could flip the back seat down and get to the trunk. Once we’d gotten the back seat out, the alien could ride up front most of the time, but could hide in the trunk if he had to, or when we stopped for gas and groceries. I thought we’d be better off to drive at night, sleep off the road during the day.
    So, I sat in the car, an alien beside me, night coming on, the ignition key pushed in the slot, cartons of eggs and suitcases in back. Both the alien and I trembled. He opened the atlas and pointed to Berkeley. Maybe, I thought, some scientist could