Cosmic Captain: Chapter 1

My eyes tracked the swirls of steam curling out of my cup of tea with little enthusiasm, aware that my focus was wandering terribly from the bland conversation. Aware that I’d lost a concerning amount of weight over the last few months. Aware that my eyes were lined with dark circles.

If my date was wondering why I didn’t look quite the same as the pictures on my dating profile, he was too polite to say. But those pictures were taken before…well, just Before. I didn’t think I’d taken any pictures since After.

“What do you think?” His droning words became crisp and clear in my ears as I realized I’d been letting my mind drift again.

“I’m sorry, about what?”

Brief annoyance flitted over his relatively attractive features, but he schooled it well with a charming grin. “About the growing ability of AI to mimic human thought. And our ability as humans to regulate the morality of AI.”

I blinked at him. Who the fuck cared? Ever since…After…everything in the world just seemed dull and boring and…fucking irrelevant. All the problems humans made up were insignificant in comparison to what I knew was out there. Who talked about Artificial Intelligence on a first date anyway? He might as well have been asking my stance on civil rights. Was this his idea of small talk?

Derrick—my date—leaned back in his chair with a sigh and I realized I was just staring at him again. “I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s fine, Grayson.” He assured. “Clearly this isn’t a good time for you. Are you alright?”

It wasn’t a good time. No time ever was. But my therapist said the only way I’d recover and conquer the delusions was to live a little life in the real world. To download a dating app and go out like a regular human being. Of course, that was how I’d ended up on a date with a man whose idea of small talk was discussing the morality of Artificial Intelligence.

“I was abducted by aliens. Almost a year ago.” I blurted out, and I mentally cursed my stupid tongue. “So no, I’m not alright.”

I watched as Derrick’s posture stiffened, eyes popping wide with disbelief before he could stop it. Then understanding dawned over the surprise, which itself melted away until only the pity creasing his face remained. Everybody went through the steps a little different, but all arrived at their own versions of pity.

“Gray, when—”

“Grayson.” Gray felt entirely too familiar for someone who was about to tell me to go get help.

“Grayson.” He corrected. “When was the last time you slept?”

“You know what? Never mind.” I pushed my chair out from the table, left $20 to more than cover my half-drunk tea, and ditched. It had been a ridiculous idea anyway. My therapist had told me to try and live a normal life; that didn’t have to include dating, right?

She would also say I was fixating. Whether I was abducted by aliens or not, I needed to find ways to move on with my life. And the truth didn’t matter to how I moved on. That was her well-trained way of telling me she didn’t believe me.

Of course she didn’t. Who would?

But I cared if it was real or not. Every second of my experience was branded into my memory in horrible, vivid detail, and if it never happened then there was something seriously wrong with me. It mattered to me because if it wasn’t real then I couldn’t trust my own mind, my own body.

The smell of chemicals still burned in my nostrils and I could feel the cold air all over my bare skin in my sleep. My therapist would say I was conflating memories of being in and out of the hospital as a child with the experience I imagined I had with aliens.

Sometimes, I even thought she was right. I’d been a clumsy kid, constantly seeing doctors for some broken bone or another, but I didn’t actually remember any of it. It had been a hard time for me, and I only really knew I’d been hospitalized a lot because that’s what my mom had told me. Given that, I couldn’t compare my abduction with my experiences in hospitals.

Every time I started to consider taking my meds properly, started to think maybe my therapist was right, that smell would fill my head, so strong I got dizzy with it sometimes. That sterile, chemical smell wasn’t the same as anything I’d ever smelled on Earth.

“Grayson, wait up!” Derrick’s voice didn’t register for a long moment, so I didn’t turn immediately. “Grayson!” His voice was closer then, and I stiffened up as I realized he was talking to me.

“What?” I turned around just as he caught up to me. “I don’t need pity and I’m already in therapy. If you were expecting more, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m ready for any of this stuff yet.”

Or ever.

“I know, I just…” Derrick hesitated and it made me impatient. Wasn’t he the one who’d flagged me down? “I’m not saying I believe you. But could you tell me more about it? Your experience?”

That made me all the more wary. Last time I’d told someone all the nitty gritty details about my abduction, she turned out to be a reporter and wrote a humiliating piece about me in the local news. My dad had called and yelled at me about embarrassing him, and I hated when he yelled. It always made my whole body tense up and I had wanted to curl into a ball and wither away once he was done. The reaction wasn’t very rational, but nothing I did was anymore.

I eyed Derrick carefully. He didn’t look like a journalist, but honestly what did I think one looked like? Though I did think it was unlikely I’d ended up on a date with a reporter after my first crack at using a dating app.

Weighing my options, I hesitantly asked, “Why?”

“You’re not the first person to tell me you’ve seen aliens.” He shot me a wry smile. “And I can be surprisingly open minded.”

I swallowed hard, skeptical. But he’d piqued my interest. “If…if you really want. I can’t talk about it out in the open.” Even I cringed at how that sounded. But it was true. Despite the news item about me a few months ago, I didn’t want anybody else to hear about it. People were watching me, I knew it. Waiting for me to fuck up somehow.

“We could go to my place? Or yours?”

The suggestion was so wild that I took a good, long look at Derrick. He was dark-skinned, a bit taller than me, a lot buffer than me, and had the deepest brown eyes. Relatively attractive, just as I’d thought when I saw his picture on the app. I doubted he was trying to get in my pants at this point; I wasn’t exactly looking my best and I’d just admitted to thinking I’d been abducted by aliens. So what did he want? What goal did he have?

Narrowing my eyes, I responded, “If you’re serious, you can come to mine.” I had cameras everywhere anyway. If he was a reporter or a government agent or even a god damned alien in disguise, I’d at least have proof of it.

He beamed at me, and his excitement was suspicious. “Great, let’s go!”

Derrick tried to make small talk as we walked leisurely towards my condo in a seedier part of town, though I wasn’t very responsive. I never drove or took public transportation anymore. Too many eyes, too many opportunities for someone to shut me up permanently. Paranoia followed me around like a bad penny, and I was starting to get tired.

How much longer could I go on like this?

To his credit, Derrick didn’t seem overly judgmental when I unlocked four deadbolts to get inside, and if he saw the three cameras posted around the front door, he didn’t mention it. We’d talked on the dating app for a few weeks before meeting for a date, so he wasn’t a complete stranger to me. Still, he was being relatively mild mannered about…everything.

I wasn’t really sure I trusted him, and I’d definitely decided I couldn’t date him—or anyone. But I was wildly curious as to what he meant when he said I wasn’t the first person to tell him I’d seen aliens. My search for answers involved gathering as many stories about alien abduction as I could; maybe he’d have something useful to share.

My place was a mess, and I tried not to be embarrassed about it. I didn’t really clean up anymore, and old takeout boxes had all but invaded my kitchen. Only my office was kept clear of clutter since I had video meetings every once in a blue moon. Computer programming hadn’t been my first career choice, but ever since my experience I’d been thankful for the ability to work from home. To still have an income when I could barely get myself to step outside most days.

“Wow…” Derrick said, voice quiet. “You’ve done a lot of…work.”

I cringed when I remembered that one of my living room walls was predominantly taken up by multiple cork boards, all with maps and news articles and pictures pinned all around.

Jesus, I knew how that looked. There was a reason I never had visitors.

“I’m keeping track.” I mumbled, fishing around in the kitchen for a giant black trash bag that I started shoving takeout containers into. “Of where people see them. Where they were taken. I think I can find them.”

Derrick stayed silent, studying the board as I swept a whole armful of trash off of the coffee table and into the bag. It had taken me hours and hours of painstaking work to come up with a map I thought was semi-accurate. Most alien abductees I’d spoken with were either liars or outright kooks.

Rich coming from me, I knew.

People had such easy tells when they were lying though. They spoke about things they’d never experienced and I just…knew. No one could go through what I went through and not be a changed person. The liars pissed me off the most, because they were the ones that made people like me look insane.

Then again, maybe I was. I’d talked to other people who’d claimed alien abduction that truly believed they’d been through it. And I’d believed some of them. Further research had disproved many of their stories though; whether they were drug addicts, mentally ill, or just better liars, they’d all set me back weeks of time and energy.

“This is…a lot.” Derrick finally looked a little in over his head.

“Sorry.” Sheepish, I ran a hand through shaggy brown hair. I’d had the self-respect to shave and wear clean clothes for the date, but I knew I looked raggedy all the same. My hair had gotten long enough to reach my shoulders and last I checked my eyes were hollowed out since I never slept. “If you would rather leave, that’s—”

“No, I’m interested. This all…hits a little close to home.”

I continued shoving trash in the garbage bag, refusing any eye contact. “You said you know someone who saw aliens?”

Honestly ‘alien’ wasn’t even my favorite term. I preferred extraterrestrials.

“My sister says she was abducted. She’s, uh, in a mental hospital.”

I sucked a sharp breath. Close to home indeed, and suddenly I didn’t feel that comfortable anymore even if I simultaneously wanted to hear all about it. “Is that where you think I should be?” Setting the trash bag aside, I looked up at him, meeting those deep brown eyes.

He contemplated me for a moment. “I don’t know yet. You seem…not crazy. Tired, sure, but you talk like a normal human being.”

The comment felt a little out of touch to me. Some people would have been completely broken by what I went through, and I felt fragile enough because of it. For fuck’s sake, I was obsessively trying to track down my extraterrestrial abductors. What did Derrick know about how a normal human was supposed to act after having been…well, abducted.

I didn’t let any of those thoughts out. I couldn’t. Instead, I asked, “What happened to your sister?”