*IMAGES IN ALUMINUM*
This must be a fluke, Izzian silently pondered. He had been watching his subject, Eliza Allready, on the Al203 Telescope for weeks and nothing out of the ordinary had happened-so far.
He always zoomed in to the same spot, a hole in the top of the girl's rickety tree house where the earth girl spent most of her time, scribbling away in some notebook. He knew Eliza journeyed to other places within her small town, and that it wasn't practical for her to spend every second of everyday holed up in a wobbly shack nestled high in the trees.
Izzian had even seen her return to the forest chomping on a brightly colored cone of ice, but eventually, Eliza returned to her favorite spot. She seemed rather fond of the debilitated, badly painted old tree house with rusty nails poking out every which way.
There happened to be another purpose for spying on Eliza in her tree house. Izzian had no clue how to operate the massive telescope known as the Al203, and was positive he would cause some outlandish cataclysmic event if he dared to touch it. So, Eliza's tree house, with its disjointed walls and peeling paint became as familiar to the Klesian boy as the walls of his own odobo.
So when the earth girl began flailing her arms, making wild, dramatic gestures, Izzian was baffled.
"What is she doing?" the young Klesian wondered as he stared through the scope, scrutinizing the girl's movements.
Izzian tried squinting and peering in for a closer look, but the eyepiece to the Al203 scope jabbed him rudely, nearly piercing the sensitive skin around his rather large eye socket.
"Ouch!" Izzian proclaimed aloud as he flinched away from the sparkly eyepiece.
"On a list of really bad ideas, a diamond studded eyepiece on a telescope has got to be among the worst."
Dr. Yangsley and Mr. Seebot, a.k.a. the lab rats, were no doubt scuttling around the lab somewhere. Although neither the good doctor nor the pesky Mr. Seebot had invented the telescopes, they both behaved as though they had. Izzian hoped they had heard his pithy comment. He took another look into the scope, careful not to look too hard, lest he lose an eye.
There she was again, making the same odd movements. Eliza looked as if she were being swept around and around in the exhaust of a Lurulean space traveler, more commonly known on earth as a tornado.
"She must be dancing," he decided. "But what a strange dance it is. It's as if…no, it cannot be," Izzian stammered.
"She's trying to communicate with me!" With dizzying speed, the boy flinched away from the telescope and considered hiding in the closet. He suddenly felt as if he were the one being spied upon.
"That's ridiculous," he said. The boy mustered up more courage to approach the Al203. "How can Eliza possibly know I am watching her?"
But there she was, forming specific shapes with her hands, looking Izzian directly in the eyes.
"…specific shapes," he said as an important thought formed in his head.
Quickly, he reached for his wrist to tap his mini-plascreen and look up earth communication techniques. As he absentmindedly tapped on his bare wrist, he remembered his plascreen was already inserted just behind his eyes in preparation for his trip to earth. With a quick wink, one could navigate endless amounts of data.
Years ago, all students, even first years, were allowed to wear plascreens behind the eye, a practice that abruptly ended soon after it began. It was much simpler to misuse the plascreen when all one had to do was blink, rather than tap one's wrist.
Teachers complained. Ortnots complained. Every elder, except the Firithian surgeon getting paid to insert the devices, complained.
Apparently, young Klesians were using the plascreens to play games, chat, and do just about anything other than what they were supposed to be doing. Imagine that.
However, along with the Goodwill Project assignment, students of Izzian's age received the privilege of wearing a plascreen behind the eye. It came along with the transformation. It was a sign of adulthood. It was also a means of bribery for ortnots. "Behave, or I'll have your plascreen removed!"
Izzian blinked, accessing his newly inserted plascreen. In an instant, the boy was flooded with information-information overload. He grabbed his head in agony and rubbed his newly forming human-like eyes, attempting to stop the feverishly scrolling words and disjointed images that threatened to shatter his skull.
His eyelids fluttered uncontrollably trying to navigate through unasked for references such as The Earth's Aardvark's Role in the Decline of Western Civilization. He bookmarked that particular reference for later perusal. It was too strange to pass up.
He continued seeking the information he needed, wishing that the new plascreen wasn't so difficult to operate. The elders claimed that eventually the device would be easier to use and he'd become more at ease with his changing features. Hopefully the elders were right because Izzian was feeling his frustration mount.
"I feel like a lost plissst," the boy mumbled. He recalled that a plissst was similar in shape to a sheep on earth; not so similar in size, since a plissst was roughly ten times larger than the average sheep.
"Let's see…earth communication methods…non-verbal," Izzian searched as quickly as his newly formed eyeballs and plascreen would allow.
"Aha! Found it!" After proving that his hunch was correct, Izzian flew out of the room to find an elder scientist.
He frantically searched for Dr. Yangsley or Mr. Seebot to announce his discovery. Eliza was communicating to him using a half-baked form of earth sign language and somebody needed to witness it; somebody important.
To Izzian it seemed as if elders were never around when needed, but always showed up when they were needed the least. Neither Yangsley nor Seebot seemed to be wandering around the lab.
Izzian knew that eventually Mr. Seebot would show up at the end of his turn, so he decided to return to the Al203 Telescope room and wait. At last Izzian would be able to demonstrate his findings to someone- even if that someone happened to be a prissy robot man who endeavored to be organic. He would tell Seebot that Eliza knew she was being watched and blow the half-man's mind.
When Izzian sped back to the telescope room, Mr. Seebot was already there. The scientist was reprogramming the telescope for another student's scheduled watch time. Izzian had missed his turn, and his chance at proving Eliza was speaking to him. The scientists would never believe that an earthling was communicating to a Klesian without seeing it first.
Thilillian Yangsley stood near the telescope peeking over Mr. Seebot's shoulder. It was her turn to watch her own Goodwill subject, but she was more interested in watching Seebot. Apparently, Thil was attempting to learn how to program the device herself and Izzian admired that in a girl.
He also suspiciously wondered whom, what or where Thilillian had an interest in besides her Goodwill subject. Why would Thil need to sneak looks over Seebot's shoulder to reprogram the Al203 unless she had a secret?
Suddenly he got very green and quite jealous when he considered Thilillian may have a boyfriend on another planet. He pictured her sitting at a romantic table for two, peering through the Al203, sipping a glass of apriguavo wine. The image faded quickly as the absurdity of the scene almost made Izzian laugh aloud: Thilillian having a romantic dinner with an enormous telescope? Offering it a glass of wine? Giving the Al203 a little kiss on the cheek?
Izzian, you are an idiotic Glotfish. He chided himself. He shook his head to remove the outlandish visions involving Thilillian and a giant telescope making goo-goo eyes at each other.
Izzian became aware of the girl's intent focus. Suddenly, standing there, watching the confident Klesian girl memorizing Mr. Seebot's every move, Izzian grew worried. He was concerned at Thilillian's boldness, hoping her skills matched her bravado.
He tapped Thil on the shoulder and summoned her into the hall. Izzian felt the need to warn Thil about messing with the telescope. "Thilillian, are you planning to program the Al203 yourself? Haven't you heard how dangerous they are? I'm surprised t
hat you aren’t more worried about blowing up the planet or something," Izzian said.
Thilillian rolled her eyes and said, "Honestly, Izzian, I'm surprised that you listen to all that hype. What harm could arise from a mass of gigantic, princess-cut diamonds heaped into a cone of aluminum foil? Besides, I'm only watching-not touching, okay?"
Either way, Izzian wouldn't dare touch the programming of the thing and he was a prankster well-known for producing large scale shenanigans. He hoped the girl knew what she was doing.
All the immediate concerns about Thilillian possibly blowing up the planet suddenly disappeared. Izzian remembered the reason he was standing there. He had made an important discovery.
He had to watch Eliza for another minute before Mr. Seebot reprogrammed the calculations. He had to stop Mr. Seebot. He needed more time on the Al203.
"Wait!" Izzian grabbed Mr. Seebot by the arm, jostling the elder as he typed.
The Al203, like most devices on Izzian's planet, provided a laser air keyboard-an airboard. To access an airboard, one only had to snap, and letters would appear as though suspended in thin air. With the swish of a finger, or tentacle, or whatever appendage one happened born with, commands could be easily typed.
Mr. Seebot had accessed the airboard and was in the midst of air typing an important code when Izzian bumped into him. Without thinking, Mr. Seebot finished entering his commands and swished his finger, pressing the 'enter' key.
Suddenly, the three Klesians heard an enormous grinding sound and felt the ground vibrate beneath their feet. The walls shook as the telescope followed Mr. Seebot's erroneous command. They covered their ears when the grinding was followed by what sounded like a high pitched, colossal scratch.
It appeared that Izzian, Thil and Mr. Seebot had done the unthinkable. They had broken the most dangerous telescope in the galaxy.
***