“Of course, Madam President,” I said.
“Oh, well done, you’ve got the protocol down.” I could hear a smirk on her face. “I’m sorry this meeting couldn’t be in person, but time is short for us right now. I’m going on TV in about ten minutes to talk about this whole thing, but I wanted to talk to you first.”
“That’s very cool,” I said, unsure of what else to say.
“Well, I’m glad you think so.” Her voice was concise, confident, and forceful. “First, I don’t mean to scold you, but I feel it is necessary to say that I’m not 100 percent pleased with how you handled yourself this week.”
That was alarming to hear.
“I’m very sorry, ma’am, what should I have done?” I asked, honestly not knowing.
“Well, as odd as this may sound, you should have contacted me.”
“What?”
“It’s a democracy, April. Our citizens have access to their representatives in government. That can sometimes be a difficult mandate to execute, but I have confidence that you could have gotten through to me fairly quickly. I would have been in your debt.”
“For real?” I asked.
“For real,” she replied dryly. “It can’t be undone now, but in the future, if you are aware of an alien life-form, a message it has sent to the people of Earth, and are planning on taking actions based on that information, that would be a fantastic thing for the government of your country to be aware of before you take any such action. Indeed, if you have any other information, it would be appropriate to share it with me now.” She said “appropriate” in a way that made me think that she also meant “legally required.”
I stared out my window for a moment, trying to figure out if I did know anything else and coming to the conclusion that I was, suddenly and for the first time, pretty much on a level playing field with the entire rest of Earth. And then my phone booped. Another incoming call. My parents. I ignored them. “Um, I don’t know anything that isn’t currently public knowledge,” I said, maybe lying just a tiny bit. I did know that I was the cause of the Dream since I had had it first, but others were guessing as much and, frankly, I didn’t want to fess up to that.
“So you do not know anything about this Dream, how it works, or what it means?”
“I do not. It does not seem like a thing that should be able to work at all,” I said.
She did not comment on that before continuing. “April, I believe you are a good person. I think you made some questionable decisions, but I’ve read a good bit of what you have written about the Carls and I think it is good. I appreciate you being a calm and level voice when you easily could have been dangerously inflammatory. That being said, if you discover anything else, I’m going to send you a phone number that you should call immediately. You appear to be at the center of this. I very much want us to be on the same team.”
Somehow, that last phrase sounded simultaneously like a beautiful gift and a very real threat.
“Thank you, Madam President,” I said, my voice shaking just slightly. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I can’t guarantee an answer.”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s just, is this possible? Is any of it possible? Are you . . .” I wanted to ask if she was afraid. If I should be afraid. Publicly, my mind was made up. I’d chosen a course and I would stick to it. But in the back of my brain, I also knew I had been infected by an impossible dream, and that most space alien movies ended with wars. But instead I just didn’t say anything.
“April, I’m going to make you wait on my answer. You’ll hear along with everyone else. I have to go now. I’d very much like to meet in person. Hopefully that can be arranged sometime soon.” And then she hung up.
Andy, somewhat unsurprisingly, was still on the other line. I clicked over.
“DUUUUUUUUUUDE,” I said.
“What just happened?” he said, his voice brimming with excitement and confusion.
“Not only did I just talk to the president, I think I just got scolded by the president like she was my middle school principal. I don’t know why that seems weirder than hanging out with a space alien robot, but it does.”
“What was she pissed about?”
“Oh, y’know, just the whole communicating with aliens and providing them with gifts on behalf of my country and my species and my planet instead of letting someone qualified and authorized make that call?”
“That makes a lot of sense now that you say it out loud. Are we going to prison?”
“Hah. No. But I got the feeling that, if we do this again, we will have some very powerful enemies.”
“The most powerful,” Andy shot back.
“I suppose that is not an exaggeration,” I replied. “She said she was about to go on TV to give a speech about the Carls. I assume it’s streaming somewhere.” I popped open my laptop and, indeed, people were anticipating the speech, which had been announced about an hour earlier.
Andy and I stayed on the phone together until the speech began. And then we didn’t hang up; we just sat there silently together, listening to the other person listening to the speech.
Her points were well constructed. First, she wanted to be clear that there was no danger. All health concerns had been eliminated and the Carls appeared to be completely nonthreatening. The Dream seemed to be a harmless call for people across this planet to work together. Carl’s hand was still missing and the Magic Castle was cooperating. She then discussed a little bit of how they had eliminated other possibilities, ending with the kicker that the Carls weren’t in fact standing on the sidewalk; they were hovering micrometers above it, completely immobile and unable to be moved by any amount of force applied to them. They had jackhammered under the one in Oakland. It remained there, hanging above the space where the sidewalk had been.
She pitched it as a wonderful moment to be alive, assuring us that the government was hard at work uncovering the mysteries of the Carls, and all of humanity would have to work together to solve the mysteries of the Dream. It was good. It was sudden for almost everyone, but not for me. It was this slow gradual feeling, like your dog dying a year after being diagnosed with cancer. I had a little bit come to terms with it. But still, then your dog dies, and your dog will never not be dead. It happened, it was official, the president of the United States had confirmed it, the scientists had been consulted: The Carls were aliens and we were not alone in the universe.
“Goddamn,” Andy said afterward.
“Goddamn,” I confirmed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OK, there’s a lot to tell here. First, let’s go back in time about six months. I was walking out of the bathroom and Maya was on my bed with her drawing tablet hooked up to her laptop. I peeked over her shoulder and said, “What are you working on, it looks adorable,” as she slammed her laptop shut. “Whoa! Hah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to peek.”
“No, it’s fine, I don’t know. It’s . . .”
This had never happened. Maya had always felt like an open book to me.
“Do you have . . . a secret?” I said, genuinely amused.
She looked at me, at first annoyed, and then I could see her getting excited.
“April . . .” A smile started eating away at her face. “I do.”
And then suddenly, six months into our relationship, I discovered that my girlfriend had an entire alternate life.