Kledraxxil wasn’t sure what to expect when they got jostled awake by their alarm and set off to work. They knew Damien was coming. They knew they were training the man to operate a mag-lev train burrowing through the planet. They knew they would have to file paperwork regardless whether or not Damien passed or failed the training. They knew their lack of eyes made this task absolutely hellish.
What they didn’t know is that they’d have to take care of a lost child.
The human was a young, brown-haired girl sporting youthful irises filled with ambergris. Her hair was tied into a ponytail with a maroon hair tie. A brown shirt with “In my dreams, I’m a cowgirl” printed alongside a image of a cartoony cream-colored mare covered her torso alongside a pair of blue jeans.
“Ooooh,” she excitedly clamored. “An alien!”
Kledraxxil stood still, processing the words uttered by the girl.
“Who—what—huh—what are you doing here?”
“Just exploring the train.” the girl said. “Dad keeps telling me it can’t go through the core of the planet. I’m trying to prove him wrong.”
Kledraxxil ruffled their wings. Kids were stupid regardless of species, but for a species seemingly bred for war, Kledraxxil suspected this girl to be even dumber than expected. “You stowed away on a CORE train to prove your Dad wrong?” they repeated back to her. “Where is your Dad?”
The girl stopped momentarily. “Back home in Seattle? I can give him a call.”
She started to reach for her phone when Kledraxxil, after a brief period to process that and of the impending phone surcharge, told her, “we’re in Rio.”
“Like in Texas?” inquired the kid, with an unmistakable twinkle in her eyes even a plumexion like themself could witness. She was bouncing up and down excitedly.
“Rio de Janeiro,” Kledraxxil, corrected. “We’re in Brazil.”
“What state is that?”
Human kids really are this stupid? “It’s a different country,” they said. Despite how primitive and aggressive the humans were, they still would be devastated to find their kids missing. Kledraxxil sprang into action. They’d need to do—what was it again?
Kledraxxil wracked their brain endlessly, trying to remember the protocol for handling missing kids in the CORE system. With only six minutes left until boarding, there wasn’t enough time for the plumexion to figure out the contacting procedure. They cursed themself for not remembering, then tapped their wristband. «Call CORE security,» they commanded the band in the language they were raised with.
The band gave an affirmative chime and a «calling CORE Security in Rio.» The dial tone played momentarily before a computerized voice said «Thank you for contacting CORE Security for Rio de Janeiro. If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 190,» in Eurusatalian. «To speak to the security office, say ‘security office.’»
«Security office» the plumexion ordered.
«To report a suspicious package or item,» continued audio automaton, «say ‘suspicious item.’»
«Security office» the plumexion demanded.
«For lost or stolen items, say ‘lost item.’»
«SECURITY OFFICE!»
The voice paused momentarily. «I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. To speak to the security office—»
«SECURITY! OFFICE!» they shouted. “ESCRITÓRIO DE SEGURANÇA!”
The machine beeped several times, before the voice of a human poked through. “Security front desk, what can I help you with?”
“This is Kledraxxil, one of the trainers. I found a human girl on one of the trains. She said she’s from Seattle,” Kledraxxil explained.
“A missing child, you say? I will take a look for any reports from parents,” said the voice on the other end. “Can I get her name?”
Kledraxxil muted the watch band and called out “kid, what’s your name?” They also prayed the girl had a translator.
“Hailey,” responded the small voice, the girl of which was extending her right hand in front of her, offering the alien to partake in a customary Terran greeting gesture. “Hailey Bucholz.”
“Hailey Bucholz,” Kledraxxil turned the band back on and parroted to the desk, waving off the girl. They didn’t have time to be patted or squeeshed or snoogled or whatever other commonplace things humans did to alien bodies but heavily stigmatized doing it to themselves (though once aliens began reciprocating these actions, it caused a bit of a reexamination in humans, and instead of respecting the personal space of aliens, they started patting and squeeshing and snoogling each other in order to not look like hypocrites).
Whatever random chatter could be picked up over the phone was still unintelligible. Except for the announcement that “the train to London will begin boarding on platform twenty-five five minutes from now, and will depart twenty-five minutes from now.”
Kledraxxil picked up the pace. “What do you have?” they demanded.
“We have not found any missing Haileys,” the receptionist said. “And no matter what, you need to take her to this office.”
“I have somebody to train with five minutes left to boarding!” the alien protested. “Can’t you send someone down to get her?”
“We can do that. What platform?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Got it. Stay with her until then.” With that, the security officer hung up.
“We’re moving to the front of the train.” Kledraxxil announced, but the line disconnected much too early.
Great, I’m stuck with a human girl. She’s going to want to hug me or something.
Kledraxxil turned to Hailey. “Come on, we’re going to the front. Security will come pick you up and find your parents.”
Hailey’s face curled up in shock. “I’m not lost!” she retorted.
“You’re in a different country. A different hemisphere. Your parents must be worried sick!” Kledraxxil firmly scolded her. “We’re sending you home.”
“But I wanna see the trains!”
Kledraxxil was fuming. For “persistence predators,” as aliens often cited humans as, it’s increasingly apparent that those instincts were now being purposed for somewhat nonsensical needs. At least the desire for violence was not being stoked.
They ushered the juvenile human out the door and locked it behind them. The two exited the door to the outside of the train, hopefully stopping the youngster from drooling over train interiors as they traveled to the front.
Kledraxxil began to walk towards the front, but stopped after seeing Hailey was not with them.
“Mister plumexion,” she cried, “I love how the doors do the thing where they fvwooomp into the wall!”
I suppose they’re also opportunists who will settle for ogling the exterior of a train in a pinch, Mr. Plumexion seethed. As if I have time for this nonsense. Kledraxxil had to admit, the doors sitting flush with the wall was not at all necessary for something in a vacuum, but was fun to look at nonetheless.
They escorted Hailey to the front of the train, where a lanky human security guard with skin the color ebony finished descending the staircase.
“You’re lost, Hailey?” she said, appearing to feign a smile that betrayed her exhaustion, waiting for her early-morning shift to end.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I’m in Seattle, right?” Hailey said with confidence. “Right Mr. Plumexion?”
“I said you’re in Brazil because you’re in Brazil,” Kledraxxil said.
The guard looked at them. “I’ll take it from here.”
The alien nodded, sighed, and turned back towards the front doors of the train. They walked to where Damien was still sitting, now staring at his phone. Seeing them, the primate stood up and pocketed the device. “Who was that?” he questioned.
“I have no clue. Somehow snuck onto the train, trying to learn how it worked,” they huffed.
“You sound distraught,” he commented, pivoting to the control panel ahead.
From the outer ranges, the plumexion could hear the footfalls of the other two humans ascending the staircase.
“You think there are other aliens out there?” Hailey asked.
“Maybe,” replied the guard. “I sure as hell hope they’re nocturnal.”
“Okay,” said Kledraxxil. “The train needs to be turned on. You got the key?”
After a bit of peeking around, Damien located a keyhole and inserted a key on his lanyard. With a twist of the key and flick of a large red switch protected by a dome on the ceiling, the train’s mechanisms rattled and hummed to life. Various dials and widgets spread, and a hiss was heard.
“Why does it need to be my key?” he asked. “I almost forgot it.”
“Your key is tied to you. If we used my key, management would have questions. Also, it holds your preferences and your language as well. The screen would go black and start screeching the UI at you if you used mine.”
“Ah.”
As if its microphone was burning, a touchscreen flared to life.
A user interface with Damien Ernesto's picture at a beach. [https://i.imgur.com/WH8T92C.png]
“Check the oxygen tank,” Kledraxxil prompted.
Damien glanced at the oxygen meter for several seconds. It was indeed full of oxygen. “Looks good!” he said.
“Next, make sure the toilets are empty.”
A dial to the left next to the lavatory in the driver cab said as much. “Got it.”
“Pretty much everything can be taken care of by the system, so hit the self-test button.”
Damien did so, and listened as a loud and chaotic noise took over the train. It’s notable features were the drive motors rhythmically thumping, and the sound of the motors as the onboard electronics tested itself.
The screen in the center flashed up a message informing all tests succeeded.
“Wow,” said Damien. This wasn’t his first time operating a CORE train, at least when you consider the virtual environments as such. “It really is like the simulator.”
“Yup,” said Kledraxxil. “You’re mostly just there to make sure the machine doesn’t go crazy.”
Soon, the screen flashed again, as an automated voice came through the speaker and on the screen display.
A dialog box popped up with the heading "attention." Its text was "Boarding for this train en route to London has begun. Please open the doors and prepare to greet passengers. Once opened, the doors cannot be closed until cleared by the station master." [https://i.imgur.com/Ff5YPeq.png]
“All right, Damien. This is possibly the hardest part,” Kledraxxil quipped. “Greeting humans.”
They stepped into the portal between the cab and the train and began just standing there and pretending to be okay.
The first to enter the train was a family of four humans, a mom, dad, and two rowdy young boys, headed back to Crawley after their dad’s business trip that turned into a summer vacation opportunity (as little as could be offered). The two kids gleefully waved at Kledraxxil and Damien before suddenly darting down the aisle, their parents frantically yelling at them to stop. Another businessman walked through the door after the family, his destination a pit-stop at a pub in London to hang out with friends before continuing west on his way to Suckley for an analysis on how a bean species from the planet Gorvtrask was faring in the quaintly-named village. Pleasure was a rarity on the CORE. While places like Europe and North America had recovered from the assaults and disasters relatively okay, this was nothing like the slow burn in many places South of the equator, contending with unruly and unreliable infrastructure, the lack of hands to make the work lighter, and the brutal heat onset by the echoed remnants of humanity’s attempts to bake their planet alive. It was these three factors that caused mass migration from the many places rendered uninhabitable by the polycrisis.
In most places, the CORE was a lifeblood for those less fortunate. People would commute halfway across the planet to access places of work that could bring them income back home. And it let workers in the more well-off countries head to those lesser ones to their jobs in rebuilding civilization. Travel for pleasure via the CORE was an extreme rarity in 2083, afforded only by those who could spend the somewhat ludicrous ticket prices without the United Nations of Earth’s labor waivers. With so little money to go around for subsidies, and companies from the all-but-broke planet {plumexion home planet} charging a hefty premium for the construction and operation of the CORE, affordable vacations by alien train weren’t very high on the UNE’s budget.
Around two-hundred-eighty-or so more passengers got on board over the next five minutes, which was not even the fullest potential for the CORE, with a capacity of around 500 humans. The mostly-empty trains would hopefully in due time be filled by passengers as Earth got back up again.
Some more people, both heading out and going home, boarded the train, Kledraxxil watching them enter before closing the door, accepting they were the only alien on the train.
The two greeted each of the passengers as they got on board. While humans didn’t think much of the CORE being alien technology, having been so ubiquitous, the presence of a plumexion was enough to remind them of where the machine came from. Several glances were exchanged with Kledraxxil, who felt the discomfort contorting their maw into a smile, a feeling so unnatural to them.
Fifteen minutes would pass as the stragglers would come sprinting through the doors of the car. A man whose coffee had spilled all over his suit in his haste. A young construction worker stumbling through the door, bicycle in hand. Finally, a single fair-skinned college student with baggy eyes and stunning orange hair shambled into the car.
Damien peered out the door to the empty staircase. “Yup. I think that’s everyone.”
“In which case, we’ll need to prime the motor and ensure the battery is charged,” responded his partner.
Damien turned around and meandered over to the dashboard, finding the battery icon with a gauge at full. “Looks good,” he said. Next, he gave the throttle push to one third speed. The entire vehicle hummed loudly. Leaving it there for several seconds, he turned to the monitor and selected Check Tube.
Everything looked good. But then a message caught his eye.
An alert dialog box appeared saying "Check gravity generator for damage or defects. For more information, refer to the manual in the train." [https://i.imgur.com/QwQC0r9.png]
“Check gravity generator,” he repeated.
“Eh, it’s nothing. It works okay, sometimes the diagnostic system gets a little touchy after a firmware update.”
A nervous look came onto Damien’s face. “Okay. If you say so,” he said and reached out a finger to touch the dismiss button.
“Now, I guess we gotta wait for the stationmaster to say we’re ready,” he huffed. “It’s eleven. We should be good to go.”
A beeping noise was heard, followed by a gruff voice. “This is the stationmaster,” they said. “We aren’t quite ready for you to leave. We have a passenger that urgently needs to get on that train.”
Damien turned to Kledraxxil, a puzzled look creeping across his face. “Does this usually happen? Some kind of VIP?”
“VIP?” Kledraxxil asked.
“Very important person. It means someone who is esteemed for one reason or another. A celebrity, a politician, an esteemed researcher, even just a rich guy.”
“I’m sure that comes up a lot on Earth these days.”
“I mean, celebrity culture was very big on Earth for a while. It let people escape from how meager their lives were and engage in the latest gossip about a breakup. Nowadays, I’m not sure there are many pop stars left who also haven’t faced the polycrisis.”
Kledraxxil twirled their top-left ear in agreement. Since coming to Earth, life hadn’t been so easy. They searched far and wide for something to do. Something to give them purpose.
But humans were also a mysterious group that also made Kledraxxil question. As they wandered throughout the planet, they found humans still cooking and sharing, still cracking jokes and laughing at them. Still playing and working. Life, it seemed, was still worth living to them.
How? How is species that was bombed to hell still find joy? How did the Terrans manage to get unclip their wings after such devastation? I’m still rattled from the incident.
The plumexion turned to their human compatriot. “Damien, do you ever feel like the world is going too fast? Like everybody is openly embracing change while you’re still desperately hanging on to all you have left?”
“Kledraxxil,” addressed Damien, “I’m in my late sixties. Probably ten years left in this body. The world was always ready to move on after the war.”
“Forget it,” mumbled Kledraxxil. “You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
Damien leaned over the backrest of the chair. “I wouldn’t understand what? I definitely won’t understand if you don’t tell me.”
“Nothing,” Kledraxxil scoffed, looking wistfully at their hands, wishing something would change about them. A transformation, perhaps. A new set of circumstances for themself. Alas, the long lifespan of the plumexion was torturous in this hellish world. The cozy ceilings of caves with walls perfect for echolocation were now replaced by an incomprehensibly vast sky of illegible distance. The stress of the surface was only the beginning, as wind would buffet their ears and the noisy OC sound standard-non-compliant electronics every Terran seemed to carry at least five of would screech at the plumexion.
“We have the last passenger here,” a familiar voice piped up. Kledraxxil turned around and saw a familiar pair of women. Wait… “The girl was supposed to go to London from Seattle, but it seemed that she got on the wrong train and ended up in Rio. We’ve notified her parents, and they’ve asked us to bring her on this train. She’s seeing her aunt and uncle!”
“That’s great,” Damien said excitedly.
“She’ll need to ride up with you for now,” the guard said. “Just keep her out of trouble and things should be fine.”
Kledraxxil had two thoughts going through his mind. The first left his mouth: “Sure… thing.” The second: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!