Problems of Communication

Problems of Communication
By April Grey

Chris rolled off of her and lit a cigarette. He wrapped a towel around his perfect abs and headed for the balcony. It was early and the clouds in the east were quite rosy from the dawn. The air held a salt tang, not that Chris could smell much of anything right now as he puffed. Still the view of Santa Monica and its beaches was lovely from their co-op apartment.

Sighing, Erika stretched out on the bed and tried to understand it all. Dumb, he was so damned dumb. How can I love anyone so stupid? she wondered.

“Erika?” he said from the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“You’re angry, aren’t you? But I thought it was good for us both.”

“It was great, but you promised you’d quit smoking.”

“I’m down to three a day and well,” he smiled that roguish smile that brought in the big bucks and supported her research, “you can’t blame me for lighting up, you know, after really great sex.”

Erika groaned and buried her face in the pillow. Marriage had seemed like a good idea at the time. What did she know? Thirteen years later and they were still on different wavelengths--he the artist and she the scientist--yet they were still in love. Opposites attract. She shouldn’t complain.

“I though you might be angry about the US magazine article, too,” he ground out the cigarette in the ashtray that he kept on a small table on the balcony and came inside.

“Another beauty and the brain story?”

“Um, yeah. They called you Professor Dolphinus.”

She made room for him on the bed, letting him stroke her hair and neck, as usual he was careful to avoid the area with the shunt.

“Water off of a bottlenose’s back,” she said.

Reeking of tobacco, he leaned down and kissed her. She worked hard not to make a face. Listed as one of US magazine’s hundred most desirable men and he smelled like the bottom of an ashtray. Of course, it hadn’t bothered her for the eight years where they had both been smoking.

“Okay. I have to drive into Lalaland later today for an premiere this afternoon--Come with?”

She smiled. “I’d like to, but there’s a problem with Bill. I told you last night when I picked you up from the airport.”

“He’s hurt,” Chris nodded.

“From the nature of his injuries we think that he went too close to a volcanic vent. Although I can’t begin to understand how he’d even manage to get close to one. Vents are located deeper in the ocean than any dolphin would dive. Still there were traces of sulfur all over him, along with the burns—where else could it have come from but the vents? Doc Riley’s staying with him but I want to interface and try to find out more.”

“Sounds like a full schedule for us both. Let’s get cleaned up and have breakfast. Then I’ll drop you off at the marina.”

Chris headed for the shower, dropping his towel on a chair by the door. Erika felt that leap in her heart that looking at his butt always gave her. The six-pack abs had been the result of hiring a very expensive professional trainer. The buns were naturally his. She sighed. Opposites attract.

#

Bill-Jump-Higher was frustrated. He hurt and he wanted to leave. Doc-Iley wouldn’t let him. He wanted Er-Ika. But she wasn’t here. So he wanted to leave. He wanted to do anything but be with Doc-Iley. Bill squawked his feelings at Doc-Iley. Doc-Iley did nothing.

Bill knew when her car pulled into the marina. He didn’t know how. But he did know. And he was in love with her, he knew that, too. He loved her more than the best tasting fish and the most fun game. He called loudly the one word he knew he could say, “Er-Ika”.

That is the way of love. Er-Ika had her own pod, and he’d tried to kidnap her, but Doc-Iley stopped him. Not just playful, no, he wanted Er-Ika to be in his pod. He got hard thinking she’d be jumping into the pool soon. Maybe Doc-Iley would leave them alone. Doc-Iley didn’t make him feel a thing, except pain.

He blew some aggression bubbles at Doc-Iley. No more stings. No more.

“Hey Riley,” Erika walked in, and Bill did a double back flip for his beloved.

See me. “Er-Ika,” he squawked. See me. She was so different from the others: much smaller than Doc-Iley or Train-a. She had long black hair and a gentle touch. He was equally careful with her.

“You know Bill’s like a dog? I swear he knows when you’re coming in here. He gets all excited,” Riley towered a foot over Erika. His clipped British accent seemed out of place against his unkempt beard and rumpled clothing. Then again, he hadn’t left the marina in three days, not since Bill came swimming in all banged up.

“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” said Erika as she stripped off her dress, revealing a one-piece bathing suit. “Um. I better not get in right away. Bill does look a bit randy.” Bill’s long, prehensile penis was waving about just under his stomach.

“Still a prude about interspecies sex?” Riley sniggered loudly at his own joke.

He shifted his wire-rimmed glasses upon his long nose with a finger. Dolphins made human libertines look innocent, he thought, or was it that dolphins were the innocents and we just have dirty minds?

One thought led to another and as he checked the console and the wires attached to it he considered with pleasure how Erika was wearing her blue swimsuit again. The one that matched her eyes and was very low cut. She’d given up on wearing two-piece suits because Bill kept trying to rip the bottoms off of her. Yes, yes, the dark side of dolphin studies, the part you don’t tell the kiddies about. Dolphins liked sex any which way they could find it. Riley snuck in another look at Erika’s breasts. He really needed to start dating again. Yet a cat may look at a Queen that was his philosophy.

“Knock it off,” she said.

Riley gave a guilty start before realizing she was probably referring to his off-color sex remark.

Erika lowered her voice a bit, “How’s he doing?”

“I think we saved his eyesight. I’ve been using some drops to keep scar tissue from forming. Pissed him off, though. And I don’t have a plug-in like you to explain what I’m doing is to help him.”

“You don’t need it. He understands you pretty well.”

Erika eyed Bill carefully before deciding it was safe to get into the water. His penis had retracted back into his belly slit. She quietly slipped into the pool. Bill had been swimming in circles ignoring her, but now he came up and gently nudged her.

“Oh, Christ,” the sight of Bill’s crusty and red rimmed eyes got her upset again. “He’ll be okay?”

“His skin’s healing well. Relax, your loverboy will be just fine. Oh, talking about loves, tell your husband that the tickets were grand.”

“What tickets?”

“For the Lakers. Front row, middle of the court perfection.”

Erika shrugged, “He didn’t tell me. Well, it was nice of him.”

Of course, he was a nice guy, she thought. When they’d met she’d had no idea that he was an actor, starving or otherwise. He had been a waiter in a local restaurant. Average height, average looks; he’d seemed so normal. He was shy and retiring--Until he got in front of the cameras, that is, then he became someone different, someone that she really didn’t know. But in real life, he was sweet, very mellow and really dumb--

Alright, she admitted, she was still angry with him. He’d been off of nicotine for two years before that last movie shoot sent him back to the cancer sticks. She’d quit five years ago, why couldn’t he stay off of them?

Bill nudged her again, a bit more forcefully than before. Yeah, she thought, matters at hand. Communicating with the other male in her life.

“Plugging in?” Riley brought the waterproofed electrode set over to her side of the pool. The small, white square box was waterproofed and contained a 9-volt battery. Totally safe. There were a series of buttons and meters and four outlets for the plugs leading into neural shunts. It was of Doc Riley’s own design based on research that had been abandoned by his mentor.

Bill swam away and jumped out of the water in a back flip, soaking both Riley and Erika.

“Bill looks like he’s up to it.” Erika laughed and wiped the water off her face. Sometimes she felt like they didn’t need the plugs anymore. They just knew each other’s feelings. Like a married couple--No, that was wrong, she thought. Don’t anthropomorphize. Bill’s just a very clever sea mammal. Sure and that makes me a monkey’s aunt.

Bill came back to her and pushed his nose between her legs. He knew that was her pleasure center. How? The same way he’d figured out all the rest--from the neural connection. Erika slipped back and away from him.

She removed the covering from the shunt in her upper neck. Soon primate brain would interface with his cetacean brain and nervous system, courtesy of the little white box. The plug-in would make contact with a minute wire touching the lower part of her brain dealing with sensation. As she inserted the plug, she got that little chill that always went down her spine when hooking in.

Riley waited for Bill to enter his stall. There simply wasn’t enough cable and it would get tangled anyway if they were to hook Bill in and allow him free movement. The stall was the best compromise they could come up with.

She waded through the water over to him and rested her hand on a smooth, grey portion of his back. She was careful to avoid the damaged area. Where the skin had blistered and peeled, now it was bright pink and raw looking.

Riley stayed nearby—just in case something went wrong.

Erika completed the circuit by hooking Bill in. He shuddered under her hands and then she gave a short scream. He hadn’t shown it, but he was in pain.

“Erika?”

“You made his eyes hurt worse from the damned drops.”

“I didn’t say they wouldn’t smart a bit, just that they will save his eyesight. Yeesh. Go ahead call PETA on me. They’d love to hear from you! You can show ‘em the consent forms Bill signed.”

“That’s not fair. He wanted this as much as I did. He’s free to come and go as he wishes.”

“He’s an animal. Throw him a few herring and he’ll jump through hoops of fire for you.” He pushed his hand through his graying hair, “Erika, you’re losing your objectivity.”

Erika ignored him.

Bill, my poor Bill.

She closed her eyes allowing his senses to become her own. She felt him begin his own search in her. She suspected that he actually did get more from their encounters than she did. He seemed to understand so much more now about the pleasure from movies and tasting popcorn, (play and food were important to him) and what it felt like to walk on two legs.

Erika wondered, was it because he was a dolphin--or maybe just because he was a male dolphin, but sex was extremely important to him and he was really, really curious about her sex life. He felt it was lonely, her not being part of a large pod, and he wanted her to come and join his.

He immediately zeroed in on the feelings left in her about the lovemaking that morning. At least he didn’t get jealous. Kidnapping and rape were all proper pod activities, but one never got jealous. And because he wasn’t jealous—

Erika shook her head. So, Bill was possessive of her, but not jealous, because--jealously was mean and he wasn’t mean.

That communication had been the clearest yet! And emotions, it was not just sensations.

She opened her eyes in surprise and then closed them again when she felt the vertigo slam into her.

“Give me a shout or a wave,” said Riley, an edge creeping into his voice. “I need to know you are still with us.”

Erika shook her head again but realized that that wasn’t good enough, “I’m fine. It’s changing, but I’m fine.”

“What’s changing, Erika?”

“We are getting better at reading each other’s feelings. It’s almost like telepathy.”

“Shite. Don’t go all mumbo-jumbo on me. It’s nervous system to nervous system. There is no such thing as sixth sense.”

“I said ‘like’. Maybe our brains are just adapting to one another. Now shut up, I’ve totally lost the connection.”

“Right you are,” Riley fidgeted and rechecked the wires, which didn’t need rechecking at all. Time for a break, he thought. After nearly three years, this project was getting on his nerves. And playing nursemaid to a 450 lb dolphin for three days hadn’t improved them.

In spite of Riley’s disbelief in telepathy, Erika wanted to try something new. She tried to force words into the connection. No, it shouldn’t work, but she wanted to try it anyway.

‘Why?’ she beamed at him.

In general you could only share sensations and a few strong needs and wants like hunger, boredom, loneliness—but love? Bill loved her that came through the connection. But did dolphins love? Oh they loved food, loved play, loved sex, but love? Did they share that with humans? Curiosity, they shared that. Erika felt how Bill hungered to find out more. He was an explorer. That’s why he kept coming back to them, to explore the dry land. She should have expected his hunger for information and understanding, yet it always surprised her. Bill had a sharp, probing mind and he wanted to know all about Erika and her world.

‘Why’ she projected again, not with words but the feeling of curiosity and then she projected a blip of the pain he’d been in.

Vents, thought Erika. How can I communicate that--The sensation of heat and sulfur?

She moved her hand closer to an unopened blister on Bill’s back. She was careful not to touch it, but hoped it would make it clear to him what she wanted to understand what happened and why. She kept her eyes closed and tried to shut out all her thoughts and sensations. Could they share more? Could they share their sense memories? Hadn’t they already been doing that? He’d seemed to understand the sensations of human sex now.

Opening herself to him, she only got the rich flavor of fresh fish in her mouth and a vague promise of fun with his pod. It was so fleeting an impression. Could she get this fine-tuned a bit better?

Heat, smell of sulfur—no, dolphins don’t have a sense of smell, Erika corrected herself. Heat then, burning heat. And then the impressions came back to her, intense sensations causing her heart to race.

Stinging bubbles warning him off, but something stronger than his instincts for survival was drawing him on and Bill went closer. It was a calling, not of his own pod or some other pod, but a foreign calling. Not whale, not dry landers, calling, demanding. He’d never sensed it before, yet his time with Er-Ika had changed him. He could hear this call that seemed not heard by his pod.

Erika’s back straightened with shock. Her name, he’d been squawking her name with his voice all this time! Attempting to speak to her. But she hadn’t made it out before. But it was obvious now. Er-Ika! He was saying her name.

She breathed deeply and turned herself into a cipher. If this was to work she’d have to let go even more of herself, and be completely empty. It could work--she felt the possibility just there beyond her reach. Try harder.

Bill was there, in her, surrounding her. They called and I answered, was she answering Bill’s call or was she Bill answering the call of the unknown?

She felt what he felt and then flashes of information, not from Bill but from them. Through Bill, at this distance? No. Was it memory then? She closed herself down further, forcing her mind to open to him--trust him more.

The sensations of Bill going deeper into the sea where the volcanic vents were. Erika felt the water pressure growing all around her and the light receding behind her and above her as she traveled further down in the cold depths. She had never been so at one with Bill before, and never so in harmony with another being.

They had a message. Living far below the surface in their colony, they had lived there Eons, but now would leave. Too many times had they been disturbed. Samples taken, fellow colonists removed and killed for science. Time to leave!

#

“Erika! Erika!” the sharpness of ammonia brought her to, coughing.

“Riley, what the hell? Didn’t smelling salts go out with the Victorians?”

“You passed out.”

“Bill?”

“He’s a bit agitated. Tell him you’re all right. That might calm him down.”

Riley supported her to a sitting position on the beach towel next to the water.

“Hey, Bill. I’m fine.” She smiled and waved, feeling anything but fine.

Bill slapped his fluke against the water. He seemed a bit restless, but all right. Then Erika remembered.

“Oh, damn.”

“What?”

“Riley,” Erika held onto his shoulder for support, “whom do you contact when you think the world is about to end?”

#

Chris returned that night to their apartment to find Erika sitting in the dark on the couch nursing a bottle of beer.

“How’s Bill?” said Chris, turning on a light.

“He’ll pull through. How was the opening?”

“The usual, but I ran into that director again who’s interested in—You’re not listening. What’s wrong?”

He noticed two cartons of his brand of cigarettes on the coffee table, “Erika?” He pointed to the cartons.

“It’s a bribe--Two cartons of cigarettes with my blessings if you head out to New York City for a couple of weeks. Get the habit out of your system. Smoke your brains out.”

“I’d say my wife has been plugged in a bit too long. Why do you want me in New York?” he laughed. “You and Bill planning a little ocean getaway?”

“Don’t ask. I just think you should go for a while…” her eyes filled with tears.

“Erika, I think we really need to talk.”

“Funny, isn’t that what the woman is supposed to say? Just promise me you’ll head to New York. As soon as possible, tonight even. Yes, you should leave right now.” She jumped up from the couch.

Chris grabbed her arms and held her facing him. “I think Doc Riley has some explaining to do.”

“It’s got nothing to do with him,” she said a bit too quickly.

“Then what? What is it that you really want? This isn’t about the cigarettes, is it? You want me to quit smoking? Fine. You’ve been upset by it and I can understand. But this is something more, right?”

“Just go. I can’t tell you more.” She tried to twist from his grip.

“Stop that!” He let go of her abruptly and started to pace. “It’s not someone else. No, I’m sure I’d know it.” He looked at her with surprise. “Children? Is that it? Look, I’ll stop putting it off and get the vasectomy reversed right away. I want us happy. Normally we are happy, aren’t we? We’ve been happy!”

Erika stared at her feet. Tears dripped down her face.

“I’d love children, but no--I just want you to be safe,” she said in a whisper.

The room was silent except for the sound of cars out in front of the building and the muted hum of the television from next door.

“You need a break,” he finally said. “You’ve been working too hard--we both have. New York City? Okay. We’ll go together, the two of us. A second honeymoon.” Chris took her hand and made her sit down next to him.

“I can’t leave. But I do love you.” She kissed him with a bit more passion than she’d planned.

Chris stroked her hair and sighed. “Why do you think I’m not safe here?”

“Can’t you just take my word for it?”

“My God, Erika. It’s too much. No, I can’t. I can’t take this. I want the truth.”

Erika leaned forward and picked up a carton of cigarettes. She ripped it open and removed a pack. “This used to be my brand as well. Remember, two AM and both of us searching for stashes of cigarettes because we were so addicted and neither of us wanted to go out in the middle of the night?” She opened the pack and put two cigarettes between her lips. With shaking hands, she tried to light a match.

Chris ripped the cigarettes from her lips and crushed them in his hand. His eyes were hard and cold. “No more excuses. Talk.”

“I don’t know where to start.

“The beginning?”

“Um. You know this already, but three days ago Bill shows up in bad shape. Our tests showed he’d been exposed to hydrogen sulfide. Riley starts doing burn therapy and eye drops to prevent scar tissue from developing on Bill’s eyes. You came back to town last night after I’d been taking care of Bill for two days. He was definitely on the mend and more his usual self, so I came home with you.”

Chris moved a little closer to her. He wanted her to know he supported her, but wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

“Go on.”

“Today he was well enough for us to do a link. We’ve been making some progress, though I get the feeling that he’s learning more from this than I am. There’s just a lot more going on in my world or maybe the stuff he knows about in the sea is just too esoteric for me to pick up. But he’s bright, so very quick.

“For example, that night that I dropped you off at the airport two weeks ago, Riley had set up a DVD player in the marina and was watching a movie with Bill and explaining that this was our entertainment, our way of play. Riley said Bill was riveted by the movie. Or at least it looked that way to Riley. The next time I hooked up with Bill, I got this feeling that he really seemed to understand how you are an actor, a ‘player’, and actually performed in movies. It was so exciting.

“Anyhow, Bill headed off to re-join his pod for a while. He does that, spends a few days with us and then he can be gone for a month or two.

“Is there a point to this?” asked Chris, eyeing the opened pack of cigarettes.

“Don’t rush me. When I hooked up today, I wanted to find out how he’d gotten injured.”

“And what did you learn?”

“Only that he’d been called, summoned by some creatures that live in the volcanic vents. He traveled over a hundred miles just to answer the call.”

“Why him? Were there other dolphins who went with him?”

“I think it’s the work we’ve been doing with the neural link. It’s changing us, making us find other ways to communicate.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Huh?”

“You said us. He’s an overgrown mackerel for Pete’s sake.”

“Mammal, not mackerel. I didn’t mean to say us. Slip of the tongue—Him--It.” Erika licked her lips and reached over for her beer. After taking a swig she continued. “You aren’t going to like this part.”

“Actually, I’ve had a sinking feeling since I came home. So, let’s get it over with.”

“It’s difficult because there is no language, no shared images, just feelings and sensations. Although, I think he’s getting good at vocalizing my name, it just isn’t enough. Mimicking my name isn’t really using language.”

“Enough for what, Erika? When you had the implant put in two years ago, you never mentioned this sort of thing. It was just supposed to be,” he threw his hands up, “well—nothing like this.”

Erika found it hard to breath. Well, here goes, she thought. Riley had already laughed her at. He’d nearly peed himself with merriment. Chris wouldn’t believe her either and then what would she do?

“Chris, it was the giant vent worms that called to Bill. Damn. Do you know about them? Vent worms in and of themselves are pretty strange. Some of them grow up to 8 feet in length; they can withstand pressures and temperatures unknown to organisms on the surface of our planet. And they don’t eat. They don’t have eyes or even mouths or stomachs. Dr. Shank calls them basically a bag of bacteria with an aorta and gonads. The bacteria that live inside of them feed them through chemosynthesis. They are sulfur-based life forms—Imagine it sulfur! Completely alien from our life forms.

“Scientists believe if we are to get an idea of what creatures from another planet would be like, we should study them. And they are and we did!”

“Repeat that.”

She was close to hyperventilating, “Chris, they told Bill that they were leaving us now. And Bill is scared, he doesn’t have the words for it, but it seems like their leaving might devastate the planet. I don’t know. He wasn’t clear on it. We’re not really clear on anything, but my impression was that the energy required for them to leave Earth, it would be huge. And because they are in the vents, their takeoff might trigger some major geologic activity in the plates resulting in giant tidal waves, even a tsunami.”

Chris sat quietly watching his wife. He thought carefully about what he’d say before speaking, that seemed the only sensible thing to do.

“So you wanted me to leave for New York to spare my life in case a tsunami hit? You wouldn’t come with me?”

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I just ran away and did nothing, but if I’m wrong and nothing’s changed, you can come back to me. I love you.“

He put his arm around her. “That won’t happen. No. And I am staying by your side. No matter what.” He touched her face, “I wouldn’t want to live without you.” When he pulled his fingertips away, they were wet with her tears.

He picked up the phone and started dialing a phone number familiar to Erika.

“Why are you calling Riley?”

“He needs to put one of those things in me.”

“A neural implant? No. I forbid it—it’s too dangerous.”

He fixed her with his stare. “When I asked you if it was dangerous two years ago, you said it wasn’t. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”

“I’m just trying to protect you. We always protect those we love.”

“And I’m protecting you.”

“By getting the implant?”

“If, for any reason, all this is really happening, then people need to be told. Evacuations have to be planned. This is so huge--it’s almost unimaginable. Any indication of when?”

She closed her eyes and felt the pull of the tides. “The next full moon.”

Chris walked onto the balcony and looked up at the half moon there. He came back in, “We have some time then. About two weeks.”

“I know I’m missing something here.”

“You can’t just call a press conference and say that your friend Bill the dolphin just happened to run into some sentient vent worms who are leaving our planet, and may be causing a cataclysm in their wake. Well, you could, but you’d either be laughed at or worse you’d be accused of fomenting mass hysteria.

“If I link to Bill, you will have the information confirmed, which doesn’t mean that he’s got it right, either. But if I confirm this, well, I do have a few connections and hopefully we’ll get the word out. Although the mass panic brought on by this might create more destruction than if we didn’t say anything at all.”

“I’m worried, Chris. What if there isn’t enough time?”

“Frankly, then the matter is out of our hands and we have nothing to fret about it. Ka-boom, end of the world as we know it and those who survive go on.” He fought the urge to light up a cigarette.

“So you’d have a neural shunt put in just to help me verify all this?”

“That and to play hero and help you save the world. Dammit, Erika, when are you going to stop acting like I’m going to walk out that door with some blonde starlet? Success hasn’t changed me. I won’t let it.”

“It’s not that. I mean, the shunt is not reversible like a vasc—scratch that. Just don’t be so casual about it. If Doc Riley screwed up and there was an infection or something it would go straight into your brain. I just—Oh hell, what do you see in me, anyway?”

He brushed a stray hair from her mouth, “Why do I love you?”

“Uh-huh?”

He laughed. “It’s because we are like two peas in a pod. Obsessed with our work. The way your eyes light up when you talk about your research--It’s the same way I feel about my acting. I can be gone weeks at a time and you don’t notice because you are wrapped up in what you do. We are perfect together.”

Erika threw her arms around him. For an actor, he wasn’t so dumb after all.

#

Chris stood at the balcony, sipping champagne, enjoying the view and praying he was right. Not to say that the past ten days hadn’t been wonderful, like a second honeymoon, really. Between her fears of the world ending and his going cold turkey on the smokes, the sex had been phenomenal. Nothing could beat sex for stress relief. He sighed, after next Tuesday’s procedure he wouldn’t want anything down there for a long time but an ice bag. He absent-mindedly fingered the shunt in his neck. Well, at least that operation had gone smoothly and it had healed well, but he still had a tendency to want to scratch at it. He wondered why his wife hadn’t joined him.

“Erika?”

“In a sec. I think there’s something coming on the news.”

He returned to watching the sky. Sometimes a whisper was better than a shout. He never did call a press conference—just needed to drop a word in the ear of a friend or two in the news business and the rumors spread like wildfire. He could make out several dozen boats on the horizon. How many were there to record an event that he couldn’t guarantee would even happen?

Add to that that he was risking her life, their lives, hell and the lives of several million people, on the belief that there would be no tidal wave.

Chris remembered the day when Riley had pronounced him healed enough to make the connection a week and a half ago. Bill had to be tricked into letting Chris hook in. From the moment he had entered the water, dressed in a short sleeve wetsuit and protective cup (on Riley’s advice), there had been a battle. Bill had splashed him with his fluke and Chris had splashed him back. Bill had scratched Chris on the forearm with his teeth and again, Chris reciprocated by scratching him with his fingernails. It was at that point that Erika had jumped in the water, terrified by the escalation of aggression by the two males.

Chris laughed. Dominance or bonding, which had they been doing? he wondered. She plugged in first and calmed Bill down. Then Chris was plugged in and he had his first encounter in a sensory threesome with his wife and Bill. It was overwhelming and he panicked from sensory overload and over stimulation, like a thousand locusts alighting on his skin. Fortunately Riley had the good sense to immediately unplug Erika, leaving Bill and Chris hooked in together. That had made it tolerable.

Fireworks going off on the beach brought Chris’ attention back to the ocean view in front of him. He wasn’t sure of what he was seeing, but his scalp prickled.

“Get out here Erika! I think it’s starting.”

“What? Where?” She put an arm around him and he handed her a glass of champagne from the table near him.

For a moment there were simply the normal sights and sounds of a night in Santa Monica. College kids having a bonfire on the beach, traffic on the boulevard below, people out on the streets enjoying balmy breezes of a moonlit night.

But, far out to sea there were lights. They were bright in all different colors, but tiny like microscopic will ‘o the wisps. It seemed like a meteor shower in reverse as they left the sea and headed high up into the sky. They came together and broke apart repeatedly. It looked like some child throwing colored sand into the air, mixing it all up. But once there, individual bits of color hung motionless before moving on. So many bits of light, hundreds of thousands it seemed like. Chris put his arm around Erika’s waist and squeezed.

“Shit. It’s really happening,” he said. “That is amazing.”

Erika sipped her champagne and sighed. “Two of the networks are broadcasting it live. And there are no seismic disturbances according to the newscasts.

“Arrgh! What an opportunity lost. Damn it all!” She hit her hand on the balcony in frustration. “Vent worms have no eyes! Why the colors then?” She sighed. “We’ll never know.”

Chris put down his champagne glass and studied her.

“I think you’re really upset about is the neural connection.”

“I guess I should be relieved that it isn’t the end of the world, but I worked with Bill for two years and only got vague sensations. You plug in and it’s like a television. You have no idea how that feels.”

Chris sighed. “I’m sorry but I’m a trained communicator. Or maybe Riley missed the spot and went into my occipital lobe with the wire. But as soon as I saw that tidal wave special effects sequence from the film, I knew. Hey, you were on the mark about the aliens.”

“No trick there. They planted that in his mind for me to find, like some sort of recording. Only it wasn’t visual, more intuitive. I don’t know, I feel so stupid. Doc said I’d lost my objectivity.”

“Please don’t feel stupid. You never watch movies.”

“Unless you’re in them.” She put her arm around his waste.

They watched the lights slowing down and organizing themselves via spectrum--Yellows to one side, orange-reds towards the middle and purplish-blues to greens on the other end.

“Riley told me he’d shown Bill “The Day After Tomorrow”, but I’d never seen it.”

“No wonder he laughed at you. Could have been worse, the idiot might have shown Bill ‘Independence Day’ or ‘Mars Attacks’.”

Erika shook her head, “I haven’t seen those films either. But you knew he wasn’t--,” she didn’t want to use the word lying, “confused about the space aliens.”

“The DVD gave him a frame of reference for a tidal wave destroying a city. No aliens involved.”

“When I told Riley he nearly laughed himself sick. He could have let me in on the joke.”

Chris gave her a gentle kiss.

“Why did Bill do it?” she asked.

“My guess is that even though Riley told him it was fantasy, Bill knew better. Big waves do happen in the sea. But Bill had never seen the devastation they can create when they hit land. Also, I think you both over-estimated Bill’s capacity for understanding. The destruction of Los Angeles by twisters probably went right over his head, or melon, that’s what you call it, right? It was after he viewed the DVD that you felt Bill wanted to get you to join his pod?”

“Yes, only a vague impression. Oh, and he was trying to herd me out of the marina one day. But I could have been wrong about that as well.”

“Maybe he wanted to play the hero and rescue you. Keep you safe because he loved you.”

“Now who is anthropomorphizing? Uh-oh. I think they really are leaving.”

The lights were getting fainter, heading away in the sky.

“Some poor marine biologist is going to be missing a species or two of vent worms,” said Chris.

“Why did they use Bill? Was it they didn’t trust us because we’d been experimenting on them?”

“That sounds right.”

“It’s still not fair. I only got feelings and sensations from him and you got pictures.”

He gave her a hug, “Shall I share another theory?”

“Sure.”

“The female brain has more connectors between the two hemispheres than the male brain. It’s an adaptation for sex roles. Females see things in a holistic way, makes them good for gathering and nurturing. Men have less connectors and so perceive the world more linearly. It makes them better hunters. We do know that men in general are more visually orientated than women.”

Erika refilled their glasses. “So my mind just wasn’t wired for images. How do you know all that?”

He chuckled. “I was pre-med in college before the acting bug bit. I told you we were alike.”

Erika looked out at the water. “You know, I’m glad Riley and I have decided to take a break from this project for a while. I can write up my notes,” she took his hand, “and we’ll finally start a family.”

“Um. I was waiting for the right time to tell you. Maybe now would be good.”

“You are having the vasectomy reversal?”

“Yes, going ahead as planned. It’s just that Bill sent me another image while we were connected.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“He wants to explore more on land.

“He thinks we should rig something up for him like a horizontal portable shower on wheels. It would need a canopy so he couldn’t get sun burnt and a head rig so he could operate a computer keyboard to drive it. Then he could get around pretty well by himself. Oh--and he wants to visit me on a movie set.”

Erika’s mouth dropped open for two seconds before she slapped him on the shoulder. “You are such a bull-shit artist.”

Chris grinned, “Had you going though, didn’t I?”

#

Bill-tell-tales had rejoined his pod. There was a new member there--she’d been kidnapped while he had been with Er-ika’s pod. He took a shine to her and she to he. Bill decided he would no longer explore and learn, instead he would tell his pod of the wonders he had seen. Of course, there were no words to describe what he\'d seen, not yet at least.


The End