Free Becoming Alien by Rebecca Ore Page B

Jenkins and all the aliens listening in behind the wires relaxed, and let me be unbuzzing, loose. Not nearly electrocuted by my own nervous tension. The Barcon left the door open a hair when he went out.
    “Jobs?” Jenkins said.
    “What’s the use in trying to find jobs? I’m an ex-felon, no civil rights. You ought to come out and see the place.” Oh, please, care enough to come by. “I manage on chickens. I’ll give you a couple dozen eggs, free.”
    My belt shocked me and got hot over my spine.
    “As long as you keep making the egg deliveries.” Oh, shit, but the damn aliens know now from other than me that I’ve got to get the eggs delivered.
    “Yes, sir. All I ever wanted to be was an honest farmer.”
    “But you’re talking of selling land? I realize you got used to easier money, but it’s up to you. Society has helped you all it can.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said. “But…” I felt like my spine was on fire. I shut up.
    “And if you leave the county without permission, it’s jail if I see you again. We were very lenient to allow you back in the county after what you were involved in.”
    Sam the alien grabbed me with a wrist lock as soon as I opened the door to leave. When we got to the car, he asked me to explain myself.
    “Human psychology,” I said, feeling sick. “If you tell people to drop by, they won’t.” I wished I’d hinted I was being held hostage by drug people, get some human police out to the farm. But probably the wires in the belt would have given me a “heart attack” there in Jenkins’ office.
    His nose wriggled. After he started the car, he asked, “Might we not stop for canned mild alcohol solution for drinking? Beer?”
    Son of a bitch thinks this is funny. “You drink beer? When you’re on a mission?”
    “Autopsies are hard work—cutting delicately, looking at tissues, chemicals. Horrible smells. Sawing skull open and finding shock.” He paused, then said, “And so much contact all the time with Gwyngs and xenophobics.”
    When we stopped at the Hop-In, the big alien headed for the beer display and stared at it like an amazed man.
    Back to the farm, Sam the Barcon went off with his female and the beer. They came back hours later, drunk, wriggling their noses like crazy, watching all the other aliens, all of us, as though we were odd-tempered exotic bugs.
    Black Amber nodded tensely at them, but they just shook their nostrils at her. She glared over at me, huge eyes rolling by the small human-sized eye holes.
    “No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m sober as a stone.”
    “Tried to escape us,” she said. “I hope you test out to be only marginally sapient. We’ll rip out your memories then.”
     
    “It’s just a test,” the big Barcon said as he sat me down under that helmet. But I didn’t trust him.
    The smaller Barcon turned a knob after the helmet came down. Thousands of little wires pricked my scalp, and they strapped my head tight to keep the trembling from pulling the little wires loose.
    A test? I watched their six-fingered hands working dials. “Close your eyes,” the female said. When I closed my eyes, I saw a test pattern—a blue cross on a white field. Then the Barcon twirled a dial and told me to keep my eyes shut and describe what I saw as best I could. The test pattern started jumping around. I opened my eyes, and the Barcon pulled back a lever.
    “Keep them closed.”
    “Are you going to take out my memory now?”
    “I told you, no.” The Barcon scratched her nose and looked annoyed, if that’s what a tightness around the lips meant. So I kept my eyes closed, still expecting chunks of my life to rush out on their electricity.
    The pattern rotated to the right, stretching and curling its bars and shifting colors. Then it rotated to the left, up, down. Finally, it wavered and the lines simply couldn’t be described. When I saw gold starbursts and red flashes, the alien told me to open my eyes. She cranked the needles out of my scalp and