"Does it hurt?"
"A little." Grey lied. His arm felt like it was on fire. The throbbing pain was threatening to cloud his consciousness and shut down his system for good, but he kept a straight face. Rain's efforts in first-aid was far from professional. But at least it stopped the bleeding, which Grey had deemed a miracle of sorts. Though he couldn't fault her for trying. The little pill she had called 'Tynenol' in which she had forced him to swallow didn't seem to be compatible with his physiology either, for it didn't seem to have the supposed effect of reducing the pain. But Grey tried his best to appear otherwise.
"You know, your attitude towards me seems to have improved a great deal now that you've discovered I'm......different......" Grey observed. He thought it best to divert his attention somewhere else before the pain consumed him whole.
"Well, you were a complete stranger to me before." Rain sounded a bit embarrassed.
"And now I'm not?" Grey's lips curved up.
Rain met his inquiring gaze, "You risked exposure to save me, didn't you?" She swallowed. "I mean, you could have just walked away, and you were under no obligation to save me, especially after the way I've been treating you. Then your secret would have been safe, and you wouldn't be hurt now."
"You can't possibly believe that I'd have walked away when your life was in jeopardy." Grey was a bit disturbed by this.
"I had no way to know." Rain replied honestly. "A human would have thought twice before coming to my rescue under such circumstances."
Grey waited a bit before he asked, "Your life was in serious peril before, but still you told me to go. Why?"
Rain taped the bandage in place clumsily, and prayed to God that it won't come apart anytime soon, "I don't know. But......somehow I just couldn't let you risk your life because of me."
Humans are ever a contradicting yet fasinating species. Grey thought to himself.
"Why don't you tell me more about yourself?" Rain changed the subject.
"What do you wish to know?"
"I don't know. Whatever you could tell me." Rain shrugged.
Why do you want to know?"
"I guess I'm just curious."
"It's a long story. And you may not believe me."
"Try me." Rain said with a challenging smirk.
Grey took a deep breath, then glanced out the tiny window in Rain's apartment and into the mysterious midnight sky. His gaze seemed very far away. "I don't even know where to begin."
"How about let's start with where you're actually from?" Rain suggested.
Grey switched his gaze back to Rain, "Even if I tell you, you wouldn't know where it is."
"Well, at least you could give me a place name. That's a good start." Rain argued.
"True." Grey nodded. "Okay, I'm from a near by star system, on a planet named H'kon." He smiled. "I'm what you'd probably call an alien."
"Extraterrestrial Biological Entity, huh?" Rain swallowed. "And here I was thinking maybe I watched too much X-Files......anyway, why did you come to Earth? And how did you end up unconscious over at the garbage dump?"
Grey's expression turned grim. "I was being pursued by enemies of my homeworld. We were at war with another race called C'ne. They're from a neighbouring planet. Our two homeworlds had been at peace on an uneasy truce for over 20 years. Neither authorities of the two planets had made a move on each other, knowing that our technological advances as well as military power are about equivalent. The C'ne would not be able to penetrate our defense systems easily, and vice versa."
"And I take it that's not the case anymore?"
"No." Grey took a deep breath. "The C'ne discovered something that will easily wipe out the entire population of H'kon without firing a single phonton canyon." He paused for a second. "They've found something called the Sha'kon Jewel. All we know is that it's some sort of naturally formed crystal that, when triggered, can selectively eradicate any amount of biological life, while leaving everything else intact. But somehow our people got wind of that before the C'ne assault forces arrived. The H'kon Defense Intelligence has dispatched a team of five agents to infiltrate the C'ne operation before they could make a move on us." He paused for another second. "I was one of those five agents."
"Go on."
"We successfully stole the Sha'kon Jewel from the C'ne Army Base." Grey clenched his fists. "But my comrades had died covering for me so that I could get away with the Jewel. I tried to get back to H'kon, but all flight paths had been blocked by the C'ne assault ships. I was forced to take a flight path in the exact opposite direction in order to evade their search. As I went further and further from home, the C'ne finally found me. I had been under pursuit for over two days. I fled to your solar system, with the C'ne hot under my trail. I managed to destroy two of the assault ships before the last one damaged my life-support system, and I was forced to land on your planet. Fortunately, I was able to cloak my ship once it entered the atmosphere, though I had to leave the ship immediately because of the life-support failure. I activated the emergency beam-out before I lost consciousness, which has transported me away from the ship. And then, when I woke up, you were there."
"Now this is beginning to feel like Star Trek......" Rain muttered under her breath. When Grey lifted an eyebrow in question, she waved her hand. "Forget it. Just some Sci-Fi TV shows I watch entirely too much. I'll tell you more about it later. So, these C'ne people......they're still looking for you?"
Grey cocked his head thoughtfully. "The last C'ne ship was an one-pilot assault cruiser, which means there should be one C'ne looking for me on Earth right now. Interstellar communications would not work this far from home. So I guess both me and my C'ne friend are on our own. But to answer your question, yes, he will still be looking for me."
"And the reason he's still looking for you is because you still have the Sha'kon Jewel?"
"Precisely."
"Where's the Jewel right now?"
"On my ship, of course."
"Will that C'ne person be able to decloak your ship and steal the Jewel while you're not there?"
"Unlikely." Grey shook his head. "The only way he will ever be able to find the ship is through the homing device implanted inside my right arm. And even if he could locate the ship without my homing signal, he will not be able to deactivate the cloak without my voice print or my palm print. Nor will he be able to pass the DNA scan that will only grant access to the ship to certain key individuals." His expression turned sober. "Though he doesn't really need to find me alive. The homing device works just well with me dead, and the DNA scan can't tell the differences between the living and the dead."
"So, I suppose you're gonna go back to your ship and deliver the Sha'kon Jewel to H'kon authorities now?" Rain didn't know why, but she felt a bit disappointed at the aspect that Grey might be leaving.
Grey sighed, "Not really. My ship has sustained a number of damages, and I need to make some repairs before I can take off and go home. But, in order to make repairs, I need to decloak my ship, as well as to enter it. And the moment I decloak the ship, the C'ne will be able to detect me."
"And you would be a sitting duck." Rain nodded.
"Sitting duck?" Grey blinked.
"I mean you'll be defenseless." Rain explained. She had just realized Grey was not very familiar with Earth's slang terms.
"Exactly." Grey nodded. "The cloaking field my ship generates not only makes it invisible and undetectable, it also alternates the molecular structure of the ship so that matter can pass through it."
"That's incredible!" Rain lifted her eyebrows. "But how are you ever gonna go home if you can't decloak your ship, which means you can't enter your ship or make repairs, and everything else?"
Grey spread his hands, "I've been trying to figure that out the whole day, but my mind drew a blank."
They were silent for a while, then Rain asked, "How come you're from outer space, and still you speak English so fluently?"
Grey grinned. "I'm not exactly speaking your language. It's more like......communicating. I have a communications chip implanted inside my brain. All of us who are in the Defense Intelligence has this implant, whose function is to transmit or receive the wavelengths used during verbal conversation. The wavelengths transmitted can be understood by almost all higher lifeforms, while the wavelengths received will be tranlated to me so that I can understand you. Does that make any sense to you?"
"I guess." Rain cocked her head. "Well, what are you gonna do now?"
"Until I could figure out how to decloak my ship undetected by the C'ne, I have no idea." Grey spread his hands.
Rain thought for a while, then she asked, "What's gonna happen to a person if he or she's inside the ship while the cloak has been activated?"
"Nothing." Grey replied. "The cloaking field generated by the ship is harmless to biological organisms. It only alters the molecular structure of matter so that it cannot be perceived by anyone outside the cloak. Why do you ask?"
"Before I answer your question, can you first tell me, is it possible to cloak something that's already been cloaked?"
Grey frowned, "I suppose so. Why?"
"Say, we create a cloaking field large enough to envelope your already cloaked ship, and us within the outer cloaking field, but outside the ship's cloaking field. Then, after we've been cloaked and become virtually unperceivable to the rest of the world, we proceed to decloak your ship while we're still inside the outer cloaking field. Then we can make all the repairs we need to make, theoretically speaking, of course." Rain suggested.
Grey's eyes widened, "Hey! That just might work!"
Rain's face flushed at Grey's compliment, "And I guess you'll probably need some supplies and all kinds of stuff to create that second cloaking field."
Grey nodded, and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from Rain's desk. Rain watched his list of supplies, in which Grey had written in a collection of symbols that was completely incomprehensible to her, grow longer and longer, and her expression began to turn grim, "Grey, I think we have another problem."
"Problem? What problem?"
"Do you think you can find everything you need to build that cloaking field here on Earth?" Rain crossed her arms.
Grey looked down at his unfinished list and pondered, "It should, and even if not in the form I needed it, I suppose I could still synthesize it from various naturally formed compounds and elements on this planet."
"And how, precisely, are you gonna synthesize these sophisticated supplies of yours from Earth's primitive resources?"
Grey opened his mouth, then closed it again when he couldn't fathom an anwer to Rain's valid question.
"And secondly, these supplies you need, even if we do have it, is gonna cost money." Rain started playing with her fingers uncomfortably. "Money I simply don't have." She spread her arms, "As you can see, the rent of this apartment as well as all the daily supplies and necessities about used up all my salary, which isn't much to speak of in the first place. And with the tuition fees and books and all that, I simply don't have much to spare." Rain lowered her head guiltily, "I......I'm sorry, Grey. I really wanted to help. I wanted to help so badly......but......but this is simply beyond me......"
"No." Grey grabbed both of Rain's hands in his and gave them a tight squeeze. "No, it's not your fault, Rain. don't feel bad about this. It's just a careless mistake on my part. I have simply overlooked the fact that Earth is a capitlalistic world, as well as the kind of tight budget you're in just to support yourself through school and everything else." He paused for a moment to think, then continued, "You know, this might still work, even if it might take a bit longer than I originally thought."
Rain looked up at him questioningly through her teary eyes.
"Tomorrow, I'll go find a job." Grey declared. "That way, I can purchase all the supplies I need when I get my own pay, and you won't have to worry about me while having your own financial problems."
"I'm sounding so selfish, only thinking for myself......"
"No, you're not." Grey stared into her eyes, and for an intricate moment their gazes held. "You're just telling the truth."
It was Rain who looked away first, "You said you're gonna find yourself a job. But just how are you gonna do that without any valid ID and everything else? You practically don't exist in Earth's records!"
"Oh, that can be fixed." Grey's lips curved up. There was a wicked twinkle as he eyed Rain's personal computer on her desk.
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