MidReal Story
Interstellar Secrets: Unveiling Earth's Cosmic Connection
Scenario: I suddenly received a message from the M78 Nebula, and it seems to be informing me about things happening on Earth that we are unaware of.
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The first time I received a message from the M78 Nebula, I was sitting in my office at the United Nations.
I was supposed to be working on a speech, but instead I was staring out the window at the New York skyline.
I’d been on Earth for two years and I still wasn’t used to it.
The buildings were so tall, and there were so many of them.
They made me feel like I was in a cage.
I’d been born on a spaceship, and I’d spent most of my life on one.
I wasn’t used to being confined to one place.
I wasn’t used to being confined at all.
My office was small and windowless, but it had a door that locked, and that was all I really cared about.
I didn’t need much space, or light, or air.
I didn’t need much of anything, really.
That’s what they said about my people—that we didn’t need much of anything to survive.
We’d had a beautiful world once, but it was gone now.
Murnau is dead.
I’d known that for a long time, but it still hurt to think about it.
It still hurt to think about what we’d lost, and about what we’d done.
It was my fault that we had been exiled from our home, and I would never forget it.
The message that appeared on my computer screen that day was in an alien language, but I could read it.
I could read every language in the known universe, or at least I liked to think that I could.
This one was very simple, not like the complicated human languages I was trying to learn.
It said, Earth is dying.
Please help us.
I stared at the message for a long time, until the computer shut down and I was left alone in the dark.
I didn’t know what to do.
I knew that Earth was in trouble, but I didn’t know how to help them.
I was just an ambassador, and my people were just as bad at diplomacy as they were at everything else.
I didn’t know how much longer Earth had, but I knew that it wasn’t long enough.
I couldn’t just stand by and watch as another planet died because of our mistakes.
I had a duty to help Earth, and I would do whatever it took to fulfill it.
Or die trying.
When I first arrived on Earth, everyone thought I was a robot.
They didn’t know that I was an alien, or even that aliens existed.
They’d never seen anyone like me before, with silver skin and luminescent eyes, or with my height and build and strength.
They’d never seen anyone like me before, period.
Except for the scientists who worked for the United Nations, who had been expecting me for weeks.
They knew exactly who I was, and they welcomed me with open arms—or they tried to, at least.
But I never felt welcome on Earth.
Maybe it was because of the way that people looked at me when they saw me on the street, or maybe it was because of the way they talked—or didn’t talk—when they were around me.
It made me uncomfortable, and I didn’t like being around people very much to begin with, so I tried to avoid them most of the time.
The only person I ever really wanted to be around was Dr.
Marcus Flynn, the lead scientist on the project that brought me to Earth and my new best friend.
He wasn’t anything like me—he was short and human, with glasses and a perpetual frown—but we got along very well regardless.
We even looked alike in some ways: we both had dark hair and sharp features and bodies that were built for battle.
I could tell just by looking at him that he’d be a fierce opponent in a fight, even if he did look more like a librarian than a soldier.
Marcus asked me to dinner, he showed up at the United Nations building in a terrible mood, and he looked absolutely miserable.
“Are you ready?”
he said, glancing up at me from under his thick eyebrows and frowning even more than usual.
It was an impressive frown, even for him.
He was an impressive person all around, and he always seemed to be in a bad mood, but he was still my favorite human, except for maybe Captain Rhea Solis, the woman who was chosen to be Earth’s official liaison to the M78 Nebula when I arrived on the planet two years ago, and who was also my friend, although in a very different way.
Rhea was the one who came to my office to break the news to me when the message first arrived from the M78 Nebula, and she was the one who arranged for me to meet with the president of the United States and the other leaders of Earth’s major governments to discuss what we should do about it.
“Almost,” I said, pushing away from the window so that I could greet him properly, as befitting his status.
Marcus was a doctor, after all—or a scientist, at least—and he was my superior in every way, except for maybe our rank in the Murnauan army, even though he wasn’t in the military at all and he worked for the United Nations instead of the Murnauan government.
But there was no such thing as the United Nations on Murnau, or a government for that matter, so it didn’t really matter what he did or where he did it or how much better he did it than me—he’d always be my superior in every way, and I’d always be grateful to him for it, whether he liked it or not.
I stood up straight and held out my hand, hoping that my silver skin wasn’t too bright today, and that Marcus wouldn’t be too offended by it.
I was worried that he would be, even though he’d seen me before, because people didn’t get used to me very quickly.
They never really did.
But Marcus wasn’t like other people, and he’d always been kind to me, even when everyone else was afraid.
Of course, he’d had good reason to be.
I may have been beautiful, but I was also deadly.
The only way that Marcus could have known that at the time is if he’d done some research on me before I arrived on the planet, which is what I did on him.
We’d been expecting each other, after all, and we were both smart enough to know that first impressions were important.
So it was only natural for Marcus to read up on me before we met, just as it was only natural for me to do the same, although I wasn’t sure that the same could be said about Rhea.
I didn’t know if Captain Solis had done any research of her own prior to our meeting, but from what I’d read about her, I doubted it.
She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would have done something like that, even if she probably should have.
Then again, Rhea wasn’t a scientist or a diplomat or a soldier—she was a marine—and she didn’t have time for things like research anyway.
She had more important things to do back at the embassy, like protect me from harm, even though I really didn’t need her to.
But she insisted on doing so anyway, because she was loyal and she cared about me, even after everything that had happened between us, just as much as I cared about her.
And she was right in doing so, because there were people out there who would have killed me if they could have.
That’s why we were meeting in a place that had been cleared by security beforehand and monitored during our stay there: so that we would be safe, no matter what happened.
Even so, Rhea had still insisted on accompanying us—and for good reason too.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ambassador,” Marcus said, taking my hand in his and giving it a firm shake.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
“Not at all,” I said, smiling sweetly at him, even if I was lying through my teeth.
I’d been waiting for Marcus for the past ten minutes, which was longer than I’d been expecting, even if it wasn’t longer than I’d had to wait for other people before.
But it was still longer than I’d wanted to wait for Marcus, even if I knew that he couldn’t help it, even if he’d tried.
Because that was just the way he was.
He was always late, no matter what he did or where he went or how hard he tried not to be.
It was a miracle that he’d managed to meet me on time at the United Nations building, even if it was only for my sake, because he was never on time for anyone else—not even for himself.
He was always running behind schedule, no matter how early he woke up in the morning, or how late he stayed in his office at night.
He was always rushing from one place to the next, or from one meeting to another, or from one meal to the next, as if he were being pursued by some invisible force.
I’d never known anyone to be so busy in my life, except for maybe Captain Solis.
She was always in a hurry to get somewhere, or to do something, or to talk to someone, as if she were being chased by some invisible force.
That was why I’d been so surprised by her behavior after the attack on the embassy, even if I hadn’t had time to think about it until later.
She had been so calm and collected throughout the whole thing, even when everyone else was screaming.
She had been so brave too, even when everyone else was afraid.
She had been so smart as well, even when everyone else was panicking.
She had been so strong, even when everyone else was falling apart.
She had been everything that I could have ever asked for in a friend, even if she hadn’t been very nice to me at first.
But she was nice now, which was all that mattered, even if I was still worried about her.
