In a World of Strangers: A Michael Jackson Love Story

Prologue

"So you're really not form earth?" I asked in disbelief.

He assured me again that it was true. He even showed me all the gadgets he had on him.
I'd run into him by accident, and I mean literally ran into him. He was on a mission from his home planet to retrieve some alien spaceship debris thingy or other that had somehow fallen to earth. Not just to earth, he'd been on his assignment for a long time trying to collect everything from different planets.
I was on my way home from work in the middle of the night and bumped into him when I turned a corner. I ended up following him the remainder of the night and the next day assisting him in finding whatever it was he was looking for. At first he was reluctant to talk to me, or even really pay attention to me, but I countered with some earth savvy and he agreed to let me tag along on the condition that he would wipe my memory once we were done. Begrudgingly I agreed, but took the chance to find out everything there was to know about him and his mission. (Apparently he was born on a planet called Brin a few galaxies over and he was raised to be some sort of space agent. The whole planet was an intergalactic organisation tasked to keep peace between worlds. Every single being on Brin was born and raised to be a space agent and eventually be sent on all kinds of missions. They specialised in genetically engineering all manner of species and creatures which would eventually be tasked with missions and blending into whatever planet they're sent to.) He told me that earth and the other planets he'd been on didn't have clearance to know about extra terrestrial activity yet, that's why he was sent to collect the debris. He had this kind of radar that scanned the area for non-terrestrial material, although it can't have been very accurate, because it kept leading us to a bunch of dead ends, until finally, after about nine hours, he found it. I was preparing myself to have my memory wiped – to be honest I was curious how it would feel, even though I really wanted to remember this day – when he asked me if I wanted to continue helping him. I suppose he must have taken a liking to me, because he took me to his machine and showed me around it and offered to take me on his travels. It never occurred to me that he might be lying. That thing we'd collected didn't look like anything I'd ever seen, but how would I know if it was actually alien or if I simply hadn't seen it before. He did seem earnest, and if he now were a psychopathic killer at least I would die having believed aliens really do exist. I'm not going to lie, I was terrified, but at the same time there was no way I could pass up an opportunity like that. Eight billion people on the planet and I'm the one who get's to find out about extraterrestrial life, just like that.

"It's not just space, you know. It's time, too." he said with a smug smile on his face.

He didn't have to say more. I asked him to take me to my place so I could pack my things. That's when I had ultimate proof. He pressed some buttons on his console table, there was a bit of a shuffle and when I opened the door we were in the alley across from my building. I didn't know what awaited me, but I made plans right then and there to not come back. My job was useless and what little friends I had lived halfway across the world by now. There was nothing keeping me here. And if anything were to happen he could take me back to this exact moment in time. And if I were to die, at least my death would be extraordinary (and hopefully painless).
We started off by getting the collected debris back to Brin and from there on it was across the universe and beyond. Planets, Moons, even inhabited asteroids. He opened up an entire world of new species, places, plants, civilisations...things I never in my life could have imagined. It was truly amazing.