The Spark - Carl's Interstellar Crisis

Chapter 2 - A Glorious Ambassadorship

           Immediately following the first Albert's bong hit, the alien bent over in agony, letting out a torrent of hacking coughs, which eventually sent him to the floor, writhing. This prompted response from his peers, who bent down around him to diagnose his ailment as well as to investigate properly the nature of what was just blazed.

A report rang out from a nearby examiner, "I detect an increased heart rate, as well as an increase in levels of THC."

More feedback came from another alien who held a nugget of cannabis in his hand, "It seems this plant is an alkaloid, stimulating an extreme response from the body of our dear friend, Albert."

Slowly, the alien who had just popped his 420 cherry, Albert I, as Carl would call him, recovered from his exposure to marijuana and stood up, making his counterparts step back from him. His eyes noticeably dilated, Albert I remarked, "I feel different, as if I were less a slave to my programming, and more human, somehow." His eyes settled upon Carl's, this time in a different manner, a friendly one. "Sorry, I haven't asked your name. How impolite of me . . ." His surrounding colleagues were taken aback that one of their own would use such a distinctly human convention as politeness, for they would usually circumvent such formalities in exchange for the pragmatic efficiency that their machine sides are attuned to.

"The name's Carl . . . I have one question, are you real?"

The android let loose a slight smile across his visage, as he responded, "Of course I am real. I believe you are being affected by the same alkaloid that I have just consumed. I am surprised you aren't further incapacitated, for, despite the fact that the plant affects me half as much as it affects you, you seem to be in a astonishingly composed condition, while I have been far removed from my neutral state."

Carl always took a bit of pride in his high tolerance for high-quality marijuana. That being said, he felt himself coming down from the high hill, his mind returning to him, along with a paroxysm of questions pertaining to the aliens' presence. He started, "So, what are you people? Where did you come from? And why in the world did you come here, to my house?"

The other aliens gave deference to Albert I, who, with a more prominent human side, could more easily communicate with humans. Albert I reciprocated Carl's queries with answers, in order, replying, "We are all hybrids, in equal parts, of humans and machines. My programming does not allow me to explicitly state the origin of our manufacture, but I can say the means by which we came here. We were sent here through a method of inter-dimensional teleportation called "sparking", where gaps in time and space, or "Sparks", are made to convey us to planets in dimensions other than ours. We landed in your house by pure chance, as the only specifications entered into our Spark were the dimension and planet."

I suppose I already know a bit about sparking, haha, thought Carl. "I can't say I caught much of what you just said," Carl mumbled, a dumb look across his face, "but I think I have a better question. Why are you here?"

"According to my programming, I cannot disclose that information at this time."

Carl was a bit disappointed at this, but relented. He looked around at the rest of the crowd, all of whom stood still in rigid, upright positions, contrasting with Albert I, who adopted a contrapposto pose, as evidence of his more prominent humanity. "Um, does anyone else want some pot?" he magnanimously offered to them all.

The group hesitated, before one of them declared, while nodding at a robotic pace, "No, we should not consume the alkaloid, as Albert did. The plant probably affected Albert's cognitive functioning and motor function, although we can't be sure. Nonetheless, I believe we should refrain from repeating Albert's action, in order to preserve our own neutral states."

Pussy, thought Carl, as he tried to distinguish the features of the one who spoke, but to no avail, as they were all uncannily identical.

The whole gathering suddenly locked eyes with Carl, including Albert I. Taking the opportunity, with the brief silence in the discussion, they all chanted in unison as they had before. They asked Carl, in an impressive show of synchronization, "We are in need of an ambassador to our species, a mediator of sorts, to represent our interests and introduce us to the rest of humanity. Will you, "Kar-ylle", take this badge of ambassadorship, and pledge to, in all your capacity, do the afore-stated duties?" Albert I brandished a pearlescent slab that emitted a deep purple glow.

Carl ignored the bumbling babble of the group, his eyes transfixed upon the slab. An acute sense of alarm arose within him, as he saw menial shreds of substance ejected from the slab. He realized that the badge, all by itself, was being engraved. When he made out the result of the engraving, he sputtered, for the immaculately plain surface of the badge was now erroneously marred with the name "Kar-ylle", instead of Carl. In sudden frustration, Carl immediately interjected, "You spelled my name wrong. It's C-A-R-L, with no dashes in the middle and no weird-ass spelling like that!"

They were all jarred out of their procedural chant. Albert I responded with a quavering urgency in his voice, "Look, we really need an ambassador, and it would be very appropriate for that ambassador to be you, the first instance of your species that we have encountered on unfamiliar planet. If I were you, I wouldn't let this chance pass by; being an ambassador to a transplanted species is a very prestigious position."

Carl considered this with a new eagerness and said, "Ah, what the hell, give me that shit." He swiped the badge with a casual swing of his arm. His term as ambassador had just started.