The Unaffected

➠2.3

outside, it's cold and windy, and there's a tiny dome-shaped building with a small hatch cut into it. Nick leads the way, knocks four times on the hatch, which makes a harsh, hollow noise. Then someone opens it. I guess it's the front door.

The "person" is an alien, who has pale blue, very smooth skin, and is about a foot shorter than me and quite rotund. It has a large head; its nose is thin and flat, and its eyes are wide and friendly looking. It has a large mouth, and its fairly humanoid. If I didn't know better, I wouldn't think aliens would look anything near humans. But they do.

Nick nods his head at the alien. "We're finally here. And we have company."

The alien looks at us all, barely glancing at me. Then it speaks in a high, clear voice. "Come in, quickly. I'll hide the car; there are patrols around here every so often."

Nick nods again. "Thanks."

The alien heads outside and we go in, shutting the hatch behind us, which leads through a narrow staircase/hallway.

My mouth drops open once I see the actual interior. "It's bigger on the inside!" I say.

Nick laughs. "It's just built so that the actual house is underground and all you can see is a little round hut. We're on the top floor, apart from the attic, which is where the door is. Almost all houses are built like that here."

"That's fantastic!" I say.

He nods. "Right, let's go."

He leads us into a large room with a cloth spread across the floor. Sitting there is an alien. I wouldn't really know, but it seems friendly. I hope. It looks like the other one. Maybe they're related. Or married, and they're just the same kind of alien and to me they look similar.

"Sit down," it says. Its voice sounds friendly as well, and deep and rich. Do all aliens have nice sounding voices? Now that I think of it, the Queen did too. But hers was sinister and cold, so I didn't realize it. "I'm Calphurnia and my male counterpart is Hamlet."

We sit down. Nick's next to me and whispers in my ear, explaining that a male counterpart is like a husband and female like a wife. "It's a union that lasts your whole life," he concludes.

"No gay marriage?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Doesn't work that way."

"Hmm."

Katelyn watches us amusedly. "You two are hilarious. You look like you're conspiring."

"Maybe we are," Nick answers, grinning.

I wonder what life was like for them, waiting all this time to escape. I don't like waiting, so I'd probably go mad. I respect them for it.

Later on, Hamlet shows us to our rooms. Us girls share one, and the guys have a separate one. I sit down on my bed and look at Katelyn.

"How long will we stay here?" I asked her.

"For a few days. Calphurnia and Hamlet aren't part of the alien's inspections, since they live so far out. We're just waiting for one of the Cured to take us to an alien laboratory. Our only actual plan is to find the cure."

"Any ideas, yet?" I asked.

She shook her head. "We've tried to research from the base, but it's hard to do without arousing suspicion. We do know that the lab is an important one."

"But is it important enough to have the cure?" Ella questioned. "I feel like they'd keep it secret, since it's necessary for them taking over Earth."

"We doubt it," Katelyn says. "But it might have information on where to go next."

It's a clue hunt, sort of. I loved those things as a child. Hopefully I'll be as good at this as I was the others. I owe them at least that.