Ben Blazze and Heimdall's Orb

Chapter 6: Revelations

"Do you know what she's talking about?" Ben asked Marvi.

"Yes. Sweetflower wants a bi-directional connection between your DUPER and hers so that she can see and talk to your assistant and vice versa. That would be an unacceptable excess of intimacy, under normal conditions. It seems appropriate in this case, though."

"Can you do that, please?"

"Sure!"

No sooner had she finished answering than another Caeli appeared beside Sweetflower. This time it was a boy.

"Hello! I'm Jarvis, Sweetflower's assistant."

Ben turned his lips in a mocking smile and looked sideways at Sweetflower, saying:

"Jarvis?"

"Ah, so you're also an Iron Man fan!" the Caeli said to him.

Ben laughed, shaking his head, but he then remembered that he didn't understand anything about this situation.

"I still think I'm dreaming," he said, "so it would be great if someone explained what's going on here."

"I think it's better to be straight with you, Ben," Sweetflower began. "We are aliens. I mean, extraterrestrial aliens."

"You're... aliens?!?"

"No, Ben. WE are aliens," she replied, wagging her index finger between them.

Ben stared at her for a few seconds, jaw-dropping.

"You're wrong..." he said finally, frowning. "I mean, it seems obvious that you may be an alien, but I am human..." he said, looking at his own hands and arms, wanting to check and, at the same time, prove Sweeflower wrong. "I was born in the State of Pará. My mother was human; my father was human and..."

"Your mother was human, Ben," Sweetflower interrupted, "but not your father."

Again, it took him a good few seconds to process that.

"But... but... it can't be!"

"Ben, feel your ears," she said quietly.

Ben frowned and stared at her, not understanding what she meant. But, at last, he put both hands to his ears and began to feel them. Ben started from the lobes and went up, following the cartilage. At first, he felt nothing different, until he reached the top and had a shock: the cartilage did not turn where it should!

With his fingertips, he touched the tops of his ears, and then he was sure.

"My ears are pointy! But what- How- How have I never seen this?!"

"You have not seen or felt it because there is an energy matrix covering all the globe," said Sweetflower, "that alters the sensory nerve impulses in people. It is called the Sensorial Camouflage Alien Matrix - or SCAM, for short. The function of SCAM is to prevent humans from perceiving reality objectively, thus keeping our existence a secret from them. DUPERs make us immune to this matrix", she explained, "and you have never used one so far."

"You mean regular people look at one thing but see another?" asked Ben.

"See, hear, smell, grope, taste... All sensory stimuli involving alien elements get translated into their closest similar experiences on Earth," she said. "It works well... almost always."

"And why all this secrecy?"

"Sit there," she said, pointing the chair. She then took a paperweight as a stool for herself. "It's a long story."

Sweetflower began to tell him all about the arrival of the aliens, the races that were in the ship, the first contact with humans. Also, about the patriarchs, Noam, the Tamnar Taura theft, and all the evil that occurred.

Ben listened attentively, and slowly the world started making a little more sense to him. Even though he had never formulated this in conscious reflection, he had always felt out of touch with the reality he knew. It was as if Ben had been living in some permanent numbness, which anesthetized him, that alienated him from the bond with people around him, that blurred his perception of life. Upon hearing Sweetflower, although, he got sucked to an ensemble to which he belonged. That account seemed to give meaning, purpose to his existence, though he could not explain why he felt that way.

"... then the Council sent me here to stay close to you. I should interfere in case you came across something that would reveal your origins, which ended up happening," she concluded, smiling.

"So, my dad was a Vagui?"

"Your father is a mixed-race like you, meaning he's half-human, half-Vagui. So was your grandfather," Sweetflower said.

"He WAS a mixed-race..." Ben said, looking down, "... my father died."

"About that, actually..."

"Ben!" said Marvi, interrupting Sweetflower. "They are looking for you downstairs. Look!"

A screen appeared in midair where Marvi was pointing, showing images from a hidden camera downstairs in the bedroom. They saw the door opening and Fatima looking into the room.

"Benjamin, are you there?" they heard her speak as if she were in the same environment as them.

As there was no answer, she walked in, walked to the library, and called out towards the bathroom. Seeing that the boy wasn't there, she left, closing the door behind her.

"You better get down now, Ben," Sweetflower said. "Calm down, and remember: this is all secret, even for your grandmother. I'll finish explaining everything later."

"And how do I get down?" asked Ben.

"I'm going to trigger the anti-gravity lift," replied Marvi. "Whenever you want to use it, let me know. Speaking of which, you don't have to say anything out loud to talk to me. Just think."

"Are you going too, Sweetflower?" asked Ben.

"Yes. I'll follow you, hidden – the same way I got here."