How to Date an Alien

Copyright © 2012 by Magan Vernon

Http://www.maganvernon.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can
be reproduced or transmitted in any form by or any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the
author.

Smashwords Edition: June 2012

Second Edition edited by Dani Crabtree

http://www.Hedanicreations.net

Cover art by Steven Novak

http://www.novakillustration.com

If someone told me at the beginning of that
summer that I would come face-to-face with death because of a Romeo
and Juliet romance, I would never have believed it. But it wasn't
like that summer went at all like I had planned in the first
place.

The Columbia recruiter sat across from me,
her dark bushy eyebrows rising as high as they could go while she
stared down at my application. "So, Alex, I see that you don't have
any extracurricular activities."

I shrugged. I was sitting in one of those
uncomfortable orange plastic chairs in the guidance counselor's
office, wishing I could just disappear. I was the first student in
all of Winnebago High School's history to have a recruiter from an
Ivy League school visit. By the way she looked at our tiny school
with its ancient, chipped walls and rusted lockers, I could see why
nobody had wanted to visit in the past.

I hoped she couldn't tell how nervous I was,
so I tried everything that I could to avoid her glazed-over eyes.
Instead, I looked at one of those stupid motivational posters
framed on the wall behind her—something about success being
measured by the failures in life and a man standing on top of a
cliff. Yeah, I'm sure
that
guy had a lot of successes; he
ended up on a poster in some small town guidance counselor's
office.

"I figured my grades were more important than
being on the track team or something like that."

"I see��" she said, pressing her lips together
and scribbling something on the yellow notepad on the desk in front
of her.

This was my shot to get into my dream
college; I had to think fast. I blurted the only thing I could
think of. "But I'm doing an internship with Circe Operations Center
this summer!"

"Really?" The recruiter put her pen down and
leaned in, focusing her stare in my direction.

“Yeah, it’s something pretty classified, you
know with all of the government work they do, but I’m sure I’ll
have plenty of information to include on my admissions essay.”

Great, I hadn’t even been to Circe, and I had
barely spoken to my Circe-employed military dad since he and my mom
got divorced.

“Well, I look forward to reading it." She
smiled for the first time since she entered the building and I was
finally able to breathe again.

That was how I ended up sitting next to my
dad in his Air Force-issued Jeep as we took the long drive through
the Arizona desert. I had no idea how he pulled the strings to get
me into Circe, but being a colonel did have its benefits.

"Thanks again, Dad. I really appreciate that
you were able to help me get this internship." I tried to glance at
him from the corner of my eye, but the only part of my mom's gene
pool she graced me with was her terrible eyesight, so the
peripheral vision out of the side of my glasses didn't work very
well.

He smiled, patting my knee like it hadn't
been seven years since I'd last seen him and that everything was
perfectly normal between us. I didn't know many girls that were
really close with their dads, but I’m sure they at least saw theirs
on a regular basis. I barely even recognized mine when he picked me
up from the airport. It was like the years had somehow drastically
aged the face that my mom always said looked like Marlon Brando
when he was a bad boy in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
But from
what I saw, he looked more like Brando in
The Godfather
these days, with his receding hairline and crow's feet encasing his
brown eyes.

"You're in for a real treat. Once the
Columbia admissions people see this internship on your application
you'll be first in line to pick out your dorm room." He
grinned.

"I hope so. It's not like I really have much
experience doing anything besides babysitting Elijah and blogging.
I don't think those count as extracurriculars."

I saw my dad wince slightly at the sound of
Elijah's name–the son of my mother and her new husband, Brian. My
dad didn't harbor any ill feelings toward my mom or her new
marriage, but nobody was ever really happy to hear about their ex
in a new relationship, especially when it was with a guy like
Brian. Brian made model airplanes in his spare time and always
called me kiddo. He was the reason my mom moved us out to Winnebago
in the first place. To have a "normal" upbringing that wasn't on a
military base or living in her parents' basement. Or so she said,
until I realized we were moving in with Brian and his cats.

The perk of living in a small Illinois farm
town was that you knew everyone around you, and the bad part about
living in a small Illinois farm town was that you knew everyone. So
when I was the only girl who didn't fit into the WASP stereotype
with my dad's olive skin and my mom's poor eyesight, it was pretty
easy to get labeled as the weird girl fairly quickly. I got used to
being picked on, and after awhile I realized that if I focused
enough on my grades I could get the attention of all my top choice
Ivy League schools. The only problem was they were looking for more
than just a straight-A student.

"So this isn't like Circe from the Odyssey is
it? We aren't going to be stuck here with some seductress for years
on end are we?"

It was too late to take back the words, but I
knew that was how my mom always felt about Circe. It was the
seductress that took her husband away from his family.

My dad just laughed, shaking his head. "Well,
at least I know you still have your sense of humor."

After driving for miles with nothing but
cacti and desert, a giant steel fence appeared out of nowhere and
stretched so far I couldn’t see the end. The wall dwarfed my dad’s
Jeep, making it look like we were approaching an iron giant. A pair
of guards stared down from watchtowers that stood on each side of
the large metal gate.

“Why all the big hoopla? It was never like
this when you were stationed at Randolph.”

My eyes widened as my dad flashed his badge
against a small computer screen on the tower, letting the doors
creak open. I expected to be greeted by a giant fortress, but all
that I could see was more desert and a large mountain range in the
distance.

“Well, you know this isn’t like the other
bases I’ve been stationed at. This one is a bit more classified."
He squinted, not taking his eyes off the rocky path lying in front
of us as the gate slammed shut.

“Where is this place anyway? All I see is
more freaking sand and mountains. Don’t tell me I’m going to be
camping." I scanned outside my window and saw nothing. Absolutely
nothing but barren desert.

My dad sighed, squeezing the bridge of his
nose. “Alex, you will not be camping. Circe is actually in the
mountain range, so we have a bit more privacy when we’re testing
equipment and don’t have to worry about all the air space.”

“Why would you need more privacy? Is this
legal? Am I going to be smuggling something illegal for the
government?”

Before my dad could answer any questions, the
Jeep came to a screeching halt in front of the mountain. He came so
close I thought we had hit it.

"It looks like we're here," my dad said,
shooting me a sideways smile as he unbuckled his seatbelt and
climbed out of the Jeep.

“Uh, Dad, you know this is just a big rock,
right?" I questioned as he grabbed my suitcase out of the back.

“I know." He had that stupid smile still
plastered on his face like it wasn’t crazy that we were standing in
front of a mountain in the middle of the desert.

He reached out and pushed against a big
boulder. The whole mountain shook and suddenly two of the boulders
slid apart. I jumped back as I peered into a small, windowless room
covered floor to ceiling in mirrors.

“Going up,” a monotone voice droned.

“Shall we?" My dad extended his hand toward
the opening.

My mouth gaped as I stared from him to the
elevator.

“What the…?"

My dad laughed, sliding his arm around my
shoulders. “If you want to spend the summer here, you’re definitely
going to have to get used to things like this." He led me toward
the elevator, pulling me inside just as the big boulders slammed
shut behind us.

“It was a mountain and then…" My mind was
racing as I paced back and forth from wall to wall. I couldn’t tell
if we were moving or still on the ground. I didn’t feel any sort of
jolt and nothing seemed to vibrate around me.

My dad just laughed. “Oh, Alex.”

I stopped pacing and narrowed my eyes. “Do
you think this is funny?”

"You have reached your destination. Welcome
to Circe, Miss Bianchi." the same monotone voice hummed over the
loudspeaker.

I slowly turned toward the elevator doors as
they boomed open. Greeting me was a blinding white light,
reflecting off even whiter floors and walls that seemed to stretch
forever ahead of me. People in silver jumpsuits walked around like
nothing had interrupted them as they chatted to the person next to
them or read from electronic devices.

“Yes, Alex. Welcome to Circe." My dad smiled
down at me as we got off the elevator.

I swallowed hard. I couldn’t think of
anything else to say or do. I had been to other military bases that
my dad had worked on, but none of them compared to this. With the
high-arched ceiling and glowing lights, I felt like I was going
through an airport boarding tunnel and not at a military base.

“Vince, my boy, you made it." A man with a
salt and pepper crew cut approached my dad.

“Walter, old man." My dad briskly shook the
man’s hand and they started going on about some Air Force thing or
another. "Hey, Alex, give me a minute, will you?"

My dad glanced in my direction before diving
back into his conversation. I rolled my eyes and gave him a thumbs
up. Not that I was expecting an introduction, but it would have
been nice to know what was going on.

As I got lost in my own world, staring at all
the white walls, I felt something crawl onto my arm. I tried to
flick off whatever was there, but a cold, slimy hand gripped my
arm, whirling me in the direction of a short, wrinkled woman who
reminded me of some sort of wicked witch from a cartoon.

“Um, can I help you?" I tried to pull my arm
away from the woman’s grasp, but despite her small stature, she had
the strength of someone five times her size.

She tilted her head up, and I could see that
she was missing an eye, the empty socket oozing with a black liquid
that glittered against her wrinkled face. The one eye she did have
was the size of a large egg and was focused right on me.

"You," she said in a voice that sounded like
a hawk's cry as she pointed a long, curled fingernail at me, "are a
traitor!"

“Uh, Dad?" My body trembled from her words. I
thought she was probably just some crazy prisoner of war or a
refugee from some third world country, but I didn’t want her
touching me or talking to me like I was the dangerous one.

My dad finally stopped his conversation as
both men rushed toward the woman.

Her slimy hands reached for my neck, those
long fingernails scraping against my throat.

“Must destroy the traitor,” she screeched.
Her fingers swirled like tentacles around my neck and suctioned
onto it like a vacuum.

I wanted to tell her that she must have made
a mistake. I was just Alex, not some traitor. I gasped for air, but
the more I struggled or tried to explain, the tighter her grip
became and I started to lose consciousness.

At least eight men ran in and tried to pull
her vice-like grip away from me, but they couldn’t move her while
she mumbled in some cryptic language. I thought I was going to die
right there. My life flashed before my eyes—my parents' divorce,
the birth of my half-brother, and even the Columbia recruiter
looking at me with those caterpillar eyebrows. I didn’t want to die
like this.