Hand in hand, Ty and Narissa approached the mall. As they did, Narissa stopped suddenly and went deathly still.
"What's wrong?" Ty asked worriedly. He didn't like it when the animated and charming creature went all serious. Because if she was concerned... what chance did he have?
"Your step brother is here with his girlfriend." She said, a slight smirk playing across her lips. "But I think there's something like me nearby. Might not be hostile, do you want to go take a look?"
"Oh, man." Ty put his head in his hand. "Sure."
"This way..." She pointed to the far mall door, and they began walking. After a while in tense silence, Narissa blinked as they saw a male in faded jeans and an olive hoodie, scruffy beard, smoke dangling from his mouth. Around them, everyday people continued on their way with no awareness.
"Him?" Ty whispered, his eyes widening as the man stared across the parking lot right at Ty. Narissa turned to Ty, smirking, and they approached the dirty sidewalk nearby.
The man simply stared back, taking a drag from his smoke, and exhaled slowly.
"Problem, kids?" He said in a tough voice.
"We have no problem with you, Zetan." Narissa said cautiously. "Only curious."
The man pulled up his hood and glanced from side to side. He blinked, and Ty took a startled step back as he saw for a moment the man's eyes turn pure glassy black.
"You're with odd company." The man nodded to Ty. "You know what she is, right?"
"I... do." Ty said carefully.
"She's not supposed to be here." He said cautiously. "Did she tell you that?"
"She did." Ty responded, nodding slightly. "I gave her permission."
The man seemed to furrow his brow in confusion or concentration and flicked away his spent cigarette butt. "All right, then." He said in annoyance, staring at Ty and then back at Narissa. "I don't want to bring the law down on myself for whatever game you're playing here, scales, so I'm just gonna go."
Narissa waited until the man walked by her side and deftly grabbed his hand. For a moment, her eyes flickered to their actual yellow slits, and she raised her eyebrow. "You Alliance?"
"No." The man said solemnly, softly as not to be heard. "I'm by myself. Just trying to earn a living. Don't need anything messing that up for me."
"Good." Narissa said. "I don't want any trouble, either. Maybe I just want to teach him."
The man paused, stared at Ty again, and his hard exterior seemed to soften to the boy. "How did you grant her passage, son?"
Ty looked at Narissa nervously and she nodded gently. "It's all right. He's not an enemy."
"She contacted me." Ty recalled. "We... bonded? She asked me to let her come over to my side. So I did."
At this, the man glanced around even more nervously and motioned to the doors of the mall. The trio walked inside and sat on a bench overlooking the downstairs mezzinine through a glass railing, where very little foot traffic was going. The man addressed Ty again, his voice a nearly inaudible whisper lest any normal humans hear. "All right, so you've got a gift." He said. "But there's a law against that. You can't just let lower density beings over to this side."
The colour drained from Ty's face as he comprehended the gravity of what this weird man was saying to him, but it was oddly informative and without malice.
"Neither of you did anything wrong. She's all right." The man pointed to Narissa, while at the same time reassuring Ty, who was patient and silent as he spoke. "If she bonded to you there must have been a good reason. I'm just letting you know, this can't happen on a regular basis or you'll fuck it up for the rest of us."
"All right." Ty nodded.
"I appreciate that." Narissa whispered genuinely.
"And you..." The man turned to Narissa and shook his head. "You look ridiculous that way, scales."
"It was easier for him." She shrugged.
"You want to talk, then change into something that's more you."
Ty stared at Narissa in confusion and in a blink she had changed from the young girl to a tall and statuesque woman of 6'2", a foot below her normal height, possibly in her 30's, well toned and dressed in all black. Her face had become sharp and angular, more prominantly suggesting the reptile hidden within, and her black trimmed eyes seemed to somehow project don't fuck with me now.
"There we are. Easier for you, you mean." The man chuckled derisively. He turned back to Ty and stuck out his thumb towards Narissa. "You gotta watch the lizards, kid. They play with your mind. Even the ones that don't want to rip your throat out."
Ty stared in astonishment at the suddenly and unquestionably more intimidating Narissa. She looked like a punk or a street tough, one of the two, and seemed to almost compliment the man sitting with them.
"Will you show him?" Narissa asked. "I'm teaching him about the real world."
The man stared at Ty, smirking, and for the first time Ty caught a hint that there was actually a nice guy in there, whatever he was. "Yeah... okay. I get it. You want him to see what else is out there, right?"
"Exactly." She nodded.
"Yeah, okay. Just once." The man nodded back. He turned back to Ty and rose from the bench with Narissa. Ty followed closely until the two were standing very suspiciously in a hallway that lead to the offices. There was nobody around. Ty looked around nervously and then dodged into the hall, where Narissa proceeded to touch a number pad on another nearby door, which beeped strangely and then unlocked.
"In here, Ty." Narissa pointed. The three of them entered a darkened office and shut the door behind them. In her new form, Ty felt distinctly intimidated by her, and realized what the man had meant about mind games. Narissa had changed her form to something Ty could feel comfortable with. It didn't really change anything, but he would need to talk to her about it after whatever this was. Narissa caught Ty's eye, indicating she heard his thought, and nodded.
"All right, kid." The man said, standing in the corner of the room. "You heard her call me Zetan, right?"
"Yes." Ty said, his attention suddenly focused entirely on the man, who lowered his hood and took a breath.
"My family is from Zeta Reticuli." He explained calmly. "We come from a line of people that has a lot of history with your planet, some of it good, some of it shitty." He must have caught Ty's sudden realization like Narissa seemed to be able to do, because he shook his head. "No, I'm not a grey. Do you want to see?"
Ty nodded gently, falling back to Narissa's side for reassurance, and like she did, the man blinked into another form, still dressed in the clothing from before but now a clearly inhuman white alien, with a large head, huge black eyes, a slim mouth, and only the tiniest slits for a flat nose. He stood slightly taller, with longer arms and legs, and his body had thinned to a slim torso disproportionate to his head. Ty stared in astonishment and found himself completely without fear.
"We're known on the books as tall whites." He said, his voice having changed to a calm almost emotionless state. "There's a lot more of us in Canada."
"What do you do here?" Ty asked, genuinely interested.
The alien's small mouth pulled into a smile. "You're not even the least bit scared, are you, child? That's quite remarkable." His huge black eyes blinked, a momentarily lid of white covering them. "We are here to watch things. Keep an eye on everything. We integrate into your society and report to others what we find."
"So you're... impartial observers?" Ty asked.
"That would be correct." The creature nodded. "Some of us get involved, most of us generally don't." He crossed his long arms over each other and stared at Narissa, long white fingers tapping his hoodie almost impatiently. "I want to see her for what she is."
"Very well." Narissa nodded, Ty stepping aside suddenly as she blinked back to full reptilian Narissa, her head brushing the ceiling slightly, forcing her to slouch.
"Well, now." The man said evenly, somewhat surprised. "A Capellian saurian. Maybe I'm losing my touch, you felt Terran."
"I'm not native." She shook her head.
At this, Ty had many more questions, which both Narissa and their new aqquaintance seemed to pick up on immediately.
"You haven't told him much, have you?" The alien shook his head slowly. "But you ask him to fight your war."
"I didn't want to overload him." Narissa hissed, betraying the first hint of annoyance Ty had seen.
"He seems to be doing just fine." The white alien said pointedly. "You're the one who drew him in by making contact. So isn't it your responsibility?"
"Excuse me." Ty said softly. "As much as I'd like to continue this conversation, what if somebody finds you two in here without your disguises?"
The tall white alien and Narissa the lizard stared at each other for a moment, and both simultaneously stifled a laugh.
"When the human is smarter than us." The white alien said, walking over and gently taking Ty's hand. Unlike Narissa, his flesh was warm and perfectly smooth.
Ty smiled in amazement. "So... what is your name, anyway?"
"Eh." The alien shrugged. "Just call me Jake, it'll be eaiser."
* * *
Having resumed both of their human forms, the alien and the interdimensional lizard were now seated with Ty in a crowded and noisy food court. Ty had a Cow Barn milkshake in front of him, while the other two had decided on burritos. Now this was even more surreal, with Ty seated beside and in front no less than two disguised inhuman creatures.
"All right." Jake said, scratching his scruffy beard. "So this isn't even the beggining or the end of this, kid."
"Disguised aliens, extradimensional beings, and non-human Earth natives are much more common than you think." Narissa added.
"We usually don't call each other out like this in public." Jake said, taking a bite from his wrap and licking sour cream off the corner of his mouth. "Because who the hell knows what I could have been, who I could have been aligned with, and whether or not I was going to blow your cover. Or you mine."
"I had a good feeling." Narissa admitted, shrugging as she slurped watered down pop.
"Can we get back to the part where you're now some kind of biker bitch?" Ty stared at Narissa.
Both Jake and Narissa laughed out loud before the lizard set down her pop. "I never said I had to be the girl. I can project anything I want. I just figured you'd like her more."
"But, see, she chose something she knew you'd feel at ease with." Jake began, giving Narissa an accusing look. "I have a problem with that. Because maybe she got close to you without your consent."
"I think he wanted me to." Narissa smirked, catching Ty's blush.
"What?" Jake stared, his eyes widened in shock as he saw Ty's shame, and he looked down at his burrito while waving the whole thing away. "Shit, I don't want to know. Never mind, then. Haven't seen that one for a really long time."
"Egypt." Narissa said, noisily slurping the last of her pop down.
Jake nodded knowingly. "Yeah, that'd be right."
"So there's, uh, non-humans that were born here?" Ty asked.
"Oh, the native thing!" Jake raised his head. "Yeah, it goes way back. They mostly live underground or in the inner Earth where you wouldn't see them. But they're definitely from here."
"That's awesome!" Ty beamed. Again his face fell when it sunk in. So there IS an inner earth? The earth is hollow?
"Uhhh..." Narissa said nervously, seeing Jake's wince. "No, not quite. Because there's a bunch of them that claim they own the planet and want to use that as a legal reason to exterminate humanity."
"Lizards?" Ty whispered.
Jake nodded very slowly, sarcastically. "Yeah. 'Native Terrans' he said mockingly." Before seeing Ty's confusion and smiling warmly through a final bite of burrito. "By the way, Ty, your Earth is actually called Terra. And not hollow, it's a pocket dimension in the higher fourth density. Most planets have them."
"Yeah, that's the simple explanation." Narissa threw down her garbage on her tray and rose.
Jake leaned in suddenly. "You have a phone, Ty?"
"Uh... no." Ty said in embarassment.
"You do now." Jake reached under the table and produced a new jPhone from his pocket, sliding it across the table. "My number is in there. If there's ever anything you need, or want to talk about, or if your lizard friend gets you into trouble, you call that first, okay?"
Ty blinked at the gesture, and the gift, and almost started crying. "T-Thank you, Jake. I will."
"Good kid." Jake ruffled Ty's hair, and stood up to leave, bumping Narissa on the way by and earning a low growl from her.
"Well." The lizard sat down across from Ty, staring at him sweetly. "I expect you have a million questions."
"No, I think I'm okay." Ty admitted. "That was all pretty straightforward."
"Do you like the new look?" Narissa blushed slightly.
"Can you change anything?" Ty stared at Narissa's long dark hair and her almost goth makeup.
"Not even close. It always has to be based off my actual self, so it'll always be an approximation of what I really am. I can't project a larger form than my actual self, for instance, or play another gender. So I'll always, at most, be a tall female. I also can't displace a really small amount of matter either, so I can't be small unless I actually project myself to be a younger age."
"How about your face? Can you impersonate people?" Ty leaned in, curious, as he finished his half melted milkshake at last.
"No, no." Narissa shook her head. "I can't copy anything that already exists, because what I'm doing is projecting my soul in a physical form. If I tried to copy somebody it would fail miserably because that person already has their own soul. So I have to come up with something that is basically my normal self but human."
"Ah." Ty nodded. "You remember when I wanted to give you bigger boobs?"
Narissa cocked her head to the side, sighed heavily, and parted her jacket just enough for Ty to see her small chest. "These. Are not going to be any bigger no matter what shape or species I am. I'm sorry."
Ty started laughing uncontrollably. "Well, you did say you weren't perfect, right?"
Ty motioned and Narissa smiled in a 'what a dumb boy' way, shaking her head. "Okay, anyway. I just thought you should know Dustin and his girlfriend are actually at the other end of the food court."
Ty turned suddenly, and grinned as he caught a glimpse of the back of Dustin's head. "Should we go torment them?"
"Oh yeah." Narissa nodded.