The Earth Job - Electric Dreams Contest #12

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The Earth Job

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The town of Ambley was quiet. It was the middle of a Monday afternoon, children in school and parents in work.

One child was not at school today, feigning an illness her mother was too preoccupied to confirm.

Talia sat on the living room floor, colouring in a picture from a cheap colouring book. An assortment of felt tip pens spilled across the floor.

Her mum was at the shops, she said she wouldn't be gone long.

Knock. Knock.

Talia heard someone knocking on the front door. She had always been told not to open the door by herself. But pesky rules tended not to stop her. She hopped up from the floor and ran to the door. She pushed down on the handle swinging the door open.

Stood on the driveway was a cow, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase in its mouth.

Talia screamed and slammed the door shut; she scrambled to put the bolt across.

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Behind a hedge Roman roared with laughter, tears falling from his eyes.

“A cow!“ he spluttered between breaths.

The cow transformed into a humanoid woman and walked over to the hedge, a tall spear appeared in her hand and she jabbed through the hedge towards the laughing man.

The unexpected force made Roman fall backwards, still laughing he didn't take much notice.

“That was your best one yet Chase.”

“Thank you, I do believe I'm getting the hang of this.”

Chase walked around to meet him as he stood up.

“Where to next?”

She looked up and down the street, examining the houses for occupants, she picked out a house that they hadn't tried yet.

Roman walked over to the house with his usual flair of confidence.

Chase watched from a distance, obscuring her outward appearance. She hadn't liked Roman at first, but he had an interesting idea of fun. She dwelled on their main objective for coming to earth, but the thought passed as she refocused on Roman’s new appearance.

Roman had transformed into a penguin, wearing a bobble hat. His briefcase now a belt bag around his waist. He pecked on the door and waddled around waiting for someone to answer.

Chase giggled at his amusing walk. She watched as someone opened the door and looked up and down the street, not noticing the penguin at their feet. To her horror, Roman snuck inside the house while the occupant was looking around.

They were never supposed to enter a human’s home uninvited. It was in the codex.

The door was closed with the penguin-shaped Roman still inside.

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Talia ran upstairs to her bedroom, hers being at the front of the house. She climbed on top of her dressing table and looked out through the window. There was no one in the street, not even a neighbors cat.

She steadied her breathing. Her mum would be home soon. She decided the cow hadn’t been real.

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Chase stood fixed in the spot she had been in when Roman entered the house. It was now dark out and a drizzle had settled in the atmosphere.

She checked her communications screen again, no messages. It hadn’t changed all day.

She didn’t know the protocol for something like this, she chided herself for letting a little fun turn into a disaster. She had known Roman’s reputation when she was partnered with him, but this was beyond even her limits.

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“Where are my fluffy green slippers!”

Talia peered into the living room. Her mum was ransacking the place looking for her favourite slippers.

Talia watched her mum warily for fear of being blamed for touching something that wasn’t hers, she was already in enough trouble for leaving her pens on the floor.

After steadily searching the women stopped and looked at her daughter with frustration.

Talia decided to get out of her mums way and walked out of the house. She zipped up her jacket on the doorstep, peering around the hedges to check if the cow was still there. Once she knew it was clear of animals of any kind she put her hands in her jacket pocket, surprised to find her mums old music device still there.

She started walking down the street, unwinding the earphones as she went. Before she could press play for the music she heard a women scream. Talia stood still, her heart rate increased and her senses flooded her mind with only one action: run. She turned around slowly looking down the street.

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Chase maintained her focus on the house even though her stomach was aching from a lack of food and her body was aching from remaining still all day. A young girl walked past her position, not noticing her at all.

She reflexively screamed as Roman materialised next to her and immediately started laughing.

Chase started hitting every part of him that was available to her.

He explained how he had hidden in the house as an insect, watching the occupants. He discussed all that he had learnt about the humans. When an opportunity had presented itself to leave the house, he took it, to find Chase still stood waiting for him. He had waited till he had gotten close enough to her to transform in order to scare her.

She was not impressed.

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Talia stood watching the exchange between the two adults on her neighbours front garden.

They weren't speaking in English. They weren't speaking in any human-made language.

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Chase noticed the child first. She was wearing clothes that were too big for her and she had cables running from her ears, that wasn’t what unnerved Chase, it was the look on the girls face. She had overheard them talking in their native language, which sounded nothing like any human or animal language on this planet.

Roman transformed into a dog, only he miscalculated the variety and ended up as a King Charles Spaniel.

Talia’s mouth dropped open at the transformation, but the small dog didn’t frighten her away as intended.

“Go home child, you saw nothing this night”

Talia wasn’t convinced.

“You’re the cow.”

Roman transformed back into a human, realising his scare tactic hadn’t worked. He started laughing again at the mention of Chase being a cow.

Chase was not impressed with Roman. She eyed the girl warily, she was certain the girl hadn’t seen her transform back, yet she somehow knew it had been her.

“How do you know that?”

Talia shrugged.

“You look the same, like he looked like the dog.”

She motioned to roman with her head.

Chase was starting to feel out of her depth, the job was supposed to be simple, come to earth, sell timeshares, return home.

Roman was also struck dumb by the girls proclamation at being able to recognise them even when they were transformed. He had never heard of such a thing happening before.

“I say we take her with us.”

Now it was Chase’s turn to laugh, she stopped abruptly when she realised Roman was being serious.

“We can’t take her with us, she’s a human, and we have a mandate. We would never live it down at work.”

Roman just grinned at her.

“I’ve done worse things than kidnap a child.”

This is my entry to @tygertyger’s Electric Dreams Contest.

Find out about it here.

Image from Pixabay

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