Chapter Three: X-RING Glasses

Jackson was ushered into a white room with blue stripes that was in the shape of a pyramid. It was the first time he had ever sat in a pyramid-shaped room, he reasoned. Almost every room he’d ever set foot in had four walls, one ceiling, and one floor. The only exception was the morning that he delivered a cup of coffee to the President of Earth in the Oval Office. She had ordered it with “cow’s milk”, eight sugars, and three drops of vanilla. That she had asked for the milk to be “cow’s milk” had always stood out to him, just like the shape of his current interrogation room. 

The guards sat him a chair that was surprisingly comfortable and he could not help but thank them as they took off his handcuffs. 

The two guards stood behind him for three minutes, wondering if they should offer him a drink. After twenty seconds each guard assumed that if it were appropriate to offer him a drink, surely the other guard would have by then, and so Jackson was not offered a drink.

Jackson, satisfied that his plan of doing nothing had been successful in some way, turned around slightly to view the guards. He had never encountered a Byzong in person before and, having encountered a good many in a short period of time, he allowed himself to marvel slightly at their appearance. Byzongs look like humans in every way except for the many ways in which they do not. They are generally muscular in nature, particularly in the calves and forearms. They have noses just one third the size of the average human, and their ears are a foot tall. Their feet, as it happens, are only a human ear long, but they make up for it with special-made metal boots that clunk and clonk as they walk. It is a point of great pride for a Byzong to have loud footsteps, and the Byzong with the loudest footsteps in the room is often considered the most important and well-respected. The competition makes social gatherings unbearably loud, and dance parties illegal.

Noticing him staring at them, the guards became uncomfortable, wondering if they were being judged for not having offered him a drink. Noticing instead their level of discomfort, Jackson turned back around, feeling uncomfortable with how he’d made his captors feel. So it was that all occupants in the pyramid room felt shame and discomfort but none for an appropriate reason. 

Jackson, who was now busying himself by looking around the pyramid room, saw that each of the three walls had exactly one door. The door he had come through was behind him. So, he was facing two doors, angled towards him from both his right and left. The left door opened first. 

As she entered, the footsteps of Inquisitor Slah were the loudest that Jackson had ever heard. He was more thankful than ever to not be handcuffed as he covered his ears. The guards, whose ears were much larger than Jackson’s, had little hope of covering their own, and would anyway not have risked the humiliation. Any indication that the Inquisitor’s boots were too loud for them would make it clear to any Byzong that they themselves do not have boots as loud as hers, and they do not often socialize with Byzongs with boots of her decibel level. 

Mercifully, Inquisitor Slah quickly made her way to the table in front of Jackson and sat down. She looked him up and down through a pair of sharp X-Ring Lie-Detector Glasses, designed to give the wearer the ability to see the truth of a statement as clear as the tiny nose on their face. 

“Wonderful posture. I am Inquisitor Slah. I imagine you have some questions. I will allow you three,” she said.

Jackson raised an eyebrow.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

The Inquisitor smirked. 

“You are here because we kidnapped you.”

“But, why did you kidnap me?” he asked. 

“Because we plan on taking all the water from Earth and you have information that we need.”

Jackson was shocked. He didn’t understand why anyone would want to steal something so important from his planet. So large. So liquid. He didn’t understand what he had to do with such a plan. But more importantly at that moment, he could not understand how something so bold and ambitious could be done. And unfortunately for him, it was that curiosity that informed his third question.

“How do you plan on doing that?!” he asked loudly.

“By using a Third Generation Macro-Electro-Bionic-Hydroxy-Gravitational Tube Ray,” she said confidently.

“But what’s a…” Jackson started to ask another question but the Inquisitor raised her finger in protest.

“Three questions. Three Answers, President Racha.” 

Jackson furrowed his brow.

“Did you just call me…”

The Inquisitor slammed her boot into the ground and Jackson covered his ears once more.

“Ah, ah, ah,” she reiterated. “No more questions.”

Jackson nodded slowly as he lowered his hands.

“Now it is my turn to ask the questions. We will have, an interview of sorts. I’m sure you’re used to those, being President of such a big important planet as Earth.” The Inquisitor let out a little chuckle at her comment. Jackson thought he could hear chuckles from the guards behind him but he couldn’t be sure with his ears still recovering from boots of such stature. 

But he had heard, distinctly, the word ‘interview’, and this set off an involuntary, psychosomatic, pituitary reaction in Jackson that he knew all too well. Sweat began to bead down the back of his neck.

“First question,” she started, “How are your oceans protected? Which oceans are easiest to steal, and which are most heavily defended?”

Jackson’s sweat began to bead on his freckled forehead. 

“I still don’t understand how an ocean can be stolen. We don’t have anything protecting them.”

Inquisitor Slah’s X-RING glasses zoomed in on a perfectly formed drop of sweat on Jackson’s forehead and logged it. It played Jackson’s answer back three times internally, using X-RING patented lie-detector technology, and noted his slightly shaky voice. These factors combined caused the rim of the glasses to flash orange, the interplanetary color of deceit. 

The Inquisitor narrowed her eyes. 

“You lie! So your oceans are well protected, then? No matter, we are prepared to destroy any defenses.”

“Destroy?” Jackson said with concern, trying hard not to say anything that would be considered a question.

“I think there is a misunderstanding. I am not an expert on any defenses at all! I’m just the Personal Assistant to the Non-Personal Assistant to the Executive Assistant to the President!”

Sweat ran down the sides of his face and the X-RING Glasses flashed orange again. 

“Lies! Fibs!” she shouted. Besides the excessively loud stomps that her position afforded her, calling out the fibs of fibbers was the Inquisitor’s favorite part of the job.

“I’m not fibbing! How can you not know what the President…” Jackson caught himself and corrected. “I would think, that if you planned on kidnapping a President, you would know what they looked like first.”

He nodded contentedly at his strategy.

Inquisitor Slah waved him off.

“We do not rely on such frivolous things as appearances. They can be changed easily. Instead we rely on names, which in Byzong culture, can never be changed.” 

“On Earth, names can be changed easily,” he retorted. The sweat stains had begun to seep through his light blue shirt, and the X-RING glasses once more happily tattled on him on for lying.

“I see by your lies that it is much the same in your culture,” she smiled. 

“But my name isn’t President Racha, it’s Jackson Fickle!” he said.

“Our spy has been on your staff for some time, tracking your whereabouts and gathering information. We knew that you would be passing by the Portus Black Hole at lunchtime today. So, he simply placed a tracker in your tuna fish sandwich…”

“Inside the sandwich…,” he whispered in thought.

“That’s right. And once we isolated your location, we simply harpooned your vessel and pulled you through to our location,” she said proudly. “It really couldn’t have gone better.”

The guards behind him smiled at each other.

Jackson sighed and put his head down. 

“I don’t think I was supposed to eat that sandwich,” he said.

The Inquisitor looked at him curiously. Her glasses scanned him feverishly but did not flash.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I thought it was meant for me. But now I’m thinking that I made a big mistake…”

“Go on,” she encouraged.

“The sandwich baggie had the initials ’T.F.’ on it, which must have stood for tuna fish. I thought it stood for my name.”

The Inquisitor scowled.

“You just claimed your name was Jackson Fickle.”

“It is. But my real name is Theodore Fickle. But I prefer my middle name… Jackson.”

The Inquisitor leaned back in her chair and let out a long breath.

“Ah, this changing names business again. I don’t need glasses to tell me that’s a fib.”

Before Jackson could say another word, an alarm went off inside the warship. The sound was a high-pitched rhythmic ringing and he couldn’t help but think that it sounded similar to a giant triangle being played by an aggressive percussionist. The guards looked at each other and then at the Inquisitor. 

The guards wondered if they should leave and see why the alarm was going off. But, since the other guard hadn’t moved, each guard assumed that they were doing the right thing by standing still. It was in this way the guards ignored the alarm and stared at the Inquisitor while the alarm rang loudly throughout the room. 

The Inquisitor was about to yell at one of them for not checking on the alarm (she was still deciding on which one to yell at), when a Byzong cadet opened the other door across from Jackson and ran over to the Inquisitor. 

“You have a very strong jawline. The Admiral would like to see you on the bridge,” he said, while standing at attention.

“You have exquisite taste in jawlines,” she complimented. “I’m in the middle of an interrogation! What do they want with me?”

“We received a signal from inside the Jaggidal Asteroid Belt. A Vlop cruiser is threatening to fire on us,” they answered. 

“The Vlops are our allies. Why would they want to fire on us?” Inquisitor Slah was not in the mood for a cadet prank. 

“That’s exactly what the Admiral asked!” he answered excitedly. “And they said they’ve had a really bad day and they’re just in the mood.”

The Inquisitor looked away in thought. “They are a temperamental bunch.” She turned back to the cadet. “But what does this have to do with me?? I’m an Inquisitor, not a Negotiator.”

“They said the only way they’ll consider not firing is if they speak to you.”

“Me?” she asked.

The cadet nodded. 

“But why me? I haven’t even spoken to a Vlop since UU of U,” she mused.

“No one knows,” he answered. “But the Admiral is freaking out and asked me to get you right away.” He leaned in to whisper. “We can’t seem to find their ship anywhere on our radar. It must be their most advanced vessel yet. Undetectable.”

The Inquisitor thought for a moment, then stood up. 

“We’re not finished,” she said to Jackson.

The cadet led her out of the room swiftly, and closed the door behind them. 

Jackson hardly had time to watch it close, when the other door across from him opened again. A young Byzong woman stepped in and pulled aside the Inquisitor’s chair. 

“What lovely scowls you have. My name is Tarza and I’m here to check on the prisoner’s health. Is this him?” she asked, pointing to Jackson.

“You’re very beautiful,” said one guard. “This is the Presidential prisoner,” he corrected proudly.

Tarza smiled. “Of course.”

She looked Jackson over with narrowed eyes, and made a “tsk” sound. 

“I don’t believe it! This prisoner…” she started. 

“Presidential prisoner,” the guard added again. 

“Presidential prisoner,” she corrected, “is clearly suffering from a Form C Phantom Level face rash!”

The guards came around to her side of the table and stared at Jackson intently.

“He is?” asked the guard. “I don’t see anything.”

“Of course you don’t! It’s a Phantom Level infection. Invisible to the naked eye, but has a very distinct feel.”

“But… you didn’t touch his face.” said the guard.

“Of course I didn’t! Do you know how contagious a Form C Phantom Level face rash is?!”

The two guards took one step back. 

“He needs to get to the medical station where we can properly treat him. He’ll need to isolate immediately. I’ll take him since I know the proper precautions, and you clearly don’t. Have you even sprayed yourself with nasal protection?” she asked, incredulous.

The guards quickly covered their noses with their hands.

“I knew it! You’re lucky your noses haven’t fallen off yet,” Tarza shouted as she helped Jackson up from his chair.

“We’ll be going now,” she said as she ushered Jackson towards the door she came from.

“But”, said one of the guards, through the hands covering his mouth. “The Inquisitor has more questions for him…”

Tarza pushed Jackson through the door, not stopping or turning around to address them. 

“She’ll just have to wait. He shouldn’t be around anyone for at least… 24… 48 hours!

The guards were not sure if they should allow their Presidential prisoner to leave the room or not. They were each fairly certain that the Inquisitor would be upset if she learned that he had left. However, they also assumed that if him leaving was truly a problem, then the other guard would have stopped them before they left. And since both of them believed this to be true, neither of them said a word. And this was how it came to be that the door shut with Tarza and Jackson on one side, and the guards on the other.