The Illegal

File AMO-U-9 ended up on my desk because Williams didn't want it.

Williams gets on my nerves. We all know a Williams: that person who has more pull at work than you do because he knows how to charm those above by gossiping about those below. We're peers, Williams and I, in every relevant, professional category: same degrees, same experience, same little stars for achievements and credentials. Our resumes are practically interchangeable.

That's why, when the people who really run the project look at us side by side and have to choose, the facts won't help them. They trust their instincts, their guts. That means they try to remember cases in which one party has impressed them while the other has not. That conjures a memory of Williams, buttering them up while denigtrating their rivals and their underlings. He's even memorized how they take their coffee and what they like best from the commissary, never mind his contacts with the black market.

He wins, the smug prick. I get AMO-U-9.

Most of the interviews we do with illegals are pointless, but the ones from off world can be dicey. They yield useful items on occasion, but there's a cost. Sometimes they tell you whatever they think you want to hear. Some of the translations are hilarious. No, I am not interested in a technology you have developed that will "make my genitals seem larger and more appealing than they actually are."

Some of them try to mess with your head, turn your coat and make you a useful idiot. They can be smooth. The translations are usually crystal clear, and rather alarming. The consensus among those who live elsewhere seems to be that we've only got a short time to shape up as a species before things get midnight dark around here. Climate alone, to hear them tell it, will be broken beyond repair before Williams gets that final, exquisite promotion. We call those ones "the prophets of doom."

AMO-U-9 is an anomaly. The subject is either silent, or comes up with these weird poems that baffle everybody on our floor and fascinate those who scheme above it. The higher ups are convinced there's something valuable in AMOU-9's weirdness. They've consulted the AI, and it agrees. Does that surprise anyone?

"What an interesting question!" Digital lickspittles.

"Let's delve into that together." Illusory intimacy.

Who do you think you're kidding? I just asked for a recipe for an excellent, grilled cheese sandwich that any idiot can make. The whole set of interesting things does not include that question. But the AI agrees.

So, I'm on my way to the interview Williams dodged. The bureaucrats and techs thin out as I descend the stairs. Security is tight. Lab coats and military uniforms are dominant in this area. There's an elevator that takes you down the rest of the way. An armed goon with a severe haircut and eerie walleyes comes along. How's his depth perception? Is he really a threat, once he pulls that pistol of his and lets fly?

The interviews take place through a PMMA screen with a communications panel on it that either of us can activate at will. Everything is translated spontaneously by the AI. Sometimes, that's a gamble. I've got an hour.

The lights come on in AMO-U-9's synthetic habitat. Whatever's in there is breathable and transparent, but it's not air as we know it. It's stunningly expensive to maintain, too, like the atmosphere on the upper floors where Williams fondles egos. The lights make AMO-U-9 look, well, moist. It's not a great look. The eyes, like those of most of the humanoid illegals from off world, are clear evidence that AMO-U-9 is not local.

Nothing human looks that way.

"Good afternoon." AMO-U-9 never replies to salutations, but like so much of what I say in official interviews, they're protocol.

"I wonder if you would like to talk with me today about a small number of topics that other interviewers have found challenging. Would you be comfortable with that?" AMO-U-9 presses a slightly slimy palm against the PMMA and just stares. Maybe that means yes, when it's at home?

"Prior interviewers have concluded that you are studying this planet and its indigenous flora and fauna, including human beings, for a sinister purpose. How comfortable are you with that conclusion?"

The eyes pin me like a professional wrestler. "Most of you mistake presence for absence. I did not come. I fled. This place was found. My craft said it might make a home. My craft is fallible. I have done the research."

The AI loves fucking clichés. I don't. Clichés reassure you that you know what's meant, just because you recognize what's being said. They ruin interviews.

"Please help me to understand what you mean when you say that you 'have done the research.' Many interviewers will make inferences based on that phrase that will not be productive."

The eyes let go of me and flit to the panel. AMO-U-9 touches a key on the panel that is supposed to signal a polite pause, the better to prevent a hasty, insecure twit from panicking and triggering an alarm.

Williams loves the alarm. He gets stuck or confused or frustrated and just pushes the alarm. Two weeks ago, an illegal was demanding to know the whereabouts of its young. It got ugly. Williams hit the alarm. Security scrambled.

This area was sealed for 72 hours. The ornery illegal has been deleted.

Williams told me about the whole thing over tacos (his choice; the tacos in the commissary are limp and bland) like he'd seen his son hit a home run in little league: "It changed color and everything, you know? Spines and shit came out of nowhere, like a rash. Most of them are just gross, you know? It's not politically correct, but sometimes I wish there was a sick bag under the panel."

He's slimy, so I know he sometimes throws something into conversation to assess my response. It's foolish to underestimate his intelligence. I've never done field work undercover, but I'm not an idiot.

Williams had one assignment undercover. I know, I know--that means our resumes aren't perfect clones. I did additional hours in xenobiology and comparative cultural analysis. So what?

Anyway, I think his cover is permanent. I just nod and smile, and hope he's not serious. I imagine injuring him with a limp taco, sure. I just keep my cool.

"Do not be offended. You all ache to be watched. It is easy to see what you are. I was leaving when found, brought here, kept. Many have come this way."

I see what they mean about the slightly cryptic, lyrical discursive mode, but it's easy to parse. The translation is always a strong, clumsy hand molding whatever has actually been uttered into a shape I can recognize, but I think it tracks. The AI beeps my earphone. "Twenty minutes of this interview have elapsed. Are you fit to continue?" I touch the appropriate key, and the AI falls silent.

I do not enjoy synthetic back seat driving.

"I see. Thank you for that response. The transcripts of prior interviews show that you have visited the same sites in a consistent pattern. They form a discernible rhombus on a topographical map of the planet, though you visited some nautically and some by flight. Do you recognize this pattern?" I touch a key, and the PMMA panel becomes opaque. An image of the earth, with AMO-U-9's favorite spots, and the trajectory of its accustomed travels, appears.

I can make out its eyes tracing the clean, geometrical lines around the map, several times over. The slick palm is on the panel. I wonder if some sort of tactile element is involved in reading for it. I make a note to do some research on braille before the next interview. I want coffee.

"This worries you?"

"Sites of geopolitical, strategic significance are located at each of the corners of the rhombus. Should that be dismissed as coincidental?" AMO-U-9 has no record of obstreperousness. Evasion is the preferred response to pressure, if the logs are accurate. Jenkins isn't a genius, but his notes are impeccable. I touch the key and things are transparent between us again.

"Patterns must be interpreted once they are recognized. You would probably recognize your mother's heartbeat if it filled this room. Your sites are located where things converge. Such locations are of interest to me. My conclusions settled in those places, then told me to leave." The eyes are practically climbing inside my head now.

I touch the polite pause key, then toggle my mic to address Burns at the hub.

"Burns? Please send an espresso and biscotti to 8-3 Foxtrot."

"Is it boring you?" Burns enjoys conversation for its own sake. They don't like that upstairs, so it tickles us both. We walk along the line with things hanging out, but we never step over.

"I hope it didn't notice when I nodded off. The mic still works, so I can't have drooled too much."

"Your work life balance needs work. Preston will be there soon."

Preston is the walleyed warrior/waiter. I signal the end of the polite pause.

"Would you be comfortable sharing your conclusions with me?"

Both palms on the panel, now. It is not an aggressive gesture. I want to describe it as coy. That won't appear in my log.

"There are three. The first is that you respond to trivial differences with primitive terror. The second is that you are content to treat your planet like a toilet if it guarantees your temporary comfort and pleasure. The third, which made my decision elementary, is that your love is always faulty." The palms descend. I feel accused.

"I cannot dispute your first premise. Before we consider the other two, may I ask you a question about one of your earlier remarks?'

I think it has a second, and perhaps a third, set of eyelids. There is an almost imperceptible flicker, like a seamlessly scrolling film hiccupping for a fraction of a second before the protagonist says a line. The eyes are sharper. They seem to glisten with famished curiosity.

Preston buzzes. I touch the key to indicate a pause and a second to frost the panel so AMO-U-9 can't hypnotize the lummox and command him to bash my head in with the blue, commissary tray I can picture in his paws. I touch the key to admit him.

"Is it messing with you?" He hands me the tray. The steam waving from the espresso is encouraging. He touches his weapon. I have a feeling he does that more often than he should. The commissary biscotti are basically chocolate drizzled drywall, but there's no shame in dunking.

I set up the tray and taste the espresso. I'm shocked that it does not suck. "No trouble so far. AMO-U-9's an eccentric, alright, but I can handle it." Preston seems to be looking the booth over for structural defects. With him looming over me, I can see a spot he missed shaving, just above his rather exaggerated Adam's apple.

"Did you hear that CVE-Y-6 tried to seduce Fink? They'll be scrubbing that panel for a week." He gives me a feral grin and one eye is waiting for a disgusted reaction. The other could be reading my panel for all I know.

"Rumors will damn us all." I smile and point at the glowing, blue digits on the session clock on my right. His cheap body spray is treating my uvula like a heavy bag. He has three, serpentine nose hairs dancing in his right nostril. "Thank you for your service."

He huffs and backs out. The door slides home. I touch the key to restore the panel.

"Your query?" AMO-U-9 is pacing. Feline smoothness like that, I have never had.

"You indicated that prior interviewers were mistaken. You reported that you fled your previous location and arrived here by accident. May I ask what you were fleeing?"

AMO-U-9 trills. Fink swears that he has a reliable way of translating nonverbal signs that seven or eight species of illegal routinely emit. I think Fink is full of it. The eyes find mine.

"Those who determine what will become of those like me recognized that fear begets obedience. They began to find threats everywhere, to encourage fear to metastasize. Eventually, recognizing their paranoia made many of us threats in their eyes. I would not have lived, had I stayed." The pacing resumes. It's not regimented--more languid, like it's having fun being bipedal in front of me.

"I'm embarrassed to say, that sounds familiar. Your craft told you that this planet might be a suitable waystation, is that right? How did your craft transmit that data? We recovered most of your craft. There are no instruments or communications equipment aboard that we could identify; just a seat and a screen."

The pacing ceases. AMO-U-9 crouches before the panel and trills.

"The craft is my sister. We have no need to hide from one another. Our thoughts are shared. Have you no one with whom to be that way?" I think there is pity in the eyes. I'm going to call my discomfort outrage.

"I'm fond of my cat. Why is our love faulty?"

AMO-U-9 cocks that clammy, spotted head and considers me for a moment, like a sausage hanging in a deli window. "You do not recognize that every meeting is a reunion with what you have lost. We will part soon." On cue, the AI confirms that there are twenty minutes left. I confirm my fitness to continue. I fight off the desire to tell the AI to file for an extension.

"We will. Is there something about time that we don't see? Your claim seems to run counter to my naive understanding of the relationship between past and present." I highlight "temporality" on the list of common themes in my log.

"When you read the record of our talk, won't it change your present then, our current future, despite being made of the echoes of lost voices?"

The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention. That may be profound, or insane. I'll ask the AI. It will admire the question.

"Would you be comfortable exploring these themes in our next interview?" I sip the espresso. The eyes could be envious.

"That might improve upon silence. I do not want to meet Williams again."

Odd. I was given this file before Williams could meet AMO-U-9 for the first time.

"Are you familiar with Williams?"

"Names are arbitrary. I have something to learn from the likes of him. I am tired of learning to dislike specific types. Parts of you tighten when you think of his traitorous lips. You come instead." AMO-U-9 touches a key that indicates that the dialogue is complete as far as the subject is concerned. I can override, but why would I?

This is a way I'd like to be again.