Memory Transcription Subject: Vili, Venlil Citizen

  Date: November 7th, 2136

  My nerves had been fried for the last hour or so, at least since I woke up from a bad dream to find Luka missing. My mind had been mired in every possible reason that he'd abandon me without so much as a farewell to go galavanting off into the world.

  I didn't understand. I hadn't even done anything wrong this time, except for pissing off Barsul. But Luka had assured me that that wasn't my fault. It had to be something I did, though. Right?

  I chewed at my trembling claws as I laid huddled between the cushions of the couch. Its pillowy grasp was like a room within a room, an escape from the outside wrapped in another. Still, this closure was only a temporary solution to stave off the wave of emotions that awaited me the moment I could accept the circumstances.

  The last I'd spoken with Luka, we were comparing the human movies we'd seen to our own favorites. As far as I knew, that was a harmless talk, though I did see his eyes sort of light up as he drifted into his own little world.

  I curled into a fetal position and let out a soft whimper. We were supposed to stick together.

  My belly growled but I wasn't going to satiate it until I'd settled on why Luka had gone missing.

  Maybe he went out for groceries. But we had done that just last paw and were satisfied with the amount we'd stocked up.

  He could've gone off to work. He was still in his mandatory recuperation from his operation, and no job would risk liability for letting an employee be injured during that time.

  Kidnapped. The city was teeming with predators, who were reputed as unseemly and dangerous folk if what the TV and classes taught me were true. But Luka was smarter than to even get near to a predator, surely.

  Finally, I decided it was time to check outside. I'd knocked on Hileen's door as my first step, but she wasn't home, and so I sulked back inside, too nervous to ask any of the others. Perhaps if he hadn't told someone, then he'd have at least been seen by someone. Like Carim, the crotchety old man from upstairs whose gums flapped like he enjoyed the taste of his own breath.

  I stood up and dragged myself over to the door, psyching myself up to go out and find my brother. He could've been in danger for all I knew and I was sitting here suckling on my claws while coddling my own feelings.

  Letting out a sigh, I flicked a claw on the handle to test if I was really ready to talk with everyone. Certain that Luka was still out there, I grasped the handle and twisted it.

  “Oh,” said Luka, standing outside with a paw stretched toward the handle. “Hi.”

  We shared a moment of silence as he glanced up at me in surprise, ears folded back in a display of shock. My tongue candidly danced with every word in the dictionary that I could use to berate him and my jowls clenched. Every fearful theory that had gripped my heart scattered as their rebuttal stood on the ground floor landing.

  My tail curled with great effort as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in for an embrace. My racing heart slowly calmed down as I held Luka's face against my scruff and stroked his face with still-trembling paws.

  “Nice to see you, too,” he mumbled. “Sorry about not telling you—”

  I clasped his face between my paws and jerked him in an upright pose for me to glare at him head-on. His ears perked up and I opened my mouth to berate him, but wound up simply pressing his face back against my shoulder with a gleeful purr.

  “Had me worried, you ass.”

  “Well, I had a bit of time before bed to think, y’know?”

  “Think?” I scoffed with a playful ear waggle. “You?”

  “Yes,” he sneered. “And I had some pretty wild thoughts, too.”

  He lifted his head away from my embrace and I tilted my head in anticipation. “And I suppose you're going to wait until I ask ‘like what’ to fill me in?”

  “Well, it'd be better to show you"- he broke free of my grasp and used an arm and his tail to signal toward the street curb -"since you wouldn't believe me otherwise.”

  Standing at the curb, mere feet away, my heart skipped a beat as I caught sight of the silhouette of a human. A predator.

  Their bald face was partly obscured by a long, shaggy mane that radiated from their scalp, and the large, drab pelts that covered their body barely hid their portly build. They leaned against some contraption that resembled a guard rail with wheels with their arms crossed.

  A paw grabbed at my wrist and I yanked it away on reflex, only to realize that it was Luka’s grip I had scorned. The human unfolded their arms and took a long step forward to meet us halfway.

  “Vili, this is Richard,” Luka explained to me. “He's my coworker, and the human who helped us out before.”

  I had no idea what he meant by that; I was certain I'd never met a predator in my life, least of all one this large.

  We were only a tail's length away from the predator as we stood in awkward silence. I gawked up at the predator. Even despite my height, the top of my head barely scaled to their chin.

  Their eyes darted around as I stared at them and they shifted their weight back and forth to each leg. “So, uh,” they began. “How's—”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  Both Luka and the predator did a double take.

  This is what my brother ran off without me to find? A predator wasn't capable of caring for him like me. They just couldn’t. The teachers at school, the doctors, leaders in the news, the neighborhood kid sucking on a particularly shiny rock he found; everybody knew better than to trust such treacherous beasts.

  Except my brother, apparently. The more I tried to fathom what his reasoning could be, the more I felt myself tremble all over..

  “Look, I'm not trying to pull anything with your brother, I just—”

  In one fluid motion, I yanked myself free of Luka's grasp and hammered the top of my head square into the predator's chest. It was like driving my head into a tree, but there came a gurgling sound followed by the beast reeling on the backfoot. There was something strangely satisfying about getting such a reaction, a feeling that felt fresh in my memory.

  “Fucking interloper,” I hissed. “He's my brother!”

  The predator held out an arm out while they clutched at their chest with the other, trying to catch a breath. “I'm not—”

  I felt claws grasp for my tail but I jerked it out of the way and dove in for another blow. Diving past their outstretched arm and with my paw clasped in a fist, my knuckles connected with their stomach. Once again, the predator was deceptively solid beneath their pudgy exterior but still recoiled as I landed another hit on their back before wrapping my arms around their waist in an attempt to tackle them.

  “Stop! Vili, stop!”

  Luka's pleas meant little to me at the moment - I wanted the predator to pay for my grievances. This animal represented everything people compared me to all my life, and now they were trying to take the last thing I cared about from me. I wasn't going to sit idly by and let that happen.

  But the claws on my feet weren't enough to pin the predator who planted their covered foot on the pavement as they pushed back. Their thin claws found their way around my wrists and I growled defiantly as I found my arms caught in the alien's iron grip.

  “Let's just… calm… down.”

  “Let go,” I growled.

  I tried backing away from the Terran's grasp but found that I wasn't even strong enough to pull myself free.

  “I'm not letting go until we all agree to just chill out,” it said through gritted teeth.

  Thrashing about in their grip, I placed one foot on their stomach and dug the claws into their flesh. Their nose wrinkled and lips pursed as I tried to use this as leverage to break myself free so that I could get one more blow in before it killed me.

  I felt paws gently grasp at my shoulder and I shuddered in anticipation of being tackled to the floor. Instead I felt Luka's grip slowly pull me back and I let my arms go slack. The alien relinquished its grip on me and I stepped back, panting for breath after such exertion.

  “You can get me back if you want, predator,” I hissed, “but drop the pleasant act.”

  The human's lips parted to speak, but instead looked to my brother with furrowed brows. I stepped to the side to put myself between him and the predator.

  “What the fuck is all this noise!”

  The three of us turned our attention to the upstairs apartment where we could all spot Carim storming out of his place to bleat at us. However, he paused upon spotting the predator.

  “Pred-”

  The human cut him off, barking back, “Yeah?”

  “Y-you two keep it distracted! I'm calling-... the-... I'm calling someone!”

  Luka and I turned back to the predator as Carim slammed his door shut. They held their hands out with the palms facing up and lightly twisted their head back and forth. “Well, consider me ‘distracted’,” they grumbled.

  “Come on, Richard,” Luka mumbled back. “Let's get you inside and see if there's any—”

  I hissed, “Are you crazy!”

  “And see if,” he continued with a dismissive tail flick. “There're any cuts on you. Our apartment came with a few emergency supplies and I think there's bruise cream in the kit.”

  I stood and watched while Luka enthusiastically guided Richard the human toward our door, which hung agape. He signaled for me to follow but I remained by the curbside.

  He signed a silent plea, to which I responded with the same dismissive tail flick he'd given me. He sagged as the human ducked through the door and he closed the door behind them without so much as a second glance.

  In a huff, I stormed down the street, frustrated at the audacity my brother had to beg for me to join him after taking the predator's side. It wasn't until I reached the crosswalk at the corner that I realized: I wasn't entirely certain where I was even going. I faced northwest, not only in the opposite direction of Luka, but toward home.

  A wet, whistling noise escaped my lips as I drew a breath through gritted teeth. My paws clasped into fists next to my head and I shook them like they contained the secret to my brother’s common sense within. They didn’t of course but there was a strange catharsis in draining all of my frustration into my claws and whipping tail that gave me some reprise from the desire to howl at the empty street.

  This wasn’t even the first time Luka’s stubbornness had left me feeling like this, but this sure took the prize of stupid decisions. A decision which put his life in danger, no less.

  I threw my head back and let out an exasperated sigh as it dawned on me that I was storming off in a huff while Luka had closed himself in our apartment with a human. What was I thinking, even considering leaving them unsupervised? Just as quickly as I had marched off, I found myself standing on the steps to our apartment.

  I rubbed my wrists where the human had grabbed them. There didn't feel to be any bruises, but the spot burned all the same. Their inescapable grasp brought unfortunate images to the forefront of my mind, and I flicked away the buzzing from my ear as I tried to forget them.

  With a lack of subtlety, I flicked the handle to the door and swung it open. Sat on the couch was the predator, their earth-colored pelt pulled up to reveal their flabby midsection while Luka pressed the spongy end of a tube against the reddened skin. The spot where my claws had mauled them was obvious, a display of three streaking lines down the side.

  Luka turned an eye to me as I glared at him. “He couldn't read the label,” he explained.

  Of course, I thought to myself, what use is literacy to a predator? They wanted to seek shelter on our planet without so much as trying to learn of our customs.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  With a scoff, I stepped aside away from the display and into the kitchen. I plucked a bundle of blackfruits from the hanging rack on the wall and placed them on the dicing board. I made sure I could be heard while rifling through the utensil drawer before producing a knife, waving it about as I returned to the table.

  Luka was too busy making sure the medication applied correctly while the predator's attention never left me after spotting the utensil. “Sorry about the rough welcome,” I said to them from across the room. “Can't be too careful from what we've been taught about predators.”

  I made no effort to add enthusiasm to my statement.

  “Yeah, we learned a lot about humans,” Luka concurred with an enthusiastic swish of the tail. “It’s all we heard about - the murder, abuse, and betrayal being so commonplace on Earth.”

  Chunk. One fruit came apart with ease as I sliced the husk in two, scraping the pulp onto the board and discarding the pith. The predator’s eyes flicked between Luka and I after listening to my brother’s statement, paying extra close attention to the knife I brandished from across the room.

  They hissed and I could catch them wince as Luka reapplied the tube to the spot where I'd landed my first punch. My brother flinched at the noise, but surprisingly got back to work without hesitation.

  “I thought you said this stuff was supposed to help with bruising?”

  “It's supposed to accelerate the bruising and healing cycle, Richard, it's not some miracle cure,” Luka chided them. “Says here that if your bruises were deeper, than it could make things worse.”

  “How comforting, then, that you know exactly how deeply these will go.”

  “Just hold still. Instructions say I need to hold it there for 30 seconds to make sure the area is saturated.”

  Chunk. Another fruit separated easily and I placed the two decadent pulps next to the last ones. “So is it true?” I butted in. “Do you kill children?”

  Luka shot a glance at me and signed a warning for me to not proceed. I promptly ignored him. The human rubbed the skin where my brother had applied the medicine, pressing a claw against the bluish-gray bruises where the medication had already begun to work.

  “I've never heard of someone killing a baby on Earth who didn't get what they deserved,” they responded. “Human… or otherwise.”

  I thought it better than to pry as to what they thought they “deserved” in case it was the predictably predatory response that they murdered in retaliation for murder. That’d be the exact kind of cycle that I’d believe many predators used to justify their way of life.

  The human lowered their pelt to cover their skin again and grumbled thanks to Luka.

  Chrk. The knife didn't cut all the way through the misshapen husk.

  Luka tossed the medication back into the box and wandered off to place the kit back behind the mirror. He shot me a silent, offhand demand to keep it copacetic, to which I gave a noncommittal “sure.”

  I resorted to using my claws to split the husk, only to find that the fruit was malformed inside. Most fruits of this kind had two pods that contained the pulp in a sour, sugary aril, but as I pried the fruit apart, I found that there was a third pod within - that’d normally be a bonus to celebrate, but I wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the luck.

  Taking the knife, I lazily partitioned the other two pieces onto the board before flipping the fruit over and sticking the tip of the knife into the backside of the last pod. I raised my vision to spot the predator watching closely and silently as I dragged the blade across the skin of the pod, splitting the husk and depositing the contents alongside the other pieces.

  In total, I had eight and a half pieces of fruit flesh laid out in wedges and I wiped the black juice from the blade before laying it on the table. The Terran laid one leg over their knee and leaned backwards, but their twiddling thumbs as they watched me was all the proof I needed that they were still mistrustful.

  I pinched a slice of the fruit between my claws and slurped it in one go. “So you're the human who got laid out by Barsul,” I called to them, making no effort to hide the disdain that hung in every word as I chowed on the tangy pulp.

  The predator let out a hissing noise as they drew in breath through their teeth and puffed their chest.

  “It was worth it, in the end,” they replied. “Everyone came out alright, and I didn't get shot.”

  Slurp.

  “Mhm. I remember you were awfully quick to start swinging, too.”

  “Yeah, well, it ain't like I was gonna talk to someone who was so worked up.”

  “And you weren't concerned that you'd give in to bloodlust and turn on everyone in the building.”

  The predator sat silent and I could see their brow twitching. The corners of their wide mouth twitched as they tried to pretend they were content leaning back on the couch.

  “So you'd have rather I let him-”

  Luka barged out of the washroom with a flourish, acting as though he had not heard anything between me and the Terran. “Okay! Now that the kit's sorted, why don't you try some of these?”

  He swiped the dicing board from beneath me and I mewled indignantly as he skipped over to the human with it. He held the tray out for them and the predator tepidly reached for a slice after glancing at me.

  “Thanks. What are these called?”

  “Blackfruit,” Luka tittered. “Wouldn't you believe it?”

  I quickly added, “These ones were grown here, since real ones from Nishtal are something of a fleeting commodity.”

  The predator's round face sagged as they stared down at the pulp heart they held in their claws. Luka had finally had enough and he glowered at me with ears raised. He whipped his tail in a motion meant to tell me to be silent, similar to a mother chiding her offspring. I felt a pit in my belly as guilt bubbled up; Luka didn’t communicate with me like this unless he was really upset.

  It was almost insulting, given the circumstances.

  “Don't worry about where it's grown,” my brother assured the human. “The taste is indistinguishable from the real thing. I loved these growing up.”

  Eyeing the delicate pulp, the human opened their lips in an “oh” motion and tried slurping the fruit in the same manner I had. I rolled my eyes, disparaging the notion that the predator would copy me.

  The fruit had no sooner touched their tongue than their face shriveled up and their entire body tensed. “Ou-ho-hough.”

  Luka recoiled as the human covered their mouth with their hand.

  “Sorry,” they said. “Wasn't expecting that. It's… pungent.”

  Luka tilted his head as he relaxed and popped a slice of his own into his mouth. “Really? I find it's kinda mild and creamy.”

  “It's the nose, feels like my nostrils are being assaulted by sewage and green apples and… root beer?” The Terran raised their head and rapidly blinked away the tears that had formed from their distress. “Fuck, feels like I just stepped into a Hot Topic.”

  Luka stood quietly for a moment while I licked the remaining juice from my chops. I hadn't the slightest clue what the alien was talking about, though my translator provided barebones explanations that assured me they weren't predatory items. On the surface.

  And what is a Hot Topic?

  A chattering slowly began to rise from Luka and I perked my ears up. The human took a moment from wiping their eyes to look up at him as well. My brother threw his head back and let out a hearty chuckle.

  “You should've seen your face! Like a salted qalcik!”

  The terran's face contorted as they looked up at the guffawing venlil. I wasn't sure what emotion they were conveying, but I was sure it was the same confusion I felt. Luka plopped himself back on the couch next to the human and placed the tray on the armrest as he choked down the rest of his cackling.

  “Right! Richard, why don't you tell Vili about your friends? Michael told me plenty about his own tribe, but why don't you tell us some about yours? I know you two apparently share heritage from the same continent.”

  “North America,” the Terran affirmed. “Though I'm not as huge on that whole thing as Mike is.”

  “Well, just give us the minimum explanation then! There has to be a reason so many of you gathered together after arriving here?”

  “Well, to explain that all would be to delve into Earth history I'm not sure I'm comfortable divulging,” the predator grumbled. “But alright, I'll give you the long of the short: yes, I come from the same continent as Mike, though from different regions. My ancestors, the Cherokee, lived in mountains on the Eastern end of the continent, and Mike's lived in arid regions to the Southwest, called the Navajo. Despite this separation in location, there's always been this prevailing sentiment of sticking together in the last couple of centuries, kinda like a longing for a home you never visited. In particular, those with closer blood relations to our roots have been getting a resurgence in attention, and it’s snowballed into a whole thing back home about being recognized as a separate entity on a federal level.”

  “You judge one another based on percentages of blood relation?” I scoffed. “Do you think there’s something special about where you come from?”

  The human raised a claw and opened their mouth to speak, but decided against entertaining my statement.

  “So, basically,” they continued. “You have all these people who find solidarity in our heritage, and we all wind up scattered across the planet's surface after the bombs fell. Martha - you've met her, Luka - decided that she'd use her connections from her time in the Exchange Program to set up a nice place away from the United Nations, who've kind of stiffed our tribes as much as any of its predecessors. We've tried many times since the unification of Earth to have the UN acknowledge our sovereignty, but their stance is absolute: humanity would be unified, at all costs.”

  “That's… admirable,” Luka responded. “And sounds kinda fucked up at the same time, the way you describe it.”

  “Yes, well we weren't the only groups to try it, we were just the loudest. The Great Plains Confederacy we called ourselves, owing to taking up a full third of the continent with the unified tribes’ territories. People everywhere, from Australia, to Siberia, to Central Africa, all demanded the same thing. Sorry, I forget you don't know what any of those places are, they're just very different places from where I grew up.”

  Luka offered the tray to the human while still watching with a dumbfounded look. The predator took a piece and cautiously inhaled it, making much less of a fuss this time around.

  “So you've got all these people mad about not being treated as sovereign entities by a world-spanning government, tensions are boiling over, and then boom: aliens. Fast forward to after recent events, we're all here when Ma posts a video on social media saying anyone who has lost faith in the UN and wants an escape from their grasp, to find her. I answered the call as well as a couple thousand others, and that number filters down to a few hundred who were actually dedicated enough to stick around despite the conditions. Funnily enough, only, like, a fraction of the people there are actually from the same groups as Mike and I. The rest come from all over the globe and simply responded to Martha's call to action.”

  Luka slowly sucked on the last piece of pulp as his ears fanned out in curiosity. His eye flicked over to me for a moment before returning attention to the alien. “Well, I'm glad to see that you guys have things sorted out,” he said. “But I'd really hate to keep you any longer than I have already. Michael said he'd stick around for a few hours before going back, so I'll let you get back to him.”

  Crow waved their arm as if to swat away the idea itself. “Oh, he won't make me bike all the way back home… probably. And look, I appreciate the hospitality you showed me, Luka. And…”

  They paused for a second and raised their hand up before placing it on his shoulder. Luka's ears perked up and he looked down at the arm in confusion.

  “Thanks. For coming to check in on me. Even though you could've probably seen me at our next shift together.”

  My sibling studied the Terran's arm placement with his ears stood at attention and the tip of his tail curled. There wasn't a sign of fear in his response, but rather of intrigue and curiosity as the alien grasped his shoulder.

  He asked, “Are you sick?”

  The human removed their hand from him and looked at their flesh. “What?”

  “You're burning up,” Luka explained. “Are you having a reaction to the medicine?”

  He turned to me and signaled “Is it possible?” I returned with a half-hearted “unlikely”.

  Despite my dismissive pose, I felt a twinge of giddiness that he had turned to me for advice on medicine and my tail swished under the table, out of sight.

  “I mean,” the alien said as they pressed the back of their palm against their forehead. “I feel fine. Little cold in here, but I'm not running a fever or anything. I think.”

  “Is that how you stay warm on Earth?” I asked while I stuffed the dicing board into the sink. “You must burn a good deal of calories if that's the case.”

  “Uh, well… I'm no anthropologist, but that sounds about right.”

  “And I assume that your natural bodily warmth wasn't enough. Is that why you wear mockup pelts of the animals you—”

  “Okay!” Luka cut in. “Well, Richard, I think it's time we got you on your way before we hold you up any longer!”

  The predator stood up and stretched their limbs out wide, letting out a sickening crackling sound as they twisted about. “Yeah, Mike'd probably would make me bike home just for giggles and shits.”

  “Right, and I'm glad we got to talk and you got to meet my sibling. See you at work?”

  “You know it.” They turned an eye to me and then back to Luka. “And don't be a stranger - our grounds are open to any visitors. Just be sure to… let people know.”

  Luka's ears folded back and the skin turned flush as he too flicked an eye toward me. “Yeah, I'll do that.”

  The predator stepped out into the open and we could hear as they stomped toward the street. I stepped from behind the table and stood next to Luka who looked up to me with an expression of shame. We glanced at each other for a moment in silence.

  “I'm sorry about-”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed his face against my shoulder.

  “Why would you do that! I was so worried when I woke up and you weren't there! What were you thinking?!”

  “Look, it sounded like a good idea at the time,” he gasped. “I won't try that again, promise.”

  I held his face out in my paws and brought my face close enough that our foreheads almost touched. “You promise promise?”

  “Didn't think there was any other mean—”

  His response was cut short when I wrapped my arms around his torso and lifted him up for a more enthusiastic embrace. My legs trembled as I realized that my brother, despite being no taller than my shoulders, compensated by being much denser than myself. He had always been stockier than the other kids in school, but I'd never expected that holding him like this would be like carrying a sack of concrete.

  I twirled about and Luka let out a worried mewl as I fell backwards onto the couch. He squirmed out of my grasp and worked himself into a sitting position to which I happily curled in a ball on his lap. He cackled and ruffled the tuft of fur on my head while my tail slapped against the seat in contentment.

  “I'm still mad at you,” I purred. “Don't you forget that.”

  Luka scoffed and grabbed the remote to put on a program again.

  “Sure, I'll be certain to lock up the electric trimmer before bedtime.”

  I gave him a good thrashing on the shoulder with my tail and he returned with a slap against my ankle, turning our little spat into a caudal sparring match. We giggled as we watched the program and settled in - I couldn't stay mad at Luka for too long, despite his obstinatism.

  Another hour passed as we sat there, quietly watching as our favorite shows played. I'd lost track of time as the next episode of The Exterminators went on autoplay, though I snapped back to the present when I heard the raucous rapport as Luka began to snore. Tilting my head up, I could see his head draped over the back of the couch with his jaw hanging slack as he continued to rev up like a gravlift engine.

  Even after all these years, he still refuses to tell me when he's tired.

  I knew I wouldn't be able to take him to our bunks gently; I was too scrawny to try that and would only wake him up in the process. I sat up and looked down at the only one who I could rely on for protection. He certainly seemed much less noble with a line of drool matting the fur at the corner of his mouth.

  Giving him an affectionate nuzzle on the cheek, I decided to let my brother rest and I stood up to go to bed myself. I wanted to lay with him and quell any doubt that he'd walk out again - maybe for good this time - but I determined that his word was as good as anything, and that he'd tell me if he was leaving.

  Before climbing the little ladder built into the flimsy frame, I set an alarm to wake me up in a claw. Though Luka left no room for doubt, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to make sure I was awake before him so that I could see him off to work.

  “I trust him,” I hissed to myself as I curled up on my pad. “He wouldn't leave without a good reason.”

  I groaned in anguish as I felt there was a little voice hidden in the back of my mind who felt otherwise. In the end, I knew I could not stop him, even if I was able to.