The Chee Chronicles: Prologue: Marco

My name is Marco.

You've definitely heard me say that I'm magnificent, marvelous, etc, etc.

But I'm not magnificent, marvelous or any such thing in history. In history, I'm downright bad.

This was not a good thing. Not a good thing at all. I had a major test coming up, and since my teacher is probably controlled by an evil alien slug (no joke), the test covered everything from Ancient Mesopotamia to World War Two.

Or maybe that's just because it was the semester's final exam...

Nah.

If you want the deal on the whole alien slug thing, head to your local bookstore and pick up a book with the creepy kids turning into animals on the cover. I don't have time to explain.

I figured if I was going to have a prayer of passing this test, I should study. And who better to study with than an android who lived through what you were studying? So I headed to Erek King's house.

Erek King is the aforementioned android. I'm not sure how old he is, but I know he helped build some of Egypt's pyramids. He's an example of highly advanced alien technology. Namely, an example of the highly advanced technology of the Pemalites. But after they were wiped out, he and some of his android friends settled on Earth.

Amazing, huh? They're called 'Chee.' It's a Pemalite word that means 'friend.' The Chee use holograms to give off the image of being perfectly normal human beings. They project an image of a child, and through the years, slowly age the hologram. Then that persona is allowed to 'die' and they start over again. They've been doing this for thousands of years, and they've never been caught.

Well, not until I turned into a dog and realized Erek didn't have a scent...

Anyway. I dashed up the front steps to the King house and rang the bell. As usual, I didn't have to wait long for Mr. King to open the door.

"Hello, Marco. Come on in."

I complied, and the Kings' dogs, a labrador and a terrier, came racing at me, yapping like mad.

"Calm down, Lucky! And you, Marron! Quit trying to bite Marco!" Mr. King scolded. But it didn't really sound like scolding. Mr. King is just too nice to really scold.

I managed to pry Marron's (the terrier) jaws from my shoe. I let her and Lucky sniff me. Satisfied that I was no threat, the two dogs went back to doing whatever dogs do when humans (or androids) aren't looking.

"Sorry about those two," Mr. King said. "They're just so energetic these days. We've been too busy to walk or play with them lately." He sounded guilty. Extremely guilty.

I smiled. "No big deal. My stepmom's toy poodle is just like that. My shoes will never be the same."

Mr. King frowned. "We dislike poodles. Even if they are dogs, we don't think they have any of the Pemalites in them. Too yappy. Too mean."

"So it doesn't bother you that I tend to refer to it as 'Satan with a perm,' does it?"

Mr. King chuckled a little. "Not at all." His face grew a little more serious. "I'm guessing you came to see Erek?"

"Yeah, but not for the reason you'd assume. I have a history exam coming up and I'm totally unprepared."

"Well, you may have to wait awhile. Erek isn't home yet. He should be, he usually is, but he isn't." Mr. King shook his head. "I think Erek's having a bad day," Mr. King said. "You aren't in danger, of course, but he's being more sarcastic than usual."

And that is the difference between Erek and his dad. Or Erek and any other Chee I've met. Mr. King is always insanely, inhumanly, ungodly nice. Nice enough to drive you insane. Come-join-the-Sharing-it's-cool nice.

Erek's a little different. Don't get me wrong, Erek is very kind and friendly. He's a great guy. He's saved my life at least twice. But Erek seems a little more human than the other Chee. I've seen him hopeful, angry, depressed, wistful... He has a decent sense of humor (always a plus in my book), even. He has a personality. I usually have to remind myself that he's an android, because he's always quick to make a semi-sarcastic remark. I really had to kick myself into remembering what he was after he witheld information from us once. Information that would make us doubt what we were about to do. He did it because of a massive grudge he held against our enemy.

It was a very human thing to do.

I was musing over this when the I heard the dogs barking. Moments later, Erek walked in, looking as depressed as I've ever seen him.

And I saw him after he killed maybe a hundred people. I've seen Erek pretty damn depressed.

As soon as he saw me, his face instantly became surprised, then sort of warm. Not the usual friendly, I-wouldn't-harm-a-fly Erek warm. Not even close. But hey. He tried.

I don't know how long Erek's been pretending to be a human. I don't know if it takes any effort for him to project his emotions onto his face. But he tends to turn his hologram off when he starts getting too emotional, so...

"Marco. What's up?"

Casual. Cool. Nothing wrong with me, Marco, I'm as happy as clam.

Yeah. Sure. Right.

"Not much."

"Oh?"

I sighed. Might as well get to business. "Um, you remember our old Social Studies teacher, Ms. Paloma?"

Erek used to go to my school. We had the same Social Studies class almost every year. Plus we'd been in the same class in kindergarten, third grade and fourth grade. So we kind of knew each other, but we'd never been great friends. Sometimes we said "hi" to each other in the halls, and he helped me learn my seven times tables, but that's about it.

"What about her?" Erek was definitely cooler than usual. Not at all himself.

"We-ell, we're having an exam and..."

"You're gonna bomb it?" Erek finished.

"Like Pearl Harbor." I paused. "That WAS bombed, right?"

"Yeah," Erek said. "That's a good start. Now who bombed it?"

"The Germans?"

Erek groaned. "So close, but so, so far. Come on, upstairs, let's go."

I followed Erek up to his room. I'd only ever been in the Kings' living room and the park under their basement (don't ask).

Erek's room was surprisingly normal. Bed with plain blue sheets, desk and chair scattered with Batman comics and sheet music, book case filled with books like Treasure Island and Harry Potter, stereo, walls covered with posters saying things like "Elvis Lives" and "Save the Whales" and "Let's Go Magic."

"Sit. Get out your textbooks. Now."

I did as he said, remembering Mr. King's warnings. But I couldn't help a quick jab... "What, were you a teacher in a past life?"

He looked at me. "Several, actually. I like teaching. I was Abraham Lincoln's schoolmaster for a short time. Show me what the test is on." I turned to the page, and gave him the book. He immediately began quizzing me.

"What was the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo?"

"Um."

"What does 'Mesopotamia' mean?"

"Er."

"Marco, what started the Civil War?"

"Can I use the fifty-fifty?"

Erek groaned. "Marco, we have a looooong way to go." He pulled a book off his shelf.

"Might as well begin at the beginning." He opened up to a map of Eurasia. "Mesopotamia is right here, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers." He pointed it out to me. "It is the location of the very birth of human civilization. Mesopotamia actually means 'between two rivers.'"

"Very clever."

"Isn't it? People settled here because the rivers made it easier to grow food. The river also provided clay. Mesopotamians wrote on wet slabs of clay. Then, they would wait for the writing to dry. When it did, they would wrap it in more clay to seal it."

"Like an envelope?" I asked.

He nodded. "Exactly."

We went on like that for awhile. But more and more, Erek seemed distracted. Off in another world. I had to draw him back to reality a few times.

After about the fifth time, I asked him what was wrong. He just sort of stared for a moment, blinked and asked me to please repeat myself. I did. Luckily, Erek was listening this time.

"It's nothing. Forget it. You wouldn't understand."

He's right, I probably wouldn't. I'm not Cassie, you know? I can't listen to someone spill their guts and then analyze it and find the solution. Get somebody to spill their plans for world domination and sure, I can analyze it, and often figure out a way to stop it. Give me the ulterior motive of some Visser and I can probably tell you what he's going to do and how. But figuring how to stop someone's depression? Forget it.

Like I said, Erek and I aren't best friends. Far from it. Erek has been alive for thousands of years. To him, a century is as much as a week. Kind of long, and it can seem longer, but no big deal. You'll have plenty more of them. And by the time another century passes, Erek probably won't even remember my name. He's probably known millions of teenage boys like me, and outlived them all by millennia. And he'll outlive me (by far, considering my lifestyle) and go on to know millions of others. I'm no big obstacle in his life. Like some guy you meet at a restaurant or in the check-out line, and chat with for a few minutes. Couple days later, and you forget he ever even existed.

But Erek saved my life. My heart stopped. I had been beaten and sliced so badly that my poor ol' heart just gave out. I was clinically dead. Any doctor would have taken one look at me and said you might as well dig a grave. Erek had generated enough electricity to jumpstart my heart and get me going. He'd covered for me when I was lost in the freezing cold Arctic, on the Hork-Bajir home world, under the ocean getting killed and stuffed by blue meanies, he'd hidden us from Howlers on the Iskoort world, and saved us from Visser Three and the Drode on the Pemalite ship.

And he was at my mother's funeral.

I had to give it a shot.

"Look man, why don't you tell me what's up? Get it off your chest."

Erek chuckled bitterly. "Sure, talking with some kid who can only look forward to living about seventy years is going to help." His eyes were hollow. "Marco, if I thought talking would help my situation, I would have done so a long time ago. But no one understands. No one else is as emotionally complex as I am." Another bitter laugh. "I'm the perfect machine, you see. Because I'm not like a machine at all."

Well. Gee. "So don't talk to a machine. Talk to someone else," I suggested. "Want me to go call Cassie?"

Erek sighed and stood up. "Cassie is a good girl. But she's just a girl. Perfectly normal, with a perfect family. Even with the war, I think there are things she doesn't understand." He looked out the window. "Like loss. The loss of the person you care for above all others."

"Jake's died."

Erek waved a dismissive hand. "And came right back to life, did he not? I mean permanent loss. Loss that will plague you until you die." Erek shook his head. "Even with the best of intentions, all she can offer is pity. And I hate that."

I knew the feeling. When my mother died, everyone said to talk to them. And I did. And I got all this pity. It was awful. Like being smothered, almost. It was like there was something wrong with me. I mean, isn't that why you pity someone?

My mother is either dead or waiting to die. I either killed her or condemned her. The Yeerk in her head, Visser One, was not in the Yeerk High Council's good graces last time I checked. And their idea of an easy punishment is a quick death.

I mentioned this to Erek. I knew loss, firsthand. And I would offer no sympathy. I don't take it and I don't give it. "So try me. Just try me."

Erek smiled grimly. Not bitter anymore. Just grim. "Okay, Marco," he said. His voice had a sarcastic tone. "I'll try you. See, this is the time of year we first landed on Earth. Not that it started then, it began very long before that, but it still puts me into the mind of how my world died..."