Earth Girls AREN'T Easy

"So exactly when is the easy part going to kick in, Grentinick?" I all but shouted at the gelatinous form beside me. "I swear by all twelve of your eyes, if they come after me with any kind of probe, I will help them find the correct orifice on you to use." This latest statement made my travel buddy slink further into the corner.

"Look the travel brochure, it said that all earth girls are easy." Grentinick said flinging all six of his tentacles, one of which contained a flyer from a travel agent on our home planet of Brumblenre 10.

"I never should have let you talk me into this." I fumed at him as I closed the distance between us and grabbed the paper form from his tentacle. "As I look at these images now, I can tell that these things are photo-shopped to look more provocative!" The flyer suddenly unfolded revealing several almost completely nude females in very compromising positions. In large letters etched across the top of the images were words like, EASY, FUN LOVING, SEEKING ALL TYPES OF COMPANIONSHIPS.

I angrily slid across the cell to get away from my former best friend. My mind raced. I once had a promising college career. I was top of my medical class, and all the dreams of my youth, not to mention the ones of my family, would now suddenly be coming to a tragic end. We all knew, we had all heard what earthlings did to beings from other planets when they were captured. None of the things were pretty; we had used the video uplinks to scare our youth into staying away. I had allowed myself to be manipulated into having "a wild and fancy free weekend trip," which had led me to be trapped in some sort of sealed stainless steel cell. I mean, come on, there wasn't even a seam under the freaking door that I could slide under to get out.

"Look, how was I supposed to know that she was an agent for the government on this planet? I mean, gel, what are the freaking odds?" Grentinick was now attempting to plead his case to me, yet again. I had heard all of his excuses and apologies since we had been picked up.

"Come on, jelly, you have to admit the two of them were freaking hot, and we so had them buying the fact that we were guys." At his last syllable, I spun fiercely around to face him, and he instantly knew that I wasn't over this humiliating part yet. "Well, maybe accept for the part where they pulled our pants down and some of us were already oozing." I heard the laugh being cut off in his throat.

I couldn't help myself any longer. I charged him. Yeah, sure, he was a couple meters wider than I, but I didn't care any longer. I was humiliated, scared, and if, big if, we were able to get out of this I wasn't sure how I would ever be able to look my future bride in the eyes again. Our masses collided with great force. Shockwaves reverberated off of the walls, dislodging one of the light fixtures in the room. Grentinick and I also suddenly had a great deal of height to go with our normally wide girths.

"Hey, that hurt!" Grentinick exclaimed, as he attempted to slink away from me again.

I hardly heard him as I was distracted by the dangling light fixture. I suddenly had a bright idea, no pun intended. One of my eyes had caught a glimmer of something from the ceiling tile, and I wasn't about to let it get away from me. Then there, after what felt like hours of searching, I saw it again, the faint outline of an air vent in the tile. My mind began to race as a plan began to formulate slowly in my mind.

"Did you mean what you said earlier that these humans would be lucky to figure out the ship anytime in the next thousand years?" I asked as I stared up at the opening in the vent.

Grentinick sighed heavily, "Yes, I know it's difficult for you doctorate types to understand, but our ships are far too complicated for these simpletons." There was that hint of arrogance in his voice that I was used to. I knew that he was telling the truth.

"Good." I replied, "Come slide to right here, I think that I have figured out how to get us out of here."

Grentinick's shade suddenly shifted to a brighter hue. He happily slid over to where I was pulsating. We turned all twenty four of both our eyes towards the ceiling, examining the slight glint in the ceiling from several different angles. We slowly began to calculate the toughness of the aluminum that was used to build the vent that was supposed to be keeping us in our stainless steel cell.

I could all but hear Grentinick's brain going into overdrive as he calculated our mass, combined, as well as if we were trying to make the escape as individuals. We were attempting to figure out whether or not this was a trap ... if the air vents actually led to the outside world or did it lead to some place that would be much worse than the room without any windows.

"Given the history of these facilities, I am almost certain that the vents will hold both of our weight. Of course, it would behoove us to distribute our mass as much as possible," Grentinick continued while sliding around the circumference of the vent, his twelve eyes rotating continuously peering up at the vent from every imaginable angle. Finally he turned six of his eyes on me and he had a gleam in his eyes that I hadn't seen since right before we landed here on this miserable planet.

Since Grentinick was the stronger of the two, of us he elongated his tentacles, painfully stretching towards the ceiling and the vent that blocked our way to freedom. The puddle of slime on the floor that was Grentinick grew increasingly smaller, as his tentacles slowly reached skyward. Just when Grentinick appeared to be a mere spitball on the floor with four tentacles straining forth to grab onto the edges of the vent, I was about to tell him to stop, when the tentacles rippled slightly and suddenly down exploded the vent. There was a slight ebb and flow to Grentinick's form as he seemed to pant from the effort and strain of trying to free us.

"Great job, Grentinick!" I exclaimed as I tried to encourage him enough to be able to get the second part of this escape done before the humans came exploding through the door with their electrified rods.

"It seems that it will be easier to expand from an upright position, than for us to try and do it alone." Grentinick was finally able to pant.

I began to feel the thump of half a dozen feet on the floor, and knew that the humanoids were on their way to inspect our room. I quickly wedged an edge of the vent between the smallest of lips under the door, and the bulk of it against the wall behind the door to pose some type of resistance to the humans when they got to our room.

Grentinick had moved to the other side of the room from me, and was attempting to get as close as possible to the wall with all of his mass. I struck a similar pose on the wall exactly across from me. We launched at each other and gathered as much speed as jelly-like possible in the short distance between us. Again there was a loud explosion as we slammed into each other. This caused the second light fixture to break loose as well, and there we were frozen in an odd jel-lo like sculpture. Grentinick held his form allowing me to shimmy up and around his form reaching for the vent opening.

"Hurry up," Grentinick mumbled as I slid past his mouth. "I just felt the lock give way on the door." I accelerated my efforts to squeeze into the opening; which had seemed to be much larger when I was on the floor below.

I finally was able to get two of my tentacles into the opening, and began to disperse my mass evenly on either side of the hole. I then got two more tentacles into the vent opening and quickly transferred my remaining tentacles towards Grentinick to ensure that I didn't get out of his reach.

The door opened only a matter of inches, as a humanoid collided with the solid metal door when it slammed into the vent wedged between the door and the wall. An audible groan was heard from the other side of the wall. Grentinick's tentacles wrapped around my extended ones and his mass threatened to pull us both back into the room. The was a great deal of commotion on the exterior of our room as the humans were able to final peek into the room and saw Grentinick's massive backside hovering in the center of the room.

There were screams and shouts from the humanoids in a guttural-like language that was too primitive for either Grentinick or I to understand. All either of us knew, was that this was our one shot to get out of here. We weren't about to do anything that would help the people with the probes out in any way, shape, or form. I had managed to distribute my mass a bit better and this allowed Grentinick to start climbing again. As Grentinick drew within about a meter and a half of being completely out of the room the vent under the doorway gave way under the heap of the humans. They all fell in on top of each other, struggling to remain upright in the room that had been thoroughly slimed by Grentinick and myself. There was only one rather tall and most impressively wide, and agile individual that was actually able to remain on its feet.

The being attempted to reach Grentinick as it leapt at him with a shiny vibrating probe like device extended from its own tentacle. The vibrations caused Grentinick to squeak as he struggled to get the rest of the way out of the room. The humanoid landed awkwardly on the stainless steel floor. There was a loud crunch as one of the main bones in the being gave way under its mass. The vent way suddenly became very crowded as Grentinick's large mass was in the airway. We felt a slight breeze coming from ahead of us, tainted with a slight aroma of grass and sea air. We quickly began to slide in that direction, as the voices below us began to raise alarms at the situation which had rapidly descended from a managed situation to all out mayhem.

The great thing about having a heightened sense of smell is it is nearly impossible to get lost. Grentinick and I navigated in near complete darkness that was broken into blinding light every few feet. We had to be careful over the open vents to ensure that we didn't sink into a room that could be worse than the one that we had just left. Grentinick and I saw all manner of beings while on our trek to the free world outside.

There was a man in a white shiny jump suit. The sequins on the jumpsuit attempted to blind us. He spotted us and instantly began shouting that he wanted his, "Peanut Butter, and Nanner Samwich."

There was a man who continuously screamed, "It's 'Excuse me while I kiss THE SKY,' you freaking morons. Not, 'Excuse me while I kiss this guy!'" A few rooms down the hall from this oddity was another being that seemed very aged. We overheard him mumbling to himself, "Era, I woulda never thought Lyndon B. Johnson would have done this to me! How long can these people honestly hope to keep me away from Jackie O?"

Grentinick and I hurriedly slinked past this room and rounded a corner and moonlight engulfed us. Just like that, the airway gave way to the open air. These humans were beyond stupid to simply let something as important as a high security building be open in this manner -- it was unthinkable. Any matter, Grentinick and I didn't care as this meant that we were free at last of these foul beings. We could return to our own world, no one would be any the wiser for us being gone, and all this would be left behind, just like the many thousands of light years between this planet and our own.

"Grentinick, have they been able to move our ship?" I quietly asked my best friend.

"Nope, still parked a short ways to the north and the sensors on the ship are saying that all security has been pulled away from the ship to aid in the search for us." There was an evil smirk that played across his maw.

We carefully began to make our way towards our ship, being careful to stay within the shadows of the trees and shrubs along the way, running parallel to the road when we needed. We could hear the army trucks driving up and down the road every couple of minutes as they searched for us. We heard dogs barking off in the distance.

"Grentinick, can you begin the launch sequence from here?" I whispered to my travel buddy.

"We need a couple more kilometers before I can reliably begin the pre-firing sequence. Listen, it seems kind of lame to be leaving this world without at least picking up one ..." Before he could complete his thoughts, I spun again on Grentinick and glared at him.

"I triple jelly dare you to finish that sentence. I may need you to get off this simulacrum forsaken rock, but I have no issue with kicking you through the air lock once we are en route to our home world." I growled at the pilot wannabe.

"Hey, ok, I was just kidding. Seriously, jello brain, you need to lighten up." Grentinick tried to laugh it off as one big joke. "We are within distance of the ship, and I have begun the pre-firing sequence." He attempted to put my mind at ease with his seriousness about the matter at hand.

We topped the final hill and then we saw our ship. A wave of relief washed over me. I began to believe that we would actually see our home again, and escape being probed by these barbarians.

As we got within range of the ship, Grentinick began the actual firing sequence. From opposite directions into the valley came two large armored beasts with massively long hollow noses. They barked at us and there were concussive blasts very close to Grentinick and I. Heat and light exploded around us, and we slid for all we were worth towards the ramp that was lowering for us on our ship.

We began to feel the earth rumble beneath us. I wasn't sure if that was from the spacecraft's engines accelerating or if was from the large armored beasts that were attempting to bear down on us. The fire-breathing fiends barked in our direction again. The concussive blast sent pieces of the field airborne and crashing into us as we quickly closed the gap on the ramp. We lunged in unison for the edge of the ramp and the spacecraft began to slowly lift from the ground. The angered beasts again barked in our general direction, but our shields were at full power and the bombs only succeeded in slightly changing our trajectory as we began to climb into the atmosphere. Grentinick and I quickly made our way to the front of the ship as we continued to climb higher and higher. Soon there were all manner of aircraft flying into our immediate area. firing all types of weapons and ordinance at us, attempting to knock us from the air. As soon as Grentinick finished strapping himself into his seat, one of his tentacles flipped a switch. Time instantly seemed to stand still, and the eons stretched out slowly before us, before they began hurtling past us -- in nanoseconds we were light years away from this horrible little blue planet.

With a huge sigh of relief I turned to Grentinick, and said. "I think it is safe to say, that not all earth girls are easy." This brought a round of laughter from the both of us as we settled into our chairs for the relaxing ride home.

* * *

"Smith, are you sure that the device is not discoverable by these beings?" A rather stern looking official asked without looking at anyone in particular.

"Sir, we were bombarding them so intensely that there is no way they would have been able to discover our tracing unit before they left our solar system." Apparently the man known as Smith replied.

"Excellent Smith, simply excellent!" The man replied to no one in particular.

-- Ed Moyer