Work Text:
With every car that passed her on the road, Cora held her breath. It was unfounded, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help but think of the worst case scenario. Yes, Ampersand was invisible in the bed of the truck, but all it would take was one perceived threat –– and to an alien, what wasn’t perceived as a threat? –– and she’d be another unwilling accessory to murder. Her knuckles were white, gripping the faux-leather of the steering wheel, keeping her eyes and mind locked to the road ahead.
She could feel her hunger gnawing as she drove. Whenever the road straightened, she allowed herself a glance downwards to the passenger seat. She’d hoped to find something to eat there; an abandoned bag of gummi worms or an energy drink. Anything to wash the still-present taste of black olives off her tongue. But even if the snacks were there, she couldn’t retain focus long enough to search for them. Her mind spun in unending loops.
Cora took a few deep breaths, tried to regain her bearings in the stolen truck. We stole a truck, she repeated to herself, the only concept her brain allowed her to form. The alien in the bed of this truck stole it, and now I’m driving the stolen truck. The man who was driving this truck is lying in a ditch, and now his truck is speeding away with an alien and myself. I’m in the middle of nowhere in a stolen truck and there’s an alien in ––
Another car passed. A puke-green sedan, the same color as Cora’s recently deceased Camry back home. In her peripheral vision, she attempted to make out the driver. Was there a passenger? How many witnesses would be killed if she was caught?
The car drove on, as did the truck. Further east, further from the site of the two power outages. Cora didn’t like to run from her problems –– she told herself this. It’s more that I don’t like to admit that I run from my problems , she chastised. This is exactly how the Nicole situation ended. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel.
On a whim, her eyes drifted upwards to the rearview mirror. She hadn’t checked to see if anyone was following her, either the Town Car from before or any other mysterious vehicle. But the road was clear. All she could see was her own reflection, or part of it. The bags under her eyes and the fraying of her unwashed hair –– how long had Ampersand carried her before she woke up to the “dinner” he’d prepared? She hated looking, hated guessing how long it had been since she showered.
“ Converse. ”
It was pure, unmitigated luck that she didn’t swerve the pickup off the road at that voice. For nearly an hour, the only sound had been the rattling of the tires underneath her, and the whirring of her exhausted brain. But now, the return of that mechanical voice in her ear seemed to zap her awake like a lightning strike.
“Ah...you can hear me?”
“ I am unable to read minds, in the sense that you natural beings have considered it. ”
She exhaled. There’d been many thoughts during the drive so far, and she hoped more than anything that Ampersand hadn’t been privy to all of them.
“ Converse. ”
“Converse about what?”
“ Converse. ”
Cora rolled her eyes, less frustrated than nearly asleep. “I don’t have the energy to ‘converse’ right now.”
“ It is often a soothing way to pass the time, in conversation as you travel from one location to another. I wish to alleviate your spirits with a touch of casual conversation.”
This was a new development. The earlier discussion with Ampersand had been focused and fast. Cora needed answers, and the alien had mostly provided, at least as far as he was able to, within the limits of language. But to talk for talking’s sake –– she wasn’t sure she and Ampersand were there yet.
“Not now.”
“ Converse. ”
“Are you going to force me to?”
“ It would not be beneficial to me to see my driver fall to sleep at the wheel. To converse will assure both our safe passages. ”
Cora sighed, deeply. This was where the day had led her –– icebreakers.
“Well…” she began, not really trusting herself to keep the conversation casual, with these stakes. “...how are you?”
“ I am adequate. ”
Cora wanted to smile, though her expression didn’t change. “I’m adequate, too.”
A miserable silence passed between the two of them. Far ahead of them, Cora noted a blip just below the horizon. Another car was heading their way.
“ Converse .”
“I told you, I’m adequate.”
“ The conversation requires more information. Advise me how best to engage you in discussion. ”
Cora groaned.
“ Provide me a list of your interests. ”
Cora could barely devise the list for herself. “My interest at present is getting us to a safe place where I can sleep.”
“ You can play an instrument. ”
A lump formed in Cora’s throat. The last time she’d played guitar for Olive was the day before she’d been picked up by Bard. How long had Ampersand been watching her?
Up ahead, the car advanced towards the truck.
“ What songs do you play on your instrument? ”
“Uh…” Cora said. Was it worth lying to the alien, to puff up her meager songbook? Who would she be impressing? Would Ampersand ask her to play any of them?
“I played ‘Sk8r Boi’ for my sister most recently,” she said, treading carefully. “I like that sort of...pop-punk music.”
“ Pop-punk ,” he repeated. The words sounded incorrect, filtered through his Hawking-esque electric monotone. The genre needed a new name.
“ This is a popular genre of music ?”
“It is, right now,” Cora said. “Hasn’t always been.”
“ What was popular before ?”
Cora hesitated –– did they have musical eras on Ampersand’s home planet? System? Wherever he’d come from?
The car was spitting distance away now. Cora felt her foot reach impulsively for the brake, ready to be stopped.
“M-music changes all the time,” she explained. “Different singers and...styles of music. Punk is a more recent one. Before that was...I don’t know, synth? And before that was funk, disco. Rock n’ roll was a very 50s thing…”
Cora trailed off, as the car in front of her drew close enough that she could make out the driver. Sunglasses on, he was a balding pasty man, who seemed to be focused solely on the road.
“ Rock n’ roll …” repeated Ampersand. “ This was the name of a popular genre. ”
Cora held her breath. The other driver passed by her, the image of the car blurring by her window before vanishing, leaving only the echo of the wind, and the shrinking dot in her rearview mirror.
Cora exhaled, taking a hand from the wheel to still her throbbing heart.
“ Sing this rock n’ roll .”
The heartbeat leapt up once again.
“There’s a lot of music that is rock ‘n roll.”
“ Select one song. ”
Cora’s headache was beginning to return. She needed to find somewhere to sleep, and soon.
“Look, I’ll play you something off my phone when we find a hotel, but before then––”
“It would not be beneficial to me to see my driver fall to sleep at the wheel. To converse will assure both our safe passages. Sing a song from the rock n’ roll genre.”
Cora wanted to refuse, but with her eyes already beginning to glaze, she lacked the energy to fight the voice that floated in from the truck bed behind her. She considered the question. 1950s rock n’ roll…
She gripped the steering wheel tighter, exhaled, and attempted to sing acapella.
“You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog...crying all the time…”
She waited for a response, but none came.
“You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog...crying all the time…”
She immediately regretted the song choice. Why did it have such repetitive lyrics?
“Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine.”
Instinctively, she patted out the drum fill on the wheel. She waited again for a response, but was met only with silence. Just as she began to launch into the next verse, the voice resounded in her ear.
“ This is a hit rock n’ roll song. ”
“It’s one of the most well-known,” said Cora. “It’s not as popular now.”
“ The subject is a canine. ”
“Well, no, it’s…”
Cora had no idea how well Ampersand could grasp ideas like metaphor and symbolism, especially as it related to song lyrics.
“It’s sort of representational. Like, the guy in the song is...well, he’s like a dog, because he’s…”
Cora stopped, unable to accurately explain the lyrics devoid of all context.
“ It is an artistic representation of another party. ”
“Y-yes,” Cora said, hoping Ampersand wouldn’t press the matter further.
“ Sing another. ”
“I don’t know another. Besides, I hate that singer.”
“ What rock n’ roll singers do you like? ”
“...do the Beatles count?”
“ I do not know of them. ”
“They started in rock n’ roll, but they got really eclectic by the end.”
“ Sing one of their songs. ”
Cora’s brain spun through the Beatles discography. After “Hound Dog,” she wanted to avoid having to explain any more metaphors to the alien. The Beatles were a terrible band for this –– nearly every major hit was coded in metaphor. She cycled through what she knew she could play on guitar.
After a moment, her eyes brightened a touch.
“Okay, this is a later one, but I guess it’s technically rock n’ roll.”
“ Sing. ”
Cora suppressed the lump in her throat long enough to get the words out.
“Two of us riding nowhere, spending someone's hard earned pay...You and me burning matches, lifting latches, on our way back home…”
Her fingers recalled the frets, as though the wheel were the neck of her guitar back home.
“We’re on our way home...we’re on our way home…”
The car ran a small bump in the pavement, jostling Cora lightly before returning to the relative stability of the flat terrain.
“We’re going home…”
Cora sung through the end of the song, getting lyrics wrong and substituting words where she forgot them. By the final moments, whistling the outro, she had nearly forgotten about her otherworldly passenger, and his request to hear the music.
“ This is a song about traveling,” he surmised, once she finished.
“In a sense, yes.”
“ Traveling with a companion. ”
“Yes.”
“ This is a similar situation to the one we are currently in, no ?”
Cora’s mind immediately returned to the blank it was at before –– I’m driving a stolen truck with an invisible alien in the back –– though after a moment’s pause, she was able to regain focus enough to add, “No, um...no, it’s…”
She waited for an interruption to save her, but none came. Ampersand seemed to be listening; something in the silence was still attentive, waiting for clarification.
“There’s...there’s a sort of nuance to the lyrics,” said Cora. “Something underneath the surface-level of the words. It’s not just traveling with anyone. It’s someone you have a strong connection with. Someone you’ve known for a long time, someone you...that you care deeply for.”
Cora fell silent, realizing who this song had always been about for her, whether or not she knew it. She wondered if they were safe, if they’d already had their mind wiped by the CIA.
“ I see. ”
Cora nodded, her one addition to the conversation that Ampersand couldn’t see.
“ Perhaps in time this will become us. ”
Cora laughed nervously. “Well, play your cards right, mister,” she blurted out, immediately regretting the glib tone. There is no way he’s going to understand that , she thought.
“ I shall see what happens going forward ,” the voice said. “ You may sing more rock n’ roll music, or we may move on to another topic. ”
“Okay,” said Cora, hesitantly.
For the briefest of seconds, she considered this offer from Ampersand. She’d initially wanted silence, but he hadn’t been wrong about the conversation. It had woken her up, and though the search for a hotel was still ongoing, she felt less alone in the vast, unbroken road.
“Perhaps another song?” she suggested.
“ I am listening. ”
She smiled at this. She considered the idea that she could sing something completely out of genre –– Ampersand wouldn’t know any better to call her on it. But she relented. If the alien was to be on Earth for a while, the best ambassadorship she could offer would be to accurately describe the music.
“Okay, here’s one from the 60s,” she said, wondering even as she said it whether the difference between decades mattered to a being like Ampersand.
Cora brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and sang out.
“Once upon a time you dressed so fine...threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?...People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'...You thought they were all kidding you…”
The truck rumbled along. Every now and then, another car passed them by on the road. IF the driver had bothered to glance over to the opposite lane, all they would have seen was a woman driving a beaten-up old pickup, singing to herself as she cruised down the road to nowhere in particular.