And Then... by Don Taco

 And Then...                                                                               copyright 2025 by Don Taco

"But. That was before the aliens came."

Those words hung in the air for a long, long time.

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  Martha and I were different. Not from each other. From everyone else. We didn't always understand that difference. We happened on to it gradually, and it was only by luck that we were able to keep that knowledge to ourselves. It certainly wasn't just that we were twins. Though it's entirely possible, even probable, that our twinship was related to our unexpected and inexplicable ability.

 

 Martha and I can hear each other's thoughts. Not like speaking. Or like listening in. I have never found the words to describe it. They're just there. Always there. Distance seems to have no effect on it. It goes far beyond finishing each other's sentences, an annoying habit we had as precocious children.

  Because it was always with us, we had no reason to suspect that it wasn't just like this for everyone else. Over time, we learned the truth. Other people, normal people, didn't have thoughts in their heads that weren't their own. An appalling number of them didn't seem to have thoughts in their heads at all.

  I think we were about five when we began to grasp that talking with each other was not the same as talking with Mom or Dad. I can't be sure. It's hard to remember being five. Even when you're six. Memory, at that age, is more like a vast rolling ocean than an orderly set of bookshelves. But Mom or Dad just didn't get what I was saying the way Martha did. One day it occurred to me to ask Martha about that, and it was the same for her. We began to be observant. We also began school, providing us much more to observe. A pattern began to emerge, and we didn't fit into it.

 

 There were momemts that almost gave us away, along the line. One early evening when we were six, I was hanging out in the kitchen, anticipating a fresh batch of crescent rolls about to come out of the oven, and Mom told me to go get my sister. I just stood there, and said, "She doesn't want any." Mom replied, "You don't know that. Hustle off." So I did. But when Martha came downstairs to the kitchen, she petulantly announced, "I was coloring in my book! He told you I'm not hungry." Mom gave us a funny look. But nothing came of it. We slowly learned to be more careful, especially out of the house. But we couldn't help doing odd things. Our mother might yell out the kitchen window to where I was playing in the backyard, "Dinnertime!" And then Martha would arrive through the front door as I ran in from the back, racing each other to the sink to wash our hands. "Peas in a pod," our mother would say, with all the air of a weighty pronouncement of judgement." "Peas in a pod."

  Once we had a grasp of what set us apart from normal people, we began to find ways to use it to our advantage. We could help Mom wrap each other's birthday or Christmas presents, for example. The fun went out out of that quickly, though, because then we had to pretend to be surprised. Taking tests in school became something we excelled at, since we had both of our memories to draw on. Not that it mattered all that much. We were good students. We did have to be cautious about essay tests, finding two ways to use the same information to answer the question. We often received comments, complimnets even, about how similar our writing was, but we were never accused of plagiarism. Maybe it never occurred to anyone that there was a way that we could be cheating. Of course, one of us could have taken a test while the other sat in the library with the appropriate textbook, but we never did that. We were almost always in the same classroom anyway, being obviously the same age and state of development. Except for the nearly disastrous term when they tried to force me to play football while Martha studied Home Economics. Neither of us was interested in these decisions that were made for us, and I'm afraid we showed it. We may have handled it poorly, and we spent some time on the couch in the Principal's office over that, but were bailed out by our mother, who read the administration the riot act for their 'antiquated and unacceptably sexist attitude.' Mom was apparently a bit of a suffragette. Who knew?

  Boldly, we put together a mind-reading act, for talent shows and pep rallies and the like. I would 'dress up' in a tuxedo tee-shirt, and Martha would blindfold me, stick gaudy earplugs in my ears, cover those with headphones, put a shopping bag over my head, and duct tape it thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. People loved that part of it the best. Children can be so cruel to each other. With me incapacitated and hand-cuffed to a folding chair, Martha would take a stack of brown paper lunch bags into the audience, and, with no words spoken, and a great deal of finger-shushing and silent mugging, would have a batch of randomly chosen audience members hide something in one of the bags, tightly seal it, and hold it behind their backs. Thus prepared, she would then grab some scissors and make a great show of 'carelessy' releasing me from my bondage. After spinning me around a few times, she would sneeringly demand that I locate and identify the hidden objects. And then perform a bizarre 'interpretive dance' to give me 'clues.' That was our favorite part, because it had absolutely nothing to do with the objects, I would then make a great show of 'painful mental effort,' which also elicited peals of laughter, and then one-by-one name the persons holding the bags, and their item. People would bring weird and unexpected items to our shows, hoping to trip us up, but even when we didn't have a clue what something was, I could describe it.

  The shows should have been better than they were, sadly. We were excellent mind-readers, but we just weren't that good as performers. I think that because there was no 'real' magic in it for us, we just couldn't put the magic in it for the audience. We stopped doing the shows after about a year.

  So, time passed, as it does. We were growing up. We were passing classes, learning new things. We even made some friends, which isn't the easiest thing when you're so inextricably welded to a twin.

  But then, one day, things got weird.

  Really weird.

  Now, I know what you're thinking. Well, I don't 'know' the way I do with Martha, I'm just able to make a very intelligent guess. You're thinking, "Ah-ha! Puberty!" But you'd be wrong. We may have been late bloomers, and who knows how it might affect us, but that simply had nothing to do with what was happening. We were still blissfully unaware of that tangled web awaiting us in our future.

  

  No. It was much weirder than that. Suddenly, during a single, perfectly ordinary, night of sleep, someone else was in our heads. Or something else.

  In the first place, I've never been able to adequately describe what having Martha in my head is like. But this was very different. Not to mention unexpected, sudden, weird, and somehow just wrong. It had the quality of 'hearing' each other, but it wasn't like our voices or thoughts. It was more like a door buzzer or car alarm going off, or a hum that should have been distant but wasn't. It wasn't steady but it didn't come through as ideas. Something about it felt like communication, but we had absolutey no clues about what was being said. If anything was being said. I have never been so freaked out in my life. And that was before it turned hostile.

  Have you ever stood near a large wasp nest as the first rays of sunshine touched it in the early morning and the hive woke and turned their attention to the day's business? This had that sort of quality, simultaneously only marginally noticeable and yet screaming, "Danger! Emergency! Alert! Threat! Horror!" That's what this intrusion was like.

  Getting through the school day that next day was the hardest thing we have ever done in our lives. What was an inexplicable annoying buzz in the morning rose to fire alarm status and, coming in waves, threatened to overwhelm us. Martha and I had the worst headaches of all time by the noon lunch break. I'm really not sure how we finished out the school day. By the time classes ended, the buzzing or presence or I just don't know what to call it had increased in volume and intensity, and exhibited a palpable sense of menace. We were shaken and scared.

  

  "Do you feel sick?" I asked Martha. I don't know why I said it aloud. "No,' she replied. "I feel threatened." We looked at each other for a long time. Wordlessly, we agreed that this was serious. That this was bigger than our secret. That we were out of our league and could use some adult help.

  Growing up in the house next to the Chief of Police in a small town has its pluses and minuses. On the one hand, he knows you real well, and you aren't likely to get into trouble unless you bring it on yourself. On the other hand, you're denied the childish opportunities to enjoy things like sneaking out at midnight and throwing eggs onto your least favorite neighbor's roof. We decided to go straight to the Chief. In any case, the police station was much closer than the hospital, where we didn't know anybody.

  Moving with a purpose firmly in mind seemed to help with the 'presence.' But not much.

  We walked into the station, which, thankfully, was only a few blocks from the high school. The sergeant on desk clerk duty recognized us. He was an active supporter of our school's activities, and had even been duped by our mind-reading act more than a few times. He seemed to enjoy it. One time, he had brought in an evil-looking rusty antique thumb-screw, that must have been confiscated from someone. He was undoubtedly thinking we couldn't possibly recognize what it was. So, I played along and described it, and said that I wasn't sure what it was for, but that it did seem to have his wife's fingerprints on it. And possibly a smudge of lipstick? That got quite a laugh when it came out of the bag.

  We explained that we wanted to see the Chief, and he immediately relayed that to a squawky intercom on his desk. A distorted mumble answered back from the box, "Send them in."

  The Chief welcomed us into his office down the hall, and, after turning down an offer of coffee, soda, or water, we sat in his ancient, lumpy, leather office chairs, and wondered how to even begin. "To what do we owe this pleasure?," the Chief prodded us. Uncharacteristically, I let Martha do the talking. "I don't think it's going to be a pleasure," she responded somberly. "Something has gone very very wrong with the world, and we don't understand it." The Chief nodded thoughtfully. It's a mark in his favor that he knew us well enough to take us seriously, and that made it easier to let the story spill out.

  For the first time, we bared our secret to another. "We can communicate, talk to each other, just in our heads. Like mind-reading, or something. It's hard to describe. Maybe it's telepathy. But it only works between us." The Chief again nodded thoughtfully. He said, " I didn't get to be Police Chief by being unobservant. I've often wondered about you two. But that's your business, not mine. Has something happened that caused you to bring this to me?"

  The cat was out of the bag. We rushed through something resembling an explanation of the intrusion into our thoughts, and the stress of the long fearful day.

  You could almost see a thought sweep across the Chief's mind. "Wait a minute!" he said. Rifling through  several stacks of papers, he found what he was after, an official-looking document with a lot of red ink on it. He glanced over it, looking more serious by the second. "I have to make a call." He dialed a number he appeared to be reading from the piece of paper.

  After a moment, he identified himself, and read off a string of letters and numbers from the document. There was a brief pause. Then he looked very attentive. And definitely impressed by something. Possibly the speaker's credentials, but I was just guessing. After another pause, he replied, "Yes, I understand. Yes. Yes." Another, longer pause. "Yes." He said "Yes," eight more times in a row. I began to wonder if he had been instructed to only answer yes or no. Spy stuff.

  The Chief hung up the phone. Looked thoughtful for a long couple of seconds. He said, "Kids..." Then a long pause. He began again. "Sorry," he said. "I mean no disrespect. I knew you when you were kids. Old habits die hard." He paused again, apparently unsure how to proceed. After a short while, he continued. This appears to be a matter of national security. I've been requested... I've been instructed, to keep you available until the heavyweights arrive. I hope that's okay with you."

  Martha and I took a minute for a long deep look into each other's eyes. Something that was rare for us, since we already knew what we thought. "We understand," I said quietly. And in that moment I think our lives changed as seriously as they ever had, for the second time that day.

  We were escorted to a smallish office, and made more or less comfortable, but I noticed that the door was definitely watched at all times. The air was tense, and the menacing presence in our heads, plus the accompanying headache, weren't making us in any way comfortable with the situation.

  It was only about a forty minute wait, and then we were walked out to a waiting long black limousine, which was not at all what we expected. Or were used to. We were met by an impeccably uniformed young man of indeterminate status, as the various stripes and shiny badges meant nothing to us. We sat down, and he took a rear-facing seat opposite us. The door locks clicked ominously and we were off. It's amazing how smooth the ride in those vehicles is. I decided I wanted one. In my head, Martha smirked at me. The officer, as we supposed he must be, sat stiff, erect, and stone-faced, like those famous London guards. Martha thought he was handsome. I was less star-struck. We rode in silence for close to ten minutes, when the young man cracked a grin and said, "Amazing! I can tell you're doing it! But I can't listen in. I was damned curious about that! This is totally new to me." I wondered if I looked as startled as Martha. "Doing what, exactly?" "Mind-talk. Telepathy. I don't know what you two call it. My brother and I barely know what to call it ourselves." "Wait a minute," I said. I made a huge mental leap. So did Martha. She gasped, "You're a twin! Like us! And you can hear each other!" He continued to resemble the Cheshire Cat, all grin. We burst into questions, but he held his palm up, like a traffic cop. "Hang on. Plenty of time for questions. We're almost to the base. Everyone will want to hear. This is big. This is really really big." We finished the ride in silence, brains burning for answers.

  We were whisked through the gate at the base and drove to an administration-looking building. I mean, it had flags out front. Doors were opened for us, hallways seemed empty, challenges were not issued. It was all frighteningly crisp and efficient. Martha queried me, "Wanna join the army?" I retorted, "Who are you and what did you do with my sister?" We entered a brightly lit room, where our new-found friend had somehow gotten ahead of us, and was perched on the edge of a straight-backed wooden chair. Whipping around in surprise, we discovered that he was also still behind us. "Wow! I said. "When you said twins, you really meant it!" "That's Albert," he told me. 'I'm Alfred. But we go by Fred and Bert." "Bert? Like Bert and Ernie? Parents can be so cruel." "Oh, it gets worse," Bert cut in. "Our mother calls us Albie and Alfie. And when we're around strangers, our father calls both of us Al. One or the other answers, and it makes people wonder how the hell we know who he means. He loves it." I decided I was beginning to like these guys. "Oh, I totally get it," I said. "I don't know what's wrong with our parents either. When he found out he had twins coming, my dad decided we were going to be Mary and Martha. Even after they learned our genders, he insisted! Thankfully, our mother prevailed. I'm John. That, of course, is Martha."

  Martha had been looking around the room, which was ringed with large mirror-like windows. "People are back there watching us, aren't they? It's like a damned fish bowl." Fred and Bert burst out laughing, all out of proportion to the joke. When they caught their breath, Fred said, "Oh my god, you have no idea. Every serious Johnny Law honcho within a thousand miles has a camera on us by now and is tuned in. You just have no idea how big this is." "Hell," said Bert, "We have no idea how big it is, and we've been neck deep in it for weeks."

  A uniformed but unberibboned youngster came in with a tray, resembling nothing so much as a misbegotten slave at a medieval feast, delivering food to his abusive captors. He neither spoke nor made eye contact, and then scurried away. Only instead of sumptuous victuals, the tray was full of canned drinks, mostly sodas, and a large popcorn-sized bowl of what appeared to be dry cat food. Martha looked the drinks over, chose a can of orange juice, and declared, "When presented with free drinks, choose the most expensive one." I pointed to the bowl and asked what it was. Bert replied, "Our snacks. The latest development from the Mad Doctor. It's mostly various proteins. Don't fill up on it. It'll give you gas." Fred added, "I hear they give it to the astronauts on the space station so that they don't have to ship up as much fuel for their shuttles." I decided I was definitely beginning to like these guys. And also that I wasn't too interested in the snacks.

  "Okay," I said. "What's the big secret? And why were we brought here? And why does my head hurt? Is this all about the, well, call it the telepathy?"  Fred said, "Yes and no. The telepathy is why all this attention is focused, and why all this infrastructure is in place. We enlisted, found a sympathetic ear, explained a bit about us, and became guninea pigs." Martha interrupted, "Are there others? Now many?" Bert answered, "We have met, and interviewed, and tested hundreds of pairs of twins since this project began, and none of them shared this ability. And we didn't discover you. You found us. Crazy world. Up until very recently, it actually was quite an interesting adventure." He stopped, folded his hands, almost as if in prayer, and leaned in intently. "But," he said with the most serious expression I've ever witnessed on such a young person's face.  

  "But. That was before the aliens came."

  Those words hung in the air for a long, long time.

  And then... And then, our lives got a lot more interesting, pretty much right away.