Warp Speed

Mike was stoned the night he saw the spaceship. Dave was there too, but he was unconscious, lying in the grass on top of Primrose Hill, smouldering spliff hanging from the corner of his mouth like a mini exhaust pipe.

Mike felt content, experiencing one of those ‘London moments’ when you realise the UK’s capital city is actually pretty amazing. He was grinning at the Telecom Tower when he became aware of the immense dark shadow crawling up the side of the hill.

The ship was huge, triangular-shaped, filling the sky like the Imperial Cruiser at the start of Star Wars Episode IV. Mike screwed his eyes closed and opened them again — this was how he always woke himself from a weird dream – but the ship was still there, hovering now, emitting a low-pitched hum.

‘Shit.’ Mike stared, mesmerised and terrified. ‘Dave!’

He’d only managed a croak, and it would take more than that to rouse Dave. The spaceship remained static for a few seconds before gracefully and almost noiselessly rising and disappearing above the clouds.

‘Dave!’ He managed a hoarse cry this time and Dave stirred.

‘What, man?’ Dave’s bloodshot eyes squinted at him through matted blonde hair.

‘Just saw a ship!’

‘We’re on a fucking hill.’

‘Spaceship.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Seriously. A big one.’

Dave rolled over onto his side. ‘No more spliff for you, man,’ he said, re-lighting the joint with a red disposable lighter.

‘I just saw a spaceship!’ Mike sat up, still not blinking.

‘Come on, man.’ Dave struggled to his feet. ‘I’ve got cans and more gear at mine. We can watch Star Wars if you want – the old ones, not the new shit.’

Mike stumbled behind his friend. He felt excitement rising through the disconnection created by the dope. He’d seen a spaceship. It had appeared from nowhere, probably crashed through the Earth’s atmosphere at warp speed, coming to rest above the capital of England. Above Primrose Hill. Above him.

Dave had found a spurt of energy from somewhere, which was propelling him down Primrose Hill. At this rate, they’d be at his flat in Camden in 10 minutes.

Mike searched the starless sky for a sign of the visitors, but a cataract of cloud masked everything.

2

They stopped for Rizzlas at the 24-hour shop just around the corner from Dave’s block.

Its fascia was a faded green, the windows plastered in dog-eared posters advertising special offers. Mike contemplated his distorted reflection. He thought perhaps he would look different after his experience, but he was still short and skinny, head shaved, cheeks sunken.

He followed Dave into the shop. A smell of fermenting fruit hung in the air.

The pretty girl from their old school was serving. She smoothed down the front of her green and white uniform as they entered. Her dark hair was tied back with a pink scrunchy. At school, she had always worn it loose so that large curls jigged in front of her face.

‘Hi,’ said Dave. ‘Pack of green ones please, darling.’

‘Hi,’ said Mike, but the girl – Emma – had already turned to reach for the papers and didn’t hear him.

‘Hi,’ he said again as she turned back, and she nodded in his direction as she prodded various buttons on the till.

‘You still in the sixth form?’ asked Dave, dropping coins onto the counter. Mike thought he should have placed them in her hand.

‘Yeah,’ said Emma. ‘Another year.’

‘Then what, uni?’ Dave said ‘uni’ as if it were a dirty word.

‘Maybe.’

‘What will you study?’ asked Mike. He wanted to tell Emma about the spaceship, but even in his semi-euphoric state, he knew this wasn’t the time.

‘English lit probably – if I get my A-levels.’

‘’Course you fucking will. You were the brainiest bird in school,’ said Dave. Mike wished he wouldn’t swear and call Emma a bird.

‘I thought you might do English A-level,’ said Emma looking at Mike. ‘You did well in your GCSEs didn’t you?’

Mike blushed. ‘I did all right. Just got sick of school.’

‘See ya!’ chirped Dave, slipping the Rizzla into the pocket of his leather jacket and heading for the door.

‘Can I help you?’ asked Emma, and Mike realised he was still standing by the counter staring at her.

‘No thanks. I’m with him.’

Emma grinned. One of her front teeth was slightly chipped, but it didn’t make her any less attractive.

‘See you later, Emma,’ he said, and fled.

‘I saw a spaceship,’ thought Mike. ‘And Emma Derby just smiled at me.’

3

Mike next saw the spaceship in the early hours of a Sunday morning. He was walking down Holloway Road on the way home from a small club in Islington – more a bar with a dance floor. He, Dave and Dave’s girlfriend Maddie had taken three Es each and shared a gramme of coke – Maddie had treated them to the charlie. Maddie was 27 – nine years older than Dave. No-one understood what she saw in him. Maddie was fit and had a decent job – something to do with computers, or human resources.

Mike was feeling pretty good – not anywhere near the descent onto the mental plateau and a long way from the dive into depression. He was trying not to think about the come-down when the shadow of the ship fell across him again – across him and the whole deserted road.

He snapped his head backwards. The sky was clearer tonight, and he could make out more details of the craft’s underside. It appeared almost organic – protrusions and craters covering the vast bulk.

Why was there no-one else here to witness this? How could Holloway Road be empty – even at this time?

He sensed the ship was keeping pace with him – that he was its reason for being here. They wanted him – they wanted him to experience the thrill of travelling at warp speed, seeing stars and planets turn to endless strips of neon light.

The beam of light appeared instantly. There were no heralding blasts of music in the style of Close Encounters - it was as if someone had flicked on an immensely powerful torch and shone it from the ship onto the pavement twenty feet ahead of him.

Mike stopped.

This was it. They were going to ‘beam him up Scotty’; take him where no man had gone before; treat him to a trip through the Force; an adventure between Star Gates; a 2008 space odyssey.

The beam disappeared.

‘What?’ Mike felt a sudden come-down like he’d never experienced before.

‘What?’ asked the Indian man standing in the shop doorway holding a crate of over-ripe tomatoes.

Mike glared at him. ‘Do you see it?’

‘See what?’

‘The fucking great space ship!’

Mike pointed upwards, but it wasn’t just the beam that had disappeared.

‘I’d get home to bed if I were you,’ said the man, placing the crate of tomatoes next to the shop doorway and heading back inside, tutting.

3

Mike barely left his bedroom for the next two days.

Towards the end of the second day he opened one eye and stared at the fading light through a crack in the curtains. He felt like someone had placed a heavy metal filing cabinet on his chest. He wondered if he’d ever be able to move again.

‘Mikey! Phone!’

His mother’s strident voice shattered his solitude.

‘I’m ill,’ he croaked.

‘It’s David!’

He couldn’t even face talking to Dave - more inane chat about Star Trek or Doctor Who. Who cared about fiction? He’d had a chance to experience the real thing – and the aliens had changed their minds at the last minute.

‘Mikey!

His mother wouldn’t rest until he responded.

4

‘Hey, Mikey Boy! Why’s your mobile switched off? I’ve been calling you for days. I can’t believe you made me speak to your mother!’

‘Sorry.’ Mike couldn’t be bothered to banter.

‘What wrong?’ Dave sounded put out.

‘Just low.’

‘About what? Unemployment? Lack of sex? Being an ugly fucker?’

‘What do you want, Dave?’

‘Jesus, man, you’re in a right shit mood. I’ve got some news that will change all that.’

‘What?’

‘I’m having a party.’ Dave said the word party as if it ended with an e and an acute accent.

‘When?’

‘This Saturday, my place. Dress code is casual. The occasion? It’s my birthday. I will be eighteen. Bring plenty of beer and whatever gear you can get hold of. My ma is away for the weekend, so no worries there. See you at about nine.’

‘Still hanging round with that waster then,’ said Mike’s mother as he shuffled into the kitchen, which, as always, smelt of boiled vegetables. His mother had been on the cabbage soup diet for years, breaking it every few weeks for a mad binge on every fatty, glutinous, carb-filled edible she could devour.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking and drinking tea from a cup and saucer. A single electric roller hung from a strand of hair at the nape of her neck.

‘He’s all right,’ said Mike.

‘You never took drugs before you met him.’

‘I don’t take drugs now.’

‘Yeah, right.’ His mother took a long, irritated lug on her cigarette before stubbing it out with a series of agitated stabs.

‘If you got yourself a job, you wouldn’t have time to get off your face every weekend.’

‘I don’t want to work in an office shuffling paper like you.’ Mike poured Rice Crispies into a bowl, stared at them for a moment, then pushed the bowl away.

‘What makes you think you could get a job in an office? Three GCSEs and two years dossing round here don’t qualify you for a nice cosy office job.’

‘I got six GCSEs – I got an A for English.’

Mike poured himself a glass of tap water and skulked back to his room.

There was no way he’d go to Dave’s party.

5

There was a blow-up doll tied to the drainpipe outside Dave’s flat. A track by My Chemical Romance was blaring so loudly, the concrete walkway was vibrating. The front door was ajar, so Mike let himself in, wincing as the music pounded inside his head. He hated emo rock.

Three teenage lads stood in the long, narrow hallway, leaning against the right- hand wall, each clutching a can of cheap lager and staring at the floor so that their overlong fringes hid their faces.

‘Hi, said Mike.

‘All right.’ They responded as one symbiotic creature.

Mike poked his head into the deserted living-room, then headed for the kitchen at the end of the passage. Dave was taking a tray of hash brownies out of the oven.

‘Canapés,’ he said, brandishing the cakes under Mike’s nose. The kitchen stank of chocolate and dope.

‘There’s not many people here,’ said Mike. ‘Where’s Madddie?’

‘I dumped her,’ said Dave, gently lifting each brownie from the tray and arranging them on a large white plate.

‘You dumped her?’ Mike couldn’t hide his disbelief.

‘Don’t say it like that, Mikey. It upsets me. She was getting too clingy.’

‘Maddie was?’

‘You’re using that tone of voice again. It’s my birthday. Be nice.’

‘Who else is coming?

‘Johnny Boy, Loony Jo, Barry the Man.’

‘They’re already here. They’re standing in the hall.’

‘Oh yeah. That’s it then.’

‘I may just slit my wrists now.’

‘Oh, and that girl from the corner shop that was in our class, Emma Whatshername.’

Mike felt something heavy smack against his chest. ‘Emma Derby?’

‘That’s the one. Saw her in the pub last night and mentioned I was having a little rave. She seemed quite keen. Told her to bring some friends. Girls.’

‘What made you invite her?’ Mike was desperately trying to sound casual.

‘I think she’s cute. And Maddie had just…I’d just finished with Maddie.’

Dave placed the last brownie onto the plate and handed it to Mike. ‘Hand these out, would you.’

6

Before Maddie had finished with Dave, she’d given him two grammes of coke as a birthday present. Mike was already feeling the effects of two lines, when Emma arrived with three friends.

‘Hey!’ Mike never said ‘hey’, but it felt right. He bounded down the hallway and gave Emma an unabashed hug. She seemed taken aback.

‘She hates me,’ thought Mike. ‘She fancies Dave.’

He stepped back and caught sight of someone standing just outside the front door. He was tall and wearing a long black coat and a trilby hat.

‘You okay?’ asked Emma.

‘Fine, thanks,’ said Mike. ‘Excuse me a minute.’

When Mike reached the door, the strange figure had vanished.

‘He was here for me,’ thought Mike. ‘He’s from the ship.’

‘Mike?’

Emma was standing just behind him, a bemused smile on her face. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m good,’ said Mike, wandering back towards the kitchen.

Dave was cutting two more lines on one of the kitchen surfaces using a credit card he’d obviously stolen from his mother’s purse.

‘What is that?’ asked Emma, hovering in the doorway. She seemed embarrassed.

‘Top-of-the-range charlie,’ said Dave, flashing her his biggest Casanova grin. If it had worked on someone like Maddie, how could it fail to impress Emma?

‘Shall I prepare you a little taster, madam?’

‘No thanks,’ said Emma. ‘Listen, we may go. I just wanted to say happy birthday.’

She handed Dave a small white envelope.

‘Thanks.’ Dave took it. He looked hurt. ‘See ya then.’

Dave continued to chop lines.

‘Will you be okay?’ Mike asked Emma, as she herded her friend back towards the door.

Emma frowned at him over her bare shoulder. She was dressed for a party in a pink strappy top and skinny jeans. Mike felt a surge of sadness.

‘Snotty bitch,’ said Dave, throwing his head back and sniffing.

‘She was just a bit shocked.’

‘I’m not injecting heroin for fuck’s sake.’

‘I’m just going to check she’s okay.’

The walkway outside Dave’s flat was deserted, but Mike could hear female voices echoing in the nearby stairwell. He tried not to dwell on what he would actually say to Emma when he caught up with her. It was Dave she’d come to see after all — Dave’s cheeky grin and shaggy blonde hair.

The alien was standing at the top of the concrete stairs. He looked like a shadow cast against the graffiti-stained grey wall.

Mike just stood and stared as the figure nodded, turned and walked past the stairwell, away from Dave’s flat. Mike noticed a forked tail protruding from the bottom of the creature’s knee-length Mac.

“Jesus...”

The sound of Emma and her friends talking was fading, and the echo died as they reached the bottom of the stairs and passed into the small courtyard in front of the block.

Maybe it wasn’t Dave she liked. She’d smiled at him in the shop – remembered he was good at English. Wasn’t there just a chance she’d come to Dave’s party to see him?

The alien had reached the corner of the walkway - in a second, he would turn the bend and Mike had a feeling that would be the last he saw of him. He glanced upwards. The sky was black and starless.

The alien turned the corner. Disappeared.

Mike felt dizzy. He rested a hand against the wall and took several deep breaths. The effects of the last line of coke had died. He felt the descent to normality and then the sharp, painful drop just below that. He thought of Dave chopping lines on the kitchen counter.

He stood straight, waited to make sure the dizzy spell had passed, then ran towards the stairway.