by Rob Rosen
FYI, I wasn’t disappointed.
There was a brief crackling sound before we—and by we, I mean everyone in a five-hundred-foot radius, or thereabouts—heard in Cureal, which was translated a few minute later for us humans: “People of City Northeast Nineteen, the man you see above your heads is the commander of this building. He is the one who offered you food, but clearly did not provide enough. Find him inside. Bring him here, to the people.”
Oh, the sound of them then. The crowd roared. The crowd rushed. We were tossed about as if in a tempest.
“Now what, though?!” I shouted Tag’s way. “He won’t have food. And even if he does, how will that get the portal closed?!”
“There is food; I’ve seen it,” came his reply. “They’re readying for an invasion. They don’t trust human nourishment.”
I grinned knowingly. “Says the people who eat paste.”
Tag shrugged. “In any case, we have a bargaining chip. Now all you need do is bargain. Plus, he already speaks English, also in preparation for the invasion.”
My grin faltered. “Wait, you want me to do the bargaining? Me?” I pointed my way, just in case I wasn’t being clear enough.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder and spoke into my ear, “Tag’s a machine, Randy. They don’t see him like you do. This commander won’t bargain with him.”
Mom leaned in to my other ear. “We’re right behind you, Randy. Don’t worry; everything will be alright.”
I turned to look at her. “You really think so?”
She nodded. She smiled. “We’re here. We’re safe. We travelled between universes.” Her smile grew even brighter as her hands rested on my shoulders. “Apart from the whole bald thing, fate does seem to be on our side.” She rubbed her hand over her shiny dome. “Though fate seems to have a nasty sense of humor.”
My nod mirrored hers. “Tell me about it.”
Milo tapped me on the arm. I turned and gazed into his eyes. It was the same every time, butterflies swarming inside my belly as the connection was made. He smiled. I smiled in return. “Let’s do this, Randy. You’re the savior; time to do some serious saving.”
My brain buzzed. I started to reply, but my voice was utterly and completely drowned out by the crowd, which was pushing and shoving a man our way. Seconds later, said man was standing before us.
“Commander,” I said with a nod of my head.
“You,” he said, eyes wide, shocked it seemed to see me. “But how? You’re, you’re dead.” He stared at each of us in turn. “All of you are dead. That’s what was reported.”
The mob hushed a bit. They didn’t speak English, I supposed, but this had to be the first time in their collective lives that someone was standing up to the government—and they had ring-side seats for the show. They backed up a bit, gave us some room.
“Pretty lengthy story, that ‘how’ you mentioned,” I replied. “Does it matter, anyway? I mean, you’re here, I’m here, clearly not dead, and this crowd is ready to tear you limb from limb. That’s the long and the short of it, right?” I cracked my knuckles for effect. The commander grimaced at the sound. In other words, I got my effect. Cowering would’ve been better, but grimacing was fine. “Now then, we need you to turn the portal security off.”
He grinned menacingly. “Need? What do you know of need? My people are dying. That is need.” His grimace turned to a sneer. He looked like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, only buffer, sneerier. “The portal will remain protected until it’s time.”
“To invade,” said Dad, a matching sneer on his face. “My people won’t take it too kindly, you know.”
The commander shrugged. “You’ll never be able to fight us. You’ll die trying.”
Milo pointed at me. “You have a mere four humans here…” He pointed at the nearly decimated building behind us. “Look what four can do.” He pointed at the crowd surrounding us. “They’re smarter than you think.”
Craig promptly piped up next, adding, “Turn off the portal, or you’ll be next.”
The commander poked my brother in the chest. “Little boy, go bark at someone who is afraid of you.”
I pushed him away. He looked surprised that someone would dare touch him. “Leave my brother alone, asshole.” I pushed him again. His surprised look turned to stunned. Me, I was just as surprised, my heart pumping like crazy, but no way was this alien gonna talk shit to my little bro. “Now then, turn off the portal security, or else!”
I pushed him a third and final time. He tripped. He fell. The mob sucked in their collective breaths. If I looked surprised, and the commander looked stunned, they looked shocked. And then, several of them clapped, then more of them, then more after that, until there was a massive round of applause. For me. Wait. I mean, FOR ME! Yes, better.
I stared at the downed commander. “Or else that. Better still, or else them.” I pointed at the cheering masses, then moved in closer to him, staring down, our eyes locked. “Turn off the portal or we let them loose on you.”
He no longer looked smug. The sneer vanished; it was replaced by a look a fear. “It is illegal to attack a government employee. They would never. They don’t even know what you’re fighting for. They don’t even speak your language.”
I turned to Tag. “Show him.”
Tag glimmered. Tag smiled. Tag spoke, his voice projected all around. To translate: “This man has food. Lots of food. We, these monks and nuns, want something from him. If he does what we ask, we’ll get you your food.” And here he applied more of that aforementioned icing, and none of that paste shit. “It is God’s will.”
And since we were, theoretically, monks and nuns—monks and nuns who did God’s will for a living—the mob turned from us to the man on the ground, the man now cowering in rightful fear.
“No!” he shouted in Cureal. “It is illegal. You will be punished!” Or so it was later translated to me. Either way, I got the gist. The crowd, however, didn’t seem to care much for his threats. They had paste. He had real food. We were God’s envoys. Enough said.
We moved back as they closed in. In an instant, he was swallowed up, the sea of them dragging him under. All we could hear were his screams and shouts, and then not even that.
I looked at Tag. “Make them stop.”
He nodded. He spoke again. “Stop. That’s enough.” His voice boomed, seemingly from all directions. The mob, however, did not stop. “STOP!” shouted Tag, and yes, it was odd to hear him shouting. Tag, you see, was fairly even-keeled. Still, the masses continued to, uh, mass. Tag looked at us and said, “Cover your eyes, now.” We nodded. We covered our eyes. “STOP!” he shouted, yet again, just as a blinding flash of light flared over the crowd’s heads. I know it was blinding because, once we removed our hands from our faces, everyone was one the ground rubbing their clearly blinded eyes.
“Neat,” said Craig as we rushed to the downed commander, who was now very much bloody and bruised and moaning up a storm.
Tag shrugged. “Easy stunt. Same one I used in the transit station bathroom. It’s an emergency beacon. Tricked out, I believe you’d call it.” He grinned. “This was an emergency, I suppose.”
We helped the commander up. He stood on wobbly legs. “Round two?” I asked.
He waved his hands in front of his face as he vigorously shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t. I’ll shut down the security controls. Just call them off.”
Milo nodded. We all nodded. “And you’ll feed them all your food,” Milo said. “All of it. Seeing as you won’t need it anymore.”
The commander’s sneer returned. “You’re dooming your own people.”
Milo shrugged. “I’m saving another people. Who’s to say which people deserve saving more? Besides, we’re not dead yet; where there’s hope, there’s salvation.” He pointed to the sky. “And maybe God can do more than just belch this time.” He then pointed to the front of the building. “Now go. Quickly. Before the mob gains their sight back and finds that you’re not dead.”
I could see
the gulp glide down the commander’s rather fetching throat. In other words, he went, and, like he was told, quickly. We, of course, followed, also quickly.
Minutes later, we entered a vast room. There were several guards, all looking at us nervously. Tag whispered in my ear, “You must have deactivated the building’s weaponry in here as well. They are all that stand in the way of us and the portal.”
I turned and whispered in reply, “Apart from the portal’s internal security system.”
He nodded. “Which will soon be deactivated.”
I turned to the commander. “My people,” I said. “They never would’ve gone down without a fight. Even if you subjugated us, we would forever rebel against you. That’s what humans do. I think your people have forgotten that ability or lost it along with that nifty Y chromosome.”
The commander sighed. He stared at Sonny and Cher, then at Britney and Milo, lastly at Justin Timberlake. “You’ll regret this, fellow Cureans.”
They smiled. “Doubtful,” said Cher.
Justin Timberlake also smiled—hotly, of course. “Yes, no regrets here.”
Britney shrugged. “I’m feeling pretty good about it, actually.” She looked at Milo. “You?”
Milo nodded. “The government has screwed this planet up; Earth seems to still have a chance. I vote for Earth.” He turned from the commander and looked at me instead. He grabbed my hand. “And for love.”
Craig’s eyes rolled and rolled. “Please shoot me.” The commander aimed his weapon Craig’s way. “Figure of speech! Figure of speech!” Craig ducked and covered.
“Butch much?” I said.
“Look who’s talking, dude,” replied my cowering brother.
He had a point. I let it go. We had more important matters to contend with. “Do it,” I commanded the commander. “Turn it off. Now. Or else.” I pointed at the wall behind us, toward the waiting mob outside.
He sighed. He walked to the wall. A control panel slid out toward him. It took a few moments of hand waving, and then said wall shimmered and promptly faded away, revealing the portal behind it.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Figures,” I said, gazing at said portal.
Craig laughed as well. “It looks just like ours, only bigger.”
Yep, they too had created a waterfall, but one big enough to allow an invading army through it. You could see a field just beyond, through the cascading water. If I wasn’t mistaken, it looked like the inside of AT&T Park, home of the Giants. That also figured, what with said park also being built of steel, just like our house.
Dad patted Craig’s shoulder. Mom did the same. “Smart kid.” She chuckled. “A waterfall. And inside our house, no less.”
I smiled knowingly. Smart indeed. I then turned to the commander. “Now, go feed that crowd. Give them everything you have.”
The commander froze. “It’ll start a revolution. Only the nuns eat. If the people eat, they won’t want the paste anymore.”
Cher smiled. She smiled like, well, Cher: brilliantly, famously, Cherly. “Thank God,” she said.
I stared at the ceiling. “Yeah, thanks, God.”
Milo tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed at the portal. “You and your family can still return. We can destroy it from this side.”
The smile that had been on my face suddenly vanished. “Or you and your family can come with us. Someone else can destroy the portal.” I gripped his hand tightly in my own. “You’ll love San Francisco. There’s a restaurant on every corner. Plus, we have sealions.”
“Who will destroy it?” he said. “Who would we leave behind?”
I looked at them all, my family, my extended family. I couldn’t leave any of them, wouldn’t.
“Me,” said Tag. “Leave me. I can destroy the portal. I have access to it now that you destroyed the central operating system and the commander has lowered the shield.”
I sucked in my breath. Leave Tag? But he was my friend. I tried to think rationally about it, knowing that he really was just a machine, a sophisticated program, but rationality had never been my strong point. I looked at my Mom, my Dad. “What do we do?”
They started to speak, though they never got the words out.
I mean, you try talking when the world has all of a sudden gone haywire.
Chapter 15
One minute we were all standing there, staring through the water at the ballpark’s pitcher’s mound, the next we were on the floor, bouncing and thrashing like fish on a pier just after they’ve been plucked from the sea.
“Earthquake,” I said through chattering teeth. “I thought…you didn’t get those…because…the city…is built…on steel.”
Out of all of us, only Tag remained standing. Then again, out of all of us, Tag didn’t have legs. Or feet. Or anything, really.
“No,” he said. “We generally don’t experience earthquakes because of the steel. Still, if the tremor is large enough, we can still feel it.”
He was a blur in front of me, mainly because my head was shaking so badly. “But this is…a huge…earthquake.”
He nodded. I think. “The largest.” He paused. “The building’s system is reporting that the universes have separated. By the feel of this quake, I’d say forever.” He smiled. I think. “You saved them, Randy. Your people, our army. Had the invasion occurred, as planned, the Cureans would’ve been trapped, stuck for all eternity between the two universes.”
I turned and stared at the commander, who was bouncing along with all of us. “You’re welcome.”
Milo laughed. It sounded like a series of hiccups. “You really are the savior, Randy.”
I would’ve said that Craig’s eyes were rolling, but, by that point, every part of Craig was doing just that. Still, he said, or at least managed to say, “As if…his head…isn’t swollen…enough.”
I smiled. I saved them. Then I frowned. “We’re trapped, though.” I turned and tried to focus my eyes on my parents, who were holding hands as they rattled along the floor. “We’ll never see our home again.”
“We’re together, Randy,” my Mom said. “Home is…where the heart…is.”
I laughed, despite the bouncy circumstances. “Too much…Hallmark Channel…Mom.”
And then, just as quickly as it had all started, the ground beneath us stopped its shaking. I looked around, waiting for aftershocks, but there were none. The commander frowned and turned to the guards, speaking in Cureal. “Gather the others. Get the food. Feed the crowd outside.” The guards started to object, when the commander added, “Go. If you don’t, they’ll tear us apart.” FYI, Milo made it sound more dramatic when he later translated all this to me—as if this shit wasn’t dramatic enough already, right?
The guards hopped up and obeyed. We all hopped up and stared at the portal. The water was still waterfalling, but there was nothing beyond, no pitcher’s mound, no anything. In other words, no Earth.
I looked at the commander. “Again, you’re welcome.”
The commander smiled. “Thank you,” he said as he walked to the wall, which parted a moment later. Another moment after that, he was holding a weapon. And another moment after that, he was firing said weapon. I winced as an explosion of red shot through the air and blasted the watch off Justin Timberlake’s wrist. It flung to the floor, burnt and charred. “And you’re all under arrest.” He kicked the watch’s remains as I yelped. “And so much for the savior to the savior.”
“Tag,” I exhaled in a sob. I glared at the commander. “You killed our friend.”
He laughed meanly. “Stupid human.” He aimed the weapon my way. “He was already dead, you all were, as soon as you entered this room. You doomed yourselves the moment you doomed my people.”
“But…but I saved you,” I said.
He shrugged. “Dumb luck.” He waved the weapon our way. “Now go. Unless you want to join your friend on the floor there.”
I winced as I stared at Tag, who was still smoldering, still smoking.
We all hun
g our heads. We walked out of the room. We walked out of the building. The food had already begun to reach the crowds. They were devouring it as we marched past them. They cheered us, not knowing they were cheering a death procession.
§ § § §
We were led to a floating box. There was a large cell inside. We were thrown inside. Deadly beams contained us as we drove—and/or floated—away.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the others.
Mom held my hand. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
Craig’s eyes…yeah, you know the rest. “Again, Mom, too much Hallmark Channel,” he said.
She shook her head. “We saved our world. We’re still together, still alive.” She pointed around the cell. “Darkest,” she said. She pointed to the box’s wall, beyond it. “Dawn.”
“More like dusk,” I said.
She shrugged. “Still.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Maybe the savior isn’t done saving just yet.”
I sighed. “Like the commander said: dumb luck.”
And still she shrugged. “Dumb luck is still luck, Randy. And perhaps there’s still enough left to go around.”
I looked at Milo. He smiled. Those butterflies of mine ricocheted around my gut. “I’m with your mom here, Randy.”
Cher nodded. Sonny nodded. Britney nodded. Justine Timberlake nodded—hotly. Dad nodded in double-time. Craig, well, you know what Craig did. Me, I nodded as well, if merely to make it unanimous.
Still, I was less than sure. Far, far less. As in a galaxy far, far away less. As in, I was a human who had doomed an entire race. So yeah, my nod was less than sure. In fact, my nod had no sureness left in it at all.
§ § § §
We found ourselves in yet another cell after we were dropped off at yet another box of a building at the city’s edge.
In bitter irony, we were fed paste and water. “What, no bread?” I deadpanned.
The guards ignored me. Stupid guards. Stupid me, too, huh? I mean, look what I’d gotten us into. I’d saved my race, but I’d condemned my family, my friends, my one-true love. Plus, Tag was dead, lying in a fried chunk in a now-deserted room. It was a horrible way to go. Then again, what way to go is any way less than horrible?
