by Mark Lingane
Hubbard nodded. “I was born for it.”
Clacton clapped her hands together and stood. “You and Lady Gaga. You’ll go far, Hubbard. I predict, no, I guarantee it.” Clacton finished with a flourish, pointing her index finger upward. She paused. “And if things play out, there could be something special I want you to do for me.”
“And I likewise.”
The deputy opposition leader slithered up to the exit and patted Hubbard on the shoulder. “I’ll bet you do, General.”
“You still have the report.”
“So I do. How forgetful of me. You really need to be less careless. Maybe get a better lock on your desk and office.”
Clacton held out the report. Hubbard snatched it out of her hand.
48
“I’VE FOUND SOMETHING of value,” Hubbard crowed as he entered the think tank.
The small control room was separated from the main research chamber by bulletproof glass panes. The scientists craned around to see who the new arrival was.
Hubbard clapped his hands together. “Who’s in charge?”
The chief scientist hesitantly raised his hand. “I guess I am, maybe.” He looked around. “If that’s acceptable to everyone.” The other scientists nodded in agreement. He extended his hand to Hubbard. “Michael Braxton, head of physics at Cambridge. Double Nobel Prize winner. I set up this facility.”
Hubbard shook Braxton’s hand and spun him around to face the chamber, slapping him on the shoulder. “And what a fine facility you have.”
Hubbard took in the myriad of devices and measuring equipment on the long benches. The chamber was an enormous reinforced concrete bunker, formerly used for preparing nuclear warheads.
“This is all well and homely,” he told Braxton, “but it lacks a certain something. I have the exact item for you on the surface. If you lower the pad and open the service door you’ll see Williams, who has a surprise for you.”
Braxton signaled for the pad to be lowered. The collected scientists gaped as the doors opened to reveal the buckled silver craft. A hoist was organized to lift the wreckage into the chamber. Gasps of amazement filled the room. Hubbard’s chest puffed out with pride. Mission accomplished. The losses had been worth it.
“Braxton, keep this under your hat. We’re not sure how far the enemy’s communication lines spread. The fewer people who know, the better.”
“Oh, right. Yes. I understand.” Braxton tapped the side of his nose.
Hubbard checked his watch. “Captain Williams, come with me. Let’s celebrate.”
Hubbard had set up a base for his special-mission men at Lambeth North Station on the Bakerloo Line. Crossing the city had never been easier or more reliable using the abandoned underground train lines. The men cheered as he walked onto the station platform. Captain Williams announced their success and the men erupted.
“Men, the losses have been heavy,” Hubbard said, “but against the all-time greatest enemy we have ever faced, there will need to be sacrifice. Today the tables have turned and we've struck our first blow, so let us remember the fallen. Look around and note your absent friends, your compatriots, your men-at-arms, and raise a toast to the memory of their heroic deeds.”
The men went silent, many of them staring down at the ground.
“But don’t forget today’s success. You’ve all played a part. It belongs to all of you. Open the bar and drink as much as you want.” He raised his arm theatrically toward the makeshift bar.
Hubbard was lifted up onto shoulders and carried as a champion, a victor. Whoops and howls of triumph echoed down the tunnel. Beer from shaken cans sprayed out in fountains, and the men laughed and cheered. Soldiers formed into groups and chanted their war cry, then the singing deteriorated into bawdy bar songs.
Williams indicated for Hubbard to join him at the bar.
The general squeezed through the crowd and slapped the tall captain on his broad shoulders. “We did it.”
“You know, Hubbard, I’d buy you a drink if it weren’t free.”
They both laughed. Williams snapped his fingers at the bartender, who nodded and brought a bottle from under the wooden table. He handed it to Hubbard.
“I’ve got something special, like,” Williams said. “I had to … liberate it from a group of people who would never be able to appreciate it. I’ve been saving it for a decisive moment like this.”
Hubbard looked at the bottle. Cheap scotch. There was something about stolen scotch that reached back to his youth. Three months ago he wouldn’t have touched it. Today it was the nectar of the gods. He handed it back to the bartender.
“Pour him a pint,” Williams shouted.
The bartender smiled and pulled out a pint glass, pouring in a healthy dose of the brown liquid.
“Drink up, General,” Williams said.
Hubbard looked at the glass uncertainly before checking his watch. He became aware that the men were watching him expectantly.
“Down!” came the chant, slowly then building. “Down, down!”
The glass holding the sticky brown liquid reflected his image. Hubbard closed his eyes and took several large gulps. It burned his throat and he fought to keep it down. The men cheered as he slammed the glass down on the table. The bartender poured another large serving.
Williams disappeared. Various soldiers came and went, expressing their admiration to Hubbard. The room spun. The voices blended together in a wave of appreciation and pride at being in his platoon.
A young soldier moved in beside him and ordered a drink.
“I haven’t been this … drunk in decades,” Hubbard slurred to the young man.
“Let the good times roll,” the young soldier said. His voice was light and musical.
Hubbard stared into the glass, remembering his past. “It wasn’t a good time back then.” His head swooned and he breathed heavily to keep the queasiness at bay. Words tumbled out of his mouth. Noise clamped down on his head in a claustrophobic vise. He wanted to get everything out. The words continued to fall.
“You ever take your mama out?” the young soldier said when Hubbard had finished.
“What?” The question was lost on Hubbard.
“You can tell me, and others. It’s okay these days.”
“Don’t mention my mother,” Hubbard snapped.
“Not literally your mother. But you mentioned that other boy, you know, when you were young.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You just told me a story about you and the boy. It was very sad.”
“I didn’t tell you anything.”
The young soldier smiled at him in a knowing way and placed his hand on the general’s back. “We can go somewhere if you want to talk about it.”
Hubbard smashed his fist into the young man’s face, knocking him to the ground.
The surrounding soldiers stood back in horror as Hubbard unleashed a series of violent kicks into the head of the young soldier until he was wrestled away by several men. Spittle drooled from his mouth and he spat on the pulped face of the soldier. The men stared at him.
“He propositioned me,” he spat. The rage coursed through his mind, but the confusions and concern in their faces spiked through the mental fog. “He’s a spy. One of them.”
Williams appeared next to Hubbard. “Let’s call it a night. Men, carry on. I’ll see to the general.”
49
THE SCIENTISTS HAD finally cracked open the silver craft, much to Braxton’s relief. The general hadn’t returned for several days, but news of his temper had spread. The chief scientist didn’t want the general turning up when he had nothing to show him.
Research had proceeded at full speed. Further scientists had been found, responding to the message on the super-low radio frequency. Great minds from diverse nationalities were assembling, and coming up with new theories and explorations of physics. Existing knowledge was being turned upside down.
Braxton turned as Hubbard stormed into the research chamber
. The general’s face was furious. “Give me some answers, Braxton. I see you have soldiers.”
“Field Marshal Norton has stationed them here to assist with heavy lifting, and just in case someone gets misconceived ideas about what’s happening here.”
Braxton led the general to the craft and placed his hand on its side. “The skin carries an immense electrical charge. The craft is basically a negatively charged magnet. To be effective there has to be something in or on the ground, preferably large, that’s also negatively charged. When the two objects get close they repel each other, thus throwing the craft back into the air.”
“Are you saying they’re not actually flying?”
“Mostly correct. They’re constantly falling. And the friction created by falling through the air generates enough current to keep the skin negatively charged, thus they need no fuel. Although they do have small engines, probably for use in zero-G environments.”
“But they’ve been disappearing.” Hubbard’s face screwed up in concentration. “Why is this one still here?”
“That I can’t answer, unless it has something to do with when the crafts touch down. Maybe they can only return if they suddenly gain a huge increase in power. Otherwise they just stay on the ground, inert. Just a thought. Ronnie’s come up with a fantastical theory about time travel. Ronnie. Ronnie!”
A man of Indian ethnicity, eventually realizing his name was being called, waved before returning his attention to the strange objects on his desk.
“I’d swear the man doesn’t know his own name,” Braxton said. “But he’s not the only one distracted by the craft. Anyway, Ronnie hypothesizes that it would take an amazing amount of energy to move an object through time. When the craft arrive here there’s an energy displacement. The levels are equalized to a null disparity. The crafts touch down and recharge, bringing about a temporal anomaly, energy-wise. Basically, they’re being snatched back to where they came from. Like they’re on big rubber time bands.”
Hubbard blinked at the scientist. “That’s the most stupid idea I’ve ever heard. I didn’t even understand it. Time travel! You believe that, then you’re all imbeciles. It’s probably all to do with some warp drive or teleporter, like on Star Trek.” Hubbard shook his head, muttering under his breath.
Braxton stumbled over his words before admitting that further thought would be required. “Let’s talk about what we found inside,” he said. “As you’d expect, we can’t understand the display. Their language is a combination of characters and pictograms.”
“Like Egyptian hieroglyphics?”
“We assume so, but none of us are experts in this,” Braxton said.
“Open it. Let’s see the monsters who are attacking us.”
“It took us a while to work this out, but it’s rather clever.”
Braxton wiped a large magnet over a small recessed square on the outside of the craft. A hatch clicked and opened fractionally. Foul air hissed out through the opening and Braxton placed his handkerchief over his nose. One of the soldiers moved in and quickly inserted a metal tube in the opening. The door tried to snap shut. A second soldier inserted a long pole into the tube and rammed it into the inside of the craft. The two men heaved and slowly levered the hatch open.
“It smells like shit,” Hubbard said.
“That was the first thing that alerted me to the oddness of the pilot.”
Hubbard looked into what appeared to be a cockpit. A mass of dials and screens covered every curved surface. The form of the reclined seat indicated a bipedal pilot. It was empty.
“Don’t tell me there wasn’t a pilot.”
“No. We managed to extract her on our first attempt at opening the door.”
“How do you know it was a her?”
“Come and see.”
Braxton led Hubbard into the center of the chamber. Several of the workbenches supported old-fashioned gas lanterns. The faint smell of burnt oil hung in the air. Braxton indicated the eight-foot-long, blue body lying in a clear capsule. Several pieces of equipment were plugged into the capsule, with monitors updating readouts. The displays showed horizontal lines, all of which were declining.
Hubbard ran his eye over the specimen. The long, rangy body had no hair. The eyelids were open, revealing a set of deep blue eyes—with no apparent pupil—that stared blankly up at the ceiling. To Hubbard, the body appeared to have no gender.
“Notice anything odd?” Braxton said.
“Not really.”
“Exactly. Surely an alien race would develop in its own way, with tentacles, a tail, claws, acidic blood or an elongated head. Not like ours. The chances of that are minuscule enough to be a statistical error.”
“But it looks different. The skin. It’s blue. Is it safe to touch?”
“We don’t know yet. She may carry some bizarre space germ. The incubation chamber will let us know in a few hours. But you can use the gloves if you must touch her.”
Along one side of the capsule were two holes connected to long rubber gloves. Hubbard placed his hands into the gloves and ran one hand over the alien’s arm. The blotchy, pale-blue skin was covered in dark-blue swirls. The skin felt thin, like he was touching the muscle directly beneath. His fingerprints left an outline when he removed his hand.
“You keep saying she, but I can’t see anything gender-related,” Hubbard said.
“If you get the light right, you can see she has reproductive organs. They’re camouflaged by the blue skin. Two arms. Two legs. Fingers. Eyes. Nose. Mouth. Head. Same internal organs.”
“But she’s taller than us, sort of stretched out.”
“So are we, compared to cavemen.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing yet. But it’s all highly suspicious. The DNA readings should tell us something.”
“The face looks like an animal’s. Jesus, look at the teeth. That thing’s not human.”
“She is.”
“Not where I come from.”
“It’s tribal. The swirls are similar to Maori tattoos. The teeth are metal. They’re fake, screwed in over the enamel stumps.”
“So we have a race very similar to ours, which has been sitting quietly and now wants to attack us. A common practice with neighbors. Although they have blue skin.”
“So is our skin,” Braxton pointed out, “when it hasn’t been bombarded by gamma rays from the sun. Have you ever seen the Scottish on holiday? Anyway, this is one sample. Others could be different. I can’t see why these aliens wouldn’t have different races, like we do.”
Hubbard checked his watch. “I don’t really care about who or what they are. Just find out how to control or destroy that craft.” He turned and left.
“And after that I’ll destroy Superman,” muttered Braxton.
“Sir, the early readings are in.” An assistant handed Braxton a piece of paper.
Braxton read it and rubbed his eyes before handing it back. “This must be a mistake.”
“Our best scientists have looked at it. The pilot’s been dead for a significant amount of time. Before arriving here.”
There was a muffled thud and the ground shook. The lights flickered and went out. Several people swore. The oil lamps slowly spluttered into life. The now familiar smell wafted around the room.
50
“THAT WAS A close one,” Braxton said. “Is everyone all right? Anyone got dust in their eyes?”
There were several mirthful responses based on math-inspired puns. Mason Jones, one of the new laboratory members, tugged Braxton’s sleeve.
“Yes, Mason?”
“Where’s she gone?”
“Be specific,” Braxton said. “Who?”
“The pilot. The alien.”
Braxton wheeled around and stared at the now empty quarantine capsule.
“She was dead, wasn’t she?” Jones asked.
“One hundred percent,” replied Braxton. He waved the sheets in the air.
The two fell silent, looking cautiou
sly into the dense gloom. For the first time, the oil lamps were not providing a cozy World War Two, damn-the-enemy experience; they simply did not provide enough light.
“Sergeant,” Braxton called out, “we have a situation.”
Four soldiers hustled from the control room into the large chamber.
“What’s the situation?” the sergeant said.
“We have an alien, one that was previously thought to be dead, loose in this chamber.”
“All non-military personnel out now,” the sergeant shouted. “Begin the evacuation procedure.”
There was further grumbling.
“Now!”
The scientists filed out of the chamber into the control room. The door hissed closed and the soldiers fanned out into the chamber. One lantern shattered, and smoked spilled out as the corner went dark.
“Take a corner each and keep your eyes sharp. Corporal, inspect that.” The sergeant pointed to the shattered lantern.
The corporal moved toward the darkened corner, while the other soldiers explored their own. He bumped against a metal bench, making it screech over the smooth floor. It knocked against something. He gave the bench another bump, but it failed to budge. He glanced down under the bench, but nothing was there. Light from the remaining lanterns shimmered on the metal. He caught a shadow that broke the glow. A gentle breeze fluttered over his neck.
“Guys, did any of you—”
The alien leapt forward, wrapping her hands around the corporal’s throat. He fired into the body, but the creature kept coming. He stared into her dead eyes, firing until his clip was empty. Blood splattered out over them both, but the alien didn’t let go. She lifted him up, twisted his neck until it cracked, and then threw him to the floor. She stepped back into the darkness, the blue swirls on her skin softly glowing before going dark.
The remaining soldiers ran over, inspecting their fallen team member.
