Jim Beam, Minister for Golf Courses, consulted his advisor before going into the ATAG meeting. He sat in the back of his electric limo while the homunculus protruding from his right shoulder whispered in his ear. Beam listened intently, nodding slightly at each point the parasite made.
‘So, you think that we should acquire the aliens’ replication technology?’ he said,’ raising an eyebrow.
‘The ATAG project suggested at the last meeting was predicated on using the Gliesens’ technology.’
‘But we don’t have access to it, as you said before. So, do we just steal it? Why not ask them nicely? They gave us the tech for in-vitro gestation when we did that.’
‘Yes, but human IVG was almost there anyway. They helped fix some minor glitches, that’s all. This is more far reaching and they know it.’
‘I’ve got to go in. Let’s see what happens in the meeting,’ said Beam, getting out of the car and moving towards the doors of the SIS building, otherwise known as Babylon-on-Thames.
Beam went into the foyer and paused in front of the robotic security scanner. Snaky appendages uncoiled themselves, peered into his eyes and smelled him from head to toe for explosives. It examined the pinstripe clad homunculus intently for a full ten seconds and the parasite glowered back while a metallic nose poked around inside an empty pocket in its neat little jacket.
‘Please enter Mr Beam and companion,’ a soft female voice intoned.
‘Won’t it ever call me Tony?’ complained the homunculus. ‘I’ve been here enough times. It ought to know me by now.’
The bioplastic bombproof doors, disguised as teak, opened and Beam waddled through.
In the meeting room it was all smiles and handshakes from the Home Secretary, his cronies and the CIA representative who insisted on calling Beam Jimbo. The American was the only one there without an homunculus on his shoulder. Even the women had them.
The Home Secretary, Jemima Heinous-Smythe, opened the meeting without preamble. She said it was all about getting hold of the aliens’ self replication technology. They had been able to generate a hundred people within a few weeks of their craft landing on Earth a hundred years ago and they’d all been fully functional almost immediately. This was still their chosen method of reproduction: no messy child-rearing for them.
Beam put the case for acquiring the aliens’ technology. ‘We don’t want to go down their route for routine reproduction,’ he averred. ‘The way we go about it is a necessary part of our humanity. However, the military implications of this technology could be very far reaching.’
‘OK, Jimbo, tell us how we could exploit it,’ said the CIA man.
‘I have a vision: a drone drops a canister in an isolated spot in a war-torn area, Afghanistan, say. In a couple of weeks, a complete force of men develops in-situ and is ready to hit the enemy from inside its own territory. We don’t have to send in an army or worry about losing valuable troops. These entities are purely biological weapons programmed to search out and destroy enemy combatants.’
‘Have you thought out the implications of such a project Jim?’ queried the Home Secretary. Are these forces real people, golems or humanoid automata? Could we not use self assembling robots instead?’
‘We can already do that,’ interjected the CIA man. ‘Why use controversial biotech when we could deploy the bots?’
‘Yes, religious fundamentalists of all types would have a field day when the details got out,’ added the head of MI6.
‘Then we don’t let them out, do we?’ said Beam. ‘Look, my advisor agrees with me. We need to get hold of this technology by any means possible.’
‘You mean steal it?’ said the CIA man. ‘We’ve tried hacking into their computer systems but got nowhere. Even when we got in we found nothing about their rep tech. It must be kept off-line.’
Beam came back in. ‘Well I think we should set up a small task force that can get inside one of their facilities and get the info that way.’
‘This is a very sensitive issue for the Gliesens. We have asked them about it in the past and they just clammed up. Show of hands?’ said the Home Secretary.
Beam’s was the only hand raised apart from that of his homunculus.
On the way out from the meeting room, the CIA man fell into step beside Beam.
‘Hey, what’s this with your advisor telling you what to do?’
‘I don’t tell, I advise,’ interrupted the parasite on Beam’s shoulder with a snarl.
‘You keep your mouth shut Mr Advisor,’ said the CIA man. ‘I’m talking to your boss.’
‘He helps with difficult decisions,’ replied Beam. ‘Nothing more.’
‘Some of the other guys on ATAG have been getting tetchy about theirs, you know Jimbo. One guy was telling me about a guy, Cameroon who had a disagreement with his and they strangled one another. You gonna end up like that?’
‘Of course not. An advisor is a valuable tool and mine is completely compatible.’
‘Looks like it’s more a badge of rank to me. Only the members of the ruling elite have them. There’d be outrage if that happened back home. Everybody would want one. It would become part of the American dream.’
‘Yes, but here, people know their place.’
The CIA man moved to Beam’s other side, away from the homunculus, and whispered in his ear. ‘There are rumours on the web about rogue homunculi spreading to unwilling hosts. You’d best keep an eye on yours.’
‘Oh, he’s in fine fettle; no problems at all.’
‘There’s another thing you might need to think about. The Gliesens think those little people of yours are a parasite too far.’
****
Pamela met Lzortm Ekjorb in a wine bar not far from their first encounter. He was already there when she arrived and stood up as she approached his table. She didn’t quite know what to expect but his formal manner put her mind at rest. So many previous dates had started with a hand up between her thighs as soon as she’d sat down, it came as a relief to just talk to a man without gritting her teeth or punching him in the jaw. Her first glass of wine disappeared in minutes while he hardly touched his at all. He was a skilled conversationalist and soon got her to tell him about her job in PR, her pretty mother, avaricious brother and bisexual ex-husband with a gambling problem.
Later, at home, as she fed her ginger cat, she realised that she’d learned very little about the alien. She tried to list the things she knew: he was about 50 years old, was a scientist of some kind, enjoyed the company of human women and drank very little. Another thing she’d noticed: he hadn’t put his e-pad on the table or taken any calls while she was there. She’d felt embarrassed when hers had played its merry jingle and shut it off. He’d concentrated his attention purely on her. It had been a very flattering experience culminating in a polite kiss and a promise of further contact; so different from her previous encounters with scruffy bastards looking for a single night of passion only to be followed by lonely silence.
Having fed the cat and switched on the TV, she felt the need for a nightcap. As she poured herself a generous shot of bourbon, her e-pad chimed. It’s mother, she thought: she’s always poking her nose in when I go on a date. The face on the screen was of a man she didn’t know.
‘Good evening Ms Kozynski,’ said the face. ‘We haven’t met but I know of your work in political PR. I was wondering if you could help me.’
Pamela wiped her finger across the e-pad’s screen and pointed to the wallscreen. The man’s image popped up on the screen and his voice sprang from the embedded speakers.
‘Well, you know who I am. Please introduce yourself,’ replied Pamela.
‘Beam’s the name. You may have seen me on the Parliament Channel.’ Beam sat back in his chair to reveal more of himself and the room behind him.
Pamela noted the elegantly dressed parasite on Beam’s shoulder, knowing at once that he was of the ruling class. She gestured at the screen and a potted biography of Beam scrolled down in a sidebar.
> ‘What can I do for you minister? Don’t you have the government propaganda machine to put your message over? We’re all paying for it, I expect.’
‘This is not a PR job. Before I continue, can I say that whatever we say here is in strictest confidence. OK?’
‘Normal protocol.’
‘It has come to my attention that you have started a relationship with an alien. My operative tells me you spent the evening with him.’
‘Get to the point. This doesn’t sound like a PR job.’
‘It’s more important than that. Could we meet tomorrow?’
After she’d checked her schedule, Pamela agreed to meet Beam at a small house in Chelsea.
The call ended and Pamela reflected on the whole episode. She and the alien had been under surveillance at the wine bar, if not before. And now Beam wanted her to help with an issue of national importance, as he’d put it.
****
Aldhous Ferrin was worried and, for a change, it wasn’t about money. He’d noticed a couple of strange swellings: one near his groin and another on his chest. Then his girlfriend Val had noticed another on his back. They were growing rapidly. He had a pathological hatred of doctors and wouldn’t go near one even if his life depended on it. So, he self medicated with anti-inflammatory ointment three times a day. The lumps still kept growing and the one down below was getting in the way of his sex life. Val had examined the lump and had said she hoped it was another penis, then she could swop to it when he’d shot his bolt too early as usual. Her coarse laughter echoed in his head as he thought about the growths.
He woke up one morning to find that the lump on his chest had developed into a small human-like head with eyes, ears and a mouth. The other lumps weren’t far behind either. He’d seen heads like that before: homunculi. That couldn’t be it though. Only politicos and other high-ups had them and never more than one. A jobbing electrician didn’t need a parasitic advisor to tell him what to do. He knew his job inside out. And these were in the wrong place anyway. Weren’t they always on the shoulder, whispering in the host’s ear? He’d seen them on Parliament TV. Even if he wanted it, Aldhous would have to be double jointed to hear advice from these homunculi.
By the time the lumps had become fully fledged, Val had moved out, no longer laughing. She’d said the piggy little eyes following her around the bedroom when she’d undressed made her feel sick, let alone the parasites’ cries of encouragement when she and Aldhous made love. Get rid; then I’ll come back, she’d said.
So, here he was at the local chopshop. The receptionist was the usual haughty blonde with an Essex accent, conical tits and tight skirt.
‘So, you have lumps that need removing? How many?’ she asked, keying in details. ‘And where? No, don’t undress, just point. Yeah, can see lumps. Hey, do they move? That one just did.’
‘They bloody talk, let alone move. Can we get a shift on?’
The blonde tried to keep the smirk off her face but failed. A few minutes later, she ushered Aldhous into a cubicle. A white clad orderly cloned from the same stock as the receptionist, asked him to undress.
‘I’m Lucinda,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look.’
As he took off his shirt, the homunculus on his chest twisted its head round and leered at the woman. ‘You’re a nice lookin’ bit of stuff. Are you goin’ to take your clothes off as well. He’d like that. That’s my advice Aldhous. Get stuck in there boy.’
The parasite on his back joined in the repartee, echoing the sentiments of the first. From inside Aldhous’ trousers a muffled voice issued. ‘Don’t forget me. Let me see what’s goin’ on.’
‘Now you know what I’m up against. They’re always at it; chattering and telling me what to do. And apart from that, my clothes don’t fit over them.’
Lucinda peered inside his trousers and the homunculus popped its head out, looking around eagerly, its small hands grasping the waistband while Aldhous attempted to push the parasite back down out of sight.
An hour later, Aldhous was back outside. His was minus his homunculi and his credit card had taken a severe bashing. The local anaesthetic was just beginning to wear off and the sites where the homunculi had been were stinging slightly. He was one of many attending the chopshop to get rid of randomly growing advisors, Lucinda had told him. It was now a major source of income for them, well beyond breast implants and penile grafts. It was almost as if there was an epidemic of homunculi. He got out his e-pad and sent a message to Val: lumps gone. Come home.
****
Pamela waited while Beam listened to his whispering homunculus. She checked her e-pad for messages. There was one from the alien, Lzortm Ekjorb. He wanted to meet her again.
Beam finally looked at her. ‘Please turn that off. You can be tracked by anyone with a scanner. Mine’s off, as you can see,’ he said, holding out his own e-pad for her to examine. ‘How did you get here, by the way?’
‘Cab, as instructed. He dropped me a couple of streets away. So, what’s this about? You said it was important. It can’t be about golf, surely?’
Beam smiled broadly. ‘Everybody thinks I’m a buffoon, Pamela, and I allow that to happen. Being Minister for Golf Courses is the perfect cover for my other functions within government. Let me tell you about ATAG, the Alien Technology Acquisition Group. ATAG sets up projects that use technology obtained from the aliens. The technology is normally acquired legally and by agreement with them but sometimes we use less overt methods.’
‘You mean you pinch their technology?’
‘Putting it crudely, yes.’
‘And how do you use this stolen technology? It sounds iffy to me.’
‘I can’t tell you that. However, it is used in the nation’s interest and is sanctioned by the highest authority,’ replied Beam in an official tone.
‘So, where do I come in?’ asked Pamela.
****
Being a secret agent isn’t that different from working in PR, thought Pamela. You keep your opinions to yourself, tell people what they want to hear and use dodgy methods to get them to do what you want. She liked Lzortm though: he was charming, amusing and complimented her on her appearance as well as her intellect. She’d expected to have to resort to seduction to get him to show her his laboratory. Consequently, she’d worn her sexiest underwear in preparation. It wasn’t that comfortable and the bra was beginning to chafe. Now however, she was in mission mode, inspecting his lab and asking him about the aliens’ replication process. Pamela had expected a degree of reticence over this information: according to Beam, the Gliesens had stonewalled ATAG whenever they had asked for details. Now, it seemed to be all on a plate. Must be the effect of impending sex, she thought. Even an alien man is flattered by the attentions of an attractive woman. I’ll give him good value! I’ll get him to take this bra off for a start.
Lzortm accompanied her in his courtly fashion as he showed her around the lab. The machines meant nothing to her but that was OK: everything was being recorded by a pair of minute video cameras fitted inside her earrings. At times she fancied she could hear them whirring as they did their work but she knew they were noiseless, there being no moving parts as Jim Beam had been at pains to emphasise.
‘So, how does replication work, in simple terms?’ she asked.
‘This lab is not a replication centre, Pamela. Here, we do research on terrestrial plants. Photosynthesis is the way we will get our energy soon. Solar panels are very inefficient compared with biological systems. We are close to creating a photosynthetic panel that can generate electrical current directly from sunlight. This technology we will release as open source.’
‘You mean you’ll let anybody use it; no patents or restrictions.’
Lzortm nodded.
‘That’s really fantastic, Lzortm, but what I’m really interested in is how you reproduced yourselves when you landed a hundred years ago.’
‘Ah, it is complicated and you might find it difficult to understand.’
‘OK, try me.
I did biology at school. I know the difference between mitosis and meiosis and I even sequenced my own genome one afternoon,’ said Pamela with a laugh.
‘In that case, you should see the vid our team put together for educating our children about our replication techniques.’
****
Beam scrutinised the material downloaded from Pamela’s earrings. She’d taken them off when she’d gone to bed with the alien. More’s the pity, he thought. That would have been the most interesting part. He’d sent the recording to his pet scientist, Brian, whose response had been one of amusement. That’s for school kids, he’d said and didn’t contain any useful information about the technology. It skimmed the surface, outlining how genetic templates had been used to create new alien adults from local raw materials, all expressed in colourful cartoons, of course. It did mention that alien DNA was based on a four base code rather than three and that those bases weren’t the same as the ones in human DNA. Even Beam knew that, despite being a classics scholar. His parasite enjoyed the film, saying it was the best entertainment it had seen for years. Pamela will have to do better than this, thought Beam. She’ll have to take the alien to bed again.
****
Aldhous had been free of homunculi for a month. As soon as Val had known he was back to normal, she’d returned. Life with her mother was a fraught affair and she could stand living with her for only a short time before open warfare broke out. Val disapproved of her mother’s endless succession of inadequate horny younger men, while her mother slagged her off over her use of legal hallucinogens.
Val checked the places on Aldhous’ body where the parasites had been removed. The chopshop had done a good job: the homunculi had been excised very neatly and the self-dissolving stitches had melted away to leave small scars on which Val regularly rubbed soothing cream and then graduated to more entertaining parts of his body. She was still intrigued by the whole episode. While Aldhous just got on with being normal, Val wanted to know how a member of the lower orders had become infested with a parasite reserved for the upper echelons of society.
She spent time researching homunculi on the Internet, not only looking at well respected medical sites but also the gossip factories aka social networking sites. From the former, she found that the normal way to get infested was orally, under medical supervision. From the socnets, she distilled a few useful ideas. It was possible that some of the homunculi had evolved and developed the ability to reproduce. There were pictures of homunculi with small growths which ruptured. The orthodox medical sources said these were minor skin abnormalities while the speculative rumour mongers suggested that the sores shed infective spores. So, where had Aldhous been to pick up such spores? He would need to have been in close contact with an homunculus or a place where one could shed infective bodies. She asked Aldhous where he’d been working before he got the lumps.
Parasite World Page 4
