House of the Galactic Elevator

by Gerhard Gehrke

  House of the Galactic Elevator

  A Beginner’s Guide to Invading Earth – Book 2

  by

  Gerhard Gehrke

  For Abby

  The Story So Far…

  Jeff Abel was rather rudely abducted by aliens.

  This event followed a botched series of attempted first contact intent on bringing humanity into the fold of the Galactic Commons. Irving the Grey, the saboteur behind the failures, used Jeff as a pawn to bring about an invasion of the Galactic Commons by giant sixteen-legged spider creatures known as the Bunnie. Jordan, another human, betrayed Jeff in order to gain favor with Irving the Grey so she could leave Earth. Jeff, with the eventual help from Jordan as well as the extraterrestrial mechanic Oliop, managed to foil Irving’s plans, stopping the invasion.

  The cost? The Galactic Commons was now cut off from the rest of the galaxy. All of its computers were taken offline, infected by the Grey’s corrupted AI. And the elevator transportation system that allowed instant travel between worlds was broken. Also stranded were three thousand citizens of the Galactic Commons who evacuated during the invasion but instead wound up on Earth. Humanity wasn’t quite ready for the visitors.

  Jeff and Jordan were now stuck in an alien city with no way home. Sole representatives of Earth, the citizens of the Galactic Commons are keeping an eye on them.

  So what’s an ex–computer programmer turned pot-washer to do? Get a job with Galactic Commons Security, of course.

  PART ONE – MISPLACED EARTHLINGS

  CHAPTER 1

  “Be that as it may,” Jeff Abel said, “you can’t let him murder you like that. It’s against the law.”

  Jeff stood between the earthy slug and the porcine humanoid, keeping them at arm’s distance from each other. The slug reeked of dirt, rotten eggs, and manure. The pig man salivated, a stream of drool dripping from one of its two protruding tusks.

  “But officer,” the slug said, “my body is ready for composting. I’ve built up too much moisture to continue much longer, and I need to be sown into the ground to begin anew.”

  “That’s right, officer,” the pig said through the slurp of spit. “I was just going to help this here fellow with, er, that. It’s all natural and, as you just heard, consensual.”

  “Just a sec,” Jeff said. He pushed some hair from his face. He still hadn’t gotten around to finding a place that was willing to cut human hair. Maybe he could get the only other human in the city to do it, but he hadn’t seen Jordan in a month. He pulled out his tablet computer from a null-space pouch on his belt. If he had the city and species apps installed wet into his brain, the process of fact checking the slug would have been instantaneous. But Jeff didn’t want anything, no matter how benign, implanted under his skin or in his head.

  The tablet showed him the species data for the slug. Upon maturation, the creatures went through an off-gassing period where they returned home to get tilled under the soil and sprout a new generation of dirt slugs, passing on memories and a shadow of the creature’s previous identity to their children. These, in turn, grew and prospered and repeated the process a decade later.

  “As you can see, I want this to happen,” the slug said.

  Jeff looked around at the park they were standing in. Stone and crystal pillars of varying heights filled the open spaces, with deep green shrubs replete with white flowers growing in between. Gravel pathways wound between the pillars, as did a floating stream of effervescent water that sparkled under the silver sky. A few Galactic Commons citizens strolled about the park, with none taking any interest in the security issue at hand. The park itself was one of hundreds of greenbelts set aside within the urban landscape for recreation, meditation, and, in this case, an attempted composting homicide.

  The city itself rose on all sides of the long park, a bewildering array of impossibly tall buildings of myriad styles shining in the silver sky. Some looked like needles. Some like polished slate-grey obelisks. At least one looked like a mutant diamond-studded beanstalk straight out of a fairy tale. The city was the architectural output of a thousand worlds and member races of the Galactic Commons, a conjoined salad-bowl culture where nothing fit together, yet it all somehow worked.

  “Look,” Jeff said, “I see that this is part of your natural process. I also see that you can put it off for a while.”

  “But it’s not comfortable. I feel bloated.” The slug offered a hand to the pig man. The pig man’s snout twitched and it snorted and sniffed. Soon it was dabbing its nose into the slug’s arm.

  “Knock it off,” Jeff said. “You’ll have to wait to get back to your homeworld, or at least back to your sovereign building to carry on. I can’t authorize this, not here.”

  “But we don’t have a sovereign building,” the slug said.

  “And he can’t go back to his homeworld,” the pig man said. “None of us can.”

  The pig man was right. The elevators of the Galactic Commons transportation system hadn’t worked for the three months since the Bunnie invasion had been thwarted. The slug, the pig man, and Jeff were stuck in the city until it all got fixed. Other issues, like finding Jordan or trying to rescue the thousands of stranded aliens who had mistakenly traveled to Earth just before the elevators broke, would also have to wait.

  “So what do you say, Officer?” the pig man asked. “Can I help a fellow citizen out?”

  Jeff activated the security app to show him where any other officer might be. While he browsed the interface, the pig man bit into the slug’s arm. Its snout ripped most of the muddy limb apart, emerging brown and disgusting with worms dangling from between its teeth and tusks. It slurped these down like spaghetti noodles.

  The slug started to scream, but whether with pain or delight, Jeff couldn’t be sure. It gasped and trembled but didn’t pull away from the pig man.

  “Hey!” Jeff yelled. He reached into his null-space pouch. Water bottle, lunch box, first aid kit, some random tools. Where was his stun blaster? Keeping the pouch organized was worse than keeping a tool box well-ordered or a work truck clean, as the pouch’s contents floated where they were placed, obscuring deeper recesses and items rarely used, such as his never-fired stunner issued the day he signed on to the security detail for the city.

  The pig man’s pupils went small and it chomped into the slug’s shoulder, savaging it. Jeff punched the creature. The pig man went down, but it had the slug’s arm still in its grip, the limb having been torn completely free.

  “Thank you, thank you, oh thank you,” the one-armed slug said.

  Jeff waggled his hand as pain shot down from fingers to wrist. Hitting the pig man’s knobby head felt like punching a rock.

  “Stay down,” Jeff said.

  The pig man laughed. “What are you going to do? Banish me?” It got up. “Here’s my suggestion, human. Get lost and let two consenting Commons citizens enjoy lunch.”

  “I said stay down.”

  The pig man lowered its head and narrowed its eyes. The slathered mud clung to its bristles like a mask, and its two tusks looked like curved daggers. It scraped a foot on the ground.

  Jeff took a step back. “Listen, just hold on, wait.”

  The pig man charged. A yellow bolt cracked the air, striking the pig man on the back of the head like a kiss of lightning. The pig man stumbled and fell to the ground, twitching.

  A bumpy-faced humanoid wearing a trench coat and holding a small stun pistol walked over to them, his expression a sea of calm.

  “You shot him,” the slug said, sounding disappointed.

  “Correct,” Captain Flemming of Commons Security said. He holstered his weapon. “He’s only stunned for a while. Time enough to sort this out. H
ow old are you?”

  “I’m, uh, ten years old,” the slug said.

  “Is this your first decomposition?”

  “It was going so well until the human interrupted us.”

  Flemming gave Jeff a look. “The human was doing his job. Saving your next of kin. Pull up a species bio. This creature wasn’t going to till you. He was going to consume anything that you might leave in the ground that would comprise your future generation. Also check your city app. This soil is quite alkali, and your spawn might not have survived even had they been planted with more loving hands.”

  The slug’s expression fell. Then a look of concentration crossed his face as he read through the particulars of the pig man’s species on his wet app. His eyes glowed with a blue data feed.

  “Oh my,” the slug said. “You’re right.”

  “Unfortunately, your elders left you here during the evacuation,” Flemming said. “Some of them were decades old and could have told you these things, and also that you can tough it out for quite a few maturation cycles before composting.”

  “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, Captain.”

  The slug offered Captain Flemming a dirty hand, like a brown snowman wanting to shake. Flemming took the hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Now go back to your dorm,” Flemming said, wiping his hand on his coat. “And don’t take anyone else up on any offers of a date.”

  The slug nodded and began to creep away, his single long foot a ripple of motion leaving a trail of shiny brown in his wake.

  “Thanks,” Jeff said.

  “You need to get your app installed,” Flemming said. “And where’s your stunner?”

  “In my pocket. It’s under some stuff. I couldn’t find it.”

  “Indeed. Get a second pouch for work.”

  “What about him?” Jeff crouched over the stunned pig man. It still clung onto the slug’s dirty arm like a trophy.

  “Call the security bots and have him taken to detention with the others.” With that, Flemming turned and left Jeff standing alone in the park.

  Using the tablet, Jeff called two bots for the detainee. He next tapped one icon labeled “Security Incident Report.” The app offered a wet install. The notion sent a shiver down his spine and he declined the offer. Operating the computers in the course of duty was one thing. He had gotten used to working on the machines again, even going as far as familiarizing himself with some of the programming for the affected systems broken during the Bunnie invasion. But the notion of putting any program into his head where he couldn’t pop it in a drawer or pouch at the end of the day still made him queasy. Jordan didn’t have a problem with it. She had installed several wet apps just hours after humanity’s acceptance into the Commons. In fact, most citizens had their apps in their heads or under their skin. But not all. And not Jeff, no way, not today, or any other day.

  Besides, the Security Protocols and Procedures Manual said it was optional for volunteers in the service.

  Jeff tried not to think about all of the automated, computer-controlled conveniences that filled every corner of the city. He always took the tram when possible to avoid interacting with the automated cars. He avoided buildings that didn’t have stairs, even though his home office was inside the security building, which was halfway up a ninety-six-floor tower. The high-speed grav lifts reminded him of the worst kind of amusement park ride that only served to send lunch to a rider’s feet before catapulting it in the opposite direction. He kept most of the appliances in his new apartment unplugged.

  A few of the walkers in the park stared at him. Jeff smiled and waved. While his translator couldn’t read lips, he could hear one of them whisper to her mate in a disapproving tone, “That’s the human.”

  That was the first time Jeff wanted to go back home.

  CHAPTER 2

  The circuit board flew at Jeff, not unlike a square Frisbee with sharp corners. Jeff ducked. The board shattered on the wall by the workshop door.

  A string of high-pitched curses followed, not so much complete words as syllables degenerated from any meaning by their speaker. The chittering came from a tall, lanky technician in a blue maintenance jumpsuit who stood between two workbenches stacked with tools, loose piles of hardware, and more circuit boards. The technician’s head and hands were covered in light brown hair, with a thick mustache underscoring his petite nose. A long tail held a pair of pliers. Two large ears perked up as Jeff approached.

  Jeff raised his hands in surrender. “Cease fire! I come in peace.”

  “Oh, hello, Jeff Abel,” Oliop said with a smile. His ears folded back. “I, uh, am sorry I threw that. I didn’t see you.”

  The workshop was an obstacle course of dismantled machinery, ranging from carefully taken-apart boxy skeletons of large appliances with hovering labels over each component to loosely organized piles of fasteners and wire. A knee-high bot on treads held a light in an extended arm over one of the workbenches where Oliop stood.

  Oliop’s face fell to a nervous frown. “This isn’t a good time.”

  “I kinda guessed that. I was just checking in to see how the progress on the elevator system was going.”

  Oliop sighed. “It’s not going. None of it. Every time I isolate a subsystem and troubleshoot it, I find an issue with the system beneath. It’s as if it doesn’t want to be fixed.”

  “I thought we took care of that issue.”

  “It’s not a rogue AI like before the invasion. At least back then the broken AI kept the entire system running and automatically compensated for the abnormalities in a system this complex. Now it’s on us to find the bugs one at a time. Besides the bugs, each elevator has a hole in its central command core, like a part went missing. I can’t get the system to even power up for more than a moment before it shuts itself down. We don’t dare to try using the elevators if the system could crash.”

  “That sounds like it wouldn’t be fun.”

  “One-way trip,” Oliop said, nodding enthusiastically. “We’d lose the elevator.”

  “Not to mention those inside.”

  “That too.”

  The space beyond the lit workbenches fell off into darkness as if the shop were an island of light placed in an abyss of shadow. Oliop and Jeff’s voices echoed into that space, the ambient sounds of the Galactic Commons transportation system no longer reverberating through the lower warrens underneath the terminal. When their words stopped, the silence hung heavy.

  “Why are you working alone again?” Jeff asked.

  Oliop’s tail handed the pliers forward. He took the tool with a hand, placed it on a workbench, and began to spin it about like a top. He said something in a low murmur that Jeff didn’t understand.

  “What happened to your last two assistants?”

  “I told them to leave.”

  “Oliop, you can’t keep doing that. There’s too much to do here for you to go at it alone. Every sovereign house and every junior race in the Galactic Commons needs this system back up and running.”

  Oliop’s ears folded and his head lowered.

  “Look, Oliop, I’m not mad at you. It’s just that you need help, and you need to figure out how to work with other people.”

  “You could help me.”

  “I have a job,” Jeff said.

  He tugged at the security lapel tag on his suit. It introduced him as Jeff Abel, Security Services. The city app would also profile his species for those that were curious or wanted to know the credentials of the cop assisting them. Years of computer programming experience: Seventeen. Invasions foiled: One. Time in the Galactic Commons: Three months.

  “And I’m here now, aren’t I?” Jeff said with a shrug. “I just can’t help you full-time.”

  Oliop handed the pliers from one hand to the other, back and forth, rotating, opening, and closing them. The bot adjusted the light and followed the moving tool. Oliop sheepishly looked up at Jeff.

  “Since you’re here,” Oliop said, “can we reassemble the cargo ele
vator?”

  “Sure.” Jeff rolled up his sleeves.

  He examined the cargo elevator. The large box looked like a disemboweled shipping container. Many of its key components were laid out, with wires and circuitry placed in seemingly random places. Tracks and anchor points covered the interior and exterior skin, designed for ease of loading and securing cargo and for moving the elevator itself.

  Jeff was about to consult one of Oliop’s tablets showing an illuminated elevator diagram when Captain Flemming stepped into the lighted area of the workshop.

  “Ah, good. You’re already here,” Flemming said. His neutral, bland expression betrayed nothing when he added, “Have you told Oliop about the charges against him?”

  “The what?” Jeff asked.

  Jeff’s security coat hung on a conduit hook on the wall. His personal tablet with any communications from Captain Flemming rested snugly in the coat’s null-space pouch.

  “Uh-oh,” Oliop said.

  Oliop held a caddy with an assortment of fasteners and clips and small clamps. He stood on top of the defunct elevator, straddling a gap where a section of paneling had been removed.

  “What’s he talking about?” Jeff asked in a low voice.

  Behind Flemming came another cop with a set of dangling tentacles for a face. This was Detective Ceph, one of the few reliable citizens Jeff worked with. A pair of scowling, scaly centaurs followed, neither of them with Galactic Commons Security. To Jeff they looked identical.

  “This is Uttu’a and Uttu’beh of the Jinong,” Captain Flemming said.

  Detective Ceph pointed up at Oliop. “Is this the one?” he asked. The two Jinong both nodded, scowled some more, and flicked their forked tongues.

  “Then let’s see if the glove fits,” Ceph said. He pulled a tablet from a pocket, and with a gesture flicked a screen up into the air for all to see. Blueish hazy footage began to play. It showed a small shop with a few shelves that looked mostly bare but for a number of evenly spaced tiny boxes. One of the Jinong centaurs stood behind a counter working away at a computer. Oliop entered the store from off camera.