House of the Galactic Elevator

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “I’ve never installed anything remotely close to a game app. I’ve never installed anything. Ever.”

  “That is a perplexing riddle to get to the bottom of.”

  Jeff rubbed the back of his head. His virtual head. Here he had no null-space pouch attached to his neck or uniform. There was no virtual translation unit, either. That all happened in the real world. Which was where, exactly?

  “Let’s talk about Jordan,” Jeff said. “How is it she’s stuck?”

  “Perhaps she was ensnared much like you,” Ceph said. “She wanted your help or Oliop’s but couldn’t connect with either of you.” He sat forward on the couch. The front of his robe hung open enough that Jeff could make out a rough pattern of small scales on the detective’s chest.

  “Interesting. She was off the grid and wasn’t returning my calls. She was out at Spice Valley Park, like some kind of ranger or caretaker. But there’s nothing I can do right now to help her.”

  “To help others we must first help ourselves,” said a new voice.

  Doctor Carol stepped into Ceph’s virtual living room. Jeff jumped back, all the anxiety and doubts about his sanity he had faced when at the hospital rushing in like a tide.

  “She no doubt needs your help,” Doctor Carol said, “but first you have to help yourself. It’s like the situation on an airplane when the cabin loses pressure. First put the oxygen on your own face, then you help the ones you love. Help yourself, Jeff. Let me help you. Come back to the hospital.”

  Jeff backed up against a wall and couldn’t retreat any further. He raised a trembling hand, pointed at the doctor.

  “Ceph, do you see him?” Jeff asked.

  Ceph got up and walked to the doctor. “Plain as day.”

  Zachary appeared next to Jeff. Jeff tried to backpedal, tripped over his own feet, and landed on his ass. Zachary stood over him and offered him a hand.

  “Come on, Jeffy boy,” Zachary said. “It’s chicken à la king night at the Ross Hospital Bistro, with bread pudding for afters. Then Parcheesi and Nurse Jackie reruns. Ping-pong tomorrow after group! All this and so much more!”

  Jeff shook his head, looked at the doctor and at Ceph. When Zachary smiled and continued to hold out his hand, Jeff almost took it.

  “Jeff, do you not see these as game constructs?” Ceph said. “Curious that they followed you here, but your game app should clearly label them unless you have the option turned off.”

  “I told you I never installed any apps!”

  “Then perhaps one was installed for you. Someone helping you since you wouldn’t help yourself. A clear violation, of course.”

  Both the doctor and Zachary continued to loom large.

  “How do I turn them off?”

  “I’d advise against that,” Doctor Carol said.

  “Shut up, I’m not talking to you,” Jeff said.

  “Hey, Jeffy, congrats on earning the tablet,” Zachary said. “There’s ninety-eight other achievements just waiting for you. But you have to come back.”

  Jeff knocked his hand away.

  When Ceph told him what to do, Jeff felt a bit silly, as if hearing advice he had given to dozens if not hundreds of people that needed help fixing a simple computer problem. IT man, heal thyself.

  “Have you tried turning the world off?” Ceph had said. “All apps can be closed. Wet apps are no different.”

  It didn’t even mean somehow committing virtual suicide. It meant visualizing the game world and hitting a mental three-finger salute, a Control-Alt-Delete that would reboot the whole mess, closing everything in the process. Jeff probed the controls with his mind. Sure enough, he found the switch just as Ceph said. As easy as picturing a color or reciting a short memorized line from a poem.

  Ceph was still talking, but Jeff wasn’t listening. Ceph said something like, “Wait. Don’t reboot yet until –”

  Jeff rebooted. Ceph and his ocean-scented love lounge vanished. The last thing Jeff saw was Doctor Carol shaking his head sadly, as if he had just lost a patient.

  CHAPTER 17

  Rutger Toggs, acoustician and Galactic Commons exile, roamed the detention camp and listened. He didn’t dare use his recording device in the broad daylight and under the watchful eye of the human camp guards. The recorder and his other possessions stayed tucked away in one of his null-space pouches. If the humans ever got wise to how their extraterrestrial visitors kept producing personal belongings, the pouches would be all be taken, along with their translators.

  He searched for Kwed, but the millipedoid wasn’t in the camp. He spoke to his fellow inmates. No one had seen him. No one sounded concerned about his absence. Toggs saw the growing listlessness among the internees. The initial shock and thrill of being on the human homeworld had worn off. Fear of the humans and the possibility for vivisection soon faded, as nothing so horrific had happened. Boredom now afflicted the two thousand Galactic Commons citizens as they whiled away their days. No one had much of a plan of what to do.

  For now, the general consensus was to stay put and wait for rescue.

  So Toggs listened. They were being held in long, cramped bunkhouses that were stuffy and too loud, so Toggs spent most of his days outside. A warm, muggy wind blew between the buildings in the afternoons. He tuned out the idle chatter of the spiritless beings waiting for something to happen. He listened to wind and to the other sounds of the camp. He heard birds, even though he rarely saw them. The repetitive trills of the black ones pleased him the most, and they turned out to be the most common. The early morning hours allowed for a more nuanced study of the sound landscape. A barely moving breeze sometimes carried fog over the camp. Small mammals scratched the dirt and ran under the buildings, their tiny feet pitter-pattering in jerking bursts of speed. One night Toggs had spotted a perfectly silent bird swoop and snatch up one of the mammals mid-pitter-patter just outside the fence. Toggs watched through the window every night since for another glance at the stealthy flier but never saw it again.

  Loud subsonic aircraft passed overhead regularly. Human tech looked many decades behind any Galactic Commons civilization.

  The human activity nearby sounded as mundane as any other vocation conducted by beings engaged in busywork. The humans patrolled the camp perimeter, came and went in their wheeled vehicles, and sat in their one office and worked at their desks. Toggs liked it when they were close enough that he could hear their conversations. Most were very guarded, but a few would discuss personal things, their own organizational issues, and everyday topics like the weather, food, and after-hours activities. The loosest lips talked about aliens.

  From what Toggs could glean, the men in dark suits (there were a few of the female gender) didn’t know what to do with two thousand visitors from another world. They hadn’t been prepared to deal with anything like this, had never expected to have this task dropped into their laps so literally out of the blue. They investigated sightings. They recovered and sequestered evidence from any extraterrestrial contact. They had a busy recent history with actual alien bodies popping up all around this quadrant of human civilization, a place called “California.”

  It seemed that several visitors from other worlds were found dead through a variety of different mishaps. These must have been members of the Happy Alien Welcome Committee, sent to bring humanity into the Galactic Commons, their mission somehow having failed repeatedly. Few of his fellow refugees knew more than the rumors and news reports heard before the evacuation. None of the humans Toggs eavesdropped in on had a clue as to why there were so many dead aliens. Now there were too many live ones.

  And then the opportunity for listening in on human conversations dried up dramatically when a rotary-wing aircraft landed on a slab of concrete outside of camp, dislodging more humans with the prerequisite dark suits. One man had silver hair and was clearly in charge. The casual talk all but ceased. The guards walked more briskly, watched their wards with vigilance, and spoke to no one except when absolutely necessary.

  They
called the man with silver hair the Director, and he and his entourage were of a higher rank and told the others what to do.

  Still, there were opportunities for Toggs to interact with his hosts. Sometimes they even spoke directly to him, which was a treat. The humans weren’t entirely stupid. They noted that their visitors could understand them if they spoke to the aliens slowly and with small words as if they were infants. So whenever a question had to be asked of anyone in the camp, it became a laborious one-sided interrogation.

  “Can. You. Eat. This?” was one of the most common questions.

  The humans never brought in the food printer that the refugees had set up in the hangar. Twice a day the humans opened up a buffet of the foods that passed muster: a few varieties of boiled grains, brown pellets, raw seeds, leafy green vegetables (Toggs’ favorite), earthworms, and loaves of bread. The humans once brought in some live brown and white feathered birds that didn’t fly. After two of the Galactic Commons carnivores tore the fowls apart, shaking feathers and blood everywhere and causing some of the exiles (Toggs included) to shriek in horror, the humans only occasionally brought in meat, already dead, and served it in a different lunch line reserved for the meat eaters.

  The humans kept watch on their captive visitors. The visitors docilely waited for deliverance.

  After the man with silver hair’s arrival, a new large canvas tent was set up attached to one side of the compound. This was wrapped in some kind of clear plastic sheeting, and an entryway system required those coming in from the outside to shower, dip their feet in small tubs of what smelled like sodium hypochlorite, and don yellow protective suits that covered the humans from head to toe. A gate opened between this tent and the visitor’s area. A pair of guards with protective suits and weapons stood watch.

  On a particularly foggy morning, some of Toggs’ fellow refugees were invited into the tent, escorted there by a pair of guards. Soon, a dozen Galactic Commons citizens had gone into the tent. The fog lifted and the day progressed to a windy afternoon. No one came back out of the tent. This quickly began a boiling panic.

  “They’re going to cut us open.”

  “Interrogate us and find out where our homeworlds are.”

  “Experiments. They’re doing experiments.”

  “No one has come out of the tent.”

  Toggs gathered with the largest throng of internees.

  “We rush the gate and make a break for it,” a purple-skinned blob said. “We should have done this when they first took us. Some of us will make it to safety.”

  Toggs saw the two guards by the tent watching them.

  “Hold on,” Toggs said with his big voice.

  Once again, he had everyone’s attention. “Give me a few minutes before you do anything stupid.” He did a shoulder check. Three more guards stood on the opposite side of the fence. They had their weapons off their shoulders and pointed at the ground.

  “Let’s make them just a bit more nervous,” Toggs said. “Keep talking, just louder.”

  The purple blob looked confused. For the blob, this meant a droop around the sides, like the spontaneous growth of love handles.

  “Pull it together,” Toggs said, and was surprised that the blob did just so in both spirit and form. “Trust me, I need the distraction.”

  “I’m on it,” the blob said. “But what should I say? I think I already said my piece.”

  “Know any songs?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right everyone,” Toggs said, clapping his hands. “We’re going to have a sing-along. The humans don’t know what we’re saying. So join in with my friend here. Or shout something. Poetry. Prayer. Just make it loud. I’ll be right back.”

  He left the blob and the rest, and at first the group just stood in stupid silence. Maybe they hadn’t understood what Toggs had in mind. The panicky group might just bolt, blowing through the nearest section of gate and heading towards the far away hills. Maybe breaking for it was the right choice. Toggs didn’t want to tell anyone what to do. He wasn’t a leader. He just spoke loudly.

  Then the blob started singing. It was a dirge, dripping sadness with each word. The blob was lamenting the fundamental attribute error where other beings assumed he had no spine, which was true, but he wished others wouldn’t reach that conclusion about him before getting to know him better. Toggs found it both touching and jarring. To those humans listening without benefit of translation, the mournful singing would sound like a foghorn belch that went on and on and on. It didn’t sound much better to any of the Galactic Commons citizens listening in, but it did have a catchy rhythm. Other internees soon joined in, singing along, or just shouting at the top of their lungs and air sacs, or whooping, chirping, or thumping. At least half of the camp began participating in the song. Maybe it was being stuck on the human world for so long. Maybe it was just being held captive first by the Bunnie and then by the technologically inferior locals. Maybe some just wanted to go home. But the full-throated cacophony signaled to the humans that the Galactic Commons citizens were not a broken people to be quietly locked away. They could make some noise.

  One plant-based cyborg with a rumbling exhaust threw down with a deep bass revving-engine sound that shook the very structures of the bunkhouses.

  To say the human guards were alarmed would be to say that a man with his clothes on fire might consider a dip in a pool of water. The guards raised weapons, called for backup, or grabbed at each other for comfort. One man in a dark suit standing just outside the fence threw down a tablet computer and fled.

  The rolling, croaking ululation ripped through the air and drowned out all but the loudest shouts on the humans’ radios and phones. When the song reached its second crescendo, at least some of the humans had organized via hand gestures into a small formation that entered the compound by the main gate and advanced towards the chorus of aliens.

  Toggs headed the opposite direction. It took a moment, as the enthusiasm for the blob song took him by surprise. As an audiophile, he also wanted to listen, as there were so few cross-species examples of music of this magnitude, and this song was a magnificent specimen. Too bad it was in the open air. With better acoustics, this song could be truly epic.

  Toggs reached into his null-space pouch and found his audio tools. He would get next to the tent with the missing internees and listen to see whether his fellow refugees were still alive. The directional sound pickups would hear the quietest of noises even with the clamor at his rear. As he got close to the tent, he quickly removed his hand from the pouch.

  A lone guard still held his position at the entrance. The man’s attention was fixed, looking in the direction of the singing crowd. His mouth hung loose. His sidearm was half-raised even though he had no target. When he saw Toggs’ large form approaching, the man pointed the pistol at Toggs.

  Toggs stood a head and a half taller than the human. Gestures could be misconstrued. Even a smile could be a threat or a flirtation without the benefit of translation. But Toggs couldn’t help it. He smiled, put up both hands.

  The human shouted, “Get back!”

  Toggs give an affirmative nod and pointed back in the direction of the commotion.

  “Your buddies need you,” Toggs said.

  The guard’s hands trembled. His finger rested tight on the weapon’s trigger. The guard said something into his radio. The sound of the song washed over both of them in waves.

  Toggs summoned an expression of herbivore innocence. Just a friendly plant eater here, friend! He gestured to his ears as if to say, “Loud, isn’t it?”

  Translators would have caught the gesture. The guard didn’t. He waved the weapon about. If the guard fired there was an equal chance Toggs would be shot in the face or the weapon would fire into the air. Panic showed in the man’s eyes. Surreptitiously scanning the tent wouldn’t work. Toggs had to try something else or give up.

  “I’m warning you!” the guard shouted.

  Toggs looked at the weapon, then at the human. H
is eyes widened. He then put a hand to his chest. And collapsed to the dirt.

  ***

  This dirt smelled terrible. It lacked any of the interesting microbes that might make it worth chewing on. Toggs’ mouth enzymes were always looking for something to digest. The soil contained too many industrial components, like lead, benzene, various other petroleum-based products, arsenic, and mercury. Even a hatchling from Toggs’ world could detect that. Pretending to faint held a real possibility of him getting ill if he sampled any of the toxic ground his face now rested upon.

  It was taking longer than he thought it should for other humans to come around to help the guard with a collapsed alien. The men in dark suits had been so careful with them for the past week that Toggs guessed they were under orders to treat them well. Except, perhaps, for whatever was going down inside the tent.

  Finally the diversion song ended and other humans arrived. These had taken the time to put on the plastic environmental suits. After trying to revive Toggs with a few gentle prods and at least one hard one, it took four men to get him onto a rolling gurney. Then they took him into the tent.

  Once inside, it took all of Toggs’ self-control to not wipe the stinky dirt from his face. He wanted to sneeze and cough so badly. He did open one eye once the gurney stopped moving and the four humans that had brought him in left.

  Two other humans in environmental suits worked inside the tent. The space was full of collapsible furniture, cloth partitions, and various machines and equipment. A high-tech lab by human standards.

  “He’s awake,” one of the humans said.

  Too late to keep pretending to be unconscious. Toggs sat up. He saw the other missing inductees sitting or reclining, each in their own partitioned space, all still quite alive. If anything, they looked bored.

  One neighbor next to Toggs was a large protozoa with visible red and green organs. She asked, “What’s with all the racket?”