Culture Shock: A First Contact Mystery Thriller (The Gunn Files Book 1)

by M. G. Herron

  “It’s just a phrase.”

  “Stupid phrase,” Kilos muttered.

  “So Elekatch is working for the Tetrad, and we have to stop him,” I said. “Will that interference cage on the beacon hold?”

  “For now.”

  “What else can you tell me?”

  “We’ve said more than enough,” Kilos replied. “Dyna needs rest. We can pick this up in the morning.”

  To my surprise, Dyna didn’t disagree with him. She just turned her head away and closed her eyes. Kilos lowered himself into my office chair, leaving nowhere for me to sit except the thin carpet.

  “Fine,” I said. “This place is too cramped for all three of us. My place is only a couple miles from here. I’ll go home, sleep, and be back here first thing in the morning.”

  Ignoring me, Kilos tucked his feet up under himself and began to do his breathing exercises.

  I grabbed my laptop and stopped at the door, turning back to Kilos. “I don’t have any kitty litter, but there’s a bathroom down the hall.”

  I slammed the door shut before he could respond.

  Back home, I pulled up Marsha Marshall’s blog on my home computer and laughed out loud.

  Her latest article, published earlier today, was about the possible causes of the rolling blackouts in Austin. Her conclusions were way off base, but she wasn’t so far off the mark as to be groan-worthy, given what I now knew of Austin’s alien underbelly. Her Spidey Sense for this stuff was good—even if, in one lurid section, she proposed that the blackouts were a conspiracy originating with the Department of Energy. I finished reading the punchy article with a chuckle. More than usual, I regarded the garish website with admiration. One of these days, I’d have to find out who was really behind the keyboard.

  Yawning, I powered down the computer and made my way to the bedroom. Kicking off my shoes, I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

  17

  “I hope offworlders drink coffee,” I said, balancing a cardboard tray with three steaming black beverages in one hand, and a white paper bag of breakfast tacos in the other, as I pushed open the door to my office with my hip. “Considering how fast Kilos put that pizza down the other night, I figured y’all would eat the tacos, but I wasn’t sure about—”

  I stopped short when I saw Dyna was sitting cross-legged in the chair Kilos had been sitting in when I left. Kilos, however, was nowhere in sight.

  Dyna cracked one eye open and glanced at me before returning to her meditation. The little knots of hair on her head were a solid red color that faded to a rich brown, even more vibrant than the first time I saw her. No flickering that I could detect—in fact, no indication at all she’d been shivering with pain and struggling to maintain consciousness the night before.

  As I set the food and drink down on my desk, I watched her out of the corner of my eye for any change in color, any sign she hadn’t fully recovered. I saw none. Her face was as calm and placid as a lake on a windless day.

  “Where’s Kilos?” I asked, grabbing a foil-wrapped taco from the bag and opening it in my lap.

  “He’s searching for Elekatch’s trail.”

  “The old-fashioned way?” I handed her a coffee cup. Dyna sniffed, crinkled her nose, and then placed it back on the desk. I shrugged and took a big bite of my first bacon, egg, and cheese taco. “I thought tracking the creep was your job. Last night, you said you could feel his presence.”

  “Unfortunately, in order to shut down the mental assault Elekatch was waging against me through the interference cage, I had to manually block my psychic receptors.” She tapped one of the red knots of so-called “hair” on her head, reminding me that under the ultra-realistic disguise, they were actually the nodes of her cybernetic augmentations.

  “How is Hobbs planning to find Elekatch on his own?”

  She tilted her head at me. “I do not understand your references, but if you mean Kilos, he is going to search for our mark the ‘old-fashioned’ way, as you so cleverly put it. We Peacekeepers would not be the most feared special agents in the galaxy without extensive survival training. Kilos’s Kilgar DNA makes him a particularly adept tracker, if we’re old fashioning the situation.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Just no.”

  She frowned.

  I poured three sugar packets into my coffee and polished off the first breakfast taco while Dyna picked all the cheddar out of the chorizo, egg, and cheese she grabbed. Once it was free of lactose, she took a ginger little bite that caused her eyes to widen. Her next bite was far less lady-like.

  “These are delicious. What do you call them?”

  “Breakfast tacos.”

  “The flavor causes me to reevaluate my previous impressions of Earth-based cuisine.”

  I snorted and shook my head. “Who could blame you?”

  We finished our breakfast in comfortable silence. I ate the rest of my tacos—and the two I bought for Kilos. Couldn’t let them go to waste, could I? Once Dyna finished, she returned to her meditation.

  “What now?” I asked. “We just twiddle our thumbs while your partner is out hunting the fantastic Mr. Squid?”

  “Your Earth phrases are strange. To twiddle one’s thumbs… this means to wait?”

  “Yeah,” I said, demonstrating.

  She shrugged and said, “I have been thinking. Have you considered what happened to the starcraft in which Elekatch arrived?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “It is here somewhere, but I do not know where Elekatch hid it. With luck, Kilos will pick up Elekatch’s trail. If not, then he will attempt to locate the starcraft.”

  “With luck? I thought you guys were supposed to be good at this.”

  “Just because we are good at it does not mean it is easy.”

  “Now, that I can understand.” I thought about it for a moment. “How do you hide a spaceship? It’s gotta be huge, right? There’s not some techno-tracker-gizmo you can use?”

  “The craft itself is smaller than your truck, and his species are quite strong. He could easily have relocated it some distance away from the crash site without ‘breaking a sweat.’ Did I say that right?”

  I nodded.

  Dyna looked pleased with herself. I did not feel so happy. This was a recurring nightmare of mine—a dangerous fugitive loose in my city. It was worse that the fugitive happened to be a mind-controlling alien. No way to find him, no power to stop him, at least not on my own. In over a decade chasing skips all across the southwestern United States, I’d never faced a menace like Elekatch.

  The thought of letting Alek down bummed me out enough. Hell, even letting these offworlders down got to me. I didn’t care for Kilos too much, but he was an ally now and it was my fault his leg got ripped off. That had to have been painful.

  I couldn’t let myself become a liability again.

  Not to mention my other obligations—if the Gatekeeper was anything like the mob boss Vinny described him as, I didn’t want to get on his bad side. Not only did he hold the keys to the only paycheck I was likely to salvage out of this situation, but if I didn’t give him what he wanted, I had no doubt that there would be consequences.

  “Dyna, can you train me?” I asked. “Like you started to do last night?”

  “If you are talking about warding off mental assaults from Elekatch, it is a discipline that will take far longer than a few hours to master. Kilos and I, together, are barely matched to the Pharsei.”

  “You said yourself, I deserve to know what I’m up against. I don’t want to be the reason we all die out there.”

  She appeared to think it over, then said, “Your logic in this situation is sound, and I respect your stance. I suppose I could, at least, begin the process… if you will reconsider my offer.”

  “I’m not going to become your snitch.”

  “You would be an official agent of the Federation, Gunn, not an informant. Besides, it is the only way to get access to our training programs. But if you are n
ot interested, then perhaps it is better if we finish this on our own.” She stood as if to go.

  “Wait,” I said, stepping into her path. Not only had she agreed to replace the income I’d lost on Kovak’s bounty, but I couldn’t let her leave—I couldn’t beat Elekatch without these stubborn Peacekeepers by my side, which meant I couldn’t hold up my end of the bargain with the Gatekeeper without them, either. If Dyna walked, I was in a worse place than where I’d started.

  And where would that leave me? I didn’t have to consult Annabelle to know I’d be evicted from the office, default on the business loan, maybe even lose my house. Would I end up washed up on the beach like my old man? That thought was dark and sobering.

  I wiped my sweaty palms against my jeans, then grabbed the desk chair and scooted it close to Dyna. I sat down facing her.

  “What if we agree that I’ll do it, but just for this mission.”

  “That is against Federation policy.”

  “Who cares about policy? This is between me and you. We’ve all got people to report to. We’ve all got our own deals to honor.” I swallowed in what I hoped was a natural manner and held Dyna’s cold gaze.

  “It is information that the Federation of Lodi would never allow me to share without some kind of agreement in place. If this information got out on a silent planet, damage control would cost the Federation an enormous amount of resources.”

  “I’m in on the secret now, remember? I won’t talk about it with anyone. Scout’s honor.” I lifted two fingers into the air and gave her my most confident smile.

  Dyna breathed out through her nose and seemed to struggle internally about the decision. She was silent for a long minute before she spoke again. When she did, her the musical quality of her voice had become subdued, almost depressed, as if she knew what she was doing was wrong but couldn’t stop herself. “Very well. You must pay close attention. And do not interrupt me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Dyna crossed her hands in her lap and took a moment to collect her thoughts. I waited impatiently, tapping my foot.

  Finally, she said, “First, you must understand that the abilities Elekatch possesses, and the ones I have been given through my augments, occur naturally in the universe. The Pharsei come from a dangerous volcanic world. In order to survive in that environment, their brains evolved the ability to weaponize the electrical impulses within them. It became their core advantage as a species. It allowed them to rise to the top of their food chain, to survive, and to evolve. You and I also have electrical impulses that occur naturally in our brains. However, even my augments give me only a fraction of the ability a Pharsei is born with—enough to defend myself, and to do a few tricks. The Pharsei, however, learn to use their abilities the same way you or I learn to use our hands. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I wasn’t sure if I did or not, but I nodded.

  “Have you ever taken psychotropic drugs?” Dyna asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything that could cause you to… see the world in a different way. Occasionally, these experiences may be characterized by a depression of natural impulses, by a feeling of god-like superiority, and or even by visual hallucinations.”

  “Oh, sure, I know what you mean. I ate mushrooms a few times.”

  I could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t understand.

  “Not like the ones you get on pizza or whatever—there are some mushrooms that cause crazy hallucinations.”

  “Yes, that is what I am referring to.”

  “Okay. What’s your point?”

  “This is going to be a little bit like that.”

  I wrinkled my brow in confusion. “What is?”

  Something frigid and sharp pierced my skin. Dyna leaned forward. Looking down, I saw that a metal probe as slender as a hypodermic needle had extended from the inside of Dyna’s wrist and been embedded several inches into my left forearm.

  I tried to jerk my arm away, but Dyna had seized hold of my wrist with both hands.

  Clenching my jaw, I sucked in several panicked breaths through my teeth. Locking eyes with her, I began to shiver as I spun backward into a landscape of stars.

  18

  “Stay with me,” Dyna’s voice reverberated in the sheer black emptiness.

  I gasped, choked, coughed.

  I was standing alone on what seemed like empty air but could have been a sheet of glass. A starscape spread out beneath me, above me, to all sides. The ambient temperature was cool, not cold, and certainly not the cloying heat I was used to. Wherever I was, I wasn’t in Austin anymore.

  I rubbed at my aching forearm. “You stabbed me!” Only, it didn’t hurt anymore. There was no needle in my skin, no dexterous brown fingers gripping my wrist like steel clamps. I wondered if I was still sitting in the office chair. If this was even real.

  “My apologies,” Dyna’s disembodied voice said from behind me.

  Turning, I swung and hit nothing. Woman or not, I would have punched Dyna in the face if she were here.

  “Hope that,” I panted, “hurts.”

  “It does not.”

  I braced my hands on my knees as I caught my breath. Wherever I was, it sure felt real. “What is this place?”

  “This is a simulator. Not dissimilar to the type in which I trained Kilos, in which all Peacekeepers are taught to defend themselves against the myriad dangers of Federation-controlled land and space across the galaxy.”

  “Does Kilos get stabbed every time you train him?” The image gave me more than a small measure of pleasure.

  “No. This particular implementation of our virtual reality technology is more often utilized as a discrete place for field interrogations.”

  I gulped.

  “But it will suffice,” she said.

  “Oh. That’s pretty dark.”

  “Let us not waste time. To be able to resist the Pharsei’s mental assaults, you first need to understand how the world looks from his point of view.”

  Suddenly, a massive ball of tentacles materialized only a few yards away from me.

  I cursed and clenched my fists. The thing looked exactly like Elekatch, but both stronger and more delicate at the same time. He appeared to float in dead space, blotting out the distant stars. I now saw that the maw at the center of the waving tentacles was actually a head. This head was longer and narrower than Elekatch’s squarish box-like skull, more elegant, sleek and tapered. I counted six lithe tentacles extending down from the base of the skull. The creature stood on them, gathered together at the base like a six-legged coffee table.

  What surprised me was that six more tentacles, smokily translucent like jellyfish limbs, floated up into the air, rooted to the top of the skull. These tentacles waved slightly, like seaweed in water, and gave the creature a round shape. Not an octopus, with tentacles only extending in one direction, but more like a sea urchin, with tentacles in all directions. I shook my head. Proper comparisons eluded me. It was alien in every sense of the word.

  “Next time,” I said, “give me a heads up, would you?”

  “My apologies.”

  “This one looks different than Elekatch.”

  “It is. I do not have a full scan of our fugitive’s body. This is a female of the species from the index on my local storage.”

  “What’s with the second set of ghostly tentacles? Elekatch doesn’t have those.”

  “He does, you simply cannot perceive them. Those are the electrical impulses I told you about—the electrical properties of your brain remain inside your skull. Theirs evolved externally. How many senses have human scientists discovered?”

  “Five, maybe six depending on who you ask.”

  “This is a common misconception. Federation xenobiologists have cataloged at least nine. The Pharsei possess seven.”

  I didn’t have time to consider the implications of this before the simulation of the Pharsei lunged out to catch a small tri-pedal creature one might have mistaken for a
garden gnome.

  I couldn’t help but cringe as one of the female Pharsei’s dancing up-tentacles latched onto the bald egg of the gnome’s head and a tiny bolt of lightning flashed between the two points, sucking the life right out of the little fella. The lighting faded from the air until it was nothing but a red afterimage in my eyes, while the lower tentacles, with their razor-like fingers, flayed the skin from the creature’s body, consumed its internal organs in two quick bites, and then played with the gnome’s skin like a finger puppet while it digested its meal.

  I fought down a gag reflex. This simulation certainly did seem real. I had been spared no sound effects at this grotesque display.

  “That,” Dyna said, “is what happened to the human fugitive you are chasing—that the female detective is still pursuing. Let us pray she does not stumble upon Elekatch before we do.”

  My hands trembled at the thought of Sheila running into this monster alone. Dammit, I should have said something to her when I had the chance. But what would I say? Detective Gonzalez would have to be shown cold, hard proof before she would take my word for it that a telepathic serial killer alien was on the loose in Austin.

  I couldn’t even share my problems with my friends, and that pissed me off. I had always been self-reliant, but for the first time in years I felt truly isolated. I cast about in the endless expanse of stars for someone to blame, but it was only me and this other Pharsei as far as the eye could see. Of course, that got my pulse to racing, and my blood to pounding in my temples. Thoughts of Kovak, of my mountain of debt, of my irresponsible deadbeat father, swirled through my brain. But there was nothing here to take my anger out on, except for that alien simulation standing as still as a wax statue.

  And maybe that was the point. Dyna putting me in here had effectively blocked out everything except the real problem. In this black vacuum, there was only one thing to look at, only one thing to focus on. The one thing that mattered—taking down Elekatch, and thereby punching my ticket out of this mess.

  I squared my shoulders. “Send that ugly sea urchin at me.”