by Rob Mclean
“Well, if you ask me,” Josie put in as she leaned over the bar, “it can only be bad news for all of us.”
It was then that they noticed that there was a group of about a dozen people clustered around them and that they had been following the conversation closely.
“Hey, Miss Arts Student has an opinion,” Blake sneered. He turned around to high five Jarred, but Jarred pretended not to see him.
Instead, he asked Josie, “Why do you say that?”
“Almost every time a more advanced culture has come into contact with a lesser one, it has been the more primitive culture that has suffered in one way or another.”
“But that’s human history,” Blake mocked. “Hello? We’re dealing with aliens here.”
John knew that Josie was used to handling belligerent drunks, so he wasn’t surprised when she ignored the chubby geek’s petulance with the same deftness.
“History is all about examining the motives and reasons for the things that happened, not just the events themselves. The reasons for the actions are determined by motives which arise logically from circumstances,” she said as if in a lecture theatre.
“Very good, Josie,” John said with a nod of admiration and a grin at the geeks. “I see we have recruited only the best.”
“Arts with a history major,” she shrugged.
“But you’re still talking about human logic,” Blake persisted.
“Yeah, but logic is logic,” Josie countered. “Alien logic is only alien because we don’t know all their facts and so we can’t understand their motives. So it only seems alien.”
“Hey, you sound just like Spock,” laughed Jarred. “You know, from Star Trek.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And that’s a compliment, right?”
“Oh sure, one of the best you can get,” Jarred said hurriedly.
John saw his brother squirm on his barstool, so he stepped in and introduced them. “Josie, this is Jarred the geek and his friend, Blake. I think they‘ve earned another beer, if you wouldn‘t mind.”
“Sure are generous tonight boss.” She flashed him her trademark smile as she pulled two more beers. “Probably a good time to ask for a raise?” She gave him a quick wink before she put the beers in front of the geeks, who toasted each other.
“You can always try.” John gave her a thin smile in return. He wondered if she was being a bit flirty or just playing with him. Either way, he didn’t want her attentions.
“Hi,” Jarred said tentatively to Josie, “thanks for the beers.” She nodded and started to turn away. He quickly added. “This is my first time here tonight.”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen you in here before,” she said, and then continued, “I’d have remembered if I did.”
“And that’s a compliment?” A nervous grin flashed across his face.
Josie laughed and then looked at him squarely. One side of her mouth curled upwards. “Well, you sure are different.”
Jarred fidgeted and squirmed. He didn’t know what else to say but “thanks.”
“Anyway, Jarred, good to meet you. Interesting conversation, but I had better get back to work,” Josie said and she went away to serve a bar full of money-waving drunks.
“Man, she totally blew you off. She’s so up herself,” Blake said, once she was out of ear-shot.
“No, she’s just very busy,” John slapped them both on the back, “and so am I. Enjoy your drinks, gentlemen; you‘ve earned them.”
“No problem,” they said almost in unison.
“Hey, is ‘different’ a good thing or a bad thing?” Jarred asked John.
“If you think I know enough about women to be giving advice, then you’d be sadly mistaken,” John said as he left.
“Later, man,” Jarred said as he waved his brother away.
John left the geeks with their drinks and dire speculations to do a patrol around the club before finishing up back in the control room. Leaving the front lounge, he descended into the main dance room.
He saw that the place had filled considerably and seemed close to capacity. The stairs down to the dance floor widened as he descended. The sea of sound engulfed and enveloped him the further he went, until he was submerged and cut off from all other auditory input.
John pushed his earpiece deeper in his ear out of habit, but he knew it would do no good. The music was far too loud to hear anything through it. He felt isolated and knew that he had to rely on his staff to keep an eye on him as he patrolled the dance floor and to listen out for him if he got into any trouble.
Around him, the intensity on the dance floor hit him. The music throbbed with a techno, edgy rhythmic noise in synchrony with the laser strobes, shaking his internal organs and bones. Tonight people danced with more animation and were more extroverted than he could remember. The crowd paid him no attention as he walked through, but he sensed a barely contained wild energy. People laughed louder, partied more extravagantly and determinedly, but yet seemed more brittle and nervously on edge. He wondered if it was a genuine reaction the crowd had to the appearance of the alien spaceship or his own inner fears projected onto the faces of the partygoers.
Perhaps they were taking more drugs tonight. There were no end to the combinations and permutations of all the synthetic drugs available. They couldn’t screen or detect them all. As long as they behaved themselves and didn’t appear intoxicated, he didn’t care if it was alcohol or whatever else they were on; it was all the same to him.
John soon finished his round of the dance-floor and was satisfied that, so far, all the patrons were playing nicely. With a final scan, he left the dance floor and went up the only other staircase to the outside beer garden.
The outdoor beer gardens covered over more than half of what used to be a much bigger car-park. They also annexed what used to once be a sidewalk. They had been closed in with high walls, topped with safety glass. Ubiquitous palm trees were lit up from underneath by spotlights drilled into their trunks. Obligatory water features gave an aesthetic, although indistinctive touch. John much preferred the character of the older part of the building. The new additions were too bland and generic, but they did provide some fresh air.
The area was serviced by more bars along the walls of the old building, linked to the lounge bar by recently cut arches to the shared utility areas, fridges and storage cellars within.
Satisfied that all was well, John returned to the control room. He sent another of his team, Akeem to relieve Marcus on the front door. Akeem, a six-foot seven, heavy set, Saudi expatriate who always wore sunglasses. He claimed it was out of a lifetime’s habit, but John suspected it was only to enhance his tough guy image.
John checked the monitors systematically and saw that Jarred was still at the front lounge bar and was glad to see that he was nursing what looked like an orange juice. He couldn’t see his mate Blake anywhere nearby.
The news on the alien had subsided to a single footer at the bottom of the stock market report, eclipsed by fresh outbreaks of rioting and looting across parts of the city. Mostly downtown and in the poorer areas, John noted that there was none nearby.
Record one-day losses on Wall Street were mirrored across the globe and had eclipsed the news of the alien’s arrival and all the following panic.
John saw that amid all the stock market red, the share price of the company he worked for, BlackSky, had defied the trends and actually increased considerably in value. It made sense, he reasoned, since BlackSky tendered for security, and the increase in civil unrest because of the aliens’ arrival had created a demand. He only wished that he had the foresight to have seen it all earlier and the confidence to invest his hard-earned savings. He was beginning to daydream about the possibilities of becoming one of those smart investors when he was interrupted by ‘breaking news.’
A pretty blonde, with large, captivating eyes, who John recognized as one of the regular reporters, was now filling in as a newsreader. He presumed that, as a result of the alien anomaly, the station was now reporting much
more news and were short of presentable staff. It was her big break, if she handled it right.
She was letting a little panic in her voice though, as she reported that there was now a second, “Yes, I repeat, a second alien signal.”
This one, John learned, was much closer to Earth.
“Astronomers at NASA have issued an early estimate on its position as within the orbit of Mars,” she shrilled. “This puts it much closer than the original signal, which latest reports indicate is still operational.”
John felt a wave of disquiet well up inside him. He had visions of a fleet of alien spaceships encircling the Earth, like vultures circling a dying animal. He felt his heartbeat quicken and decided that he wanted to talk about this development with Jarred.
On the surveillance monitor, Jarred could be seen still sitting at the bar, looking bored, and toying with the same drink.
“This second alien signal is more complex than the simple on-off repetition of the first Pluto orbit signal,” the newsreader continued. “It appears to be sending us the first five prime numbers in a repeating cycle, leaving no doubt that it is not a natural phenomenon.”
On the monitor, John saw Jarred reach into his pocket for his phone and watched as he reacted to the same news he had just heard. Jarred stood up and looked quickly around for his friend Blake. John decided then to find out what they thought of the latest developments.
When John arrived at the lounge bar, he found Jarred deep in conversation with someone on his phone. He nodded to Josie.
“No man, I don‘t want in,” Jarred ended the call with a stab of his finger. He didn’t seem to notice that John had arrived.
“Hey, boss,” Josie said as she leaned over the bar. All trace of playfulness gone, she lowered her voice as she continued, “Those friends of yours are not being straight with you.”
“How so?”
“Well, at first they say they haven’t got much money- you know, the whole ‘poor students’ thing,” she began.
“Yeah, so?”
“Then this other poser dude shows up, and next thing that Blake guy is buying rounds of drinks for any girl who looks at him sideways.”
“So where’s he now?”
“What am I, some all-seeing Buddha?” she shrugged. “I’m stuck here serving drunks. You should ask his friend there. They had a bit of a spat and the two creeps left.”
Jarred was intently studying his phone, flicking through screens, still oblivious to the nearby conversation about him.
“Hey, Jarred…” John began.
“Oh hey, did you hear there’s now a second signal?” Jarred held up his phone by way of proof.
“What?” Josie exclaimed, “Another one?”
“Yeah,” John confirmed, “just announced in a newsflash.”
“That can’t be good,” she mused, and then asked, “Has the first signal changed at all?”
“Doesn’t seem to have,” Jarred answered, “but the new signal is different, more complex.”
Josie nodded encouragingly. Jarred was momentarily flustered, but continued, “And it’s coming from above the ecliptic.”
“The what?” John asked.
“The ecliptic plane is um…like this bar top,” Jarred smoothed his hands across the top of the bar. “All the planets go around the sun,” he put a drink coaster on the bar and waved his orange juice glass in a circle around it along the bar, “but they all, more or less, stay on the flat surface, you know, like on the surface of the bench.”
“Okay and now this new alien is up here somewhere?” said Josie pointing to a spot in the air above the bar.
“Yeah, but why? What’s it up to? And how’s it related to the first signal?” Jarred put his elbow on the bar and rested his head on it.
“You mean that the second signal may be from a different race of aliens?” Josie asked.
“Sure, why not? Maybe news of us has gotten out and they’re all clamouring to get to know us,” Jarred said.
“You mean like the paparazzi?” Josie asked.
“More like the hyenas and the vultures,” John interjected. “Look, I guess there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ll just have to wait for our glorious world leaders and the aliens to get together and sort things out. In the meantime, where’s your friend Blake?”
“He’s not my friend.” Jarred’s features darkened. “He’s just some jerk I do physics with.”
John waited for him to elaborate.
“He’s been going on about how he’s going to get ‘lucky’ tonight,” Jarred continued.
“He might,” Josie said. “He looked like he had enough money to get what he wanted.”
“You see,” John growled, “that shits me, ‘cause he told me he didn’t have much money, and I really hate it when someone lies to me.” The implied threat hung menacingly.
“Hey, all I know is that as soon as this Zeke guy, who I’ve never seen before, turned up, Blake went off with him and left me here with barely enough money for an orange juice. I was pretty pissed with him and was thinking about going home when he rings me, asking if I want to ‘share’ a girl they got.”
“What?” exclaimed Josie with a look of disgust.
“Yeah, I had a feeling about him,” said John. “So, where is he now?”
“In one of the beer garden booths,” Jarred flicked his finger in the direction of the outdoor walled garden areas.
John peered across the room and out the folding doors, but the booths he could see were too dark to see into properly.
“What do they mean by ‘share’ a girl?” Jarred asked, “Do some girls do that?”
“Some skanks might if you pay them enough,” Josie said.
“I don‘t think that‘s what‘s going on,” John said as he strode off towards the booths. He stopped and put a finger on his head set while he called Marcus. John directed him to wait with Josie and Jarred so they could identify Blake if he came out the beer gardens this way. He then called back to Josie, “Get Grace and send her over to me please.”
“Okay, boss,” she replied.
“You want me to come with you?” Jarred put his drink down, ready to help.
John looked at his scrawny half-brother and his smile threatened to break out into a laugh. He knew Jarred meant well, but could barely fight his way out of bed.
“Not this time lil‘ bro,” he said as gently as he could.
“Is he your brother?” Josie’s eyes widened.
“Of course,” John said. “Can’t you tell?”
Josie gave them both a scrutinizing look. “Oh yeah, I can see some similarities,” she said.
“Well, you’d be the first,” Jarred said. “You see, I got the brains and he got…”
“I got to look after him,” John finished. “Can you fix my bro up with another drink please Josie? I‘ll be back soon.”
John made his way down into the dance floor area through a crush of patrons. He pushed roughly through the pulsating crowd, mouthing his ‘excuse me’ mantra as he went, but he couldn’t see Blake in any of the faces nearby.
Some people danced with abandon, while others were studiously determined to have a good time. Most were lost in their own world, deliriously drunk or high on ecstasy or such. He knew he couldn’t stamp out all illegal drug use in the nightclub, but as long as they didn’t make trouble or look too out of it, it wasn’t his problem.
His haste and assertiveness earned him glares and some abuse, but he wanted to catch Blake before he got out the front door, so he pushed his way across the dance floor and through to the only other entrance to the beer garden.
John didn’t have to search hard to find Blake. He appeared well along the way to being seriously drunk. With him would be his new best friend Zeke. He didn’t look to be too far behind in the inebriation race. He called Marcus and told him where to meet.
John took a dislike to Zeke instantly. It wasn’t his longish, unkempt blonde-bleached hair or his ravenous lean physique. It could have been hi
s slick suit or his designer shoes and expensive tie with a carefully matching silk shirt and set of accessories, but it was probably more his hostile expression at what John supposed was the possibility of having to delay his pleasures.
“He’s a bad one, son,” his inner voice told him.
They had been trying to help a girl to walk towards the front door. Their hands were all over her trying to keep her upright. She appeared dazed and didn’t appear to acknowledge John in any way.
“Hey there, Einstein. How’s it going?” John directed his question to Blake.
“Good. Just heading out,” Blake said without stopping. Zeke kept a stony silence.
John decided to try to stall for time and wait until Marcus and Grace caught up.
“Did you hear that there’s now a second alien signal?”
Blake stopped and blinked a few times with genuine interest. “What? No way!”
“Yeah, sending the first five prime numbers in a repeating cycle, and it’s coming from inside the orbit of Mars.”
Blake thought for a second with his mouth hanging open. “I’d say it’s still the first one and that it’s jumped in closer. If the news about it broke about eight hours ago, then our TV and radio waves would have reached it, and it knows that we know about it being there, so now it’s jumped closer.” He scratched his head with his free hand. “We’d be still getting its original signal from beyond Pluto for the next,” he squinted as he thought, “‘bout six hours ‘cause that’s still only travelling at the speed of light.”
“Could be,” John agreed as he looked about for his back-up. “That sounds more sensible to me.”
“Must mean that they really can travel faster than light,” Blake continued, talking mostly to himself. “They must be way, way ahead of us.”
“C’mon dude,” Zeke tried to pull the trio along. “Forget that stuff. Let’s get out of here.”
John’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Zeke’s task-orientated focus. He continued with Blake as if it was just an ordinary conversation. “Jarred thought it might be a second alien race.”
“Could be…but then man, we’d really be …” Blake’s voice trailed off as his thoughts drifted.
