Déjà Vu (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  I hate the answer I’m drawn to, but the only value the aliens get out of their collaboration is meat. As much as I want to explore that point and draw Gal’s attention to it, there’s something else that’s bothering me.

  I ask, “Why does the AI even care about you guys? You’re a remote human outpost. You have a tiny collection of settlements in some remote god-forsaken region of space. Why do they feel as though they need to keep you boxed in?”

  Gal shrugs as I’m struck with the answer.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “What?” Gal asks.

  “You’re all that’s left,” I say, feeling numb.

  “No, no, no,” Pretty Boy says. Just when I think he’s a goofball, missing the point entirely, he demonstrates that he’s switched on. He says, “You think we’re all that remains of humanity?”

  “It’s the only answer that makes sense,” I say.

  “But why?” Gal asks.

  “Why, indeed,” I say. “Think about it. Why are you here? You’ve been here for hundreds of years, hedged in, unable to escape this system because of what?”

  “A minefield,” Gal says. “Artificially intelligent mines surround this star system like the Oort cloud.”

  “Why would they go to all that effort to imprison you?” I ask. “Why wouldn’t they simply wipe you out?”

  “Yes. Why keep us alive?” Pretty Boy asks, intrigued by the discussion.

  “On Earth, in my time, we had diseases so dangerous we eradicated them from the planet. Smallpox. Ebola. Rabies. SARS. Only we didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?” Gal asks.

  “We never actually got rid of them. We kept a few vials frozen on ice—just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Pretty Boy asks.

  “In case we ever needed them again. It could be for lots of reasons. We kept them as weapons. Or we kept them for comparison with other pathogens. Or so future generations could learn from their structure. The most deadly diseases known to humanity, and we couldn’t bring ourselves to destroy them.”

  “We’re in a test tube?” Gal says with a sense of shock.

  “You’re being contained,” I say. “Kept alive. Kept viable. You’re lab rats in a cage.”

  “And the aliens?” Pretty Boy asks. Yeah, he’s not just a cute face. My Pretty Boy is a smart one.

  Gal says, “There’s got to be something in this for them.”

  “Your children,” I say, feeling sick to my stomach. “People like Jorgensen and Dr. Everton. Anyone that gets too close.”

  “They—These creatures you speak of,” Gal says in alarm. “They eat us?”

  “Harvest,” I say. I’m guessing, but I suspect I’m not far from the truth. “There has to be some sort of benefit for them. A trade. What else does your artificial enemy have to trade other than you?”

  Pretty Boy gets it. “This is a fuck, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. This is well and truly what we’d call fucked in the 22nd century,” I say, gently correcting his grammar.

  The lights on the ceiling shimmer, flickering with a surge in electricity. Instinctively, I look up, expecting the others to follow my gaze. Neither man reacts. I’m about to say something, to joke about how, after thousands of years, power outages are still a buzzkill, when I notice neither of them are moving. Pretty Boy’s standing beside me. He’s been pacing back and forth as we spoke. Gal is seated across from me, but he’s frozen in place.

  “Hey, guys,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  I wave my hands before Gal’s face, trying to get him to register by blinking at least, but nothing. There’s no visible rise or fall in his chest, no sense of recognition in his eyes.

  “Gal?” I say, lifting his hand from where it’s resting on the table. I take his pulse, turning his arm over and pinching two fingers against the underside of his wrist. Nothing. Damn it. I lean forward, pushing my fingers hard up into his jugular, right under the back of his jaw. There’s a pulse, but it’s slow, occurring only once every few seconds.

  “No,” I say, getting to my feet and turning to face Pretty Boy. “Not you too.”

  Pretty Boy is smiling, but his facial expression is frozen. His lips are parted, while his hands are slightly extended. He’s trying to speak but has been caught mid-sentence.

  “Please,” I say, taking his hand in mine and tugging gently. His fingers are limp. His muscles are loose. I can move his arm around and it remains wherever I position it. He’s like a store-front mannequin.

  Gal left his semi-transparent surveillance spheres hovering near the far wall. I grab at one, hoping I’m somehow linked in, but it doesn’t move. As much as I try, it ignores my flailing arms batting at the air. One of the spheres has a view of the central courtyard and the buildings near the workshop. Several people are walking across the vast open concourse, but they’re frozen mid-stride.

  There’s scratching behind me. It’s coming from the airlock. I lean around the rock wall and see one of the aliens moving through the narrow tunnel. The creature knocks a helmet from where it sat on a seat running along the inside of the lock.

  “Theeeeseeee creatures you speak oooofffffff,” it says, mimicking Gal. “They eat usssssss?”

  War

  “Wake up,” I say, pushing Gal, trying to rouse him. He rocks in his chair but remains motionless as the creature slithers into the cavern. His eyes stare blindly at the far wall.

  “Pretty Boy, please.”

  I’m on my feet, pleading with him, staring deep into his eyes. I’m looking for any response, but he’s little more than a figurine in a wax museum.

  What the hell am I going to do? Bravery isn’t an option. It’s not a choice. It’s a necessity thrust upon me. Trembling, I step out into the main cavern, facing down the alien. Although the crevasse is narrow, the ceiling is high above me. An air duct protrudes from the rock. Even if I climbed on the table, I couldn’t reach it. There’s only one way out of here. I have to fight. I’ve got to defend not only myself but Gal and Pretty Boy, but with what? I need a weapon.

  The cave walls are rough and unfinished. They’ve been adorned with paraphernalia from the 1950s. There are dozens of replicas from well before my time—vinyl records, high school pendants, pompoms. They’re nostalgic knock-offs that stir the imagination. Lights flicker beneath the colored glass of a jukebox cover attached to the rock. The machine itself is long gone. Does anyone realize this thing once played music rather than merely flashing lights?

  The trunk of a pink Cadillac protrudes from above the airlock. I didn’t notice it when I entered, but it’s resplendent with polished chrome. The influence on the spacecraft of this era is unmistakable. There are smooth curves, V-shaped chrome ornaments, rocket-styled rear fenders, and a shiny bumper.

  The creature advances past a neon sign mounted on the wall. A flickering light proudly announces a fast-food chain that has long since ceased to exist.

  Goddamn it, Gal. Where are the guns? The 50s was post-war America. God, guts, and guns! Gimme a Colt 45 at least. The damn thing wouldn’t fire after this long. Metal fatigue would have set in centuries ago. But it might work as a bluff.

  Tentacles wave in unison as though they were kelp swaying in the surf. They’re sampling the air. Hundreds of eyes peer at me. For the first time, I see these creatures as they are—no longer shrouded by darkness.

  “You.”

  “Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

  To my mind, the creature resembles a gigantic, dark sunflower. It has eyes instead of seeds and tentacles in place of petals. There’s a carapace covering its back. It’s not hard like a turtle’s shell, rather it appears flexible, as though it were made from leather. There’s got to be something that approximates a mouth, but I’m yet to see that—I’d rather not see that!

  The alien crawls on, carried by a sea of crab-like feet beneath it. If I understand the creature’s physiology correctly, its body is retractable. It resembles a giant snail or perhaps a nautilus. At the moment, its body is extended.
The creature can move its tentacles and eyes, drawing them back into its leathery hide. Its physiology allows it to close around them, protecting them. The evolution of the creature’s body shape reveals its inherent vulnerabilities. Funny, right now, I’m the one feeling vulnerable, but I push myself to see this creature objectively. I feel like a soft, squishy meat sack, but I’m not. I’m robotic. Perhaps I have the advantage. If only I can steel my nerves.

  “Thissssssss issssssssss a fuck, riiiiight?”

  Those were Pretty Boy’s words. I doubt the alien comprehends them as Pretty Boy got that particular phrase wrong. What is this creature playing at? My guess is it’s going for intimidation, using confusion as a weapon.

  We face off against each other. The alien is unsure. It’s nice to see I’m not the only one feeling nervous. I widen my stance, raising my arms, trying to make myself look big. Well, it worked on the African savannah for millions of years—worth a try.

  I step sideways, backing up against the wall of the cave. I want to ease past the creature and move toward the entrance. The alien seems to adopt the same strategy to move further inward, but why? It can sense something’s changed in me, but it’s not sure what. With less than ten feet between us, we both move slowly, circling the edges of the cavern.

  Back in the workshop, I was ethereal. The creature tried to probe my body but found nothing there because there was nothing there. I was a bunch of photons cleverly managed by a holographic projector. That confused it. The alien was expecting me to be real and didn’t know how to react when it found I could disappear inside a spacecraft. When I ran, I vanished from sight. Now I’m all too real, but it doesn’t seem to understand that, only that something about me is different.

  Baseball bats and hockey sticks line the wall. I’m about to grab one, but I’m unsure of the alien’s strategy. I want to learn more before provoking a response. What is it trying to do? What does it want to accomplish? It came here to destroy me, but it’s edging past me. My goal is the exit. Not only will that allow me to run, it’ll draw that hideous thing away from Gal and Pretty Boy.

  Once we pass each other, I’m tempted to bolt through the airlock, but curiosity overcomes my fear. The creature swings through 180 degrees. It faces me as it backs up. Crab-like legs creeps toward Gal and Pretty Boy, but I don’t think it wants them. It’s still squared off against me. It’s then I see it—the projector. My holographic projector is sitting on the edge of the table. The alien thinks it can kill me by destroying that. Someone’s done their homework.

  Tentacles feel for the edge of the table. They slither over the surface, picking up the projector, but the creature seems to sense something’s missing. My technological life was defined by two components—the brain fragment and the projector. The alien’s got one but is confused by the absence of the other.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Are you afraid?”

  “Fear,” it says, all too clearly. Its voice is deep and resonate but not convincing.

  Interesting. The alien understands what I’m saying. This isn’t mimicry. I offered an adjective. It responded with an appropriate but etymologically unrelated noun in what Gal would call Old Tongue. How did it know? Fear and Afraid are two words that sound similar, but they’re not. They have interchangeable meanings, but they stem from different origins. They predate my life by centuries. English speakers in my era would naturally pick up on the association, but without a dictionary, how could an alien understand this? If it’s only ever heard the modern tongue, how did it know? Gal and Pretty Boy would have needed the Veritas to pick up on that distinction. Damn. This creature may play dumb, slurring its words and offering little more than repetition, but it’s not. It’s an act.

  “Not afraid.”

  Liar.

  The alien is trying to project strength, but its response betrays it.

  For me, it’s fascinating to see human emotions being projected. This thing is way outside its natural environment. It is not comfortable standing here before me. If anything, freezing Gal and the others is telling. These creatures use stealth. Being a predator, it must rely on ambush rather than charging at its prey. It’s probably never faced off against a hostile human before. Jorgensen and Dr. Everton would have been subdued, paralyzed by their neural interfaces, making them easy pickings. Me? Not so much. As it is, I’m about to explode in rage.

  “So you’re the errand boy,” I say, calling the creature’s bluff. It manipulates the projector with its tentacles. The eyes. They’re focused on the box, looking intently at it. Thin tentacles work to undo screws and open panels. There’s expectation there. It’s waiting for me to blink out of existence.

  I grab a baseball bat from where it sits on a pair of silver mounts set into the wall. A brass plaque beneath it reads, ‘GENUINE. Mickey Mantle. LOUISVILLE SLUGGER. 1954.’ I have my doubts about that. The bat’s heavy. It looks like it’s made from wood, but it’s not. I guess the aficionados in this time never realized the alternative to wood was aluminum. This feels like a steel pipe covered in a thin veneer. Perfect.

  I step forward, narrowing the gap between us, keeping the baseball bat low, hidden beside my legs.

  “Surprised?” I ask as tentacles discard parts, scattering them across the ground. “Is something wrong?”

  Hundreds of eyes stare at me. They look deep into my eyes, focusing on them from all directions. They’re not looking at my arms or legs. With cold deliberation, I say, “Guess what, bitch? I’m real.”

  Although the creature reaches up almost six feet in height, I’m determined to go out swinging—tentacles be damned. Fortune favors the brave and all that bullshit. I stamp at the ground, rushing in toward the creature as I raise the bat high over my shoulder. I strike hard, making my old little league coach proud with the follow-through.

  The bat rakes across stunned tentacles and at least a dozen eyes. Several eyeballs burst, forcing an immediate response. Just as I thought, the creature retracts into its leathery shell even though it could easily disarm me. There’s something to be said for shock as a weapon. Punch a shark on the nose, yell at a bear, run at a mountain lion with your arms waving, scream at the top of your lungs—none of it should work, but it does. For a split second, self-preservation kicks in, and these animals forget they could kill you in a heartbeat. The weight of this thing alone could crush me. Those tentacles could tear me apart. But none of that matters now.

  I’m enraged. I keep swinging, striking the closed carapace with thundering blows. Damn, Pretty Boy gave me the deluxe package, upgrading my strength. I slam a few home-runs into the narrow opening hiding the creature’s tentacles. The impact reverberates along my arms. I make sure the message is clear. A few downward blows on the back of the carapace, and the creature shrinks, drawing in tight and reducing its size. It has no time to think.

  This alien knew where we were, but not the humans, as the cops went to the wrong apartment. Gal fooled them, but not the AI, not this creature. There will be more of these things. That’s got to be the reason it’s not fighting for its life. It knows all it has to do is hold out until the cavalry arrives. I need more than a baseball bat.

  As the creature cowers, I turn and jog over to the airlock, grabbing the oxy-acetylene torch from where it’s hanging on the wall.

  “Oh, hell yeah,” I say as the gas pops and immediately starts burning. At first, there’s a burst of thick, black smoke, but I find the thumb-activated oxygen-throttle. A couple of flicks and a brilliant blue-white flame races from the tip of the torch, lighting up the cave like a jet fighter hitting the afterburners.

  A wicked smile comes to my lips.

  “I’ve got to say, I’m going to enjoy this.”

  The torch makes a distinct roar. The smell is acrid. The air shimmers with heat as the flame leaps out well over a foot in front of the nozzle. Damn, this thing would cut through plate armor in seconds.

  “If I were you,” I say, standing before the creature with my legs spread, ready for war. “I’d
talk. Quick.”

  “Mmmm….Mmmmercy.”

  I smile.

  “Oh, you’ll get the same mercy you showed the crew of the Intrepid.”

  I’m expecting a fight. That’s the way all animals respond, right? Flight or fight. It may be playing dead, trying to buy some time, but when it comes to it, this thing will fight for its life, of that, I have no doubts, but I’ve got a blow torch. This is personal.

  I say, “Let’s see if they can resurrect you from tiny brain fragments in a jar.”

  The creature’s leathery carapace squeezes tight in a futile effort to protect itself. The meter on the back of the torch tells me the flame is already hitting three thousand degrees and climbing. It’s several times hotter than molten lava and approaching temperatures found in the chromosphere of most stars.

  The alien retreats on its millipede-like legs, keeping its casing closed as it backs up blindly into the rock wall. Even in its withdrawn state, it reaches up to chest height. It has squished itself down a little, making it almost eight feet in length. Its tiny feet flicker in the dust, looking for telltale signs of where it is. In the absence of sight and its tentacles probing the environment, all it has is these crab-like appendages grabbing at the rocks and dirt. If the alien had been less than a foot to one side, it could have gone another thirty feet further down the cavern, but it doesn’t know that. As it’s moving by feel, it backed up into an outcrop.

  Behind me, outside in the main tunnel, there’s a noise like metal scraping on concrete. I turn, seeing a shadow darken the airlock. Massive tentacles reach through the opening. They’re as thick as tree trunks, but the creature outside is too big to enter.

  “Looks like daddy’s here,” I say, waving the burning torch over the skin of the trapped alien. I’m careful not to move close enough to scorch the creature, not just yet. I’m pretty damn sure it can feel the heat radiating from the flame. I sure can. The message is clear. No sudden moves.

  Massive tentacles protrude from the airlock. They fan out on either side, slapping at the cave walls like the fabled giant squid of old. Tentacles tear at the rock, grabbing the metal edges of the hatch. They’re trying to rip the airlock out and widen the opening, but the granite is too thick. Frustrated, wandering tentacles find the rear of the Cadillac. They crush the trunk as though it were made from papier-mâché.