by Steve Rzasa
Other Writings by Steve Rzasa
www.steverzasa.com
Science Fiction
The Word Reclaimed | The Face of the Deep 1.0
The Word Unleashed | The Face of the Deep 2.0
Broken Sight | The Face of the Deep 2.5
The Word Endangered | The Face of the Deep 3.0
A Man Disrupted | Quantum Mortis
Gravity Kills | Quantum Mortis
Empire’s Rift
Man Behind the Wheel
Severed Signals
Steampunk
Crosswind | The First Sark Brothers Tale
Sandstorm | The Second Sark Brothers Tale
Fantasy
The Bloodheart
The Lightningfall
Just Dumb Enough (editor & contributor)
For Us Humans
Copyright © 2016, 2018 by Steve Rzasa
Published by Enclave, an imprint of Gilead Publishing, LLC,
Wheaton, Illinois, USA.
www.gileadpublishing.com
www.enclavepublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from Gilead Publishing, LLC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-68370-153-8 (printed softcover)
ISBN: 978-1-68370-154-5 (ebook)
Cover design by Kirk DouPonce, www.DogEaredDesign.com
Interior design by Beth Shagene
Ebook production by Book Genesis, Inc.
For the Realmies
For Us Humans is the culmination of nearly four years of work on a story that began as little more than a side project. Reading C. S. Lewis, I was struck by something he posited: If an alien believed in Christ just as a human does, that makes them spiritual brothers.
As they say in Back to the Future, “That’s heavy.”
More than that, For Us Humans also had its genesis in my realization that life takes dramatic turns for years on end based on decisions made in the blink of an eye.
Special thanks go to:
My wife, Carrie, who read the first draft and reacted to the ending in the greatest way ever. Of all my choices in life, she’s the best;
Beta readers Meriah Bradley, John Otte, Caleb Smay, and Zachary Totah, for their feedback and input;
And again to John Otte, for his pastoral advice on a key theological question;
Megan Herold, friend and colleague, for her insights about Caz Fortel and the way his voice is portrayed;
Howard Ohr, trusted proofreader, for making sure things make sense, no matter how mundane;
And to my writing accomplices and friends under the Enclave Publishing banner, especially those who were there at the beginning—Marcher Lords to the end.
Though the odds of meeting sentient extraterrestrials are infinitesimal, if we do, God will not be surprised. Count on it.
This is what the alien invasion was like.
<<<>>>
Humans: Are we alone in the universe?
Aliens: Nope. We’re here.
Humans: Oh. What do you want?
Aliens: Your planet sits at the crux of folds in space-time that we need for warp tunnels. They’re strategically important to trade and defense for our interstellar nation in this sector.
Humans: We’ll never bow down to alien overlords!
Aliens: Yeah, we’re not interested in military conquest. Waste of time and energy.
Humans: Oh.
Aliens: Tell you what. We will make you our protectorate, pay you, give you some more advanced tech, and generally stay out of your hair.
Humans: Okay, then. What’s the catch?
Aliens: No catch. Except . . . no warring. You have soldiers? Send them our way, to fight our enemies—who are way more dangerous to you.
Humans: Well . . .
Aliens: We’ll pay you for that too. In platinum and precious metals we mine from your asteroids.
Humans: Sounds like a plan. Where do we sign?
<<<>>>
How’s that for your history lesson?
It was just another day on conquered planet Earth, driving up to my job lying to people.
I headed out to the Beverly Garden Suites in Beverly, Massachusetts, early in the morning, about seven. Traffic wasn’t too bad. Coming from Revere you’re bound to hit some snarls where the road runs into 128 North. No prob. Just put the Beastie Boys on the MP3 and let them grate at me from the speakers.
Every so often I looked in the rearview mirror. Good. Didn’t look like anyone was following me. Not saying I thought Janos was clever enough to have me tailed, but I didn’t get this career path by being loosey-goosey.
I stay safe by being paranoid. Works for me.
Anyway, the drive up to the Suites was uneventful. I pulled into their parking lot right on schedule. Well, a minute off—the cars coming the other way were led by some idiot from Pennsylvania who decided driving by a strip mall and old houses in Beverly, Massachusetts, was a fine way to sightsee. Pennsy drivers. When you grow up in New Jersey, you never find worse.
I liked the motel. Nice, cozy place to stay when you were pretending to be a businessman visiting from out of town for the spring and summer. It was a two-story building with a brick lower floor and white siding with green trim up top. Good old American eagle perched atop the stairwell in the center, lots of greenery around the front. Just, you know, a nice place.
There were only two other cars in the parking lot along the front of the motel: a decade-old VW bug, complete with a burn-your-eyes-out yellow paint job and filled with so much junk only a college student could stand the mess; and a shiny blue Chevy Cobalt. No great difficulty figuring out which one Janos drove.
He was early. Good. So far he’d stuck to his script. After four months of playing pal with the guy, one would hope I’d know his habits.
Not that I could criticize him for his choice of ride. Mine was a black Hyundai Santa Fe, a short, stubby SUV. It was something a nuclear family of tourists would drive to haul their kids around Maine for the summer, mother-in-law in tow.
But that was all part of the game. Janos couldn’t see my real car, or my real clothes, or my real face.
Anyone else around? I stretched my arms and yawned like I was tired. Which I was. You don’t stay up playing the newest Assassin’s Creed until midnight without serious video game hangover.
Hmm. Across the road, parked in front of the mini mall, were two sedans and a big Excursion—all black, tinted windows, engines running, judging by the exhaust ghosting in the cool morning air. I rolled my eyes and zipped the neck of my pullover. “Way to stay low-key, boys,” I muttered aloud.
Okay, item check. Stone green fleece pullover? Check. Wallet? Check. Swiss Army knife? (Thanks, Dad.) Check. Change? I patted my pockets. Nope. Found 87 cents spilled all over the seat. That’s the downside of wearing khakis.
Finally, the big enchilada itself, a briefcase that surprised me with its weight. Who knew a half a million in $100 bills was that heavy? If it were me, I’d have brought a bearer bond. Untraceable. Negotiable at any friendly bank. And not nearly so obvious.
But Janos didn’t trust banks. So I carried cash.
On the way to the stairs, my shoes clicked across the two parking spots nearest the office—one for handicapped drivers, with its familiar white wheelchair on a blue square. The other was a white drawing of a figure with two legs and four arms, set on a green diamond.
A four-armed alien.
Pssh. Now even the little mom-and-pop businesses had to provide parki
ng for the Ghiqasu. Thanks very much, federal interference and the Consociation Accommodation Act.
“Stupid qwaddos,” I said.
<<<>>>
Janos Vanchev was a big man. Not big influence-wise. Big as in rotund. Round like a parade balloon. He was also a foot shorter than me, which left me feeling confident in all our dealings. Nothing like looking down on a guy’s shiny bald spot to give you a boost.
He grinned that moronic grin of his. “Caz! Come in, please, yes. Is good to see your face again.”
That was Janos for you. Sounded like he stepped out of a bad eighties movie about Soviet spies. There might be some merit to the rumor that Janos was ex-Committee for State Security, the Bulgarian secret police. Who knew the Bulgarians had their own secret police?
“Hey, Janos, how’re you doing? You don’t look any better than when I saw you in May.”
It was true. His hair was thinner, more gray than black. There were dark circles under those solid brown eyes. He was just as pasty white as his driver’s license, though he’d grown a scraggly goatee in the intervening month. Illegal activity was apparently bad for his complexion.
“You like my new car? Is best model on road.”
“That Cobalt? Not flashy enough.”
“Says the man driving Japanese piece of boklutsi. You like drink?”
“No thanks. I don’t do rakia at—” What time was it? 7:25. Sweet. “Almost 7:30. You got any orange juice?”
“Orange juice? What are you, child? You drink rakia or coffee in this room or nothing. Sit. Please.” He indicated the chair by the TV. The news was running—CNN, with some talking head reporting from Berlin or Bonn or somewhere German. Sound was muted, so the only noises in the room were from the two of us and the air conditioner whirring.
“I’m good.” No way was I going to sit and let him have the upper hand. A maroon chair was stuck in the corner of the room, facing out toward a tan couch. Those two bits of furniture formed a triangle with the door as the third corner. Janos’s briefcase was in the corner of the room. Looked like it threw up his wardrobe on the floor. He’d left TIME and The Week discarded on the couch cushions. I’d have gone for The Economist myself. Off to the right of the couch was the kitchenette, where Janos hummed some Old World tune while he clattered around with the glass and a half-empty bottle of rakia, fruit brandy from his motherland.
“My Chevrolet has the new fusor cells. Runs forever. No charging batteries. What does SUV have? Your little shoebox down there?”
Keep talking, Janos. I could’ve cared less that his car ran on Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction. Okay, so it was fusion, and perfectly harmless, but whatever. I scanned the room from where I stood. Where’d he stash the sketches? “Gas mix. Gets a ton more mileage than anything I had in college. Don’t have to buy a whole new fusor core when it burns out either.”
“Fusors are way you must go, Lancaster.” Janos chuckled. “Unless the izvŭnzemni make our cars fly too.”
“No dice on that one. You think the qwaddos would let us?”
“Bah. Is nothing we can do to satisfy the izvŭnzemni. Best for all to take their alien technology and let them run what they want to run. If not for them would be no fusion, and coal would choke us, yes?”
“Hey, man, things ain’t so bad now. When was the last time we had a major war?”
“You see news? They send Chinese and United Nations soldiers off to some rock through Big Ring. They all fight whatever izvŭnzemni tell them to on other planets. No fighting men left on Earth! Is no one left to fight!”
“Whatever you say. I for one don’t want another particle weapon zapping the U.S., even if it was an evacuated town.” I didn’t want to dwell too much on the qwaddos.
“Bah. The izvŭnzemni, they make life tremendous pain since 6/16.”
Janos liked to use that catchphrase, along with several billion other people who could speak English. Short for June 16, fifteen years ago. You know, when the qwaddos showed up with their masters. The aliens didn’t threaten conquest. They just bought us out.
See, the whole thing hinges on the Big Ring. That’s what the average guy calls the huge structure the qwaddos and their masters built in orbit, between Earth and the moon. It’s a gateway among worlds that shaves months off their interstellar travel time. As if having faster-than-light spaceships wasn’t impressive enough. According to them, the fabric of space-time in this region is perfect for such a portal.
To use it, the qwaddos made us a nice cozy protectorate on their highly valued interstellar trade and security route. Put a huge military base and trading post on the moon. Issued intergalactic travel permits to select individuals and paid big bucks—well, platinum and such—to reimburse our governments and hire our armies as mercenaries.
No alien invasion. More like alien corporate takeover.
Janos trundled out of the kitchenette, rakia glass in hand. He took a swig and bared his teeth. “Nazdráve! Puts hair on chest, as they say.”
Bet he’d rather it was hair on his head. I patted the briefcase. “I brought you a present.”
“Ah, yes. Have yours right here. Is like Christmas!” He took another drink before setting the glass on the counter.
Janos dug through his briefcase. Socks, shirts, and underwear—okay, really didn’t need to see those—went flying. Something crinkled, sounded like rain shaking leaves. He hoisted a bag from the clothing.
“Yes, you see? Everything you asked of me. Picasso, Matisse, Braque. So for this you brought me five hundred thousand. Is best in cash.”
My heart pounded against my chest. Not because I was nervous around Janos. The man was a marshmallow. An armed marshmallow, but still, a marshmallow. And I had his money, every last bill the real deal. No worries there. What had me jumpy was the fact that he’d stuffed hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of art, these irreplaceable works, into Target bags like he’d shopped ’em out of the office supply aisle. “No cash for you, chief, until I see them.”
“What, you are not trusting me?”
I grinned, made it look as real as possible. Checked the watch. 7:30. The guys were waiting on me for the signal. “Just protecting my rep, you know? The collector depends on me to deliver the goods, and he’s not about to hand over half a million for cheap forgeries.”
“Forgeries! Never. You look here, see what Janos brings for you.”
It was one of those rare moments when Janos got upset. All it took was a dig at his ability to filch honest-to-goodness works of art. He fumbled with the knot tied in the top of the plastic bags, his fingers pudgy like sausages and hairy to boot. Nasty. But you don’t hang out with a guy for months and pretend to be a colleague in the world of art theft without learning to suppress your sense of disgust.
I took a few steps toward the couch. He was on the kitchen side, struggling with that knot. Whatever he muttered had to be some Bulgarian profanity, judging by the spittle. “You need a hand?”
“No, no, set out the money.” Janos sounded irritable. He must be nervous. But this was his big score, after all. I’d be nervous too.
“Want me to count the money?” I set the briefcase down on the couch. Gently. No sudden moves, you know? It’s like dealing with a scared dog.
“Let me count . . . ah! Aha! Here we are.” The knot gave. Janos pulled the bag apart and dumped the sketches onto the couch without flourish.
Lord, don’t let me flinch.
Funny praying right then. There wasn’t much of it in the preceding months. Or years, for that matter. Another of those people I needed to keep in touch with and failed miserably.
Thankfully the works were individually secured in plastic sleeves, like someone decided they were giant baseball cards. Unreal. The topmost one was a Picasso that hadn’t left its owner’s possession for fifty years, until it was stolen eight years ago. It gave me chills when my fingers caressed the sleeve.
“You see? Janos delivers. No empty boasts here, my friend.” He laughed and clapped me on the shoulde
r.
Ick. Just count the money already. “These are amazing, Janos.” No lies here. Such beautiful work. It should be displayed in a museum for all to see and to love. Or at least cared for in someone’s home, barring that. Not traded flippantly in a hotel room, like drugs or hookers.
So I could be sentimental. Sue me.
“Yes, yes, pretty pictures. Now, the five hundred thousand.” Janos retrieved his rakia. Drained that puppy in a matter of seconds.
“Like I said, it’s all there.” And so were the sketches—the entire inventory. Whew. One more thing going my way.
Come on, Janos, get counting.
He took wads of bills and fanned them. A beatific smile creased his expression. “Is wonderful smell, yes? Smell of money.”
“Yeah. Fantastic.” Easy, there. Don’t get tense. “You should do bearer bonds. How many times have I told you?”
“Pah. Trust only in bank of mattress, yes?” He chuckled heartily.
Ha-ha. I didn’t like him standing on the kitchenette side of the couch. Left him with room to hide. But the door and window were behind me, at least. Checked my watch—
Uh-oh. Time to move.
“Hey, you mind if I turn the news up? I missed it when I had to roll out this morning.”
“Yes, yes. Not too loud, though. Is not good to listen to bad news in world for long.” Janos’s eyes were glued to the briefcase. He took his time with the stacks of money. Good for him.
I found the remote sticking out of a couch cushion and thumbed the volume. The newscaster, guy with hair Ken could have styled for Barbie’s benefit, was in the middle of saying: “There’s no word of when the United Nations will continue negotiating with the Panstellar Consociation for technological allowance. Since the inclusion of Earth in the Consociation’s protectorate program, the Consociation has been reluctant to share anything beyond the development of fusion power. U.S. officials are pushing for medical research and space exploration information. The president has convened a press conference for later next week at the site of former Nantucket, on the fifteenth anniversary of its destruction by positron weaponry that the Consociation fielded after U.S. refusal to disarm.”
