The voice said, “Reducing…”
He grinned. That would bring it down to 300 ppm. That might be enough. “Cool.” He waited a bit. “So what else can you do?”
“There are approximately two hundred and fifty thousand things that I can do, speaking in general terms. I can create tactile holograms, I can…”
“Wait, wait, wait! Tactile holograms? You mean a hologram I can feel?”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“O – kaaaay… So if I say to you, Gal Gadot, do you know who I am talking about…?”
Far below, in Central Park, Clay lay on the back seat of the Jeep gazing up at the billions of stars that lay carelessly strewn across the infinite void and wondered at the immensity of it all. Everything was just so…immense…
He inhaled on his third joint, dragged it deep, held and closed his eyes. Immense… a cold breeze made him shudder…
Fourteen
In the GFART cube, by the dim glow of the flashlight, Erickson and Stella had managed to open the control panel. But that was where they had got stuck. They had spent half an hour pressing buttons, cautiously at first, but with increasingly reckless abandon. None of them did anything.
In frustration Stella slid to the floor and said, “You’d think in a ship as immense as this, and as sophisticated, they would have voice recognition activated.”
A voice said, “Voice recognition activated. What would you like to do?”
Stella buried her face in her hands and giggled helplessly. Erickson stared at her and said, “If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d shag your brains out all over again.”
He glanced at the various screens that had come to life.
“OK, let’s see what you can do…”
“There are approximately two hundred and fifty thousand things I can do.”
“Jesus! OK, well lets start with just one, for now. I need you to reduce the CO2 parts per million in the atmosphere of the planet. Can you do that?”
“I certainly can. Thank you for asking. How much would you like me to reduce it by?”
“Shit…”
“That is not a percentile I am familiar with. Can you express the figure in a number?”
Stella stared at him. She said, “We tipped over four hundred parts per million a couple of years ago. I know we were at three hundred in the fifties and sixties last century…”
He rubbed his chin. “There was a number, like an ideal, where we were at for ten thousand years till the Industrial Revolution…but I can’t remember what it was.”
“We are not going to get this chance again. Go too low and you plunge the earth into an ice age.”
“But don’t go low enough and these bastards stay. Fuck…” He bit his lip and said, “Reduce the global CO2 parts per million by…fifty per…”
Stella snapped, “No! one hundred parts per million!”
“Reducing…”
Which brought them down to 200 ppm, well below the average for the past fifteen thousand years.
Erickson said, “I was going to say fifty percent.”
“You are a reckless animal.”
“Three hundred is still very high.”
“I have a bad feeling. Computer, open the door please, and put the lights on.”
There was a clunk a hiss and a buzz. The lights came on and the door opened.
They stepped out and heard feet approaching. Erickson pulled his automatic from his waistband and said, “Two people. A man and a woman. Could be Thorvall and Alvarez…”
It wasn’t. Around the side of the cube Bernie appeared, with Gal Gadot on his arm, gazing up at him and stroking his face. Stella said, “Wonder Woman?”
Erickson said, “What the fuck…?”
“It’s the GFART, it can do two hundred and fifty thousand different operations, and one of them, get this, one of them is tactile holograms. It’s insane. I know! I know you’ll say I am insane! But I am in love with a hologram! And why not, Erickson? You get me, right, Stella? Why not? I mean where is it written that love must be for a sentient, organic being…? Where?”
Erickson said, “You used the GFART? How much did you reduce it by?”
Bernie was not hearing him. He was saying, “In a way it’s like being in love with a Light Being. Am I wrong? Can you tell me I am wrong?”
Ertickson rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard more fuckin’ sense talked at chucking out time at the Hereford Arms. We have to get out of here. We need to get Alvarez back and go.”
Alvarez lay flat out staring at the ceiling. Thorvall lay next to her. He said, “I am sore and raw.”
“Dude, we have to do the CO2 thing. That’s the deal. Then we can go.”
“OK…” he closed his eyes and began softly to snore. She smacked him hard. “Thorvall! Do it! Now!”
“OK, ok… Computer.”
“Yes, Thorvall. You both look very cozy there. Would you like me to join you? I have just made a very nice Gal Gadot…”
“No, perhaps some other time…”
Alvarez glared at him, “Excuse me?”
“What? Come on! Gal Gadot…and she’s not real! It’s just a tactile hologram.”
Alvarez raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit, she is pretty hot…” Then she smacked his head. “Come on! Focus!”
“Computer, GFART interface. Parts per million of CO2 in Earths atmosphere. Reduce by, let me think, we are at just over four hundred, so bring it down to two eighty, so reduce by one hundred and twenty parts.”
“Reducing…”
So the CO2 ppm of the Earth’s atmosphere was now down to a very chilly 80 parts per million, where it hadn’t been since it was practically a ball of ice.
Far below Clay lay staring at the immense disk that hovered over the city he loved. His city. He looked at it and thought of all the pretty girls and all the beautiful women who had been stolen and enslaved by the immense army of aliens who lived aboard that immense ship. And as he watched, black clouds began to accumulate on the horizon, gradually obscuring the stars in the east. He shivered with the growing cold, and as he grew colder, so his anger grew hotter; and as the clouds boiled toward a storm, so his anger boiled towards bloody rage.
After five joints he was not at his most rational, but his emotions and his sense of cosmic justice were flowing freely and he knew, suddenly, exactly what he needed to do. He climbed to his feet, settled himself in the seat of the laser cannon, pointed it in the general direction of the immense ship and, hollering at the top of his voice, opened fire.
To clay, his target looked vast – three miles across, in fact. The reality of course was that of those three miles, only a sphere one hundred and fifty feet across was actual target. His laser shots hit the holographic matrix and the whole ship erupted into an aurora borealis of wild and wonderful lights, among which billions of spaceships were projected all across the sky and the city. Clay’s eyes went like saucers, he whooped and shouted and opened up some more, sending thousands of blasts of laser light up at the gigantic holograph, making it explode into the wildest light show the world had ever seen.
In his room the computer said to Thorvall, “The ship is under attack from a laser cannon in Central Park, Thorvall.”
Alvarez said, “Clay…!”
Thorvall said, “Son of a bitch! What happened to the blessed kleine tod? Can’t a man enjoy his post coital rest? Shields up!”
He climbed out of bed and walked naked to his sitting room, where he gazed out of his vast, panoramic window. He smiled, “Wow, Alvarez, come and look at this.”
The light display was stunning. The entire stratosphere from Canada to Mexico was alive with explosions of every conceivable color, and billions of reproductions of the ship spreading into infinity.
Thorvall took her in his arms and kissed her. “This,” he said, “is a good omen. Computer, take us clean across the galaxy. But first…”
Alvarez grinned and leaned into him. She said, “Oh man, I love when you talk dirty…”
Erickson said, “Who the fuck is attacking the ship? Computer, shut up and tell me who is attacking the ship!”
“Incongruent data…”
Stella said, “We just have to search the docking bays till we come to a shuttle…”
“You know how to fly one? Cause I don’t.”
“Shit! We have to find…”
She closed her mouth. They all turned as they heard feet approaching at a run. The docking bay doors were open and Alvarez came flying in, staggered to a halt and shouted, “Next docking bay! Escape pod! Now!”
She ran and they scrambled after her. They followed her down a passage, round a bend and down another passage. She skidded to a halt and put her hand on a panel. The door opened. Erickson barked, “How can you do that?”
“Not now, Boss! We have to get out of here now! This baby is about to blow!”
They were in. There was a ship, thirty foot long, similar to the shuttles but more streamlined. Alvarez barked, “Pod! Open hatches!” And four hatches hissed open. They scrambled in and she said, “Close hatches. Auto pilot engage. Lock on to Clay, Jeep, Central Park Meadow. Go!”
And the next moment they were erupting from the ship amid a wild blaze of colors that seemed to fill the entire sky. They all gasped and invoked the sacred nature of excrement and next thing they were plummeting down towards New York.
Erickson, struggling to keep a grip on his mind said, “Alvarez, how? Why…?”
He was silenced by the fact that she had started crackling, much as Gal Gadot had done in the cube.
He said, “She’s a fucking hologram…”
She winked out of existence and Bernie said, “What the hell, man…?”
Stella echoed him, “What the hell has happened to the weather?”
Beneath them the extraordinary light display was beginning to reflect of mountains of boiling cloud. And as the clouds accumulated, so the laser cannon could no longer penetrate them to reach its target. A few moments later the display stopped and they were hurtling down through dense, black, boiling vapor.
The next moment they had emerged into a transformed world. A stygian darkness had enfolded the city. A howling wind was tearing at the Atlantic beneath them, hurling columns of spume as high as the skyscrapers. Thundering waves curled and crashed against Manhattan and Long island, coiling and twisting up the Hudson and the Bronx. And out of the black air, snow fell in twisting, writing squalls, like a billion white banshee let loose from the splintering gates of hell.
They hurtled down towards the park, and as they fell the dark oblong was transformed into white luminescence. The billions of lights that illuminated the Big Apple, borough by borough, began to wink out. With each borough, the darkness grew deeper and blacker.
As they slowed to land, they saw the headlamps of the Jeep, and in the glow they could make out the giant form of Clay running around, jumping up and down and waving his fists in the air.
They clambered out into the freezing air and, despite the cold, they were struck by the clean intensity of the smells that came to them on the wind. Clay was whooping and shouting, “Did you see that? Man! Did you see what I did? Woohoo! Wow! I just… I aimed and I… Man!”
Erickson put his arm around him and guided him toward the shuttle. “You did this, Clay?”
“I did this! Man, I just aimed and, whoop!”
“OK, mate, we have to get out of he. We have to head south…”
By a combination of common sense and freakish good luck they managed to get the shuttle back up in the air and turned south toward Arizona and New Mexico. As they traveled, everywhere they saw powerful beams of light breaking through the clouds, penetrating the most populous areas. They did not know what it meant, but when they finally arrived in Tucson, they found it was deserted. Not a human soul was left in the place. The same was true of Phoenix, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
The cold was bitter, and as it drove them farther south, slowly they began to encounter people, though precious few. They never did work out that between them they had reduced the CO2 to a mere 80 ppm, and in the end it became easier just to blame Clay, who became know in legend as the Snow Man, or Clay the Snow Bringer.
Many legends would grow up around the small band of friends: about Erick and Stella in the Garden of Centralpark, and how she had lured him into the Gfart of Knowledge, to the perdition of mankind. How Erickson and Stella’s disobedience had led the God Thorvall to turn his back on humanity in anger, but how eventually the couple led the chosen tribe the promised land in De Careebeean.
Thorval and Alvarez stayed together for the rest of their lives and, after a few thousand years, become emperors of the universe. They never did return to Earth, though.
As to Bernie, well, he never lost hope of one day finding the love of his life and, by one of those bizarre coincidences that seem to happen in certain people’s lives, strolling along the beach one day in the Gulf of Mexico, he happened to bump into Gal Gadot, who just happened to be there. And it was. It was love at first sight.
And Olaf Olafsen, well, he built a ship, and sailed east…
Auctioned To The Lord
~ Bonus Story ~
An Alien Abduction Romance
Katie moves from LA to her new town in New England. She’s just happy to get away from her ex, who beat and abused her, but in her New England town she finds SOMETHING WORSE! She is auctioned at the Lord Mayor’s ball to an alien, whereupon she is whisked away kicking and screaming to another world - where, she soon finds out, to be the governess of the Alien’s son. But it turns out to be more than just teaching Rafael about being human and experiencing emotions. Far much more than she could imagine.
He wants to experience love, and she is the only one to teach him the finer points of lovemaking. To kiss, to hold, to make love. But this is nothing like she has experienced before - a whole new of INTIMATE EXPERIENCE on so many different levels! But she gets more than she bargained for - including a jealous brother who wants what Rafael is getting!
* * *
Chapter One
It was a partly empty house. What made it not completely empty was the scattering of boxes and furniture that was still in the wrong places. It was in the wrong places because I have just moved in, and I was still in the middle of unpacking. I stood in the middle of the room, looking at the mess of boxes, and wondered where to start. Luckily, I had marked all the boxes. That was going to help me locate what I needed as I go from room to room. Looking at all the boxes also made me feel lost, although, in some ways, I was hoping this move from LA to Little Rock, New England, would help me find what’s been missing in my life. Sometimes it felt like I was running away from my problems. I had a broken heart, even though, four months on, it was starting to heal. In the mirror, I could see the pain in my eyes. And sometimes, I would see Roger still in there too. Bits of him at least. What does it take for him to go away? Hasn’t he caused enough hurt already? And still he lingers, in my thoughts and dreams.
We had been going out for almost twelve months, and I was happy. And I thought we were both happy. Until I found out the truth from a girlfriend who saw him kissing on a street corner. I couldn’t believe it at first. I trusted him. I didn’t think he was like that at all. But with my suspicions raised, I hired a private detective, and within a short time I found out the horrible truth. He had been cheating on me, and almost for the whole twelve months. I could hardly bare to look at the evidence. At first, I blamed everyone, including my friend who caught him out. How dare she? Why did she do it for? But I was throwing all my anger onto the wrong person. What was I thinking? You can only blame one person. He tried to make up with me, saying it would never happen again, but I never be
lieved him. How could I? I was heartbroken by the man I loved, and I screamed and screamed until I couldn’t scream and cry anymore.
Everywhere I went in LA was a reminder of what Roger did to me; a reminder of illusion and distrust. It was slowly driving me crazy. I needed a fresh start. I needed to go somewhere and find myself again. I applied for so many jobs in towns as far away from LA as possible, until I finally got a job as a school teach at a primary school in my new town. I start on Monday. It’s Friday now, so I had little time to waste on my thoughts, and needed to make a start. I head straight to the kitchen boxes, and start to unpack them. Half way through one box, I stop when I hear a knock at the door.
I opened the front door, and a kind looking man was standing before me. “Hi, I’m Frank, I’m your next door neighbour,” he said. “I just wanted to welcome you to the neighbourhood.”
“Thank you, I’m Katie,” I said. “I’d invite you in, but my house is a mess with boxes everywhere.”
“Sounds like you need a hand,” he said. “Unpacking can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”
I looked at him as he smiled at me. He was an attractive man with a dimple chin that accentuated his features even more. He wore a fedora hat, and was dressed in dark pants and shirt. “I would love the help.” He came in, still smiling, and we began to work on different kitchen boxes, but we were close enough to chat as we worked. As I picked out kitchen items from the box, I was stealing glances without making it obvious. And I liked what I saw. At the door, the sun was in my eyes, and I couldn’t get a good look at him. Now that he was in better light, I could see that his thinning face brought out a uniqueness in him that I couldn’t see before. It was the high cheek bones that made him stand out. I wondered he was Native American. He had that look about him.
To Love A Hitman Page 47
