In a calm voice, the pilot said something. Jeff only heard more chittering. But somehow in whatever the alien said, Jeff made out his own name. Did the alien know him? Or did it have a word in its vocabulary that sounded like Jeff Abel? A homophone from another world?
The pilot touched a control near the doorway with a long finger. The portal closed before Jeff's eyes. The cube hummed, rose a few feet, and disappeared into thin air without the flash of its initial arrival. The vibrations and thrumming vanished with it.
Jeff walked into the spot where the cube had stood. The ground wasn't even warm. No scorched grass. The only thing remaining was the alien's faint aroma that reminded Jeff of a wet dog.
Jeff took a minute to catch his breath and assimilate what just happened. No prank show MC came forward to capitalize on the gotcha. He had just met someone or something from below the Earth, above it, or from another dimension, or Funt-knows-where. After a moment, Jeff checked his belt and searched the nearby area.
“Hmm,” he said. “That guy has my staple gun.”
CHAPTER 8
FIFTEEN MEMBERS from the Happy Alien Welcome Committee sat at a small table under a single hovering light. The light was cool and flickered periodically as if by design, and the table had a slight wobble when too many elbows and appendages weighed down any one of its sides. The Trin chaircreature wasn't there, and neither were the little trio of Frizzin nor a few others of the more sensitive Committee members. But for the Grey, the others present hung back, faces masked in shadow. The small room in the sub-subbasement felt cramped and appropriately conspiratorial.
The Head Grey puffed its neck sack and bounced its fist on the table. A peppercorn and burning butter smell wafted forth. Everyone quieted.
“We, my brood mates and I, are angry,” the Grey said, even though it sat alone with none of its brood present. It continued to speak. “So are all of us here. Angry. Or at least motivated not to let this blight on our member species and the insult to the peaceful nature of our previous missions go unpunished.”
Nods and twitches of assent came from some around the table. One four-armed yellow cylinder of a conspirator leaned forward with all of his elbows on his chair and steepled both pairs of hands.
“We need to face the facts that the humans are deliberate in their violent reactions,” the Grey said.
Silence. Then, the yellow cylinder with four arms said, “A chastening, at the very least.”
From another more lupine individual came, “We have been mocked. Murdered. But what reparation is there when there is nothing to pay with?”
“No reparation,” said a sphere with many eyes that shined like tiny red beacons in the shadows. “Simple revenge.”
Oliop, squatting in one of the five dark corners of the room, muttered, “That would be mean.” He had drifted into the room with the rest of the splinter group after the earlier Committee meeting had been brought to a close. No one told him he couldn't, and he could be almost invisible sometimes, like a cleaning bot, paid no mind. The Grey looked his way.
“Something to add, Oliop?” the Grey said.
Oliop hesitated, noting the silent attention all in the room paid him and how very few smiles or soft faces there were.
“Go ahead,” the Grey said. “This isn't an official committee. Speak your mind.”
Oliop stood, all ten fingers fidgeting. His translator device was back in place inside the back of his collar, and he scratched around it, even though the device's null-space pouch had no weight and no friction.
“I met a human,” he said. “He was nice.”
A murmuring rose from those around the table. A humorous puff of effervescent air rose from the Grey with a dash of cloying condescension, both sweet and unpleasant.
“How,” the Grey said, “could you have met a human. There are none here. They don't have access to the Galactic Commons. Watching their broadcasts doesn't count as meeting one.”
A few titters and giggles came from the others. Oliop even smiled, ears back.
“I took an elevator,” Oliop said. “And poof, I was on Earth, and I met a human. And he was nice.”
The Grey rose from the chair, its voice rising. “How could you have done that?” it said. “The common elevators don't go to Earth. And our elevator is keyed to Welcome Committee members only. You're not authorized.”
Oliop looked down, away, up, anywhere but at the Grey. “I, uh,” Oliop said, “opened the control panel and bridged a charge between the quantum battery and the engaging solenoid with a pair of pliers. That bypassed the coded key starter.”
“You stole an elevator?”
A clamor went up from the table. Angry words filled the room, including “Contamination," “Vectors," and “Idiot."
The Grey held up a hand. The room fell back to silence.
“Now, Oliop,” the Grey said. “If this is true and you actually went, were the automatic scrubbers on? The disinfection units? You didn't bypass any of the safety features did you?”
“Yes!” Oliop said. “I mean no. I didn't turn the disinfection units off!”
“Of course you didn't,” the Grey said. “But lets make sure of that. Whistle!”
A large figure opened the door. The figure filled most of the doorway, an enormous humanoid that ducked and twisted to get inside. The lamp over the table illuminated her, a muscular mass of brown, leathery flesh. An aura of distorted light hung around her form as if her presence pulled it from the very air and bent it in her direction. Her two eyes shined like yellow lasers.
The Grey pointed at Oliop. “Whistle, run a contamination scan on Oliop,” the Grey said.
Whistle pulled a handheld device with a small screen and a few silver buttons from a zero-space pocket attached to a thin black belt. She moved quickly for someone so large. She grabbed Oliop. He errped and was held fast. Whistle hit one of the silver buttons, and the device came to life. She scanned Oliop, moving the device around his every nook and cranny. The device gave a brief hum, and a light flashed. Whistle nodded to the Grey.
“He's clean,” Whistle said in a voice similar to a human's with a helium-altered timbre. She released him.
“Oliop,” the Grey said, “Did you actually go to Earth and see a human? Did you meet one? Talk to him? Touch him?”
“I saw one,” Oliop said. “And then I left. Maybe he wasn't nice. He, uh, scared me, actually.”
The Grey nodded. “They would seem scary to you. With their big teeth and long claws.”
Everyone at the table laughed. Oliop smiled weakly, fidgeted some more. He rubbed his neck where Whistle had grabbed him.
“But you never made contact with one,” the Grey said. Oliop shook his head. The Grey nodded. “You didn't speak with one. You didn't touch one, did you?”
Oliop said, “No.”
“And you never told anyone, until now,” the Grey said. Oliop nodded. “So besides making sure that you never use the elevator again, we don't have to take any action here since no harm was done.” Oliop shook his head, stopped, then nodded and smiled. “This will be our secret, won't it?” Oliop nodded some more.
The group at the table noticeably relaxed. Some murmured. A few chuckled. Whistle continued to tower over the technician, staring at him with her unblinking yellow eyes that pinned him in place.
“So, nothing to report here,” the Grey said. “Just a technician working through a maintenance issue with the transportation systems. We'll make sure this problem is an isolated incident.”
“What of his encounter with the human?” the yellow cylinder said. “Maybe he learned something of use.”
“Doubtful,” the Grey said. “This technician can be prone to fancies of imagination. I'm sure if Oliop even saw a human, it was from a distance. I'll be sure to investigate the matter further, rest assured.”
The yellow cylinder wiggled its top half, an approximation of a begrudging nod, once the gesture was translated.
Oliop stood as silent and still as possible, looki
ng everywhere but at the Grey or up at Whistle.
The Grey returned its attention to the collection of beings at the table and sighed.
“Now to our business,” it said. “It rests with us to redress the wrong.”
Some nods. The Grey saw a few confused faces.
“That is, it's up to us to get revenge.”
Silence. Then, more heads began to nod, and soon, most at the table gave their varied signs of assent.
***
Whistle escorted Oliop down to the Committee's wing of the transportation terminal with its own dedicated elevators. Oliop hesitated as she opened a security door with a swipe of her hand through a biometric reader. She nudged him through the door.
“The Grey wants you to rescrub everything,” Whistle said. “No germs. No contamination. No traces whatsoever.”
Her girth blocked the way back out. She corralled Oliop towards a row of six dark elevators and their supporting machinery.
“But I already-” he began to say, looking up at her dark, dark face. Two pin-holes eyes gazed back at him. Her eyes shifted from yellow to blue. “But I can clean it again.”
He moved along to a maintenance hatch and removed the appropriate equipment, including an ultraviolet light scrubber and a mop bucket. He filled the bucket with a few inches of viscous gel and went over to the elevator. The door slid open. The first thing Oliop noticed was the edge of a human bootprint just inside the portal on the unscrubbed, unsanitized floor, a floor he hadn't actually cleaned in his haste to get out of the elevator once he had returned to the Commons from the human world. And there, in the corner past the smudge, lay the human's dropped tool.
He did a shoulder check. Whistle stood nearby, eyes inscrutable but staring, brown frame robbing her section of the hallway of its light.
“What's wrong?” Whistle asked.
Oliop's eyes widened. He gripped the mop bucket tight and suppressed a shiver. “Nothing,” he said with a squeak.
Whistle moved closer. Another step and she would be able to look over and around him and see the human's tool. She would then tell the Head Grey. The Head Grey would then have Whistle punish him in some unimaginable way, not limited to bending, stomping, or crushing.
“Whistle, we, uh, never talk,” Oliop said. He took a step towards her so she couldn't get any closer to the elevator. “I've never been to your home world. Do you have sisters? When's the last time you went on a vacation? If I go to the commissary for a snack can I get you anything?”
Staring up at Whistle was like staring down a black hole with muscles.
Whistle exhaled. “I have seventeen sisters that I still have to duel for family supremacy. My last vacation was a year ago at an astronomy lab on one of the rogue worlds cycling away from the galactic disc. And I already ate my semi organic crystal for the month.”
After a moment of silence, Oliop said, “That's very, uh, interesting, I, uh, also have sisters...” He trailed off.
“Just get to work,” Whistle said. “Go to the commissary when you're finished.” She turned and walked back to a wall terminal and brought up a newsfeed.
Oliop exhaled with relief and began his wipe down and disinfection routine. When he got to the staple gun, he picked it up, squeezed the spring trigger, and it clicked. A staple popped out. He put the gun and the spent staple into a cargo pouch in his pants and finished his work.
CHAPTER 9
LINDSEY SHELDON LAID two tabloids atop the stack of others next to the plush sofa. The last two carried headlines that read “First Contact Man Impotent from Close Encounter” and “Alien Body Robbed Me of Sex Drive." He picked up his phone, found Dr. Chester Khan's number, and hit Call.
“You've reached the office of Dr. Chester Khan,” a nasally female said. “Our office hours are ten to four, Monday through Wednesday. Dr. Khan specializes in Urology, Andrology, and male fertility issues. If you would like to make an appointment, please leave us a message, and the office staff will get back to you as soon as possible. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial...”
Lindsey wrote down the number and dialed.
“This is Dr. Chester Khan, please leave a message,” a silky male voice said.
“Listen, Dr. Khan,” Lindsey said. “I know it was you. I know you sold my medical records to the press. I'm letting you know I'm calling my lawyers. You're in deep, pal. I'm going to own you. You're toast.”
He considered his phone, hit End.
Nothing had gone well since hitting that stupid alien. Being on television was supposed to be fun. But the questions always came around to his drinking, his mental history, his family troubles, and now this. He even moved out of his Carson City condo and into his sister's place in Auburn, California, but the press followed him.
So far, the paparazzi stuck to laying in wait at the main intersection near the house or in town near Lindsey's favorite coffee spot. Not too bad, since he could avoid them by not going into town. They started calling the house, so he stopped answering his sister's home phone. The house itself was well enough away from the main road as to not be in sight of anyone trying to snap a shot of the “Death Race: Target Aliens!” driver as one paper had called him.
Still, Sheldon caught a few sneaking on the property.
The first photographer Lindsey caught had a camera and zoom lens the size of a sniper rifle. The man had climbed a tree near the house and said nothing as Lindsey cursed him out and threw him off the property. The second photographer had sneaked onto the porch at dusk and was pointing a hand-sized video camera into the living room window. Lindsey's thirteen year old niece saw the red light and screamed, and Lindsey called 911. Lindsey now kept a loaded twelve-gauge shotgun by the front door in spite of his sister's desires that the gun stay locked and unloaded and tucked somewhere out of sight. When a reporter spotted him making the firearm purchase in the town sporting goods store, the next headline read “Lindsey Sheldon-- Alien Hunter."
Then, for the past week, life for Lindsey was incident free. Maybe even reporters took a break from time to time. Maybe they had moved on to other targets. Maybe pull tabs would return to beer cans. He stayed in hiding.
On a warm Friday evening that hinted of a warmer weekend, Lindsey's sister and niece went to the movies. Lindsey wouldn't risk going out, and the choices of what were playing sucked. The planets must have been aligned wrong since there wasn't anything at the multiplex that had either zombies or a seasonal slasher. He watched them leave as he heated canned chili on an iron skillet in the kitchen. He rubbed his soft midsection. His waistline had grown since the alien thing had all started.
Finding something to watch with his sister's limited cable television package could be a challenge during the week, but Friday programming proved truly abysmal. Lindsey flipped between night-vision-goggled ghost trackers, terrible cartoons, and aging married models with reconstructed faces getting into hair-pulling cat fights.
He settled on the cat fights. Two women in bright, tight dresses that looked like sausage casings with faces that looked like Play-Doh argued with each other, screamed at everyone else, and vented to their hair stylists. The chili consumed, Lindsey now ate his niece's sharp-edged, sweet, sweet breakfast cereal straight from the box. Cap'n Crunch with stilettos, anyone? And then the television went to snow.
Lindsey acted on primal instincts handed down to him from his father and his father's father. He flicked the remote to another channel. He got up, looked at the television, and tapped the side. He checked the connections. Then he looked out the window into the darkness. The lights in the room flickered and died.
“Crap,” he said. Another perfect evening ruined.
Power and cable went out at least once a year, especially during a winter storm. If it happened during other times, it usually meant someone had run into a utility pole.
Lindsey brushed cereal crumbs from his shirt. He tossed the TV remote onto the couch and grabbed a small flashlight from a hook by the front door. From just outside, he heard a
creak from the patio.
“Who the hell?”
He opened the door. No moon out yet. The porch was unusually dark. He couldn't see a thing. What had made that sound? Raccoons and coyotes and skunks were regulars here. Lindsey didn't move, just listened. He clicked on the flashlight. The beam played over the long, wrap-around porch and across waist high grass that sprouted through the decking. Grass? His sister wasn't fastidious, but she kept her home relatively neat both inside and out, including keeping weeds under control. The grass hadn't been there before.
“Sheldon,” came a crackled, dry voice like a stage whisper from the night beyond the porch. “Lindsey Sheldon.”
Lindsey grabbed the shotgun from inside the door, fingered the safety off. He racked the slide, forgetting that there already was a shell in the chamber. A loaded red cartridge popped out onto the floor. Lindsey ignored it, juggling both the shotgun and the flashlight, trying to keep both pointing in roughly the same direction. He moved the light from the weird grass on the deck and up into the yard and trees beyond. He walked forward, squinting.
“You get off this property now,” Lindsey said. “This is your last warning.”
The property was laid with gravel that covered a driveway to the street and a roundabout where Lindsey's truck was parked, with a spot for his sister's Jeep. More of that grass had sprouted up throughout the yard, as if bails of hay had been opened and scattered about. But this grass wasn't cut and dried. It looked healthy and rooted and greener than most of the grass that grew this late in the summer. Someone was here, messing with him. He put the shotgun's stock to his shoulder, kept the flashlight in his left hand, and moved into the yard.
Something pinched his butt. He turned. One of the long grass blades was stuck in his pant bottom. He pulled it out.
“Lindsey Sheldon,” said the whisper again.
Lindsey spun around, eyes scanning the darkness, shotgun pointing at everything unseen. The light played awkwardly across the yard. Balancing both gun and light proved difficult. Holding both was never a problem in the movies. If he only had some duct tape.
A Beginner's Guide to Invading Earth Page 5
