When the ten minutes passed, would Ceph cut the mustard?
***
Eleven minutes later, Flemming was security captain once again. Ceph had declined the one day promotion, as had eighty seven other species. Other member races that weren't registered with the security database ignored the regular pleas to join and do their voluntary term of service. If Flemming had declined, the position would default to a computer in the security headquarters that couldn't detect its way out of a degradable baggie. Ceph and a few other citizens worked happily in the lower rungs, but no one wanted to run this show even for one day.
So began Flemming's day one thousand thirty-seven as security captain.
Positive hits for Jeff Abel came trickling in from the maintenance bots and sensors throughout the Commons. Traces of the suspect were detected in the center fountain district, the blue sun greenhouse, the black obelisk, and down in the sewers, triggering a flood of urgent messages from worried citizens concerned about their safety as news of the Frizzin murders spread throughout the city.
Flemming let the automated reply software balm the panicked souls of the Commons. The news feeds received the message from the security computer, relayed them, and within minutes news commentators added their analysis and posted opinions on what should be done to address the crisis. The queue for the security captaincy remained empty.
“Ceph,” Flemming said.
“Right here, Captain,” Ceph said.
Ceph was inserting a congealed plankton pop between his face tentacles and into his beak. His black radula tapped and prodded the treat, lining it up to be chewed and swallowed. Ceph made gagging noises as he ate.
“Finish your lunch. We're going to the sewers.”
Ceph muttered something, mouth full, but Flemming ignored him, lost in his own thoughts.
None of the spots where the human had turned up were particularly important. They would have to go to the four corners and lower points of the city to get to them all. But the investigation had to continue somewhere, so first to the sewers they would go.
***
The Grey entered the Commons security headquarters with Whistle a few paces behind. Whistle still smelled of disinfectants after scrubbing down, a necessary step after having dispersed the harvested Jeff Abel particles into the various parts of the Commons. Her shower would also send any physical traces from the trio of Frizzin that she had so recently mishandled down the disintegrator drain. Her skin appeared a shade lighter from the power washer. She followed the Grey without a word as it walked up to the security building's front desk.
“Purpose of visit?” the pink amorphous puffball receptionist asked.
“Updating our sovereign building security protocols,” the Grey said.
A pad lit up at the front of the desk.
“Palm, appendage, tentacle, or other?” the receptionist said.
The Grey pressed down on the pad with a palm. Lights above the pad blinked white and changed to several pleasing tones of green that indicated that the visitor was approved. With the Grey's new plenipotentiary powers given it by the Master, it could access just about any place within the Commons. The Grey walked to the grav lift that would take them to the heart of the security building with Whistle one step behind.
They passed few Commons citizens once inside, most species content with caring remotely for security procedures and confident in delegating their needs to the Commons automated services. Bots predominated within these halls. Service in the security details was voluntary. If enough of the Commons members refused service, the entire system would be under computerized control.
Even with an escaped alien on the loose in the city and a very rare unsolved murder with an active investigation, the headquarters was almost dead inside. Someone Else would take care of it.
The lift took them to a floor midway up the 96-floor tower. The corridors and decor were remarkably beige, the least offensive color to every race. The center room hosted a bank of input terminals, all vacant. A bored, blond-furred clerk walked up to them as they entered. Beads and ribbons adorned his mane and arm hair. He held a roll of blue ribbon in one hand. The blond consulted a datapad, looked at the Grey.
“Building protocols?” the blond asked. “Terminal twelve is available.” He stepped aside and pointed down a row of numbered, glowing machines. No one else used any of the terminals. “Anything else I can help you with?”
“Yes,” Whistle said.
The blond looked disappointed.
“First,” Whistle said, “we will need an updated reconfiguration of the air sniffers near the Grey homebuilding. There's been too many incidents of disrupted scent packets due to contaminants. Airflow protocols. I'll need the spec sheets. Some of the neighbor buildings are seeping excessive pollutants that are making their way to their homebuilding. Pest reports and containment evaluations. Grey data suggests some species is shedding invasive organisms that the cleaning services are missing.”
The blond shook his head, then nodded, thought for a moment, and shook his head again. “That's...that's a lot of reports and data. I will program that into a security terminal and begin collating. You should have it in a few days.”
Whistle stepped past the Grey and glared down at the blond alien. The blond shrank.
“I'll...make sure it's fast-tracked,” the blond said with a stammer.
Whistle grumbled. “No. These are matters that effect the sovereign house of a member of the Commons. You will handle this now. And personally. I will watch and wait.”
The blond sputtered an affirmative, and shuffled off in a flurry of hair and ribbon. He tried to work two terminals at the same time while ordering half of the robot staff in the large room to begin compiling the requested data. The bots went from dormant to active with a word and buzzed between terminals and dodged one another in a mechanical ballet. Whistle followed and stood over the now-busy clerk. She watched without blinking. She also blocked his view of most of the rest of the room.
Even before the blond began his frantic search to count air molecules near the Grey homebuilding and to track non-existent cast-off mites, the Grey walked down the length of the long room, ignored by the bots and out of view of the attendant. The Grey moved through an open doorway labeled “No admittance—Authorized Personnel.” The next door had an even larger sign, “Senior Security Past This Point.” The Grey hacked that door with a commercial door-opening fob with a few preprogrammed add-ons. The third door looked like a black, round bank vault with no datapad for entry and no obvious port for hacking. A red eye opened at the door's right side.
“Entry denied,” a deep, mechanical voice said. “Presence unauthorized. Return to designated visitor's space immediately.”
The Grey stepped up to the eye.
The eye said, “Security personnel will be summoned in ten seconds unless visitor complies. Exit this room.”
The Grey offered up one of the four lithe fingers of its left hand.
“Five seconds for compliance,” the eye said.
The Grey bent the digit back until it popped open at the tip, revealing a hollow center. The Grey upended the finger as if pouring something in front of and onto the eye.
The eye went green.
“Happy Alien Welcome Committee Chaircreature- welcome,” the eye said, and the vault opened.
The Grey snapped its finger shut. The finger now appeared whiter than the rest of its skin, which already was taking on a paler shade than the species' norm. The Grey entered the heart of the Galactic Commons security services, a room both dark and cold with but a single terminal at the opposite end. The room was silent as well, the only sounds coming from the bustle and purrs of the various automated systems throughout the building, as well as the faint noises from the eager-to-please staff slaving to fill Whistle's requests.
A path of light winked to life from both floor and ceiling as the Grey walked into the security building's nerve center.
The Grey touched the terminal. Ran its fing
ers along the lines and grooves. The Grey smiled. Its hands twitched with excitement. It paused and took a breath. Next, it opened the tips to the other three fingers on its left hand and poured. Again, nothing visible came out and, for a moment, nothing happened. Then, a single light on the panel flashed, followed by another. Soon the terminal lit up with previously unseen lights. More screens beyond the borders of the terminal popped up in the air above it, with signs and portents for the Grey. The Grey browsed the data and nodded. The walls of the room blinked to life, with displays and bold-text alerts flashing, each demanding attention and input.
The Grey closed up his digits and obliged. The skin of its left hand and arm were now a milky white.
CHAPTER 26
JEFF DECIDED there was something liberating about seeing his reoccurring feeling of being watched be confirmed by the events of the past day. He had been monitored and abducted by aliens. Maybe Jordan was right. It was flattering. But being stuck in an musty office robbed him of any joy as boredom took over. Maybe it was just the faded adrenaline, but Jeff fought sleep as he sat on a box stuffed with papers and leaned back against a wall. The hours ticked by, and no Bunnie came in to interrogate them.
“Tell me about where you went,” Jordan said.
She was back at the desk, her head down on an arm.
“It's an alien city,” Jeff said. “I wouldn't know how to begin to describe it.”
“Lots of aliens?”
He shrugged. “What do you think?”
She sat up, leaned back, gave him a look. “Still mad at me for giving you over to the Grey?”
“I'm just tired. It's been a long day.”
They didn't speak for a while. Jeff listened but didn't hear anything going on outside the office. Oliop, perched on a knocked over chair, began laughing quietly to himself, and a mirthful smile spread on his face. The laughter turned into a spasm that shook his entire frame.
“Is he going to be okay?” Jordan asked.
“Oliop, what's up?” Jeff asked.
Jeff got up and grabbed him by a shoulder.
“What is it?” Jeff asked.
Oliop's tail passed something forward. His hand opened and showed Jeff a small, palm-length rectangle, silvery with blue markings. Jeff looked at it, then at Oliop and shrugged.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It's to the Bunnie ship,” Oliop said. “An access or unlocking device of some kind.”
“So you're guessing,” Jeff said.
“Educated guess,” Oliop said. “Bunnie tech is largely unknown as it has developed without the benefit of Commons membership. This is clearly not anything made on Earth. It was in one of their pockets. And it looks like a key.”
“So you're making an assumption on what it is,” Jeff said.
“You picked his pocket,” Jordan said. She sounded nervous.
“Just to see what was there when he roughed me up,” Oliop said.
“So that thing is, what, like a key fob?” Jeff asked. “Spaceships have key fobs?”
Oliop said, “Theirs do, apparently. Not certain how it will work but here it is.”
“Mr. Kim...I mean the Bunnie made it clear that he would kill us if we screwed with him,” Jeff said. “You know what you're doing with that?”
“Of course.” Oliop examined the silvery fob, ran a finger along it. Touched various blue buttons but not hard enough to depress them.
“He'll notice it's missing,” Jordan said. “You've had it for hours. He'll have to know soon that it's gone. I don't want to end up wrapped up in spider webs, or worse.”
Oliop rotated the device around, then end over end, tapping and looking and smelling. He pushed with fingers at opposite sides simultaneously and both sections of the fob depressed. Nothing happened. Oliop pushed every other button on the fob.
“Maybe there's a range to that thing,” Jeff said. “Probably have to be in the ship for it to work.”
“Or you've just alerted them that their ship that is now locking and unlocking isn't in their control and they're going to come in here and kill us,” Jordan said. She went to the door, touched the knob. “We can't exactly barricade this door, you know. They're too strong.”
The entire building began to shudder. The walls groaned and buckled. Jeff grabbed Jordan and shoved her behind the desk just as the window to the hangar imploded with a crash. The filing cabinets shielded them from the wave of glass shards. Oliop jumped on Jeff and covered his own head. Debris poured down into the office, piling high atop the filing cabinets and blocking the window. The noise was deafening. Jeff had lived through a number of California earthquakes, but never had a building fall down on top of him until now. Then, as suddenly as it started, the tremor stopped. A cloud of dust filled the room. In the silence, the Bunnie webs swayed like wispy hair.
“Get off,” Jeff said. They untangled themselves from one another and stood up.
“What did you do?” Jordan asked Oliop.
“Whatever it is, we're committed,” Jeff said. “What's next?”
Oliop looked up at the ceiling. “Block the door,” he said. “Quickly.”
Jeff moved a stubborn, debris-topped filing cabinet a few inches, then pushed it over across the doorway. He pulled another away from a wall and tipped it against the first. He looked around. He saw nothing else of any size that he could use that wasn't trapped by debris.
Once the door was blocked, Oliop jumped straight up and clung to the frame of a ceiling access hatch. He pushed open the hatchway with his feet and vanished into the space above. Bright light shined down from the hatch through the swirling dust like a spotlight.
The office door shook. Jordan screamed.
From behind the door, Not-Kim said, “This is your only warning: Open. The. Door.”
Jeff backed away from the door and looked up towards the hatchway. Where was Oliop? Jeff couldn't quite make it up to the hatch without a ladder.
Oliop reached a hand down from above. Jeff grabbed it, and Oliop pulled him up, the skinny technician surprisingly strong. Jeff found himself in a low, cramped crawlspace filled with more stacks of cardboard boxes. Half of the crawlspace's ceiling had collapsed in. A bright white light shined down from above. It almost blinded Jeff. He squinted and shielded his eyes with a hand. Oliop pushed at one of the plywood sheets that made up the crawlspace's ceiling. Jeff helped him. It yielded with a creak, the sheet not held down by nails, and together they pushed it off. They looked out into the interior of the hangar. The hangar's roof was busted down, open to the outside. The bright light shined down through that breach, its source a ship that had crashed through the hangar and now hovered just above them.
Jeff saw movement below. Down on the hangar floor, the two disguised Bunnie stood in front of the office with Not-Kim, again wearing his torn human disguise. Not-Kim looked up, squinted, and pointed at them.
From below, Jeff heard Jordan call, “Jeff, please help me up!”
One of the Bunnie jumped, seeming to defy gravity. He grabbed a handhold and began to pull himself up to the office roof. Jeff took a box full of papers and chucked it straight into the Bunnie's head, knocking him back down. He picked up another box and waited.
Oliop busily studied the device in his hands.
Jordan called again, “Jeff!”
Jeff gave Oliop a questioning look.
“Your decision,” Oliop said. “But I like her.”
The woman Bunnie jumped up next. She landed on some of the debris near Jeff. Jeff threw the box. She deflected it with a hand, but she was off balance. A second box knocked her off the roof.
From beneath the hatchway, Jordan yelled, “Don't leave me here!”
“Help her up, then,” Jeff said.
“I'm busy,” Oliop said.
“You're stronger.”
Oliop shrugged. He reached down, grabbed her hand, and pulled. Jordan climbed up and over him, knocking him down.
“Oh god, thank you, thank you,” she said.
She helped Oliop up. He fumbled with the Bunnie device while trying to push her away. He examined the fob with a puzzled expression. He turned it end over end like he had never seen it before. Jeff wanted to shake the alien technician, to get his mind back on track. He had figured out how to call the ship here, hadn't he?
Not-Kim and the other male Bunnie both jumped up to the office roof. Not-Kim's face still hung open in torn strips.
“I told you to behave,” Not-Kim said.
Jeff hesitated with the next cardboard box, faked a throw at the other male and hit Not-Kim in the center of his body. Not-Kim pitched backwards, but some of his many legs popped out of the disguise and stopped his fall. He laughed. He peeled away his clothing and tossed the strips of skin aside like a wet swimsuit. Easily twice as large as when crammed into the Kim disguise, he stretched out his sixteen limbs.
“I may find the idea disgusting,” Not-Kim said, “But I will chew your parts with you watching so I can listen to you scream.”
The other male Bunnie drew closer. Not-Kim moved forward. The woman crept up behind them, also now free of her human costume. Jeff didn't see anyplace left for them to retreat to unless they were to drop back down into the office. He picked up another box, but it was mostly empty, as were the others immediately by his feet. It felt inadequate. A sense of helplessness overwhelmed him.
That was when Jordan said to Not-Kim, “I...I wasn't helping them escape.”
Jeff looked at her in disbelief.
Oliop twisted something on the Bunnie fob. “Maybe this is it. Grab on.”
Both Jeff and Jordan grabbed Oliop as the light from the ship above focused on him with increased intensity. A weightless sensation enveloped Jeff. The ship sucked them up with a snap and all the lights clicked off, just as three Bunnie lurched forward.
CHAPTER 27
WHAT DOES ONE EXPECT when one is beamed aboard a space ship operated by a species of sedecimopodic arachnids? Maybe webs, possibly the drained and discarded husks of exsanguinated victims, and definitely more arachnids. The possibilities of such horrors filled Jeff's head as the beam drew them into the Bunnie ship. Instead, Jeff stepped onto a pristine deck with sensible control stations, tasteful lighting, and panels of what must have been some kind of artwork attached to the walls. No webs. No human corpses. No other Bunnie in sight. Jordan stood next to him, mouth agape.
A Beginner's Guide to Invading Earth Page 14
