A Beginner's Guide to Invading Earth

by Gerhard Gehrke

  The bunker had always been there. No one questioned its purpose; it never needed maintenance or security, and it didn't show up on any city app that could label it with a function or show that it was assigned to any Commons department. Any being that saw it assumed it must belong to someone else, so it was ignored. Invisible, almost. Even pedestrian traffic took quicker or more pleasant routes that completely avoided the structure, as if by design. None of the buildings around it had windows that faced the bunker's direction.

  The grav sled stopped in front of it. The Grey hopped out and stepped up to the bunker. It had four outside walls and no visible entrance. The Grey studied a tessellated wall with an intricate series of complex shapes that ran in rows. It touched one simple circle in the pattern, and a small door opened. The Grey entered, with Whistle and the Bunnie following, both ducking to get through the door. Whistle carried the limp human. The door closed silently behind them, and a dark chamber lit up.

  The interior was a single space with a single feature. A large circle of glassy material floated in the center of the chamber. When the Grey touched the circle, it blinked and lit up with a purple glow. A break in the circle allowed the Grey to walk to the middle of the room. Whistle followed, dropping Jeff next to the Grey. The Grey poked him with a finger, but he wasn't moving.

  “Whistle?” the Grey said. “Were you holding onto the human too tightly?”

  Whistle made a non-committal grunt. The Grey leaned in close and put its face near the human's nose. It felt warm breath.

  “Best of both worlds,” the Grey said. “Still alive, yet unconscious. These creatures talk too much anyway.”

  From outside the circle, the Bunnie giggled. He lurched about and sniffed the air, careful not to touch anything.

  “What is this room?” the Bunnie asked. “Are there weapons here? When will we begin?”

  “Soon,” the Grey said. “I hope your people are ready.”

  “Are ready,” the Bunnie said. “Have been ready. My generation born for this day.”

  “Yes, good. Now be silent.”

  The Grey touched Jeff's cheek. Its own face twitched, and again came the grin that looked like it might crack the Grey's face if it got any wider. The human's skin was dry and warm compared to Grey's own. It could move ahead with the human out cold, but where was the fun in that? The other Greys would never indulge themselves like this.

  The Grey gave Jeff a small slap. And another. Jeff Abel groaned, and his eyes fluttered. He coughed a few times. When he saw the Grey, his eyes widened.

  “What do you want from me?” Jeff asked groggily. “I've never done anything to you.”

  The Grey's grin faded, its face now contorting into a scowl. “Yes, you have. You do and you will. You lie. You lie and you will always lie. That's what you do.”

  “When have I ever lied to you?” Jeff asked.

  “Every time you open your mouth. You can't help it. You don't even know that you do it. And if your species ever comes here, there will be thousands and thousands of you, speaking and lying and leaving me to clean up the mess.”

  “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

  The little Grey's voice dropped in pitch, and it spat as it spoke. “When the Commons was comprised of just a dozen creatures, I handled it,” the Grey said. “It was a higher calling, a service to the intelligent beings of the galaxy. But over the centuries, more and more species joined, each with their quirks and idioms and homonyms.

  “Ever wonder how to express 'on the other hand' to a single-limbed being with no concept of life as a bilateral organism? Or how to deal with a language replete with onomatopoetic expressions like a grunt that could mean yes, no, or maybe? Or how to get said creature to appreciate the difference between 'Blaaaaarghaburbl' that goes on for fourteen minutes and the exact same expression that continues for another two seconds but means 'no, I won't rip your throat out' as opposed to 'yes I will'?”

  Jeff shook his head, looked confused. “I have never wondered that, at least not specifically. And what does that have to do with me? I don't get it.”

  “You don't need to,” the Grey said. “You just need to be here, for the system around us to detect that a human has made it into the most central of Commons structures, for your particles to trigger the last line of defense.”

  “Whatever you're doing, I won't help,” Jeff said. He tried to sit up, coughed once, went down on an elbow.

  “We need to kill him?” the Bunnie asked.

  “No,” the Grey said. “That would be needlessly messy. We just need him to exhale a few times and the sensors will do the rest. All the groundwork has been already laid. The Commons computer will detect more Jeff Abel particles. Then it will trace the source of all the city's woes here. And what will the Commons do in response to an invasion of humans into this most inviolable place, hmm?”

  “What will it do?” the Bunnie asked, but the Grey didn't answer.

  Jeff made a show of holding his breath. The Grey watched, its smile deteriorating into a frown. It couldn't remember how long a human could go without breathing. Something for later research, but not now. Was it possible he could hold his breath until he expired?

  “Stop that,” the Grey said. It gestured to Whistle.

  Whistle leaned over, her face inches from Jeff's. “Breathe, human.” When Jeff didn't, Whistle gave Jeff a swat that sent him to the floor. Jeff coughed and gasped, put a hand to his head where Whistle had struck him.

  “Whatever this guy is doing,” Jeff said to Whistle, “you're okay with this?”

  Whistle didn't answer.

  “Whistle here is one of the few species that hasn't overstayed her welcome,” the Grey said. “She and her kind can go months without uttering a sound. And when she does, it's to the point, no fuss, no beating around the bush, no bloviating.”

  “Unlike you?” Jeff said.

  “Shut up.”

  The human sat up again. “But what does that have to do with you?” Jeff said. “Why do you care so much? Do you help operate the translation tech in this place?”

  The Grey smiled again. “'Help' is putting it mildly,” it said. “Do you suppose that any of the translation comes about by some machine or piece of software?”

  “So what? You're one of the translators?” Jeff said.

  “You say 'one of' like I get help.”

  Bubble gum machine lights popped out of the ceiling. They spun and blinked in shades of red. An unseen bell rang. This was an older generation of alarms, an artifact of hammer and clapper and lights of days gone by, no words or data broadcast to inform or direct, just a bell that rang and rang.

  The Grey stepped to one side of the floating ring. It cleared its throat.

  “Attention citizens of the Galactic Commons,” the Grey said. “Containment of the human has failed. There is a citywide breach. Extreme contamination measures are being carried out for the Commons. All citizens must report to their pre-assigned evacuation elevator at this time. You will be returned to your home world so the disinfection process can begin. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

  The Grey's voice boomed throughout the Commons and echoed in the bunker. The message also carried through to every translation unit in the city. The Grey touched a control, and the message began to loop with a one minute silence before repeating.

  “It's time,” the Bunnie said. He began to bob on his feet. “It's time. It's time. It's time.”

  “Yes it is,” the Grey said. “Let's go welcome your brethren.”

  The Grey headed for the door.

  “What about m-” Jeff started to say when Whistle gave him a slap to the head that knocked him to the floor again. The human didn't move after that.

  ***

  Jordan spotted the floating sled parked next to the ugly bunker. She fought to catch her breath, and her chest squeezed from the run. She had a stitch up her side. The streets around the area looked abandoned, a contrast to the crowds earlier. At least it made finding the grav s
led easy even from a block away as she had failed to keep up once it broke free from the traffic.

  She approached the bunker. There weren't any visible doors or any other stairs or elevators in sight. Where were they? The grav sled was empty. Jordan worked her way around the bunker. She pushed and prodded and searched for a keypad, a latch, for anything that would indicate a way inside. If there was a door, it was invisible.

  Suddenly, a new alert sounded, the Grey's voice, saying, “ Attention citizens of the Galactic Commons...”

  This announcement was worse than the earlier ones. She heard it with her ears. The words also somehow played directly into her brain through the translation gizmo. Blocking her ears with her hands, she went around the last corner of the bunker to where she had started. A section of the wall moved, sliding upward. She jumped back around the corner and hugged the cold wall. She got down low.

  The Grey emerged, followed by an excited Bunnie, and finally Whistle. But Jeff wasn't with them. They got into the grav sled, and the vehicle hummed to life and glided forward. Without missing a beat, Jordan rushed the door, making it through just as it began to close. It hissed shut behind her. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the low light inside. The single chamber was large, with an enormous floating ring taking up much of it.

  She saw Jeff laying in the center, unmoving. She found a gap in the ring and she went to him.

  “Don't be dead,” she said.

  “Ungh,” he said back but didn't move.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  She helped him sit up. He had a couple of raised red blotches on the sides of his face where someone had struck him. Jeff touched the spots, winced.

  “What happened?”

  “Can't say for sure,” Jeff said. “The Grey ranted about stuff that didn't make sense, wanted me to breathe. That triggered something in here. The Bunnie got all excited. And then Whistle knocked me down, and off they went.”

  “That's weird. It's like they don't need you anymore. Can you stand?”

  She tried to help him up. He leaned on her, fought to stand, but sat back down. He waved her off with a gesture.

  “This room, this whole city seems to have sniffers made to detect unauthorized aliens,” Jeff said. “Or at least humans. Or maybe just me. The little bugger broadcast his announcement from here.”

  “It must be pretty elaborate if those sensors can ignore the garbage restaurant we were in earlier,” Jordan said. She walked around the center of the shiny ring. She touched the smooth surface. It felt like glass. Nothing visible supported it. She waved a hand underneath. No strings, no wires, no legs. She gave the ring a few more taps with her fingernails, then pressed both hands down simultaneously upon it. Nothing happened.

  “It must be something critical to the city,” Jeff said. “Maybe it controls the air or the heat or turns the gravity up.”

  “So he used this room to start his broadcast?” Jordan said.

  “Yup,” Jeff said. “But it must do more than that. Why come all the way out here to make an announcement?”

  “Could be the center for their emergency services, like FEMA. What was the Grey saying to you?”

  “Something about translations, like the Grey has a hand in the devices we're wearing or some such.”

  “But he brought you here to breathe,” she said. “Weird.” She got down close to the surface of the ring. She exhaled. Part of the surface fogged. She sniffed the air. She detected a briny smell that hadn't been there before, like fresh oysters. The smell faded. She blew again and the smell returned. Jordan smirked. “Did you catch that?”

  “What?” he asked. He shook his head, confused. He managed to stand and tottered over.

  “Smell,” she said. She exhaled onto the ring's surface. Jeff leaned in and sniffed the air.

  “So that little guy doesn't have a gas problem,” Jeff said.

  “That's how the Grey's species communicates,” she said. “The phone it gave me had both sound and scent. I couldn't understand exactly what the scents it put out meant, but I basically knew when the Grey was happy or upset. I preferred happy. It must be an entire facet of communication, or even a language in of itself, you think?”

  “And the translation device doesn't want to help us with that, for some reason.”

  “Maybe the Grey doesn't want anyone to know what he's feeling,” she said. She drummed on the ring with her fingers. “Breathing on this thing doesn't do much else, and I'm all out of pheromones. And who knows what a fart might do.”

  Jeff walked into the center of the ring. “Machine, wake up,” he said in a loud voice. “Hello? Admin log-in. Reset password.”

  Was he for real? “Try DOS commands,” she said, unable to hide the sarcasm. Maybe the blow to the head was serious.

  He gave her a look.

  “Well if we can't figure this out, we should at least find out where the Grey is heading now,” he said. “Where did you see him go?”

  “I didn't try following,” she said. “This city is so confusing, and I was lucky to even track you here, you know? With all the noises and lights, it's disorienting. And I guessed the door to this place wouldn't stay open, so I got inside just as it closed up.”

  “Come here,” Jeff said. He waved her over and reached to the back of her neck. It felt like he was fixing her collar. “Got it.”

  He produced a granite and steel-colored pyramid with a smooth surface, each side about the size of a quarter. Immediately, the Grey's looping evacuation message that had been piping into her brain ceased. She could still hear it through speakers outside the bunker, but the world got quieter and her headache began to diminish. He handed her the translator. She had never seen it before. She turned it over in her hand and ran her finger across the surface. It had no moving parts, no seams, and it felt solid.

  “Do the same for me,” he said.

  Jordan felt around the back neckline of his jumpsuit and found the pouch after probing the surface of the material. Opening the null space pouch felt like unfolding a delicate, silk napkin, the sensation on her fingers so light as to almost not be noticeable. She reached inside. She found a small object, grabbed it, and pulled it out. His was a black cube. “Weird,” she said.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Yeah. I was wondering if this place was always that loud. It would be unbearable.”

  “Just the alarms. This new one must broadcast directly to these translators, like everyone has a set of headphones stuck in their ear, or whatever organ they use to listen. And with the Grey's evacuation message, it seems to dig right into your brain.”

  “But that feeling's gone now.” She held up her pyramid and his cube. “And we seem to have different models.”

  “I was wondering about that. You got yours earlier from the Grey. Mine looks like Oliop's, maybe a common design.”

  From the silver ring came a faint voice. “Intruder detected. Evacuation protocol engaged.” It was a soft voice, almost inaudible. Jordan got closer to the side of the ring and put an ear up to it.

  “Was that going before?” Jordan said.

  “I don't know.”

  “Intruder detected,” the voice repeated. “Evacuation protocol engaged.”

  Jeff approached the ring, touched it cautiously, put a hand on it when nothing happened.

  “Hello machine,” he said. “Explain evacuation protocol.”

  The voice paused. After a moment it said, “Evacuation protocol already engaged. Infection source present.”

  “That's new,” he said.

  “Breath on it now,” Jordan said.

  He breathed on the ring like he was trying to fog up a window.

  The faint voice repeated itself. “Evacuation protocol already engaged. Infection source present.” Then it added, “Translation services already active.”

  Jordan smelled a fresh puff of the briny oyster scent coming from the ring.

  “Translation service,” Jordan said. “Is that what this place is? And if our tra
nslator isn't on?”

  “We're hearing it speak English.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You know, if this thing can do translations for every being that wears one of those gadgets, then why couldn't it speak English or any other language it wants to?” She leaned in to the ring. “Donde esta el Baño.”

  “No aqui,” the computer said.

  “Ha!” Jordan said. “That is so crazy.”

  Jeff scratched his chin, pondering. “So we're the source of infection,” he said, “But at least it's willing to give us the time of day.”

  “In probably any language you can name. And as long as we use the restroom somewhere else.”

  CHAPTER 35

  WITH THE EFFECT of the stun blast still numbing his extremities, Captain Flemming took the time to assess his situation.

  Fact: He, along with his Sergeant Ceph, the scientist/minor criminal Fizz, and the technician/ kleptomaniac Oliop were aiding two illegal aliens within the Commons.

  Fact: An authorized member of the Alien Welcome Committee was after one of the humans, had committed assault against officers of Commons law, and was a possible murder suspect.

  Fact: This restaurant smelled wonderful.

  Fact: The Bunnie, a banned species, were in the Commons.

  And Fact: He was wrapped up in some kind of web that not only restrained him but made him sleepy.

  He struggled against the webs. There was no give, his arms and legs were completely immobilized by the sticky white stuff. He tried to cry out for help or even groan, but the drawing of air proved difficult. He could breathe just enough not to pass out. His eyes drooped. That won't do. He bit down hard on his tongue. The pain pushed away the haze of unconsciousness.

  The possibilities were limited. Either they would be rescued or not. Some bot or service personnel or restaurant staff would surely be by. But then again, the city emergency might prevent a timely deliverance. He heard the alerts continue outside urging evacuation. The odds of rescue dwindled with each announcement. Escape was the only other option.