A Beginner's Guide to Invading Earth

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “I'm Jeff Abel,” Jeff said. “Greetings from the human race.”

  CHAPTER 42

  THE MAINTENANCE BOTS cut Jeff and Jordan free. The Greys busied themselves with the machines of the Security Building, and Jeff found himself largely ignored. He had so many questions, but every time he tried to ask one, one of the Greys would raise a hand to shush him.

  The Greys spoke in secretive huddles. They used both words and scents; they walked as a gaggle, and they still stank up enclosed places. One machine after another responded to the Greys' input, with the blue eye appearing over many of the computers once the Greys were finished. Any time they hit a snag, they consulted with one another, speaking in such low tones that no one could overhear them.

  Jeff and Jordan, once freed from the goo, followed along with them at a respectful distance as the Greys moved about the security building, freeing and reviving the two cops with the help of one of the bots. They moved from the floor they were on down to the lobby. They left the Bunnie in place. The other security personnel from the lobby soon were up. One of them stunned a trapped Bunnie when it griped about being stuck. Flemming stopped that with a chilly shake of his head.

  Jeff looked out through the broken windows of the lobby. The front concourse outside looked like a green lava field. There were no more Bunnie roaming about, nor anyone else.

  “What a mess,” Captain Flemming said as he stepped out of the lift.

  He produced a tablet and accessed the Commons security feed and its cameras and took a look at what was going on in the rest of the city. Jeff looked over his shoulder. Nothing moved on the streets that hadn't been freed. Bots moved about everywhere, liberating Commons citizens while leaving the Bunnie locked inside the goo. Jeff couldn't help but notice how many cameras the city had, eyes everywhere, watching, a measure of police state mixed in with the city's anarchy.

  Flemming got busy on his com, issuing orders to the rest of the security force.

  Jeff and Jordan stepped outside. A bot followed them and found Oliop nearby, cemented in and stunned. It converted the hard goo into liquid, the fluid running like water down a drain. It poked him with an electric spark.

  “Yow!” Oliop cried as he came to. When he saw Jeff and Jordan, he grinned, the hurt forgotten.

  “Jeff Abel and Jordan,” Oliop said. “You're alive.” He nodded with approval.

  Jordan gave him a hug. Oliop pulled free.

  “My hair is a mess,” he said. He started to comb out the knots with a brush from his pouch.

  Flemming waved them all back inside. “Until we figure all of this out,” he said, “Don't leave my sight.”

  ***

  Back on one of the upper floors, Jeff again had nothing to do but watch as Flemming, Ceph, and Oliop pored over the now-engaged security protocols. The Greys busied themselves nearby, refusing all offers of help. Jordan stood on a balcony just outside a clear sliding door, looking out at the city. Jeff was just about to join her when he saw a lone computer terminal on the far side of the room. He walked over to it. He rubbed his hands together and found they were cold and damp. His mouth was dry. But he sat down in front of the machine, and it winked on. A blue eye appeared above the monitor.

  He swallowed, took a deep breath. With the help of the translator, most of the functions and controls were obvious, even intuitive. But he had no idea where to begin. So he said, ”Who are you?”

  The eye twinkled and looked at him. It said, “I am the Galactic Commons emergency response subroutine. I am the default subsystem that handles all emergencies and deploys automated units to assist citizens in need.”

  “Under whose direction?”

  “The Security Chaircreature. The position is filled by a rotating volunteer filled by Commons citizens.”

  “And who is the current chaircreature?”

  “The position is vacant. When such a vacancy exists, the security program dictates when I am activated.”

  Jeff leaned back in his chair. “And only one creature held the keys to the security program. Two, actually. So you will stay active until a certain parameter is met. What is that condition?”

  “When both the human and Grey re-launch the security program. Or if this program is taken off line and this system is overwritten. When the security program is reactivated, the emergency is considered over, and I become dormant to avoid differences due to conflicting programming parameters.”

  Jeff wiped a finger around the top of the eye, removing a film of dust. “Not if I can help it. I like you more than the other guy. I guess a conflict might include the other program turning a blind eye to the invaders.”

  The blue eye watched him attentively but remained silent.

  “Tell me, then, am I logged in?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes.”

  Jeff gave a few keys a tap, pulled up a basic directory. Most commands received instant responses as if the operating system worked like the translator, able to read intentions with each directive. Fear of this computer began to fade as Jeff's confidence grew. There, just a few command lines away, he found the original security program. Within the many parts of this program, he discovered its history.

  Like so many other systems in the Commons, the security program relied on the translation services to communicate with the thousands of species and computers throughout the city. The translation computer had learned to lie, and through this exploit, the Head Grey had set up exclusions for its entire race when it came to security enforcement. It had also monkeyed with the probability computer and the entire transportation system and its elevators. The Grey's fingers were everywhere in the virtual side of the Commons. The security program had been corrupted, and no one had ever bothered to check if it was working properly. An empty list of security chaircreature user logins spanning decades confirmed this. Yet another system that just worked and was ignored.

  Jeff had no idea how much time had elapsed. His eyes burned; his neck was sore, and he had a headache. He pushed away from the computer. Across the floor, he found Flemming and Ceph working with the other cops at a semicircle of computers. Displays on one wall showed what was going on in the city.

  In the streets below, bots collected the Bunnie from the gooified streets and various corners and alleyways and placed them on grav sleds. Besides the transportation terminal and the security building, the invaders hadn't made it into many buildings, which worked well since the sovereign spaces didn't have the built-in defense mechanism that ran throughout the Commons. Bots cut the invaders out into blocks with their Bunnie filling secure inside. The grav sleds, when loaded, looked like industrial art pieces with hard goo and Bunnie limbs poking out in all directions.

  “Where will they go?” Jeff asked.

  Ceph pointed to one monitor. The bots collected the invaders together and placed them inside a domed, sealed vivarium, where the goo was liquefied and the Bunnie set free. Not-Kim was among them. He tried to follow one of the bots back out the vivarium's exit. When he touched the bot to get past it, a sharp shock drove him back, knocking him to the ground. Before he could leap after it, the bot had rolled through a door that sealed behind it. Not-Kim checked on his fellows and looked about.

  Ceph enlarged the screen with the vivarium footage. Along the bottom of the display, temperature, humidity, oxygen and nitrogen levels, and other bits of data blinked to life. The vivarium was warm, humid, and full of trees, vines, and undergrowth. The Bunnie came to in its center, a large clearing surrounded by the encapsulated jungle.

  “That place will replicate the Bunnie home world,” Flemming said. “Not that any of these creatures have ever been there. They will be safe there until we figure out what to do with them.”

  “They are in their comfort zone,” Ceph said with a profound nod.

  The Bunnie stayed bunched up, some openly weeping, others leery of their new surroundings. Something scurried in the weeds at the edge of the clearing. One of the Bunnie yelped as a tiny, hairy animal darted out and bit a leg. The Bunnie j
umped up into the trees. Soon, other scurrying things raced about underfoot. The Bunnie that tried to stomp them were nipped by the little creatures. The invaders all began to climb.

  “What's in there with them?” Jeff asked.

  “The vivarium's original occupants,” Flemming said. “A preserve for a threatened species. It's the best we could do with the short notice. They should get on well together if the Bunnie keep off the ground. Fortunately for the Bunnie, the little carnivores don't climb.”

  The scurrying creatures continued to race about, but just as Flemming said, they didn't climb, and the Bunnie kept out of their reach. The spidery creatures explored the canopy, unable to reach the dome that made up its sky. A few did try to leap up. They found the interior surface of the dome too slippery to find a purchase. The few doors out were all locked and on ground level. Eventually, the Bunnie settled down in the branches. There were enough trees inside the vivarium to accommodate all of the Bunnie comfortably, and some started to sample several of the fruits that grew throughout the enclosure. The invaders grumbled as they ate, keeping a cautious eye on the creatures bellow them.

  A chime sounded, and Ceph activated his com unit and listened.

  “Some citizens to see you in the lobby, Captain,” he said. “Urgent.”

  Jeff went with Flemming and Ceph down to the lobby. A group of fifteen Commons citizens stood in a tight group, the largest of them in front, a humanoid of wide proportion with curled crablike claws and scaled arms that almost dragged. A bot lay sprawled out on the floor in front of the visitor, trying frantically to reattach its head.

  “Captain Flemming,” the visitor said with a growl.

  Ceph slowly drew his sidearm. Jeff looked around for somewhere to hide, saw the furniture and debris from the earlier brawl mostly smashed to bits. The elevator to safety felt miles away.

  “Relax, Detective,” Flemming said, placing a hand on Ceph's. Flemming stepped forward, nodded at the fallen bot, and appraised the visitor.

  The visitor with the crab hands looked down at Flemming, made a face. “The bot, uh, said you were busy. Sorry.”

  “What can I do for you, Citizen?” Flemming asked.

  “We'd like to volunteer for the security force,” he said. “Or for whatever else you might need us for.”

  Another of the group leaned around their spokesperson and pointed at Jeff. “That's a human.”

  “Yes it is,” Flemming said. “They're with us for now.”

  ***

  Flemming stayed busy as the security headquarters became the bustling center of restoring order to the city. Jeff continued to shadow Flemming and familiarize himself with the computer system whenever possible, all the while keeping tabs on the increasing number of volunteers showing up. Flemming put each willing soul and bot to work finding and freeing anyone trapped by the Bunnie. He wanted an eyes-on check of every sovereign building to see who was home, who wasn't, and whether anyone needed any help. The hunt for any unaccounted-for Bunnie also continued. Jeff began to understand just how large the city was. After ten hours, less than fifteen percent of the city had been inspected. The emergency response program with its blue eye gave an all clear, but Flemming continued the hands-on survey of the city.

  Flemming gave Jeff's shoulder a shake. Jeff hadn't realized he had dozed off.

  “I'm going to check on the transportation system,” Flemming said. “It's still offline, and perhaps you might have some insight to what was done to it.”

  He signaled Jeff to follow. Ceph walked along behind him, eyes droopy.

  “He will sleep when he is dead,” Ceph said.

  ***

  They exited one of the tramlines, the station mostly empty, and emerged out next to the elevator terminal. Oliop and Phil the Grey met them there. Once inside, Jeff saw that the long hall was now clear and clean, with security bots keeping citizens away. Electronic banners outside read, “Out Of Order,” and a smaller blinking sign gave the estimated time of repair as, “Soon.” Their footsteps echoed through the terminal.

  They went up to the control room, its grav lift unlocked and operational. A half-dozen technicians and as many bots pored over the various machines and computers throughout the room. A display showed the line of elevators sitting at the ends of their respective gangways and ramps, doors open, the spaces inside empty. Everything but the elevators had power, but the cubes were dark. Oliop made his rounds with the working technicians, peering over shoulders, sniffing, and wrinkling his nose.

  “Elevators still broke,” Oliop said.

  “That's not the only issue,” Flemming said. He went to one computer and pulled up video footage from the day's events. “It would seem that some ten thousand citizens made it to the elevators and left the Commons before the Bunnie arrived.”

  “And the Bunnie arrived through these elevators,” Jeff said. “But how? They aren't on your system.”

  “No they aren't,” Flemming said. “Their species was not brought into the Commons after first contact.”

  “They failed somehow?” Jeff said.

  “Apparently, they ate meat back then,” Flemming said. “We didn't use the probability computer in the early days. When the Bunnie saw a box with edible beings show up out of thin air, they reacted with regrettable results and ate the ambassadors. This happened a few times. In spite of that, a delegation of Bunnie was brought here, with tragic consequences. The Committee back then decided to give up.”

  “So the Bunnie don't eat people, er, other sentient beings, anymore?”

  “No.”

  Flemming played the footage of the Bunnie emerging from the elevators. Just seeing the giant spidery things on the floating monitor sent a chill down Jeff's spine, the invaders' newfound vegetarianism notwithstanding.

  Phil the Grey studied another monitor and with a few gestures unfolded screens into the air. It studied the charts and symbols, scrolling quickly through some of the information while freezing and isolating other pieces of data. It stood back and struck a pose of concentration.

  “Interesting, yet suspicious,” Phil said as a roasted nut smell wafted about the room. “The first three waves of elevators left at slightly different times as passengers loaded on and were transported back to their respective home worlds. The elevators, upon returning, reset, and the next passengers engaged them. Seems normal.”

  “Until the Bunnie somehow show up,” Jeff said.

  “Just before they do, the fourth wave of elevators synched up somehow. There's a pause where the elevators all wait before departing.” Phil jabbed away at the computer and continued to peruse the data stream. A few red tiles appeared. He expanded and examined those. “This is what engaged. A security protocol. This part of the system is inaccessible to me.”

  Flemming leaned in. Hit a few keys. “I can't get in, either. It's locked. We need to unlock it to see what happened. And to see where the Bunnie got into the system.”

  “They got in from Earth,” Jeff said. “My home world. The elevators picked them up there somehow. There were a number of them that had been there, perhaps for a while. I just never would have guessed there were so many. Part of the Grey's plan.”

  If Phil took umbrage at the imprecise wording, it gave no indication. The translation of Jeff's use of the singular possessive came through. Jeff would give the rest of the Greys the benefit of the doubt as long as he could keep his eyes on them.

  Oliop cleared his throat, raised a hand, fidgeted. The other three looked at him.

  “Jeff Abel is correct,” Oliop said. “Earth is indeed where the Bunnie entered. But there is another issue not addressed. The elevators are rooted here. They aren't capable of interplanetary transportation separate from the root system.”

  “Explain that,” Jeff said.

  Oliop nodded, took a deep breath. “Transportation terminal is 'A'. Target world with established elevator route is 'B'. Elevator travels 'A' to 'B' and returns to 'A' upon completion of journey. Next species to leave for home, 'C', elev
ator goes there and then returns to 'A'. No species could go from 'B' to 'C' without coming back to 'A'. The operational graph of the elevators looks like thousands of lines radiating out from a single point, even though the lines themselves aren't traveled, just the points.”

  “English please,” Jeff said, and his face flushed as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “Fourth wave of evacuees,” Oliop said and nodded with satisfaction.

  Jeff and Phil waited for more. Flemming nodded, said, “The fourth wave of evacuees went out, and the Bunnie came here.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jeff said. “That means that the fourth wave of elevators went-”

  “Straight to Earth,” Oliop said.

  “Before picking up the Bunnie, it dropped off a load of Commons citizens on your home world,” Flemming said. “Where the Bunnie removed the passengers, jumped aboard, and came here.”

  “How many are we talking about?” Jeff asked.

  Oliop shrugged, face tight in concentration. “Two or three thousand.” Then he brightened. “But Earth seems like a nice place to visit.”

  “We'll have to talk to Irving to see how to undo this mess,” Phil said.

  ***

  Irving laughed at them. It reclined in a small, plain cell with a bench and not much else, legs crossed, one foot bobbing to an unheard beat. A wall of fine, hard mesh provided a barrier between Irving and the Grey's visitors.

  “You want me to fix things now,” Irving the Grey said. It laughed again, its paler-than-grey face still awash with emotion “And we'll just put everything back the way it was. Fix the translators, fix the elevators, back to the status quo?”

  “You can reverse what you have done,” Phil said. “Reconnect with your brood mates. You can be healed of what ails you.”

  “What makes you think I want that?”

  Irving got off its bench and walked to the barrier of its cell. The Grey looked at each of its captors in turn. It moved past Flemming and Phil, both of whom looked back with dispassion. When Irving got to Oliop, Oliop took a step back.