by Andrew Mayne
“That says a lot coming from you.”
“In another age, he’d be a king or an emperor.” Smith started to push back the air bag toward the gondola. “I’ve got a repair kit inside here. I think we can get this patched up soon enough and be on our way.”
“What about the meeting tomorrow? Can you convince them it’s a hoax?”
“Maybe. I hope to give them good reason to think so, at least.”
Brain Trust
April and Smith sat in the back of the hall at New York University while one speaker after another stood on stage and bloviated on the possibility of extraterrestrial life and whether they should cave to the alleged Martian’s demands. Smith fidgeted, frustrated by the logic of some of the speakers, most of whom were university professors, philosophers and clergy. Each one was given ten minutes to make his argument in front of an array of government officials. All of them went over the allotted time. None of them had anything particularly insightful to say.
They all spoke in theoreticals; none of them talked about the physical evidence or lack thereof.
The auditorium was standing room only; press and photographers crowded the aisles. The contents of the Martian demands had made headlines the night before and now the whole world was debating what to do. Photographs of the obelisk lined one side of the hall along with illustrations of what witnesses had seen.
“They’re missing the point,” said Smith after an astronomer spoke about the inevitability of intelligent life in the universe. “The question shouldn’t be whether or not intelligent life exists, it should be whether or not it decided to drop in on Central Park and throw out demands like a gangster.”
“So you do believe in the possibility of life on other planets?” asked April.
“Of course.” Smith turned to her. His eyes were still red from the late night they’d spent planning a small “demonstration.” He’d had eight cups of coffee before the meeting and devoured twice his usual allotment of powdered doughnuts and eclairs.
“You just seemed so skeptical.” April reached out to wipe a blotch of powdered sugar from his lapel. Roosevelt had ushered them in minutes before the discussion began. While April had a chance to freshen up, Smith was making last-minute refinements and still wore the clothing he had on when their dirigible crashed.
“Believing in one thing is not the same as believing in another.” Smith lowered his voice when a woman in front of him gave him a stern look. “Like god, for example. Believing in a god isn’t necessarily the same as believing in a god that intervenes in daily life. That’s where most religions differ. They all believe in some kind of supernatural being, but they can’t agree in what he does for a living. Does he kill children with typhoid? Or does he try to stop some other malevolent being from doing so? The details are everything. Just like our Martian. Let’s just assume there are aliens out there. Proving otherwise is impossible and won’t tell us how to deal with the immediate situation.” He waved his hand at the speaker on the stage. “It’s all so … so academic.”
“What should we do?” asked April.
“I don’t know. I’m worried this Martian might be more clever then I gave him credit for.” Smith sat up as another speaker took the stage and used the projection lantern to show a map of Europe and Russia on the overhead screen.
“As you can see, there have been numerous sightings along the Prussian border,” the speaker continued. “Most of these sightings would indicate that there was an interest from the other-worlders in this region here,” the speaker said as he waved his hands at a mountainous region in western Russia.
“Oh my,” said Smith as he saw where the speaker was pointing.
“What’s the matter?”
“I know that place. The speaker is an idiot. He thinks aliens are interested in that area for gold reserves or whatever. If he knew what was really there, then he’d know we weren’t dealing with aliens.”
“What do you mean?” asked April. She looked at the map and tried to make sense of the Prussian towns and cities.
“What’s …” Smith was cut short by a loud voice that filled the auditorium.
“GREETINGS EARTHMEN.”
The speaker dropped his pointing stick. People stood up in their seats to see the direction of the voice.
“I AM XYMOX THE 23RD. SUPREME RULER OF THE UNIVERSE. AND I HAVE COME TO GIVE YOU A WARNING .…”
Purple-tinted smoke began to fill the air at the top of the hall as the lamps flickered and dimmed. Flashes of light came from the cloud that now hung over the audience’s heads. People screamed as a form began to appear in the mist. Long tendrils whipped around, and three glowing blues eyes appeared in what looked like a giant head.
“CRIMINALS ARE TRYING TO TRICK YOU. DO NOT BE FOOLED. THEIR SPACE RAY IS A JOKE.”
April leaned over and whispered into Smith’s ear, “Is that the octopus I bought in Chinatown last night?”
Smith nodded. “I didn’t have much time to think of anything else.”
“THESE MARTIANS ARE NOTHING MORE THAN EARTHMEN TRYING TO DECEIVE YOU. PAY THEM NOTHING.”
A woman screamed when the alien’s face became more visible. Another stood up and fainted in the middle of the audience. Smith cynically thought it was a plea for attention. Angry men stood on their chairs and shook their fists at the apparition. Hundreds of people ran for the doors. Smith’s face turned white. He didn’t expect them to take his demonstration as real.
“Oh no!” Smith stood up. “It’s not real! It’s just a projection!” Nobody listened to him.
“DO NOT BE MISLEAD BY SIMPLE TRICKS,” said the alien.
“He’s just an illusion,” shouted Smith. People kept running past him.
“I AM JUST AN ILLUSION,” echoed the alien.
“It’s just a parlor stunt!” Smith stood on his chair and tried to calm the panicked crowd that was fleeing the auditorium.
The onstage speaker crawled out from behind the lectern and tried to make it offstage but kept bumping into chairs.
“I AM NOTHING MORE THAN A PARLOR STUNT,” said the image.
The auditorium thinned out. Several hundred people stayed behind, either not fooled by the illusion or too scared to leave. Roosevelt threaded his way toward the back of the auditorium to Smith and April.
“Do I need to ask?” he said with a scowl.
Smith tried to grin.
“I COULD APPEAR AS ANYTHING. EVEN A HARMLESS KITTEN.” The octopus with glowing eyes dissolved into a giant kitten.
“Aaaaaaay,” screamed a woman as the kitten’s phantom paw clawed at the air. She stood up and bolted from the hall. Roosevelt watched her retreat.
The Secret Hospital
Smith sat back down in his chair and put his hands over his face, trying to avoid the pandemonium he’d caused.
Roosevelt looked over at April. “Did you know he was going to do this?”
April, not wanting to make Smith look bad, wasn’t prepared to admit that she didn’t know he was planning on demonstrating it in such a dramatic fashion. “I don’t think we anticipated this reaction.”
Roosevelt waved his hands at the hall. Professors were poking sticks at the cloud while policeman tried to shield the gathered politicians. A priest was making an exorcism rite in the corner.
The kitten vanished from overhead and the smoke began to dissipate.
“You!” came a voice from the other end of the hall.
The fire captain who’d been at the Statue of Liberty climbed over several rows of chairs to get to Smith. “You! I recognize you from last night! Are you responsible for this?”
Smith straightened his tie and stood up. “I certainly can’t be accountable for people’s reactions. Not all of them, at least.”
“What did you expect?” demanded the captain. He poked a finger in Smith’s direction. “You can’t, you can’t.” He searched for the words. “You can’t go shouting ‘alien’ in a crowded hall!” His white mustache bristled with every word.
&nbs
p; “It’s my fault,” said Roosevelt. “I asked Smith to give a demonstration. He was supposed to be onstage when the light projection occurred, but all of the speakers ran late. The timer went off anyway.”
Smith said nothing and just nodded. He wasn’t actually scheduled to speak, but Roosevelt’s version sounded so much better than the truth.
“I should have all of you arrested!” said the captain.
“And what would that accomplish?” asked Roosevelt.
“It’d keep that menace from causing any more harm.” The captain jabbed a finger toward Smith again.
“This man is the only one who has any idea of what’s going on here,” said Roosevelt.
April put a defensive hand on Smith’s shoulder.
The captain squinted his eyes and stared down at Smith. “Maybe too much of an idea. Two times he’s caused a commotion. If I see him a third time, I’ll put him away myself.”
“I’ll see to it that there aren’t any more mix-ups,” said Roosevelt.
The captain stood for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. He looked at April, like men had a habit of doing, and softened. She returned a charming smile.
“I think I flipped the wrong switch,” she said as she touched a finger to her lip and gave her most innocent look.
Smith raised his head to speak, but her fingernails clawed into his shoulder.
The captain’s face released all its tension. “Well, electricity is dangerous, miss. A young thing like yourself shouldn’t be playing with it.” He looked down at Smith and scolded him. “Putting a young lady like that in harm’s way.”
“Oh no, sir,” said April, her voice higher than usual. “He gave me strict instructions not to touch it. But I disobeyed. I’m so sorry.” She batted her eyes.
The captain gave a weak smile. He gazed around the room. People were calming down and acting embarrassed from their reactions as they realized it was just a stunt. “I guess nobody was hurt. But keep an eye on him, both of you.”
“Yes, of course,” said Roosevelt. “We’re ready at your insistence.”
“Lord, I hope not,” said the captain. He looked over at April. “Present company excluded.” He tipped his hat and walked back down the aisle to talk to some of the other officials.
“I’m sorry,” said Smith. He leaned over the seat back in front of him and stared at the floor.
“No, no. I asked you to do a demonstration.” Roosevelt waved a cigar at the space where the alien had appeared. “And I forgot who I was dealing with. I should have asked for something more subtle.”
“Subtle? Smith?” April raised an eyebrow.
“Good point. At least with you around I know he’s got some sense. Maybe next time you tell Miss Malone your plans? Bounce it off a head that’s not as high up in the clouds as your own?”
“It’s why she’s here,” said Smith. He looked up at April and smiled.
Roosevelt folded his arms and surveyed the knocked-over chairs and crowd filing back into the hall. “Hell of a demonstration. I’m not sure if it helped or not. I’m going to talk to some of the press boys and explain what it was all about. We can at least count on the newspapermen to get the gist of it. I’m not sure if we changed any of the bureaucrats’ minds.”
“The last speaker, he made me think of something,” said Smith.
“The kook with the European events I mentioned?”
“Yes, that kook. His map of airship sightings, it made me realize something. We’ve been going about this all wrong.”
“How do you mean?” asked Roosevelt.
“We keep trying to prove it’s not aliens. But you and I already know this. What we need to do is not look for physical evidence that contradicts that but look for evidence elsewhere that shows that they’re human tricksters.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Remember the map the kook showed? It was of airship sightings in Prussia. I can tell you what was so special about them; they were all centered around an area where I know there’s a fissure in the earth that produces helium. Somewhere in Europe someone is building their own lighter-than-air craft in secrecy.”
“You think they’re connected to our Martians?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Even so, I don’t know if that fissure is enough to supply them here. It got me thinking. They’d need a local source of a lighter-than-air gas. But it’s not helium. Probably hydrogen. Somewhere on this side of the Atlantic, they’re producing hydrogen gas in large quantities to fill their own airship. Find the gas and we might find our Martians.”
“How do we go about finding them?”
“Producing hydrogen involves hydrochloric acid. Lots of it. They could produce it in a warehouse or a factory. The best way to do that is using electricity. They might have their own dynamo. We should talk to Edison and Tesla’s people about that. We should also look for any burn victims, in case there’s been an accident with the acid. It’s a messy procedure and difficult to do right. Check some of the out-of-the-way hospitals, the kind of place you go when you don’t want questions.”
“I think I can get on that. I know the man to talk to.”
Boss Miggs
Smith looked over his shoulder at the sets of eyes that were watching from windows and stoops. Roosevelt had led him to an unsavory part of Hell’s Kitchen. Smith had been self-conscious about the suit he was wearing and wanted to dress down to match the working-class residents.
Roosevelt had explained, “I know your usual modus operandi is to disguise yourself like a local, but this is a case where we don’t want to pretend we’re anyone other than who we are. The key to walking through a part of town like this, dressed as we are, is to look like we know what we’re doing. Then the pickpockets and quick thieves will assume that we’re connected men.”
“Connected to whom?” asked Smith.
“This town is all about graft and corruption. To make that work you need corrupt businessmen and politicians. Everyone here knows where the money flows from. We either want people to assume we’re corrupt bureaucrats or businessmen looking to corrupt. Either way, connected.”
Roosevelt held open a door to a saloon. Smith stepped inside. Two men wearing butcher’s coats covered in blood were drinking down tall glasses of beer. The bartender, an old man in a frayed navy blue sweater, looked at them with his flinty eyes.
“We’re here to speak with Mr. Miggs,” said Roosevelt.
“He ain’t here,” barked the bartender with an Irish accent. He gave Roosevelt another look. “On the account he’s out trying to find me cousin a job because you took the gov’ment one away from him.”
Roosevelt threw two coins on the counter and lit up a cigar. “I’m sure if your cousin was qualified he wouldn’t have a problem keeping his job. It’s a funny thing, wanting civil servants to know how to read and do arithmetic.”
The bartender swiped the coins away and placed two beers on the counter. Roosevelt took a taste of his and then set it back down on the counter. “Looks like someone swiped your beer and replaced it with river water.”
The bartender spit on the floor and turned away.
“Excuse me,” said Roosevelt.
The bartender kept his back turned and started to wipe down the counter.
Roosevelt turned to Smith and held up his hand. He unbuttoned his jacket and revealed a pistol in a holster. He grabbed the gun by the barrel and pounded it on the bar with the handle.
The bartender turned around to say something sharp but thought twice after he saw the gun in Roosevelt’s hand.
Roosevelt delicately placed the gun back in its holster. “Now that I have your attention, we’d like to speak with Boss Miggs.”
The bartender jerked his thumb toward a door at the rear of the saloon.
Boss Miggs was sitting at a desk and smoking a pipe while he looked over a ledger. A thin man with receding gray hair, he had the scholarly look of a professor. He quickly closed the ledger and shoved it inside of a drawer when he saw Roose
velt enter the room.
“Aren’t you a little far east for elk hunting?” said Miggs in a snide tone.
Immaculately dressed, Boss Miggs looked as clean and polished as any politician Smith had ever seen. Roosevelt had explained that he was one of the operators for the Tammany Hall political machine and the man with the clearest connections to the underworld of New York City.
Roosevelt pulled up a chair and motioned for Smith to sit down. “Still helping your men steal candies from babies?”
“They never know what to do with it in the first place. Mayweather told me you were skulking around. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Is it for a campaign contribution? Are you looking to make another run?”
“I’ve moved on to bigger rats for now. We’re here about the Martian business.”
“You and everyone else.”
“I’m sure Boss Croker is livid that the Martians didn’t cut him in for a slice of the pie,” said Roosevelt.
“Who says they didn’t?” asked Miggs.
“If they had, your pet mayor would have paid it up by now and given them the deed for Manhattan.”
“It worked once.”
“I’m here to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” said Roosevelt. “My colleague and I are assisting the investigation.”
“Which investigation? I’ve got a half-dozen different chiefs running around town all pointing fingers and asking questions. They’ve been shaking down the boroughs trying to see if any of the gangs are involved.”
“How is your family, by the way?” asked Roosevelt.
“What a card you are. As if any of them had this kind of imagination. Sorry fellows, I’ve got nothing for you.” Miggs leaned back in his chair and stared at a point above their heads.
“But we haven’t told you what we’re looking for,” said Smith.
Miggs lowered his gaze to him. “You’re the one with the private train and the airship? If it were me, I’d haul you downtown and be asking you questions.”
“That’s been discussed,” said Roosevelt. “My colleague is only here to help.”
