by John Skipp
Charlie hesitantly undid his helmet and pulled it off. He bounced around the room in the lunar gravity, looking for a place to sit down, and soon spotted one of the girls from the party smiling at him from across a desk with an empty chair in front of it. She motioned for him to sit.
He sat down, staring at her as she smiled back.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “The party.”
“It was you there, then?”
“No,” she said, “the interface was there. So I was there.”
“All right,” he said. “Can you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”
She dropped the smile, and went into debriefing mode. “This interface will help you to process what just happened. You can help us by looking at various artifacts, and talking about them.”
“Talking about them?”
“Yes. In this way, we glean information that we can’t otherwise obtain by direct observation.”
“We?” he asked. “Who is ‘we’?”
She took a deep breath. “We have no name you would be able to conceive of as a name. It would be impossible to render into lower-dimensional data. Our realm is many-dimensional, many more than your three moving across one linear dimension of time …” She appeared to struggle to find the right words. “Over space, between space, above time, outside of what you think of as time. This interface helps us to localize. To focus. There is no way for us to directly experience this space-time knot, except through the interface. That there is a fecund intelligence here is astounding to us. We need to understand. To know you.”
Charlie sighed. “So you kidnap people, drug them, whatever—and then throw them onto a moon ship with no warning … make them frantically suit up and ride across the moonscape? On a fucking bicycle no less? To what end? Is scaring the shit out of us part of understanding us?”
She stared across at him. Mona Lisa smile. She raised her hands. “Clearly, we don’t understand the nuances of your species. We are—we are making this up as we go along. Improvising. We have made mistakes. Taking you to your moon for interrogation may have been a miscalculation. To you, it must seem like an enormous one, but now that the process has been established …” She shrugged. “We find it unnecessary to alter it presently. But we are looking for an alternative.”
She smiled again, and under any other circumstances, he would have melted a little. But as it was, he wasn’t impressed. In fact, he felt like punching her in the face. But he knew that that wasn’t going to help anything.
“That,” he said, “is completely fucking insane.” He shook his head. “So, okay, let’s do this.”
She reached under the desk and pulled out an object. It was a little snow globe. She handed it across the desk to him.
He took it and rolled it around in his hands. There was a little Santa Claus inside, holding a bag of toys over one shoulder, his other hand held up in greeting. Fake snow floated around a North Pole scene: Santa’s house, a couple of reindeer, a big red-striped candy cane in the front yard.
“What is the significance of this object?” the girl asked.
He looked at her, then back down at the snow globe. “Christmas,” he said. “Santa Claus.”
She stared blankly.
“How could you be at that party,” he asked, “making small talk to people, interacting, and not know what Santa Claus and Christmas are?”
“The interface provided enough information for me to successfully navigate the party,” she said. “Also, I’m told that we do have significant data concerning this subject, but require your unique perspective.”
“Okay …” He sighed. “Santa Claus—this guy here—brings presents to all the good little boys and girls in the world on Christmas, which falls on December 25th each year. The snow globe itself is just a little keepsake. You can use it for a paperweight, or keep it on a shelf—look, this can’t be all you want from me. What happens after this?”
She looked blankly again for a moment, as if receiving information. “In order for this Santa Claus to accomplish this feat—he would have to possess some extra-dimensional aspect himself, correct? This date is also significant, as it marks the birth of a religious leader, doesn’t it? In various timelines, it serves as a winter festival day.”
“That’s not surprising,” Charlie said. “It’s a very old holiday. It’s been passed down through a lot of cultures. Very doubtful Jesus was actually born on Christmas. And Santa Claus—it’s just a story. For the kids. He’s not a real guy.
“But back to my original question—what happens now?”
She smiled. “You will be processed, and sent home again.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“But …” He looked around the room. “What’s to stop me—any of these people—from telling the world what we know?”
She raised her hands up in front of her. “Nothing,” she said. “As soon as we’re done here, you’ll be free to go.”
They sent him back, as promised, this time in a sleek one-seater with a bubble top. It was a breathtaking, quick ride—less than six hours. He looked all around the little ship, searching for some clue as to what parallel civilization could have created such a tech marvel, but to no avail.
The craft sailed in across the face of the blue-green orb, landing softly in what looked to be Southern Californian desert. The hatch opened and one of the friendly beautiful people—a man this time—ran up and directed him toward a low, square concrete building across the tarmac.
Charlie entered, and another identical man was there, seated in front of a console next to a large metal door.
“Name?” he asked.
“Charles Findstrom,” Charlie replied.
A few keystrokes, and the man said, “Please step through this door.”
Charlie had no fear left in him after all he’d been through. If this was a one-way trip, so be it. But again, these people didn’t seem to play by any recognizable rules, so he felt pretty confident that he’d make it through to … somewhere.
He opened the door, which turned out to be an airlock of some kind, with a small chamber and another metal door on the other side of that. An amber light blinked, and then turned green.
The second door opened, and Charlie stepped out …
… of a dirty phone booth on Sixth Street in downtown L.A., at rush hour.
. . .
Charlie lifted his shot glass up to the sunlight. The rays slanted through the amber liquid, and he laid into the buzz, put his head against the couch cushion and sighed.
What can I do to make these people see? he thought.
He got up and sat back down in front of his laptop, checked his feed again. Another 50 “likes,” 300 comments. For the most part the comments were derisive, tinfoil-hat stuff.
What did you expect? he thought. They knew just what they were doing when they sent you back.
Then he noticed the red icon in the upper right of the screen. Private message. He clicked on it. It was from someone named Timespacemess.
Hi Charlie, it said, I know you’re not crazy. This happened to me. Same deal exactly—ship, bicycle, big room. And there are more of us. Can we meet somewhere?
He made plans to meet up at a new little bar near Figueroa and Ninth. He walked down from his apartment on Flower and sat at one of the tables in the front. A bored waitress came over to him, and he ordered a beer.
In a few minutes, a tall, skinny woman in her thirties came through the door and looked around, finally noticing Charlie looking. She waved tentatively, and then came over and sat down.
“Timespacemess, I presume,” Charlie said.
“Gloria,” the woman said.
They shook hands, and Charlie asked her if she wanted a drink.
“I can’t really stay. I just wanted to meet up so you knew I wasn’t a nut.”
“You don’t look like a nut, but you never know.” Charlie laughed, but she didn’t laugh
back.
Gloria passed a card across the table. “Look, here’s my info. We’re going to meet at my place on the first Tuesday of every month until we figure this out. Hopefully you can make it.”
She stood up. “Well, it was nice to meet you. I hope I see you soon.” And then actually smiled for a split second. Then she was out the door again.
Charlie sipped at his beer and turned Gloria’s card around in his hand. Maybe I should just be done with this, he thought. Put this behind me. He took another sip of beer. Fuck it. Maybe I should just meet with these people once.
Gloria’s apartment was up at the top of a steep Echo Park hillside. He walked up the steps, and heard voices from beyond the open door. Four people sat inside, and when they saw him, an older, balding man got up, opened the door and welcomed him. Charlie came inside and saw another man, a younger, bearded hipster type, a petite young blonde and a muscular woman decked out in leather, with close-cropped black hair.
Gloria came out of the kitchen with a plate of cheese and crackers, and smiled when she saw Charlie. It was clear almost immediately that they’d all experienced the same thing, from the artifacts in the regolith and the story about the extra-dimensionals to the smooth ride back to Earth.
“And they’re everywhere,” said Rita, the woman with the short black hair. “I’ve seen the pretty puppets on the street several times.”
The Pretty Puppets. That’s what they were calling them. The clones or whatever they were. Charlie looked from face to face. They all seemed intelligent, sane. They weren’t having a mass hallucination; this had really happened to them. It was as if it were sinking in for the first time. Before this, he’d almost started to believe that he’s had some kind of psychotic break.
“I know we all got the spiel when we were in the white dome,” Larry, the balding guy said, “but what do they really want? The whole thing just seems so ludicrous. Why would anyone with such vast power just want to find out about us in such an—oblique way? Why not just take over?”
“Maybe they’re just so different, it doesn’t even occur to them,” said the bearded guy. Charlie had forgotten his name.
“Like throwing us onto that ship and scaring the shit out of us. Didn’t occur to them that we might find it upsetting.”
It went around like that for about an hour or so, and then the gathering wound down, and people started to say their goodbyes. Charlie filed out with the rest of them.
Nothing really got accomplished, he thought as he walked down the steep sidewalk to his car. But I made contact, and that’s something.
Over the next several weeks, Charlie continued to attend the meetings. Nothing really ever did get accomplished, but the group began to bond, and he actually made a few friends. He’d seen Gloria a few times outside of the meetings, and it seemed like maybe there was something starting to happen between them.
It was maybe three months later that the first artifacts started showing up.
Gloria noticed them first—things that shouldn’t be there, like some kind of science-fiction performance art. She sent Charlie an email with “They’re Here …” as the subject, and a link to an online auction.
It was a VHS tape, looking pretty well used, of the 1976 movie version of A Star is Born, starring Barbara Streisand and … Elvis Presley. There was no explanation of whether or not this was a joke, just the tape and the asking price, $19.99—quite reasonable, considering it was an artifact from another universe.
Just for fun, he searched for “Hendrix Coltrane Montreaux,” and when the result showed, he instantly recognized the octagonal disc he’d found on the lunar surface. In all the excitement of shucking off the spacesuit and getting into the shuttle, he’d forgotten all about taking it with him.
The current bid was $10.99. He entered one for $12.99.
He kept checking and bidding higher.
A week and $46 later, he had the disc in his hands. His only regret was that he couldn’t hear it. But, he thought, it’s only a matter of time before somebody auctions an eight-sided-disc player.
By that time, the Pretty Puppets had come out of the closet. They were starting pop-up storefront headquarters all over the world, asking people to come in with their artifacts and talk about them, and get paid to do so. They didn’t need the moon anymore. They’d discovered the Internet. And money.
Charlie imagined this happening on countless alternate Earths. Their resources must be astounding.
Of course, the majority of the population refused to believe that they were being invaded by extradimensionals. Most thought it was some kind of elaborate hoax, perhaps some viral tie-in to a new movie blockbuster in the works. Those who knew it to be true continued to say so, with the limited results Charlie and the other abductees had already experienced.
But it seemed like a certain portion of the population, not necessarily just the tinfoil-hat set, were willing to entertain the possibility that it might be true.
The artifacts continued to show up. People were finding them in random places, tucked in among their belongings, on the sidewalk, even on grocery shelves. The Pretty Puppets were showing up on TV, on YouTube videos—they even had their own enigmatic website, with a short video greeting, and a place to submit info about artifacts.
The man with the headset counted down silently, then pointed to the talk show host. Percolating, “serious news” music swelled and faded, and the host looked into the camera.
“Tonight on CNN: the Extradimensionals—are they really here? And if so, what does it mean for national security and the economy? Today our guests are Jason Meadson, from the Brookings Institution, and Charles Findstrom, a man who claims to have been abducted by the Extradimensionals.”
He turned to his first guest. “Jason, let’s start with you—what’s your take on this whole thing? I mean, the evidence seems to be quite convincing. Do you believe we’re being visited by beings from … outside of time, as they claim? Or over time, or whatever?”
Charlie sat in his seat, trying not to fidget, while the think-tank guy rambled on. He was in the eye of the hurricane. National TV. Expected to speak off the cuff about his experiences. This is slightly less terrifying than being flung at the moon in a steel sphere, he thought.
When the host got around to him, and it was time for him to speak, he opened his mouth, and, to his surprise, words came out.
“Let me tell you what happened to me,” he said. And he started to tell his story.
And as he did, he looked momentarily over the host’s shoulder, and saw, past the cameras and lights, just off the set, the girl from the party.
She smiled serenely at him.
The Pretty Puppets were listening.
THE GOLDILOCKS
ZONE
JOHN R. LITTLE
Barb:
I love being in the water, especially when I’m exploring with Punky and the gang. They know the San Diego shoreline better than any human I know, and even though they’re dolphins, they treat me better than most people do.
They’re so beautiful as they glide through the water and show me their secrets. I’m the only person they’ve shown their secret stash, where they’ve dropped little trinkets they’ve found while exploring the ocean: bones, pieces of lost jewelry, and a nice collection of shells.
Now, though, I’ve been with them an hour and it’s time to climb back in the little motor boat and head back to shore. I dropped off my scuba tanks and got changed before going back to my office at MBRD.
I’m the luckiest girl in the world. This morning I woke up before Darrell and counted some of the things that make my life so worth living:
1. Well, the most important thing is Darrell himself. We’ve been engaged for ten months, and although we haven’t set a wedding date yet, I feel the day is getting closer.
2. My job at the Marine Biology Research Division at Scripps. How many people get to swim with dolphins and study their habits for a living?
3. I’m totally healthy and expect
to live a long and happy life with my best friend.
So, yeah, who could ask for more?
Back at my desk, I skimmed through my e-mail, which was mostly administrative minutia that nobody really cared about, along with a few Internet jokes and memes that were spreading around the campus. I didn’t bother looking at most of them. I wanted to get to my research.
My work is all about dolphin communication. I feel in my soul that they can talk to each other just as easily as humans can, but we just can’t break their code and talk directly to them.
One day.
A new e-mail popped into my inbox, and I smiled when I saw it was from Darrell.
Hey! I have something exciting to share with you. Tonight, we deserve a nice dinner out. Candles, wine, soft music, the whole thing. I’ll make reservations for 8:00.
Love ya, babe!
Something exciting?
I stared at the screen and tried to imagine what it could be. I knew what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be Darrell suggesting a wedding date, but that’s not really the way his e-mail read. It sounded more like something he’d just found out today. News from work?
Of course he only worked a few buildings away from me, in a more isolated section of MBRD, and he could have just walked over and had lunch with me. I liked that he was excited and wanted to have a romantic dinner to spill the beans.
A promotion? Maybe, but he’s already the chief researcher for micro-biology, so I don’t think there’s many positions he could be promoted to.
Tonight can’t come soon enough!
Sigh … I love my life.
I’m not sure San Diego is the restaurant capital of the world, but I like eating out no matter what. Darrell made us reservations for The Seafood Factory, which he knows just might be my favorite. Their menu is three pages, all different types of seafood, and even though I always study the list as if I’m going to be tested on it, I usually gravitate back to have a linguini with white wine sauce topped with fresh mussels, clams, and whatever fish is the catch of the day. Today it’s catfish.
