Last Dance of the Phoenix

by James R. Lane

  “But since we’re not lovers---and don’t intend to be---there’s one thing I insist on: Pants! Nobody gets into my bed without ‘em!”

  Chapter 7

  It Ain’t Over…

  Five-thirty came way too early, especially with Bertha’s impartial voice calling, “Wake up, Tom. Time to get up, Tom. Wake up, Tom. Time to get up, Tom.” I cracked an eye open and peered at the bedside clock; yeah, it was time to get moving, all right. Then I looked over my shoulder at the furry, smelly lump lying on top of the cover and snuggled up next to me, and in the still-dim room light it momentarily looked like my last German Shepherd, Sheeba, that took to sleeping in the spot where Marge, my wife slept until she had to give up our shared bed for a cold, impartial hospital bed.

  I caught myself reaching a hand over to lightly slap the current occupant on the butt, and instead gently nudged the Yularian’s shoulder, saying, “Wake up, L’raan. Time to greet the new day. C’mon now, we’ll have company soon, and I need to be bright-eyed, and you, young lady, need to be bushy-tailed.” Not having to hunt for glasses in the morning was something I was still getting used to, as was being able to get out of bed and move without every joint screaming in protest.

  L’raan finally opened her eyes, then came awake quickly, looking around almost in a panic. “Everything’s fine, dear. We weren’t killed in our sleep, so I’d say that was a good start to the day.” She sat up in bed, stretched and yawned, then scooted to the edge and got to her feet. “Our visitors should be arriving most any time, and you need to put on a halter top if you’re going to be around them, which I think you’ll want to do when they examine the wrecked hardware outside.” She headed down the hall to her room while I headed for the kitchen. Coffee was my first priority, above and beyond even shaving.

  My Keurig cup-at-a-time coffee maker only took a minute to warm up, then I dropped a pre-measured, sealed cartridge of my favorite Kona Blend into the mechanism and hit the brew button. Moments later I took my first sip of morning nectar, and it was every bit as good as I remembered. Ten minutes later found me comfortable in an old pair of Levi’s---that no longer fit perfectly but I didn’t care---and a well-laundered t-shirt, as well as an old pair of Rockport deck shoes that did fit, which surprised me. Another fifteen minutes and I’d shaved and brushed my perfect new mouthful of teeth---nice to be rid of dentures---and about that time Bertha stated that we had company.

  “If it’s Art’s bunch, let ‘em in the gate,” I stated, “and tell L’raan to get her fuzzy butt into gear. I want her to be there when the guys begin dealing with that Yularian hardware.”

  I got a whiff of a familiar, noxious stench a split-second before she said, “What kind of ‘gear’ am I supposed to get my ‘fuzzy butt’ into, Tom?” Had my heart not been rejuvenated, I swear it would have thrown a rod, and I jumped so hard I almost sloshed the remainder of my cooling coffee all over myself.

  “Don’t do that, L’raan!” I yelped, turning around quickly. “I’m still on edge from last night, and rejuvenation or not, you could still give me a heart attack!”

  “If your heart is no stronger than that,” she retorted smugly, “we didn’t do our jobs properly. But since Yularians don’t do sloppy work, I think your heart can stand far more than anything I could do to it.” Yeah, she was feeling better, much more like the “superior” fox people many humans have grown to dislike.

  “Grab yourself something to drink if you like, and come join us out front. I’d like you to meet Art Goldman and his crew, and I think they’d like very much to meet you.” She nodded and headed for the kitchen, and I noted that she had a matching set of green short-shorts which fastened above the base of her exposed tail (I still fondly remembered “hot pants”) and a skimpy little halter top. (It all looked great against her fox-red, black and white fur.) Her oversize canid feet were shorn with the strange little sandals she’d worn yesterday, now thankfully free of yesterday’s barf/shit/piss extravaganza.

  I unfastened the manual latches (and Bertha had already unlatched the electric ones) on the front door, and swung it open to find a nondescript sedan, a full-size passenger van and the unmarked box truck I’d requested rolling to a stop behind my Caddy in the driveway, and out of the car’s front passenger seat sprang Art Goldman dressed in a no-nonsense jump suit---and his trademark white Nike cross-trainer shoes.

  “Tom?” he called, his swarthy face splitting into a huge grin. When I smiled and nodded, he let out a whoop of pure joy. “Yeow! You look fantastic! Those foxy bastards did a jam-up job on---!” And of course that’s the moment L’raan stepped out the door, which brought Art’s comments to a screeching halt. She had a cluster of purple grapes fresh from the refrigerator in one hand, and was casually munching on them, one at a time.

  She swallowed, then commented dryly, “It wasn’t only the ‘foxy bastards’ who rebuilt Tom’s body; quite a few of us ‘foxy bitches’ had a hand in it, too.” Then she popped another grape into her mouth.

  Grinning at Art’s shocked and chagrined expression, I said, “Art Goldman, I’d like you to meet my medical observer, L’raan. L’raan, this man with the booming voice and no hair on top of his head is my much-younger-than-I-actually-am friend Art, and he’s responsible for Bertha, which saved our butts last night, as well as dealing with a lot of ‘stuff’ my government doesn’t want the public to know about.” By this time his team of technicians---and three well-armed soldiers---were piling out of the passenger van, the box van and the car.

  “Everything is where it came to rest last night, guys,” I said in a loud voice, “and you’ll find more of the drones around the outside of the house. None gained entrance before they were disabled, and as far as Bertha knows, there are no other devices anywhere else on the property---except for that big one out in front of the garage.” A few of the men began scattering, while the soldiers set up a triangulated security perimeter. “As far as Bertha can tell, all the devices are totally deactivated; her spiders lasered their power supplies, which she believes are non-nuclear.”

  “Is…is that correct, L’raan?” Art hesitantly asked the Yularian.

  She swallowed a grape and said, “To the best of my knowledge our military does not use nuclear power for any of its devices like this, mainly due to the risk of contamination. Fuel cells and batteries are far smaller, cheaper and more reliable, and don’t endanger our soldiers like a damaged nuclear power supply would. Just caution your technicians not to stand in front of any obvious weapons, in case they are still armed or charged. The drones are small but quite lethal, and the assassin robot normally has at least six different ways to kill, including poison darts, poison gas, a plasma canon and simple brute force.” She glanced at the wrecked device and shivered, and it wasn’t an act.

  “Bertha did an incredible job killing the intruders, Art,” I said, “although it cost her several spiders. Also, the assassin robot was a lot harder to kill than the drones, which is why I asked for any upgrades you could spare. If the…uh, enemy agents make another attempt at us, they’ll probably bring heavier artillery.” L’raan looked at me, her eyes wide, and I added, “But after what I told them---in a whopper of a bluff just before I called you---I don’t really expect them to try anything as stupid as another overt attack.” Art looked at the assassin robot again, then back at me.

  “Just what in hell did you say, Tom, and who did you say it to?”

  “I called the Yularian embassy and spoke to their phone recorder, which I knew would be monitored by a live person, especially during the ‘action’ they took last night.” We were slowly walking toward the terrifying assassin robot that the technicians were beginning to carefully examine. “What I told them was basically the truth, just shaded a bit, time-wise.” He looked at me strangely while L’raan yipped a small laugh. “They were told that I’d already contacted the ‘appropriate government officials’ by a means they couldn’t monitor, and also told them that we’d kick their furry butts off the Earth if they tried to kill us
again---period. Of course, I’d not yet contacted you, and as far as I knew, nobody else knew they were trying to do us in.”

  We’d gotten as close to the alien killing machine as L’raan and I wanted to be, and I added, “When I had Bertha call you, I didn’t know then---and still don’t---if they have the means to tap such calls, but I dared not take a chance.”

  We both looked at L’raan, but she drooped her ears and shook her head. “Our military has advanced technology, but I’m only a medical student. I’ve seen videos of the drones, and seen still images and read about the assassin robot---” She began trembling and I put a comforting arm around her shoulders, which Art noted with raised eyebrows. “It…it still terrifies me that...such horrible t-things would be used a-against us. We are not enemies; we are not even soldiers!”

  “They also tried to poison L’raan yesterday, but luckily she got violently ill and expelled much of the poison before she could take what was probably the final component---pills---to finish her off.” She buried her head against my chest---Art’s eyebrows rose so far they almost became scalp hair---and keened a bit, and I said, “She’s still pretty wrung out from that ordeal, so let’s get her back to the house where she can rest.” Her legs began to wobble so I quickly handed my coffee mug to Art and swept her into my arms. “A few months ago I couldn’t have offered her a shoulder to lean on, much less picked her up.”

  Art went ahead and opened the front door, and I breezed in and went straight to the den where we made her comfortable on the couch. “More Jewish penicillin for you, young lady,” I said with a smile and Art and I headed into the kitchen.

  “Oh wow, Tom! I’d forgotten that you have one of those wonderful coffee makers!” Art gushed. “Can I---?”

  “For pity’s sake, man, make yourself a cup of whatever suits you. The rack of cartridges I like is in the cabinet above the machine, and if you think any of the guys outside would like some, there should be several boxes of other kinds of cartridges below the unit. You remember how---?”

  He’d selected a cartridge of dark French roast and absently started to pull open the under-counter cabinet door beneath the machine to see what else was available. “Yeah, I gotta get me one! I haven’t---SHIT!”

  I was busy dumping a can of chicken noodle soup into a pot to heat for L’raan, and my head automatically turned his way at his exclamation, thinking he’d barked a shin or pinched a finger. No such luck. He was backpedaling as best he could, trying to put distance between himself and one of the cat-sized alien infiltration drones that was poised right behind the now-open cabinet door, apparently ready to spring into the room.

  But the black horror didn’t jump, didn’t spit a lethal beam or other nasty surprise; it just sat there motionless.

  I screamed, “Bertha! There’s a drone in the kitchen! Get help in here now!” and as I dropped the half-empty soup can into the pot and snatched my compact .45 pistol out of the waistband holster something clicked in my head, the sensation lost in the commotion. “Back-back-back!” I barked at Art, but he didn’t need any urging, and we both managed to get out of the kitchen without leaving more than a few square inches of skin on the door frame. One of Bertha’s spiders came clattering in through the still-open front door, heading for the kitchen at a good clip.

  Art yelled, “It’s not moving! Don’t destroy it unless it does something! We want it intact to study!”

  By this time L’raan was yipping and barking in Yularian in the den, and I knew she must be about to panic all over my couch. “It’s OK, L’raan! I don’t think it’s active, and we’ll make sure it doesn’t get to you, so stay in there for now, understand?” She finally switched to English and yelped an affirmative, and Art yelled for a couple of technicians to bring a small radio-shielded containment box on the double.

  “Why that fuckin’ thing didn’t come for us last night I’ll never know,” I told Art as we both tried to get our heart rates to drop below two hundred, “but maybe it was simply a back-up instructed to do a ‘Booga!’ on whoever opened the cabinet. Once they shut down operations it must have been sent a deactivation code.”

  “Jesus!” was all Art could say.

  “You’re Jewish, Art. You don’t believe in Him, remember?”

  Art gave me the hairy eyeball before saying, “I never smacked you for your sacrilegious comments, Tom, since you were so old and feeble, but I’ve been tempted more than once, and I’m really tempted now.” Then he broke the mood by grinning. “Oy!”

  “Oy! is right, old friend,” I replied, still gasping for breath. “Oy! indeed.”

  Chapter 8

  …’Till the Fat Lady Sings

  The no-longer-hidden kitchen drone was, indeed, totally inert, and after a few butt-puckering moments the technicians had it secured in a heavy, radio-shielded container and stored in the box truck.

  “Bertha,” I said, while heating the soup for L’raan, “I thought you checked the house last night. How did you miss that…thing in the cabinet?”

  “My spiders only checked the attic, walls and utility room, Tom. Since there were no suspicious electronic signatures coming from inside the house I didn’t want to disturb you and L’raan with what I felt was unnecessary noise and activity. Obviously that was a mistake, one I won’t make again.”

  One major problem with AIs is that they often try to think like people…but at the wrong times. In all honesty I couldn’t chastise the machine---but I sure wanted to. Instead: “We’ve all learned valuable lessons from this, Bertha. We underestimate our unknown foes at our grave peril, and if we keep underestimating what lengths they’ll go to, L’raan and I may soon wind up planted in graves.”

  Art had come back inside to make his aborted cup of coffee, and he said, “Bertha, I think it would be best if you made a thorough and complete sweep of the entire house and its contents. Before you run the sweep, however, I’ll have a tech upgrade your CPU, enhance your sensory software and equip you with several more offensive weapons for your arsenal. I’ve also brought replacement spiders for the ones destroyed last night, so you’ll be back up to full capability shortly.”

  The house upgrades didn’t take long, and the new spiders and weaponry were quickly integrated into Bertha’s database. Then it was time for her to do the whole-house sweep. “To do this properly---and safely---I need everyone to move outside and turn off all electronic devices,” the AI stated, so I grabbed a step stool from the kitchen and hustled L’raan and Art out into the front yard. A few moments later everyone reported that their various electronic gadgets had been silenced so I gave Bertha the go-ahead.

  All but one of her spiders scurried in the front door, and we could soon hear a cacophony of thumping, bumping and clattering going on. “Be sure,” I called to the spider on the front porch, “to thoroughly check out L’raan’s luggage for anything suspicious; same with mine, even though I gave mine a quick inspection last night.” To Art and L’raan, who was perched on the step stool happily spooning soup while the agent was slurping coffee, I groused, “From the sound of it, it’ll take me a week to get everything put back in order.” Art laughed, and I added, “Maybe I should have told them to dust and vacuum while they were at it.”

  Fifteen long minutes crawled by and we were all beginning to fidget when Bertha’s porch-stationed spider suddenly announced, “There are devices in L’raan’s luggage that I cannot identify. Should they be examined in the house, or should I have them brought outside?”

  “Anything in there of a ‘personal’ nature?” I asked the Yularian, and she simply tilted her head at me in that ‘I don’t understand’ body language that I found so amusing. Directing my instructions toward the spider I said, “Bring them outside, Bertha. If something’s going to blow up, I’d rather it not happen indoors. We’ll spread a tarp on the ground so nothing gets soiled.”

  A couple of Art’s technicians quickly unrolled a blue tarpaulin well away from the house, and moments later groups of spiders, looking for all the world like g
iant ants carrying foraging treasures, emerged carrying L’raan’s bags out the front door. The three modest bags were gently deposited on the big tarp, then the spiders began systematically removing their contents and spreading the material out. Articles of clothing, personal hygiene, several ordinary-looking medical devices and Yularian nutritional supplement containers made up most of two bags, while partway through the third bag---

  “Wait! That’s not mine! And that---! What is---? No! Get back!” L’raan shouted, jumping from the step stool as several spiders began removing various strange-looking black devices from the bag.

  “Fall back! Take cover!” Art shouted as I grabbed L’raan and pulled her away from the area to put a vehicle shield between the alien devices and our tender bodies. The spiders instantly assumed an offensive ring around the suspicious objects while the three armed soldiers took up defensive positions around the Yularian and me. In the middle of the activity I experienced another faint click in my head. I was going to have to talk to somebody about that, I absently mused while Art’s people fidgeted in their defensive positions. Maybe when the Yularians were “rebuilding” me they left a bit of medical hardware in my head by mistake. Since the seemingly-smart foxes so obviously screwed up the estrus/pheromone issue--- Oh well, deal with it later.

  And then nothing seemed to happen for about two eternal minutes until Bertha’s voice announced through one of the spiders, “I’ve scanned them with every resource I have, including radar, ultrasound and microwave, and like the drone we found in the kitchen, these devices appear to be totally inert. There are two more of these strange items in the third bag, and I’m going to remove and display them at this time.” A spider reached down inside the bag and quickly pulled out the final devices, things just as puzzling as the others.