Last Dance of the Phoenix

by James R. Lane

  The two Yularians looked at each other for a moment, and I knew something unspoken passed between them. B’naah finally broke the brief silence by saying, “Simon Branch, if at all possible L’raan and I would be honored to be your guest at your…furrycon.” Say what? “Perhaps we…aliens…have been a bit too reserved, too reclusive, and in doing so we’ve done damage to our species’ relationships.” She slowly stood, then stepped around the coffee table and stopped in front of the still-seated Branch, who belatedly moved to stand. The elderly physician quickly put her hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him back into his seat, then took his head in her hands like L’raan had done---(I held my breath)---and gave him a gentle lick on the cheek. “There may even be a few more of us at your…party, Simon Branch, if you can find room for us.”

  Branch appeared to be shocked to his core. Not only these two, but the possibility of even more Yularians attending Paws’N’Claws! The way he was gasping for breath, I was afraid the excitement had triggered one of his debilitating asthma attacks, but after a few moments he settled down and just about split his face with an ear-to-ear grin. “Oh my!” he finally said. “Oh my! I…I can guarantee you’ll have all the room you need for as many people as you want to bring!” He looked at me, then back at B’naah. “If possible, just have Tom let me know a week before the con starts and I’ll make sure to have everything ready for you.”

  She looked pointedly at me and after a moment I nodded, then I said, “Understand, Simon, that we’ll need at least one suite of rooms, possibly two, along with adjoining rooms for our security folks. I know the convention has its own security staff, and they do a fine job keeping the peace among the human con-goers, but as you no doubt saw tonight before you came on-stage, there are...‘elements’ out there that apparently don’t like us.”

  B’naah returned to her seat and Branch nodded, saying, “Whatever accommodations you need, just let me know.” Then he frowned. “That incident--- What in the world---?”

  My frown matched his. “Buddy, I don’t really know just what happened---but maybe we’ll find out before we get to the convention.” I stood and stretched, a signal that Branch recognized, saying it was time for us to go.

  Creaking to his feet, he bowed to the vixens and hugged me like a brother. “Tom, seeing you---young---like this, and getting to meet your two lovely friends, has been an experience I never dreamed would happen, and I’m so looking forward to introducing you to all of our attendees.”

  “If it’s OK with the vixens,” I stated, “I’d rather our attendance at the con be a surprise.” Branch’s eyebrows climbed his forehead in confusion. “The fewer people who know about it ahead of time, the less chance there’ll be a repeat performance of tonight’s strange…whatever it was.” His eyebrows dropped back into a frown. “Those wolves came from somewhere, and somehow they got through several layers of security---and for some reason they got set to attack…and then didn’t. We need answers, and we need to make damned sure something like that---or worse---doesn’t happen to spoil the fun at Paws’N’Claws.”

  Chapter 22

  Counting Blessings

  As we were leaving the green room, I caught my security chief, Booker Jones’, attention. Sending the vixens on to the waiting limousine, I spent about ten intense minutes discussing the wolf incident. What he told me turned my guts to ice. “Call me when you know more,” I told him before heading for the limo, “but keep the tightest lid possible on the information. If it gets out, all hell could break loose.”

  Back at the hotel, I made sure our regular security guards were at their posts, then I double-locked the suite’s door (nice hotel!), swept the room with a bug sniffer, then fired up Art Goldman’s golf-ball-size bug-neutralizer---just in case. Then I collected the two medallions Bertha had given the Yularians, along with the cross pendant the AI gave me, and I placed them all in a small pewter jewelry box I’d picked up in the hotel gift shop. This went into one of the bathrooms and into the tub, where I piled a couple of heavy towels over it. I turned on the droning fart fan, then closed the door.

  Once back in the sitting room I confronted the two perplexed vixens, whose nerves were beginning to fray having to listen to the ultrasonic bug-neutralizer. “Ladies,” I began, “I’m sorry for all this mysterious-seeming stuff, but I need to tell you some things that you really won’t want to hear---and I have to be certain nobody else hears it, either.”

  “But why this…foolishness…with our medallions?” L’raan asked.

  “My dear, I don’t think it’s ‘foolishness’ when every word, every thing we do is monitored by those innocent-looking medallions. Do you?”

  L’raan’s jaw dropped in shock, while her grandmother’s eyes widened, her ears flattened and she nervously licked her thin black lips. “I take it you’re going to explain,” B’naah said, and I nodded.

  “First, I want you both to sniff each other’s throat fur right where the medallions rested, then tell me what you smell.” They did, and after a cursory sniff they sniffed more carefully. L’raan was the first to speak.

  “Burnt fur!” she exclaimed. “There’s the scent of burnt fur on us both!” The elderly physician nodded in agreement as they both looked at me for an explanation.

  “Come sniff the front of my shirt, right where my shirt covered my cross pendant.”

  They did, and B’naah said, “Something smells burnt, possibly the cloth itself. But---”

  “Look closely at the cloth,” I suggested, “and I think you’ll see a tiny hole, maybe more than one.” They did, and they reported that, yes, there was a pinhole that would correspond to the area that covered the pendant.

  “What is going on?” B’naah asked as I directed them to get comfortable on the sofa. I didn’t sit; nerves wouldn’t let me.

  “This has gotten far larger and way more scary than we ever dreamed of,” I began. “My little security AI, Bertha, is apparently something far different than even I suspected, which is why I’ve tried to at least temporarily ‘blind’ her/it/whatever it really is while we talk. There’s no guarantee that she can’t still hear every word we’re saying, but I felt I had to try for a bit of privacy while I told you what I know.”

  As if on cue a knock sounded at the door, and I quickly opened it to see one of our guards holding a small package and a briefcase-size box in a bag. I took them from him, relocked the door and set the items on a table. “I requested a Blu-Ray disc of the entire Five After Midnight show, unedited, and with all the feeds from every camera. Oscar, the room guard, also picked up a new Blu-Ray player, since the DVD player in the room here won’t play the high-resolution format. I’m betting at least one high-definition camera will have picked up something on at least one frame of video, and I think it’ll show our medallions ‘killing’ the wolves---yes, all three died within ten minutes of their aborted attack.”

  “But…how…why…who?” L’raan sputtered.

  Spreading my hands in frustration, I said, “Damned if I know who. As to how--- Booker Jones has the wolves' carcasses on the way to a secure lab for analysis, and I think he’ll find each one got zapped in the head with some sort of high-energy beam. Based on the burned fur smell both of you found, as well as the pinhole in my shirt, I’m guessing that each of those innocent-looking medallions fired a microburst beam of energy---an x-ray laser, a particle beam, a science fiction ‘death ray’…whatever…that took out the wolves before they could kill us.” Both aliens’ jaws dropped open in horror. “And make no mistake, the wolves were sent to kill us, and apparently they were under precise control. I think the lab analysis will find some sort of device buried in their brains, and I’ll bet a dollar to a donut that whatever kind of beams our medallions fired were directed precisely to those implanted devices. Another dollar bet says the devices were fried by the medallions’ beams.” When the vixens looked incredulous I added, “They all dropped at the exact same time, in the exact same manner. This tells me they were under strict remote control, an
d that their controls were severed at the same identical moment, rendering them helpless. With all due respect to your primitive lupine cousins, wolves aren’t bright enough to do this on their own. It’s unfortunate they had to die, but given the choice, I’d rather they die than us.”

  “But how…how did they get past security?” B’naah asked. “There were guards everywhere!”

  “Booker says there was a crate delivered shortly before the show that purportedly contained props for one of tomorrow’s guests. The wolves were inside, perfectly quiet until some sort of radio signal released a latch, the side dropped, and they sprang out and headed directly for the stage---and us. The security guys were so shocked they momentarily froze, then couldn’t believe where the wolves were heading. That’s why they were a bit late to the party, but I can pretty well guarantee that they won’t be caught flat-footed again.” I looked at the two stunned vixens. “I want to keep our appearance at Paws & Claws a secret until we walk out on stage. I’ll make sure our security folks check everything before we make an appearance, and security will be on high alert for any boxes, crates or packages arriving after we get there, too. We may not be so lucky the next time.”

  While the vixens digested that bitter information I unpacked the Blu-Ray player, hooked it up to the fifty inch LED TV, then dropped the disc into the machine. The raw high-definition footage was indexed by camera number, and it took a good fifteen minutes of searching to find which cameras had the best angles on both the wolves’ heads and our chests at the precise moment the animals were neutralized.

  But there it was, one clear frame of damning evidence from each of three different cameras.

  “Notice the areas where your medallions and my cross are,” I began. “In this frame you can see a tiny puff of smoke over each area, and when I magnify the image you can see the traces of tiny beams burning through the smoke. The constant breeze from ventilation fans in the studio dissipated the smoke in less than a second, which is why we never noticed it.” I switched to a different camera. “This angle shows the wolf centering on me, and in this one frame you see a tiny puff of smoke right above his left eye, mostly gone by the next frame.” I switched to a third camera. “This wolf was centering on B’naah, and you see the same type of smoke, coming from the same area over its left eye.” Both Yularians were intently peering at the high-definition image, and it’s undeniable evidence. “A moment later all three animals dropped, effectively lobotomized. Booker said that minutes after they were carried off-stage they died, either from the beams’ wounds or from something generated by whatever was controlling them.”

  “H-how…?” L’raan stammered, literally in shock.

  “Right now I’m guessing that our medallions monitor everything that goes on around us, and that they have the ability to scan and pinpoint anomalies in living creatures.”

  “Like in the wolves’ brains,” L’raan muttered.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Like something alien in the wolves’ brains.” I ejected the disc and turned the equipment off, then turned back to the Yularian pair on the couch. “What bothers me the worst, though, is just how a simple security AI can suddenly do all this…this ‘techno-magic’. Our governments and militaries have a lot of top-secret gadgets and gizmos that the public doesn’t know about---some of it I’ve seen, and it’s truly amazing---but I’m also dead positive that humanity has nothing capable of doing what happened today in that TV studio. I watched Art Goldman’s people install Bertha before I left Earth, and it was basically a powerful commercial-grade tower computer with a bunch of radio-controlled extensions. Sadly, I didn’t get to watch when Art’s techs did the upgrade, so I have no idea what was added. Still, I don’t believe a mere ‘upgrade’ to any computer I’ve ever seen could do all this. It just doesn’t add up.” I walked over to the couch and slowly sat down between them, and they quickly snuggled close with my arms pulling them in even closer. “Whoever…or whatever…is behind this, it damned sure saved our butts.” I looked at each one in turn. “I guess what bothers me most is…is not knowing who are the real players in this game. I suspect your people and mine are just pawns, bit players in a bigger struggle that could possibly destroy us all.” I nuzzled first L’raan, then B’naah. “Art’s supposed to be flying out here, probably in a supersonic jet fighter if I know how upset he must be, and at the first opportunity I’m going to corner him---without my cross around my neck---and try to get to the bottom of this. I think he may know more than he’s told me---which is more than we’ve told you, for the security reasons I outlined several days ago---but it’s high time we laid it all out to see where the pieces fit together. He owes us that much, at least.” I gave both vixens a final hug, then stood, saying, “I’m going to fetch our ‘guardian jewelry’, but until we know more of what’s going on we need to keep quiet about what we discussed, and how much we know. Agreed?” They nodded.

  What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  Chapter 23

  Hell is for Heroes

  Damn it, there were times I hated being right.

  Art Goldman woke us with a call to my cell phone from the local airport, which had just been inundated by an Air Force fighter jet support team that arrived to service and guard his ride. He’d landed moments earlier after scorching cross-country flight from the Robins AFB in Georgia in an F-22 Raptor. God only knew what that little supersonic trip had cost the taxpayers, but mid-air refueling tankers, plus operational and maintenance costs for the ultra-hot stealth fighter, don’t go for cheap.

  “Tom!” the voice on the phone shouted, “Are you and the Yularians OK?”

  “Of course we’re OK, Art,” I replied, sleep still fogging my voice. “Booker would have told you different had there been a problem, but there’s no denying we had a few butt-puckering moments in the TV studio.”

  “Jesus, Tom! I heard about it and left before the show aired on TV, but my radio updates while flying out here said it must have been terrifying.” I snorted. “I’m leaving the airport now and should be at your hotel in thirty minutes.”

  Great. There went any chance of sleep. “I don’t have a Keurig coffee maker handy, but I’ll have a regular pot of mud waiting for you. Ciao!” I looked at my two fur-rumpled bedmates, who blinked sleepily back at me. “OK, bedbugs, rise and shine---and mooch your tails off to your own bedroom. Art may have his suspicions as to our sleeping arrangements, but I don’t want to provide him proof that we’re ‘immoral heathens’.”

  The Yularians crawled out of my king-size bed and grumpily made their way to the bedroom at the other end of the suite, and I quickly rearranged the pillows and sheets to better reflect a single occupant’s use. Then I put on a pot of coffee.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Art Goldman showed up in due time, and I pressed a steaming mug of coffee into his hands as he walked through the suite’s door. The Yularians came grumbling out of their bedroom a moment later, looking sleepy and much worse for wear---just like we’d planned. Soon we were all relaxing in chairs and on the sofa, Goldman still apparently slightly nervous around the aliens, who were curled up on the couch and peering at both Goldman and me out of sleep-slitted eyes. Good girls!

  “Have you talked to Booker to get the latest?” the agent asked.

  “Art, we’ve been trying to get some sleep!” I grumbled. “I talked to Booker at the TV studio before we came back to the hotel, and figured he’d update us in the morning.” I took a long pull on my coffee--- Bleah! It couldn’t match my favorite Colombian Fair Trade Select as brewed at home.

  “Booker and his crew’ve been busy since you last talked to him,” Goldman said, then took a pull on his coffee and made a face. “Typical hotel coffee; tastes like stale dishwater.” Still, he took another swig before continuing. “They completed the first necropsy, and found the remains of an alien device the size of a marble buried in the wolf’s brain. It had apparently been fried by some sort of high-energy beam the thickness of a pencil lead, which en
tered the skull right above the animal’s left eye.” I glanced at the vixens and saw B’naah raise one eyebrow, while L’raan’s eyes got big and she licked her lips nervously. Goldman didn’t notice the interplay. “I…I don’t know what to say. We didn’t plan for anything like this!”

  I took another sip of the bad coffee, then set the mug on the table. Standing, I reached under my t-shirt and removed my little cross pendant, then motioned for the vixens to remove their medallions and hand them to me. Goldman looked at us in bewilderment. “Art, old friend, be truthful with me. Are you wearing a wire?”

  His bewilderment rose a notch or ten. “I don’t know what you mean, Tom. Why would I be wired?”

  “Have you gotten any new jewelry, new phone, new toys you carry around?” I pointed to a fancy aviator-style wrist watch I’d not seen him with before. “That’s new.”

  He blinked a few times, then said, “Bertha sent it. Looks and works like a Breitling, but she said I could stay in touch with her in an emergency by simply speaking her name.”

  “Gimmee,” I said, holding out my hand. He hesitated and I made hurry up gestures, which got the desired results. The timepiece was beautiful, and I momentarily regretted not getting a real one years ago. “Anything else? Lemme have your cell phone, too.” When he frowned I said, “I’m serious, Art. I’m not going to damage them, and I’ll give ‘em back later. Now gimmee!” He reached into his pocket and handed me a bulky smart phone. “Christ. What a toy!”