by Geoff Wolak
‘Can they see us?’
Keet’s gave that some thought, and moved the graphic of the ship, soon flying fast over farmland, then jungle. ‘Here.’ He slowed the ship in jerky movements, and eased the graphic to the lower horizontal line, landing the ship. Easing up, he popped the hatches, burning his hand on the outer hull. ‘It’s fucking hot, because of the speed,’ he shouted towards his son.
He stuck his head out, seeing only a shimmering outline of the ship. Closing the hatch, he said, ‘Clever fucking ship; we’re invisible.’ He took it back up to altitude, and opened a tin of meat as he thought.
With little to do, Keets and his son both jacked into the game for an hour, power bled off battery packs, before sleeping for a few hours. Awake, tin in hand, Keets watched the TV screens for a while.
He told his son, ‘This fella Paul Holton, he’s right hand man to this British fella, Silo, the time traveller, and between them they seem to decide on what’s what around here. Holton is developing the Seethan world; two embassies, technology, the works.’ He eased back.
‘Can we go to our world?’
‘I’ve been up and down these controls, and I can’t find any words about temporal or time or nothing,’ Keets complained. ‘That screen we used earlier is gone. And first we need to get to our world, and that means a … what Peck said, a portal thing.’
They both suffered a fitful nights rest after a little Whiskey, and in the morning jacked into the machines for an hour.
A second day studying the craft’s controls just led to more frustration, but then, sat watching the TV news that evening, Keets suddenly eased forwards, his eyes widening. He saw Sandra and Jesus being interviewed, and sat open-mouthed for five minutes. ‘They’re breeding them, here on this world, like fucking rabbits,’ Keets let out in a whisper.
‘Why are they so fond of the fucking Seether, dad?’
Keets shook his head. ‘It’s that fucking British pair, Silo and Holton.’ Keets cursed, kicked a console, and jacked into a game for two hours.
A day later he sat watching a programme about Selemba, and her DNA changes. ‘Fucking humans producing Seethans.’ He shook his head. ‘And a black fucking president. How fucking low could mankind sink, to have a black president running Africa.’
Sat staring, and drifting in and out of sleep, Keets caught view of me at the mansion. Easing forwards, he expanded the map of Africa, and selected Lake Kivu, the ship soon raced towards it. Once there, Keets nudged the graphic and enlarged it, finding Millionaires Row, the detail of the ground below shown on the forward viewer. Keets put a finger on my mansion, and it grew in size. He kept touching it, soon seeing people walking about, finally seeing me sat by the pool. He nodded slowly to himself. Easing the ship down, his son now asleep, he descended to a height of just two hundred feet.
A flashing screen suddenly highlighted a helicopter moving towards the ship, Keets quickly sliding his finger across the graphic and edging the ship across the lake. With the helicopter passed, he slid the graphic back, soon above the lake and just two hundred feet from the garden. Easing past the wooden boxes blocking the gangway, he found one of two dated .303 rifles, and checked that it was loaded. Popping the hatch, he smiled at the stability of his platform, and took careful aim.
Pressing the trigger and firing, he was certain that he had hit me, but I remained upright, diving into the pool a second later as he attempted a hasty second shot. I was underwater and out of sight, guards running around. Cursing, he closed the hatch and returned to the pilot’s seat. Nudging the graphic, he climbed steeply, and when the ship came to a halt he cracked opened a bottle of dated Whiskey, several gulps taken.
An hour or so later, Keets drifting in and out of sleep, a jolt caused him to force himself awake.
‘Warning, damage sustained. Warning, power levels low.’
Keets smashed the bottle across a command console, eased back and closed his eyes, his lad drunk and snoring. Opening his eyes sometime later, the passing of time a blur, Keets edged the graphic of the ship down, and to the top of a tall tower. He stepped into the rear, and jacked in.
‘Warning,’ echoed out to an empty bridge, but Keets no longer cared. ‘Warning.’
When he again woke, not sure of the passing time, it was to a bright and warm ship, bleeps and chirps coming from consoles. He turned his head and blinked his eyes rapidly, to find a Seethan pilot staring back at him. Trying to move, Keets found that he was restrained.
A loud clank caused the ship to judder. ‘Welcome to the Seethan world,’ the pilot told Keets.
Antarctica
After the knock-out gas had been thrown, thrown through a portal opening onto the main promenade – the now very chilly main promenade, US Marines in masks had stepped through, soon grabbing sleeping people and dragging them back towards the portal in a steady procession. Over the period of an hour, some eighty people had been dragged back, as well as two dead bodies, and eight people seriously injured from the bomb blast. A few of those grabbed were slightly hypothermic, but would make it. And the Marines, they had detected traces of explosives in the air and on the ground, and had located part of the timer used.
With the local radio net tapped into, I broadcast to any survivors. ‘This is Paul Holton, from other human world. You’re not in any danger, and we’re now evacuating those people that we come across, including injured people. We’ve also found a bomb timer, and traces of explosives. The bomb on your dome was not us; I think you need to look closer to home for any answers about that. Administrator Peck, kindly get in touch on this frequency.’
I sat and waited, Susan sat with me.
‘This is administrator Peck,’ crackled back a minute later.
‘Mister Peck, we’re willing to use knock-out gas if we have to, and we’ll take all of your people anyway, so they may as well come out. There are US Marines inside your dome, we’re not fucking aliens, and you’re in no danger. Whoever set off that bomb had their own agenda.’
‘Of that, I have little doubt,’ Peck agreed. ‘OK, I’m coming out, but I shall remain and supervise my people. I … shall be the last to leave.’
‘As you see fit, Mister Peck. But, given the damage to dome, don’t take too long.’
I video-linked to a Marine, through the portal, and was soon watching his helmet cam. Snow drifted down from above, a hell of a roar coming from somewhere. A door opened at the edge of the promenade, and people stepped nervously out.
Another Marine, a lady, took off her mask and hood, and bravely unzipped her outer layer. ‘I’m human, but if you saw the way I drink you’d probably think I was a bloody alien!’
I smiled.
Peck’s people, all looking pale, malnourished and tired, started to ease past the Marines and make their way to our world. Once through the portal, men and women were separated, few children apparent, the new arrivals encouraged to strip and take a hot shower. Out of the shower - fresh clothes waiting, the survivors were inspected by doctors whilst still in under-garments, injections given. Fully dressed again, the survivors were led next door and to a large and cramped canteen reverberating with the loud conversations of other survivors, a hot meal provided.
Those that had already eaten would place on thermal outer layers, and walk through to a garage, chill-winds circulating, and board tracked vehicles, thirty people to a vehicle. Those vehicles would negotiate ten miles of ice before halting in a second garage, the passengers transferring to a huge US Marines hovercraft. That craft powered across smooth ice, across a rough sea, and would finish its journey by sliding up into the belly of a military transport ship. Off the hovercraft, the passengers would be transferred to a cruise liner moored alongside.
Many of the colonists had brought boxes, and would resist all attempts to part company with their possessions. Our people were told that the boxes could accompany the survivors, so long as they were scanned first. No drugs were found, at least no drugs we recognised, but many of the survivors had bottles of unknown
liquids, part of an “advanced relaxation system, necessary for living under the ice”.
I was curious, and soon worried. I had samples taken and analysed straight away aboard the ships, the liquids clearly opiates, some of which had properties similar to LSD. I sent a note: when aboard cruise liner, confiscate all liquids, maintain security and order.
Several of the dazed survivors lugged computers, base units, and others expressed a desire to drag bulky items, claiming that seventy years of research had gone into the computers. The computers appeared primitive to our people, but were duly lugged through the portal. They were scanned for explosives, and found to consist of just circuits. I was now even more curious as to what the machines were, and what – exactly – their function was.
Then we got a breakthrough, one that saved quite some time, as well as potential unrest amongst the survivors. Blood tests had suggested regular drug use amongst many of the Antarctic colonists, something that would now be counteracted by the injections that they had recently been given. The second piece of luck was a lady, claiming to be a doctor, and asking for asylum from the others if she revealed what had been going on under the ice. Our people on the ground isolated her, and Military Police sat down to interview her, scientists in on the de-briefing. I linked in with a curious Susan.
‘...The people here, they … developed computer games to deal with the boredom,’ the lady began, appearing to me to be in her fifties and greying. ‘And those games became addictive over time, what with nothing else to do. People went stir crazy, some killed others. As time passed they developed more and more bizarre games, and one group developed a realistic game, complete with a thing to fit over a man’s cock. They could simulate sex.
‘The games were played with alcohol sometimes, sometimes with drugs, but in time they developed special drugs that helped to stimulate hallucinations. Those hallucinations were controlled, a person being led through the game, and the drugs made them feel euphoric. We’ve had seventy years to develop those drugs, and they’re very advanced, tapping into the human chemical system and directly into the subconscious mind. With the help of the computers, a person will believe one hundred percent that they are … in a desert, or in a crowded city.’
‘Sounds dangerously addictive,’ our scientist suggested.
‘No shit,’ I let out as I watched my screen.
The lady nodded. ‘It was, and it is, but the administrators controlled it.’
‘Ah,’ I let out, a look exchanged with Susan.
The lady continued, ‘People earned credits from work or good behaviour, and with the credits they could play the game, and if they misbehaved then the game could be withheld. It was about power and control. I don’t condemn them, because … living under the ice was hell, and … there was little else in the way of motivation to get people to work. These people – using the drugs and the games - you can’t just let them walk the streets of your cities.’
I exchanged a look with Susan.
‘Our drug will alter them,’ Susan suggested.
The lady continued, ‘These games, they … became more sexual, and more violent, as people got used to them. Most of the games, they involved chasing children, raping and then killing them.’
‘Oh hell,’ I let out.
‘Some of the games,’ the lady continued, ‘involved the torture and murder of scores of people, of animals and children. In our dome, once a week someone would go crazy and kill someone else. Our children, they’re kept away from the population and protected, just in case.’
I cut the images. Lifting my phone, I called the man in charge of the evacuation. ‘It’s me. Listen, I want all of the survivors isolated from our populations till further notice, guarded as if dangerous criminals.’
‘I saw the interview just now,’ the man said, shaking his head. ‘Stir Crazy does not do them justice.’
‘Take extra security precautions, isolate the kids, and keep them apart from each other; small groups.’
The man nodded reluctantly before cutting the call. I sent a copy of the interview to the United Nations; they were going to handle the displaced.
For a while I was tempted to halt the rescue and send them all back, a tactical nuke employed. It would clean up the mess in one go. Then, an hour later, a call came in from a scientist in Antarctica.
‘Sir, I just had a chat to a man, an elderly scientist of the survivors, and … the Seether were developed here in Antarctica, not anywhere else.’
‘What?’ I gasped. ‘How … could they get them back to Canada?’
‘Seems that a splinter group of scientists snuck away with Seethan young, and by ship up to Vancouver, across land towards Manson, which was believed to be radiation free. They headed to that region for the same reason that the US military did on many worlds.’
‘How could the scientists survive? The flu virus was in the air!’
‘This break-away group, they had altered their own DNA and started to become Seethan internally.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Radio contact was maintained for a while, but the humans all died out, and … well, the Seethan’s grew up and prospered. And, sir, the process to create the Seether was well advanced before the flu virus was even released, suggestion that they were part of the same project.’
‘To … wipe out the enemy, but – what – inject your own people to survive after the war?’ I thought out loud.
‘The scientists were all South Africans, sir, but they had American funding. Project started in 1962 on that world, global war broke out in 1972, the flu virus released six months before the war by all accounts.’
‘Fucking idiots!’ I growled. ‘Anything else, I want to know.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Susan had been there, and watched me fix myself a drink, one made for her. We sat in silence for a minute.
‘Fuck rewinding time for that lot,’ I said, and I meant it.
‘None of the original scientists would still be alive after all this time,’ Susan pointed out.
We ate a meal, little said, fed the boys, and sat watching the TV news, pictures of the survivors, many a happy smiling face glimpsed. My data-pad then started to bleep, an emergency tone.
I lifted it. ‘Yes?’
‘Sir, some of the survivors, they tell of a crashed alien ship under the ice, and that someone got it working and left before the explosion on their dome.’
I was on my feet.
‘Sir, that ship had Seethan pilots, apparently.’
‘Alive?’
‘No, dead, long dead. They say the ship had been under the ice for fifty years or so.’
‘I think we know who took a shot at me,’ I suggested.
‘That would be a bit of a paradox, sir. Ship got powered up a few days after you were shot at.’
‘That ship probably had temporal capability. But, since it’s now gone, there’s nothing more we can do.’
‘If we – at some point – opened a portal there, we’d have it in our possession.’
‘And create another paradox,’ I complained. ‘I want that time frequency locked out of every portal, maximum security, warn all government heads. Some fucker might just go for that ship at some point.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I linked in to Jimmy. ‘You heard?’
‘I’ve been getting reports all day,’ he responded. ‘That ship must be the one that attacked you; space age technology with old rifles.’
‘And a grudge; I’m helping the Seether.’
Jimmy’s image nodded. ‘Seems that when the Seether were first created, many opposed their … status as people. Over time, the survivors on Antarctica seem to have collectively forgotten about them, and what they did to create the Seether. There are direct descendants in those survivors of the scientists responsible for the flu virus and the Seether.’
‘I’m going to isolate them all, counselling, therapy, and even then I don’t know if I want them walking around this world.’
; Jimmy again nodded. ‘I was thinking about somewhere … else.’
‘Off world?’
‘Yes, but … somewhere where they could do little damage.’
‘An isolated world? Post apocalyptic?’
‘Something along those lines, or maybe … the Congo.’
‘Here? I don’t want the fuckers!’
‘Congo … somewhere, and sometime.’
‘Congo … on a post-apocalyptic world,’ I agreed.
‘We’ll isolate the women and kids, and men who didn’t use the game,’ Jimmy suggested. ‘The rest, they can damn well work for a living.’
I nodded my approval. ‘Well away from here. What about the game, they brought it with them?’
‘I’ll have it isolated to a research lab, and studied before we destroy it. They created the Seether, so maybe they have some new technology worth pinching.’
The joyous news about the survivors soon ebbed away as officials warned of ‘dangers’ about reintegration, and about the ‘primitive’ and ‘barbaric’ nature of the survivors. News minutes were cut dramatically, the future of the survivors debated at the UN.
I returned to the Seethan world two weeks later, certain that there were no stir crazy Seethans around here. The locals still struggled with the day to day battles of making enough money and getting enough food. The embassy staff, however, were in danger of getting bored during the winter. Poker had taken off in a big way with the Seethan staff, packs of cards issued, and games were now regular, hot chocolate a must. I worried that I may be introducing gambling to the Seether, but our ambassador pointed towards the fact that they already had casino-style establishments, for those few with the spare cash. Our embassy Seethans, however, played for chips, and for the fun of it.
The weather had reduced the number of skirmishes along the border, and oil was now being trucked south in reasonable volume. I figured I’d take a risk. Henry was cautious, but I was here for a purpose. The Seethan President was requested, to talk about oil. He turned up the next day in an old brown suit, and he accepted a tin of tuna as he settled with his aides, his big black eyes blinking.
