by Geoff Wolak
In his favour, the little Hitler of Texas outlawed underage drinking and underage sex. That was outlawed everywhere, but he enforced it with beatings and floggings. No teenage girl dare drop her knickers till sixteen, and then she’d best be married. And if a kid broke a window or spray-painted a wall they’d get twenty lashes in public, lashed till they bled. A second offence would see both parents stripped naked and lashed in front of their neighbours. It was another policy I found hard to argue with. Kids said ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’, and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
He made sure that the kids studied, and the brightest were treated well and sent to college, after which they would work for the state in honoured positions. Inmates from the state penitentiaries often became ‘canaries’, in that they tested areas for lingering radiation, or for local savages. Running away was not an option, because many parts of the east coast housed cannibals and militias. If you were an outsider, you would not last long by yourself.
The Texas Army would often probe certain bases in the east where they knew military hardware was stored. Bases would be raided, sometimes by air, and old jeeps and tanks would be appropriated; weapons, bombs, old computers, and even uniforms. The soldiers would blow open ammo dumps - where the locals did not possess such skills or the necessary explosives, and the Texan Army retrieved countless thousands of weapons. Just about everyone in Texas had a gun, and that was before the war. Now they had ten each, if not twenty.
Following the decision to use Jimmy’s old world, the leaders of each nation made speeches over the radio to their citizens, many nations still benefiting from functioning TV systems, even a few old satellites still working, and they let the citizens discuss the proposal. They highlighted the risk from the aliens, and that this world would receive much aid and development, but would break its link for twenty years.
For the average citizen, a portal was something for scientists and officials, and so they were not bothered without one in their daily lives. Most of the planned research and work would take place in Africa – where some two hundred thousand people from other worlds now resided, projects to be sub-contracted to other nations.
The Texans all agreed that they would be involved right from the start, and they had a good scientific base to start with. Australia and New Zealand were keen, South America more interested in trade quotas – and not that bothered about aliens.
The positive vote arrived with Jimmy two days later, which was good news; he would not have to recall the people he had already dispatched. Four standby portals opened in New Kinshasa on my old world, and eight opened from other worlds, all allocated a separate geographical location.
In the days that followed, an advance party of twenty thousand volunteers marched or drove through, just about absorbed by the city’s buildings – a city that was no where near as developed as on other worlds. Those volunteers were closely followed by thousands of prefab homes and tents, members of the Rifles escorting them, and soon erecting tents in various army bases. A total of ten thousand Rifles, some with their families, stepped through, many units arriving in Mawlini. Pilots came next, followed by engineers and scientists, followed by more prefab houses on trucks, a round-the-clock operation.
In Mawlini, the tents were more practical given the lack of rain, and a huge tented city sprung up, alongside which a huge prefab city grew up. From Baldy’s world, six hundred electric cars sped through to Mawlini, and sped off towards New Kinshasa. Each vehicle carried a team of two people, luggage in the back. The roads were soon clogged. Others cars were dispatched to places around Kenya, many to the coast, where a new base would be created.
Drone’s were carried through, their wings off. Assembled, they were launched immediately, and the mechanical birds climbed away to start pre-programmed patrol routes, alien stealth ships in mind. Fifty were launched on that first day alone.
In Manson, long lines of trucks and cars snaked endlessly towards Trophy, the roadside diners doing brisk trade, the local traffic cops frustrated. One column turned south, through Montana, and followed the north-south route down to Texas. The column, however, had Texans to guide them, and orderliness was maintained. Or they’d be taken out and flogged! Some eight hundred solar-powered cars headed south, interspersed with some four hundred small trucks, all heading for Houston. I was certain that when they arrived there, all at the same time, that we’d hear, ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem.’
In England, north of Astor Mansions, an orderly line was being maintained with British civility, two nearby RAF bases being commandeered for the project. Those bases offered a few spare barrack blocks, additional blocks under construction, but local hotels and houses would be utilised for now.
London was commuting distance, forty minutes by train, and special trains had been laid on ready. The suburbs of London on this world were habitable, the centre just a giant heap of rubble, many areas still radioactive, the bridges all unsafe. The London underground, ‘The Tube’, had largely survived intact, and a few lines had even reopened. You could get from north London to Heathrow Airport quite easily, and the airport was just about functional on a good day – so no change there to how it operated in my era.
Making plans
I returned from the Seethan world a few days later, and was soon busy with many groups, including Trophy Aerospace. Many families had volunteered to go, including those with young Seethan offspring. I cautioned them to stay away from Texas, but then learned that the Texans had requested a few Seethan youngsters.
As part of Jimmy’s plan, I had fulfilled his request and brought back ten prisoners from Seether, the men having been condemned to death. We offered them a reprieve, of sorts; they would be frozen and revived, the first test due to be a week long freeze. In a move that had the civil rights groups here up in arms, we sent six across to that little Hitler in Texas, President Samuels. The Seethan prisoners received good food and good treatment, and thanked their lucky stars, not knowing what lay ahead for them. Still, if we got the science right they would feel no pain.
I organised African groups, checked on the Rifles, and had a chat to Toby before he set off. It was not a pleasant chat, and it was brief. Back at Trophy Aerospace, I watched as surface to air missiles were loaded onto trucks, including shoulder launched missiles. Called to a lab, they showed me a new laser rifle that looked just like the old one.
‘It’s the same,’ I complained.
‘It’ll undergo a controlled overload, a one second burst that will punch through two inches of steel,’ they explained. ‘Then the battery is gone. But still, it may punch a hole in something.’
‘It all helps,’ I said.
‘We have optically-guided missiles now, and they’ll go across to the other world.’
‘Optically guided?’
‘It uses the technology from a kid’s game, and homes in on anything other than normal. Clouds it will ignore, something else would get a surprise.’
I nodded. ‘Good.’
‘And a new innovation which is so silly, as to be brilliant.’
I stood and stared at them. ‘OK, let me have it.’
‘Paint.’
‘Paint?’
‘We can load a missile with paint, which explodes, and some of the paint sticks to … whatever is cloaked.’
‘And … then you can see it?’ I nudged.
‘Nope, the paint has an isotope. If it’s going any direction other than floating down, a missile will lock.’
I made a face. ‘Not bad. Send some to the Rifles here, especially around the mansion in New Kinshasa.’
‘How’s Selemba?’ a man asked.
‘Growing rapidly, and … changing. Any other toys?’
‘We have a hundred and sixty on the drawing board,’ they informed me. ‘One is a missile that breaks into six smaller missiles. Each emits a low intensity laser, and the others look for reflections, light reflecting off something nearby at a certain frequency. We reckon that there’s no way a cloaked ship could avo
id it. And we now have a strobe laser that acts like radar. If something disturbs the patterns, then it would show up. Your alien ship would be seen right away.’
‘Again, send one to the mansion area,’ I nudged. ‘And, without anyone noticing, have one sent to the portal on the Seethan world, and a dozen missiles. Just … just in case.’
Magestic 3
Copyright © Geoff Wolak
www.geoffwolak-writing.com
Part 3
Hopes and dreams
For the next two weeks I toiled away night and day alongside my unwilling secretary, Susan, dozens of emails sent and received each hour; when we hit the pillows of a night we were both grateful of a rest. Thousands of people, travelling across to Jimmy’s old world, were followed by thousands more, followed by thousands of tonnes of supplies, followed by delicate boxes that travelled with armed escorts.
Nuclear weapons - and their creators - travelled across, some two hundred active warheads, missiles trucked across in parts. There were soon enough weapons on Jimmy’s old world to start a war, or to destroy the planet a second time, the weapons available in case that world found itself under attack. The best and the brightest of the autistic Africans were asked to attend this party, and most readily offered to go, their families in tow. They went because this was for mankind, and because Jimmy had asked. The Ark, Brad’s old group in America on my old world, sent many volunteers, mainly those with a technical background.
Ten days into the madness, Jimmy arrived with Slumber the alien, who had never left Manson. I asked a stupid question. ‘You eat human food, yeah?’
He smiled and nodded, now wearing casual clothes, his personal minders waiting outside the door.
‘Any favourites?’ I asked as we sat about a table, my adopted Seethan boys now sat in high chairs and eating tuna with their fingers.
‘I like fish, since my ancestors were aquatic,’ he said, sounding South African.
‘All ancestors … are aquatic,’ Jimmy suggested.
Slumber said, ‘You … left the oceans and moved through many stages. We … advanced highly whilst still in the oceans, and then evolved in just two stages. There was only a brief tree-climbing stage for us.’
‘What are your people called?’ I asked.
‘The name would mean nothing to a human, but The Zim-natal-predom is a close approximation.’
‘The Zim,’ I repeated, getting a quizzical look from Slumber. ‘Simple.’
‘To call us Zim … would be like calling us “The” – without detailing what “The” precedes or describes.’
‘Paul likes to keep things simple,’ Jimmy cut in with.
‘Might I ask if … you had family back on your world?’ I asked.
‘I did, a very long time ago. Like you, I had several families.’
Jimmy hid a smile. Badly. ‘Paul is only on his second family.’
‘We live a long time naturally,’ Slumber explained, tackling a starter. ‘With DNA modifications, there could be no limit.’
‘The new project is starting off well,’ I offered him.
‘Yes, many wishing to join in,’ he agreed. ‘My people are … not so charitable.’
‘They produced you,’ I countered with. ‘You gave up what you had … and took a big risk, living in hell for seventy years. That took some courage and conviction.’
‘As with Jimmy, I am … old, and I have a different perspective. I sought a challenge -’
‘And wanted to feel useful,’ Jimmy finished off.
Slumber smiled. ‘Yes, I wanted to feel useful again.’
‘Tell them what you did, your last job,’ Jimmy encouraged.
Slumber took in the faces. ‘I was as an actor, as you would call it, since I could mimic others very well. Satire and comedy.’
‘Satire and comedy … teaches a man a great deal about life, and about politics,’ Jimmy suggested.
‘I’ve always tried to be sarcastic,’ I offered.
‘That’s not quite the same,’ Jimmy corrected me.
Slumber pointed at the boys. ‘You readily accept the Seether, and adopt them.’
‘We keep pet snakes sometimes,’ I mentioned. ‘Dogs, cats, fish, even Lamas. Us humans, we don’t judge by looks so much, and we like things that are different to ourselves.’
Slumber took a moment to study the boys. ‘I knew that I would be in great trouble when I created the DNA sequence, great trouble on my world, but … I did not wish the humans on that world to die. I had spent twenty years travelling or living on that world, and had infiltrated the scientists in South Africa in the fifteenth year.
‘I knew that I could not stop the flu virus because too many people knew about it, and there was a parallel operation going on in Israel, under American control. So … so I made a futile gesture. But, Jimmy has described their future world to me. To think, billions of Seether. And I met Sandra, great to see how they have developed.’
‘Well, mate, what you started … I’m finishing off,’ I told him. ‘Slowly.’
Susan asked Slumber, ‘You’ll be happy to spend twenty years working hard on this project?’
‘My species hangs in the balance,’ he said, his head low. ‘So, as long as it takes. It is very odd, for an aging actor to be the one of my kind that may make a difference.’
‘We’ve injected him,’ Jimmy said.
‘Will our drugs even work?’ Susan asked.
‘My DNA is twenty percent human, so it will have an effect,’ Slumber pointed out.
‘Did you undergo any special training for the mission?’ I asked.
‘Yes, a two year course of study, plus much time with the humans on the … world that was attacked. It was a test of my abilities.’
‘You learnt our language in two years?’ Susan asked.
‘Your language is straight forwards enough, a bit like learning my lines for a play. And you humans group words into phrases, which makes it easier, and you use body language. Our people don’t really use body language.’
‘And your scientific knowledge?’ Susan probed.
‘I studied science and DNA, in what you would call upper school and college, but ours lasts twelve years. I had a career in science, but switched … in mid life, after my third family. And I was selected for this mission because I was … expendable.’
‘That’s OK,’ Jimmy said. ‘I was expendable when I started my journey, and not at all qualified.’
‘Your Dr Singh made a reasonable choice, based on your attitude at the time,’ Slumber pointed out. He faced me. ‘I met him a few days ago, the tales of your early travels … scaring me. Your keen alteration of time lines would horrify my people, who like to leave things as they are.’
‘Not now they don’t,’ I pointed out.
‘No,’ he sighed. ‘Not now. Now, an ill-equipped old actor will have to make a bold move.’
‘How did the bad guys come about?’ I asked.
Slumber took a moment. ‘For a century, the knowledge of portals and split time lines was kept a closely guarded secret, that knowledge for the military only – many in the government did not know. And, oddly enough, they could only find four variations of our world, whereas you can easily find a hundred of yours. It would seem that our timeline had … less energy somehow. But, that less energy somehow allowed us to travel further, and we opened portals to worlds very different to ours, even different geologically.
‘We conquered space, and travelled to other worlds because - as with the Seether - we can be frozen and revived. We colonised several worlds, but only with outposts; none of our citizens wished to live there. We placed portals on such worlds, and linked to them across space, our scientists able to step through frequencies and open micro-portals as you do. We studied a great many worlds, but did not find intelligent life.
‘Then, some thirty years after the first off-world base was established, they discovered mutated variants of our own people on a parallel world, suffering.’ He paused. ‘Our government had found
out about the programme, and then the parallel worlds, and … released a gas to kill all life on that world, so that copies of us would not exist.’
‘What?’ I asked in a strained whisper.
‘We … killed them all. And, we did so on two other parallel worlds, one of which had made the split well and was thriving, yet behind us in technology. Twenty years later it was discovered that many on that world had survived.’
‘And they were a bit pissed with you,’ I suggested.
Slumber nodded. ‘Yes. We … sent what you would call nuclear bombs, and destroyed their cities, and left them to scavenge. After that, we heard nothing for fifty years, and scans of the world showed no advancing technology. Finally, a scan of that world showed active portal technology. Our people realised their mistake, but it was too late. The government released enough gas to kill every microbe on that world, as well as releasing advanced viruses.
‘Some in the scientific community always believed that the survivors had left that world, at least some had escaped, but all talk of such things was forbidden, punishable by prison. We knew nothing of them till a scan of the Seethan world revealed advanced technology, and I was sent to investigate. I found and recorded the particular weapon used - basically our technology with a few subtle differences - to shoot at the Seethan ship from the future.’
‘But he could not report that fact,’ Jimmy cut in with. ‘His world never got to know of the danger, since the weapon was fired from another stealth ship.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘That … is a mystery,’ Jimmy said with a sigh. ‘Both why the Seethans from the future were there at that juncture, and these other boys.’
