Quantum Cheeseburger

by Jeremy Michelson

  I could just picture him sitting in the wooden swivel chair, cigar clamped between his teeth as he pounded out replies to emails, or worked on another thesis.

  The rest of the desktop was strewn with handwritten notes in blue ink on lined paper. Several cheap ballpoint pens littered the field. Kincaid’s handwriting of course. I was used to deciphering his horrible scrawl on the notes he left for me about programs he needed to run on the Cray.

  “So what are we looking for?” Liz asked.

  She was still in the golden armor. I got the feeling she’d leave it on forever if she could. On our way to the study she’d “accidentally” punched her hand through a wall. I’d give her more to do soon.

  I pointed to the bookcase on the wall behind the desk. The thick wood shelves were filled with books. Their multicolored covers made the wall look like some kind of giant modern art painting. A lot of them were physics texts, but I spotted geology, astrophysics and texts on military history, southwest history and alien contact history.

  “Rip that fucking wall down,” I said.

  "Yes, Sir!" Liz said.

  She flowed into the room like a golden wraith. It surprised me that her movements were so quiet. Was it something the armor was doing?

  Liz pushed the big desk aside like it was made of styrofoam. Books and boxes cascaded from it. She stepped up to the wall. Drew an arm back and punched through the wall of books. Books fluttered away from her arm as she pulled her hand back out. She grasped the back of the bookcase and yanked.

  An avalanche of books tumbled down. For a moment she was obscured by the rain of flapping pages. Thick volumes bounced off her armor like rain drops. I coughed and waved at the cloud of dust that filled the room.

  “Hey, there’s another door here,” Liz said.

  The dust cleared. A dark, jagged opening showed metal through the shattered bookcase.

  “So there is,” I said, “Care to open it up a bit more?”

  Liz flexed her armored fingers. "Love to."

  Sixty-Five

  The secret room beyond the bookcase in Kincaid’s study–once Liz had ripped the thick, metal door out, and the dust settled–wasn’t very big. It was more of a closet.

  Liz stepped aside to let me enter. I moved past her, noting that the dust and debris didn’t stick to her armor at all. It gleamed like liquid light flowed through it. For a brief moment I wondered what powered it. Was Liz going to get as hungry as I did?

  Something to think about later.

  I stopped at the ruined doorway. Inspected the twisted metal frame. It was fairly substantial, almost like a vault door. The door itself lay in a twisted heap of metal on the other side of the room. Liz was having way too much fun with the armor.

  There didn’t seem to be any lights in the little room. I summoned my own lights. A white glow filled the room as my skin and eyes luminesced.

  “Holy crap! What happened?” Liz cried, “Are you all right?”

  I turned around. She backed up a step and raised her arm. The bulge on her forearm rippled.

  “Wait!” I said. Lights off. The glow faded. “It’s okay, it’s part of my powers.”

  The bulge still rippled on her arm. I probably should have warned her.

  After a moment she lowered her arm. “You should have warned me.”

  Right. Obvious in retrospect.

  “Sorry, I was trying to see what was in the room,” I said.

  Lights on. My skin glowed again.

  “You have beams of light coming out of your eyes,” Liz said, “Like little search lights.”

  “Cool, right?”

  “No, creepy. You look like you’re about to go supernova,” she said.

  “It’s okay, really.”

  I turned back to the room. Which was now conveniently filled with light thanks to me, the human lamp. “What secrets have you been hiding Dr. K?”

  The room was about three feet deep and maybe four feet wide. A large part of the back was taken up with a video screen. Below the screen, on a narrow wooden plank, was a standard keyboard. Next to the keyboard was something that sort of looked like a headset. But not quite. It had four gray earpads connected to a central block by curved black metal pieces. A long, blue light glowed down the middle of the block.

  I looked below the ‘desk’. A gray, flat metal box was bolted to the wall. The box had unfamiliar designs etched on it. Six stubby antennae like fingers stuck out on one side.

  I stood back up and pointed to the ‘headset’. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?” I asked.

  I had directed the question to Liz, but a voice came back in my mind.

  It is a stealth communicator used by the race you call the Dons.

  “I haven’t seen one before,” Liz said, “You think that’s Kincaid’s alien walkie talkie?”

  I nodded. “Yes. My Dendon passenger just told me it’s a Don communicator,” I said.

  We were silent for several seconds.

  “Well. I guess that means, Houston is a traitor to humanity after all,” Liz said.

  “I told you.”

  Liz sighed. “Maybe Amber can still straighten him out.”

  “Right and maybe pigs will fly out of my butt,” I said.

  I picked up the headset. “So how does this thing work?”

  The gray pads go on your temples and your throat just below your jaw. This device is most likely keyed to a single frequency. Once the headset is on, a call will be initiated by the receiving unit in the Don stealth craft.

  My passenger was getting talkative. I hoped it was a good sign. I took the headset and started to put it on.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” Liz said.

  I paused. “I’m going to call the Don,” I said.

  The front of Liz’s helmet parted. Her brows were furrowed so hard they could break rocks. “Are you sure that’s a wise idea?”

  “No, it’s probably a terrible idea,” I said, “But maybe not. I have a good feeling about this, actually.”

  This is not wise, my passenger said, contacting the Don serves no purpose.

  “Au contraire,” I said, “It serves the purpose of stirring the pot. I think some vigorous pot stirring is needed.”

  “Are you talking to me?” Liz asked.

  The Dendon device didn’t answer. Maybe it was mad. Would curtail my superpowers if it got in a snit?

  "I was talking to the Dendon thing," I said, "It thinks it's a bad idea, too."

  “Maybe you should listen to it.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ve been listening to people tell me what to do all my life. I’d rather do something different.”

  Before Liz could say anything, I set the headset pads down on my temples. I put the other two on my throat. Immediately I felt a buzzing in my mind. My sight dimmed. An image began to form in the darkness. A symbol, blue and twisting, like a heap of snakes, hung in front of me. Moments later the image fuzzed out and another came into focus.

  A blue skinned alien with tentacles for hair appeared. His facial features were almost human, though the head was more V-shaped. The Don's orange eyes were set wider apart and the nose was almost knife blade thin.

  “Kincaid! Damn you where ha–” the voice trailed off. The Don sat very still for several seconds. “You are not Kincaid.”

  “Very observant. I assume I’m talking to Bey Jodo?” I asked.

  “You are the corpse,” Bey Jodo said.

  “Close enough. You don’t look happy to see me, dude.”

  Bey Jodo studied me, his eyes narrowed. I wondered what he saw. Was he seeing an image of just me, or could he see the room behind me, too? All I could see of him was a head and torso floating in blackness.

  “You have the device, don’t you?” Bey Jodo asked.

  “Yes, of course I do,” I said, “And honestly, you might as well get off the planet right now because I’m not going to give it to you.”

  It was hard to read his expression, but he seemed somewhat pained. “
Leaving is not an option at this time,” he said, “You must come to me. I will remove the device from you. Without harming you. You will be free to go. Free to live your life in peace.”

  "Yeah, I really doubt that," I said, "Everyone and their space dog has been trying to rip me apart the last few days. Why should I believe you?"

  “Things are not as you think they are,” Bey Jodo said, “You think the Stickmen and the Blinkys, as you call them, are on the side of right? Do you know they are the ones who engineered the extinction of the Dendon race?”

  Something within me lurched. I could feel the very fibers of my being twist.

  “Really? Tell me more about that,” I said.

  The corner of Bey Jodo’s mouth lifted. “The other races of the Union have tried to blame us for the Dendon extinction. It is true that we had a dispute with the Dendon–”

  My gut churned. My body got hot. Why my passenger didn’t speak up? Would the Don be able to hear it?

  “–But we were in the process of resolving that dispute when the Dendon home world experienced the event.”

  “What event?” I asked.

  The Don raised its eyebrows. “You have not been told? The Dendon king was attending a Union event off planet. One of the races used a forbidden weapon. The weapon slipped past the Dendon security–which was rather lax, I’m afraid. It released makers into the atmosphere. Within hours the makers had attached themselves to the bodies of the Dendon people. The makers disassembled their bodies. As I understand, it was quite horrific. The Dendon high command called for help of course. The king and his bodyguard returned as fast as they could. But of course, they were far, far too late. Everyone on Dendon had turned to dust. The king blamed us, naturally. He collected samples of the makers and was going to return to Union’s neutrality world to have them analyzed. Sadly, the king’s vessel was attacked by pirates and was lost.”

  The smirk on the Don’s face told me more than his story did.

  “How did you find out about the device?” I asked.

  He smiled, showing off pointed, yellow teeth. “That is unimportant,” he said, “What is important is that the device needs to be returned to those who will be good stewards of the knowledge it holds. You cannot trust the other races of Union. Their interests are too varied. Only ours are focused.”

  “That really doesn’t reassure me,” I said, “And I’m still not going to give you the device. I don’t think it wants to belong to you.”

  Bey Jodo’s eyes narrowed. “What it wants is irrelevant,” he said, “What is relevant are your actions. You will bring the device to me. I will send the human known as Julie to Kincaid’s place of residence. She will bring you to me.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “And if I don’t cooperate?”

  “It would be very sad if your world suffered the same fate as Dendon, wouldn’t it?”

  The connection broke abruptly. I snapped back to awareness in Kincaid’s little hidden closet. I stumbled backward. Flung the headset off.

  Liz caught me in her golden arms. “What’s wrong?” she asked, “Did you talk to them?”

  I collapsed to the floor, breathing hard, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. I pointed at the communicator bolted to the wall.

  “Smash that piece of shit,” I said.

  Liz didn’t hesitate. She ripped it from the wall and ripped it to shreds. When she finished I gave her a quick rundown on what Bey Jodo said. When I was done, she put her hand on her gleaming hips and frowned at me.

  "I think you just made things a lot worse," she said.

  Sixty-Six

  I sat on my butt in Kincaid’s disaster of a study and contemplated my stupidity. Liz was right, of course. I had made things much worse. I just set a countdown on Earth’s existence. I had no doubt Bey Jodo and his buddies would unleash something horrible if I didn’t cooperate.

  I rubbed my face. Realized my lights were still on. Lights off. The glow faded.

  “Good, that was really creeping me out,” Julie said.

  She kicked a box of books aside. It smashed into the wall. Exploded in a spray of paper. She sat her armored butt down on the heavy oak desk. Crossed her arms with a clang.

  “So what now?” she asked, “We going to wait here for your fiancé to show up?”

  “Ex-fiancé, thank you very much,” I said, “And no, I don’t think we should stick around.”

  I paused, an idea forming in my much-battered skull. Probably another bad idea, but since I was stirring the pot, why not?.

  “Actually,” I said, “Maybe we should wait for her. Or maybe just me.”

  Liz gave me a black look. “What kind of dumb thing are you thinking of?” she asked.

  “I don’t think Bey Jodo knew you were here,” I said, “So you can do something else for me.”

  The dubious expression on her face told me she didn’t have a lot of confidence in my strategic planning ability. Which was a fair concern. My only training in combat and or espionage strategy was video games. And I was never very good at those.

  “Please tell me you have something in mind that won’t lead to our deaths and the destruction of all life as we know it on Earth,” she said.

  “Well, I can’t make any promises,” I said, “But I think this might be better than just running out into the desert again,” I said.

  Liz sighed, looking heavenward. “Fine. I at least get to use the armor, right?”

  “Yes, there will definitely be a time to use the armor,” I said, “But you’ll need to hide it until the right time.”

  That didn’t make her happy. “Tell me,” said.

  I rubbed my hands together. Was I stupid enough to make this work?

  The probability of success is low, the Dendon device said, But your options appear to be limited at this point.

  Close enough. I’d have to take it.

  "Okay, here's the plan," I said.

  Sixty-Seven

  I sat on Kincaid's office chair, in his mostly destroyed study. In his filthy, smelly house. My feet were up on his great, oak desk. It was hot and stuffy in there. Hopefully, the heat would explain away the sweat beading on my face.

  Jute appeared in the doorway of the study. I couldn’t tell if it was disgust or anger on her face as she stepped in, a huge plasma rifle in her hands. Behind her, her goon of a husband loomed. He, too, had an oversized plasma rifle in his meaty hands. The guns were armed. I could smell the ozone coming off them.

  “You’re still here,” Julie said, “What kind of idiot are you?”

  I gave her a big smile and shrugged. “Your boss threatened to destroy the planet if I didn’t cooperate,” I said, “I’m just trying to do my part to save the world.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Idiot.”

  She moved into the room. Stepped carefully over the debris. The goon followed. The barrel of his rifle never wavered from me. Julie went over to the hidden cubby. Made a quick examination of it. She turned, eyes roving over the room. They stopped on the tangled remains of the Don’s communicator. She nudged it with her foot.

  “Who did that?” she asked.

  My heart leapt. They didn’t know about Liz and the armor. Maybe there was hope yet.

  “I did it,” I said, “Bey Jodo kind of pissed me off.”

  “I’m sure the feeling’s mutual,” Liz mumbled. She turned her weapon back on me. “So you have super strength too?”

  She and the goon looked very tense. Their guns never trembled, though. These were professionals. Trained and hardened in combat. I was in a very dangerous spot. I needed to be careful.

  “Sometimes,” I said, “It’s not very reliable. Mostly it happens when I get mad.”

  Though thanks to the Dendon device, I now had at least some control over my powers.

  Julie raised the plasma rifle. For a moment I thought she was going to shoot. Can you shield me from a point blank blast from that thing? I asked the Dendon device.

  It didn’t answer. Playing co
y, or something.

  Julie spoke. “Bey Jodo told me that if you don’t cooperate fully, if you try to resist, or do anything that I might deem threatening...He said to shoot off your arms and legs and head, and bring your dead torso back to him.”

  I didn’t move. My hands rested on the arms of Kincaid’s cushy office chair. Her expression dared me to try something. Anything.

  “I thought you were actually on our side,” I said, “Doing the double agent thing, you know?”

  Julie's lips twisted in a sneer. "I'm on the side that gets me the most," she said, "Now stand up. Or not. Either way, you're coming with us."

  “I’ll come peacefully,” I said, “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  Especially me. Would you be able to regenerate me if they shot my head off? I asked.

  Perhaps, the device answered, But I might regenerate your head so it came out of your buttocks.

  Sixty-Eight

  To add insult to injury–my guess anyway–Julie and the goon drove me out into the desert in my own Jeep. My beloved, classic, bright red, soft top Jeep. I had wondered what happened to it after the Space Marines captured me outside of Holloman.

  When I saw it I almost sobbed, remembering the good times it and I had. Especially the times we stopped at Guydoro’s.

  I asked Julie where she got it. She ignored my question. Told me to get into the back, and no funny business, blah, blah, blah. The goon drove while Julie stayed half turned in the passenger seat. The barrel of the huge plasma rifle rested on the back of the seat, pointed squarely at my head. Ozone wafted from the barrel.

  I have to admit, riding in the back of my Jeep wasn’t comfortable. The stubby little bench seat transmitted every jostle and bump up my spine. My teeth rattled as the goon turned off the main highway onto a bumpy dirt road. The dust swirled into the back end, enveloping me with red New Mexico soil. I probably would never get the gritty taste out of my mouth.