by Guerin Zand
“HEY!” They shouldn’t be having this conversation. Especially when I was right there.
“I think Guerin might. You have to watch your step around him. He thinks every woman who looks twice at him wants to have sex.”
“I do not, Milly.”
As the girls enjoyed humiliating me I just sat back. There seemed to be some form of pheromone I gave off that caused this to happen whenever I was in the same room with more than one woman. Finally, Roger arrived. Hopefully, the insults would stop.
We all stood up and I started the introductions. “Roger, this is Milly. Milly, this is Roger Smith.”
“Nice to meet you, Roger.” Milly offered him her hand.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Milly. May I ask why you’ve decided to visit us? Guerin insisted that we weren’t allowed to meet any of his special friends.”
“Guerin gets things wrong sometimes. Normally, he’s right, that would be the case, but there are always exceptions.”
I guess she wasn’t done insulting me. Katie poured a drink for Roger and passed it to him. We all sat back down at the table.
“Guerin needs to know if he can trust you and I figured that if I popped down for a visit we could test you. If you called in the troops then we’d simply leave.”
“And you would know if I did that?”
“Almost before you did it.”
“See, that’s what they do, Roger. Test us. They’re always testing us in some way or another. It tends to get a bit annoying after a while.” I added my two cents to the conversation and gave Milly a pissed off look. “And I didn’t ask for your help, Milly. I had this under control.”
“I never said you didn’t, Guerin. Relax. I just wanted to help. Is it such a bad thing that I wanted to help you out?”
Roger and Katie were enjoying the little lover’s spat. They hadn’t been expecting that for their first alien encounter.
“No, but you could have told me what you were up to when I asked.”
“That wouldn’t have been as much fun and you know it.”
Steve came in with a cart holding all our dinners. While he was busy doling out the plates and silverware, Katie poured him a drink and passed it to him with a strange look. He brought a dinner salad for each of us, some fresh bread, and the evening version of beef stew from the mess. He then placed a pizza box on the table with the vegan special. Then he joined us, taking a seat at the table across from Milly.
“Eyes off my woman, Stevie boy!”
“You are jealous, Guerin.” Milly gave me a kiss. “Isn’t he just a sweetheart, Katie?”
“I guess I don’t see it, Milly. I still think he’s a bit of an asshole.”
“He’s more than a bit of an asshole. I guess that’s why I care for him so much. He really can be very nice at times.”
“Very funny, ladies.”
“It must be nice for you here, Katie, working with these two handsome men.”
“Ignore her. She has a thing for Earthmen.”
“I only have a thing for one Earthman, Guerin. Can’t I flirt a little? You flirt all the time. I thought it was ok.”
I just shook my head. I learned long ago to just ignore women rather than engage in a losing battle. I pushed my salad away and started to dig into my stew. Everyone else started to eat their dinner as well.
“This pizza is really good you should try it, Guerin.”
I knew Milly was just taunting me. “I’m on a strict meat and potatoes diet for the foreseeable future.”
“He’s afraid we’re going to turn him into a vegan.”
“I’ve told you before, Milly. Your vegetables don’t scare me.”
“Well, I have to say I never imagined my first alien contact to be quite like this.” Roger laughed.
“What did you expect, Roger?”
“I don’t know. I just never thought we’d be eating dinner from the base mess, sipping whiskey, and seeing the alien and her Earth boyfriend carrying on like an old married couple.”
Everyone but me laughed. Earth was supposed to be my show and here was Milly stepping into my spotlight.
“I would never have thought the alien would be so beautiful,” Steve added. Milly shot him one of her more seductive smiles. I gave him a look and he got my meaning. He moved his eyes back to his food where they belonged.
“I would never have thought the alien would be so stupid as to fall for an asshole like him.”
“Well, Katie, maybe you don’t know what you’re missing. You had your chance.”
“Oh, I think I’ll survive.”
Again, everybody but me laughed. This was starting to remind me of my time in space, the bad times.
Milly looked at me and could see I wasn’t enjoying this. “I’m sorry, Guerin. I was just having some fun. I’m usually not such an asshole, but you always made it look so enjoyable. I had to give it a try, and it is fun.”
“Can I ask you some questions, Milly?”
“It depends, Roger. I won’t answer any questions about us, what we’re doing, or anything technical. That’s why Guerin was saying you wouldn’t meet us. As he told you, he isn’t going to tell you everything he knows either.”
“Why didn’t you come for Guerin earlier? He was interrogated, if you want to call it that, for almost four months. It wasn’t pleasant, let me tell you. So why not come and get him sooner and why did one of his friends send in that anonymous tip.”
“The tip and the arrest were meant to teach Guerin a lesson. Punishment, if you like. He handled a certain situation poorly and he went out of his way to piss off someone in power. It also served to help Guerin make contact with someone like you.”
“She’s talking about the bitch Julie. She thinks I have an attitude problem. And she’s not my friend”
“You do have an attitude problem.”
“You need to back off a little, Katie. I already owe you a few bumps and bruises. Don’t give me a reason to settle that debt.”
“You think I’m scared of you? You’re a fucking computer nerd.”
“You should be more than a bit scared, Katie. With the enhancements to his physical body, he could easily kill all three of you before you even left your seats, and his body is still changing. He’ll be even more dangerous in the near future. Do you think you could have endured the last four months he did?”
“Say what? I thought all you did is make me healthy and extend my life. How am I now so dangerous?”
“That’s all we did, but you have to realize, Guerin, that the term healthy is sort of relative. Your own medical science determines one’s state of health based on known data from studying men and women of all ages. A 60-year-old may be perfectly healthy for 60 but that’s not the same as what you’d call a perfectly healthy 20-year-old. Your health is absolutely perfect, and in comparison, Steve should probably be in a wheelchair.”
“Why would you do something like that to him? Why wouldn’t you have started with someone like Steve?” Roger asked.
“Someone like Steve wouldn’t have met the requirements for what we needed. Sorry, Steve.” I didn’t like the look she gave him.
“Again, why did you wait so long to come and get him?” Roger asked again.
“As I just told you, he can be dangerous, and he’s not used to that. You could say he doesn’t know his own strength. He exploded and assaulted someone who got, how do you say it, Guerin, ’up in his shit’.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever said that, Milly. She has a thing for the Urban Dictionary and likes the more colorful phrases.”
“Anyways, he comes back from this little meeting with a foreign dignitary, all proud of himself, with two slave girls in tow.”
“Two smoking hot slave girls, Milly. Not just some run of the mill, streetwalker grade slave girls. They wouldn’t let me keep them though.”
Both guys raised their eyebrows.
“So, do you see from that last comment, how he might just piss some people off in high places?”
>
“Ok, but still four months?” Roger still didn’t get it and quite frankly I didn’t either.
“Well, it shouldn’t have lasted that long. His first chance to do something that would stop the interrogations and, well, he just couldn’t help but be an asshole and you know how that went. Julie thought she’d just leave him there until he learned his lesson and Guerin, being the stubborn asshole he can be, wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of backing down. It really is more than I can deal with sometimes. The little war between the two of them.”
“So, why are you here now?”
“Well, as I told Guerin, I didn’t know this was happening until just a few days ago. One of our mutual friends told me about this and Julie and I ended up in a big fight. I finally got her to let me come and rescue him. When I came to get him he actually refused to leave with me. He had met you, Roger, and he had a plan. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but I figured it out, and so here I am.”
Katie raised her hand like a little school girl. “So this person, Julie, she’s a powerful person in your world?”
“One of the most powerful. She’s the head of the Council, the body that rules my race.”
“And this asshole picked a fight with her?”
“It’s not that simple, Katie. Julie and I are best friends and have been for a long time. She’s my mentor you could say. The stuff between her and Guerin started off, I thought, harmlessly enough, but Julie did go out of her way to push his buttons. She really did cross the line on more than one occasion. As Guerin mentioned earlier, we do like to test people, and some of Julie’s tests went a bit too far.”
“Still. You have to be pretty stupid to pick a fight with someone in a position of power like that, especially when those people are that much more advanced than you.” Katie was looking directly at me as if this was a statement of fact.
“What’s your point, Katie?” I had to ask.
“My point is, do we really want to work with someone as stupid as that! Tell me you aren’t thinking the same thing, Roger.”
“Let me answer that, Roger.”
“Please do, Milly.”
“Katie, did Guerin ever raise a hand to you even when you slapped his bitch ass around?”
“No.”
“Anybody. Did Guerin ever raise a hand at any time to anyone on this base during his entire time here?”
Everyone shook their head no.
“Even shackled as he was, he could have caused serious injury to any of his tormentors, but he didn’t. You wanted to know why him, and not someone like Steve. That’s why and a lot of other rather positive qualities. Yes. He can be an asshole, but who isn’t on occasion.”
“But you said he assaulted a dignitary, right?” Steve finally got a question in.
“Yes, he did, Steve, but that guy was a total asshole and he actually deserved it. We had been pushing Guerin’s limits and this asshole just puts him over the top. Like a dog that someone keeps poking with a stick while in its kennel. What do you think will happen when that dog is free and you try and poke him with that stick? Would you blame the dog for biting that asshole?”
“I’m still not sure we should be working with him, Roger.”
“Well, Katie,” Milly jumped in. “That’s your choice. I can tell you that we have put him through the ringer trying to answer that same question and we’re all convinced he is the right person for the job. If you decide not to work with him he’ll just find someone who will. One way or another, he has a job to do here on Earth and I’m sure he’ll get it done.”
“And if we change our minds and don’t help him, we get our memories wiped?”
“Is that what he told you, Katie?”
“Yes.”
“Guerin?”
I just shrugged my shoulders.
“If that is what he wanted, then I guess we would do that for him, but he really shouldn’t have threatened you with that.”
“I never threatened them.”
Roger came to my defense. “Actually, he didn’t. He just mentioned that it could be done if the circumstances required it. He wasn’t talking about us specifically.”
“I just want to make it clear to you that Guerin has our full support. Whatever he needs, we’ll back him up. Julie is out of the picture. The committee in charge of this endeavor was not very happy with Julie’s little punishment. We all went to bat for Guerin, and now she has no say in what Guerin is doing. That’s not to say that he won’t have to answer for his actions if they are at all questionable.”
Roger looked at Katie and said, “That’s good enough for me. How about you, Katie?”
“I guess I can live with that.”
Milly looked at Steve, “Any questions, Steve? You seem to be awfully quiet.”
“Could you tell me more about the smoking hot slave girls?”
Everybody laughed.
“I’ve got pictures, Steve. We should talk later. Milly is a bit sensitive about this subject. I wanted to bring them to Earth but Milly wouldn’t let me.”
“Well, we really should get going. Guerin and I have a few things we have to go over before I leave.” I just flashed Katie a dirty look and stuck out my tongue at her.
“Is there anything else, Guerin?” Milly asked.
“Well in two days I’ll be back at my house and I’d like you all to meet me there for dinner. Hopefully, by that time you’ll have everything worked out, Roger. If not, I may have to come up with a new plan.”
“It should be all taken care of by then.”
“Well, thank you all for the dinner. Guerin, why don’t you grab the rest of that pizza. I bet Stella would like some, if you guys don’t mind?”
“Help yourself, Milly,” Steve said as he handed her the pizza box. I gave him another dirty look especially after the little flirtatious smile Milly gave him.
Milly opened a portal and we were gone. I’m sure she did that for the dramatic effect. Aliens were such show-offs.
Chapter 4
Julie’s Revenge
Stella and Sly were waiting for us on the shuttle. Milly explained, because of the little scuffle over my punishment, Sly and Stella would replace Milly as my direct contact. They had all agreed to this condition of the Bree Council. In return, Julie was removed as the Bree representative on the committee, and Milly was allowed to come and “rescue” me. I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about their internal politics, but it appeared I was being involved in this little political drama regardless of my wishes.
“Sly, can you take Guerin to medical and fix that broken nose of his? Give him a good exam and see what else they did to him that may need attention.”
“I’ll take care of it, Milly. Let’s go, Guerin.”
Sly and I started to walk off to medical and Sly said, “You know Bart’s all pissed off, Guerin.”
“What did I do to piss him off?”
“Oh, it’s not what you did. He and Gladys wanted to come with Milly and break you out of jail. They both wanted to get dressed up in their jack-booted battle gear costumes and raid the Gitmo fortress. When they heard they couldn’t come with us, they were livid.”
“Yea, he did enjoy our visit to Trogan.”
“He and Gladys are very active in this group back on their homeworld. They enjoy dressing up and reenacting battle scenes from history or even fiction. As I told you before, he really likes playing the evil alien villain in a lot of Earth sci-fi stories. He thought the rescue would be as close to the real thing he would ever get.”
“They’re LARPers?”
“What’s that?”
“Live Action Role Playing, LARP. Some people on Earth enjoy doing this and they also include historical or fantasy action role-playing.”
“Well, let’s not tell Bart or Gladys about that. They’d probably try to sneak out to Earth and join in. I always thought this sort of behavior was just a quirk in the Erandisi society.”
“It’s a small universe, Sly.”
We arrived
at the medical center and Sly had me stand on the marks while the hula hoop looking device was lowered down over my body. Just like the last time, the next thing I knew it was retracting and I was done. As was explained to me on my first journey into space, this device wrapped the patient in a temporal stasis field. This prevented the patient, or any part of them, internal or external, from moving. It also made it appear to the patient that the medical procedures took no time at all.
Sly pointed me to a mirror and asked, “What do you think?”
I looked at my nose. It seemed to be back to normal and there was no pain. These aliens did have some pretty cool tech but you have to act like it’s no big deal. Like I said, they like to show off, and I try to ignore them when they do that.
“It looks good, Sly. Did you have to fix anything else?”
“There were a few ribs that needed to be re-mended and, well it’s probably best we just leave it at that. They really didn’t treat you very well, did they?”
“It’s not like anyone really cared how I felt about it.”
“So, while it’s just you and me, Sly. Can you tell me what actually happened with the Council?”
“You should probably talk to Milly about that, Guerin. I will say that she really raised a stink about Julie’s punishment. For her to get the Council involved like that was no small feat. She went to everyone she could, including the committee, to raise a formal protest with the Council over Julie’s action. She put herself, and her future, on the line for you. She even put her friendship with Julie at risk, and I don’t have to tell you how close those two have been.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
“You really need to talk to Milly about all of this, Guerin.”
It was obvious, that while this dumb monkey was subject to their political whims, he wasn’t allowed to actually know what was going on. We were just too stupid to understand the intricacies of their bullshit. I just added it to the list of things that really pissed me off.
We headed back to the main cafeteria and met back up with Stella and Milly. The two ladies were sitting back and catching up on what had happened back on Earth. Sly and I joined them.