Punishment

by Guerin Zand

  “Not at all. According to my friends, it can maintain that level of output for close to two hundred years in fact. Compared to the power plants of their little shuttles it’s like an AA battery compared to a carrier’s fission reactors.” I just smiled at her seeing the disbelief in her expression.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “You need to forget that word or you’ll be of no use to me. You should also follow Katie’s advice and not let this impress you too much. Like in the Wizard of Oz, always look behind the curtain and ignore the big flashy objects in the room.”

  “Do you know how it works?”

  “Absolutely not. Not the slightest clue. I know it is some sort of miniature reactor or something like that. We don’t know what it’s made of or even how to test to see what it’s made from. It’s one big mystery. You know about the Kryptos sculpture at the CIA headquarters with the encryption puzzle?” She nodded yes. “This is our version of that. Everyone cleared for this level can spend as much time studying this device as they want, but only when they have spare time. You’ll have access to everything on this level and every member of the science team will report to you.” I paused to let this all sink in. “I’m offering you your dream job. I know you’re a big UFO freak so don’t tell me you’re not interested.”

  “So, if I’m interested what else is there?”

  “For now, nothing.” I love to leave them hanging. “Will go back and see Cathy where you’ll sign the employment contract. As soon as you get your ass moved down here, hopefully, that will be tomorrow, we’ll get you read into the same level as Roger, Katie, and Steve. You’ll meet Steve later when he gets back in town. Then I’ll make your dreams come true.”

  Diane looked at Katie. “Is he always such an asshole?”

  Katie just shook her head and responded, “It gets much worse.”

  We said our goodbyes to Derrick and Brian and left the room. We walked back to the elevator that was there waiting for us and entered. As the elevator started back up I turned to Katie and said, “Katie, if you’ll take Diane back to Cathy and get the paperwork filled out. I’ll meet you both in Roger’s office when you’re done. Welcome to the team, Diane.” I turned and walked through a portal that took me directly to Roger’s office.

  In Roger’s office, I watched the monitor of the elevator and could hear Katie say to Diane. “Like I said, he likes to show off.” Diane just nodded and couldn’t help but look around and try to stick her hand where I just had disappeared. She was impressed, but she stayed silent.

  “You do like to show off, Guerin.”

  “I know, but you have to admit that was priceless, Roger.”

  Cathy had the employment contract ready and all the new employee paperwork just waiting for Diane’s signatures. Roger and I watched as Diane rushed through it all as fast as she could. We both chuckled. Cathy gave her a key to an apartment she could move into for as long as she liked. It was furnished and I made sure some basics, like coffee, were stocked in the cupboards. She had a rental car for as long as she needed it and Cathy informed her that we could send movers to her home in Massachusetts. We’d move her and sell the house for her if she wanted. If not, one of our private jets was available for her personal use until she finished the move. Although I threatened to offer her minimum wage, the actual salary we offered her would have made Bill Gates bend over and kiss my ass.

  After about three hours of paperwork, Diane and Katie finally made it to Roger’s office where we both sat waiting. The first thing she said was, “Can you tell me how you got here, Mr. Zand?”

  “Please, call me Guerin. People only call me Mr. Zand when I’m in trouble or they’re mad at me.”

  “Ok. Guerin, can you tell me how you got here?”

  “Sure. I thunk it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, I mean more or less. It wasn’t like just one thought but a bunch of thoughts, so yes, I simply thunk it. It’s kind of hard to explain so I figured we’d show you. First Katie has to get you read in and then the fun begins. If you’d like to call it a day and get some rest, we can do that tomorrow if you prefer.”

  “No. I want to do it now.”

  Katie handed her some paperwork to fill out. “You’ll be cleared to the top level, code name Bullshit.”

  Diane looked at Katie. “Let me guess. That was Guerin’s idea.”

  We all laughed and I nodded at Katie. “See, I told you she wasn’t as dumb as she looked.”

  Katie went over the basics and Diane signed the security acknowledgment paperwork. You know the basic stuff, how we owned everything in her head and if she were to break security we had a nice dungeon waiting for her. She signed and then Katie handed her a waiver releasing us from any responsibility should she come to any physical harm as part of her job.

  “What is this for?”

  “Well, if you’d read it you’d see that it basically says we're not responsible for any harm that should come to you off planet or as a result of contact with objects or persons not of Earth origin.” I simply smiled.

  “You’re serious?”

  “Sure. If you were to go skydiving you’d sign a similar waiver. It basically says this shit can be dangerous and you accept responsibility for your decisions. Plus, it’s kind of cool, right?”

  Diane just said, “Whatever.” And she signed the waiver.

  “So, would you like to see my spaceship babe?”

  Diane finally smiled. “Nice one. You’re obviously a big fan of the Guide as well.”

  “Don’t worry. We have an ample supply of towels onboard so we should be good to go. We should warn you though that this will be rather unpleasant. It never really gets better, you just get used to it, but not really. It’s sort of like what Slartibartfast said, ‘It scares the willies out of me.’ I hope you had a light lunch.”

  I took Diane’s hand and walked her through her first trans-dimensional portal. Katie and Roger followed right behind. It took a few minutes for Diane to even start to realize she was actually still alive. I really should have timed everybody’s first portal lag so we could have something like a board of shame in the office. I considered loosening that tight bun on the back of Diane’s head to maybe help her breathe a little better. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, she started mumbling about something that I couldn’t make out. I took that as a good sign. Slowly some of the sounds coming out of her mouth started to sound like actual words.

  “It’s ok Diane. You’re still alive. Breathe slowly and it will pass.”

  She finally was able to make eye contact with me. It looked like she wanted to say something, but all I heard was a bit more of the same nonsense. She kept trying and trying until finally, she said something I could actually understand.

  “FUCK ME! That was cool!”

  Bart and Gladys were on station at this time, so the entire crew was Erandisi. Gladys took Diane by the hand and led her to a table with a few chairs around it. “Of course it is dear. You should probably take a seat until you’ve fully recovered.”

  “Are you an alien?” Yes, even the brightest of humans still asked the dumbest questions.

  I shook my head at Diane. “Diane, don’t you think that’s a bit racist? I mean, after all, you’re the visitor on their spaceship.”

  “Spaceship?”

  Diane was still not fully here so Bart opened a bottle of Gluark and poured us all a drink. I handed a glass to Diane, raised my glass to hers and I took a sip. She slammed the whole damn glass down in one good swallow.

  It took a second, especially in her current state, for her to react. “WOW! That tastes like… Actually, that tastes pretty good and I’m really happy about that and pretty much everything right now.”

  “It does have that effect. Do you feel better now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Space travel, not as much fun as you thought or what?”

  “I didn’t think so, but now I think it was fun. It makes me happy thinking about it.”
/>   “You’re not much of a drinker, are you Diane?” The Gluark was obviously affecting her more than most.

  “Did I just get beamed up?” Ok, this is not that uncommon of a question. I actually thought the same thing my first time.

  “No. You stepped through a trans-dimensional portal. Technically you didn’t really travel through space so much as sort of step outside it and then back in. First time I had it explained to me I found it somewhat disappointing.”

  “That makes sense.” Diane started and that was pretty much the last thing she said for a while that I did understand. She started to go off on some nerd tangent trying to talk to Gladys about the physics of this fairly simple event. Like I always said, you have to avoid being impressed or you’d get distracted like Diane now was.

  I let her ramble on for a while. It helps to have something to focus on after a portal experience. I initially thought she would stop talking on her own at some point. I was wrong and I had to interrupt her.

  “Ok, Diane, there will be plenty of time for questions later. I need some private time with Gladys. I hope you don’t mind, Bart?”

  “Not a problem, Guerin.”

  I waggled my eyebrows at Gladys and she responded. “Oh, Guerin, exactly what do you have in mind?”

  “What do I usually have in mind, Gladys?” I gave Gladys a wicked smile and offered her my arm. “Roger, would you guys explain to Diane the medical option and if she agrees, Gladys will take her to medical when we get back.” Gladys and I headed off to the medical center.

  The reason for wanting to be alone with Gladys for a bit had nothing to do with what most people thought. I was used to people thinking about me that way. It was a good cover and I usually didn’t get any questions about what we did. In this case, I had questions about what they had done to my body and some concerns I was having. As usual, after talking to one of these intelligent beings I had more questions when we were done talking and my original questions were unanswered. One day I’d learn better and just not even try.

  When we returned to the others, Diane had agreed to the medical upgrades and she headed back to medical with Gladys. The rest of us sat around catching up with the usual small talk. About 15 minutes later Diane and Gladys returned and I felt a little sorry for Gladys. Diane was talking her head off with the gazillion questions she had.

  Gladys finally interrupted her. “Dear, have a seat and just stop and breathe for a few seconds.”

  I looked at Diane and shook my head. “When was the last time a man told you how annoying you could be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wrong. That wasn’t really a question and I just did tell you. Will you give the poor aliens a break, please?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re going to have a lot of time to ask questions so let’s take it slowly. You and I need to talk first and then you can start to get to work.”

  Bart poured us all a drink. Gladys looked very thankful. Bart raised his glass. “We haven’t had a chance to congratulate you yet on your marriage, Guerin. May you be as happy as I am.” Gladys put her elbow deep into Bart’s rib cage and we all laughed and sipped our drinks. Luckily Diane had figured out that you shouldn’t slam a Gluark unless of course it was needed, and she took only a small sip.

  “Guerin, is your relationship an exclusive one?”

  “Only if I want to keep breathing, Gladys.”

  “Such a shame.” I think that Bart and Gladys were very much in love but after as long as they’d been together they enjoyed pretending otherwise.

  We showed Diane around the ship and gave her the basic briefing. She was given an earbud and Gladys explained the function, cutting Diane off before she could start again with another infinite series of questions. We brought her to the mess hall, demonstrated the food replicators and we all enjoyed dinner together. After dinner, we all sat back and caught up on the current issues and I instructed Diane to refrain from any more questions once again.

  Of course, Diane couldn’t stop asking questions any more than I could stop myself from looking when a pretty woman entered a room. “So we’ve talked about the technology transfers but I have one more question.” This, of course, surprised none of us so we rolled our eyes and signaled surrender with our expressions. “What about advancements in medicine? They did all of this to me in a flash so their medical knowledge must be as impressive as their knowledge of the physical sciences. Are they going to share hints with us to help with medical advances?”

  Everyone looked at me, even Gladys and Bart. Roger and the rest of my team had never asked this question, but I had. The answer was simple and made a lot of sense. It just wasn’t the answer people would want to hear.

  “No.”

  “That’s it, no? No explanation?”

  “I’ll answer you the same way as they answered me when I asked that question. What would happen if they did? What if in a few short years we could cure cancer, genetic birth defects and double the expected lifespan of the average human?”

  It was a simple question, yet it seemed to stump Diane. The point of the question was for them to come up with the answer on their own. Then, and I know, I know, I’m about to sound like a damn alien, they would learn. The answer of course came from the most unlikely source in my mind. It was Katie who had the answer.

  “Massive overpopulation. With everyone living longer, and if we maintain the current birth rate, we’d simply start dying from lack of food, clean water, and clean air.”

  “Correct, Katie. I’m impressed. Our friends are already concerned with our recent population explosion. In 1960 the world population was 3 billion and in 2015 it was 7.4 billion. They are not going to make this problem worse and would like to see us turn this around. They’ve told me the goal should be 4 billion. They gave me a big old slideshow with all their facts, figures, and projections but it basically just proves what Katie said. They laid out what the ideal human population would be for various regions based on the resources available to that specific region. The ridiculous part of those facts and figures was the regions with the highest population growth were typically the regions that could sustain it the least.”

  “The biggest ecological problem facing humans is overpopulation.” Gladys had joined the conversation. “I know your current line of politically correct science wants to push this thing you call climate change, but that is simply a political agenda and it ignores the root problem. We’d like this team to try and get this message out and get governments to start to work on the solution. We can provide you with medical advances in birth control methods, but it won’t help if humans aren’t ready to address the problem seriously. When we see the Earth human population approach the ideal limit, then we’ll discuss sharing some of our medical science.”

  Roger shook his head. “So our job description has just been expanded to include a political agenda?”

  “Our job has always had a political agenda, Roger.” I knew that we already had plenty to keep us busy and we didn’t have to reduce the population if we didn’t want their help with medical science. “I don’t think pushing this agenda is our problem. We just need to let the governments we work with know why we can’t provide medical advances. Maybe just telling them will force them to start pushing this political agenda on their own.”

  Katie snorted and laughed. “Good luck with that.”

  I simply shrugged. “Think about it. How many wars have been fought over land and resources? Even before we broke the 1 billion mark we fought most wars for these reasons. If we don’t fix this problem then it will eventually fix itself, and it won’t be pleasant.”

  “There are no natural predators to reduce our population except ourselves and disease. People don’t like to hear this, but in the past, war has been how we thinned the herd of humanity. Is it any wonder our technology to kill each other has matched the increase in population? We have the technology to kill 4 billion humans easily in our arsenals. If we avoid such a war, then we can look forwar
d to starvation and disease which will surely do the job and could easily spark wars as well. Is getting serious about population control really that hard to sell versus the alternatives I just laid out?”

  No one could argue with what I said but they also knew how hard doing what needed to be done would be. We spent the rest of our time arguing why this wouldn’t be easy. A lot of religions encouraged their followers to have large families, how do you change that? In the U.S. you’d have to balance the freedom of religion with this agenda. How do you get the third world, which is where the highest rates of population increase existed, to comply with population limits? It was a good debate with good questions and good answers, but since when has the human race paid attention to common sense? You’d have to convince people it was best for them as individuals. We all agreed that the first big step was to have all governments stop providing incentives for having more children.

  Chapter 14

  Maria

  I got home late that night after Diane’s first alien encounter. Having learned from others, I’d called Anna earlier and told her I wouldn’t be back in time for dinner.

  “How did things go?”

  “Good. I have an assistant now so I should be able to spend more time with you. I just want to tell you, before you find out somewhere else, she’s really hot.” I opened my briefcase and handed her a copy of Scientific America with Diane on the cover.

  Anna looked at the cover and then back at me. “You couldn’t find an ugly physicist?”

  “She’s perfect for the job and she’s probably a lesbian anyways, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “Right.”

  “Anyways, I talked to my friend Gladys about the concerns I had. I know you want to start a family but we need to discuss this. Gladys couldn’t say for sure what we could expect. Their always so vague that I don’t know what I was expecting. She said conceiving should not be an issue but knowing exactly what, if any, of my enhanced features a child would inherit is not an exact science. My DNA has been altered and so these traits could be passed on, and most probably some if not all would be. She said they couldn’t give an exact answer without examining the fetus or child at some point.”