by Graeme Hurry
—Dr Yana Serin, Chair of Flesh Sciences, Free Research Institute of Arwall, Extract from a transcript of a public lecture on Flesh Ethics, 16th of Crowcall, the year 68 PC.
NEVER TAKE THE CLOSING SHIFT
by Ana Gardner
Frank Rooney had been the manager of the Shop & Save for thirty-eight years, and he wasn’t retiring anytime soon.
Shraa had been on Earth for thirty-eight minutes, and was in bad need of fuel and repairs.
The shuttle’s energy crystals had survived largely unscathed, but most other systems were fried. Shraa could do without mag-grav and auto-pilot, and do nav calibration manually in a pinch, but take-off and the oxygen generators had to be fixed. Luckily, this wasn’t Shraa’s first time crashing a dingy ship into a backwater planet. And clocking in at several billion industrial bipeds, Earth was likely enough to have the right supplies.
Route 62 cut right through the woods where Shraa had put down the shuttle. From the landing site Shraa could see headlights and hear the whirr of wheels and combustion engines. Ah. Fossil fuel. Earth truly was a delightful backward little planet.
Large neon signs blinked across the highway. The symbols on them made no sense—Shraa hadn’t seen the point in getting a visual translator that cost twice as much as basic audio—but a shop looked like a shop anywhere in the galaxy. Big colors, flashing lights. Come and let us sell you things. Good a place as any to start.
Shraa set the ship into standby mode, grabbed a knife and some currency chips, and activated the camouflage suit. The suit stored databases of a few thousand planets, but it only had a handful of options for Earth, since barely anyone ever ended up here. Shraa scrolled through the short list: gender, skin tone, clothes. Like all periphery planets Earth was oddly fixated on category-determined identity. Shraa picked female, a medium skin and clothes fit for running.
Then she grinned to herself and headed toward the flashing neons.
* * *
Frank thought he was seeing things when he spotted the silhouette walking across the highway like it was a garden.
For a moment he thought the woman was trying to off herself. He was reaching for the phone to dial 911 when she skipped over the separator, waited for two cars to whirr by then darted across the two south lanes and made it to the other side just before a large semi passed behind her with an ear-splitting honk. Frank shook his head. Kids these days, man. Probably she was snorting nutmeg or something. He’d heard from his neighbor that this was a thing.
To his dismay the woman marched across the grass and hopped the fence into the Shop & Save parking lot. Frank fingered the phone dial. She was definitely high—was she dangerous? He was the closing manager that night, and he’d sent everyone home but Billy who was mopping the floors in the cafe area. Sylvie was still somewhere in the back taking out the last of the trash.
The woman pressed her palm against several of the windows before discovering the doors. She made a delighted ‘ah’ when they slid open. Frank wished Billy had remembered to lock them, but then, Billy wasn’t winning employee of the month anytime soon. Frank had only hired him as a favor to Sylvie.
He sighed and put the phone away. The woman didn’t look armed, and she wasn’t approaching with the skittish hunch of someone geared for mischief. Probably just some party goer with a bad case of the munchies. There were college dorms just a couple of miles away, and this was hardly going to be his first strung out junkie.
She strolled in with a wide uneven grin, like a kid at a Christmas-tree lighting in the square. When she spotted Frank she made a beeline to where he was about to close out the last register.
He braced for impact. “Sorry Ma’am. I’m afraid we’re closed for the night.”
“I just need some supplies.” She had an odd voice, lower than he’d have thought, with an accent Frank couldn’t place. Her face was unusual, too. Oval, almost too oval, with eyes a little too big and far apart, and the neck an inch too long for her height. Like a beginner artist had painted her, and messed up calculating her proportions a little.
“I need… hm. Nitrogen, iron, electrolyte solution, a molecular sieve and some sort of conductive battery. Oh, and food. You have food here, right?” The woman grabbed a power bar from the register display and sniffed it. Frank didn’t get to protest before she ripped the wrapper. “This’ll do. A week’s supply of these. Vary the flavors as much as you can. Nothing too sweet – I hate sweet.”
Frank cleared his throat. He hadn’t worked there for nearly four decades without being prepared for every sort of wacky customer that came his way.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, we’re closed. If you can come back tomorrow morning…You can keep the energy bar. Would you like me to call you an Uber? Ma’am, please put those back.”
She was sniffing at two lip balms, now. “What’s an oo-ber?”
Maybe she was a foreigner. “A taxi. A car, to take you back to your house. Where you’re staying. No—ma’am, those aren’t for eating.” The woman was about to bite into the checkout divider. Jesus. Frank sometimes wished he could give these new drugs a try.
She put down the checkout divider and smiled at him. “I don’t need a ride. I’m here in my shuttle. But I’ll have to fix it – point me to your repair section while you get my food together?”
Frank sighed. At least that explained why she’d stopped in the middle of the highway. “We don’t have a repair section, Ma’am. If your car’s broken, you can use the store phone to call Triple A.”
“Triple-eh?”
“Roadside assistance. You’re not from around here, are you?” They didn’t get a lot of tourists in their neck of the woods, but Frank had been there a long time. He’d seen everything. “Would you like to call Triple A? Or perhaps call a friend…?” He grimaced. The woman had bitten off half the power bar and was chewing it with her mouth open.
“This is good!” She swallowed, “I mean, probably toxic, but you know – it tastes good. What is that? Sugar? You know there are places that use sugar as shuttle fuel…”
“Are you from Canada?” Frank had heard they did funny things, there. Odd folk. “You got a bit of an accent, there…”
“Oh, that’s probably just the audio translator… So, where did you say the battery section was?” The woman walked straight past him and stopped halfway down the cleaning supply aisle. “Oh, damn it. I can’t read any of these. Would you mind reading them for me? What did you say your name was?”
“It’s Frank, Ma’am. And I can’t sell you anything, we’ve already closed out the registers—why don’t you let me call someone for you, if you need a ride…? Ma’am – no, please, you’re not supposed to open that. Ma’am, please put that back.”
She’d started unscrewing lids off detergent bottles and smelling them. Frank groaned. It was past midnight and he didn’t feel like mopping spilled detergent off the floors.
“Ma’am, please put that back, or I’m afraid I’m going to have to call security.” A lie—Billy and Sylvie hardly counted as security. Technically that was in Billy’s job description, but Frank harbored no illusions about the kid’s ability to handle anything.
The woman’s expression had changed at the mention of security. “Now, Fronk. That’s not necessary. I just need some basic supplies for my shuttle, and I’ll be out of your way. I know, I know, you’re closed,” she waved a dismissive hand, “But you and I both know the first rule of business: never say no to a customer!” She grinned at him, with her misproportioned grin. “Please help me find the supplies to fix my ride, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Oh, dear.
“Everything alright, Frank?” Sylvie appeared at the far end of the aisle, holding a mop in her hand like a spear. Frank liked Sylvie. She was ten times sharper than her good-for-nothing brother, and one of the few people he could rely on to run the store.
“All good, love. Just helping out the last customer of the day… Can you go help Billy lock the doors?” If the woman had friends, Frank di
dn’t want any more of them wandering the aisles sniffing detergents. “Alright, ma’am. Why don’t you tell me what supplied you need, and we’ll see what we can do?” He’d learned that rule of business a long time ago: easier to give in than get into a prolonged argument with a belligerent customer. And he hadn’t actually closed out the register yet, anyway.
“Nitrogen,” said the woman. “Iron. Conductive battery – oh, these look about right.” She picked up a box of sanitary pads off the shelf, “Are these silica sieves?”
Frank sighed. Well, at least he’d have a good story to tell Alice, when he got home. “Ma’am—”
A flash of light erupted outside the window. Frank frowned: it looked like a shooting star, streaking across the sky, only brighter, much brighter, and larger, and slower. It drew a half-arc over the woods, before it went out of sight. “What…?”
“Uh oh.”
The woman’s uneven eyes got bigger.
“I was hoping that wouldn’t happen.”
“What? What wouldn’t happen?” Frank scowled. “What was that?”
“That,” said the woman, “was trouble.” She pulled an odd-shaped gadget from seemingly out of nowhere—ye gods, these new phones were getting weirder by the day—and tapped its screen. “Apparently my jamming device isn’t as good as what I paid for. Ugh, I can’t believe they’d track me all the way to this hole! Honestly.” She huffed, “You steal one little data crystal, and suddenly you’re the galaxy’s most wanted.”
Frank choked. “Track you…? Wanted!”
“Fronk, I really need those supplies, now.” The woman glanced over her shoulder. “Believe me, the sooner I get off this planet, the better for everyone. The Grumm Alliance doesn’t care about jurisdiction or discretion… Where are your conductive batteries?”
Frank was starting to think it had been a mistake not calling the cops.
* * *
Shraa cursed out Prime Grumm and his band of thugs. Shooting her shuttle off course and then dogging her all the way to some dingy planet—and it wasn’t even their data crystal she’d taken! They’d stolen it from the First Federation’s archives. By all accounts, once Shraa nicked it from them, they should’ve let her have it. So much for honor amongst thieves.
She checked the camouflage suit’s reading on the sleeve pad. It should hide her from the Grumms’ scanners, but the store with its giant flashing neons wasn’t exactly stealthy. Even Grumm thugs could track if there was a huge sign going ‘Come Here’ right in front of them.
“Ma’am.” The Earth seller Fronk was backing up slowly, looking like a frightened Apsaran bullfrog. “Perhaps it was best if you uh, came back during business hours…”
Honestly! What kind of businessman kicked out a customer?! Shraa pulled out a handful of metal chips and crystals from her pocket. “Here.” She thrust them at him. “I’m sure some of this is Earth currency. Pick it, and help me get what I need to fix my oxy gens before those goons find my ship.”
“Ship? Earth currency…?” Fronk scowled. “Is this one of those you-tube things? Are you part of some sort of show? Because you know I’m supposed to get advance notice, and I certainly never agreed to anything after hours… Hey! Please put those back! Stop!”
Shraa had begun to pick things off the shelves. Some of them had to smell right. She could even do without the molecular sieve, there’d probably be enough to salvage on the ship – but she needed a new battery for sure, and she definitely had to replenish the nitrogen supply and she needed a tankful of water…
“Are these diamonds?” Fronk was picking through the handful of currency she’d tossed at him. “Listen, er, ma’am—ma’am, I wasn’t notified of any sort of game going on, and I’m not authorized to approve this—ma’am—ma’am you can’t drink the sunflower oil—ma’am!!”
Oil! Her shuttle wasn’t old enough to still need oil, but Shraa figured she could improvise some sort of combustion-based ignition if the Grumms were using a dampening field. Couldn’t hurt to have it just in case. “Okay, iron—you know what iron is, right? I need that.”
Fronk sighed. “There’s some over-the-counter tablets in Aisle three…”
“Did you see that?” Another human appeared behind Fronk, while Shraa headed for what she hoped was Aisle 3. “That thing in the sky? You think it’s some sort of military plane?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grumm tracker ship,” Shraa called over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. As long as I fix my shuttle soon, they won’t bother you.”
The second human made a sort of strangled noise in Fronk’s direction. It had a higher-pitched voice and smelled like different organic compounds—a female, thought Shraa. “What’s a Grumm?”
“I don’t know!” Fronk sounded exasperated. Poor Earthling. Shraa might’ve felt bad, but if he’d just given her the supplies from the start they wouldn’t be here. “Look, do you know about any sort of game or show or something going on? Anything at your college…?”
“Not that I know of. Maybe it’s one of those internet challenges. Are those real diamonds?”
“Of course they’re not real diamonds!”
“Of course they’re real!” Shraa called out from the next aisle. “I don’t stoop to counterfeit currency!” The nerve!
She stuffed several containers into her shirt and picked two large containers of water, then found Fronk and his friend again.
“Alright, I got everything except the battery and the nitrogen. Your batteries are no good–I need something with far more power! It doesn’t matter about the voltage, I can compensate, but it needs oomph! You have combustion vehicles, I saw them outside. You must have bigger batteries to start the combustion engine.”
“Combustion vehicles? Does she mean cars?”
“Yes, exactly, cars—oh, no.” Shraa spotted three familiar silhouettes outside the shop windows. “Damn, they’re quick.”
Fronk and the female turned to look. Shraa could tell the exact moment when they registered that the tripedal cyclopes outside weren’t human. Their jaws dropped. Their eyes widened. Typical periphery biped response to shock. Shraa could hear their hearts picking up and smell their sweat glands.
“Okay,” she hurried to whisper, “They can’t scan through my cam suit, so if you just pretend I work here and that you know me, we can send them off on the wrong—oh, come on!”
The Grumms had held up a palm-scanner, and pointed it straight at her.
Three angry eyes glared in her direction. Then they pulled their blasters and blew out the shop doors.
“Plan B! Plan B!” Shraa took off toward the door at the far end of the shop. “This is what I get for buying second-hand camouflage suits…” She ducked as a Grumm blaster blew out a row of shelves, then launched herself out the door into a smelly back alley.
* * *
Frank found himself following the woman without having decided to do so. Instinct, he guessed. When someone attacks from the front, you run out the back.
The woman dashed past the dumpsters and ran toward the little lane that connected Shop & Save’s parking lot with the drive-in of a Fast ‘n’ Greasy. Frank lumbered several steps behind, torn between the instinct to run and last year’s knee replacement that told him to stay.
“Billy!” Sylvie erupted out the back door, dragging her lanky brother behind. Frank grabbed her arm when she made to follow the woman.
“Go the other way! Don’t follow her! They’re after her!” Sylvie gave him the glazed-eyed look of someone who wasn’t processing things right. “Left!” Frank ordered. “Run left! Get to Joe’s Pizza!”
The only other place that would be open in their little plaza. If they’d heard the explosions, they were probably calling the cops right now.
“Go tell them what happened! Run!”
“What are those things!”
“I don’t know!”
“Oh my god!” Sylvie went gray as she stared behind. The three intruders had come out the back door. They were
each seven-foot-tall at least, with bulky gray bodies running on three legs. Three! Three arms stuck out of each body, and each face had only one giant eye in the middle of its meaty forehead.
Three round heads swiveled in their direction, and arms brought up what looked like automated rifle weapons.
“Go!” Frank pushed Sylvie out toward Joe’s Pizza as one of the tripods broke off toward them. “Hurry! Go! I’ll hold him off!”
And he began to hobble backwards out toward the parking lot, in the opposite direction.
Sylvia wasn’t fast, by any stretch. Billy had already shot off; he had thirty yards on her already and didn’t look like he was stopping. Some brother. Frank filed away the anger as he turned to confront the oncoming tripod. It was the size of a small tree, barreling toward him.
He’d been wrong, Frank thought vaguely. This was a lot worse than a group of bored teenagers.
The hulking monstrosity was nearly on him, weapon raised. Frank thought of Alice, and how she always wanted him to retire so they could go on that discount Caribbean cruise–
–and suddenly there was a metallic screech and a blinding light enveloped him and the monster alike. A bulky shape stumbled ungainly from the darkness in a cacophony of metal and gravel, and Frank cringed away, bringing an arm up to shield his face from the glaring light.
The tripod made a shrill noise and stumbled back. Its weapon clattered against the ground, and on Frank’s left the large SUV that had stumbled over the curb from the neighboring parking lot screeched to a halt.
The strange woman sat behind the wheel. “Come on, Fronk!” She punched some buttons on the console, honking and making the windshield wipers go off. “I don’t know what the door control is! Just get in!”
Frank clambered in. The tripod had just regained its footing, and was stumbling back from the blinding glare of the headlights. It reached for its dropped weapon, and the woman pushed the gas pedal with gusto, ramming the car straight into it. It flipped over the hood with another loud howl, and the SUV rolled on with barely a hiccup.