V_The 2nd Generation

by Kenneth Johnson

  THAT EVENING A BILLBOARD-SIZED VID SCREEN ON THE WALL OF A building at Potrero and Eighteenth was displaying the latest news to passing pedestrians. Anyone listening carefully would also have heard the identical broadcast echoing from all of the other televisions and radios in the downscale urban residential neighborhood. The huge screen showed a Hispanic man, well into his seventies, with shaggy white eyebrows and a full head of thick white hair combed carefully back. He was seen approaching microphones that had been set up outside a hospital. A Visitor shuttle craft was visible in the parking lot behind him, as were several Visitor Patrollers. A newsman's voice was saying, "And continuing his visit to his home here in San Francisco, U.N. Secretary-General Alberto Mendez, the much-revered Nobel Peace Prize winner, had more praise today for the Visitors."

  The Secretary-General spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. "The new work in genetics being done by the Visitors is truly remarkable. I'm given to understand that, with their help, there will soon be no more human children born with birth defects."

  Several people passing on the nighttime street noted and nodded to each other approvingly. It was yet another achievement in the plus column for life under the Visitors. And since it was being reported by the Secretary-General, whom everyone held in high regard, it was clearly the reliable truth.

  But one person walking along the sidewalk had an angry frown caught on his scaly forehead. It was Ted, the half-breed school custodian. His mismatched human-alien eyes stared down at the pavement. He kicked at a crumpled soda can. He was brooding darkly about the reprimand that Vice Principal Gabriel had given him that morning for something that certainly wasn't his fault because he damn well knew it had never happened. Such a dressing-down wasn't unusual for him to receive. Ted often grumbled accusingly that trouble always came to rest upon the nearest half-breed.

  Ted was approaching a group of sanitation workers who were laboring at a steamy, foul-smelling manhole beside the roadway of the James Lick Freeway that curved nearby. Their yellow jumpsuits were stained and grimy with filth. They were half-breeds, of course. Janitors, sewer workers, garbage collectors, most all of those who worked at the lowest end of the social spectrum now came mostly from the ranks of the half-breeds. All were under the age of twenty, since inter-species breeding had begun about four years after the Visitors' arrival.

  One of the half-breeds, a female about Ted's age with a broad swash of green scales across the human skin of her face, noticed he was looking in their direction and she smiled. Ted turned his eyes away, he wanted no part of her or the others. He dodged a bus and crossed the street to avoid passing too close to them. He saw several Visitor Patrollers ahead and the envy he felt toward them kicked in. He smiled toward one. "Hey. How's it going?"

  The Patroller scowled at Ted's effrontery, shoving him across the sidewalk into a pair of human teens, who reacted with equal distaste. "Watch out, you fucking dreg!" They shoved him off the curb and into the gutter. As they continued on, the teens wiped off their hands on their jeans as though they had touched fecal matter. Ted stood in the street staring after them. Half-breeds were the lowest caste, it was no wonder that everyone above them, human and Visitor alike, had long ago begun to call them dregs. They were the disinherited, the bottom of everyone's barrel. Every day Ted encountered the bitter truth that he and his kind existed only on the dim fringes of life. They were literally beings without a world or even a race to call their own. It was with that sour mind-set, which was normal for him, that Ted climbed the creaking wooden stairs toward the cheap third-floor walk-up on Twenty-first Street where he lived.

  Ted's human mother was already inside the apartment, having arrived a moment earlier. She shed the jacket over her waitress's uniform, which bore her name tag: Harmy. It was short for Harmony. She kissed her fingertips and touched them to the feet of the Christ that hung on a small cross on the wall. It had been a confirmation gift when she was thirteen and was always nearby since. She flipped on the TV and began humming along with Emma's latest cheery hit as she entered the kitchenette. Emma's tune fit well with Harmy's naturally optimistic approach to life. Though pushing fifty, her frazzled, strawberry blond hair added an extra glow of youth and no one seeing her at that moment would've known she'd just been working hard on her feet for eight hours.

  She brightened further when she saw her son enter. "Hi, Teddy. Just got home myself." She gave him a kiss on his scaly cheek, then noted Ted's dour face. "You okay, honey?"

  "I'm the same, Mom," was his monotone reply.

  Harmy was determined to stay upbeat. She was accustomed to Ted's depressive moods, which increasingly had been the order of the day, but she refused to be drawn into his negative energy. She was certain that she could be more beneficial to him by accentuating the positive, so she worked to leaven his discontented spirit. "Hey, I graded your math paper on my lunch break"—she was pulling out the sheet Ted had wrinkled uncaringly while writing it—"you did really good!"

  At that moment, one floor below them in the stairwell of the dingy tenement, a woman with curlers in her hair and a cigarette drooping from her lips was shaking the dust from a small rug when her expression went vinegary. The male Visitor was coming up the stairs like he did every few days to visit the frizzy-haired woman in 3D. But he always arrived without his human-looking face. Only rarely did anyone ever see a Visitor's actual face. They weren't supposed to be shown. Diana had made it a regulation. The woman with curlers thought they were ugly as sin with their green scales and those small horns that lay flat against the sides and tops of their heads. She hated the way their noses looked all smashed down, and their lipless mouths truly put her off. The Visitor nodded to her politely as he passed and went on up. The woman stubbed out her cigarette on the ratty banister and dropped the butt down the stairwell. She shook her head, wondering how that woman up in 3D could be involved with one of them? Have sex with him? Give birth to one of those ungodly half-breed bastards? It was positively stomach-turning.

  In the apartment above, Harmy was working to lighten Ted's mood. "Oh, and I found another mom who's setting up a real school for kids like you and I thought maybe—"

  "You should've just aborted me." Her son stared coldly out the window at the dark city.

  His words went into Harmy like a knife. She paused a moment. "It makes me so sad to hear you say that, Teddy."

  Neither of them had noticed that Harmy's Visitor husband William had quietly opened the front door. He had paused outside to affix his human face over his real one. He had short, tightly curled hair that was light brown like his eyes. His chin was rather weak, but there were tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes from smiling. Though rather nondescript, his face reflected a gentle nature. He had overheard Ted's cutting remark and instantly surmised the boy's mood. He walked to them, putting his arm around Harmy's waist with an easy smile. "We loved each other, Teddy. You know that. We loved the thought of having you."

  Harmy nodded, leaning toward her son and trying to catch his sullen eyes. "You know how we hope that kids like you will be—"

  " 'A bridge between your two peoples,' yeah, yeah," the teenager said in a sarcastic, singsongy voice. He'd heard it all before ad nauseum. "Well, in case you haven't noticed, the bridge is out."

  Willy had watched Ted's eyebrows along with the scaly skin of his forehead rising and falling as he talked. Willy knew how that contraction and expansion went on involuntarily whenever his son was deeply distraught. Willy sat against the edge of their small dinette table trying to take a new tack. He spoke sympathetically, "Look, Teddy, we all have hard days sometimes and—"

  "Sometimes!" Ted chortled darkly, then he looked directly at his father, anger and frustration burning in both his human eye and the one that was reptilian. "Dad, you've got no idea what it's like to be me! No fucking idea!"

  "Teddy." Harmy reached a calming hand toward his arm, but he pulled it away.

  "Shit rolls downhill, don't you know that? And do you know who it lands on? Huh!" Ted cast hi
s eyes toward the ceiling searching for something impossible to find, then he looked back forcefully at Willy. "I wish I was full-blooded like you."

  Willy gazed levelly at his son and spoke quietly, "Beware what you wish for."

  "Right, right"—Ted's head bobbed sarcastically—"easy for you to say."

  His mother touched his shoulder. "These have been rough years, I know."

  "But we're trying to make the best of things, Teddy," his father counseled, "day by day."

  "And I truly believe things are gonna get better, honey." Then Harmy remembered, "Oh, and I got you a new book at that bargain place." She smiled as she pulled a ragged paperback from her ten-year-old purse and handed it to him. It was Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.

  "Perfect, Mom"—Ted smirked, his eyebrows knit and then smoothed again—"really. That's just perfect." He shuffled off into his small room and closed the door.

  Willy and Harmy both stared at the closed door for a long moment, then looked deeply into each other's eyes, sharing parental angst. Harmy leaned against the gentle Visitor's chest and breathed a long, sad sigh.

  Willy put his arms around her and held her, wishing he had some answers for Ted's dismay and reluctant to have to tell her his news. "I've got to go back to the ship tonight."

  Harmy sagged with disappointment as she looked up at him. "Oh, Willy, why?"

  "They want everybody, even my maintenance crew. Some large-hair is arriving tomorrow."

  " 'Large-hair'?" Harmy screwed up her face, trying to fathom what he meant. Willy stared at her, realizing that he had misspoken, but not knowing how. Harmy continued to puzzle over it, " 'Large-hair'?"

  "I . . . thought that's what they said," he was trying to remember exactly.

  Then Harmy's face brightened. "Do you mean bigwig?"

  "Ah. Right"—Willy nodded, pleased—"bigwig. Yes."

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek. She loved Willy and also the fact that he was often slightly out-of-sync with the language and thus unconsciously humorous. That was partly what had endeared him to her and drawn them together at the beginning. Despite the fact that they were literally from two different worlds they had slowly discovered that they were soul mates. The kindness of their hearts was much stronger than their physical differences. Harmy knew that Willy had a reptilian physiognomy beneath his human-looking exterior. She of course had seen his true face, though he had been very reluctant to show it to her that first time. But by then they were already in love and she knew his heart.

  The spark between them had been struck on his very first day on the planet, when he was wandering around the chemical plant lost and unable to communicate. He had been trained to speak Arabic, but through a foul-up typical of all bureaucracies, human or alien, he had found himself deposited in America. Harmy had helped him acclimate and later she actually saved his life. She'd discovered a bomb that had been planted in the chemical factory by the Resistance. She was anguishing over whether or not to report it when she saw Willy pause right beneath it. Her shout of alarm had saved him.

  Harmy and Willy were not unique in their relationship. Thousands of other interspecies couples around the world had had similar experiences and had, purposely or not, given birth to half-breed offspring. Others had experienced momentarily lustful moments that led to such births and of course many human females had simply been raped and for personal or religious reasons were unable to terminate the pregnancy.

  The mutual affection that Harmy and Willy felt was genuine, however, as were their concerns for each other's safety. That was why Willy always entered the apartment without his human face, so that neighbors like the nosy woman in curlers wouldn't recognize him. Most humans couldn't distinguish the subtle differences in the reptilian faces, so to humans, Willy liked to joke, "We all look alike."

  Willy drew out a small gray envelope from within his shirt and gave it to Harmy. "Be careful. Our snoopy neighbor was in the stairwell."

  Harmy turned the envelope over in her hands, knowing her mission with it. "I wish we didn't have to worry about what people thought of us. Or worry about us helping the Resistance."

  "Well, we have to do what's right"—Willy hugged her close to him—"and someone I love a lot truly believes things are going to get better."

  Harmy pressed her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes, praying that her hope might come true.

  CHARLOTTE ELGIN WAS IN THE TINY, CHEAPLY PANELED BATHROOM that also served as a storage room for the Chinese grocery. She hadn't been feeling well and was splashing cold water on her face over the stained, cracked sink. She heard Mrs. Soon turning out the lights in the store and calling to her impatiently, "Charlotte? You ready go?"

  "Just a sec, Mrs. Soon." The teenager took some breaths and looked at her reflection in the fragment of mirror. More and more lately Charlotte had felt like a mere fragment herself. She opened a prescription pill bottle and poured the pills carefully into her soft palm to count them, though she already knew there were only two. She replaced one of them, contemplated the remaining pill for a long moment and decided not to take it. She returned it to the bottle. Then she picked up the plastic bag that contained the four bruised apples she had rescued from the garbage. The little treasure made her smile because it meant there would be an apple for each one in her family.

  A LARGE BLACK RAT SKITTERED UP THE DAMP ALLEY BEHIND THE Chinese grocery as Nathan cautiously returned toward the Dumpster he'd passed earlier. He was cold and hungry. He lifted the metal lid and was digging through the day's discarded remnants, mostly paper and cardboard, when he heard a gentle voice, "I'm afraid there's really nothing edible in there."

  He turned around to see the young teenager with raven black hair whom he'd passed earlier. Charlotte was just coming out the grocery's back door, leaving for the night. Nathan looked at her and sighed. He closed the Dumpster as Charlotte studied him and considered his plight. She noticed his Teammate uniform was badly smudged and from the sight of his bruised jaw and the fresh wound on his left cheek she easily surmised that he was in some kind of trouble. He also looked very hungry. "Here." She reached into her small plastic bag, "Take one of these. It's not perfect, but . . ." As she fished out one of her discolored apples, Nathan noticed that her shoes were badly worn and her thin pale sweater was very frayed at the cuffs.

  He held up his hands resisting. "No, no, that's very kind, but I couldn't take your food."

  "Oh, it's okay. I've got more than enough." She smiled sweetly. Nathan paused, he didn't really believe her, but she extended the apple toward him. "Really. Please."

  He took it and nodded appreciatively. "Thanks."

  From the entrance to the alley, Ruby had been secretly watching their exchange. Now she whispered into her radio, "So far he looks legit, Margarita. Seems like a nice guy . . . and he's really cute. Got a great butt."

  In the communications truck Margarita smiled as she sipped some chamomile tea. "Ah. The important criteria. Okay, Rube, I'll send you relief by nine. Keep a close eye on him."

  Ruby's eyes twinkled. "That will be my pleasure." Then she clicked off cheerfully. She took off her crush cap, ran her scaly hand through her chestnut hair, then pulled the cap back onto her head as she settled in happily to wait and watch. She was unaware that from a rooftop above her she and Nathan were both being carefully observed by Kayta.

  AN HOUR AFTER WILLY HAD LEFT, HARMY EMERGED FROM THEIR apartment building into the chill February night. She casually sauntered up Potrero Street, then turned left onto Seventeenth as a Patrol shuttle glided by overhead. Harmy checked her watch, pacing her walk so that she would time it properly and not arrive too late or, worse, too soon, which might make her look suspiciously like she was loitering.

  Nodding to a passing Teammate unit, Harmy arrived at Franklin Square Park and saw the cyclist approaching on his bike. He was a clean-cut, handsome man in his thirties, his skin was smooth and close shaven and his smoke-colored hair carefully blow-dried, as always. For security reasons they d
idn't know each other's names and they never really looked at each other as Harmy deftly handed off the gray envelope to him and he went pedaling on. Harmy then continued walking, planning to circle the park as she always did, even when she didn't have to make a drop-off. She barely noticed the lean black woman who was sitting on an unusual motorcycle parked on Hampshire.

  Bryke had been there for some time, absorbing the ambience and the details of the street life. She fidgeted in her clothes, which continued to annoy her. She much preferred being naked. She had spotted the exchange of the gray envelope and now started her motorcycle, which purred quietly beneath her. She waited for a break in the traffic to wheel around into the other direction and follow the cyclist who had turned a corner onto Bryant. But when Bryke turned the same corner she was puzzled not to see him up the street ahead of her. Curious as to where he could have gone, she continued along Bryant toward the Sci Section in the Mission District that she had earlier reconnoitered. She had seen that the city neighborhood within the Sci area was effectively cordoned off by a fence made of parallel laser beams. Bryke slowed as she approached a checkpoint door frame in the fence that was manned by several Teammates and Visitor Patrollers.

  Just going through the entrance at that particular moment was the chemical-plant scientist, Dr. Charles Elgin. With his head down and his shoulders slightly stooped as always, he passed through the security frame, which beeped recognition. One of the Teammate guards checked the screen showing Charles's statistics and waved him on inside. Bryke had noted this procedure earlier. She looked through the gateway trying to see if the cyclist was on the Sci street within, but he wasn't and she continued down Bryant.

  The street in the Sci Section looked nothing like the parklike communities for scientists as shown in The Visitor Way. It was more crowded and grimy than Harmy's street. There was more obvious surveillance. Two Patrol shuttles were gliding overhead. To Charles they emphasized the claustrophobic feel of the ghetto. He walked past two fellow scientists. They were meteorologists checking makeshift instruments they had jerry-built together. Charles heard one saying, ". . . Yeah, of course the climate's changing from the water loss. It has to. Look how it's sped up global warming, dropped the humidity."