by M. G. Herron
“Nothing,” I said after I got myself back under control. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Wouldn’t get what?”
“Come on, lady. I may track down scumbags for a living, but I’m not cut out for law enforcement.” Not like Gonzalez, always knowing where to draw the line.
“I beg to differ. You pierced a reflective photon cloaking field long enough to identify us, and then cornered the Pharsei on the rooftop without our assistance or even knowledge of the existence of offworlders.”
“I got my ass handed to me, remember?”
She waved a hand. “You simply lack proper training.”
In the corner, her stoic friend, Kilos, made a low rumbling noise deep in his chest. Clearly, he disagreed with her observation. Dyna only acknowledged him through her lack of acknowledgment.
I exhaled through my nose as my mind drifted, sifting through the information she’d given me so far. “What is this ‘Far-See’ you keep talking about? Don’t you mean Cameron Kovak?”
“In point of fact, the human you refer to as ‘Cameron Kovak’ is a Pharsei named Elekatch, a known fugitive who is wanted by the Federation. As you have seen for yourself, he is extremely dangerous. We were sent here to capture and return him to our home planet so that he can stand trial for regicide. Or kill him, if capture is not possible.”
Oh, no. These Peacekeepers are my competition.
The albino shook his head almost imperceptibly, as if irritated by a gnat, and rumbled again.
“So, wait, Kovak’s not human?”
“Kovak was human. The human you know as Cameron Kovak is, in fact, deceased.”
I groaned and covered my face with both hands. Somehow, this news crowded out any excitement or curiosity I’d started to feel about meeting extraterrestrials. The dizziness and nausea returned with dark thoughts of my looming debts. This time, there was nothing in my stomach to puke up. The sick feeling gathered my intestines into a knot and cramped upward. My breathing shallowed and quickened as my lungs fought for space in my chest.
“I need some air.” Stepping past them, I pushed into the hallway, lunged down the stairwell, and stumbled out the front door.
9
I stood on the sidewalk as I caught my breath, gulping humid air and trying not to puke again. I didn’t want to believe it, but it had to be true. An alien was wearing my skip’s stretched-out skin like a spandex jumpsuit, and the two alien bounty hunters chasing this extraterrestrial killer were trying to recruit me.
My pulse pounded in my temples. I worked my tongue against the roof of my dry mouth, which tasted of bile. Strangely, the Peacekeepers, as they called themselves, seemed to contribute to my headache least of all. What worried me far more was that all the planning Anna and I had done on my finances had just been thrown out the window. The United States hadn’t allowed ‘dead or alive’ bounties since the days of the Wild West. With Kovak dead, where in the world was I going to get the money to make my payments?
Water and shattered glass glittered on the sidewalk under the remaining street lamps. This alien seemed to have a way with electricity, I noted, trying to calm myself by cataloguing the facts of the job in my mind, a familiar habit. Even though it was nighttime, the temperature remained uncomfortably hot—low nineties at best. The sidewalk was still damp from the rain shower that had blown through, which indicated that only a short time had passed since I’d cornered Kovak—or whatever I was supposed to call him now—on the rooftop.
The late-night barhopping crowd had thinned, but the lights had returned, and with them, a semblance of the usual order. At the corner, three frat boys stumbled out of The Poached Pig. Judging by their level of inebriation, I figured it must be nearly closing time, one-thirty or two in the morning.
Dyna and Kilos emerged from the office building and leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the doorway. They stood there, saying nothing and reminding me with their very presence of their irritating existence. I supposed I should feel grateful to them for saving my life, but I didn’t. I wanted to make them take a long walk off a short pier for stealing the job from me. I gave ’em the side-eye across the gap.
When the frat boys passed us, none of them gave the aliens a second glance. A few other late-night drinkers walked by. Same thing. Kilos and Dyna nodded and smiled if someone acknowledged them, yet no one seemed to notice anything unusual about the pair.
“Do all aliens look as human as you do?” I asked once we had the sidewalk to ourselves again.
“Here they must, unless they would like a visit from a Peacekeeper,” Dyna said in her whistle-chime voice. “Federation law requires that offworlders do not interfere with native cultures such as your own, and that includes concealment of their true physical appearance to the fullest extent possible. But if you mean to ask if this is our natural form, then the answer is no.”
Dyna looked up and down the street to make sure we were alone. Then she touched the innocuous little device clipped onto her belt.
My jaw hung open as both of their disguises fell away. For a brief moment, a brown-skinned cyborg with some kind of blinking red implants in her head stood before me. She was long of limb and leanly muscled, with curving ridges of bone that flared out along her neck and the tops of her shoulders before disappearing into a fitted jumpsuit. Where Kilos had been standing, there was a humanoid cat-like creature who rippled with muscle. He looked as much like a Bengal tiger as a man, with a cat’s whiskers, curved teeth, and arctic-white fur coating his body to the fingertips. His stunning bright orange, almond-shaped eyes shone. Hard to read a cat’s expression, but I thought I saw amusement in there, like a sideshow performer gazing at a stunned kid. That look finally reminded me to stop catching flies. I clamped my mouth shut.
Dyna touched another button and they disappeared completely. Then I blinked and the illusion of their human forms returned. Dyna and Kilos were standing before me again, looking like I had seen them at the crater—dressed as detectives, a black woman and an albino man both wearing crisp gray suits.
“I need to sit down.”
I found a clean spot of sidewalk away from the shards of glass. Leaning my back against the brick wall, I sank to the pavement and cradled my head in my hands.
Dyna walked a few feet away to confer with her partner alone. I didn’t hear what they said and didn’t care. Only a minute or two had passed before Dyna returned to stand over me. She swept her eyes up and down the street.
“Your mind resists what we have shown you,” she said. “It is only natural. You need time to adjust.”
I grunted. She thought I was having trouble believing in aliens—I mean, I was, a little bit, but this revelation was only partially responsible for the despair I wrestled with deep down inside.
“Kilos has made a suggestion,” she went on. “Let’s take a walk. There are other offworlders living in this city, and if you saw them, it would both help your mind begin to integrate this new knowledge and demonstrate to you why we need your help in the first place.”
I laughed weakly. “I’m struggling to do the job I already have and keep my head above water. What makes you think I want a new one working for you?”
She blinked. “What is the problem with your current job?”
“That’s…a long story.”
“Were you to take this position, the Federation would ensure that you are amply provided for.”
My face twisted into an instinctual sneer before she had even finished the sentence. “And count on you to take care of me? Lady, we just met. No, thank you very much.”
The vice that seemed to be tightened around my chest loosened a notch. It felt good to say it out loud. Now that the words were spoken, I knew them to be true. Even if I was forced to file for bankruptcy, my independence was not up for negotiation. That’s where I drew damn the line.
Dyna seemed to sense the steel in my response. She chose to take a different tack. “Do you know how many Federation-registered beings exist in the galaxy?
”
I crossed my arms and looked up at her.
Dyna sighed, a bird’s sad trill. “Very well. I shall not attempt to convince you.”
Dyna turned and began to walk downtown; in the same direction I’d chased Kovak earlier. Kilos gave me a self-satisfied smirk as he followed her, making no attempt to hide the contempt on his very human-looking face.
For a moment, I almost let them go. Almost considered going back into the office and going to sleep—God knows I needed the rest. But my curiosity eventually got the better of me.
“Wait,” I said, pushing myself to my feet again and jogging after them. “Wait up!”
If I ever did get to tell this story to someone like Marsha Marshall, I’d need more than just hearsay to make my story believable. “What exactly do you mean by ‘Federation-registered beings?’”
We passed beneath the interstate and headed down Sixth Street. A handful of bars were still open, and people milled about the blocked-off street.
“All sentient beings must be registered,” Dyna said. “The Federation is responsible for keeping the peace among over seven thousand distinct species.”
My mouth fell open. Seven thousand? The thought boggled the mind. “How do you keep track?”
“Very carefully.”
A block later, we melded into the crowd, and I still couldn’t figure out why no one even looked twice at the pair of so-called Peacekeepers. Every once in awhile, when I was looking in a different direction, out of the corner of my eye I could catch a glimpse of a pale, upright tiger with hands like mallets. Or the streetlight would seem to reflect off Dyna as if her skin were partially metallic. Each time I turned my head to look at them directly, they appeared to be human again.
I focused on Dyna’s back for half a block. She had strong-looking shoulders, built like a swimmer or a dancer. The longer I stared, the more I thought I could see through her disguise… like one of those optical illusions, where you stare at an abstract pattern until you can see through to the real picture hidden beneath. I was staring like that, trying to see the real Dyna beneath her remarkably convincing disguise, when she turned back to me and squinted.
“You’re giving me a headache. Relax. It is not such a difficult thing. Let your mind drift.”
Speaking of headaches, I suddenly realized how dehydrated I felt. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill and approached The Best Wurst, a German sausage cart stationed at the next intersection.
“One water, please.”
Kilos stepped up beside me and gazed longingly at the fresh-grilled bratwurst turning on a rotisserie. Sort of like the way he’d looked at me in the office earlier.
“And three brats,” I added. “All the fixings for me and my friends.” If I wasn’t mistaken, Kilos almost opened his mouth to thank me. Before he said anything, his lips clamped shut and he turned away.
I took a chilled water bottle from the vendor—a bald, tattooed redneck with a goatee—cracked it open, and took a long swig. The icy drink soothed my dry throat and seemed to jog my brain a little.
“I don’t know why we had to walk down here,” I said. “Apart from you two, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
“Really?” Dyna asked, her mouth curving into an amused and lopsided smile.
Following her gaze, I turned back and regarded the tattooed vendor for the second time. His white apron was stained with grease and soot. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for until… when he reached down with the tongs to grab the brats out of the warmer, a quadruple set of scaly, three-fingered hands held up and pried open two hotdog buns at once.
My breath caught in my throat. I watched, stunned, as the vendor nonchalantly placed the brats in the buns, and then slathered them with mustard, pickles, and onions with practiced motions. When the vendor handed me the first brat, it was all I could do to keep my mouth closed as I exchanged cash for the sausages.
He refused take my money.
“On the house,” the guy drawled in a thick, southern accent. “’Keepers,” he said, nodding. The claw from below wiggled at Dyna.
“Have a fruitful evening, sir,” Dyna said, passing a brat to Kilos, and taking the last one for herself.
Ducking, I saw a sort of frog-like blob creature, a tiny Jabba the Hut, using his four arms to rip open another package of hotdog buns as drunk college kids shoved past us to place their orders.
None of them seemed to notice the creature. When I blinked, the creature vanished, hidden behind some kind of technological veil.
Dyna gently steered me away and we began to walk again.
“Your city is filled with offworld species living peaceably alongside humans,” she said. “The arrival of a Pharsei threatens the safety of them all. That’s why we were sent here. But we can’t be here all the time.”
“Because Earth is a silent planet, far from the Federation’s influence.”
She smiled. “You were listening.”
I stared at the sausage in my hand and realized that my appetite had vanished again. It was partially the thought of eating a sausage that had been touched by an alien. More importantly though, it was the thought that I’d enjoyed a late-night street food fix at this food cart dozens of times, and never once had I seen—truly seen—what was right before my eyes.
Was Marsha Marshall right? Was there a hidden underworld of weird in this city? I wondered if even she had the imagination to guess the true source of her reports and sightings.
“Why can’t your bosses just station a few Peacekeepers on Earth?” I asked. “Why do you need me?”
Dyna frowned. “It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Earth is a silent planet. Your culture is barely spacefaring, not yet aware of, let alone annexed into, the Federation. Even if we could afford to commit the resources, our interference violates Federation mandate.”
“Typical bureaucratic excuses.”
Kilos swallowed his brat in two bites, crumpled the wrapper, and lobbed the aluminum ball across the street. It sank straight into the basket. Swoosh. Numbly, I handed him my sausage. He shrugged, swallowed that one in another two bites, and sank the second wrapper-ball into the basket across the street, this time without looking.
Show off, I thought bitterly as I made my way to the sidewalk. I leaned against a stone wall and shook my head.
Dyna sidled up next to me and whispered, “Look around you, Gunn. Let your body relax, let your mind drift, and really look.”
So, I did. I took a deep breath and exhaled shakily. When I gazed around this time, I saw an entire underworld of alien weirdness, barely hidden below the surface.
A young woman wearing a belly shirt danced in the window of a bar across the street. When she spun, the skirt of her dress flared, revealing a long rat’s tail. She pushed her skirt back down to hide it and giggled with her hand over her mouth.
“Urlakians,” Dyna said, “from the planet Iurno.”
I laid my head back against the stone and looked up at the sky. Movement caught my eyes. A gargoyle perched at the roofline of The Driskill leaned down to lick its front leg. Another black speck dived from the clouds like a hunting falcon. The creature spread its wings at the last second and landed gingerly on the rooftop next to its compatriot. It flapped its thin, leathery wings a few times, then settled down. As I watched, its skin color shifted until it matched the color of the pale limestone.
“Unbelievable,” I said, unable to contain my awe.
“That is a Daacro. Incredibly intelligent nocturnal reptiles. They’re able to blend in with their surroundings, which is why your people have mistaken them for gargoyles and carved statues in their likeness. Federation records indicate they are the source of most of your legendary dragons as well.”
I swallowed. “Only most?”
“Your people love to make up stories to explain away what they don’t understand. Nearly all of your myths and legends stem from encounters with offworlders. That was be
fore the Federation cracked down on registration paperwork and started enforcing physical concealment on silent planets like yours.”
“Ahh,” I said as something occurred to me. “That’s why the hotdog dude wouldn’t take my money. He was sucking up.”
“It is a wise course of action. Anyone caught violating Federation policy can be legally extradited to Lodi to face trial.”
“What’s the punishment?”
“Ten years in isolation in a Lodian prison.”
I winced. “Draconian.”
Kilos, standing a few feet away, casually cracked a row of knuckles in one meaty fist. “Effective,” he countered in his rumbling basso.
I took a deep breath and blew it out.
“So, this alien—”
“Offworlder,” Dyna said.
I barely managed not to roll my eyes. “This ‘offworlder’ that attacked me on the rooftop. He’s one of the ones that broke the law?”
“His crime is far worse than lack of concealment. I believe he’s wearing the human’s—”
“Cameron Kovak,” I said with the same level of disdain she’d shown when I said ‘alien.’
Dyna inclined her chin. “My apologies. I believe the offworlder who attacked you is wearing Cameron Kovak’s skin merely to taunt us. His attempt to conceal his identity is a transparent farce.”
“That’s one way to put it. But if you’re not here to haul him away for that, what did he do, exactly?”
“He murdered a Lodian princess.”
“Oh. That sounds bad.”
“It is. He was imprisoned for it, but a violent faction of dissidents known as the Tetrad helped him escape. We tracked him here.”
“Does that happen often?”
Dyna sighed. “More often, of late.”
“Well, crap,” I said, understanding dawning on me. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“This, Anderson Gunn, is one of the reasons that we need your help. We need someone here on Earth that we can trust.”
I pursed my lips as my thoughts turned. “Would you get paid if you caught this… What did you say his name was, again?”