by Inc. HDWP
"I'm not setting fire to my own watchtower," I said.
"If you don't, they will, after they shoot you from it," he said.
I hated to admit it, but he was right. I started down the ladder.
"Gust," I called. "Get some driftwood and a bladder of fish oil. We're going to burn down the tower so they can't use it."
I was glad it was him and not Reef. Reef would have argued, but Gust just did what he was told. The tower was dry, and it burned quickly. I glanced back at it as we hurried out the back of the village into the forest.
It wasn't just me and Gust. The whole village was slipping away into the trees. We'd slowed the invaders down enough for the fighters with their guns to get in place, and they were defending our village now. They'd told us to go, and, having already seen too many friends and neighbors and relatives go down bleeding on the sand, we went.
A few of the invaders snuck around the village, avoiding the Southern fighters, and came after us.
Gust and I panted into the forest. We knew it well, but it was open enough that one of the invaders could follow us. He had a little hand-held pressure gun, and it popped behind us and the pebble thunked into a tree, off to our right.
"He's not very good," said Gust, as we ran.
"I don't think we should count on that," I said, and ran faster.
Gust is a lot younger than me, of course, and a faster runner. He could have left me, but I knew he wouldn't, so I didn't bother telling him to. I began to get a stitch in my side.
"Come on, Mama!" said Gust.
"Going... as fast... as I can," I panted. Another pebble pinged, closer this time, and I could hear the invader crashing after us. He was getting nearer.
"Can't... do... this... much... longer," I gasped.
"That log, look," he said. "Behind it."
It was a fallen tree, one of the big ones that comes down in a storm and opens up a clearing all by itself, all covered with climbing plants. There was a big enough gap under it that, by throwing ourselves down and rolling, we could get to the other side and be protected from the pressure gun for long enough for me to catch my breath. But what would happen then?
The talking box was still chattering away, giving away our location. There were brass bits on it that I knew did things, because I’d seen Stone use them, and maybe one of them made it be quiet. I didn’t know how to work them, though, so I threw it as far as I could underhand in the direction of the top of the fallen tree. As I did so, I heard my name mentioned.
"Did you hear that?" whispered Gust.
"My name?"
"He said he was following the man who's following us." Gust's ears are better than mine, and he speaks the Southerner language better, too.
"You think he'll help us?"
"Hope so."
"Shh," I said, and we listened.
There were two men crashing about in the forest, scaring the peeper-birds, and I heard the pop of first one pressure gun, and then another. You could tell them apart, even though they came from the same direction.
"Why are you defending these animals?" called a voice from our right. I peeked under the tree. The man who had followed us was behind a tree, looking towards our left, his little gun pointed awkwardly past the tree because he was holding it in his right hand. “Why not join us, and take the land for yourselves?”
"It’s their land. And they're good people," said another voice, from the direction the man was looking in. “I like them.”
"They're not people at all, not like us," said the first man. "That's the point."
"They make things. They love their children and their oathmates. They honor their old people. They sing and dance and have rituals. It doesn't matter what their heads look like."
"Of course it does," said the man, easing himself round the tree in the direction away from us. I heard a pop from his weapon, and the other man said a word that the Southerners kept for being angry with. He didn't pop back.
I peered carefully through the roots of the fallen tree and saw him lying down, but I couldn't tell if he was hurt, or how badly. That last thing he said hadn't sounded good, though. Not just the word, but the voice he said it in.
"You see if you can distract him," I whispered to Gust. "I'm going to see if the Southerner is hurt."
He nodded, and headed for the top of the tree. I crept round the root.
I saw a stick arc above the fallen trunk, and heard it thunk into a branch above the invader's head. On edge, he popped at it, and I darted across the gap between our tree and where the Southerner was.
He was hit in the shoulder, and it was bleeding, a lot. I tore some cloth from one of his blue garments -- Southerners wear so many -- and made him hold it against the wound. He looked pale.
"Thank you," he said, in my language.
"You were hurt defending us," I said.
"Always said... you decent people," he muttered. "You know how use my gun?" He indicated it with his head. It was lying in the leaves beside him.
"No. Tell me." I picked it up. It was one of the long guns, not the little hand-held ones like the invader had.
"You hold right," he said, and smiled through his pain. "Little part by right hand now. You pull."
I didn't, but I checked by gesture that I had the right part, and he nodded.
"Stay here," I said, unnecessarily, since he probably couldn't move. "I'll circle round." I made a gesture to clarify what I meant. I would continue around to my left, further from the log, until I could see the invader.
He nodded.
As I crawled carefully through the underbrush, Gust must have spotted me, because he set up a racket, taunting the man in the Southerners' language. Apparently it was the invaders' language, too. Some of the things he said, if he'd said them to anyone else I would have cuffed his ear. Hearing them said to the invader, though, made me smile. I might stop him spending so much time with the sailors in future, I thought.
I got behind a tree where I could see the invader clearly. I found a branch at the right height and balanced the gun on it, because my hands were trembling.
We're peaceful people. But this man had invaded our village, tried to kill me and my son because we weren’t like him. I would have to become a little more like him now. I lined up the end of the long part of the gun with the biggest part of the invader, and pulled the little thing that made it pop.
The invader dropped and didn't move. I pulled the thing three more times, to make sure.
After a moment, Gust called out, "I think you got him, Mother."
I breathed out a big long breath and advanced slowly towards the invader. He was dead, all right.
So was the Southerner, when I went back to check. That much blood is never good.
The box was still talking, and after a while it said that the other invaders had surrendered. More Southern fighters had run over the hill from Bird's village, and they'd captured them all and made them swear not to fight any more.
"Gust," I said, "run to the caves and get your sisters and the rest. I'm going back to the village to see if that fire spread or if we still have huts to sleep in."
* * *
Next time I see Mister Stone, I'll ask him about that treaty.
That Kind
Charles David Barouch
When you work in journalism as a fact checker, your first thought nowadays always comes around to upcoming unemployment. All this instant news becomes instant by skipping the little things I do, like make sure it’s true. I don’t cry about it, I just understand, deep down, that while my job has value, no one values my job. However long I get to keep doing what I do, I will do it well. My dying profession deserves to keep some dignity as it shoves off into the yawning abyss.
All of that high-minded stuff was just my way of telling you why I’m in the sewers at midnight, ankle deep in I-don’t-wanna-know. Usually, fact checking is a click-the-keys sort of job but this assignment required some of that old school research.
I go on this ances
try website called Genii sometimes. According to them, my Great Great Uncle built parts of these sewers. Uncle Roy could have done a better job with the ventilation. I try to remind myself that I don’t have to be here. I could be out with the girls, sipping cocktails and people-watching Joni’s Bar. Sadly, I chose to be here.
I was finally near my destination. Joe Gibson, the reporter who posted the story, claimed there was an unused spillway down here that was being used to stage bum fights.
For those of you who don’t know, a bum fight is when better-off people push worse-off people into beating each other up. The better-off call it amusement. If Gibson was right, I’m about to help shut this particular fight down for good. Having no money shouldn't mean having no safety. Nature is scary enough, with all the tornadoes and earthquakes and such, man doesn't need to make life worse.
I heard something close by. I can kind-of/sort-of make out crowd noises echoing weirdly through my Uncle’s labyrinth. I walk more cautiously. The slosh of my pant legs in the mucky water seems dangerously loud in my ears. As I get my first glimpse of the edge of the crowd, I remind myself again that I didn't have to do this. I could have just let our Editor, Walt, spike the story. This was volunteer work. I could die down here if the wrong people in that crowd catch me. This was why you should never volunteer.
I edged a little closer, keeping to the shadows as best I could, as I looked toward the brightly lit spillway. My sloshing pants were completely drowned out by the sounds of the crowd now. Noise wasn't going to give me away. I held up my phone and activated the camera; no flash needed. Any time the crowd shifted, I took a picture, hoping to get at least one where you could see the combatants. Until I could see that this was a bum fight, the story was just ‘some people being loud in a sewer.’
I didn't review the pictures, I just took them; maybe a few dozen. Then I switched to video mode and recorded for a few minutes. All this way, all this stench, and I wasn't sure I had accomplished anything. To do more was to risk my life further. Joni’s was starting to sound pretty good now. It was time to cut my losses and leave – any rational person would.
Being a highly principled idiot, I moved a little closer. The fight had apparently just ended, because the crowd split in two; half headed for a keg propped up in a dry spot, the others went to collect their winnings. I could see the winner being led out of the center and the loser crumpled on the floor. The keg got a dry spot, the fighters got a spot that had an inch of water. The thin pool of liquid was threatening to invade the loser’s mouth with every labored breath. I took my picture. My perfect bit of proof.
The story would have ended there, more or less, if I had been any less observant. I had my facts, plus, I had a picture that would net me a bonus; a picture worth printing beside the article. Only, the loser wasn't a homeless guy. This wasn't a bum fight. I wanted to believe it was. I wanted to see man as only cruel enough to have done this to his own, and not the step worse that the truth revealed.
The ‘man’ on the floor had blood that showed red and green, not just red. There was copper in that blood, a lot of it, or I wasn't the child of a chemist. I took another picture, zooming in as best as my phone camera could, to capture the color in that trickle of blood. These people had found aliens. Aliens! Visitors come from space. And these people reduced the intergalactics to entertainment for the sadistic. We spend our lives looking to the skies, while these morons are making them fight in the sewers under our feet!
I hate how the anger I felt washed away any chance I had to feel wonder. Witnessing proof of aliens among us should have caused me joy. Instead, I was reduced to lesser emotions: doubt that I would be believed; fear of capture; and most of all, hate for what I had found. This should have happened in a corn field with a crop circle. It should not have happened like this.
I wanted to get a look at the winner. I wanted to know if the creature on the ground was a one-off, or if both fighters were non-terrestrial. The answer would require getting closer. It would involve more risk. I already had a better story than Joe Gibson had gotten. I had pictures. Even if I shut up about aliens to get the story accepted, the truth would come out when the cops broke it up. I’d be there to see the aliens hauled into the light and I would make sure my story - their story - got published. I volunteered when I could have shut up. I stayed when I could have left as a winner.
My clothes did not match with the crowd. They were in wader boots and flannel for the most part. I was in comfortable jeans and short rain boots. I underestimated the level of muck. They didn't. The difference in appearance meant I would not blend in here. If I could not pass, I had to limit my progression to just the places where the shadows might hide me. I might be risking everything for no better view than I had where I was. I moved forward anyway.
It took three agonizing minutes to inch to my new perch. I put the camera on video and pointed in the right general direction, hoping to get lucky. I couldn't get a look at the winner. I did, however, get a good forty seconds of video of the next two fighters entering the center before the crowd filled the gaps between me and the fight. One was definitely off-spec for human. Not wildly, just off enough, now that I was looking for it. The neck was too long. The head was a little too small. The hair didn't move like hair. It was like the old hairdos that were rendered helmet-like by tons of hairspray. No one goes into the arena in unwashed clothes and done-up hair. It had to be the natural state of things.
One human, one not. I thought about that as I planned my escape. I had enough. It was time for the better part of valor. As my friend Pete used to say: “It’s time to make like a shepherd and get the flock out of here.” The fight had their attention, so I could move with a little less stealth and a lot more speed. By the time I got to the surface, I was nearly acclimated to the smell below. Fresh air smelled wrong, even after such a brief exposure. I guess that’s how sewer workers manage. Either that or I inherited my nose from my Great Great Uncle Roy.
Fast forwarding past the boring parts, I got home, showered three times, threw out the clothes I had worn, and wrote up some quick notes to go with the pictures. I was feeling good by the time I stepped outside of my apartment. I had found ET. I wasn’t going to be worried about employment ever again. My personal story just got a happily ever after.
That feeling was short lived, as two burly men grabbed me and stuffed me into a limo. I thought this only happened in the movies.
“What did you see?” asked the taller of the two men crammed in the backseat with me.
“Bum fight. I’m a fact checker, so I checked it out,” I said, as calmly as I could.
“No, you didn't,” said the other.
I wondered what they wanted me to say. The normal answer would be “I didn't see anything,” assuming that they were working for the ‘fight commissioner’ and not simply curious. This wasn’t the normal case. Half the combatants weren’t human. I tried the normal answer anyway.
“My mistake. I didn't see anything. You can erase the pictures on my phone and I won’t have any way to be a threat to you,” I said.
“Pictures?” They said it together.
They nearly fought over my phone as I held it out to them. The shorter one took it, looked, and then passed it to the taller one. They looked at me like I was from outer space. I started to realize who I was dealing with; they were UFO nuts.
Believers. I guess I can’t think of them as nuts when I was the one with proof of aliens. They weren't here to erase the pictures or to hurt me. They were after the truth they wanted so desperately to find. It would all be so pathetic if they didn't happen to be right. At first, they were disappointed. As much as they wanted to see, they didn't understand the story the pictures told. I pointed out the green tinge in the blood and explained it. It got them excited.
I knew what I needed to say next to get everything I wanted from the situation.
“So, want to go rescue the aliens?”
* * *
They let me off a block from work. We
had plans to meet on Tuesday, the day Joe Gibson believed would be the next scheduled fight. I told Walt the story checked out and I gave him copies of some of the pictures and one of the videos. I kept the ‘alien blood’ pictures to myself. Getting my ‘kidnappers’ to leave the pictures in my sole possession was some of the fastest talking I had ever done. If I hadn't, they would have posted them before I could get credit for them. I wanted this byline. I wanted to be the acknowledged photographer on this one. It was the guarantee that I would have a job for the rest of my life.
I spent the next six days preparing myself and planning the raid with my new-found cohorts. For sad little nut burgers, they were well funded and well equipped. I didn't realize how often NRA and UFO fit the same people. From my contacts with the police, I knew that there would be a raid staged at ten o’clock to stop the bum fight which our reporter had outed in his story. Walt had agreed not to run the piece until the raid was over, so there would be no warning for the sewer rats responsible. I got my team ready to hit the place at nine sharp. With any luck, we could get the aliens clear and drive the organizers straight into the arms of the police. Save the folks in blue a dry cleaning bill and save the intergalactic visitors at the same time.
I didn't eat the day of the raid. I was sure I was de-acclimated by now. Sadly, I was right. The smell hit me worse this time. We came in through a more active part of the sewer. There were six of us. I was far and away the smallest, despite being average height. I was also the least armed, having elected to go without weapons. That put me three guns behind the next least equipped.
I looked my companions over. Bob and Ollie were the two from the back of the limo. Of the other three, I only knew Kate’s name. She was very motherly looking. If I had to guess, I’d think she was nearly my parent’s age. She stepped to the front of the group and – in a whisper – made everyone double check their equipment.
"Well begun is half done. Aristotle said that," she said when Ollie looked impatiently at her.