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by Al Macy

  Charli kicked him under the table. Offenbacher hemmed and hawed and then left the room.

  Jake looked at the others. “Haven’t accomplished anything? Guess he didn’t know about our meditation-assistance device?”

  Charli tapped the table. “But we have to admit he’s right. What have we accomplished?”

  Jake held up a finger. “And don’t forget the quantum garbage can.”

  “Come on, be serious, Jake.” Charli looked at him.

  “Okay, seriously, you’re right that we haven’t accomplished anything, but look at what we’re up against. Taking over was clearly Cronkite’s plan right from the start.”

  “What can we do?” Guccio asked.

  Jake turned to him. “I don’t know, but I’m not going to just give up. We’ve got to fight him, but I’m not sure how. Here’s something we missed. Did you notice how he killed Dane?”

  Charli snapped at him. “Yes, I was there. What are you saying?”

  Jake put his hand on Charli’s forearm. “I’m saying this: He didn’t blow up the White House. He didn’t kill him with a death ray, he used a tractor beam.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “That tells me something important. The sphere doesn’t have offensive weapons. Yes, he had the nanobot-emitter things, but maybe those are for killing pests.”

  Guccio rubbed his chin. “I’m not following.”

  “Maybe on the planet that the sphere came from, they have infestations of space-rats or something. So, the sphere has a way of sending out nanobots programmed to kill only a particular species. Maybe that’s what Cronkite used on us. The point is, it’s not a wartime weapon. It’s rat poison, but Cronkite could program it to kill us. Maybe the sphere is just a general purpose thing.”

  Charli nodded. “Not a military thing.”

  “Right.” Jake continued. “It only has things with peaceful uses, but Cronkite has used them to kill. He can go fast, he’s got bug spray, and he’s got a tractor beam. Where are the photon torpedoes? Where are the phaser beams? Unfortunately, even the peaceful tools of this advanced civilization are too much for us.”

  Guccio still had his arms crossed. “What about the EMP thing?”

  Jake tapped his chin. “Well, yeah, good point.”

  “So how does that help us?” asked Charli. “Even the sphere’s defensive systems are too good for us. It’s too fast, and even when it’s not moving we can’t shoot it down. We tried that when it met you. We hit it with everything we had. It didn’t even sneeze. So how does your great insight help?”

  Jake stared down at the table. “I don’t know.”

  “And no help from DJ1,” Guccio said.

  “Right.” Charli nodded. “It just sits there. It’s either not aware of what’s happening, doesn’t care, or intentionally doesn’t interfere.”

  Guccio stood up. “For whatever good it will do, until someone says otherwise, I’m still the secretary of defense. I’m assuming the voted-off-the-island thing doesn’t refer to me. I’m sure the joint chiefs aren’t going to just lay down their arms. Everyone think of something we can do before we’re kicked out.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  June 12, 2019

  “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed in the view of the foolish to be dead, and their passing away was thought an affliction, and their going forth from us, utter destruction.”

  Jake listened to the sounds of the reverend’s voice but his attention wandered. During longer pauses in the speech, sounds of water dripping off the dark green awning caught his attention. Charli held his left arm and slumped against his side. He looked through the rain at the cars parked on the grass. An aide hurried through them to the edge of the field. Something’s up.

  Jake nudged Charli and tilted his head toward the aide, who was now pacing back and forth between two cars. She nodded.

  The second the service was over, the aide strode over to Jake and handed him a piece of paper. Jake held it low so Charli could read it, too.

  Dear Citizens of My Earthly Domain:

  To celebrate the occasion of your new world order and the transition to a more orderly form of government, I offer you a splendid exhibition. I, Sir Cronkite, the new number one top leader of your planet, will engage in a hand-to-hand noble duel to the death with Earth’s number one problem-solver, Jake Corby.

  This event will take place in two days, at noon on June fourteenth, at the fifty-yard line of Fedex Field.

  No weapons of any kind will be permitted.

  No one will be allowed on the field except for Mr. Corby and Yours Truly. Spectators will be allowed in the stands. This exhibition will be the first of many that will entertain and amuse you.

  Sincerely,

  Sir Cronkite

  “Perfect,” Jake said.

  Charli blew her nose and looked up at Jake. “Why would he do this? It sounds like some stupid Star Trek episode.”

  “He’s become more and more obsessed with me. He’s letting that take over his judgment. I can be bait.” Jake opened a black umbrella and they started across the field.

  “Yeah, well, we tried that already and didn’t get anywhere.”

  “This is different. To fight me, he has to get out of the sphere. I haven’t seen any evidence he has portable weapons and I’m pretty sure that he himself has no special powers.” Jake stopped walking. “Four of his appendages are pretty flimsy, and he’s small. Maybe there’s a chance I could—”

  “Forget it. There’s no way he’s going to let himself be that vulnerable. He’s close to achieving his objective, I’m sure he has a way of keeping himself safe. Have you got some kind of plan?”

  Jake stared off into space. “We need to get the twins back here.”

  * * *

  June 13, 2019

  Jake ran the meeting in the White House’s deep underground command center. “This is our last chance. Even if Cronkite does something stupid in the future, we won’t be around to take advantage of it. Offenbacher has taken care of that.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck and paced in front of the room.

  “I still don’t get it,” Young said. “This duel is too good to be true. Why offer us this opportunity? Why would he even get out of his ship?”

  “He’s left his ship before. At my house.” Charli blushed.

  “It’s just too hokey.” Young tapped his pen on the table.

  Jake said, “Cronkite has been watching too many movies. On our trip he talked about noble duels. He mentioned the fight between King Arthur and the Black Knight.”

  “From Monty Python?” Charli’s eyes were wide. “Where King Arthur cuts off all the knight’s limbs?”

  “Exactly. And that was right before I pulled off one of his arms.” Jake chuckled.

  “Plus, we’ve known all along that he has some kind of hard-on for you, Jake.” Guccio said.

  “All because of that press release that Charli wrote.” Young removed a bit of lint from his tie. “The number-one-problem-solver thing.”

  “Right. And that’s a good thing.” Jake said.

  Guccio paused and raised his eyebrows. “Do you think it could be an actual sexual thing? Seriously. It must get pretty lonely in that sphere.”

  “No. If you’re serious, he had me in that sphere with him for a while, and he didn’t have any special requests. I don’t think I’m his type.”

  Charli squinted at Jake. “You have an idea, don’t you?”

  He barely glanced at her. “Let’s brainstorm our options. Seth, what about the information that the biologists got from analyzing the limb I broke off? Do they think he can regenerate it?”

  “We’re sure he can,” McGraw said. “The question is, how long will it take him?”

  * * *

  The night before the duel, after dinner, Charli watched Jake talking with Sophia. This could be the last night I have with him. She whispered in his ear. He nodded, and the three of them, Jake, Charli, and Sophia, heade
d to the family room for some quality time.

  They spent an hour on the floor playing a cut-throat game of Operation and then retired to the couch. Sophia brought over her two favorite books, Blueberries for Sal and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Jake sat in the middle, and Sophia and Charli snuggled up on each side. He had his arms around both of them, and Sophia turned the pages.

  It was so cozy. Charli didn’t want it to end. This is how she wanted to spend her life. Wasn’t this better than being a top adviser? So much for feminism. She had almost lost Jake and she had lost Dane. She didn’t want to think about what might happen tomorrow. She looked up at Jake and he pulled her closer.

  Sophia drifted off before the end of Meatballs, and Jake picked her up without waking her. He carried Sophia to her bed, and they both kissed her on the forehead. They said goodnight to Valeria and walked to Jake’s room, the Pineapple Bedroom.

  After Jake closed the door, Charli hugged him and put her forehead against his chest. “Jake, I’m sorry.”

  “You mean for cheating at Operation?”

  She smiled and punched his back with the side of her fist. “Stop. I’m sorry I didn’t support you. I should have been on your side. No matter what. I’m a flawed person. I look for imperfections in people, and I see them. I cut people off. I couldn’t commit to you because of the imperfections I saw. I won’t make that mistake again. You can’t keep your mouth shut. That’s not such an important flaw. Even if you had made the Bozo remark out loud, I should have forgiven you.”

  Charli tilted her head up and Jake kissed her. He reached out and turned off the light. The room was illuminated only by the light of the half moon through the sheer curtains.

  Jake kissed the top of her head. “It reminds me of the joke about the wife who couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”

  Charli’s head jerked back and she looked him in the eyes. “Seriously? You can joke about this? Really?”

  “No, of course not. It just popped into my head.”

  “Are you testing me or something?” She shook her head and put it back against his chest.

  “No, sorry. Forget I said anything.”

  They stood for a full minute, lost in their thoughts.

  “Okay, let’s hear it,” Charli said, “but make it snappy. There is something wrong with you, Jake. You are one flawed human being. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Charli. I have since the plane ride from Mexico City.”

  Charli hugged him tighter and breathed in the scent of his body. “Can we get the joke out of the way now, please?”

  Jake cleared his throat. “This police officer pulls over a speeding car. The officer says, ‘I clocked you at seventy miles per hour, sir.’

  “The driver says, ‘Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at sixty. Maybe your radar gun needs calibrating.’

  “Not looking up from her knitting, the wife in the passenger seat says, ‘Now don't be silly dear, you know that this car doesn't have cruise control.’

  “As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls, ‘Can't you please keep your mouth shut for once?’

  “The wife smiles and says, ‘You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did.’

  “As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, ‘Damn it, woman, can't you keep your mouth shut?’

  “The officer frowns and says, ‘And I notice that you're not wearing your seat belt, sir. That’s an automatic seventy-five-dollar fine.’

  “The driver says, ‘Yeah, well you see, officer, I had it on but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket.’

  “The wife says, ‘Now, dear, you know very well that you didn’t have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you’re driving.’

  “As the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver turns to his wife and barks, ‘Why don’t you shut the hell up!’

  “The officer leans down, looks over at the woman, and asks, ‘Does your husband always talk to you this way, ma’am?’

  “She says, ‘Only when he's been drinking.’”

  Charli chuckled, shook her head against his chest and said, “No more jokes.”

  She unbuttoned his shirt from the top, kissing him as she went. She unbuckled his belt and pushed against his chest with her forehead so that he fell backward onto the bed. An image of her ramming Boondoggle with her head in the Oval Office came to mind. She smiled. This had much of the same warm feeling. Jake was less furry, of course.

  In the morning she was still cuddled against him. At times her mind had been so overwhelmed, she’d even had warm, cozy hallucinations. She saw the two of them snuggling under a down comforter in a mountain cabin. She didn’t want it to end.

  * * *

  June 14, 2019

  “And remember, don’t enter the stadium until a few minutes after noon. I can hold him off for five minutes.” At least I think I can. Five minutes isn’t very long. Jake clapped the twins on their shoulders, and they broke the huddle. The twins headed back to their DC lab.

  He walked over to Charli. “Shall we get going?”

  “Did you say goodbye to Sophia?”

  Jake sighed. “I did. I don’t want to think about that now. Let’s go. I want to be there early so I can get a feeling for the place.”

  Charli tilted her head to one side. “You’ve got a plan.”

  He put his lips against her ear. “I can’t talk about it. Kiss me.”

  She shook her head, pulled him down, and gave him a warm kiss. He looked forward to many more.

  They took the presidential SUVs over to the stadium, and Jake walked out onto the field at 11:40 a.m. The sun was shining, but it was cool enough to feel like fall. Jake was talking to Charli when a glass-like wall appeared between them. Like an inverted glass mixing bowl with Jake on the inside and everyone else on the outside.

  The transparent dome started expanding. Charli and the other advisers and technicians were pushed toward the sidelines, sliding and somersaulting like tumbleweeds in front of a snowplow. When it was covering most of the field, it stopped.

  With a boom and a contrail, Cronkite’s sphere slipped through the dome as if it were a soap bubble and smashed into the ground at the thirty-five yard line. Jake, the sphere, and Cronkite were now isolated inside dome.

  Jake looked at his watch. 11:45. It’s too soon! He glanced over at Charli on the sidelines. The wall of the dome came between them. He looked up at it. It was like a bubble! Adina Golubkhov was right after all. He pointed up and looked at Charli.

  She nodded. Jake saw that she got it. The man she loved was in a bubble.

  Cronkite’s sphere opened, and “Let’s get ready to RUM-BLLLLL” boomed out over the crowd. Although Fedex Field could hold seventy-nine thousand fans, only ten thousand brave spectators were present in the stands. Brave or foolish. This was ground zero. Bombers flew overhead.

  Cronkite came charging out of the sphere and ran around the perimeter of the dome at a clip that was much faster than Jake would have expected. Jake checked his watch again. Would the twins know the contest had started early?

  Jake looked for weaknesses. Did one of the delicate cricket appendages look smaller than the other three? Was that a wound on the side of his ladybug-like body?

  Cronkite changed direction and came directly at Jake. Fast. Jake set himself. This is it. Kill him and the world will be saved. Do or die. Got to grab a cricket arm. Cronkite bowled into him at full speed, and Jake was thrown into the air. He came down heavily on the shoulder that had been injured when rescuing Sophia. The pain knifed through him. I’ll be ready next time.

  Cronkite made another fast circuit waving a few of his arms. Was that his victory lap?

  Jake overplayed his shoulder pain and put on an exaggerated limp, bending over like an old man. He faced away from Cronkite as the creature made his next
run. If I can break off a cricket limb …

  The instant Cronkite arrived, Jake dropped flat on his back. Cronkite trampled over him. Jake reached in to grab one of the fragile appendages. There was nothing there. Cronkite must have retracted those vulnerable parts the way a turtle pulls his legs into his shell. But Jake’s left hand brushed against the body and came away covered in the same liquid that had come out of the arm he’d pulled off in the sphere. Blood from the fight in the sphere? Could he exploit that weakness? His drop and roll trick probably wouldn’t work next time.

  He looked carefully as Cronkite rested and then started another circuit. Was he traveling slower? Not much.

  On the next pass, Jake ran. He couldn’t go as fast as Cronkite. It was like being chased by a dog. Okay, that’s enough mock cowardice. He dropped to all fours and braced himself, so that his back was low. Cronkite’s armored legs hit him hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but Cronkite tumbled over him and rolled along the ground, curled up like a pill bug.

  Jake jumped after him and reached in when the underside of the bug was facing the sky. His hand felt the hard exoskeleton of a delicate leg, and he latched on and pulled. Snap. It came right off, and a gusher of funky brownish liquid geysered into the air. But one of the strong legs hit Jake in the temple, and he blacked out for a second. Or was it longer?

  Jake got to his knees and then pushed to a standing position, pulling in ragged breaths. Where’s Cronkite? Jake spun around and dizziness washed over him. Cronkite was behind him. His victory circuit was slower now, his circle smaller. The flow of brown blood had stopped completely, but the wound on his side was still oozing.

  Jake rolled his sore arm and tracked the position of the oozing sore. It seemed to be on Cronkite’s right front as he moved forward. Perfect. Bring it on.

  Cronkite came in for his next pass. It was slower. Good. No more pretense. Jake got in a wrestler’s pose, not taking his eyes off the wound. When Cronkite reached him, he threw all his weight into a jab of the wound, while simultaneously trying to reach up underneath and find another cricket arm.

  He scored a satisfying direct hit on the lesion but had no luck with grabbing an arm. Cronkite trampled over him, landing another devastating blow to Jake’s abdomen, then came back immediately. Jake struggled to breathe. The alien popped high into the air like a jumping spider and came down over Jake’s head, pulling it in to his underside with the four strong running legs and the three remaining cricket arms. His face was wedged against hundreds of worm-like cilia. Each one felt like an earthworm, only slimier. They were running frantically over his face, probing into his nose, mouth and ears.