The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit

by Michael Anderle

  Seriously? Why won’t the $69.99 pair at (insert store here) work just fine? It’s a few pieces of leather held together by a pretty buckle. Can’t be $10.00 in materials cost, right?

  I’m almost fifty. I’ve learned just enough to know and I’ve gotten rid of enough assholious to keep my mouth shut.

  Also, I will remember this story when I buy that next expensive Apple product.

  Heck, I should write off the shoe cost(s) as research for Bethany Anne… BOOYAH!

  Problem solved.

  Snicker… Save your time IRS people, I’m not actually going to do that. But it is funny as hell.

  See you next month!

  Michael Anderle

  Meeting Room, QBS ArchAngel

  “Fuck them…” she whispered into the silence.

  The men and women in the QBS ArchAngel didn’t breathe, didn’t flinch.

  Their Queen was speaking.

  Bethany Anne turned towards her people. She had been gazing at the giant screen showing Earth hanging in the expanse of space beneath them. Her eyes narrowed, glowing red, her lips compressed. “They have attacked us for three solid years. They have hunted people only tangentially connected to me through companies I no longer own.” She looked around at the faces of those watching her. “They have attacked some of your families, and I have tried to be understanding, to offer the other cheek.”

  Bethany Anne twisted her head left, then right. The sound of her bones popping loud in the room’s silence both times.

  She continued, “We have taken care of terrorists, saved people and countries from the evil men and women in the night, never asking for accolades, support or even a fucking thank you.” Her voice turned to ice, cutting through the room. “They keep pushing and pushing and pushing.” She paused a moment and exhaled. “I’ve tried civil.” Her eyes flashed red as she whispered, “No… More…”

  “ADAM!” Bethany Anne’s voice cracked out the command.

  “Yes?” his voice came through the large room’s speakers.

  Bethany Anne looked up slightly. “Push the command out to my people. We aren’t taking any more shit from anyone on Earth. The Etheric Empire has officially had fucking enough, thank you very much.”

  Bethany Anne nodded sharply and started walking crisply towards the exit. “Admiral Thomas?” she called out. His reply was immediate. She continued, “Make sure the captains of the fleet know that weapons are hot. I’m not taking another bullshit move like they just pulled. Any country tries that again, and I want them to level something important, got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Admiral Thomas replied as she exited the room.

  Admiral Thomas’s left hand clicked a button on his lapel as he started walking towards the door. “This is Admiral Thomas to all captains. Weapons are hot, I repeat… weapons are hot.”

  The men and women in the room filed out behind their Queen.

  She had tried to take into account what drove those on Earth. But no one understood that all of Bethany Anne’s reactions to the attacks against her and her people had been substantially restrained.

  Now, the gloves were coming off…

  Author’s Notes, Frank Kurns Stories of the UnknownWorld: The Time of Patience

  My name, my full name, is Franklyn Adam Kurns and I am over one hundred years old. I have seen more shit in my life than any human could be expected to behold... and stay sane.

  I started out in the military before going into a covert organization to help hide the reality that there were others, living among us, that were the real monsters in the night.

  I used my position to help one group of these monsters, so I thought, against another. You see, at that time I thought our folklore about vampires and werewolves was real. I had no idea at the time we were all human.

  Just some humans had been subjected to advanced genetic modifications, often accompanied by a very hot temper.

  The Time of Patience, the series of books that I’m going to release with other authors, happened during the last three years. The years since the big dustup in the Antarctic.

  I’m sure you’ve heard about it.

  Depending on who you listen to, TQB was down in Antarctica stealing old Nazi technology, or we attacked the US Navy (we did not, we protected them no thanks to the ungrateful asses in the brass) or we were working on communicating with aliens to take over the world. (Seriously? Who comes up with this shit?)

  We have tried to stay off the world’s radar for the last three years. The reason being, we needed to build our own house, so to speak. One of them is inside an asteroid, so it is kind of large.

  The need for all of the technology and ships is to protect the Earth against aliens, aliens who want to come and subjugate mankind. So that whole story of us bringing aliens to Earth is complete lunacy.

  During the Time of Patience, we visited Earth pretty often. But rarely did you hear anything about it as we stayed out of the news to the best of our ability. The few times we made the news was due to our Academy students who went off the reservation. Just like any kids in any country since… ever.

  I’ll have a few books out about that, soon enough.

  I am about to upload these final books before we transverse through the Yollins’ annex gate.

  Unfortunately, there were those on Earth who pushed Bethany Anne too far and struck out one time too many. For the last three years, she had not returned their fights as they warranted. Unfortunately, they thought she was weak and unwilling to fight.

  A toothless nag, some thought her.

  Now, I am sure, most people are aware of just how wrong that supposition truly was. However, for you to see both sides of the story, I’m going to relate what happened before the chaos and the carnage.

  You can choose to believe whatever side you wish, but I am going to deliver the video proof that goes along with my assertions. Further, I will include a lot of additional supporting documentation, WikiLeaks style, that goes along with the videos.

  I suspect a lot of this information will be quashed, as very powerful people will not wish this information to be out in the public domain. I hope others decide to copy the data, and keep it living as a testament against the powerful elite who believe the common man lacks common sense and is incapable of seeing the self-centered bullshit they pull.

  What you do with the information I provide, I leave up to you.

  I hope that my trust in the basic righteousness of humanity is well deserved.

  Now, for the events leading up to the divorce.

  Ad Aeternitatem,

  Franklyn Adam Kurns

  T-minus forty-eight hours before we cross the line.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Dulce Lake, New Mexico, USA

  Patrick Brown, the principal overseer of the operations side of Majestic 12, nodded to Dr. Eva Hocks as the two of them met in front of the elevator that went down to floor two-six.

  Usually, the good doctor and Patrick would trade jibes with each other, but never on quarterly meeting day.

  “I hate this,” she whispered to him, as they both turned their keys and punched the separate buttons for the elevator to come up and get them.

  Patrick kept his voice low. “This time Eva, I’m completely in agreement. Whatever the benefits we gain from the technological advances is certainly offset by having to deal with them,” he nodded at the elevator doors, still closed.

  Eva breathed in as they heard the elevator arrive, and the doors opened to admit them. Both wrinkled their noses as the smell from section two wafted up the elevator shaft. It was unpleasant and slightly nasty.

  It was alien, Patrick decided.

  Patrick waved his hand for Eva to go first. She rolled her eyes. “Sure, be a gentleman when we enter the elevator to go down to the belly of the beast, why don’t you?”

  Patrick stepped in behind her and turned, sliding his key in and turning it before punching in the code to go down.

  The doors closed.

  “Well,�
� he said as they waited to go down the two hundred feet. “I don’t mind being a gentleman, but that puts me into specimen category with you. I figured out a while back that specimen was a bad situation where you’re concerned.”

  “Is that why you are always a pain in the ass?” Eva looked over, not sure if Patrick was giving her a hard time again, or being honest.

  “Um,” he paused before shrugging. “That’s probably truer than I care to admit, really.” He didn’t return her look.

  Interesting, she thought, he seems uncomfortable. I wonder what else causes this to occur?

  “You’re doing it again,” he said flatly.

  “What?”

  “You’re studying me, again.” This time he did look over at her, annoyance written on his face.

  Eva thought back to what she was thinking and closed her eyes. “You can take the scientist out of the lab…”

  The elevator stopped, and the doors opened as Patrick finished the phrase, “But you can’t take the lab out of the scientist.” This time, he stepped forward and asked over his shoulder, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Patrick stopped and waited just long enough for Eva to catch up before resuming his walk. “I mean, I get when you say you can take the guy out of the fight, but not the fight out of the guy or something similar, but a lab?”

  Eva shrugged, desiring to chat even less as they went further into level two-six.

  “Lord, I hope we don’t have to speak with Ztopik,” Patrick looked behind them, talking softly. “The little guys are bad enough, but looking up into his pink eyes just freaks me the fuck out.”

  “Would you please,” Eva hissed, “not speak about him down here?” Patrick pursed his lips and nodded. After another two minutes of walking down the hall hewn from rock but having totally smooth walls, Patrick and Eva came to a door. The rising portal was a little taller than most human doors would be.

  Patrick nodded to the two three and a half foot tall, gray aliens beside the door. Neither wore anything but a holster for their small weapon. The weapons looked like a black flashlight with three small buttons, each altering the level of destruction.

  The guns set to level one sucked. Three buttons and it was turned to max, supposedly wiping your atoms from existence. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the little guys didn’t have much in the way of self-awareness. Most grays were hive-minded to a superior. For now, Patrick had only ever met one superior.

  They pushed the door open and inside the ten foot room, walls and ceiling painted white, stood Ztopik.

  Eva pushed down her anxiety and smiled cordially, even if Ztopik’s pink eyes always caused her confusion. She thought bunny rabbits, with piranha teeth, whenever they had to come down and have their quarterlies with him or his delegate. He had no teeth that she had ever been able to discern in the small slit of a mouth that graced his face.

  “Welcome, Patrick, Overseer, and Eva, Lead Scientist,” he said. At over seven feet tall, his thin body barely had enough shoulders to drape the silvery robe over without it sliding off.

  “Hello Ztopik, how do the studies go?” Patrick asked as he and Eva took two chairs around a white table, leaving the modified seat for Ztopik to use when he chose to sit down.

  “As always, effectively if more slowly than I would prefer,” he said in his slightly musical voice. Ztopik waited for them to sit before he pulled out the last chair and sat as well, adjusting his robe underneath himself. He looked back at the two humans, his eyes never blinking. “I understand that there are happenings up on the surface?”

  Oh shit, Patrick thought. He had hoped to keep everything about TQB out of Ztopik’s awareness. There had been a critical incident in 1979 in these two-levels with hundreds of people killed. Killed easily, in fact. Patrick’s goal was a delicate balance of allowing necessary evil to occur to acquire the technologies needed from Ztopik and his people down here in these levels.

  “There are always happenings, but which one are you asking about?” Eva interrupted, her voice cracking. Ztopik ignored her vocal weaknesses, he was amused at how much she feared these meetings. Fear is the ultimate indication you are a slave, not a master.

  Ztopik feared nothing on this planet.

  “I understand that the humans who have expressed they were in communications with aliens almost a hundred of your years ago have been communicating now with outside emissaries?” The hairless white face turned back and forth between the two humans.

  “Yessss,” Patrick agreed, drawing out his answer to give himself time to think where Ztopik was going with this.”

  “I want one of your people in the meeting,” the alien finished.

  “Why? Isn’t that dangerous?” Eva asked, her curiosity driving her fear to the side.

  Ztopik turned and stared at Eva for a moment, prolonging the silence. The little power play irritated Patrick, but he and Eva had already argued about her fear for years, and it got him nowhere with her. Ztopik liked to tweak Eva.

  Maybe it gave him an alien version of a hard on. Who could say?

  Eva mumbled something unintelligible, and Ztopik turned his head slightly before answering, “No, we have the ability to block Dr. Abesemmins memory of this location, and give him a proper cover story, so long as we have the time to do this.”

  “You want Abesemmins to go?” Patrick blurted out. Of all the members of the human team, Abesemmins was the least likely to want to do this.

  “Of course,” Ztopik answered Patrick. “He has a good cover, correct?”

  “Well, yes,” Patrick said. Hell, they all had good covers with the government.

  “So, my people will protect his mind, and give instructions on what we wish to know from those who provided the technology. We shall find out if there is anyone here in this world giving her the information she has, or not.”

  “What people?” Patrick was confused. As far as he knew, Ztopik was a singular leader. He wasn’t aware of other aliens like Ztopik on Earth. Patrick wasn’t even sure if Ztopik was a proper emissary, or if he was his race’s version of a splinter group. If there were more of his kind here on Earth, that might be a problem.

  “That is not known at this moment, Overseer Patrick.”

  Ahhhh, shit. Ztopik was using his title now. That was equivalent to a parent saying a child’s full name when they called.

  “Okay. How can we help?” Patrick asked.

  “I thought this was obvious?” Ztopik answered. “I wish Dr. Abesemmins to come down here, and then go on this trip with the American government to Schwabenland to speak with Maria Orsitsch. He will ask certain questions, and depending on how she replies, I will know if we have a problem.”

  “What problem?” Eva blurted out.

  Patrick raised an eyebrow, what had her on edge?

  “A name that will mean nothing to you, Dr. Eva Hocks.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not,” Patrick temporized, trying to get Ztopik’s attention away from Eva. Her interruptions were annoying him. Like a cat that was disgusted with a mouse trying to fight, instead of fleeing.

  “Go on, Overseer Patrick.”

  “We hear a lot in all sorts of circles. Perhaps if we know this name, we will either recognize it or make sure to tell our people and our contacts to listen for it?”