Other Aliens

by Bradford Morrow

  We smoke more scatter. Except for Flower. She shoots a clothes hanger full of it. Does it pretty good in the moonlight too, though she complains a lot. Her face becomes smooth as water, like someone has taken all her pain away, though you can see the knot of chalk working on her insides, burning her up inside. Jeezer, he puts his arm around her to show he really cares and all but he’s just hanging on, hoping maybe Flower will lend him her shooting kit.

  Syrup says, “Let’s light a fire on account that big fat moron Freddy ain’t around.”

  Princess goes, “Let’s light one up for our new friend, Lollipop.”

  And everyone says all together, “Yeah, a fire for Lollipop.”

  We gather wood and paper and light a fire on the shore of the melt. Princess gets the idea that we need more wood. I run amongst the broken houses, scrapping wood, building the fire so high that it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, burning red yellow hot, tossing out all kinds of sparks. Pretty soon the whole crew has gone fire bug. And everyone’s screaming and shouting. I’m shouting the loudest, saying, “Hell yeah!” over and over like a thousand million times.

  And then the sirens. When I look up on the headlands, I see they have like six or seven cop cars up there. There is a second drone hovering in the air above, whirring and clacking, cranking its old polymer wings. A Van Breugel Terminator, armed with air-to-ground ricin flechettes, one of the few that made it past the pulse, still going after all these years.

  Princess shouts, “Run for your lives!”

  We go running down the melt, howling like cats, knowing if we go far enough they won’t come down on us. Because, gem, cops hate to run. They are passing too like the rest of us. No perfect GM amongst them except at the top. Besides, even this group is radio, so the cops won’t try more than they have to. And the Van Breugel won’t arm. It’s too dangerous for the cops to think about using it.

  I run the fastest down the melt, my feet going kish, kish, kish in the sand. I’m all “Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah!” shouting right up to the sky. That old Van Breugel Terminator drone is nowhere around. Probably off tracking no one to nowhere. I feel more alive than I have ever felt in my life. Like I’m a mile above the ground, flying, looking down on the world. When I turn to see if anyone is following, I see I’m alone.

  I go back up to the park and see someone’s jacked my stuff. I don’t care. I’ve been here before. You take from me, I just take more from you later on. Alone again. Shit, the story of my life. So I check the melt. The waves are coming in roller slow. You can see all kinds of drunks and drifters crawling amongst the buildings. It’s like the waves are tossing them up, pulling their shaggy forms out of the sea. I can smell the creosote coming off the pilings on the pier, the rot of a thousand sardines taken by domoic acid. Wrong place, wrong tide. It’s a warm night despite the fog, perfect right. Someone out on the beach is singing over the rollers. A woman or a guy with a high voice. By the tone of the voice I know they’ll die soon, are calling out to the melt, wishing they could stop things. After that I guess I blink. When I look up it’s around midnight. The rain’s coming down. It’s going tink, tink, tink on my forehead. I blink again and it’s four. There’s a purple blue glow in the night sky.

  So I walk down the melt, climb up on the roof of the Surfari Motel. It’s quiet calm up there, still warm on the tar room. I wait, listen to the night, the waves breaking.

  I wake up and see this dude standing over me, his big old belly blotching out the sun like a nuclear bomb and I figure, you know, like he’s the building manager. You can see the vibe: he’s the little-minded kind, how every moment of every day is connected to his big, fat gut, which is connected to paychecks, pizza, beer, porn, and poker. And the way he’s staring down at me through his Bausch & Lomb Pure Vision Processors, giving me the YOU ARE THE MOST MEANINGLESS PIECE OF TURD ON THE EARTH eye, I see perfect straight that I have been tumbled by the mega-GM-shithead. So I’m all, “Sorry, mister, we just came up here and fell asleep, me and my buddies from the troop. See, we’re Boy Scouts, here for the weekend. We didn’t mean any harm. We’ll get off your roof right away.”

  The big nuclear bomb looks around, sees no one else but me, says, “What troop is that?”

  “Fifteen, twenty-six,” I roll off like I’ve already said it fifty million times before.

  “Oh, really? Fifteen, twenty-six?”

  “Yep. Salinas.”

  “That so? I never heard of that troop, sport. Boy Scout troops usually only have two or three numbers. But maybe they got new numbers. Or maybe you’re making that part up just like a second ago when you mentioned you weren’t alone.”

  I digest that the fat guy has more brains than I’ve allowed. He’s probably seen a hundred punks like me sleeping on his roof. I’m like, “Sorry, dude. I ain’t with the Boy Scouts. I just needed a place to rest. You know, ever since my folks passed away. I can understand if you want to call the cops or something. I mean, I didn’t want to upset anyone. I’ll be moving right out of here.”

  Mega-GM thinks on this for a moment, then he goes, “Sport, I ain’t who you think I am.”

  He doesn’t have to say it again. I mean, I probably knew who it was at first glance, like exactly when I opened my eyes. But sometimes your head lies to you, tells you things you want to hear. I cut right to the play. I’m all, “You’re Fat Freddy.”

  “Good guess,” says Fat Freddy.

  “What you want?”

  He goes, “Princess sent me up here to get you.”

  “Why isn’t he here?” I ask.

  Fat Freddy says, “Sport, he’s down at the car. Says he needs to talk to you.”

  I’m like, “How come he can’t come up?”

  Fat Freddy nods, says, “Come on over here and I’ll show you.”

  I follow that fat jerk to the edge of the roof.

  “Down there, sport,” says Freddy pointing with his lip to a junky old van he’s got parked half up on the curve. You can hear all kinds of dogs barking in there. “He’s watching my dogs.”

  “How come I can’t see him?” I ask.

  “Because we’re up here. He’s down there.”

  We go down to the van. Princess is sitting in the passenger’s seat, smoking a cigarette, all calm like, you know, swishing the smoke around his face. He’s got on a pair of Ray-Bans. I can see the processors blinking on the lenses. And he’s like, “Hey gem, sorry to wake you up like this.”

  I shrug, ask, “Dude, what’s up?”

  Princess takes about ten seconds before he answers. “Well, remember that fire we had the other night?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s … uh … kind of hard to explain without getting technical. But you messed Jeezer up,” says Princess.

  “Really?”

  Princess takes a drag on his cigarette, blows out the smoke, says, “Well, what do you think about that?”

  “About what?”

  Princess nods, says, “Don’t you think you kind of owe me for it?”

  “Owe for what?”

  “Well, like for our medical bills. The scatter and all. And the cops, what they did to Jeezer.” He kind of half winces, like all of a sudden he’s not up for what’s coming. His hands are trembling. His face is getting all blue. Then his voice goes up an octave. “Well, you know we’re crew and all. The crew helps out the crew. Rule of the street.”

  Fat Freddy says, “Yeah, that’s just what I was saying on the way over. Ain’t that right, Princess?”

  “Yeah,” he squeaks. “Crew helps crew.”

  “I’m not on Jeezer’s crew, Princess,” I say. “I’ve never been on Jeezer’s crew, not in a million light years.”

  “That’s just what Princess said you would say,” goes Fat Freddy. “Like you think you’re not responsible.”

  I say, “Take your hands off me, asshole.”

  Fat Freddy says, “Show some manners, little radio.”

  I’m all, “Don’t touch me.”

  He’s all, “Tr
ust me, you’ll know when I’ll be touching you.” And that fat asshole is lifting my shirt, checking out my skin.

  “Don’t touch me,” I repeat.

  “What’s this? You got melanoma burns?” asks Fat Freddy, surprised. “Wow, what gives, Princess? I thought you said he was clean.”

  Princess is like, “No, Freddy, that’s just the cigarettes I was telling you about. See how he’s healing already?”

  Fat Freddy smiles, says, “I guess it’s true how they say you’re the shit, ain’t it? A regular treasure.”

  Next thing I know I’m like hanging off him. Fat Freddy is a strong dude for being big and fat and useless.

  He’s all, “Don’t get me started, sport.”

  I’m like, “Fuck you, asshole.”

  He leans in close, his corny breath blowing over me. “I suggest you change your attitude. I know some people who’d love to meet you. How’s that sound? I sell you piece by piece.”

  And then that cank grinds his thumb into my armpit, right through my jacket, squibbing a nerve I never knew I had.

  I spit in his fat face, say, “This how you do it? Overpower little boys then bounty them out?”

  Fat Freddy squeezes even tighter, then says, “You probably figure I ain’t a cop or Army, so no chance of expropriation. But I got buys lined up. Merck. Phillips. Not just Europe. There are folks in Saigon and Buenos Aires bidding on you right now. Sport, you were parted out days ago. You’re just too stupid to realize it.”

  Fat Freddy pulls a counter from his pocket, flips it on. It starts crackling, then crying like a baby. “Oh Jesus, do you see that?” asks Fat Freddy. “Hotter than we thought.”

  “Yeah, like I told you,” replies Princess.

  Next Fat Freddy has my mouth pried open, is looking at my teeth and gums. “Lord, this is exceptional,” he says.

  The lenses of his Bausch & Lombs are glowing. I don’t have to be told there are bidders in many cities seeing what he is seeing. I can hear their voices whispering into his iGlasses. Fat Freddy’s saying, “Yep, yep, this one’s a viable. A damned treasure. Those previous radios couldn’t even approximate. Good job, Princess. Well done.”

  I’m about to shout out, you know, in case someone is walking by and noticing this weird shit going down. But I look around and see no one’s anywhere near. So I kick that fat cank right in the crotch. But my foot misses and I just hit slippery old fat dude flesh.

  Next thing, he’s lifting me like a foot off the ground, saying, “I got so much more you can’t even guess. I suggest you stop fighting and learn to take it.”

  So I kick again. And that cank slams my head against the van. It’s not much of a shot. Not so much pain as anguish to it. But the door goes boom, boom, boom. And he opens up the van, and I feel this hollow old drift of dread come welling up. For a second I think I’m fainting or maybe going somewhere real quick. I gasp, close my eyes, take another breath, make sure I’m not dreaming all this. When I open my eyes, there are like six dogs in there. A couple are barking. The others are huddled up, shivering, licking themselves, flashing their grills like they’re about to get shines. One is puppy fresh, this white patch of goop over one eyeball like he’s been poked something horrible. Bounty dogs. They can tell Radio City hot from a mile away. They’re chained together by this long old cable that wraps right round the inside of that van. And everything smells of danky old dog shit, dog food, dog piss, and dog breath. A few generations of dogs have gone through that van by how worn that cable is. It goes right up to the back of the passenger seat. That’s where Princess’s left hand is, lashed a couple times with cables, padlocked, hooked right up with the dogs like he’s a canine captive himself. I look at Princess. The spark’s almost like crying. He’s saying, “Come on, Lollipop, don’t make this hard.” But I’m not scared. Maybe freaked and sketching. But not scared. It’s like all of a quick sudden I’m seeing things clear as corn syrup. I have like super vision. And when Fat Freddy pulls me off the door and sets up to toss me in the back of the van, it’s like the GMer was doing me a favor. I pull rapid quick that extra-large standard screwdriver I’m holding in my back pocket, the one I use for such instances, and I make the first sticky plunge into Fat Freddy’s lard ass back. I twirl that skiv around like I’m mixing cake. I’m like, “Fuck you, you big asshole.”

  It doesn’t hurt Fat Freddy as much as I think. He just sets me down quietly, touches the hole I’ve pierced in his side, and says, “What the hell?”

  So I strike again and scud that screwdriver home into his thigh. It slips in crazy quick like it almost knows where to go, then catches on the bone. Right like that Fat Freddy is dancing around like a snake on a wire, shouting, saying, “You little fucking bastard, you fucking prick!”

  I vibe a moment on striking that spark a third time, but there isn’t any way I’m getting that screwdriver from his leg, the way he’s hopping about. So I’m good I should leave it there, seeing as he’s not coming back on me anytime soon.

  Princess says, “Kick him in the head.”

  So I kick that spark in the head. Problem is, I’m only about a fifth his size. And my rubber All-Stars just bounce right off his temple. I think maybe I should kick his arms out while he’s propping himself up. But I don’t got time to think about this because Princess goes, “Yo, let’s boost the van.”

  I skip around Fat Freddy. He makes a grab at me. Somehow I kick him hard enough so his hand is pancaked between my foot and his face. It makes a nice splatting sound. He rolls over and slips on his side and jabs that screwdriver in deeper all on his own. He lets out a wail to wake the departed. And damned if I don’t feel this great shock of energy coming into me. Like I’m getting all juiced up on seeing that spark go down. It was like a thousand million volts were zipping through my veins. And I’m clear and popping free.

  Princess is saying, “Come on, gem, we’re rolling.”

  I lean into the van, looking for something to get Princess free. I’m all, “Where’s the key?”

  “Freddy’s got them.”

  Maybe he’s down but he’s not gonna let me come in twice. So I start yanking on the cables, seeing if I can bust them from the walls. But that’s a bad idea, seeing as it’s connected to Princess’s wrist and all those dogs. They start yelping, and Princess, he’s screaming. And I’m all, “What the hell!”

  Princess says, “Ah fuck.”

  I look up and see Jeezer and Flower coming down the street. Jeezer’s face is all crusty and stitched up. And you can see it’s swollen as hell. His front teeth are broken stubs. And he’s got a line on his scalp where they shaved his head. Flower’s standing behind him. She doesn’t look so hot in the light of day, her oversized stompers all dirty and greased up, scary as ever. Jeezer, he waves a tire iron in the air, whistles through his busted mouth, saying, “Bounty time.”

  I turn around and run behind the van towards Fat Freddy. The bounty hunter’s already up. He’s got that driver sticking out of his leg and he’s coming at me sideways. No way I can take Jeezer and Flower and Fat Freddy, no matter what those thousand million volts jizzing through my veins are telling me. So I run back around the van. Jeezer, he’s running up alongside, and he makes a swipe with his tire iron. I juke and float by like he’s nothing. And then I’m in the driver’s seat. Jeezer is pounding the side of the vic with the tire iron, breaking things. The motor spins. The transmission clunks. And we’re down the street, driving. The street rushes under us like water. And we’re gone daddy gone.

  “Give me the iGlasses,” I tell Princess as we roll along the edge of the melt.

  He takes off the Ray-Bans, hands them over. The lenses are still lit. I briefly catch a glimpse of Fat Freddy’s face in the lenses. He’s shouting, probably giving orders. I throw the glasses out the window, listen as they clack softly on the pavement, skipping down the highway behind us.

  “Any other electronic devices in the car?”

  “No, nothing,” says Princess.

  “Drones?”

/>   “Shit, we don’t got money for that.”

  I don’t bother to check. There’s no time for it. I could dump the van in Ben Lomond. Nothing out there but scatter cookers and fallen drones anyway. But Princess is still cabled up to those dogs. So I drive straight to the old highway. At Gilroy we make the road south. I’m worried but not too worried. Driving a van to Radio City isn’t like driving one from it. There are always a few Army patrols out. But they’re broken men, partial hot, not GMers, dirty and underpaid, stopping only those coming out, not those going in. Besides, only the officers are GM. And they won’t go out there. Too dirty for them. Soldiers don’t care as much as they should. They’re all dying sooner than later. And there are dirt roads, open patches, cutoffs, places marked by us.

  An hour passes. Princess has been quiet for sometime, finally says, “Say, gem. I didn’t mean to sell you out. You can see that, right? I mean, I didn’t have a choice. You see what Fat Freddy’s done to me. He runs things. I can’t get out of it.”

  I keep my eyes on the road. I won’t help him with this. “I thought we were friends,” I say.

  “We were, gem. I swear.”

  “You tricked me into hanging out with you.”

  “I had to.”

  “Oh really?”

  “You don’t get it, gem. Life in Santa Cruz is hard. The damned melt.”

  “What did he offer?”

  “Scatter.”

  “How much?”

  “Free for two months. I thought we were, you know, going to be friends. But then Fat Freddy got better. I didn’t expect that. He’s sick. Maybe he won’t show up for a few days. But then he shows up, wants to know what I’m working on.”

  “But you didn’t really mean it. You really didn’t want to hang out with me. No one does.”

  Princess is silent the rest of the ride. He doesn’t even attempt to talk when we get to SLO Town. But he’s breathing hard, starting to worry. I let him think about it.

  We arrive in the zone. Like all dead cities, there’s charm to it. The vacant streets. The grasses and shrubs growing on roof tops. Homes choked in wisteria. Buildings matted in ivy. A beautiful soft city full of feral cats and fat, plump kangaroo mice. Then the road towards Diablo Canyon. The drop zone. You won’t know this if you haven’t been there. You can see the images downloaded to your iGlasses if you want to. They will walk you through this place without being there, showing you the destruction. But the images won’t ever resemble how it is out here, the wonderful yellows, the fields of mustard and poppies, the redwoods, though just a half century old, majestic and cool. Beneath this you see the flashing red of poison oak, the sulfa butterflies in swarms of a hundred thousand each. Under stones, the seas of lizards. Above, the red-tailed hawks. The green bottle beetles. The rusty coyotes. This disaster is the most beautiful place on earth. I love it like no other. You can drive for hours in any direction and not see another person. And when you finally run across someone, your meeting will be brief yet personable. You will remember their faces as they remember yours. Because you are hot and they are hot. And there are so few of you true Radio City.