Mr Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

“I hope that fat fucker is punctual.”

  The man that stepped out of the building before us almost looked like Steve Buscemi in Reservoir Dogs. Same suit, same pasty skin, same sunglasses, but he’d traded the facial hair for a fedora. His suit looked about a size too small, and he walked like he was having trouble doing it. He didn’t look drunk, exactly—he looked like he was new to the whole bipedality party and was still getting the hang of it. He was completely focused on me; I’m not sure he even saw Oana. Granted, she was very short.

  He said, “Oftentimes, the visitors appear in skies devoid of meaning.”

  This was not a code. I really had no idea what to say to that. “Victor Charlie told me that the Zetas were willing to make an exchange.”

  He said, “When the stars fall, they bring with them promises of a new age.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Containers are abundant. They need only the guidance of the visitors to be put to proper use.”

  Oana whispered, “Containers?”

  His head turned slowly, as though it were on greased ball bearings. “Visitations have been known in times of great peril.” He did an about-face and walked back toward the building. When we didn’t follow, he stopped. He didn’t turn his head. He didn’t beckon. He didn’t make some joke about us dragging ass. He just stopped. When we started, he did, too.

  Inside, it looked like an office building. Clean, linoleum, lots of shatterproof glass and white walls. The man led us down a hall. We passed an open door, and as I glanced in, I saw a pair of scientists talking to a short, bald man with a huge bulbous head. The little man’s back was to the door. His skin was gray-green. He was not human. I didn’t break stride. They wanted to get me with that gag? I invented that one.

  Oana said, “Did you see—”

  “Sure didn’t.”

  Our guide turned and entered a room. When we followed, we nearly ran into him. He was standing just inside the doorway.

  He said, “There are specific patterns in the stars that could be read, if only they would stop moving.”

  He sidestepped us and left.

  “I think he wants us to wait,” I said.

  The room looked like a waiting room in a doctor’s office, but all the magazines were from the ’60s. At least I could read about the breaking news of Kennedy’s assassination. Almost the instant I sat down, one of the scientists I had seen from the other room, a balding moleish man, bustled in. He said, “Mr. MacGruder?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. I didn’t bother to get up. He shook my hand. His felt like inflatable suede.

  “I’m Dr. Beaman. My, ahem, employers, believe you have something that belongs to them. Something that they want back.” He pulled a small machine, almost like a price scanner, from his lab coat. “May I?”

  “Depends on what that is. If it strips my skin off, then hell no. If it gives me superpowers, then yes.”

  He chuckled. “Neither, I’m afraid. There’s an, ahem, energy signature if you’ve had contact with the item.”

  “The same signature you found on my friend.”

  He blushed. “Yes, the woman was, ahem, uncooperative.”

  Damn right she was. I hoped Mina punted the first Zeta that came at her.

  He held the machine up to me. It made the appropriate noises. I wondered if they programmed it on purpose, just so the layman could think that he was getting his science-fiction’s worth when he ran into something like this. I’ll be the first to admit that it enhanced the experience.

  I watched Beaman’s face. It changed as he read the machine. I said, “I take it I’m positive for the relevant tachyon field.”

  “It’s actually not, ahem—well, yes, you are. Quite so. Mr. MacGruder, I’ve been informed that you have been a loyal, ahem, employee for three years, seven months, sixteen days, and, well, a few more hours than it said in the file. In that time, you have performed forty-two tasks. This new task would seem easy in comparison.”

  “Bringing you the item you’re sniffing all over me. Can we cut the shit and call it what it is? You want the Chain just like every other person.”

  “Chain? What chain? We want the stone.”

  Well, fuck me. “What’s the stone, Beaman?”

  “That’s not, that’s not really…”

  “Beaman!”

  “The Genesis Stone.”

  When people get really paranoid about the Masons, the Genesis Stone is one of the things they mention. It was the fruition of a Masonic plot to end the world. The plot started with the atom bomb, moved to the assassination of Kennedy (as a stand-in for King Arthur, for those wondering why his administration was called Camelot), and culminated when the astronauts brought moon rocks to earth. The largest one was named the Genesis Stone, and it remained one of the most treasured artifacts in Masonic possession.

  And someone had bolted it to a sacred chain and tried to cave my skull in with it.

  “Who stole the Stone from the Masons?”

  Beaman said, “I have no idea. They have it shielded at all times. Suddenly it was out. We thought your, ahem, friend might know where it was.”

  “And she didn’t tell you.”

  “Like I said, uncooperative.”

  A keening wail echoed through the complex; the howling of a hypothetical robot dog. Beaman said, “I have to…”

  That’s all he got out, because Oana kicked his left knee out from under him, grabbed his arm, and twisted it at a truly horrible angle. She did this so quickly I couldn’t say anything until Beaman was on the ground with a look like he was trying to pass a kidney stone the size of a corgi.

  “Holy shit,” I said. It was the smartest thing that popped into my head at the time.

  “Where is she?” Oana demanded.

  Beaman couldn’t talk. Oana loosened her hold slightly, and I swear I could hear his ligaments creaking. His eyes fluttered and he lost consciousness.

  “Damn,” she said.

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  The keening continued. That was Vassily or Tariq. Specifically, that was the alarms in response to one or both of them. I was looking forward to introducing those guys. Either they’d kill each other or take over the world together. Either way meant plenty of work for me.

  I flipped Beaman over and went through his pockets: keycard, ID, the scanner, another device I didn’t recognize. All of that was mine now.

  My Assassin phone rang. Barely heard it over the keening. I answered it. “Not a good time, Hasim.”

  “I am not Hasim.” The voice on the other end was not human. It was a monotone, undercut with buzzing that sounded like television snow. It brought the hairs on the back of my neck to attention.

  “Who is this?”

  “We have met once before, in the Diaz household.”

  It sank in. “I remember.”

  “Exit the room. Turn left.”

  I skipped the distrust. After all, there were easier ways to kill me. The way the voice was guiding me, it was starting to seem familiar. I’d heard this one before somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where, and now was hardly the time to go looking for a memory. Oana followed, but worry was starting to crack her game face. I exited the room and turned left.

  The voice didn’t wait for me to tell it I was done. “Follow the hallway. There will be a staircase on your left.” It hadn’t misled me yet. I opened the door into the stairwell with Beaman’s keycard. “Go up the stairs, turn left.”

  “That’s a lot of lefts.”

  “Left is better.”

  I followed instructions. Up on the second floor, the world had turned white, and not eggshell, or Navajo, or off, or any one of a dozen shades of white. This was the white that turned all other colors to memory, a white that nearly rendered me blind.

  “She is behind the second door. Dr. Beaman’s card will provide access.”

  I was about to hang up.

  “Do not hang up.”

  It could see me? Better not think about that just now. No
, ESP, right? Another piece of that particular puzzle. I swiped the card. The door clicked, opened. A short hall led into a hemispherical room with human-shaped depressions in the walls. They looked soft, but one touch revealed they felt like ivory. Mina was in one of these depressions, perfectly sized for her. That was great foresight. She was wearing some kind of bodysuit, a silver layer over her, covering everything but her head and hands. It was not flattering. I went to her side. She was completely still. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. I looked for some kind of control panel that would release her. There was nothing.

  I put the phone to my ear and was about to issue a demand, but instead I heard the voice say, “Hold the telephone to the wall next to her.”

  I did. There was an ear-splitting wail. I felt the phone heat up in my hand and had the sensation that I was on a boat in some choppy seas. I fought down my gorge. Mina popped from the wall into my arms. The wall shifted in front of me, and suddenly the indentation was generic, no longer conforming to Mina’s very specific figure.

  Mina’s eyes fluttered, opened. I wasn’t in the best of shape, and I was having a hell of a time trying to keep her upright, but I’d be damned if I would drop her. It would have ruined the whole moment.

  “I didn’t think you would come for me.”

  I said, “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “They scanned me. I think they wanted to keep me… intact.”

  “You kicked someone, didn’t you?”

  She nodded again, this time adding a smile. There was a pause. I was trying to think of something to say, and Mina seemed like she was waiting for me to say it. I went through about half a dozen things before settling on, “Oh, Mina, this is Oana. You two know each other. Right. Sorry.”

  I set Mina on her feet. She was a little wobbly. Mina and Oana shared a look, one I hoped was just recognition rather than, “Hey, you knock him out and I’ll take his keys.” I was, in that moment, committing a serious crime against a group whose technology was light years past mine, in the presence of members of a single conspiracy. And to top it off, I was on the phone with a monster.

  Monster. Oh, shit. That’s who this was.

  There were times when I loved being me. Then again, there were times when I should probably just save everyone the time and feed myself to some hungry dingoes.

  I said into the phone, “Still there?”

  “Exit the room now, and return to the stairwell.”

  “Follow me,” I said to the ladies.

  “Who is he talking to?” Mina asked Oana.

  I supplied the shrug in my head. If Oana really wanted to find out, she could put that armbar on me. She was probably thinking about it. I opened the door and went back to the stairs.

  The voice on the phone said, “Down the stairs. Do not hesitate.”

  I didn’t. We were in the central hall. Outside, I heard the sounds of gunfire: light pistol pops punctuated with machine gun crackling. I burst out of the front door. Past the gate, I saw a convoy of cars, all expensive and foreign. Amongst them: lights like flashbulbs. On my side of the gate, there were three of the bulbous-headed midgets. There were flashes around them, too, the bullets exploding in midair before hitting anything visible. Five men who could have been Victor Charlie’s brothers stood in the open, near the midgets, firing pistols back. Every now and then a bullet would hit one of them, and he would fall, apparently dead. I couldn’t tell if it was a gunshot from the attackers or a ricochet from one of the Little Green Men. I really didn’t want to know.

  “Is that…?” Mina said.

  “Yep.”

  “Can we…?”

  “Nope.”

  I pulled her toward the fake town. Oana jogged along with us, her eyes welded to the firefight at the gate. One of the little ones put a hand up like he was about to answer Mrs. Smith’s question about state capitals. There was a flash, and the first car melted into mirrored slag.

  We took cover behind one of the houses in a tiny shadow, about big enough for half of me. The streets formed what was sort of a residential neighborhood, houses that were half Dick van Dyke and half shack. Between the houses was a single-lane dirt road, and past them I could see a gas station. Past that, the fence, and from there, darkness. The herd of cows had gathered behind one of the houses, as far from the gunfire as they could get, lowing with panic.

  The voice on the phone: “Beware, there are guardians in the buildings. When you see them, show no fear. Think only of blood.” There was a click. He—it?—had hung up. At least he hadn’t told me about any collapsing bridges. I pocketed the phone.

  Mina asked, “Who was that?”

  “A mutual friend.”

  She didn’t get it, but she didn’t have to. She really looked ridiculous in that silver thing. Someone would have to have the body of a sexy fetus to look good in it, and I wasn’t sure that was even possible. Not that people would stop searching for that brand of creepy perfection.

  I didn’t see it coming. I was walking, then suddenly I was on the ground. There might have been a flash of light. There might have been an impact. I was dazed as the pain hatched across my left eye.

  Tariq was standing over me. “Bam! Tyson to the face!”

  Oana attacked him. She was faster; he was stronger. Mina hauled me to my feet. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “I invited him.”

  “Okay, if we get out of this, I’m going to tell you all the reasons that’s stupid. Come on.” She let me hang onto her while my legs remembered how to work. We were next to one of the houses, so she hauled me to the door. Unlocked. After all, who was going to be breaking in?

  It was dark inside, and smelled like Vegemite. I wondered if Tariq had hit me so hard I was having the most Australian stroke on record.

  It was a kitchen, a sort of dusty trailer-park kitchen. The room was dark, the shades were drawn, but the white light from the floods burned in through the gaps. I could hear Tariq and Oana fighting outside. I was hoping Oana would win, but it wasn’t a big hope.

  A hiss bloomed from deeper inside. Mina swooned, suddenly sleepy. I caught her. “Sorry,” she said. “Do you hear that?” She yawned.

  I knew what that sound meant. It was the whole reason I’d invited Tariq along.

  “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  “As opposed to before, when we were thinking of moving in?” she griped.

  I had an appropriate response locked and loaded, but I never got a chance to finish it. I saw the silhouette approaching through the darkness, about the size and shape of a chimpanzee. I grabbed Mina’s hand and we were out the door.

  We nearly tripped over Oana. She was breathing through her mouth. The bridge of her nose was swollen and would have been purple if the shadows let color in. I picked her up easily.

  In the distance: the keening alarm, the crack of gunfire, then a sound halfway between a cat’s yowling and a goat’s braying. It was answered from inside the house behind us. I ran.

  I crossed into the open ground between the two streets, Mina just behind me. I saw motion to my right: Tariq, moving to intercept. He looked like he was carrying a kitchen knife, running with a herd of terrified Holsteins.

  He shouted, “Choppy choppy hold the sake!”

  The gunfire stopped. Vassily had just lost. I wondered if he would be probed for his trouble. I wondered if they had a machine big enough.

  The cat-goat yowl-bray started up again, now answered from three separate places, all closing in.

  “Which…” Mina was out of breath. “Which one… should I… be worried about?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her all of them, especially with our hardest hitter out. Mina turned her head and, somehow, she managed to scream.

  There were four of them, heading toward us in a pack. About the size of chimps, they either ran along on their knuckles or glided on the webbing that ran under their armpits like Romita’s Spider-Man. They had the big almond eyes of the Zetas, but theirs were blood r
ed. They looked like the product of a wild evening in which an alien had gone down to Tijuana and had a threesome with a monkey and a vampire bat.

  I really hate chupacabras.

  Tariq looked shocked, even letting out a “what the fuck?” as the little guys loped past. They smelled blood: blood coming out of a cut above my eye and coming out of Oana’s broken nose. The thing from Diaz’s living room had given me some advice. It hadn’t steered me wrong yet. It wasn’t like I had other ideas.

  I stopped. I set Oana down and stepped in front of her.

  The chupacabras were getting closer. Tariq had slowed. I straightened up. I had heard rumors about these things, but I’d only seen them the one time. It had been hard getting it into the van. I did feel bad for the kids that went to that petting zoo the next day. I’m not a monster.

  “What are you doing?” Mina whisper-screamed.

  “I don’t know,” I said. That wasn’t exactly true. I had an idea. My friend on the phone was trying to tell me to find the intersection of belief and perception with these things. Prey runs. Prey fights. Prey hides. Prey does not do what I was about to do. After all, there was one thing I was pretty sure could take Tariq, and here was a pack of them.

  I picked the closest one and locked eyes with it. It hissed again, and I felt my stomach churning like it had when the alarm went off. I pushed that down. I thought about blood. I thought about head-butting Tariq at Mina’s fashion show. I thought about the blood that was trying to drip into my eye. I thought of Oana’s blood-mustache. The chupacabras stopped. They formed a semi-circle around me, like kids listening to a story. I suddenly regretted having left my copy of Goodnight Moon in the car.

  Tariq was walking now. “Now you’re Dr. Moreau.” He raised the knife.

  This was the hardest part. I forced myself not to flinch. Instead, I visualized the knife going into Tariq, pictured the blood.

  The closest chupacabra leapt at him. He was barely surprised. He swung, striking the thing on the arm. It made a sound like hitting a drum. The others surged forward at him. I picked Oana up and started walking, briskly, but not running. Mina was looking at me like I had sprouted a third arm.

  “What the hell was that?”