Rhubarb

by M. H. Van Keuren

  A few minutes later, Jeffrey finished his muffin and wiped his mouth. “You know,” he said, sucking the chocolate and caramel out of his teeth. “I should thank you, Martin. If not for you, I never would have gotten authorization to abduct Cheryl.”

  “I’m surprised you needed authorization,” said Martin.

  “We’re not savages. We’re doing a job like everyone else,” said Jeffrey.

  “What gives you the right? To take Cheryl? Her mom? To take our planet? Any of it? I mean we’re sitting right here. Why don’t you just ask? We could be business partners. We could be customers. Hell, with the unemployment in the world, we’d happily set up factories for you.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” said Jeffrey. “But it’s much harder to make money with a non-automated labor force.”

  “You can’t make a dime if you don’t have a product,” said Martin.

  “Astute,” said Jeffrey.

  “Which you don’t have. So why don’t you go home?” said Martin.

  “Pushy creatures, aren’t they?” Jeffrey said to Stewart.

  “You have no idea,” said Martin.

  “Give me a break,” said Jeffrey. “Okay, old man, here it is: I’m willing to cut you a deal if you’re willing to come back.”

  “I don’t have the recipe,” said Stewart.

  “That may be, but you might have some insight now that you didn’t have then. You might be able to help the lab guys. Or perhaps you can persuade Cheryl to cooperate,” said Jeffrey.

  “Are you making me an offer?” asked Stewart.

  “I am. And here’s the fun part: Name your own terms. If I solve this problem, I can write my own ticket. And if I have to bring you along, so be it. Imagine it. Reinstatement, your benefits restored, your pension upgraded, a job in any market you want. We could arrange for Cheryl to join you, and maybe a few others if you’re feeling generous.” He turned to Martin. “How’s that sound? You and Cheryl repopulating your species on another planet. Isn’t that some kind of fantasy for you male mammals?”

  “I really wish you would stop talking now,” said Martin.

  “What makes you think any of that sounds appealing?” asked Stewart. “You think this”—he yanked at his oxygen cord—“is part of the disguise? You think I can leave this planet and have a long, healthy life anywhere? I’ve been here too long. I’ve breathed too much secondhand smoke and fossil-fuel exhaust. Do you know how many chemicals they put in their air? Pesticides. Herbicides. Fungicides. The only thing that’s holding me together at this point is this infernal dermis.”

  “Oh, cry me a river. Fine, then. If you don’t do it for yourself, then do it for Cheryl, and poor Martin here,” said Jeffrey.

  “Give me one reason I should let you walk out of this Perkins,” said Martin.

  “Because the next development analyst they send might not be as easy on Cheryl,” said Jeffrey. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He pushed his empty plates away, downed the last of his coffee, and slid out of the booth. He picked up the bill and zipped it through his fingers. “This one’s on me, gentlemen. Oh, and, Stewart? He’ll be here in…” Jeffrey checked his phone. “…let’s say, a few days. So don’t take too long making up your mind. Have a nice day.”

  When Jeffrey had paid the bill and left, Martin poured out his fury in the form of way too much syrup on his pancakes.

  “You know, Martin,” said Stewart. “He made that offer to you, too.”

  “Yesterday, you said I’d be dead if I gave it to him,” said Martin.

  “Perhaps, but if you give the recipe directly to the CEO, you might be able to win a solid deal for yourself. And Cheryl,” said Stewart.

  “How can I even consider that?” asked Martin.

  “I’m just saying,” said Stewart.

  As they left, Martin tossed a few bills on the table. “Bastard probably didn’t leave a tip.”

  ~ * * * ~

  “It is no accident of history that gave the Rothschild family controlling ownership of the Federal Reserve Bank. They control it because they’re allowed to. And the CFR, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome—they’re only the middlemen to whom the Rothschilds answer. These organizations mask themselves in public as think tanks or policy research cooperatives, but those are only fronts. They perform tasks and affect policy to shield the truly important organizations that cannot afford such exposure: the Freemasons—and I don’t mean your little neighborhood lodge down the street—the Vatican, and the Illuminati.”

  “And those are the organizations that communicate with the Reptoids?”

  “The Freemasons learned their secrets from the Reptoids during the building of the Egyptian pyramids. If you deconstruct their rites, they’re about preparing the human mind for meeting with an actual Reptoid, as well as preserving the knowledge for preparing the world’s infrastructure for the Reptoids’ arrival. Think of the Freemasons as hardware, whereas the Illuminati are the software. The Illuminati manage the preparation of politics, economics, and propaganda.”

  “What of the Vatican?”

  “It’s strange, Lee, but there have been no reports of Reptoid visitations to the Holy See in many years. The last rumored visit might have coincided with the death of Pope John Paul I, who, if you remember, held the office for only thirty-three days in 1978. This suggests that the Reptoids may have been involved with his death. With no known contact since, we have to wonder why the Reptoids have severed relations with the Vatican. Did they fall out of favor? Or did they complete their preparations for the arrival?”

  “Can you describe what might happen during the arrival? And what preparations are being made?”

  “Given the population-control measures that are being devised, I think we can safely assume they’re not coming to eat us. Ha ha ha. Seriously, though, they are preparing the world economies and the minds of the human population. I believe that we are intended to be servants, or slaves, if you will, but willing ones. It’s about mind control. We’ll wake up one day in a familiar but alien world. There will be no more freedom. We will essentially be breeding stock.”

  “What of those who are helping to prepare the way? The Illuminati and others?”

  “Conspirators will be retained in positions of power and maintain certain privileges, but they’re delusional if they think that the Reptoids will tolerate their freedom for long. After several generations, human intercessors won’t be necessary.”

  “I suppose the questions are these: What can we do? Is this inevitable? Has the countdown already begun? What hope do we have?”

  “Those are exactly the questions, Lee.”

  “Indeed. A wakeup call for the Waker Nation if I’ve ever heard one. We’ll be back with your phone calls and more questions for our guest, Raymond Erickson, after this short break. Stay awake and stay with us.”

  Martin turned down the commercial. “Is any of that true?” he asked.

  “No,” said Stewart.

  The tires thrummed along the road surface. The reflector posts slipped by in time. The high beams stretched out, but blinded Martin to all else beyond the dashboard and the few yards of pavement ahead.

  “Then why do you listen to it?” asked Martin.

  “To keep informed,” said Stewart.

  “So some of it’s true?”

  “Nah. It’s all bunk. But if you’re hiding in plain sight, it’s good to know if anyone’s looking in your direction.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve put you in danger,” said Martin.

  “I’m surprised it’s taken this long. You should have seen me when I first took over Stewart Campion’s life. I had no idea how to be human. Luckily, he was a bit of a drunk. Everyone assumed that having to take care of the baby shook me straight. I got to be a new man, sober and getting my act together. Everyone was more than happy to excuse my faults and quirks.”

  “When Linda got back, did she…?” asked Martin.

  “She figured it out pretty quick,” said Stewa
rt.

  “But she let you stick around, even after what she’d gone through?”

  “I promised to take care of Cheryl, and that was good enough for her. She knew she wasn’t right.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “Linda? I don’t know if I’d call it love. I did what I needed to do for Cheryl. If that meant taking care of Linda through her spells and then through the cancer, so be it. I felt responsible.”

  “You’re a good human, Stewart,” said Martin. Stewart laughed, but his laughter turned to coughing. When his coughs subsided, Martin asked, “So what are you? I mean, if it’s not rude to ask. Are you a Gray? Or one of these Reptoids?”

  “If I had to describe us in Earth terms, we’re something more akin to squid or octopus,” said Stewart.

  “You’re aquatic?”

  “Part of our lives. We’re hatched underwater. Many return to the oceans later in life. We often vacation there.”

  “Aliens take vacations?”

  “Why does that surprise you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it.”

  “We sleep. We dream. Some of us are artists and storytellers. We have extended and complex families. For instance, I have 386 brothers and sisters. One of my sisters is a well-known dramatist.”

  “A dramatist? Wow,” said Martin. “So you’re not all genocidal purveyors of packaged food?”

  “It was a job,” said Stewart.

  A mileage sign flashed by. Still seventeen miles out of Havre. Martin hoped the motel had held his room—their room—this late. He took a long, sputtering drag on the last of his Diet Mountain Dew.

  “You know,” said Stewart, “I’ve been thinking about what you asked yesterday, about destroying the portal.”

  “You said it was pointless,” said Martin.

  “It is,” said Stewart. “That’s why maybe we need to think about the production facility instead.”

  “Destroying it?”

  “Or disabling it,” said Stewart. “It’ll be big.”

  “You haven’t seen it?”

  “I saw a few drawing-board sketches on my way here. It’s mostly a transport for all the bots that will do the work. They’re self-replicating, so there’s just the bare minimum, but still…”

  “How big?”

  “Bigger than a city, smaller than a county,” said Stewart.

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “I wish I could,” said Stewart.

  “And how would we destroy such a massive thing? This staple gun doesn’t have a hydrogen bomb setting, does it?” Stewart sneered. “Plus Cheryl’s up there. I presume we’d like to get her out first,” said Martin.

  “I’m aware of that,” said Stewart.

  “If you have an idea, out with it already,” said Martin.

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up,” said Stewart. “It’s a wild-assed notion.”

  “And the first step is…?”

  “We go back to Brixton.”

  Chapter 18

  “Why? What’s in Brixton? A spaceship or something?” asked Martin.

  “More or less,” Stewart replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that,” said Stewart.

  “You mean, you’ve had a spaceship this whole time and it didn’t seem relevant to mention that until now?” Martin couldn’t believe he’d just uttered that sentence. He felt like whiny Luke Skywalker dithering about after the princess while Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t telling him the whole story. But this wasn’t Star Wars. Or who knows—maybe it was.

  “You have to understand how it works,” said Stewart.

  “By all means, explain it to me then,” said Martin.

  “Vehicles, like the semi you tried to stow away in, are nothing more than shuttles. They can’t operate far from their mother ship. They’re able to travel through the off-ramp portal, and on the roads here on Earth; I wouldn’t even call them spaceships. They’re equipped with bits of technology that make a temporary bubble, good for a few minutes of heat and air to get you through space. Another bit talks to the portal and the mother ship dock, which pulls the vehicles in.”

  Caught in a tractor beam. Of course, thought Martin. Why not? He’d barely slept since he’d shot at Jeffrey, and all he had to look forward to tonight was another motel mattress and an audio tour of Stewart’s sinuses. This is my descent into madness. Why fight it?

  Forget Luke. WWHSD? What would Han Solo do? “So let’s go hijack another truck and get Cheryl.” Either that or hide under the floorboards.

  “That would only get us onto the truck’s mother ship, not the production facility,” said Stewart.

  “How does that help us get her?”

  “It doesn’t,” said Stewart.

  Damn fool, I knew you were going to say that, thought Martin. “I’m not getting this, Stewart.”

  Stewart took a deep, wheezing breath. “I have the vehicle I was issued in 1986. It has the devices installed that have the access codes. That’s what will get us onto the production facility.”

  “Do they know you have this ship?”

  “Of course,” said Stewart.

  “Then what makes you think they haven’t changed the codes in twenty-five years?”

  “Jeffrey’s propped the door open for me. He doesn’t want to shut me out now,” said Stewart.

  Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him? “Okay. I’ll buy that for the moment. But Jeffrey’s not just going to turn Cheryl over,” said Martin. “And you said it yourself—anything we do risks him pressing the button and heading for Earth, or hurting Cheryl.”

  “All true,” said Stewart.

  “And he’s probably not there alone,” said Martin.

  “Actually, he might be.”

  “Really?” asked Martin.

  “There’d only be one or two others, maximum. Maybe a laboratory guy, maybe a trainee. Have you ever seen Jeffrey with anyone, like he’s working with them?”

  “Never,” said Martin.

  “Probably not a trainee then,” said Stewart.

  “What’s this plan of yours? You’re still being vague.”

  “That’s because I haven’t worked out all the details. It’s a variation on a contingency plan I came up with years ago—something to put into action if I ever got wind that they’d gotten the recipe. I was going to hijack a truck, kind of like you did, take it back through the portal, and crash its mother ship cargo vessel into the production facility before it could get through the portal to Earth.”

  “Sounds like a suicide mission,” said Martin. Han Solo would have noted that right away.

  “It might be,” said Stewart. “Although I was kind of hoping to be able to set an autopilot and get back onto the shuttle vehicle before I had to resort to that.” Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home, eh, Stewart?

  “Are these cargo vessels large enough to destroy the production facility?” asked Martin.

  “Should be. Like I told you, the facility’s mostly a big dumb warehouse. You crash into the engines or destroy the control section, it’s not going to go anywhere.”

  “And they wouldn’t shoot it down or anything?”

  “It’s a factory, not a battleship,” said Stewart.

  “I thought it might be armed.”

  “This ain’t Star Trek; this is real life,” said Stewart.

  “What’s to keep them from coming back to repair it, or building another one?” asked Martin.

  Stewart shrugged and harrumphed. He coughed a few times, then a few times more. “Sorry,” he said when the fit had subsided.

  “Let me get this straight,” said Martin. “Your plan is to hijack another truck, then for us to take that and your company spaceship up there. Get on board the facility and rescue Cheryl, while—what?—distracting Jeffrey with an imminent cargo ship collision?”

  “That’s the general gist of it,” said Stewart.

  “There’s about a billion
things that could go wrong with that,” said Martin.

  “I know,” said Stewart.

  “It would take really precise timing,” said Martin.

  “Never said otherwise,” said Stewart.

  “It’s completely crazy.”

  “You said you wanted to do something. You got a better plan?”

  I could get two motel rooms in Havre so I don’t have to listen to you snore all night. “So where’s this spaceship of yours?” asked Martin.

  “Hank’s junkyard,” said Stewart.

  “Let me guess, Hank’s an alien, too?” Brixton, Montana. You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

  “Nah, he’s just my mechanic,” said Stewart.

  We must be cautious.

  ~ * * * ~

  Martin and Stewart left Havre long before the motel put out the complimentary breakfast, and long before the sun began to rise. But when it peeked over the horizon a few miles out of Brixton, Stewart checked his phone for a signal and called ahead. “He’s an early riser,” Stewart told Martin as he waited for an answer.

  Hank met them at his gate and swung it aside for Martin to roll the Screwmobile into the tight quarters of the parking yard outside his house and Quonset hut shop. Hank greeted them with a Thermos lid of coffee in one hand and a lip full of chew. He was an old-timer, but healthier than Stewart, less curmudgeonly than Lester, and seemed, all in all, content with his life of fixing cars and tractors and chewing the fat with anyone who came a’scavenging in his junkyard.

  He rambled past his shop to a wide gate in a high, crooked slatted fence. A few glassed cabs of harvesters and the yellow dome of a school bus were the only occupants tall enough to see the sunrise. Hank held the Thermos cup in his teeth as he unlocked the massive padlock and shoved the gate sideways.

  Martin felt liked he’d wandered into some secret elephant burial ground. Decades, if not centuries, of rusting hulks had fallen and died in the few fenced acres of tall, dewy grass. He pitied the farmer who might still need parts for these ancient machines. His heart ached for the young kid desperate enough to have to hack his way through this caged metal prairie for a cheap part to get his hand-me-down car running. He mourned the accounts in Havre that he would have to call soon and beg for a later appointment.