Blood Soaked and Invaded - 02

by James Crawford

  My train of thought did not stop at the station, but went right on to the next one and unloaded a freaky realization. This thing had been riding along while Chunhua and Shawn were screwing! I sincerely hoped my memory wouldn’t be wiped, because telling Shawn would be so fantastic! Good Lord!

  “Dude,” I’d say to him, “you were banging an alien when you and Chu were knocking moist parts! How was your close encounter? Did you ‘phone home’?”

  He’d kill me. I’d run and run, but he’d catch me. Why the fuck did this make me gleeful?

  The Gray who’d declared me an abomination pointed at me from across the bare metal room.

  “It is amused!”

  Chunhua/Big Voice turned to look at me. Her eyes were not human at all, and I felt very, very tiny, looking into those glowing orbs. It turned back around and addressed the assembled stick people.

  “This man is the son of the person who unleashed the Progeny on their species. He is not entirely sane. Do not take anything you observe in his behavior as an offense.”

  “The offspring of a traitor to their species?”

  “From your perspective, yes.”

  The six small Grays shook their big heads and made an audible noise.

  “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.”

  I’d been dissed by aliens! Another first for me!

  “There is no way to barter with you for the continuance of human kind?” The Left Center Gray held up spidery hands as if it was begging.

  “You know there is not.”

  The assembled Grays nodded gravely.

  “We needed to request, knowing the answer, for our own peace,” they said in unison.

  “That is fair. Please return us. Hours have passed for those on the ground, and our absence will be noticed if it has not been already.”

  All six nodded, held up a single hand but didn’t wave. The room filled with the same blue light as before, and we floated back to earth... on top of Building Two.

  Abruptly, the light surrounding us vanished. The ship above us seemed to quiver in the air, and shot off into the distance at speeds that my nanotech couldn’t even track. I was left alone in the dark, on the roof of a building, with an alien imposter. My body still felt slug-like, and I knew I couldn’t defend myself.

  “You are worried, Frank,” Chunhua said to me in her normal voice. “I would like to apologize for that experience. You were never meant to see or know of these things.”

  “Fssht,” I said, trying to speak.

  “I would like you to know I lied to the Grays. I can’t wipe your memory without completely disrupting the nanomachines in your body. You might die or be crippled by such an action, and that would constitute great interference on my part.” She chuckled a little. “I have already bent my ethics by borrowing Chunhua like this. Oh, you need not worry. Her feelings for Shawn are genuine. It is quite lovely.”

  “Why?” I congratulated myself on regaining my mouth and asking a coherent question.

  “Ah. Our species was much like yours, some 600 million years ago, and we stepped into our own technological singularity... a choice that other species have eschewed... and transcended our physical bodies. In due time, we became a single being with many networked bodies. One of us represents the whole.”

  “Us?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Why?” It seemed like a logical question to ask.

  “We have watched you grow, especially over the last two hundred years, because you are so much as we were. It is science, exploration, and an indulgence of nostalgia. We wanted to meet you and know you as you encountered your own singularity.”

  “Lonely?”

  “Yes,” it said with her voice, and gravely nodded her head.

  “Oh.”

  “The danger to your world and fellow humans is real. We admit we have assisted in making it possible for you and yours to resist the Progeny. Bajali Sharma’s creation would not have evolved had it not been for us.” It approached me, wearing Chu’s body, and touched my face. “We will leave you now. We hope for your success so we might see you again someday.”

  A moment later it felt as though someone had set off a flash bulb in the Universe. There was light, and a sense of disorientation, but no noise. My pupils returned to a normal shape, and I saw Chunhua sitting on the roof at my feet. She was crying.

  “It’s so sad,” she said, looking up at me.

  All I could do was nod my head.

  “We’ve been gone a while. We should let everyone know we’re home.”

  “How long?” I could barely put my thoughts together to ask her, much less trigger my own internal timer.

  “Six hours.”

  “Shit!”

  “We need to... Ouch!” She clutched her head. “Shawn knows where we are now. Have you ever noticed that people in that family are very loud when they’re excited or upset?”

  “Yes,” I answered, “as a matter of fact, I’ve make similar remarks to myself.”

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Charlie’s question exploded between my ears with enough power to make me grab at my temples. “No one has been able to find you two!”

  “Chunhua and I took a ride,” I broadcast to her, “in a flying saucer.”

  “You’re full of crap,” my beloved replied.

  “No, really. Not the bad guys either. Spindly gray guys.”

  I looked over at Chunhua, who gestured toward the edge of the roof as if inviting me to jump off. Being a gentleman, I gave her the old fashioned, “After you, M’lady” sweep and bow. Grinning like a fool, she bopped over to the edge, and hopped off. I followed suit.

  Not a bad landing, even if I do say so myself. The welcome, however, left something to be desired. We were surrounded by a pack of Major Kenney’s goons, prickly with rifle barrels and grumpy dispositions.

  “Hey, Chu?”

  “Yes, Frank.”

  “Do you get the impression we’re going to get a stern talking to and a sharp debriefing in the near future?”

  She smiled at me, clapped her hands and did a little dance.

  “I love being debriefed! It is so liberating!”

  “That’s right, you were a comedienne back in the day,” I reminded myself aloud.

  “I have incredible timing.”

  What else could I do? I just shook my head, and waited for the rest of the mob to arrive.

  Major Kenney and Omura arrived first, with Buttons in tow. Their scowls were impressive, and I knew that getting to sleep before noon would be entirely unlikely. It was nearly 7am, anyway.

  Charlie and Shawn arrived together, but their facial expressions were unreadable. A quick flip of my “scan these people” switch gave me a graphic indicator of their anxiety levels. The guards couldn’t have known they were about to get knocked over if they didn’t move quickly enough, yet they parted ranks to let our lovers reach us without a backward glance. Seconds later, Chunhua and I were in the middle of a Cooper Family love sandwich.

  “What’s this shit about aliens?”

  Shawn mumbled the question into Chu’s neck, but I couldn’t help but hear it, being squashed beside her.

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, “you’re kidding. You’ve got to be.”

  “No,” Chunhua replied, trying to shake her head. “We were abducted by aliens.”

  “Baby!” Shawn crooned, and hugged her more tightly. “They didn’t do anything nasty to you, did they?”

  “No. No. We’re fine.”

  “Actually,” I piped up, after raising my face out of Charlie’s curls, “Chunhua’s been an spy for an extraterrestrial species studying us. The Grays can’t help us. The Lizards can’t help us. The Annunaki are all dead. The Pleiadians have retreated. We don’t even get an anal probe or a t-shirt.”

  Buttons’ face turned white like a new pair of underwear. Major Kenney and Omura just squinted, no doubt planning intense questioning. Charlie and Shawn stiffened against us, and Chunhua gave me a nasty pinch.

  “What the Hell are
you talking about, Frank?”

  “Well Shawn,” I’d started it, so I had to finish it, “You’ve been sleeping with a representative of another species. It was riding around in Chunhua’s brain, watching us and enjoying your company.”

  I got another awful pinch.

  “Don’t listen to the crazy man, Shawn,” Chunhua advised. “He’s just jealous that they liked you so much, and no one wanted to give him an anal probe.”

  “Well, I guess that’s okay then. I guess. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Now that you lovely people have finished your happy reunion, our two escapees have some questions to answer. Ms. Yan, Mr. Stewart, please accompany Omura and myself to B1 for a little Q&A.”

  Major Kenney sounded pleasant enough, if you like titanium porcupine quills in your margarita. Reluctantly, Chu and I parted company with our respective love interests and joined the Major’s group for a tense walk across the neighborhood. Our stomachs growled, and that was the only noise we made until the questions started flying.

  We filed into the meeting room behind the three of them, and sat beside one another in the front row as if by telepathic agreement. The Major, Omura and Buttons planted themselves in folding chairs near the platform at the front of the room. It felt a little bit like facing a prickly, miniature Spanish Inquisition.

  I heard footsteps and turned around in my seat. The entire community, additions included, had started to fill up the available seats. Chunhua and I shrugged at one another and turned back to face our interviewers.

  “Now then, people–I don’t care if you sit in on this, but please be quiet,” the Major shouted. “And you, yes, the smartass who brought popcorn; did you bring enough for everyone?”

  “Sir. Probably not, sir.” It sounded a lot like Fitzgerald to me.

  “Correct that problem, son, or leave.”

  “Sir. I will correct the problem, sir,” he said and scooted from the room.

  Omura chuckled a little bit.

  “Yes, Mr. Omura?”

  “Not quite Regular Army, are we?”

  “No, and let me tell you, it chaps my ass something fierce.”

  Buttons couldn’t stand it any longer. He stood up and got right in our faces.

  “You were abducted? By which species?”

  “They were what everyone calls ‘Grays’,” Chunhua answered. “I would say they’re about four feet high, telepathic, graceful and paranoid.”

  “Describe your interaction with them.” Buttons had the ball, it seemed, and was not about to let it drop until someone played catch.

  Chunhua detailed our experience with incredible precision that I can’t match, even when I’m at the top of my game. Buttons listened carefully; his normally blank face set in very hard lines. I didn’t want to try to get a read on his emotions, not for lack of interest as much as fear that they might be contagious.

  “Buttons,” Omura said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder, “sit down and let us take it from here.”

  Bernie “Buttons” Grachevsky turned slowly, walked away, and sat back down in the chair he’d vacated some time ago. His face was utterly blank, and I, for one, was happy about it.

  “Miss Yan,” Major Kenney began, “you were somehow a spy for another species. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. They rode along in my brain, observing us.”

  “What were their intentions?”

  “They,” she gestured in a strange, random pattern, “don’t have a name I can pronounce. I’m going to call them ‘Biggie’ so I can talk more easily. Biggie’s intention was to watch us as we made the transition from pure biological creatures, to technological hybrids. His species was much like ours, before they became what they are now.”

  “What are they now, Ms. Yan?” Omura asked, eyes lit up like brown lanterns.

  “Biggie is a single entity comprised of every conscious member of that race at the time they transitioned from biology to technology. Biggie is all nanotech, down to the sub-atomic level. Quantum. All of those things.”

  The Major looked unconvinced.

  “Are you trying to tell us that a gigantic technological organism was living in your head?”

  “Well, my whole body, really, Major Kenney. You can’t think of Biggie like you would a physical being. He’s distributed, only corporeal if he chooses to build a body.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” the Major said, stroking the stubble on his chin. “You sold out our national security to be young again?”

  “Sir,” she said, straightening up in the chair, “that is complete bullshit. Yes, I did make a deal to let it fully experience my life in this community in exchange for rebuilding my body. The bullshit is your belief that anything could have prevented Biggie from doing as he pleased.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Think about it this way. God wants a cookie. Can you stop God from taking a cookie out of the jar?”

  He stood up and walked over to where we sat. If you asked me to describe his state of mind at that moment I would have used “fuming” to illustrate the waves of unadulterated vexation vibrating in the air.

  “You want me to believe that Biggie is God?”

  “No, but in comparison to us he may as well be. Out of all the races that have used Earth for one reason or another, Biggie trumps all of them.”

  Major Kenney looked like he was about to step up on a soapbox and deliver a rant of biblical proportions, but Buttons spoke up.

  “Major, Ms. Yan is not lying to us. Symbol K implies the existence of that entity, even if there are no definite records. The mere fact that the Grays asked it for assistance is notable. Unfortunately,” he shook his head, “if the Grays are powerless to help us with the ‘Progeny’ and Biggie will not, we have larger issues at hand.”

  “You mean to tell me we’re fucked?”

  “I can’t say, but the situation is even more grim than we imagined.” Buttons stood up again, and started pacing back and forth. “Ms. Yan, what else can you tell us about the Progeny? Symbol K has no references to them.”

  “Biggie gave me some information. Basically, this race shoots off asteroids and meteors containing a virus that rebuilds sentient life in their image. It is their way of taking over the Universe while avoiding the major issues around intergalactic travel. They’ve got a really, really long term plan.”

  Omura looked physically ill, and I felt like he looked. I hadn’t heard this stuff before.

  “What you’re saying is the,” he pointed to something outside the room, “corpse is one of them?”

  “Probably,” Chunhua said, nodding gravely. “Zombies are just part of the lifecycle.”

  Major Kenney summed it up best when he said, “Jesus Christ. It’s a soft invasion.”

  The popcorn never made it to the front of the room.

  Chapter 20

  The debriefing wrapped up some time later. Chunhua and Shawn were spirited away by Bajali and Jayashri, no doubt to discuss things of major extraterrestrial import. Our local representatives of the Military Industrial Complex disappeared. The only thing of note is that Buttons didn’t follow Omura out: he left by a different door.

  I was too flat to do much more than loll in the cushy chair. My neurotic internal voices were quiet, which happens infrequently, if at all. I might have attained some sort of Zen state of “No Mind” if Charlie hadn’t appeared in the chair beside me. While I was genuinely happy to see her, I’m sad I lost out on the Zen.

  “I thought they were going to execute Chu for a little while there,” she said, putting her hand on top of mine.

  “I wonder if it would have been possible without a nuclear weapon.”

  “Do you really think we’re that strong?”

  “Truthfully,” I answered, turning my head to look at her, “I don’t have a clue.”

  She looked really lovely, all concerned like that. Caught between melancholy and aesthetic bliss, I leaned over to rest my head on her shoulder. It felt good.

  “
You haven’t eaten or caffeinated yet, have you?”

  I made vague mumbling noises. I didn’t want to sit up from my pleasant position. She smelled nice.

  “Come on, silly man.” She stood up, dislodging me, and held her hands out for me to rise as well. “Somebody is cooking something somewhere. If there’s no coffee left I’ll make some.”

  Grunting in existential discomfort, I took her hands and allowed myself to be escorted where food might be discovered. The little neurotic voices in my head perked up at the possibility of coffee in the near future, and did a little English country dance inside the unreconstructed part of my brain.

  “You know, I’m not sure I want food as much as I want sleep,” I said as Charlie flung open the door to the street. High noon sunlight slapped me across the pupils. “Bah! It burns us!”

  “What? Are you afraid of a little sunlight?”

  “We hates it, Precious!”

  Charlie burst out laughing. She snorted between guffaws, and covered her face in embarrassment. I couldn’t help but grin. When the laughter let her go, she looked me up and down, oozing faux annoyance at my amused expression.

  “So,” she said, pointing between my eyes, “what have you done with the One Ring, Frankie Gollum Trousers?”

  “Us? We doesn’t have it!” What can I say? I get into a role and I can’t let it go.

  “You don’t have it?”

  “No. Nasty gray people took it from us!”

  “Wait,” my prime example of Feminine Everything said, raising both hands between us. “I thought you said the little gray guys didn’t give you an anal probe!”

  I chased her all the way to B2, chastising her mightily as we ran.

  Being a brilliant, resourceful and splendid woman, she went inside and came back out bearing coffee and a baked, half moon-shaped object in a napkin.

  “Yolanda made empanadas for lunch today. She told me to take one of these because she knows your favorites.”

  I reached out, snagged the tribute that absolved Charlie from punitive tickling, and bit into the corner of the empanada. “Oh. Oh, God. Flights of Angels sing me to my sleep... spicy, shredded beef!”