Alien Nation #4 - The Change

by Barry B. Longyear

  “Not quite everyone’s,” Susan said, looking down at George.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Buck said to Emily, “We’ll be late. Take care of the skillet after school.” Buck picked up Vessna and, carrying the child, followed Emily out the kitchen door.

  Susan looked at her husband’s dejected expression and said, “Would you like me to fix a few beaver strips for you or toast up a moth tart?”

  “No, thank you. Just some tea, and I’ll get it. You’re running late too.”

  He walked over to the stove and picked up the teapot. As he filled it at the sink, he glanced at the television screen. On it was the image of a familiar face. “Susan, turn up the sound. That’s Thomas Rand.” Susan dried her hands and touched the remote.

  “—eleven killed and at least fourteen wounded. The gunman was killed by police officers at the Bucky McBeaver’s near Marengo and Soto shortly after seven this morning. Acting Police Chief Marcus Steadman said there is no connection between this incident, the Black Slayer, or the Thunderbolt Poet Killer, and—”

  “Nos dessa!” George swore. “Susan, it’s Tom Rand. He’s been either wounded or killed in some crazy mass slaying.”

  “Tom Rand?”

  “The warden at China Lake. You remember. He’s the one who addressed our quarantine group before we were released. He’s—”

  “Yes, I remember now. He spoke to us about human law and law enforcement.” She went to George’s side and placed her arms around his waist as she looked at the screen.

  “A great man. He’s the one who taught us to be men and women instead of slaves. Pride.” George nodded. “He taught us to have pride. Now he’s been killed in some senseless slaughter. What are humans, that this kind of madness keeps happening?”

  He shook his head as the image showed the camera panning the carnage at the Newcomer’s fast food franchise in the pit of Slagtown. The image rack focused down until it filled the window above and to the left of the anchor’s shoulder. The person on the screen was the Newcomer queen of the Slagtown news beat, Amanda Reckonwith.

  “To repeat, a gunman armed with a revolver, a machine pistol, and an assault rifle entered the McBeaver’s near Marengo and Soto this morning and began peppering the patrons with automatic fire. The latest body count has risen to at least eleven dead and fourteen wounded. One of the dead and two of the wounded are humans. In an astonishing recent development, the gunman’s identity has been confirmed by federal authorities to be Thomas J. Rand, warden at the China Lake Federal Maximum Security Facility. The spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons could shed no light on Warden Rand’s possible motives or mental state. However a thorough investigation—”

  George punched off the TV’s power button, stumbled over to the counter and hung on as another wave of dizziness washed over him. “I don’t understand.” He looked into Susan’s eyes, searching for answers she didn’t have. “I don’t understand it at all.”

  He pulled his necktie off and thrust it into his coat pocket, took a deep breath, and nodded. “I have to get to work. This business will have the entire department in a turmoil.” He removed his suit jacket and draped it over the back of a chair.

  Susan placed her hand on George’s arm. “I’m sorry about Tom Rand. I know what he meant to you.”

  “Feel sorry for the twenty-five dead and wounded down in Hollenbeck he left behind on his way to oblivion.” He brushed her temples with his knuckles, “We both need to get to work.”

  “Please see a doctor, love.”

  George frowned at the human term of endearment. He didn’t think he objected to it. For some reason, it just struck him as very very strange. He seemed somehow loosely connected to reality.

  “I will.” Before Susan turned to go into the nursery, George looked into her eyes, and for the first time noticed that they were deep maroon in color. This was strange to him, as well, for he knew they were blue. At least, he thought he knew they were blue. He was beginning to doubt everything.

  It was like the doubtful Descartes joke Buck had brought home shortly after he had begun college: “I think, therefore I am, I think.”

  George stood for a long moment, feeling as though there was something he had forgotten, and strained his mind trying to remember what it was. For some reason, he felt it was quite important. He went to the closet, pulled out his old weekend windbreaker and put it on. Suddenly, a startlingly raw string of Tenctonese expletives assaulted George’s ear folds from the direction of the nursery. It was startling because George had never heard Susan exercise that portion of her vocabulary.

  He looked into the nursery and saw Susan standing before Vessna’s crib, her back to the door. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Think, George,” she commanded, her voice cold yet frightened. “Is there something you’ve forgotten?”

  “That’s odd. I was just now thinking that, but I simply couldn’t imagine what it was.”

  “Look into the baby’s crib. Maybe that will refresh your memory.”

  Quickly George mentally raced through the diaper changing, bottle preparing, toy selection, and toy placement baby maintenance chores that he was supposed to have done, but he could clearly remember doing them all, and doing them well. He took three steps into the room, glanced into Vessna’s crib, and caught his breath as he instantly remembered what he’d forgotten. Partially hidden by the baby’s pink and white blanket was the grip of the .38 Smith & Wesson revolver he’d been awarded for graduating at the top of his class at the police academy. The weapon was fully loaded and the hammer was fully cocked. That was curious too, because the weapon had a hair trigger. Simply brushing against it, the baby could have fired it, which would have been unfortunate, since the barrel appeared to have been aimed at Vessna’s head. There was good reason to believe that the baby had tried sucking nourishment from the barrel at some time during the night.

  George looked dumbly into his shoulder holster and was crestfallen to find it empty. Before he found the empty holster, he had entertained a split-second fantasy in which the gun belonged to someone else, which would have created another set of problems. He pushed the blanket aside, picked up the weapon, and held it in his hand. Susan kept staring at the gun, saying nothing, which was good, because George was fresh out of responses.

  C H A P T E R 5

  “DID YOU HEAR about that freakout over in Hollenbeck Division?” Sergeant Dobbs asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Detective Sergeant Matt Sikes reversed his feet on the edge of his desk and punched at the keyboard he had perched on his lap.

  “Everybody’s heard about it, Dobbs,” Sikes answered as he smacked the keyboard and snorted a breath of frustration through his nose. “Dobbs, have you seen George? My PC is jammed tight. Did George decide to rearrange everything again?”

  “I don’t know, man. It wasn’t my turn to watch him.”

  “Hasn’t he come in yet?” asked Mark Diaz from his side of Dobbs’s desk.

  “Would I be looking for him if he was here?”

  “Who can say?” answered Diaz. “Sometimes when George is here, he’s not all here. Know what I mean?”

  “No, Diaz. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Like yesterday, Sikes, when he emptied all the paper clips into his tea—and drank it.”

  “I’ve got a lot of work to do and George is late, and that’s all I’m talking about.”

  Dobbs shook his head. “George Francisco can’t be late. He hasn’t been late once since he came out of the academy. The man has a punctuality fetish.”

  “There’s just no respect for tradition anymore,” Diaz added.

  “You two’ve been overdosing on jerk pills again.” Sikes removed himself from the conversation, punched at the keyboard once more, and sighed. “All I get on this piece of junk is squat and squat squared.”

  “Who’s popping idiot capsules, now?” asked Diaz. “I mean, my terminal works just fine.”

  “A poor detective blames his keyboard,” Dobbs
chimed in, then fell silent. After a stunned moment he said, “Holy shit. Check out the seven-day lost weekend.”

  Sikes looked up and saw his partner virtually feeling his way to the desk, his eyes protected by shooter’s shades. Instead of his usually impeccable polyester, George Francisco was tieless, his collar was open, he had on a ratty tan windbreaker and torn blue jeans.

  “I’ll go see if I can find the number for Milkaholics Anonymous,” Diaz cracked as he and Dobbs chuckled and returned to their work.

  “George?” Sikes said. “Is that you?”

  Francisco eased himself into his chair, folded his arms as though he were having a chill, and nodded. “I’m sorry I’m late, Matt. It’s been one of those mornings.” He shook his head. “No. It hasn’t been one of those mornings. It has been this morning: Hell in a hibachi; the gridiron grind; everything down the great mother of all toilets.”

  “Having a rough day, George?”

  Francisco removed his sunglasses and glared across the desk at his partner. “Your sarcasm is not appreciated, Matt.”

  “Look, George, ease off. Okay? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing,” Sikes repeated. He took his feet from his desk and placed the keyboard on top of a stack of files. “George, you look like you’re coming off a three-week bender.”

  “Bender?”

  “Drunk, binge, bust, tear, milkman’s holiday.”

  George slowly shook his head. “You’re referring to an overindulgence of some sort with a drug. No, it’s nothing like that. Susan thinks I might have a touch of nia.”

  “Knee-what?”

  “Nia. I suppose the closest human equivalent would be influenza.”

  “Flu? You got space flu?”

  “Just flu, although it might be something more serious. Susan wants me to see a doctor. Perhaps I will. I’ll have to do something soon. Things are getting quite bizarre. Strange dreams, short temper, dizzy, forgetful.” He glanced down at the weapon in his shoulder holster, closed his eyes for a grateful second, and looked again at his partner. “Quite forgetful.”

  “It happens to everybody, George. Don’t sweat it.”

  “I don’t sweat. Newcomers don’t, you know.”

  “Just an expression.”

  George put his sunglasses back on and waved his hand to dismiss the subject. “Have you heard any more about that shooting over in Hollenbeck?”

  “Just what was on the news. The blue screws are down tight.”

  “Blue screws?”

  “Police security. As far as the East L.A. cops are concerned, nobody knows nada. It stinks like the feds are into it, spin doctors and garbage handlers raining from the sky. Somebody sizable must be worried that he screwed up big-time. I’ll bet anything it’s because of who the shooter is. Sounds like the office routine finally got to Warden Rand. Maybe the guy who appointed him is trying to make himself invisible. It looks like the artillery the shooter used came from a sporting goods store in Van Nuys.”

  “Is there some significance in that?”

  “Probably not. Van Nuys is on the way to Boyle Heights from China Lake. Anyway, Hollenbeck and Van Nuys both are sitting on what they have. Feds are in it up to their paper shredders.”

  “What could’ve caused the gunman to do such a thing?”

  “The warden?” Matt’s face grew very troubled. “Isn’t that a slice of weird? I don’t even get a hint. Maybe he just freaked.” The man’s protective layer of sarcasm moved between him and his feelings. “This morning he ran out of Fruit Loops, his wife left hair in the sink, he found a bottle of Scope in the mailbox, then bingo, he’s popping weasel-jerky gourmands at Bucky’s.”

  “He wasn’t married.” George lifted his dark glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I sort of knew him.”

  “The shooter?”

  “Yes. All of the Newcomers who entered law enforcement when I did knew him. In a manner of speaking, he was our mentor. Tom Rand was one of the reasons I entered the police academy.”

  Matt Sikes thought for a moment, then shrugged. “People wig out sometimes, George. Newcomers too. It happens.”

  “There has to be more of an answer than that, Matt. Tom Rand was the most balanced human I’ve ever met. There has to be another reason.”

  “Maybe, ol’ buddy, but we’re not going to find it. It’s not our case. Just poking around on my own, I got my knuckles smacked. When I tell you nobody over in Hollenbeck wants us, believe me—”

  “Francisco! Sikes!” screamed Captain Grazer. “Don’t you bastards ever check your zap pad? Francisco has an ‘urgent’ flag, and the damned thing won’t stop beeping my terminal until one of you jerks acknowledges it! So someone push a damned button already! Today!”

  Sikes looked up to see the captain disappearing into his office. “And they say PMS is a women’s issue.”

  “Perhaps his wife’s pregnancy is wearing thin.”

  “Yeah. I hear she’s eating the planet.” Matt leaned across his desk and said to George, “I’ve been trying to call up my menu for half an hour. What’d you do to the computer, partner?”

  “Nothing.” George reached out, punched on his unit, entered the code for the main menu, and in a moment it appeared. A red warning flag was flashing in the upper left corner of the screen. “There’s nothing wrong with my terminal, Matt.”

  “Great,” said Sikes. “That means there is absolutely no hope at all. It’ll take maintenance a week to fix this.”

  “Allow me.” George stood, walked around the desk, and picked up Matt’s keyboard. Flipping it over, he dropped it upon the desk a few times. When he again picked up the keyboard, the desk was filthy. “I didn’t do anything to your terminal, Matt. You did.”

  With the eraser of a pencil, George pushed among the items that had fallen out of the keyboard. “Here we have a paper clip, two staples, a piece of pencil lead, a great deal of chocolate-chip cookie crumbs, some fingernail clippings, and I believe that small strip of desiccated animal flesh is a piece of pepperoni.” He reset the unit, entered the code, and the main menu leaped upon the screen.

  “Francisco!” Captain Grazer screamed. “Sometime this damned millennium!”

  “Got it, Captain,” George answered as he entered his code on Matt’s keyboard. The screen blanked, and came back with his zap pad.

  * * * * * *

  DET. SGT. GEORGE FRANCISCO, NO. 27113;

  OFFICER WILLIAM E. DUNCAN, NO. 10882.

  ESCAPED PRISONER/PRISONER RELEASE WARNING

  MAANKA DAK, NO. 77142, AND SING FANGAN, NO. 77147, INMATES AT THE CHINA LAKE FEDERAL MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILITY, ESCAPED FROM CUSTODY LAST EVENING. THEIR WHEREABOUTS ARE UNKNOWN. DAK AND FANGAN ARE CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

  * * * * * *

  “Old collar, George?”

  Francisco frowned as he studied the screen. “Yes.” He nodded. “Yes. Very old.”

  “Who’s Duncan?”

  “Bill Duncan. He was my T.O.”

  “Your training officer? Come to think on it, I never heard you mention him.”

  “He’s not exactly one of my favorite idle conversation topics.” George rubbed his eyes and shook his head. When he lowered his hand, he looked at his partner. “It was when I was still a probationer riding black-and-whites in Slagtown. I think we were paired up to discourage me and piss off Duncan. Bill Duncan hated me, hated Slagtown, and just about anyone with spots instead of hair.”

  “Prejudiced?”

  “Not just against Newcomers. If your age, sex, shade, or physical configuration varied one iota from Bill Duncan’s, he’d puke his venom at you. I’m not even certain he’d be able to tolerate an identical twin.”

  “Sort of a democratic bigot, huh, George?”

  Francisco shrugged and looked down at his desktop. “I wasn’t terribly fond of him either. He stank.”

  “I know humans smell a little different, but—”

  “Matt, he stank because he smoked those evil da
mned cigars all the time and soaked himself in an after-shave lotion that reminded me of fermented underwear. I think he put it on double strength because he knew it made me ill.”

  “Gosh, George, I didn’t think you had it in you to hate anybody.”

  Francisco’s eyebrows went up. “Hate?” He frowned as a thought played behind his eyes to be replaced by a headache. George nodded toward his computer. “Will they run this flag on the beat screens in the black-and-whites?”

  “Your old T.O. still in the rollers?”

  “Yes. It’s important, Matt. Will they notify Duncan right away?”

  “If they don’t catch him at home, they’ll catch him at roll call. How come you’re being flagged? Did this Dak and Fangan do an I’m-gonna-git-you-sucka on you and Duncan?”

  George frowned as he scratched his neck beneath his right ear. “It was somewhat more than a threat.” George walked back to his chair and dropped into it.

  “So, what was it?”

  “It was a bust in cooperation with the FBI regarding a string of bank robberies here in L.A. There was a mix-up about which bank we were to cover, the feds were on the other side of the city, and Duncan and I were left slightly understaffed. They shot it out with us. Maanka’s biological brother, Sita Dak, was killed.”

  Sikes scratched the back of his neck as he nodded toward his partner. “You?”

  “Yes. It was my gun that fired the fatal bullet.” After a reflective moment, George said, “I knew them all from the ship, Matt. Maanka Dak and Sing Fangan believe they must perform the vikah ta to satisfy an oath they took long ago, before we came to Earth.”

  “What’s that?”