Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

  Either that, or he was wrong, and there were no inferior people. Which would mean that when you mixed two things that didn't match, you could wind up with just about any combination of the two. Hans shook the insane thought from his head. He was tired, that was all. He needed a nap. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  "Sir?" a voice at the door said.

  "What the hell is it!" Hans said, hammering on his desk with his fist. "Can't you see I need some rest?"

  "You sent for Brawn, and he's here, Sir," his secretary said after clearing her throat.

  "Ah! Good! Send him in." Hans sat up straight in his chair, suddenly feeling revitalized.

  The man walked in. He was so huge that he seemed to fill the room. "Sit! Sit, my son," Hans said.

  Brawn sat in the chair Hans indicated. "You sent for me, Father?"

  "I have a bit of a problem, Son," Hans said. "Americans are incompetent. I don't have to tell you that. They are foolish and sentimental. So there are leaks, and I want you to stop them. There are some troublesome people, and I want you to kill them."

  Brawn smiled for the first time since he had entered the room. "It will be my pleasure."

  Tommy was hoeing in his garden. He was starting to see what he was sure were seedlings, and he pointed them out to Laura.

  "Do you see?" he asked pointing.

  "No, not really," she said.

  "Right there, see?"

  Laura shrugged. It looked like dirt to her. "Sorry, Baby."

  "Well, it is. I know it is." He continued to hoe the weeds he didn't want out of his garden, carefully preserving the weeds he did want. Mostly, he was trying to loosen up the soil so that it would soak up water better.

  "Don't you ever wonder what's going on out there, Tommy? The President could have been assassinated and we wouldn't even know about it."

  "Yes we would. We listen to the radio every night for fifteen minutes. We hear the news," Tommy said.

  "Don't you miss the people you work with?"

  "Most of them are turds. They don't like me, and I don't like them. I miss Spider, but who knows where she is right now?"

  "We don't know because we haven't been home . . . "

  "I told you that Carrie said Spider disappeared," Tommy said.

  "I wonder what my parents are thinking. I miss my friends at work. I miss Carrie. I miss the toilet. Tommy, I want to go home," Laura said.

  Tommy sighed. She did this almost every day now. "Laura, I told you. We can't go back. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Why can't you just enjoy being here and put everything else out of your head?"

  "Because there is nothing to occupy my brain, Tommy," Laura said. "I had one book and I've read it six times. Should I count rocks, or take up a hobby collecting strange looking pieces of moss? Come on, Tommy. We can't continue to live like this!"

  "I can't believe that you would rather go back there and die than be bored. Besides, it's your own fault that you're bored. I'm not bored, because there are lots of things to do."

  "All the things there are to do here are things that I hate to do," Laura said matter-of-factly. "Let's go out there. Change our names. Go to a new town. Start over again. Like the witness protection program, thingy."

  "Oh! That would be a lot of fun. I could pump gas for a living, and you could get a lovely job in fast foods. We could live in a fucking trailer court and eat TV dinners. Besides which, where the hell am I going to get the paperwork? I don't have any connections, and you can't do shit any more without ID. Why can't you be reasonable?"

  She started crying and ran towards the cabin. He let her go. The first ten times she had done this he had gone to her and apologized. Now he was tired of it. Why couldn't she just get it through her head that this was the way things had to be—at least for now—and learn to enjoy it?

  Something fell into the middle of his garden and rolled up to his feet. He looked down at the baseball for a second, then grabbed his gun and scanned the area. From across the camp Spider grinned back at him, waving a baseball mitt in the air.

  "Wanna play catch?" she yelled.

  Tommy ran, jumped his makeshift fence, and raced the full length of the camp. He jumped on Spider and tackled her to the ground. Then he kissed her whole face. He finally got off her and hauled her to her feet.

  "Spider, I . . . " he hugged her.

  "Yeah, me, too." She smiled and hugged him again.

  Laura heard the commotion and came out of the cabin. When she saw what all the ruckus was about, she ran down to greet Spider as well.

  "How the hell did you find us?" Tommy asked.

  "You told me about coming here all the time when you were a kid. How secluded it was. I figured you'd come here."

  That didn't exactly answer Tommy's question. "But how did you find us?" Tommy asked again.

  "The library. Reading Is Fundamental, don't you know," she said. "I knew you grew up in Oxburg. I knew you said it was in the area, so I drew a circle on the map. Then I looked for national forests. Then I looked up old WPA and CCC sites in the area. When I overlaid those, it was easy. Once we found the car all I had to do was use my extra sensory perception to feel you out."

  Tommy laughed. Then he stood back and looked at her. She looked bad. A black eye, bloodied lip, skin and bones, and tired. Her eyes lacked their usual gleam. "You look like you've been through hell," he said gently.

  She almost smiled. "At least."

  "Come on, I'll get you something to eat . . . "

  "I'm not alone," she said.

  Tommy's guts rolled. "Someone followed you . . . "

  "No. I brought people with me."

  "Carrie?" Laura said hopefully. Tommy had no idea when she had gotten there.

  "I wish," Spider said. "Robby, come on in!" she yelled.

  Then she said to Tommy. "I was afraid you might shoot first and ask questions later, so I came on in alone."

  Tommy watched as three figures walked out of the woods. He recognized the man from one of their interviews. "Him! The garbage man is the Fry Guy?"

  "Yes," Spider said.

  "You!" Laura screeched. "You knew who the Fry Guy was. You . . . you brought him up here!"

  The man was pushing some kind of wheelbarrow looking thing. There was a boy with him, and a woman who had been handcuffed with one of those cheap jobs you could pick up at a gas station.

  It only took them a few minutes to catch up to them. Tommy watched with curiosity as the boy walked immediately up to Spider and took her hand, almost hiding behind her. Either there was some genetic link between Spider, the Fry Guy, and this kid, or he had just landed on the planet of the big-handed people.

  "Tommy, you've kind of met Robby. This is Mark, and the woman is a So-what-if fuck and our prisoner."

  "Her name is Francis," Robby supplied.

  "You have a prisoner!" Tommy said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Why do you have a prisoner?"

  "It's a long story, and I've got to sit down," Spider said.

  "She isn't feeling very well," Robby said.

  Tommy led them over to the picnic table. Spider sat down, and the boy sat beside her. He wouldn't look at Tommy. Robby set the wheelbarrow thing down and sat on a piece of log Tommy had brought into camp. The prisoner sat on the ground where Spider pointed.

  Tommy sat down across from Spider, and Laura sat beside him. "Now, can you finally tell me what the hell is going on?"

  "Let's see. How to put this." Spider was thoughtful. "There really are aliens. They do, periodically, abduct humans, do experiments on them, and impregnate them. Robby, Mark ,and I are all at least half alien. I'll give you a second to digest that, then I'll tell you about the huge government conspiracy that started with the Nazi regime."

  It was almost dark when Spider finished talking. They ate a dinner consisting of poke salad, squirrel stew, and some sandwiches from the supplies Robby and Spider had brought. They laid out their bedding in the cabin.

  "We can fix one of the others for ourselves tomorrow.
You wouldn't believe all that Robby has in his amazing folded, hinged, rolling thing," Spider said with a smile. "It's a good thing too, God only knows how long we'll be holed up here."

  "Where am I going to sleep?" Francis asked, noticing that they had only laid out three palettes.

  "Someplace else," Spider said. She hauled the woman to her feet and started yanking her out the door.

  Tommy and Robby followed her, Robby carrying a flashlight and a blanket. Mark started to go with them.

  "No, you stay here, sport," Spider said.

  "But . . . " Mark started.

  "But me no buts," Spider said with a smile and rubbed his head. "Go lay down and get some sleep. You can't tell me that hike in didn't wear you out."

  He nodded and let her go.

  Laura smiled at him and he smiled back. He went to his pallet, moved it closer to Spider's, and then lay down in it. Laura smiled. It had to be driving Spider crazy having this kid hanging all over her. Spider just wasn't the maternal type.

  "You can sleep with us if you want," Laura said. "The mattress is quite comfortable, and there's plenty of room."

  "No, thank you," he said.

  Laura rubbed her arms. "It's a little chilly in here. When Tommy gets back I'll have him light the fire. He has this flint and steel thing I just cannot figure out."

  "I can do it," Mark said sitting up.

  "You don't have to do that."

  Mark smiled at her. "It's easy." He looked at the logs and kindling already laying in the fireplace, focused, and the fire started.

  "Did you . . . did you do that?" Laura asked in amazement.

  "Uh huh," Mark said. He looked disappointed as he added, "but I don't have very much fire. I can make lots of little fires, or one big one. But after a big one, that's it for while. Robby can just burn and burn and burn things."

  "How nice for Robby," Laura said. She remembered the headlines and TV news. She'd seen the reports, knew what the man was capable of, and decided it was definitely better to be his friends than his enemy. "Well, I think that was very impressive. It takes Tommy thirty minutes to get a fire that big going."

  "Thanks." He lay back down. "I panicked and I used a big fire on Fritz. If I was smart I would have just put a little fire on him, and then I would have had some left."

  Laura lay down and made a face. Here was a little kid who had already witnessed a bloodbath. He couldn't ever be normal again, even if he had been normal to start with. "You know what they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. I don't think you should dwell on it, Mark. Sounds like that's some awful heavy stuff for a kid to be worrying about."

  "But I have to think about it," Mark said in a far away tone. "I heard Robby and Spider talking. They said they're going to have to destroy the SWTF or none of us can ever get our lives back. I'm one of them, and this time I have to help, not just stand there like a lump, too scared to fire the gun Spider gave me."

  "Mark . . . you're just a kid. You have to let us worry about this stuff. Spider's not going to take you back into . . . " she couldn't think of another word for it, " . . . combat. Who knows? Maybe we'll just stay here in the woods forever," Laura said.

  "Maybe," Mark said he snuggled into his pillow. "Maybe she will take me with her if I can make more fire."

  "This one has the most door," Tommy said.

  "It'll do," Spider said. They walked inside. "What are we going to chain the bitch to?"

  "Wait here." Tommy ran off. He came back several minutes later rolling an old volleyball goal post. It was one of those that was sitting in a tire full of concrete, and the old hooks welded on the side to attach the net would keep her from pulling it off the top. They left one of the cuffs on her wrist, attached the other to the pole, and stood it in one of the back corners. They checked the cabin for anything that could be used as a weapon or tool, threw a blanket at her, and started to leave.

  "Wait! You're not just going to leave me here, are you?" Francis gasped. "Alone in the woods! What about bears?"

  "They won't come inside," Tommy assured her.

  "This is barbaric!" Francis screamed.

  "This is a fucking cakewalk," Spider hissed. "I can't believe you have the nerve to bitch about your incarceration to me. How about we hang you from the ceiling in a straightjacket and occasionally drug and/or torture you? I hate your guts, so don't give me any reason to hurt you, because I will. You know I will. Now shut up, lay down, go to sleep, and be happy that I'm not you."

  Tommy shut the door, and Robby leaned a log against it.

  "What the hell do you have her for?" Tommy asked.

  "Because she knows everything about the project, and we still don't," Spider said tiredly.

  She stumbled, almost fell, and Tommy caught her. He put his arm around her to steady her. She didn't protest, just leaned against him. She had lost way too much weight.

  "They hit me with this weapon they call a lightning bolt gun. They tazed me. They used a cattle prod on me. Drugged me all the time. Just to name a few. I need to think, and my head's so screwed up I can't."

  "You got out of there, and you got here. I think you're thinking just fine," Tommy said.

  "Robby got us out of there. I figured out where you were, but Robby got us here. Hell, I almost couldn't make the hike in," Spider said.

  "We'll get some good food in you. With plenty of rest, fresh air and exercise, you'll be back to your old self in no time," Tommy said.

  "I'm worried about Carrie, but I can't figure out if she's safe where she is or not. I feel like I can't think at all anymore. Who's going to take care of this mess if I can't think any more?"

  "You'll be fine as soon as you heal. In the meantime I'll take care of things," Tommy said.

  "I'm tired," she said.

  "All you need is some rest," Tommy assured her.

  He took Spider to the cabin and helped her lie down on her bedroll. He watched as the boy pulled himself closer to her.

  Tommy motioned for Robby to follow him outside, and he did.

  "She does seem really out of it," Tommy said in a worried tone. "Her eyes are kind of glassy, and she's not thinking on her feet."

  "What she's not telling you is that she attempted suicide by beating her head on a concrete floor. I think she's sustained a pretty serious concussion," Robby said.

  Tommy thought about the injuries he had suffered on the dock. The doctor had given him anti-inflammatory drugs to keep his brain from swelling. He might still have some left. Those would probably help Spider. "I think I've got something that might help. Why was she banging her head on the floor?"

  "They were going to torture Mark because she wouldn't tell them where I was," Robby said matter-of-factly. "Guess she figured if she was dead they'd leave the boy alone. But then while she was out, they told Mark that the only reason he was alive was because of Spider, and that if she died, he died."

  "Sounds like a real fine batch of human beings," Tommy said. He was thoughtful. "Why were they torturing the kid?"

  Robby was silent.

  "Well, what is it?" Tommy demanded.

  "The program has been using Spider for a breeder," Robby answered quietly.

  "They've been doing what!" Tommy screeched. Then lowered his voice. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Spider's one of the women they've been taking eggs from for fertilization and implantation. Mark is Spider's son, one of her children. She's probably got dozens. They chose him because he looked too much like Spider and her brother for her to deny him."

  "Wow!" Tommy found a rock and sat down. "You know that she's . . . "

  "Gay. Yes, I know," Robby said.

  "It must have been a real shock to learn that she was anybody's mother," Tommy said "No wonder he's hanging all over her. Separated from his . . . parents . . . knowing she's his real mother."

  "She cares very deeply for him, too," Robby said. "She tries not to, but it's like she just can't help herself."

  "She needs him, too," Tommy said thoughtfully.


  Denisten sat at the keyboard. What he had just found was bound to bring the SWTF to their knees. He couldn't wait to show this shit to DA Long. He'd just started a download when he heard a noise behind him and turned. When he saw the big guy he knew he was screwed, but he pulled his gun and tried to fire anyway. His gun slipped out of his hand. He felt like his brain was on fire, and then nothing. Meltdown.