by Iain Benson
The analyst gave the order.
Stoically, they watched the President’s progress. There were only two soldiers in the elevator with him, but four more were waiting as he emerged.
“Put the Oval Office on the screens,” Murray instructed the analyst nearest to him. “And turn the sound up.”
All the screens on the wall became one large screen again. A volume slider moving upwards in the bottom corner ruined the illusion of looking into the next room through a lattice screen.
President Cruise was standing on the large circular rug in the middle of the room.
“What do you people want?” they heard him ask.
There was no reply from his guards.
President Cruise made a run for the French doors, but was yanked back by his arm before he’d made his first pace. “Fine, I’ll stay here then.”
“We have the helicopter in sight,” said the analyst with the ear piece.
“Fire,” said Mary.
“Firing,” was the response.
Through the thick walls and from some distance, the sound of an explosion was a distant, sustained crump. Like something falling in the kitchen.
“Did we get him?” Murray asked.
“Negative,” said the analyst. “The gunship pilot said somebody jumped from the helicopter and forced the missile down into offices.”
“Fire again,” said Mary.
“The helicopter is too close to the White House,” said the analyst.
“Damn,” Mary said. “Murray, we need to get as many people out of here as we can and try and organise some kind of resistance. The sooner we get on it, the better.”
“Wait,” said Murray. “The President might still get us out of this.”
The wait was a tense two minutes.
On the screen they watched as the reinforced, bulletproof French doors were removed from the frame and tossed aside. Wishbone strolled through, brushing imaginary dust from his polo shirt shoulders. He was in a light blue polo shirt and black slacks. Over one shoulder he had a satchel.
“Mr President,” he said conversationally, coming in and sitting in the chair behind the big antique desk. “Sorry about the mess, but a bit of collateral damage seemed to be the best way to get your attention.”
“What do you want?” President Cruise came and placed his hands on the other side of the desk to lean towards the intruder.
“Can I just say, I’m a big fan,” said Wishbone. “Even Eyes Wide Shut.”
“No,” Cruise growled. “You can get on with it.”
“I want the unconditional surrender of the United States of America,” Wishbone said. He took out a single sheet of paper and a pen.
“What’s this?” Cruise took the piece of paper. He looked at it, turned it over, and put it back down. “It’s blank.”
“I know,” said Wishbone. “Apparently, America is by far and away the most litigious country on Earth. As I don’t really like lawyers, I figured you could just right something like ‘unconditional surrender’, as that’s quite hard to squirm out of. Anyway, I hadn’t really fleshed out all the details of what your surrender entails.”
“It’s under duress,” said Cruise. “It’s meaningless.”
“This goes two ways,” said Wishbone. “You sign it and go on TV and say America’s now part of my empire, whatever I decide to call it. I really should come up with a name. What do you think of Oblivion? It’s got a nice ring, I think.”
“You said two things,” Cruise pointed out.
“Oh yes,” said Wishbone. “The alternative is I bring in more troops. That will mean a lot of people will die. Well, a lot of people are going to die anyway, you Americans think real life is like Hollywood.”
“People will fight you,” Cruise said. “You can’t beat us all.”
Wishbone shrugged. “You might have a few good men, but you know what…when it comes down to it, a lot of people don’t really care who’s in charge. I’m very benevolent.”
“Why?”
“Why am I benevolent? It’s a character flaw.” Wishbone looked surprised at the question.
“Why do you want the world?”
“Isn’t it the ultimate aim of every megalomaniac to rule over everything?” Wishbone asked.
“Probably,” Cruise conceded. “But what then?”
“After I become the ultimate ruler? The top gun? Well, I suppose I can then do anything I like.” Wishbone steepled his fingers and looked up at Cruise, something not many had done. “It’ll be good for you all.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’ll insist that each area is run by one person who reports to me,” said Wishbone. “For example, that could be you for this area. Although, that said, the USA is a bit big. I might merge it with Canada and then split the whole lot into eight. I’ve not really sorted all that out yet. They’re the details.”
“What on Earth for?” President Cruise said.
“So I can spread all the world’s resources equally. There’d be no borders, you see.”
“It’s an alien concept,” said the President.
“It is,” said Wishbone, “but I’m sure you will all get used to it. You’ll be amazed what wonders are possible when you’re not spending ninety percent of your time fighting, thinking about fighting and fighting to stop fighting.”
“And if people can’t get used to it?”
“They will,” Wishbone seemed quite certain. “The Middle East is already feeling the benefit of peace without American made issues.”
“Will you stop doing that,” said Cruise.
“Doing what?”
“Inserting my films in what you say!”
“You noticed? I’ll stop then. I was wondering how I was going to get Edge of Tomorrow into a sentence that makes sense.”
“I can’t sign the surrender,” said the President.
“Why ever not?” said Wishbone leaning back in the big leather chair. “What’s the point of having a leader of an arbitrarily defined bit of rock if they can’t make decisions?”
“The Senate won’t approve it,” Cruise shrugged. “They disagree with me on religious grounds of all things. If I sign, they won’t.”
“Shame,” said Wishbone. “I was hoping this would be as quick as Australia.”
“I didn’t know you’d invaded Australia?”
“I haven’t,” said Wishbone. “They rang me up and surrendered without me having to send any troops. They said something about bloodshed spoiling the atmosphere. I have been invited to a barbecue on Tuesday, which is nice.”
Wishbone arose and dusted down his slacks, adjusted his shirt.
“Is that it?” Cruise asked.
Wishbone paused by the door. “Yes, if you won’t sign, we’ll do it the hard way. I take all your weapons and then ask again. This is going to take ages, you lot have more weapons than people. It’d have been simpler if you had signed.”
Feet crunching on the remains of the glass from the French doors, Wishbone headed for his helicopter parked on the helipad next to the a blue helicopter with an American flag painted on the side.
Ten identical soldiers in their identical powder blue uniforms came in, taking up positions around the room. They did not need to look at each other to stand equidistant from one another. Their co-ordinated movements were spooky.
“Secure this building,” Wishbone told them. “Find everybody. Put them in the kitchens so they can eat and drink until I get back. It’ll probably take a few days. Kill anybody who tries to escape, or break in.”
The soldier gave no indication that it had heard or understood. Its face was impassive and expressionless. It and the other soldiers gathered Cruise up and led him out of the room. He didn’t put up much of a fight, looking small amid the towering giant soldiers.
“Okay,” said Murray, as they turned the big screen back into lots of little screens. “You were right. We should have all escaped.”
Murray looked around the room, but Mary Curr was alread
y gone.
Chapter 7
In which London gets into a bar brawl
The planet Phu Tung looked a dusty yellow colour, or yellowy silver, it was difficult to tell. It was most definitely not a sphere. Pronounced flattened poles made it more dough ball shaped.
The alarm indicating their arrival had woken them all up. London tried to recall his dream, and couldn’t. He wandered to the cockpit via the kitchen. The bar he’d found tasted vaguely of the smell of soured eggs. He was hungry, so he took it and ate it in the cockpit, looking at the huge screen currently showing Phu Tung.
“Why’s it that shape?”
“No idea,” said Xia. “Do I look like an astrophysicist?”
“I’ve never met one, so I can’t tell,” said London. “Oh, no, wait…There was the Christmas Party at Stapleton House. She said she was an astrophysicist.”
“Did she look like me?”
“Every human looks like you,” said Vera coming into the cockpit. The huge blue lion looked dishevelled, he had bed mane.
“No,” said London. “She was from Canada and had a lisp.”
“Are we going back to Suk Madang?” Xia asked, setting the ship into landing mode.
“Suk Madang is the location of Isinglass,” Vera shrugged. “I am willing to accept alternate plans.”
“It’s the best plan,” said Xia. “It’s just that the place brings back bad memories.”
“I understand,” said Vera. “You can stay with the ship if you like.”
“We’ll stick together,” Xia said with an edge to her voice London hadn’t heard before.
“May I accompany you?” Bonbon asked.
“Of course you may,” said Vera. “It is always useful to have a telepath with you during negotiations. People are more likely to tell the truth without the threat of temporarily losing digits or limbs.”
Xia skimmed into the atmosphere at a fairly sedate pace, the land below resolved into huge cities separated by sand. Even the sand was filled with metal.
“This place looks like a junk yard,” said London.
“A Junk Yard not a bad description,” said Vera. “Everything seems to end up here eventually. It is the only planet I’ve ever come across that has got noticeably more massive since sentience colonised it.”
The stolen ship came in low over a field of other ships, stopping and dropping like an egg thrown at a wall, but with less broken shell. Inside, London didn’t feel like they’d stopped suddenly. It was a technology that would be really useful in a car crash.
The air smelled sulphurous as London walked down the short ramp. Dust filled his nostrils, making him sneeze.
“Careful doing that around Diphthongs,” said Xia. “It’s an insult of the highest order.”
“Hopefully,” London replied. “I won’t meet any. Or if I do, it won’t be dusty and smell of farts.”
The light had an orange cast to it, just at the right wavelength to make London squint, whilst making it hard to see. Bonbon moved like he had a spring for a backside, bumping along. The sun was low, casting long shadows in front of them as they walked down a row of space craft. The other ships came in all shapes and sizes, some boxy looking like container crates, some sleek like birds about to take off.
Low buildings surrounded the field, food spots, places openly selling milk, sleeping places and shops. It felt like an airport in a provincial Mediterranean town. It seemed that sentient beings the universe over had the same town planner.
“Do you want some milk?” asked a sandy coloured tic-tac whose hair looked dishevelled.
London shook his head, and they moved on into the concourse.
“Is there anything like customs?” London asked.
“What’s that?” Xia asked.
“So people know who’s entering the country,” London replied. “They have them at airports.”
“I never got to use an airport,” said Xia. “The Diphthongs and Kurian that took me didn’t feel the need to take the usual channels.”
“I guess not,” said London. “Don’t we need to announce our arrival or anything?”
“The port took our ship details when we arrived,” said Vera. “That’s all they care about. Some of the more ordered planets worry about who’s visiting, but here in the outskirts, nobody really cares.”
Vera led them to a bar. It was dim inside. What little light there was came from small circular windows in the far wall, made hazy by smoke. It took London a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. In one corner there was a band on a semi-circular stage. The Kurian band members were playing something that sounded remarkably like jazz. Some of the instruments looked like oboes, some like saxophones. Adjacent to the stage there was a bar openly selling milk along with other liquids of varying intoxication levels.
In cubicles around the room were sitting aliens of all races. London spotted the tic-tacs, beetles, beavers, insects and slugs. In one cubicle was sitting an insect opposite a beaver. They were talking earnestly, when the beaver shot the insect under the table with an energy weapon of some sort. For a brief moment, the music stopped.
The scene reminded London of something. He shook his head and followed Vera and Xia. Bonbon had vanished off somewhere. London was pretty sure that the pompom would be all right and could take care of itself.
“I wish you would cease referring to me as a pompom,” London unwillingly thought.
“All right,” London muttered.
“What’s that?” Xia asked.
“Nothing,” said London. “I’m just apologising to Bonbon.”
They walked past a table where a young Kurian was trying to arrange passage on a fast ship off the planet.
There was a larger booth in the corner, two insects standing at its entrance. Beyond, in the shadows, London saw the kind of beaver only seen in the nightmares of dam builders. It was almost the same size as London. Although it had a whiskery face, it lacked the prominent front two teeth of an actual beaver. Its eyes were large ovals of deep black, reflecting the light from the windows; London was unable to tell where its gaze was directed. Tufted ears twitched on its head. They swivelled constantly as though picking up on every slight sound. In open display, on the table, an energy weapon. The stubby three fingered hand tapped long black claws beside it as the trio approached.
The two insects stepped together to block entrance to Vera.
“I am here to speak to Isinglass,” Vera said.
“Let him through,” said the beaver in the corner, his language coloured with the overtones of a thick tongue blowing raspberries on every syllable. “Not that you two could stop him.”
Vera stepped up onto the slight dais and curled into the curved couch. Xia and London found it far easier to fit in and sit down.
“Vera,” said Isinglass.
“I want my ship back.”
“I don’t have it,” Isinglass said. “I sold it. It’s a nice vessel.”
“To whom did you sell it?”
“I’m not the sort of business being who keeps detailed records,” Isinglass admitted.
“Then remember,” Vera replied. “Unlike the Kurian, should I rip your arm off, it won’t regrow.”
“I am rather fond of both my arms,” Isinglass acknowledged. “It is unlikely you would be alive long enough for me to tell you once I’d lost my arm. This is my bar. Everybody here is armed. They will protect me.”
“Shall we put it to the test?” Vera hissed. “I don’t mind if I die, I have nothing left to live for.”
“Ah. But your two friends might not feel the same.” Isinglass indicated London and Xia.
Xia shrugged. “I’m not particularly bothered. I was abducted by some of your crew to be a milk cow. If I could take a few with me before I go, I’d go happy.”
“I like a bar-room brawl,” said London. “Plus, if Vera here dies, I’m stuck here, and I’d quite like to get home, so I’ll be helping him.”
“The name slips my mind, sadly,” said Isinglass.
“If you cannot remember their name,” said Vera, entirely too reasonably, “can you at least remember where they went?”
Isinglass’s lip curled. It could have been the Julip equivalent of a shrug. “No idea, Vera. However, if you’re looking for…”
The large beaver tailed off.
“You have a telepath!” the beaver screamed, reaching for its weapon. Vera knocked the weapon away; London collected it happily as the bar erupted.
As Vera and the beaver fought in the enclosed space of the booth, London dived to the side just in time to avoid a gaping hole appearing in the seat where he had been moments before. Xia went the other way, taking out the two insect bodyguards with a sweeping motion of her right leg, relieving them of their weapons. London peaked through the hole in the chair. He could see a beetle several booths over peeking through a similar hole. London looked at the gun in his hand. It had a handle, a button and a complicated series of tubes, gauges and channels, all made from a matt black metal. Guns are not complicated devices to use. There would be an awful lot less accidental shootings if the wielder had to get their instruction book out every time they wanted to fire it.
At this point, London decided the point was to point the pointy point at the point where the beetle was and press the button. He was satisfied to see the seat with the beetle behind it explode in a snowstorm of stuffing. Xia had two such weapons and was creating her own snowstorm of table material, seat material and some sentient being material, although she wasn’t really aiming at anything in particular, which made her somewhat more dangerous to all and sundry than somebody who was.
London vaulted the seat, rolling into the middle of the room. A tic-tac tried to hit him with a chair, but it felt like balsa wood as it smashed over his arm. London swing a punch, amazed to see how far the Kurian flew.
“Vera suggests you both get out of there,” Bonbon’s thoughts floated through London’s mind. Xia looked at him; they nodded to one another and looked to the door.
“The door’s blocked,” said Xia.
“Let’s make a new one,” London pointed at the nearest window. He threw himself at what he thought was glass, only to discover it was much tougher as he bounced off with a pain shooting through his shoulder.