Blood Soaked and Invaded - 02 (29 page)

“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.

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!”

“Wow! Do I get a nibble?”

“Perish the thought.” I pointed back to the building for emphasis.

Charlie’s lower lip performed acrobatic pouting maneuvers. She even went so far as to pull her shirtfront down and wiggle in place like a shy 5-year-old. Damn! Who knew she could act this well! Visions of a community theater production of The Scottish Play erupted in my head.

“But, Frank,” she said, milking the pout, “I’m eating for two now. You don’t want me to go huuungreee?”

Shit.

I passed her the remaining half of my empanada without comment. The least I could do was try to take it like a man.

“Honey, I have two things to say,” she said around a mouthful of South American soul food. “Number one is this is the most amazing empanada I’ve ever had. Number two is if you’re that easy to motivate I’m gonna have a blast being pregnant!”

“I screwed myself, didn’t I?”

“Nope. You screwed me!” She grinned like an idiot, utterly satisfied that I’d sauntered into a verbal sparring match that she was bound to win.

“I don’t suppose there are more of those in the cafeteria, are there?”

“Oh, yeah! Yolanda went a little crazy. There’s two platters of them.”

I shook my head, knowing I’d been had, and walked past my grinning lover into B2. She laughed as walked by. Have you ever wondered what you’ve gotten yourself into?

When I stepped into the cafeteria, I immediately wished I had chosen another venue for my feast. The Newbies were clustered together at a table by the buffet. That crew was the last problem I felt like dealing with right then.

Note to self: ask Baj about nanotech with light-bending camo functions. It really would have been nice to sneak in, grab a few meaty treats and then bug out unnoticed. No such luck for me, I’m afraid.

Someone came up behind me and put their hand on my shoulder.

“Sticking your fingers up a woman’s nose, Frank, is not the way to endear her to you.”

“Jeff, do I really need to endear her to me?” I turned my head to look him in the eyes.

“That is entirely dependent on what our superiors have to say about where my unit is to be stationed. They might send us back to the UK or keep us here. Come on, let’s get a coffee and I’ll introduce you to them properly.”

Charlie wandered in, licking her fingers. She gave us comradely pats on the back before she came around to my left side and took my hand.

“Miss Cooper! Lovely to see you again this morning,” Jeff said with a smile underneath his prodigious mustache.

“Hiya, you nasty, poker-faced cattle thief!”

“Don’t tell me you’re a sore loser?”

“Frank, your Scottish buddy over there tore up Shawn and me at poker last night.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Chunhua said something about you guys playing right before we got abducted. He’s a bad man, isn’t he?”

Jeff stood off to the side, hands on his chest, offering a display of mock innocence.

“I object,” he exclaimed.

“Would you listen to him, honey! No, sir, Mr. Jeffry Andrews! We know what kind of man you are!” Charlie giggled, defusing any possible explosives in her words.

My kind of gal!

“Ach. Weel.” Jeff descended into brogue. “Less be aboot wha’ we were gon’ ta do.”

True to his word, he introduced us to his people. I didn’t catch all the names beyond Siobhan Riley’s. Charlie, on the other hand, shook hands and made an effort to interact with each of them. Her sense of diplomacy is somewhat stronger than my own.

I cleared my throat.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I’m still pretty sensitive about my familial connection to this crock of shit we’re in.”

“You did make an impression,” one of the members of Jeff’s group said. He looked like he was British by way of at least one Middle Eastern parent. “It isn’t our intention to make light of what you’ve been through. Did Andrews explain why we’re all here?”

“No,” I answered. “He didn’t mention it.”

“Ah, I see,” he said, nodding. I suddenly remembered his name: Hashim El Baz. “We’re all volunteers, as you probably guessed, from various branches of the military and MI5. We qualified for this assignment based on skills, aptitude, and by having lost every living member of our families to the virus.”

“Oh,” I breathed, my stomach sinking into the arches of my shoes.

“Yes. I speak for myself, of course, when I say that I feel for your loss and what you have lived through in order to be here, speaking to us.”

“Thank you, Mr. El Baz.” I said it like I mean it: honestly and with gratitude. “I am deeply sorry for your losses, too.”

“Ah,” he replied, waving it off. “Let’s sit and you can tell us about little gray aliens instead!”