Lawless Sign Part Four (Fiction)

Chapter Six: Goner

Day four of the survey. I am going live with this. At 4:00 this afternoon Windy brought all of our sensors completely up to full power. It is now 4:05. I am in the tiny industrial city of McCook. Per our sensors Sulfur has triggered his mind device less than a minute ago, less than 1500 feet from my current location. I have parked Stan Goodman’s Dodge Magnum in an alley across the street and am proceeding on foot.

The target location is a three story, brown brick building. It is on a broad side street. Its southern face abuts a rail spur. The building is unmarked. There are no cars parked in the thin ribbon of blacktop separating the building from the road, nor does the building seem to have a parking lot. Truck doors and a small office are on the building’s northern face. I am approaching the eastern face. There is only one door evident. It is steel. A small sign with lettered stickers is beside this door. The letters spell out ‘A UA Q’, which I can make no sense of.

I have reason to believe that this building houses Green Glass Recycle Limited, a firm with contracts from several municipalities.  I am unclear as to what the firm does. At present, I have absolutely no reason to suspect that this firm has anything to do with Sulfur’s activities. All I have is a sensor reading stating that the device was activated, now six minutes ago, from a point somewhere near the northeast corner of this structure’s first floor.

Windy believes that the structure only has one floor, despite its size.  Or at least I think that is what she said. It is raining and my numerous cell phone connections all have interference on them.

I am in full Captain Meteor garb, but am wearing a human face. It is not Cody’s face, but a slightly improved version of the undead Nascar driver’s. Reason? I am having a bad day. This break, I am hoping, will improve it.

I have seen no traffic down this street during the two minutes it has taken me to get to the door. No one has come out of this door. Windy now entirely out of contact.

This augurs poorly. What’s the rush? What would I possibly do if he was here?

Break his stinking neck and vanish, feeling rather satisfied with myself, I would think. It’s worth a shot.

Rather dramatic lightning just flashed, rain now increasing. This may explain my communications problem, but I am not entirely certain of any explanation at this juncture. The steel door is locked. Assuming that the problem is with my helmet--and not the UHF broadcast equipment that the cell communication is based upon (which should not be this badly affected by electromagnetic activity)-- then I will not be able to unlock the door. Door clicks unlocked. I am mystified. Lowering blast shield.

Two steps in. It’s a recycling plant. They are recycling green glass bottles, as the name suggests. Five feet to my right is a two tier conveyor line, currently in operation, which is racing rows of bottles up a story or so into a large white rectangular enclosure. Possibly a sterilizing unit. No. Just hot water. Several stages of washing going on here, I think.

Taking a telepathic survey, which also should not work. But it is. Contact Windy again, via cell phone. Maybe she hung up on me? Call is rolling over to an exchange routed to a cell in my helmet. The problem seems to be on her end. It could be technical or Dr. Pierre Colbert having another of his screaming and crying fits. Windy will not slap him. I do not think her presence is much of a comfort. The doctor has concluded, not without reason, that Windy is a ghost.

Telepathic survey indicates twenty-two persons, all with abnormal brain functions. Not sure how it’s reaching that conclusion. The closest one is fifteen feet away from me, to my right. I am seeing no one.

To my right are several rows of red plastic skids, stacked eight feet high, containing green bottles, possibly finished product. Seemingly clean bottles, at any rate. These twin lines of skids extend another twenty feet to a truck door, which is closed. Still seeing no one. Advancing right, through the isle between skid rows.

Note: I do not like the hue of these bottles. Eyesight not being a sensory strength of mine, I can say only that the color resembles that of the tubes Sulfur used to exterminate the population of Tiamore. Helmet confirms that glass gauge is exactly the same. Given that glass is a malleable product form, this may mean nothing.

Temperature inside is about eight degrees higher than outdoor ambient. Noise level three times outside. Several conveyor lines running, some of them above me. Seems to be several systems running in parallel, some of them connected to another process. As per Windy’s information, area is a mostly open, three story space. Catwalks and narrow causeways are interspersed amidst the mostly grey and green machinery. There is an elevated second story office loft with windows facing the production floor across the room from me. Other such details. Seeing no one as yet.

Hello. Almost ran into him. Middle aged man, with grey to white skin and thinning hair. He is wearing all white, a lab coat. Currently he is bent over, examining one of the skids.

Note: Light here is rather uneven. Discounting the clutter of machinery, the ceiling lights seem randomly placed. Many shadow areas. Doesn’t seem proper for a production environment.

Telepathic contact made with bending man. He is hypnotized—or in the condition Stan Goodman was. Currently he is looking for another open space to place skids of finished products, which are actually clean pop bottles to be returned to their original manufacturer. The factory also gets money for sorting out broken bottles. And they get money for plucking these bottles from the recycle trash of several municipalities. Per him, actually rehabilitating the bottles is the least profitable portion of the process, almost an afterthought.

This man is an accountant. He is 62 years old and retired from a big eight firm. Not that he is being used in that capacity. Right now his capacity is determining if this line of skids is finished product to be shipped off or flawed product to be returned to the recycle yard.

Rather complicated operation, it seems. Not at all aided by the lack of light. He spots my shadow over his shoulder. It doesn’t snap him out of it. I say softly “Henry Gleason, when was the last time you went home?”

He heard his name but that was it. It’s enough to make him look back at me. He’s so deep under that my presence doesn’t startle him. I now have a proven way of bringing him out of it instantly, but I don’t think that this is a good time.

Henry stands fully up. He’s off to ask someone what this line is. As for me, I am beneath his notice. Just as well.

I spot two more men, fifteen feet to my left. They are bent over a stalled conveyor positioned at floor level. Both are in grey overalls with matching blue shirts. It’s almost a universal for mechanics. You could see the same sight in nine galaxies.

And they had tools in their hands, so I am the master of the obvious. Both men are in this country illegally, whatever that means. They have been working at this building since before this current business set up, which was about four years ago. Both aided in the construction of the lines here. I am not sure if either is actually hypnotized. There may be levels of oblivious going on here. Neither has noticed me yet.

Ten feet beyond them, tending to the intake of a line is a middle aged, slightly heavy set blonde woman. She has halted the conveyor in order to pluck out a flawed bottle. Seems to have a sharp eye for detail. Prior to coming here, she owned the Moonquest tavern, the same tavern Stan Goodman has been employed at. It does not seem that she knows Stan. On the other hand, she is rather out of it.  Slightly further down the line is a middle aged man, whom she vaguely recalls is her husband.

She can not seem to recall her name. She is recalling that she can’t recall it, however. Annoying her to no end is that the man down the line cannot recall it, either. As for him, I am getting no signs of mental functioning in the language centers whatsoever. Presently he is reading a gauge on a white panel of a rectangular washing tunnel.

He might be out of the helmet’s range. He shouldn’t be, but I am discounting nothing at this point.  I am heading down the conveyor line the blonde is tending.

I have the attention of one of the mechanics for a moment. He’s trying to guess what function I perform based upon my uniform. Best of luck with that.

I approach the blonde, who is leaned over the line, plucking out a fragmented bottleneck. Her hands and wrists have small wounds all over them. The white coat she wears is dotted with blood around the cuffs. Having snagged the errant neck, she drops it into a blue plastic box on the floor. Tapping the button, she sends the line back into motion.

I am now behind her. I whisper “Nancy Volkman.”

She looks over her shoulder at me, seemingly having instantly snapped out of it. Or mostly. I am not what is confusing her or causing her to go back under. It’s some other condition. Nancy turns and looks at the man down the line.

She won’t leave without him. Nancy seems rather strong willed. In a way, that may have made her more susceptible to the process Sulfur used. She starts for the man down the line. I am not sure this is such a good thing and thus follow her.

“George!” she says. The man is not responding. Still not getting anything off his language centers. He is writing something down on a clipboard. Seems like normal numbers being transcribed.

“George!” she says again. He turns to her and smiles. Now he is looking straight at both of us. He turns his back to us and goes back to his writing. Nancy is now infuriated.

Pneumatics in my right arm have pressurized. Baton is now loaded. Beyond not functioning, it seems that some of my equipment has gained a mind of its own.

George has a slug thrower in his right lab coat pocket. Or so the helmet says. I can visually confirm that he does have something bulky there.

I take three strides past George and Nancy. There is another person further down the line. At the place the conveyor heads drastically up is another middle aged man with a brown complexion and a close crop of grey hair. He is making sure the restart of the line doesn’t get snagged in the typical place. Rather attentive for someone who cannot bring to mind today’s day and date.

Behind me George says “Naoteen” which means Privateer Captain. It’s an easy mistake to make. Several generations ago the Shadow Fleet were privateers. The uniform hasn’t changed much.

I aim my right arm back at George. The baton fires across space with a hiss.

My helmet would like to inform me that George has raised his slug thrower and is pointing it in my direction.

By the time I turn fully, the baton has rebounded off the floor in front of me and I catch it. George is now sprawled on the floor, blood gushing from his jaw. I would guess that he is unconscious. I am still not getting any mental readings from him. The baton is sucked through my palm and back into its housing. Pressure is again building up.

Nancy’s eyes are wide. Her hand is over her mouth. Since when does George have a gun. George hates guns. Guns are for people with small penises. Something tells me George’s mind has been entirely changed.

‘Naoteen’ is a corruption of the word ‘Naroteen’, itself a slang derivative. I am drawing a bit of a blank after that. I am sure things will come to me in a rush.

Sans George, of the twenty-two people in this building, there are three others whom I am getting no mental readings from. Besides the mechanics, there appears to be one other person who is not hypnotized—or all that hypnotized.

I lie to Nancy “Just leave. It will be ok.”

She is a bit torn. It seems George is a second husband. I’m not sure if this means that she has a spare.

One of the mechanics heard George’s gun clatter to the ground and has taken note of the situation. He is now headed off to find an anglo who may be in charge. The person he is headed for is in the above office. This person happens to be one of the other people who is reading as not hypnotized.

The lights go out. I am not sure what the point of that was. Plenty of light still coming in from the skylights. At least for me. It has disoriented a forklift driver, however.

There is a slug thrower being brought into range. To my right. In the hands of someone with no mental readings. Large bore. Two barrels. I hate scatter guns. Pointing arm. Difficult shot. The baton hits the machine behind him, bounds off the back of the man’s head, goes straight to the wall and arcs high. I take two steps and catch it as it comes off the conveyor line above me.

The scattergun goes off. Only bottles are hit, but enough is enough. I trigger my helmet and the words ‘Auzeuth neoni  ontran’ go reverberating from the walls. That’s ‘the jig is up’ or something like it. I hope.

Our disoriented forklift driver has now hit something substantial: a support post for one of the washers or one of the pylons that seem to be randomly propping up the ceiling. Many bottles take the plunge.

Someone shouts “Gonor!” which is ‘damn cyborg’ in several languages. Nancy thinks it’s ‘goner’ as in ‘we are all goners here.’

Henry Gleason has just tripped on wet, broken glass. In his current state, he was unable to use his arms to break his fall. Normal motor functions are seemingly not affected by whatever Sulfur has done, but reflexes and blink functions are slowed. Given that I have a method of bringing them out of it, this seems like the time to deploy it, if not the place.

While I am at it, it is time to halt these lines, break the lenses of the video cameras, shatter the disks in the computers upstairs, cut the motor of the forklift, unlock all of the doors and turn the lights back on. Overdid it. Got that and more. Shattered the computer monitor upstairs and splintered some of the glass in the skylight. I got the truck dock doors to lift. Good enough.

“He’s dead!” Nancy screams.

I didn’t hit him that hard. Most of the people are staggering, looking as if they have just been awakened by a bright light. (That is how Dr. Colbert described it.) Henry Gleason has picked himself up and seems none the worse for wear. He is fully awake and functioning.

George Volkman is doing a very convincing job of not breathing. He hasn’t bled that much. He should just be stunned. My other assailant is also not moving. I start in the other man’s direction, weaving my way through machinery. ‘Please leave through the nearest exit’ I cause to boom from the walls.

Windy would like to inform me that the readings she reported were from yesterday. And the placement may have been in error. I thank her for the correction and disconnect the communication.

Nancy has rolled George over. She’s shaking his shoulders.

Converging on my position from the catwalk is our non hypnotized man from the office. At 36 he is the youngest person in the building.  He is tall and lean, sandy haired with a half day’s growth of beard on his round chin. The man’s eyes are bloodshot, a result of continual wake and bake bong applications. He has a gun, but he hasn’t drawn it. In truth, he’s never shot the thing. What he intends to do when he gets to me is anyone’s guess. Right now, he just wants a good look.

Before he can say a word, I cause the following to fill the room: “Mr. Armstrong, the odds do not change. By your arithmetic, each of your multiple failures in judgment has somehow been a contribution to an inevitable success, payable in wealth and infamy. Each stepfather beating, the prosecutor demanding five years for simple possession, the DUI bust that ended your limo driver career—all were down payments on what you would earn. It’s a universe of users and losers and you’re finally on the right side, big time. What we see here is evidence of what has haunted you so dimly all the while: that your sense of entitlement in no way conveyed a qualification. What would anyone really need you for? Brace yourself for a whole new league of consequences. I am justice and I have come for you.”

Needless to say, he ran for it.

 Chapter Seven: Only If You Lick It

Greg Armstrong had not run this fast since he tried out for the relay team freshman year in high school. He always could run. At one time, he had thought about going out for football. That was back before he met all of those stoners at the bus stop. It was one of those odd chance meetings which sadly affected his entire life.

So far he had dodged or vaulted over the debris on the factory floor. His choice of an exit was deliberate. He wanted out the way nearest to where his car was parked. For a panic, it wasn’t bad.

Somewhere behind him was a mysterious being in a blue and gold biker’s outfit. He suspected that I was a DEA agent, of all things. I hadn’t pulled a gun. That was good. I hadn’t yelled for him to halt. That was disturbing. He half anticipates that there will be more like me outside. Does he have his lawyer programmed into the phone?

My baton hit the door ahead of him a blink before he went out. This gave him the impression that I was somewhere RIGHT behind him. Once he is out, he sees nothing. Just a blank alley. No flashing blue lights. No sirens. He’s lucked out!

The necessary and sufficient quality of a loser is that he lose.

Now is the time to run willy nilly down the narrow alley and then halt at the end. No blue lights. No sirens. Really!

(If he had waited another five minutes, this would not have been the case.)

Holy crap, this might be a hit. Another gang has moved in on the ‘front’. Which is to say that his understanding of this portion of Sulfur’s operations is rather pedestrian. He’s going to get away and then call Mr. Nick.

It would be nice to know who Mr. Nick is.  Greg’s recollection of Mr. Nick is that he seems to be calling from underwater. That’s how Nick sounds on the phone.

Greg gains the door of his grey Altima. Has he left his car keys back in the office? That would suck. He has another set under the front seat, which he fumbles for upon getting in. His keys are in his right front pocket, but I am not of the mind to remind him at the time. Instead, I just sit up from my position in the Altima’s back seat.

He nervously slides the ignition key into its slot. I wrap my arm around his neck.

“Going somewhere, Greg?”

Now he wants to go for the gun. I touch my fingers to his cell phone, which is really all I wanted to do. He perceives that my hold on him isn’t quite leveraged firmly. (Greg has an alarming amount of experience in having people wrap their arms around his neck.) With a quick lunge, he sprawls out the door. Again, he thinks about the gun, actually drawing it. Then he recalls his own skill with firearms (or in doing anything when he’s nervous, for that matter) spins to his feet and runs for it.

I catch his ankle.

At ten feet up, the car keys from his right front pocket fall out, narrowly missing the back of his head. At twenty feet up, his wallet and cell phone slide out and plummet through space. At thirty feet up, Greg decides to drop the gun. By that time I have laterally moved us directly above the factory. The gun lands next to a shattered skylight. We are so far up he can’t hear it land.

I say to him “Remember what your cell mate told you that first night you were in Stateville?”

Eventually, I leave him in a tree.

“Information gained through torture is notoriously unreliable, Captain,” Dr. Colbert commented, a little after I had explained my adventures of the afternoon to him. For the moment, he is no longer blubbering.

I have removed the Nascar Driver’s face and placed it down on the counter. “Torture combined with telepathy is very reliable, doctor. You may, of course, question the ethics. Please note that I did not hold him captive for any length of time. Nor did I physically harm him.”

“I am fairly sure that you are on the side of angels, Captain Meteor,” Colbert said. He can’t be sure. He’s projecting. He’s hoping. He continues with “I hope you’re not blaming poor Windy for this.”

I am back at the bank. The bank will need additional chairs or furniture of some kind if Dr. Colbert is going to join me here for any time. Stan Goodman may also be taking up residence. He has called me from Florida. Neither his ex wife nor step daughters can be found.

The girls never enrolled in college. His ex wife abandoned her job without notice—four years ago. Both of the condo units have been sold. If Windy were present I would have had her use her skill with the data sewer to send Stan return plane tickets. But Windy was unavailable. Getting her back required my begging and making cooing noises, neither of which I was up for at the moment.

I told the doctor “You have full blown Stockholm Syndrome, you know that?”

“It has crossed my mind,” Colbert said. The bespectacled doctor was sitting on the mattress in the vault, still in the light blue lab coat I found him in this morning. He is heavy set with prematurely grey and thinning hair. He had combed his hair and shaved, but still looked a little disheveled.

“Of course it crossed your mind. It certainly would not have crossed mine. I am only vaguely aware of where Stockholm is.” I removed my helmet, which at that point needed some recalibration. And my neck wanted to resume its normal bird like rotations.

“Is that how the telepathy works? You just read speech centers?”

“Speech centers is automatic. Searching down context is the art of it. Took me years to learn how to use this thing.”

The radio was reporting that four people were dead at the scene of the factory. Or have been taken away in critical condition. Or are non responsive at the scene. Preliminary reporting is portraying this as a work place shooting incident.

“Come, doctor,” I said, pointing at the steaming, greasy sack I had previously placed on the teller’s bowl. “We must eat. And you are going to have to lead the way.”

He hadn’t eaten all day. Just hasn’t been in the mood. I was off to get this at the time that Windy first started tracking what she thought were Sulfur’s current signals.

He headed to the teller’s counter, still attentively listening to the radio. “You said that there were four people whose minds you couldn’t read. And that at least one of them spoke in an alien language. That could be the four people that they are talking about.”

“It doesn’t make them any less dead, doctor,” I said, pulling the paper wrapped mounds from the sack and spreading them out. He started disassembling the paper. I was utterly at a loss as to how this mix of hot and cold components were meant to be aligned.

Colbert picked up a tubular thing in a bun, which was piled high with red, white and green vegetable parts. The encased brown tube beneath was slathered in yellow sauce and bluish slurry. “These beings who said these things, would they have the same speech centers that humans do?”

“Probably not. It depends on what they are. It’s either Meteor Beasts or Corona Surfers, neither of which are particularly human looking. And those races aren’t related to each other. They just speak somewhat the same language.”

“How’s that?”

“I speak a language which is not native to my people. It’s fairly common. A more advanced race exchanges its culture with a discovered group of primitives on another planet. In this case, I think it was the Corona Surfers who discovered the Meteor Beasts.”

“You mean colonized.”

“That’s rather rare, doctor. By the time you’re up for intergalactic travel, the desire for colonies has subsided. It’s such a thrill to find anything that can remotely think that it’s more like playing Santa Claus. My race was rather less developed than your Neanderthals at the time we were discovered. What we have, we learned from our friends, over hundreds of years of contact.”

“And they didn’t want anything in return?”

“No, poor devils. Not to be alone in the universe. That is typical. Atypically, they wiped themselves out. We have what’s left of them in our museums. By contrast, the Corona Surfers discovered several races.” Having plucked up my tube, I pointed down at the brown things left in the paper. “I’m lost. What do you do with these things?”

“The fries. You just eat them. Did you get any catsup?”

“You said that if it had catsup on it, it’s wrong.”

“On the hot dogs, yes, but not the fries.”

“But they’re bundled together…”

“It’s just a custom.”

Lost, I offered “I got the cheese cup instead.”

“So you did. Never mind,” he said, fishing the container out of the bag.

He opened it and I had to comment “That’s not cheese. Another custom?”

“More of a euphemism,” he said.

“Euphemism. Yea! I am feeling more at home all the time.”

After I had pushed the hot dog past my scruff and into my throat for a bite, he asked “So what do you think?”

“I think I am going to belch a lot.”

I set the hot dog down and he examined the bite mark. “Vertically aligned cartilage, at the front of the throat?”

“More of a beak.”

“You don’t seem to have a voice box. All of your kind talk out of your belt?”

“The vestigial gills, which you examined, produce clicking. Mine did, before they atrophied.”

“Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t seem to be in the best medical condition.”

“Glowing eyes. Missing right arm. What gives you that impression, doctor?”

He leaned forward. “The eyes are absolutely fantastic. More like photoelectric cells. And these are entirely natural?”

“Except for the glowing, yes.”

“We covered this this morning. They have no idea what causes it other than it’s typical.”

“I’ll get your spare kit when  I retrieve your back up records. Then you can really go to town.”

“Beyond being the first scientist to have a crack at you, I would like to help if I can.—How did you lose the arm?”

“Small weapons fire. Sort of a concentrated x-ray pulse”

“Oh.”

“Acute radiation burn on the talon, which became cancer and spread. I lost it in stages.”

“Is that when they replaced your heart and added the circulation pumps… and lung assist?”

“No, that was later. I’m not sure if it was related. It’s fairly typical to people in my trade.”

“The plate on the back of your neck?”

“I broke my neck when I drowned.”

“The first time or the second time?”

“The first time.”

“And how long were you technically dead before they revived you the first time?”

“Four months, but most of that was supervised suspension. I think they got to me in a day or so.”

“Absolutely fantastic. My only concern here, Cap, is that you have had a lot of work done and have not seen a doctor in twelve years. And from what you’ve said, your diet has consisted exclusively of whatever you could find during that time. I’m not sure how well you are going to hold up. What did Moms Meteor feed you?”

“I’m more concerned with why I killed four people. And why they were speaking Meteor Beast before they died. And why they are calling more ambulances to that scene.”

The radio had just reported that hospitals were being put on alert to take in up to twenty victims.

“I see. Windy told me that was a touchy subject.”

I wondered what else Windy had told him. Not that I was about to snap at her. This morning Dr. Colbert was a basket case. That he is functioning this well is a credit to her. I remembered to mention that when I cooed again to ring her chimes.

I had been going non-stop since last night.

I drove Stan Goodman to Midway Airport this morning. Windy had booked him on a flight to Miami. Neither Windy nor I thought this was a good idea, but you have to trust your allies to have allies.

Stan Goodman has been conditioned by years in his trade to keep his head in emergency situations. One would expect him to go through all sorts of emotional phases, given his situation. And he did. But he kept a focus on what he could do, what was actionable.

Or he at least kept moving. Stan helped Windy and I install the circuit breakers in the bank. He even went and got the light bulbs for us. The moment he left, I half suspected that he was going to go to the police or just freak out. Or he might have snapped back into a hypnotic state.

I chanced it. I let him go.

When Stan returned he said he wanted to call the police, the FBI, the CIA, DEA, NSA, NASA, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, WLS AM, Fermilab and the Chicago Sun-Times.  I put him in contact with Miles Nasus, who perhaps wasn’t all that convincing. He essentially told Stan to hold off for twenty-four hours. Then Stan handed me the phone.

“Keep it to just him and Colbert, right?” Nasus said.

“Do you know anything yet that I need to know?”

“You’re beautiful, Elvis. Stay that way. The Goodmans and the Colberts.”

“How very mildly disturbing of you, Mister Nasus.”

That was the end of that conversation. Once I hung up, Stan rather casually asked me “Who was that?”

“A person with access to all of the alphabets you wanted to contact. Someone whose interests are aligned with our own.”

“Not that I don’t think the world of you, Cap. And I’m very thankful. But what exactly is your interest? From outer space.”

That’s the way Stan said it, too. Perhaps he was wondering what authority I had? In Chicago they don’t want nobody nobody sent. My answer was “I am here to stop whatever it is that ruined your life.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Good question, Stan.” It was instant, but I did reevaluate my objectives. “I suppose I will try to locate and liberate the living victims.”

He didn’t say anything—and I didn’t say that just to placate him—but I believe Stan liked that answer.  

We then went back to work on the bank’s fittings. While we were putting the finishing touches on the electrical, Stan recalled something stunning: “You know, this bank has a basement.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. I had scanned the entire area. This floor was it. On the other hand, why was I arguing with him? He owned the place.

“Yeah, there’s a ladder to it in the bathroom janitor’s closet.”

“I checked it with my ship’s instruments. There’s no other floor.”

“I mean it’s not a full basement. It’s got like a six foot ceiling and a dirt floor. I think they were storing beer in there during the thirties.”

“Are you sure you aren’t confusing this with the building next door?”

“I’ve never been in that building. It’s crawling with rats.”

“Is there a reason they haven’t torn these buildings down?”

“About forty thousand reasons. Here, follow me. I know it’s here.”

We went to the door of the janitor’s closet, which unlike everything else in this building, seemed new. It was the only remaining internal door in the bank.

“I didn’t put this here,” Stan said, yanking at the new doorknob. “Locked.”

“Not anymore. Try it again,” I said, having triggered my helmet.

What we discovered inside was a perfectly empty janitor’s closet with new and clean white wall boards. Stan scrunched up his face and said “What the hell.”

“Perhaps you were mistaken?”

“I sure as hell didn’t hang all this new drywall. There was a ladder, a metal ladder at the back of this closet.”

“The closet does seem a little shallow, doesn’t it?” I said, triggering the helmet. The right portion of the back wall popped forward. “You don’t generally put drywall on hinges, do you?”

“No.”

I stepped into the closet and swung the wall inward. Revealed in the space behind the wall was the metal ladder, which was mounted into the brickwork. A deep blue glow was coming from below. I heard familiar, distant device chatter.

Stan was looking at the back of the wall-door, which was covered with a cake frosting looking substance. “Some kind of blown fiberglass?”

“Exactly like it, Stan. Hull shielding. Repair grade. Comes in a can. Shake it up and spray it like whipped cream. Don’t touch it. Sharper than glass and stronger than steel.”

“I know I didn’t hang any lights in the basement.”

“Not lights, Stan. An assembler collection battery.”

“Battery? Why would a battery be down there?”

We were about to find out.  I was fairly sure it wasn’t dangerous. It was a very low powered type of battery, incapable of projecting distended mechanical force or powering weapons systems. In all probability it was a commercial system, something Sulfur had salvaged from his last ship.

Stan followed me down the ladder. It appears Sulfur had several cans of hull shielding. He had covered the ceiling and walls of the basement rather thickly.

“Like a cavern made out of stucco,” Stan commented.

At the center of the space was a ten foot long, four foot thick ceramic cylinder lying on its side. Off its right end was a motionless mist of luminescent blue vapors, which was the battery itself. As for what the tube was, I had to whip out Toovy’s tool to read the markings on the side to find out. I knew it was an engine system.

Stan was looking over my shoulder as I was reading the sides. There was a quite Earth-bound knife switch jury rig mounted above the instructions I was trying to decipher. Whoever had written the instructions, rather recently and in grease pencil, was simply guessing at my language. Sadly, it was a horrible guess. He had the conjunctions right, but that was about it.

The fact that Sulfur was seemingly leaving me notes should have planted a seed in my head, but at the time it didn’t.

“Am I in your light?” Stan said, backing up.

“That’s alright, Stan. Whoever wrote this picked up all their Spanish at Taco Bell.”

Stan pointed at the mists and asked “Is that dangerous?”

“Only if you lick it.”

“Ok. Not tempted. What’s this stuff doing?”

“Nothing. It’s an assembler drive, or rather, a disassembler drive. Something like a hard drive for matter. Normally it’s used to store a plasma variant which retards antimatter explosions.”

“That’s what’s in there?”

“No. It’s empty.”

It’s empty because I’m no longer in it. That solves the mystery my missing four years. And my reappearance was entirely unplanned—at least by the idiot who jury rigged this thing. I owe my continued existence to an engineer long ago in some faraway place who was a little touchy about having living things stored in this device. Either due to the duration of time in which I was stored or some other factor, my pattern was about to degrade, thus triggering a failsafe which put Honey, Windy and I back together in the nearest open space. Otherwise I would be in this thing, in this self powered object, in the hull shielded basement of an abandoned bank for all freaking eternity.

That, by the way, pretty much shot all of my operational theories as to why I was here. Sulfur hadn’t let me out. The device had simply been triggered. He wasn’t leaving me clues. From what I could tell, Sulfur probably didn’t even know I was here.

As for the message in grease pencil, it seemed to read: A Nacho Belle Grande with a Coke would now like to have its hot sauce use the mommy bathroom, please. It wasn’t even that coherent, although it was stressing urgency in a polite way. Windy thought he might have been mixing in symbols from intergalactic navigation language. The problem here is that my language uses the same characters as that language.

Or it could have been wiring instructions. That was the Toovy wonder tool’s summation. Thanks to the Toovy wonder tool we were able to get to the assembler drive’s actual instructions. Oddly, the service log indicated that the device had previously been installed in a library—an improbably set up structure resembling a large diamond. Per the log, the drive was working fine. Within an hour or so Windy and I were putting the unit through some tests.

Stan left us in the basement and went back to playing around on his lap top. He knew a store in Schaumburg where we could get furnishings cheaply. Moreover, everything we needed could fit in the back of his Magnum. It seemed the store specialized in selling disassembled furniture which laid flat in its shipping boxes. Stan was trying to be a help, trying to keep moving.

He had furnished his step daughters’ condo with goods from this store. That brought Stan back to thinking about them. He kept making cell calls to them. Windy and I knew from the data sewer that his calls were going nowhere. No towers could locate their phones. One by one, their voice mails filled up. Then Stan started calling his ex wife. Same result.

What apparently kept Stan going was that the numbers had not been disconnected.  

We didn’t tell Stan his calls were going nowhere,  that the phones were either off or had ceased to exist. I didn’t want him to melt down. It was inevitable. But I didn’t want to prompt it.

I didn’t know what to do when it did happen. First, Stan needed some air. Then he thought he might get us the furniture. Then he thought that he didn’t want to drive. Our pretext for leaving the bank was that Stan wanted to give me some driving lessons, which I did need. That lasted about two hours.

At some point, Stan stopped barking orders and started staring into space. He was trembling. I ran over a curb and then flung the Magnum into park, with a shudder.

“What do you want me to do, Stan?”

“I want to see my kids.”

“I can’t make them appear.”

“I have to get to Miami.”

I could have said a number of things. Instead, I just agreed. “Then that is where you will go.”

Windy hadn’t quite figured out the assembler drive as yet, otherwise I would have flown him there in Honey. We booked him on a 6:00 AM flight. Since we didn’t want to chance returning to his apartment for clothes, we set him up with some money and a cell phone. It took us some time to recreate the contents of what should have been in Stan’s wallet.

At 4:45 AM, dawn, we were headed down Cicero Avenue, just in sight of the airport. I asked Stan “Do you want me to put this in long term parking?”

“The car? Nah. You take it.”

“No bitching about customizations then.”

“Least of my problems, Cap,” Stan said with a chuckle. “You’re already a better driver than my ex-wife.”

“The serial unmoving objects destruction champion? I’m not sure that’s much of a compliment.”

“It will come, Cap. Takes a while to learn how to drive.”

“It’s your car. Tell you what, when you get back, I’ll teach you how to fly the space ship. Not that I am entirely sure there is anywhere to fly to in this area of space, but you never know. Maybe we can pop in on those big eyed folks who are shoving rods up people’s butts. Tell them to knock it off. Perverts!”

“Just like that, huh?”

“They can’t be very far away. Thorans use the Mercedes Diesel of space engines. You can track them systems away,” I joked.  “Now I want you to make sure to give me a call when you get in.”

“That I will do. I promise you that I will let you know what I am doing, either way.”

“That’s very nice of you. Let me know if there’s anything that you need when you get there. I would get out and wait for the flight with you, but I don’t think I can get past security.”

I wish I could have thought of a way of talking him out of it. Windy confirmed through the data sewer that he actually got on the plane and that the plane took off. The rest, I would just have to risk.

Someone by the name of Royce Cole had attempted to contact Stan by cell phone three times during the day. We convinced Stan not to answer the calls. Stan could not remember this person, but his name was programmed into the cell phone. Each of the messages amounted to a numeric code, a return phone number.

Royce Cole turned out not to be a person, but rather the Royce Cole Gasoline Distribution Company, a tanker farm located on an extension spur off the railroad yard. That was one of the places I wanted to get a look at. The others were the bar Stan worked at, the warehouse Sal and Stan had disappeared from and, of course, the offices of Dr. Pierre Colbert.

We had a few other locations that we had developed off of Stan’s cell phone. All of them were clustered around Mr. Nick’s house, which itself was directly across the alley from the Moonquest tavern. I didn’t want to get too close to them, since if their sensors were particularly sensitive they might have been able to pick up my gear.

Other than the bar, all of the buildings were kitty corner from each other on a side street right off Mannheim Road. Like the other residential buildings, these were two story two flats made out of sand colored bricks. Each had a long, but narrow lawn in front and were situated near the back of the lot. These particular buildings all had what seemed to be two car garages off the alley. That was a bit of a distinction. Most of the other two flats simply had a short patio abutting the alley. Moreover, all of the garages were of the same design and seemed new. They were the only new structures in this somewhat run down neighborhood.

Stone Park itself was a low slung place, a small set of residential blocks running off a segment of Mannheim Road. It had been constructed at roughly the same time as O’Hare Airport. The original idea behind its development was to serve as transient housing for itinerant air crews. Most of the buildings had electric heat, an anomaly which came with financing sponsored by the electric company.

I felt rather at home when I learned that. We had similar screw the consumer arrangements where I came from.

Things had not worked out according to plan for Stone Park. As opposed to air crews, the town had become a haven for the working poor. It was dotted with strip clubs, twenty-four hour bars, liquor stores, residential motels and a smattering of small manufacturing plants. All in all, there wasn’t much to it and what there was had a disreputable feel.

Not that Northlake was Shangri-La, either. Like Stone Park and its neighbors, Northlake was a cement splattered, run down place, with tiny splashes of greenery isolated in the most improbable ways. Dr. Colbert’s office was located on a triangle shaped island, in a three story building with black smoked windows.

Windy kept saying that our extended sensors would come back up soon. Soon eventually turned into 4:00 PM. Given what happened, I am sorry that I hurried her. During my wait, I had taken a sensor free drive by of Mr. Nick’s sprawl, the bar and the oil company before heading off to Dr. Colbert’s.

The most impressive of the conspiracy’s structures was a twelve story building at the corner of Madison and Western. It was oddly positioned, given that it was the only tall building in the neighborhood. It seems the intersection had been a shopping district of some kind at one time. Many of the stores around were empty or had bricked up front windows. The first two stories of the tall building were in the same condition. I really couldn’t tell if it was occupied at all, although there were people milling around a steel slab side door. A terra cotta arch over the prominent entrance bore the raised word ‘Roymarillo’. Supposedly this was the headquarters of Royce Cole Gasoline Distribution. Since it was seemingly guarded (or at least massed around), I decided not to slow down during my survey.  

(Royce Cole Gasoline Distribution Company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Cole Petroleum of Amarillo, Texas, itself a division of Royco Holdings, a successor in interest to the Roymarillo Refining Company.)

I did my best parking ever on the blacktop behind Dr. Colbert’s building. It was 7:45 AM, a little early, but I thought I would chance it. Perhaps showing up early would allow me to catch Colbert without staff or patients.

Dr. Colbert was in all kinds of trouble. He was on a watch list for writing too many narcotics prescriptions. He had dumped out of the Medicaid and Public Aid system, which had up to seventeen months ago been his primary line of business. In fact, Colbert’s building was sort of one stop shopping for the medical care of persons on government aid; filled with pediatricians, gynecologists, gerintologists and dentists--all of whom received a rent subsidy for operating here. Colbert had fired most of his staff and was quite blatantly turning away his former clients.

There was a note on the front door giving the location of a pair of doctors willing to receive Colbert’s previous patients. His offices were listed on the elevator bank as ‘Colbert Internal Medicine SC’ with two blank nameplates where the names of his partners had been.

The building was already busy, but not with patients. With me on my trip to the second floor were three couriers with wire baskets filled with test results from remote labs. There had been a lab in the building, which Colbert operated. Its quite sudden shut down had pissed the other doctors off to no end.

Tongues were wagging. It was some pretty easy mental fishing for me.

I wasn’t getting much off Colbert himself. I locked in on him just after getting out of the lift. From what I could tell, he was only partially under or had been exposed but the device hadn’t taken. As it should turn out, he was the most deeply mesmerized of anyone I have yet to encounter.

I used my helmet to unlock the door to the hall and then locked it after gaining entry. Colbert’s outer office was a twelve by twelve space with dirty beige walls, furnished with a pair of black couches and a brown coffee table. It didn’t look it, but it was a relatively new configuration. Most of the waiting room and a few of the patient sitting offices had been combined with the supposedly vacant lab next door.

This waiting area was separated from what was left of Colbert’s back offices by a split door, which had the top half open. Not that Colbert was expecting patients.

My first glimpse of Colbert told me a story his mind had not. When he drifted into view behind the split door, his face was covered in two days worth of beard, his white hair was a muss, his bifocals asymmetrically aligned and his sky blue lab coat showed slept in folds. The doctor was very tired, but not noticing it. He had no recollection of whatever task he was engaged in. I knew right then I was dealing with something new.

I said something I knew would be annoying. “What’s up, doc?”

And he shot me an annoyed glance over his bifocals, but one without a shred of recognition. Without missing a beat, he then said “Oh. Courier. Good. You’re early.”

“What time was I supposed to show up?”

“I think I have the prescriptions written out already. I’m sure I do. First thing I did last night.” His hands started flipping through paperwork on the little desk on the other side of the door. “You may have to go into Gary for a few of these. Are you hitting the downtown mailbox?”

“The downtown mailbox, where you are receiving veterinary sedatives from Mexico. Do you have a problem with that?”

“It’s the same stuff,” he said, having located a pile of slips of paper. He began counting them.

“Thirty-three prescriptions for thirty-three patients you have not seen, some of whom may be dead.”

He snapped “Want to count them for me, wiseass?”

“Xanax, Oxycontin, Valium, all narcotics and painkillers.”

“And the odd Ambien script. Yes.”

I came to hover right by the door. I was trying to make eye contact with him, but he would only look at me furtively. “You don’t have a problem with this?’

“My only problem is that I am a little pressed for time. Do you have a problem?”

“I am having a problem with my eye.”

He still wouldn’t look. He didn’t even ask which one. Instead, he said “That’s too bad. Do you work for Royce Cole Oil?”

“Yes, I do.”

“How long have you been having the problem?”

“Why don’t you take a look at it,” I asked, handing him Cody’s face.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect him to drop it on the floor and stomp on it. Young Dr. Sexybomb’s nose had been squashed flat. Windy was miffed when I showed her that.

He did shoot a lingering glance up at my real eyes at that point. “What kind of animal are you?”

“I am from outer space. And I don’t think I am the first person from outer space that you have met.”

“You’re the first living one.”

“Are you referring to the man in the black cloak with the farming tool in his hands?”

“The skull faced being with the scythe? I keep waiting for the other horsemen to appear. Are you his friend, Pestilence?”

“He’s not what he appears to be. He can’t be.”

“He’s not alive. He doesn’t have any internal organs.”

“He has some. It just seems he’s wounded.”

“Did you examine him? I did!—“

“--Perhaps you’re just not familiar with his anatomy. In his natural state. He may be leaking some necrotic bile—“

“—He’s deader than a piece of wood! Whatever is in his ribs is pickled and dried. I have no idea how he’s talking. Not that he has much of a vocabulary.”

“And he doesn’t seem to have given you any instructions telepathically.”

“He has voices on the phone for that, speaking like they are underwater. He’s just the grocery boy.”

“The voices. When did they call last?”

“Every three hours and thirteen minutes after nine hours and ten minutes. I don’t even know what they are saying. I can’t remember.”

“What is the last thing that you remember, doctor?”

“Talking to you just now.”

“Have you met any of his friends? The others on the phone?”

“Death! That’s what he is. And if he has friends, I don’t want to meet them!”

“Have you seen any of his friends? Are there other aliens?”

He hadn’t. From what I could make out, he had only met Sulfur. For some reason, he had been working on tissue and blood samples from animals which he could not identify. Only just then did it occur to him that these samples may have come from aliens.

Dr. Colbert had been going through the final stages of a divorce. His last real memory was going to a meeting with his soon to be ex-wife’s attorney at a small, blue sided building off Lake Street in Keeneyville. He walked into the lawyer’s anteroom and found it empty. A voice he didn’t recognize behind the interior office door told him to come on in.

As opposed to meeting his wife’s fat, blood sucking attorney, Colbert winds up face to skull with our pal Sulfur. Sulfur was behind the lawyer’s desk, complete in his black shroud and scythe regalia. There was someone who came up behind Colbert at this time, who he did not recognize.

The thin-faced, black haired man with the weirdly well developed shoulders was Sal Lieberman—or at least he matches Stan Goodman’s memory of him. Colbert had never seen the guy before. What drew Colbert’s attention was Sal’s white lab coat. There was something on the breast of the coat, a burgundy oval.

Pierre’s wife, Emile Colbert, is a psychiatrist. She works at a long term care brain injury hospital in Indian Head Park. The coat she typically wears to work had piping on it similar to what was on Sal’s sleeves. He had seen the oval symbol on the breast before, too, but couldn’t place it.

That’s it. That’s all Dr. Colbert could remember. His mind had been a mix mastered mess since then. There was no telling, at least from him, how long he had been under Sulfur’s spell. Like Goodman, he had lost some weight. The doctor had vague recollections of having awakened on the floor several times. For the most part, he had been living in these offices, specifically in the lab.

I needed to get into the lab, although I was dreading what I was going to find there. I didn’t want to just push past Colbert. And I wasn’t sure exactly sure how far I wanted to take this encounter.

“I assure you that I am a living person from outer space, doctor. Here, let me show you,” I said, removing my gauntlet. Unfortunately, I removed the wrong one. I was nervous.

“That’s a hell of a nice hood ornament you have there for a hand,” Colbert said. “First corpses, now erector sets. The mortuary is two blocks west. The mechanic is three blocks west. Ask for Mike. Tell them Dr. Pete sent you.”

“Wrong glove. Give me a moment.”

“Can’t tell left from right, outer space person? Must be a considerable liability.”

“It has the same tactile sensations as my other hand.”

“Still doesn’t explain the right, left issue, does it?—How did they pull that off? Getting the feeling through it?”

“I’m not sure. It cost me a right arm, though,” I said, having removed my left gauntlet. I held my talon up. “See. An animal’s hand.”

“More like a bird’s claw,” he said, opening the lower door. I held my hand still as he grabbed it. “Blue to grey skin. No hair. Four curved talons. Serrated nails. Face makes it look like you’re a filter feeder. Probably not mostly a predator.”

“Scavenger. You know quite a bit about animals.”

“All doctors are biologists first, you moron. These tiny pink spots on your hand?”

“Age spots. Or freckles. Or hives. I’m not sure.”

“How long have you had them?”

“Two years, three years, four years, five years… something like that.”

“Probably dehydrated. What’s with the eyes? Low light environment?”

“Just the opposite. The planet my people are from is a moon orbiting something like Jupiter. It’s actually very bright. Not that I am from there or have ever been there.”

“So you have been in an other environment entirely. For how long?”

“I’ve been in space thirty-six, thirty-eight years? Going on thirty-eight years. I never lived on our native planet. I was born and raised on a planet like Earth, only smaller.”

“Eyes always glow like that?”

“No. Just for the past thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years. There is nothing they can do for it.”

“They are not here. Pink spots just on the hand?”

“No. They’re in other places.”

“Right. Follow me.”

I wasn’t sure where this was leading, but I followed him into the back offices. Our journey ended in the lab, which wasn’t the body part strewn charnel house that I had been expecting. As it should turn out, Colbert had no patient examination rooms at all. The only other room before the lab was what appeared to be a tiny business office.

The lab was about five times the space that Colbert’s entire offices had been. He had an absolutely stunning number of track lights running from the drop ceiling. It was an incredibly bright, but windowless space, dotted with numerous grey slate topped tables. Rotating trays, boxy electronic devices and high powered microscopes were arranged on these tables.

It did have a creepy smell that I could not place. I could not see everything. Colbert had created a partition  to the room with curtains hanging off roller frames. As we entered the lab, he directed me to this area.

“Take off your stuff and then hop on this,” he said, first pointing at a curtain and then an elevated bed.

I didn’t think I had snapped Colbert out of it, but rather snapped him into another mode. Quite a bit of his practice dealt with foreigners. When it came to men, he had evolved a tactic of just telling them what to do as opposed to phrasing ideas in terms of options.

“I am going to need to keep my helmet on or I will not be able to talk to you.”

“Have any spots on your head?” He had picked up a clip board from a far counter and was starting to make notations.

“I don’t know. I need the belt, too.”

“Bring them with you. Name. Last first.”

“Meteor, Captain. I need to wear the helmet. The belt I can just bring.”

“That’s fine. Middle name?”

“Sneeze and take out the vowels.”

“You’re sounding like one of my patients, already. What’s your name in English?”

“Sunshine Blessing Cool Breeze? Look, I prefer Captain Meteor.”

“They must have called you something before you became a Captain?”

“Lieutenant Meteor. Ensign Meteor. Spit on me and kick me I am an Officer Candidate Meteor. Sergeant Meteor. Lance Corporal Meteor. Inductee Meteor. Volunteer Meteor.”

“Age.”

“Fifty-six.”

“You done? Step out.”

Without the uniform, my contours were not longer as human. The doctor’s impression was ‘frog-like’ although my skin (which was the issue) was more like that of a rhino, hippo or elephant’s. I have no idea. If he thinks so.

He was specifically focused on the right portion of my chest, which is where the metal starts. His eyes were on that as he tapped the bed, saying “Hop up here.”

As I walked to the table, he muttered “Plantgrade motion. Four toes, webbed.—Ever any feathers on that arm? The left one?”

“No, but it is a vestige wing. The other arm was like it. None of my people have actual wings. Or feathers.”

“No body hair. How do you protect yourselves from the elements?”

“We wear clothes.”

“Right. Silly of me. Male, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m thinking it’s either an inflammation of the joints or skin. The spots are on your knees, knuckles, elbows, ankles, a few around the existing shoulder. Any of those places hurt? Itch?”

“No. I don’t itch. Ever. At all. My skin isn’t all that sensitive. Most parts of it.”

“Hands, genitals, face have more nerves?”

“Right.”

“If the spots were on your feet or at the ends of the flesh bits of your fingers, I might have some concern that this contraption isn’t working right,” he said, tapping the box in my chest. “As it is, I just think it’s skin. Do you require any sort of anti-rejection or blood thinner?”

“There’s a whole packet of chemicals in there that will outlive me by a decade.”

“And how long will that be?”

“Seventy-something, if I am lucky.”

“The gills? Also a vestige?”

“They operated from the time I was born until I was about three.”

“You lived in water?”

“My parents had an aquarium in our multi-generational dwelling.”

“Live born?”

“Yes. In water, but live. You start off as a little head with a tail and then you sprout arms and legs. And then you climb out of the tank and life goes downhill from there.”

“Single birth?”

“Kind of a staged multiple birth. My parents had five children, all in the course of two years. One at a time, but one right after the other, a few months apart.”

“Is that how it’s done?”

“Not really. Not anymore. My parents were hippies. Complete with not wanting me to join the army. Because it’s destructive.”

“And your siblings are?”

“One brother, three sisters. I am the second born and the second born son.”

“And your brothers and sisters are fifty-six, also? Or fifty-five?”

“Something about animals. You did something with animals. But the Jesuits talked you out of it.”

“If I listened to the Jesuits, I would be a priest.”

“I am a monk.”

“Really? I thought you were in the army?”

“I was in the army. Now I am a monk.”

“Missing a beat by not calling yourself Brother Sunshine Blessing Cool Breeze. Captain Meteor sounds very military.”

“It’s a second career. I am monking in phases.”

“What order are you in?”

“My siblings are forty-four. And my parents are sixty-four.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Captain. Math not your subject?”

“Definitely not Jesuit. Benedictine?—It was something with animals. Not living ones—“

“—Paleontologist. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t have the grades to get into veterinary school.”

“You couldn’t become a vet so you became an MD? That seems backwards.”

“Not that uncommon. Less call for it, so the standards are higher. Besides, animals are worth something, immigrants aren’t. Jesuits said that if I had the kind of brains it took to do that, I should be helping cure the sick instead. They didn’t see any point in my playing with old bones.”

“Anything else coming back?”

“Something. Something important,” the doctor said, starting to shake.

“Why don’t we switch places? Mind if I look around?”

I helped him onto the bed. His skin had become a shade lighter, the expression in his face having drained. He muttered “Good ahead. Look around. I don’t know what you would be looking at.”

“Why don’t you use that thing around your neck? Check your own vitals.”

“Not familiar with the scientific method, are you?”

“More of an expert at pneumatics and plumbing.”

“My blood pressure seems to have dropped.”

I retrieved a cuff shaped device and put it around his arm. He squeezed on a ball to tighten it. I asked him “When was the last time you slept?”

“Every three hours and thirteen minutes after nine hours and ten minutes..—I want you to get some over the counter zinc cream for those spots.”

“Zinc? Right.--I don’t know if they’re trying to work you to death or just keep you in a dazed state. Lay back. I’m going to try something. I have a defense against this weapon, which works well on me. I’m going to try it on the lowest setting and then work it up. Let me know what you feel.”

“What exactly is your medical specialty, mister outer space plumber?”

“I’ve used this thing a number of times. More call for it when I was in the Shadow Fleet.” The device from my belt flashed once, causing purple shadows to radiate out from him.

“That’s inspirational,” he said, reclining. “Emile. I met Emile at medical school. We both went to school in Granada. We were rescued by Marines together. I think I saw a stealth fighter.”  

“That just came back to you?”

“Emile! She’s the voice on the phone!”

Something was going wrong with the light from the belt. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was bending. The room was plunged into what seemed to be a fog. I felt nothing. I started to get back into my gear.

Colbert said “Done already? The examination isn’t over until I say it is.”

“Is there another… lifeform in this laboratory?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what the helmet was picking up all of the sudden. I tried the extended tactile sensors. All I was feeling was the two of us and a room full of tables and devices. Not that I could see it yet, but nothing in here seemed all that out of the ordinary.

“Not that I know of,” Colbert answered. “The lease says no pets.”

“Walking thoughts,” I said, parroting what my helmet was reading. “Autonomous cluster of alpha waves, a distended packet of race memory. It’s what they based the brain boxes on.”

“I haven’t heard such profound sounding gibberish since the exterminator was through here.”

“Or this helmet’s on the fritz. How are you feeling, doctor?”

“Like I’m dealing with a quack. If I wasn’t feeling so lucid, I would tell you to either knock it off or try something stronger. I am starting to have racing thoughts again, if they’re not just up and walking by themselves.”

“Either another chunk of Outlaw Matter or someone is triggering the weapon near us?”

“Weapon? What sort of weapon?”

“One that would require a plasma battery—a special type of capacitor.”

“Strange you should mention plasma, because producing it is what I seem to have been doing. When I’m not writing scripts for narcotics.—Captain, do you have any idea why I’ve decided to throw away a not so promising but honest career in medicine to do all of this?”

“Wait a minute? How are you making plasma? I don’t see any Atorec or an Amat Gen.”

“I’m talking about blood plasma. It’s a blood substitute. They send me blood samples and lists of animals that might be a match. And I make plasma based on flying guesses. Gallons of the stuff, as if I’m qualified. It’s stimulating. It’s mystifying.—And now I’m talking to frog elephant bird squids from outer space.”  

“Atomic Reaction Chamber, Anti-Matter Generation Unit?”

“They’ve brought in a lot of equipment, but nothing I hadn’t heard of. No. None of that. If any of that exists. I’ve never hallucinated before. I had no idea I was this creative. Emile says I lack imagination. What pretty rainbows the lights are making.”

Per Colbert, the light had turned prismatic. I saw it just as a haze. Passing the partition, I entered the lab area proper. The lab devices seemed conventional, scopes and rotating platters and a batch grade centrifuge where I am assuming Colbert was making his blood substitute.

I was still registering another presence. And a series of discharges from Sulfur’s weapon. Sweeping the place, I started eliminating various devices are the sources of these emanations.

The presence was still registering as ‘walking thoughts’, which is a specific type of creature. My other readings of the being were just defining it. It’s something similar to Windy. But I couldn’t find it. And it didn’t seem to be thinking anything—which would mean it was dead. If it was dead, it should dissipate.

A deep hollow burp came from a plugged in canister at the far corner of the room. I honed in on it. It was everything—the walking thoughts and Sulfur’s weapon. I deduced it couldn’t be both, so it was probably neither. The thing seemed as if it was a tank, part of the fire suppression system or a source of liquids. That it was plugged in was odd.

“Doctor, do you have any idea what this twenty gallon tank thing is? Right by the corner here.”

Not being in a position to take a look, Colbert guessed “The Honeywell thing? They moved it in here. Emile has a small one, I think. It’s a white noise maker, air purifier, humidifier thing.”

I wasn’t sure about that, but it did say ‘Honeywell’ on the side. It did have vents on it. If I have an excuse, whatever the thing was, it was built inside a conventional housing. I unplugged the thing.

Suddenly the lights were back to normal.

“Holy crap! Like a fog has lifted. Whatever you just did, it worked,” Colbert said. He had spontaneously and completely snapped out of the spell Sulfur had placed him under-- which turned out to be both good and bad. “Good God! What the hell have I done? They have Emile!”

The doctor had instantly melted down.  What happened next didn’t help his composure.

The canister inflated then burst, disintegrating into a flurry of bits. The bits hung, unmoving in the air, a halo around a man-sized black tree of a cloud. The cloud’s trunk shifted, striking poses in jagged black lightning. Its boughs shot through the room, fanning out into a spindly web. The boughs splattered like liquid against anything they  touched, but otherwise resembled rolling smoke.

I didn’t care what it was up to. I had seen enough. The bough’s ends were sprouting pole-arms and claws and fanged maws. It wasn’t thinking, but rather acting on impulse, out of reflexes.

One flash from my belt and it was soot. My next move was going to be for the Charliq, which at minimum would have burnt the building down. As it was, all of the ceiling tile in the lab had become pulverized, falling as a sheet into ash mounds onto everything. The tables were sagging. Every piece of glass in the lab shattered. We were now in near blackness.

I wasn’t sure how much of this event was exclusive to the lab. All I could tell from my extended tactile sensors was that the floor was still even and that at least the outside door to Colbert’s office had remained intact. There was no reason that we couldn’t have a fire any moment now.

Using the tactile sensors I was able to find Dr. Colbert. He was in a fetal position in his little office, under a seemingly melted desk. The doctor was unharmed, but gibbering. I scooped him out and we left.