The Far-Out Show
A Novel
By Thomas P. Hanna
Copyright 2011 Thomas P. Hanna
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter 01
“Tell me what I am to do again.”
“Talk to us, Nerber. Tell us everything that is going on in your head. What body sensations you are feeling, whatever thoughts occur to you since they may be parts of your unique experience, bits we do not already know about you. Nothing is irrelevant. Nothing is too minor to mention or even complain about. Nothing is taboo. It will all distract the audience and maybe even fascinate them which would be a nice extra and make you even more valuable to us.” The female voice was a synthesized version of Feedle speaking but at this stage Nerber wasn’t distracted by that bit of artificiality, a quirk the engineers hadn’t been able to overcome in the communications with the transport system.
“All in the name of commerce. Okay, I am not arguing against that, only commenting in case you want to edit a section to hint that I started off more worried than I am or am willing to tell our whole kind that I am. I did take a briefing on what was expected before I applied to do this.
“Okay. I was hatched at a very young age... Just yoking... Ow! Okay, okay, no more of what even I know are pudgerbip comments. I, Nerber, being supposedly capable of deciding such things for myself, certify that I am off on the next and probably greatest stage of an adventure to outdo all that have come before this. Of course I could not do this by myself alone but since it is not customary among our kind to share credits without a lot of lawyer fights and... Ow! Stop doing that! If you tell me to say what comes into my head then you have to listen to it whether it is what you want to hear or not. I know this is supposed to distract me during this so far untested stage of the game – you did not know I knew that did you? One more shock and I shut up and you do not have anything expect total fakery to work with and we all know how fakery affects the audience interest when it is recognized – and how soon it is recognized in this day of constant...
“Whoops, that puts a stain on the floor! Save the scientists the earful about how their stuff did not work. I blocked the part of your system that is supposed to shoot those soothing chemicals into me on your command. I do not trust those substances not to remove my edge when I am in position to do the challenges – or to have other intended effects on me. Like letting you manipulate me from inside myself without knowing what is happening to keep me from so far outdoing the other contestants that the audiences’ anticipation wouldn’t be at the high-most level. I am doing what I can to make this as fair a competition as I can. If you do not like that you can stop this process and disqualify me right now without making me a test subject for the many parts of the new technical processes that, despite your repeated assurances to those of us risking ourselves using them for the first times, have not been extensively tested and proved entirely and beyond question safe.
“You will want to edit this out so future competitors will not get the idea to sidestep your hidden control factors, but you are going to heavily edit it all anyway so that is not artcram dipply on a heepnitz.
“Something is happening. I cannot hear machinery running but I seem to be vibrating. Of course because of the blocking strap I cannot see anything and that also makes it hard for me to hear but this is an all-over feeling. I am not willing to be the test subject on this point but it will make the moving up and down a lot easier if you can truly show that the transport system does not damage the seeing sense so the extra precaution of covering our eyes during that phase is not needed.
“Bright light but not too bright. Hmm, feels good. Refreshing. Top me up. I get why I have to do this with near empty body reserves since it is a new technology and, again despite your firm assurances, no one knows how things might get mixed up in the process and create unsustainable mis-mixes. Having to stay there long enough to face the game challenges while staying in a near-depleted condition in case a faster than anticipated bring-back is needed focuses you on the risks and hardships in doing this. Is it really worth the possible rewards even if you win big? Something for those who bother to do that to think about. I get that stressed contestants make for more audience satisfaction but what are the limits? When do the risks win out and argue against for doing this or letting anyone else be enticed to do it without truly proven safeguards?
“Oh my wimpledimples, I am blind! Huh, oh wait, I do not know if I am or not since I forgot I have this blocking strap around my head. Of course with that in place I might truly have become blind but would not know it. Maybe you and I all need to be concerned whether the stress or some radiations from the machinery or some other factor affect memory and the funny bones during transfer.”
“Tell us about what you think you will find where you are going, Nerber.” He recognized this as the synthesized version of Lacrat’s voice. He liked Lacrat; didn’t entirely trust him but liked him. The others he didn’t trust as far as he could gerlup a fingfangfong but they were the keepers of the gateway to what he wanted so he went along with them as much as needed.
“If the few images we are told our scientists have detected are truly accurate, there must be very exotic places there. A few familiar ones but many strange looking ones where there are things all around that we have nothing like so I cannot much imagine what they are truly like. Of course some or most of that might be imaginative additions by your technicians. Only a few insiders would know about that for certain. I do not trust any business guys to make decisions except for their own short-term profit but I assume that means I will find myself in a concentrated living area, not out in a barren space where I would be unlikely to find very many inhabitants so I would not be able to attempt the show’s challenges.”
Lacrat said to him in a quiet sing-song manner, “Keep it in your focus that you want to see, and especially expose Wilburps to, as many different locations, situations, and types as you can. There is more credit for getting close enough to multiple units of a type than for spending extended time with only one or a few. Variety, Nerber. Strive for a variety of contacts and experiences. Do not be boring. See that world. Be useful.”
“Strange... Never felt this way before. Has anyone ever felt like this before? How to describe it? Nerber through the snaggiewarp. It is premcuckle in nitpickflub. Like I am floating free. Like I am becoming a vapor and... Oh yes, this must be it. Here I go.” Nerber’s voice quickly faded away.
“I knew this would be a worrying moment but I didn’t expect to be one of the worryingers,” Lacrat said in a mere whisper.
“There has to be a first time to try everything. That’s what we reward a few for doing,” Feedle said matter of factly.
“...Not unpleasant but not what I am used to.” Nerber’s voice faded in and quickly returned to his normal tone and volume.
“He’s back,” Lacrat said with a sigh of relief.
“Do we have confirmation that he made the move and arrived where we wanted him to?” Feedle asked.
“Huh? What is going on? Was I dreaming? I feel sort of normal but sort of truly strange. Where am I? Oh, right, I remember where I was and what I was doing but did I get where I was going? How can I be sure? What is this thing I am holding? Oh, right, I know what it should be. I thought I would feel different when I knew I had moved to the next step but mostly I feel confused with a touch of groggy. What am I supposed to do now since I am lost and confused?”
“Pull yourself together, Nerber. You have challenges to face and honor, or at least notoriety, to claim.” From its sound this synthesized voice was coming from right beside him. Nerber knew that should be giving him important information but his mind was still minimally functional with mostly buzz and dullness to report.
Chapter 02
The most notable feature of Oakline Street in Swiftyville was the total lack of oaks or any other kinds of trees lining it. It was a pothole-pocked back street that mostly ran by old three-story buildings that had once been bustling factories but were now mainly empty eyesores behind metal-mesh fencing.
This particular block of Oakline formed the fourth side of a city park that was the updated version of a three block long one that was here back when this was a separate town. A remnant of forest formed the other three sides, wrapped loosely around an open grassy area that had a small pond with a gazebo and two benches spaced around it toward one end. An additional pair of back-to-back benches faced in and out of the park’s grassy area at the street edge.
There was little traffic on the street but what there was tended to be large trucks by-passing the traffic lights and stop signs on the main streets. One such truck rumbled by now, rattling noisily each time a tire tried but failed to fit into a pothole. Conveniently for all concerned, the driver was so focused on avoiding the pits in the road ahead that he didn’t notice when an object the size of a seated man clasping to him a box almost half his size appeared in the middle of the street just behind him. A few seconds difference in the timing and this story might have been very different.
The object appeared in the street seemingly out of nowhere. It wasn’t flung here from off to the side, didn’t fall out of a passing aircraft, and didn’t fall off the truck although that last seemed like the most likely explanation.
It was not immediately clear what the object was. An avid sci-fi enthusiast might have assumed he was day-dreaming it; most others would scratch their heads and say they had no clue.
Then it moved.
In fact as one large part tilted up and others swung out to the sides it became recognizable as a humanoid creature that was sitting on the ground, head bent forward a bit, with its arms wrapped around a rectangular box-like item about eighteen inches by fourteen inches and ten inches thick.
The creature placed the box beside it while it carefully stood up and checked itself. Its basic humanoid shape was evident now. It had the general appearance of a slightly odd-looking human male in his late twenties who was wearing a knock-off of a long-sleeved denim jacket over a blue chambray shirt buttoned to the collar as if to minimize the amount of exposed skin available for close examination. His denim jeans flared enough to accommodate clownishly large shoes that were high enough to qualify as boots. The overall effect was nerdish but by that fact not as attention-grabbing as it might have seemed otherwise. This creature also had some hard-to-overlook non-human traits.
Its skin was pale but definitely had a green color; its feet seemed awkwardly large even hidden inside the big shoes; its head seemed strange, with what looked like a large ridge running entirely around it at the level where we might expect there to be eyes, which were not in evidence, and an off-center mass of light brown hair-like stuff under what was a large Australian-style bush hat pulled down tight on it unless all of that stuff was actually part of the head. Overall, the creature looked odd but beyond its skin color it wasn’t really clear why.
When its hands brailled its head, it pulled off what was indeed a tight-fitting big hat, adjusted the connected mass of what was indeed hair-substitute, aka a wig, into what humans would consider a more normal position and patted that into place. Then it peeled off the ridge from around its head that now seemed simply to be functioning as a blindfold.
Nerber blinked his obvious but not extraordinary-looking eyes and looked around saying, “There, that is so much better. They said I should wear that as extra protection but only I ever need to know that even in that short time I got so used to not seeing that I almost forgot to take the thing off. Wow, this place is as exotic as we thought. So much to experience and learn and challenge. But first things in the first place.”
He slipped a thin rod with different protruding ridge patterns on its two ends from his left sleeve and fitted it into the end of a shorter and thicker tube that he pulled out of the top of his left boot. Fitted together that way they were a reasonable equivalent of a screwdriver. He used the other more flattened end of the tube like a dull blade to slice the thin opaque layer that covered all surfaces of the boxy item. He cut it along the top and sides edges of one of its smaller side faces. That allowed him to open out that side far enough for him to reach inside. The innards were a mass of complicated looking hardware, like the insides of a computer but in this device everything appeared to be continuous, no removable parts.
Reversing the rod so its other end became the tool that fitted into a spot, he twisted the tool ninety degrees and pulled firmly but lightly on it. A boxy unit the size of a deck of playing cards with small embossed markings on all of its six sides, no two the same, detached from the lining of the box and fell into his waiting hand. “Hello again, Wowseyla, newest of the mini-zerpy devices,” he said.
Without delay he closed up the large boxy item, reversed the rod and used the original tool end to reseal the side.
Then he slipped the tool into a pocket, not concerned about it being noticed now. He pressed one marking on Wowseyla and waited with a bit of apprehension.
When the unit vibrated in his hand he smiled and relaxed a bit. “You made the transfer intact, you are functional, and your self-diagnostic program finds all your systems undamaged. Multiple excuses for a really pomidipser quidniffop although there is no time for one right now. I owe me one and I will not forget.”
He held one of the smallest faces of Wowseyla almost touching a spot on the upper right hand corner of one of the two largest faces of the large box, touched a marking on Wowseyla, and waited.
Nothing visible occurred but significant things happened inside the boxy thing. A vibration of Wowseyla indicated when the process was completed.
“They will be worried by this delay in connecting so I will not keep them waiting longer than I need to. I will stay out of monitoring range just long enough to get myself ready to give me an edge in case they play nasty as they are likely to think they can do without penalties. They do not need to know what I brought along with me that they did not know about, only that I may surprise them when I can soften the effects when they try to prod me.”
He touched a sequence of the embossed markings on Wowseyla and it altered its outer appearance to a fairly nondescript rough rock-like look. He pressed this to the front of the crown of his bush hat where it stayed in place as if pinned there. “That should let you goodly record the views around me as I go about my adventure but with you not be much of noticed. You seem like nothing of for being important.”
He put the hat aside while he peeled the thin layer from all the surfaces of the large box, crumpled that matter up, and tossed it aside. After a few seconds it disintegrated into dust and blew away.
“Are you intact, Nerber?” The odd-sounding synthesized voice came from the box that on closer inspection without the covering was apparently intended to look like and be worn as a large backpack. For those alert to such things, that closer look also made it clear that the item hovered several inches off the ground rather than sat on it.
“Yes, I seem to have all my parts and they all seem to be working so I guess Nerber’s great adventure continues. Did you sustain any damage you can detect, Wilburps?”
“A full self-check is underway but so far I am working. I did need to be uncovered though before I could do anything. Now I need to be fully activated.”
“That is good news for the technicians. Both Ormelexians and their zerpies can be transported safely by the previously untested system. I collected as a remember-the-moment the first that-of-interesting-to-look-at-it-is that I saw,” Nerber said as he tapped the top of the box in a three taps, two taps, three taps sequence. After a moment all the visible sides of the box changed from looking like rough cloth to looking like a smooth surfaced solid rectangle with odd embossed markings on several sides. The carrying straps stayed in place.
“Helpful alteration. That lets me survey your surroundings better and record things within range as well as make communications with the others easier. Strong recommendation, Nerber! Move us several pizmarks to your right before you do anything else? Do it, do it! Do not question!”
At the sound of a loud air horn Nerber looked up from checking to be sure his clothes were intact, in place, and not soiled to find a large tractor-trailer headed for that spot at a moderate speed.
Nerber dropped his hat, grabbed his backpack by the carrying strap, and ran onto the park side pavement where he hesitated to see if further evasive action was needed. He copied the driver’s gesture, a sort of wave with one’s middle finger raised, back at the man. The driver swerved his truck just enough to be sure it ran over the hat.
To the driver’s surprise and confusion his whole rig tilted over dangerously as it passed over the hat. From the cab he couldn’t see the detail but the vehicle moved over the hat without actually contacting it even though the tires went directly over it. He was too busy trying to keep the truck from rolling onto its side, something he knew he would never be able to explain to his employers, to ask himself why or how this could be happening. His wife often told him his rudeness might be the end of him one day and this seemed like that coming true.
Once it was beyond the hat, the truck settled back with all its tires touching the roadway but the driver was too relieved to do more than wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“Did I learn something useful in the local language, Wilburps?”
“Unconfirmed. Am unable to find that gesture in the data base of the known communication clues. You did learn that the open and darker colored areas at the lowered level are in use by vehicles so you need to use extra caution while in those places though.”
“What would I do without a zerpy like you to give me all these clues and cues?”
“Not look okay for one thing. I detect that you are askew and not certain to stay in place for social interaction without give-aways. Check your head.”
Nerber touched his head, carefully feeling to be sure his wig was present and in place. “Is the problem what?”
“Your hat not there to hold things in place is the problem what.”
Nerber now looked around in some alarm and confusion until he spotted the hat. He was ready to retrieve it from the street but Wilburps urged caution. “Another large moving vehicle is coming. I recommend waiting until it has gone by before entering its domain. Those things do not seem friendly.”
This large truck rumbled by, also passing over the hat but this driver swerved a bit to avoid it so none of the tires came close to it.
With no traffic in sight moving in this direction Nerber retrieved his hat. He had to dust if off and reshape it but it was none the worse for its recent close encounters of the vehicular type.
He put the hat on over the wig and pulled it down tight to hold that in place. “I should be ready now.”
“Let me remind you that I am here to translate for you when and if you meet any locals who turn out to be speechifiers. I come as fully prepared for that task as the company’s technicians can make me.”
“They do a good job making you. Zerpies are at the leading edge of our technical capacities. Your kind make things happen for us. Our constant improvements in technology mean ever more useful helpers. I must watch for signs that the inhabitants here have devices equivalent to you, Wilburps.”
“Analysis of signals detected since we approached suggest that the inhabitants do have limited development of what they call androids or robots. Those seem to be mostly work devices made to look like themselves.”
“That sounds primitive. Why burden your helpers with the same restraints you are stuck with if you can make them able to get beyond those? Do not answer, I am only wondering out loud.”
“The analysis so far suggests that, like your kind, they often use the pattern of naming things to tell what they do.”
“Like zerpy?”
“Correct. The analysis of their signals suggests that translated to the talk-talk version most common in the region where we have arrived their equivalent for the term for my type would be ‘Save and sends’.”
“Which describes a zerpy’s main uses in a rempilcarp.”
“Something I cannot locate a local talk-talk word for.”
Nerber nodded. “This may be a once in a while problem but I have practiced to pretend a smizdef.”
“Which translates as a cough here. That is the word for it, not the sound that comes from doing it although they are somewhat alike.”
“This is why a trusted zerpy is so important. You give me both a word and a caution not to confuse the thing and the word that identifies it to the inhabitants. I look forward to meeting some of them and having excitable adventures for the thrill of those at home.”
“You must not get too excited and forget our limitations. You must talk-talk with them slowly to give me time to figure out what they are communicating. It will also help the delusion if when possible you make physical contact with me so I can control your mouth movements to approximate the sounds I am making for you as if you were speaking them yourself. We can make this work, Nerber. Your success, and maybe even your survival, depends on it.”
“There you go trying to scare me again.”
“You are where no Ormelexian has ever been before but in a place where we believe we know something about the customs and reactions. That knowledge is based on interception of long-distance signals from here that are interpreted as their mass entertainments. From some of those we expect they may not be thrilled when they find out who you are, where you came from, and even why you are here.”
Nerber took a small package from a pants pocket and looked at the pill it contained. “I still have much to do while I am here. A test case I am of many things but I accepted the terms so I cannot turn back now without losing my chance at fame.”
“Hesitate, Nerber. Next you must state for the record that you are taking the transformation step voluntarily. I am ready to store and relay your message.”
Nerber fumbled a pill from his pocket and swallowed it with a grimace of distaste. After a moment he gagged and seemed about to dump his insides on the ground by way of his mouth but he fought off those impulses as he turned what the locals here would describe as a healthy-looking color. “I, Nerber, mildrex oftbilk that I am acting freely in the silwarb things I am doing here. Yuck. What I will do to be a winner.”
“They had to scramble to make your pill. There are many audio intercepts from this planet but only since we got close were good enough visual signals received to show what some of the inhabitant kinds look like. They noted that the one common kind, like the ones inside those big things that went past us, apparently come in a variety of shades of color, all of them not green. That pill makes you the lightest of those colors because that was the easiest to make with the available materials.”
“My insides have settled and I can see that my hands have lost their healthy green glow but I am okay with that for at least a short time.”
“You are ziz-pod. Hold on, let me... There, I should be translating better for you and from you now in case some natives can detect us. Being...it seems they call those in our position pioneers. Being pioneers we must proceed with caution.”
“I am dependable on your help, Wilburps. I love the thrill of the challenge but I am smartly pants enough to know this could turn out like badness.”
Nerber sat the solid but light-weight rectangular box that was the zerpy named Wilburps beside him on the park bench near the street and facing it, then looked around getting oriented.
“You are already a winner, Nerber. You arrived alive so you are history,” the zerpy said as it hovered a foot off the bench then settled to hover two inches above the seat.
Nerber responded eagerly, “But to get the vipsig mermin...” He forced himself to speak slower, “...big cashing in prizes, I have to beat out any and all competition.”
“We need to practice,” Wilburps cautioned. “I cannot translate at Ormelexian speed, so if you talk too fast you will give yourself away.”
“Without a way to translation my talk for surely so this would not be dreamable.”
“Stay in range and I will do my task as a well-designed zerpy. I am readied like no other,” Wilburps assured him.
Nerber nodded his understanding and appreciation saying, “If there are others who made it this far they also have their helper zerpies.”
“But we cannot know about them so we may with good hope think we are uniqueness and specialty.”
“Zemgas, Rumpsy, and Zipper were ready to transport down so they may be mixing me around to win and be the hero of our whole world.”
“Reprocessing. The new inputs suggest we should use beating in place of mixing around from hencefifth. There is more. Reprocessing. From henceforth.”
“You catch up on the talk-talk stuff while I find what I need to perfect the game challenges.”
“Reprocessing. Perform the challenges. Here perfect has other ideas attached.”
“It would reassure me to know which other contestants made it safely to the surface even though I must still attempt the tests to amuse the home audience.” He straightened his hat and touched Wowseyla as he added, “Also to know if you are detecting any signals you cannot account for, ones that might hint of problems I should check on.”
“They warned you that the transport risk is more than they at first expected because the atmosphere here is not as they had expected so what they told you when you signed up to be a contestant did not hold. But the game rules say no one may tell you about the other contestants. Not whether or where they landed safely. Not whether or where were captured and killed by the locals.”
“What about signals from sources you cannot identify?”
“None are registering.”
Nerber raised both arms in a gesture of excitement. “Pipswitch doogely. All is acceptable then. I proceed for the glory of appeasing the blood lust of the home audience,” Nerber muttered. “We all know that they say other if asked by authority persons but many of the audience secretly hope for game contestants to be killed as long as they get to watch all the gore and details.
“Appeasing the audience means being widely known as a hero - and being made rich,” Wilburps reminded him.
“What better motivational excuses could I have? Does it be full of any sense to say phone home, Wilburps? I am being sense filled with that as a thought to say coming from I have no hint of where. But I have arrived intact and I am ready for the next challenge.”
Chapter 03
Penelope Regimentator, known by many who knew her whether they were happy about that fact or not only as Reggie, was a calculating user. This morning she was also in her own mind on the job as an enhancer. She parked along this urban back street lined for several blocks on one side by four-story apartment buildings and on the other side by row homes, all the structures long time occupants of their spots.
She got out of the car she had borrowed for the day and looked it over. She had stopped on her way here to scatter some bags of loose dirt over it to make it less noticeable and, as she intended, driving fast down the expressway coming here had blown off the excess loose material and left the medium blue car a dull blue-gray. She would wash it before she returned it and there would be no obvious trail back to her. Details like that were important to her sense of how things should be done.
Descriptors commonly used for her were “not to be trusted” and “sneaky but not all that bright”. She was also “on the wrong side of forty”, and “sort of scrunched down” because although of average height she often looked shorter as she skulked around hunched over to be less noticeable. Her medium-length graying hair had a way of accumulating static electricity so it stood on end even when she was calm, giving her a fright wig look that often alarmed others who had to get near her. She was thin because her nervous energy had her moving much of the time when she was awake so fat didn’t have time to find a place to settle. She had pale, unhealthy looking skin because she distrusted the sun not to do bad things to her and being out in it also meant she wasn’t skulking and she really liked to skulk.
She chose her clothes to be durable, easy to maintain, and sort of automatic camouflage because of their drab, unpatterned dull colors and unremarkable design. Today she wore what she considered to be close to an ideal outfit - sweat pants, hooded sweatshirt, plain T-shirt, and plain sneakers. All the items in shades of gray; none of those grays matching one another or her hair which might have made her even less noticeable.
Checking that she had the essential items for this mission in her fanny pack, Regimentator hurried down the street on the roadway side of the line of parked cars. She moved in full skulk mode with cartoon-character furtiveness. She stopped every few yards to crouch and look around for anyone who might be noticing her although she couldn’t imagine why anyone would.
This was a one-way street and she had deliberately parked a full block ahead of the old parked car that was the focus of her interest. That was to minimize the likelihood that the man she didn’t want to see her would do so. She intended to enhance his parked car with an electronic tracking device so she could follow him discreetly with no risk of losing track of him and no risk of him noticing her because she had to follow too closely.
She had that small device stuck to one side of a square of extra strength double-stick tape, ready to be attached to her target’s car in some out of sight place. Since, as she had seen when she drove by it on her way to find a parking spot, his old car was as incidentally dirt-covered as hers was deliberately she would have to get close to find a place to firmly attach the tape but that shouldn’t be a real problem. She would only need to rub clean a spot two inches square and the job was done.
As she eagerly approached the target car she made her last minute moves. She took the prepared square of double-stick tape from her fanny pack. Using a razor blade she had cut out a section of the protective paper cover and affixed the dime-width sized electronic device to the exposed glue, leaving the outer part of the covering on so she wouldn’t stick to that side.
Holding the square device-side-down in her left palm, she silently rehearsed how she would peel off the cover from the other side of the tape so it would be ready to stick to the car but keep it in that hand so her right was free to rub a spot clean of dirt so it would get a good grip before she attached it. Satisfied that she was ready, she went through her crouch-and-look-around-for-observers routine twice in the last few yards. You can maybe never be too careful. She really liked to sneak around and do secret stuff that would pay off for her.
She got to the target car and moved along it on the driver’s side, around the back between it and a parked rental van, and back up on the pavement side. She was looking for the best place to tag it but was distracted when she looked in through the car window and saw two cartons on the back seat. Her instinct shouted in her mind’s ear that those might be important and she should try to find out what those were.
Then she heard the whistling – and cussed to herself. She knew who the whistler was and what it meant that the sound was getting louder at a fast rate. He was coming out of his apartment building and literally any second now would see and probably recognize her near his car. That would seriously compromise her plans.
So she yanked off the cover of the second sticky side of the tape and slapped the tape and tracking device on the passenger side door. In her hurried fumbling she managed to get the tape’s second surface cover stuck to the outer side of the device which made its true nature less obvious. She scooted away up the street and stepped in between parked vehicles so she would be out of sight when the whistler stepped outside since he, being a generally paranoid type, would scan the area for anyone whom he should wonder or worry about. She hoped her interest in him was going to finally pay off.
Ms. Regimentator was always on the lookout for someone to set things up that she could swoop in on at a late stage and get the profit from. Taking credit was of secondary importance but was a plus she was always more than willing to grab too. She has a wide range of areas where she made a point to know what might be worth real money and what work or discovery might be needed to capitalize on that item. She was averse to the work aspect, telling herself that she was a specialist. Her skill was in recognizing who had done the work but then, as they were about to reach payoff time, made the mistake of telling someone who would repeat the claim so she would hear about it in any number of roundabout ways.
Over several years she had added the name of George Krinkle to the Rolodex she had found at a garage sale and used as her fast and convenient way to remember who might be of use to her, along with a note about the areas where each was likely to present an opening for her.
She made a note on his card each time she found a small newspaper item about his claims, theories, or investigations that all seemed to involved extraterrestrial beings and their interest in Earth. After seeing him in a thirty-second report on the TV news on a slow news day she had a premonition that this weirdo could actually make an important discovery. When that happened she wanted to be there to witness it – and to sell the first photos and story about it to the news media.
When she heard on today’s morning radio news about the latest round of suspicions that alien beings had invaded overnight she checked her Rolodex and decided that almost certainly George Krinkle would be hot on the trail of any such creatures. Her notes suggested that he kept up to date with a proverbial three tons of resources on such things so he had a better than average chance of finding something the news people would take at least a momentary interest in, whatever it finally turned out to be. She then made the judgment that it was worth her while to be ready, camera in hand, if he found something newsworthy, sad as it was how that term had deteriorated over the years. This was her plan and mission today.
George Krinkle stopped whistling as he stepped out the door of his rundown apartment building and looked around warily for any movement. He was thirty-two and super nerdy-looking in dark-rimmed glasses and a hat, jacket, shirt, trousers, sock, and even shoes each a different pattern of several muted colors and featuring vaguely star- or planet-shaped designs.
Zippedy Jones, twenty, with an unkempt mop of dark hair and a vacant air-head expression, ambled up the opposite side of the street. He passed Regimentator who was hiding between the parked cars on the other side of the street from him without noticing her since she was crouched down and not moving and he was in his own world in his head.
After a check for traffic Jones crossed the street to join Krinkle.
“Is anybody following you, Zippedy?”
Jones looked around, almost falling over as he tried to make a full turn in place without moving his feet. “Don't see nobody, Mr. Krinkle. I just got off the bus at the corner two blocks up and you're the only one I've seen. You got your special clothes on, that must mean somethin'.”
Krinkle whispered, “I think aliens have invaded for sure this time. My camouflage and distraction outfit is so I don't panic 'em before I'm sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“I telescope-spotted something up by the moon but as usual the authorities won't listen to me without solid proof.”
“You saw the man in the moon?”
“No, there's a thing staying still beside the moon. Space junk would move in orbit. A thing that stays in the same place has to be using power to do that so it must be a UFO.”
“So you’re gonna catch it?”
“I'm only going to locate the critters who landed from it and call in the Army to take care of them. With me getting proper credit of course. I may need your help with my equipment,” Krinkle said, pointing to a large cardboard carton on the back seat of his car. Small flaps cut in the right side and the top exposed the currently unextended telescoping rods of two rabbit-ear type antennas. Large flaps in the front and the left side revealed a device inside with multiple dials and switches that could be observed and reached through those flaps. “That my FODD, my foreign origin detection device. I learned how to make it in a dream. It should let me tell from a distance who's not an earthling.”
“Does it work?” Jones asked, fascinated with the idea.
“Uh, I haven't detected any aliens with it yet to be sure but I have confidence in it. The smaller thing beside it in the other box is my jammer.”
“You take your jammies out for car rides?”
“My jammer. It's to jam the aliens' communications systems so they can't call for help as I close in on ‘em.”
“You throw jam on their radios so they're too gunked up to talk into?” Jones seldom had an easy time with more than the most basic statements but he was amiable and willing to help with grunt work if you gave him detailed instructions and supervised him closely.
“No, my jammer detects their wave lengths and automatically swamps those with music off the radio. Mostly country music since that’s popular around here. The aliens can't hear one another because of all the broken hearts and unfaithful boy or girl friends.”
“Won't that make the aliens not trust cowboys?”
“A small price to pay for catching them before they can learn our secrets. Let’s do this thing. George Krinkle and Zippedy Jones are off.”
“That's what my mom keeps saying.”
Krinkle went around behind his car to get in on the driver’s side.
Jones stepped over to the front passenger door to wait for it to be unlocked so he could get into seat. He noticed the item stuck to the door, pulled that off – and after a cursory glance at it, tossed it over his shoulder. Krinkle was unlocking his door and didn’t see that.
The tape and its electronic payload hit the front of the rental van - and stuck there.
Krinkle drove himself and Jones away without seeing that.
Regimentator had turned around so she could watch the men by peeking down the pavement side of the parked cars. When Jones got into Krinkle’s car she moved around, always in a full crouch which was hard on her thigh muscles but necessary for sneakiness, so when they drove by her location she was on the pavement out of sight rather than still between the vehicles where Krinkle might have seen her. She didn’t know if Jones had noticed her when he passed on the opposite side of the street but the fact that Krinkle drove away without looking more than routinely paranoid suggested the young guy at least hadn’t mentioned seeing anything unusual.
As they drove Krinkle explained, “We have to stay alert for signs of Reggie. That’s interference I’d be happier without, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They drove another block in silence before Jones asked, “What’s a reggie? Is it a kind of car?” Like an Audi or a veggie? No, wait, veggies aren’t cars. Are they?”
Krinkle gave no sign that he found any of that amusing or odd. He simply replied earnestly, “I mean Penelope Regimentator. She’s the nasty problem I want to avoid. If that frustrates her and pisses her off that’s okay.”
“Why does she piss on what you do?”
Krinkle decided that fit with what he was thinking even if it twisted what he said a bit so he opted not to straighten it out. Instead he answered the question. “She knows the kinds of things I’m interested in so it’s likely she’s looking to follow me around today. She hopes I’ll lead her to any very foreign visitors so she can sell photos and the story about it to the news people before I can. In fact I’d rather keep it secret at least for a time to have a chance to find out about the visitors and maybe learn useful stuff from them.”
“Did you call her and tell her you were going alien hunting and she’s not allowed to know about that?”
“No, I haven’t talked to her for a long time. But I have seen her tailing me a couple of times when there were UFO type stories in the news. She knows I’m interested in those and do my homework to know about the latest rumors and any facts, although there aren’t usually many of those,” Krinkle said.
“Does she read your mind about those things?”
“It’s not quite like that. She flirty flip-flopped me and I just can’t forgive her for that. Or ever trust her.”
“Okay,” Jones said simply.
Even though it seemed Jones wouldn’t ask about that Krinkle said, “I should explain that. Reggie’s always on the lookout for people who might do something important that she can slip in and steal out from beside them in whatever way is possible. For me that means find out what I’ve discovered and report it to those willing to pay her for that scoop before I can tell the world about it myself. This is hard for me to talk about.” He stopped and took several deep breaths.
“You don’t need to.”
“Yeah, sooner or later I’ll maybe have to tell others these facts so I need to start with you to get me through it. Fact is that to get me relaxed enough to talk about my interests and what I have already discovered she once flirted with me.”
“Is a flirty girl a bad thing? My mom won’t talk to me about stuff like that.”
“It was bad this time for me because I made the mistake of telling her about what I’ve learned and what I hope to find out and about my dream inventions.”
“Is that the machines you dream about in your sleep and then make when you wake up? Like the things on the back seat?”
“Exactly right, Zippedy.”
“They’re neatsy-petesy and awe-filled up stuff.”
“Thank you for agreeing with me about that. She however wasn’t impressed because none of it was stuff she could see a way to make money off right away. Also...uh, let’s just say I thought we had become boyfriend and girlfriend so I... Uh, anyway she got flustered and laughed at me and called me a nerd and a loser.”
“That wasn’t nice to say even if she thought it.”
“Since then I won’t have anything to do with her the several times she’s made half-hearted moves to get friendly but still stay at a distance from me. So she stalks me. I’d bet a dollar that when she heard the news reports about a local man reporting the object near the moon she immediately assumed it was me and is trying to tail us to scoop me.”
“That’s why you’re watching out for her?”
“Righto. If it won’t take me too far off the trail I’ll misdirect her and let her flounder around and miss the story. I won’t attack her, but I’ll barricade the road.”
“Or barracuda it? I heard that word someplace and it sounds neat but I don’t know what it means,” Jones admitted.
“You’re right that there’s something fishy about it, Zippedy,” Krinkle said and allowed himself a quiet little chuckle. “Look, I’ve been driving in a pattern to see if I can spot Reggie following me but I don’t see her so I’m gonna pull over here for a few minutes in case that might fool her. Also to check for developments on the news programs.”
Chapter 04
Nerber checked that his wig and hat were firmly in place and that his feet were entirely inside his big shoes. “These pains to my feet are necessary to pass but I will be so happily ever after to be rid of them as soon as this competition is done and gone. Is this one approaching us acceptable, Wilburps?”
“The entity moves about on its own so we should assume it could be one of the ruling species. We know what they sound like but since we have never had good picture reception from here until too recently for the techs to have updated me about that we cannot be certain. The technicians are only now using the images I am sending to see how to adjust the visual decipher programs so they can go back and reinterpret the signals on which our assumptions about how things are on this planet are for truly since it is clear they are different than we expected. You are not only a pioneer, you are an explorer, Nerber. One who goes on adventures to discover information and treasure.”
“I like the sound of treasure.” Nerber picked up Wilburps and slung him over his shoulder like a backpack. “We will start off with leaving you exposed so you can record the full range of visuals as well as voices. If you attract too much attention I will have to return you to the cloth bag appearance.”
“Understood. We are both explorers, every move we make is a test since we know nothing much about what happens here and the social expectations, if there are such things.”
“No, they assured me that they have learned a lot about this place and its inhabitants,” Nerber objected.
“They assured you about much but I have in my memory bank what is actually stored to use in any encounters with inhabitant creatures and there is not much there. Starting with what the dominant or at least any intelligent kinds look like.”
“This which I am proposing to approach is not known to us to be one of a type with high intelligence?”
“It’s status and intelligence rating is not known to us for truly sure. Its kind are often found with another kind we want to check out. You are the first to actually assess it. Go, be a pioneer.”
“This is not truly how I imagined first encounter to be.”
Nerber walked confidently to where a male dog was sniffing a tree trunk. He stopped several yards from the animal and said to it, “Greetings and nice to meet yous. I am friendly so you are too, yes?”
The dog glanced at him but continued its scent exploration.
“A feline, whatever that is, has taken your tongue? Is that a joke, no?” Wilburps translated for Nerber. The voice the animal heard actually came from the zerpy while Nerber moved his lips but those moves didn’t correspond to the sounds coming out.
The dog lifted it leg and urinated long and productively on the tree trunk.
Nerber moved around awkwardly trying to figure out how he could do the same. He said to Wilburps, “They did not prepare me for this social behavior. I do not think I can do that without problems but I want to meet the challenges.”
The dog walked on down the street without giving this stranger another look.
Wilburps reported, “New inputs indicate that that was not one of the dominant life form types so you should ignore it. Wait, there, the no-sound transmission system between us should now be operational.” To avoid extra complications we will still have your thoughts that are not directed exclusively to me verbalized if that is satisfactory.
Sure. That makes things easier than pie, whatever pie is. “Does the new information give us a better idea of what I am seeking for or five or whatever they say on this planet?”
“Yes. Revolve one time”, Wilburps instructed.
Nerber revolved at a fast rate.
“Krimplerpunt! Uh, slowly please,” Wilburps cued.
Nerber slowed as prompted.
“Suitable target spotted. Proceed to the left.”
“Your left or my left?”
“I always adjust my directives to fit your positioning.”
“Right.” Nerber walked off down the block to his left.
“The inhabitants must walk into walls all the time because their language has them turning the wrong way,” Wilburps said.
* * *
Down the block Jake Billings, seventy-seven, a casually dressed retiree wearing glasses and hearing aids in both ears, had come around the corner and stopped without noticing Nerber.
Nerber stopped near the man and placed Wilburps beside him - where it hovered a foot off the ground. Nerber waited for some social signal from Billings but the man was too distracted checking his pockets and muttered to himself to notice anyone.
Nerber finally shrugged and said, “Is this a nice day, yes?”
Billings mumbled, mostly to himself, “Old age ain't for sissies. Head's full of holes and what I'm doing keeps falling out.”
Nerber whispered to Wilburps, “Your translation is received but can it be anything like for real?”
What he said makes no sense to anything in my data banks.
Nerber asked Billings, “Are you in need of medicinals for your holey head, mister sir?”
Billings looked around, startled. He moved his glasses a bit trying to see Nerber clearly. “Huh? Who's there? Prissy?”
Use caution. That might be an insult but since this is our first true encounter with one of them I am not for certain sure.
“Are you disking me, mister?” Nerber asked Billings.
Billings fiddled with his right ear hearing aid then asked, “What? Darn thing's not worth ten cents some days. You're not my neighbor Priscilla are you? I don't always recognize her so if that is you, Prissy, I'm having trouble with my new lenses. Nothing works right.”
“Your lenses are a trouble so you do not hear well, yes?”
Billings had been checking his pockets again and not paying much attention to the stranger. “Huh? I was gonna pick up a few things at the convenience store on my daily constitutional but I can't remember what those are.”
“I am new here so your talk-talk is much for me. Why is it you do not find it convenient to go to most stores?”
After a moment Nerber said, “Never the mind, new download makes me sensible about that, thank you.”
Billings said, mostly to himself, “I think I made a note but I can't find one so maybe I did or maybe I didn't or maybe it's on the table.”
“May I back off a step please,” Nerber requested politely. “What do you constitutional about? This is not known to me so can I learn?”
Billings gave Nerber a look but quickly shook his head and tapped a finger on his left ear hearing aid. “Which is worse, to not hear or to hear what you know is gobbledygook? Have to take these things in for another adjustment.” Then he took out his wallet and searched in it for a note or a shopping list.
“This gobbledyness is a noise of big you-eat-it-up thing with what you call fetters, no? Can you do that noise for me to hear and be amazed?”
“Not in there either. Time was I didn't need notes, I'd remember just fine. Now I'm a sad mess.”
Nerber opted to proceed with a standard greeting ritual he had prepared for this venture. He said, “I am most pleasured to meeting with you, mister sir. We can make nice social talk-talk, no?”
“Huh? No what? I was thinking about whether I need toothpaste. What did you say if it was important?” Billings looked around as if surprised at his location.
“I am visitor here being nice and to make friendly with you,” Nerber persisted.
“I know where I am but why am I here? I probably started out to do something but I don't remember what?” He took a pair of eye glasses in a case from his pocket and switched those for the ones he had been wearing.
He laughed as he looks around in the new glasses. “Okay! These are a lot better. Wonder why I didn't put them on earlier? Maybe I'll never know so no benefit to think more about it.” He noticed Nerber standing there and stared at him, asking, “Have I met you, Stranger? You don't look like anybody I know unless I do but don't recognize you.”
Recommendation, Wilburps?
Be polite but move on. You will not be able to complete the challenge with this one - or any of them if they are all like this.
Nerber turned to say something more to Billings but the man was wandering off down the street, Nerber forgotten.
“Okey-my-dokey - or should it be my donkey? Any which the way, that was easy. We need to get better at my sorting out what not to bother saying before you vocalize it for me or you need to make my speakifying less interesting by screening out all the not necessary bits. This translation stuff does be a problem. Anyway, the first challenge on the list is to get physical with a local of the most advanced species I can find so I am nowhere but at least I am not damaged or discovered.”
“The show designers deliberately did not define the terms so you can adapt to what you find on any alien planet. That one who was here sounds like what the long-distance recordings say the dominant creatures sound like - but if he is one of the most advanced type here, we have the wrong idea about this planet.”
Nerber started down the street saying, “Moving along, I have an idea of what I take get physical with to mean - but not with one like that. This is maybe to be going on as a bigger thing than I thought about. Maybe is craziness to continue.”
“You are here and you have no easy way home for now so what is the point except to do what you can for the sake of fame and fortune?”
“Fame and fortune. You are programmed to know the way to motivate my heart each time, Wilburps.”
“I have my role to play in things.”
Chapter 05
Penelope Regimentator was seldom a happy person and at this moment she was far from that state of mind as she drove along the urban streets as fast as she dared. She wasn’t a big respecter of speed limits but right now it was the need to carefully scrutinize the moving traffic on each cross street as she reached it that was slowing her up.