Galactic Storm Page 27

  I remembered our first meeting; drunk, she failed to freak out over my eyes. The next morning she’d stayed calm, saying she liked them. Her nervousness contradicted her statement. The lie came clear in the end as her politically correct leanings failed her. Humans don’t have black eyes. They may be midnight-brown and look black, but they aren’t totally colorless. I, on the other hand, have true black eyes with amber hour-glass pupils. At the end of our marriage, my wife told me my eyes creeped her out. I’d tried custom contact lenses, but it was too hard to see with them in.

  Staring at the picture, I fell into her jade eyes. I wished I’d been born with eyes like hers, with irises of any normal color, but that wouldn’t have been a complete fix. My eyes didn’t just look different, they could see sickness in those who thought themselves healthy. I could see miles away in great detail, and that was just the beginning.

  After the car accident—when reality for me had seemed to alter—she’d really started looking at me weird. Just like the EMT flashing the light in my eyes. He’d sworn that the pupils in each of my eyes had briefly doubled, which wasn’t possible for human eyes. It wasn’t long after that Jess asked for a divorce and I’d moved back to my parents’ home.

  I put the picture back on the night stand, lying it face down, and cocked my semi-automatic. I raised it to the side of my head, and stared out the window. About to close my eyes, I saw flash of movement, a dull-silver ball, there then gone. I’d seen this before, but had dismissed it as unimportant, my impending death much more important.

  I almost lowered my HK P 200, but kept it at the side of my head. I thumbed off the safety and closed my eyes. The click echo in my head, then another click and another, I frowned and opened my eyes again to look at my gun, but the clicking came from outside. I put the gun on the bedspread.

  Outside the window, a weird silver tennis ball wobbled in flight toward the roof. “Damn voyeur.”

  I took a deep breath and calmed myself. I’d made up my mind; I was tired of this world, tired of existence, tired of being me.

  The silver ball dropped back past the open window and was gone again.

  A dull, seething anger grew inside. I swung the gun toward the open window. Okay, you bastard, come by here one more time.

  Through the closed door, from across the house, I heard keys giggling and the front door swinging open, hitting a wall. My family was familiar with my sensitive hearing. An urgent voice called to me without quite yelling. “Hey, Bro, there’s something on TV you need to see.”

  I looked into infinity and tapped the barrel of the gun against my head. I could do it right now, but the feel was wrong. Or did some deep, glutinous part of me resist death even now, wanting even more pain?

  I got up and padded over to the boxes, leaving the gun back there. I went on to the door and opened it, knowing my gifted hearing wasn’t shared by my family. I yelled. “What are you guys doing home already?”

  “Just come out here, you need to see this. Now!”

  The yell was followed by shocked silence, not just in the house, but in the neighborhood. I noticed there was no traffic noise. No kids running on sidewalks. The air felt stunned, heavy. Had the whole world stopped?

  I went downstairs to the family room. Lucy and our parents were in front of the flat screen. My mother Mary looked teary. Charles, Dad, was pale, sweaty, a pained expression on his face like an onset of heart trouble had materialized. I looked at the TV.

  “What the fuck?”

  For once, Mom didn’t correct my language.

  I saw something that looked like a rough-edged, gold-plated dais hovering above New York, like a scene out of Independence Day. The military had the alien platform surrounded from the ground with tanks and what looked like half of the U.S. Army. Helicopters swarmed in the air. Jets were farther away, a squadron doing a fly-by.

  News crews on the ground took establishing shots of crowd reaction. People were craning their neck, staring upwards. Faces showed fear and wonder. The cameras panned to show the Atlas sculpture and the flags of the U.N. building.

  Seeing the statue pissed me off; usual government incompetence. Atlas doesn’t hold up the Earth. He needs to stand on the Earth to hold up the sky so it doesn’t fall, crushing us all. You’d think the designer could have cracked a book on Greek myths before he got to work.

  The scene changed and I lost some of my ire. I watched an intrepid blonde with fierce blue eyes. She wore a wind-whipped trench coat, gripped a hand mic, and had the well-endowed breasts needed to triumph in the shallow world of TV news. Her look of grave concern pulled me in as she brushed aside a wisp of hair from her eyes and spoke into the camera.

  “We still don’t know the origin of this craft, who made it, or what they want. In conjunction with the military, CETI has been trying every available method of communication, but so far—nothing. The U.N. is in full session. Experts from around the globe are coming forward with conjecture. And we are standing by for an announcement from the President of the United States from the Oval Office.”

  She gave us a dramatic pause.

  “The obvious and inescapable truth of this moment is that our little Earth is no longer alone in the cosmos.”

  “It’s moving!” someone screamed.

  The camera view panned upward.

  The massive gold shape rotated on its vertical axis. A raptor’s beak became more pronounced. Its theoretical sides extended, forming stubby wings that made it look far more like a warship. A flattened bubble atop the beak split open. The camera man focused in on what might be formations of people.

  An invasion force? Hollywood’s favorite scenario. What if it’s true?

  “Get in closer, closer,” the reporter told the camera man.

  TV reception went wonky, then settled down with a new and different feed. I stared at a beautiful woman with fresh-scrubbed-pink skin that caught the surrounding lights and revealed a gold-dust shimmer. Her large irises were liquid gold. Her chin was tiny. Her head was encased in a silver skull-cap of some kind. She wore a silver-scale silk dress with slits on both sides, flashing athletic legs up her waist. She looked like Red Carpet Barbie. She had a perfect hourglass figure, everything proportioned to my liking.

  A girl like that can give a man the will to live.

  Her cameraman pulled back on the shot. She occupied an elaborate throne, looking every inch a princess.

  Men stood near her, wearing crimson armor. Helmets covered their faces. Their tinted visors made their skin look purple. They held lances made of crystal that glowed acid green from within. This looked more and more like a high-budget sci-fi movie.

  One of the armored men moved in and hunched over the woman whom he dwarfed. His face expressed anxiousness—fear?—while the woman looked serene. A smile adorned her face. Her eyes shone with warmth. Nothing about her projected discomfort.

  “Is this for real, is this really happening?” Lucy asked.

  I put my arm around her. We watching the woman stand and drift toward whatever device sent out her image. She touched a silver band on her wrist and looked back up.

  “My name is Kala, tenth princess of the Anaraska, First Scientist of the Star Kingdom. I have come to your planet looking for one among the many. He has five planetary rotations to surrender to me, or the destruction of your race shall become a sad necessity. This is the One we seek.”

  A three dimensional projection of translucent blue light appeared next to Kala, “One for the lives of all.”

  I looked at Kala and even after her words, I had a hard time imagining her as evil. She’d expressed the reality of genocide the way you’d discuss the buttering of a roll. No anger or rage. No attempt at domination and control. Truly, it was fine with her whatever we chose.

  All I could do was look at the screen, at the woman whose gaze sought mine. And then she was gone. The TV had returned to human control. Voices were debating, questions pondered, but I didn’t really register them. The flat screen could have been a universe aw
ay.

  Shaking, Lucy grabbed my hand. Her eyes were dark with fear. “I don’t understand. That picture was of you.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” I shrugged. “Bad things come in threes, right? I lost my job, my wife, and now an alien race has crossed lightyears to take me into custody.” I wondered if it was too late to kill myself. Had the aliens said “dead or alive?”