Alien Nation #4 - The Change Read online

  Iniko leaned back in his chair. “The apprehension of the Daks and Sing Fangan was supposed to be a bureau operation with minimal LAPD support. I believe it was very important for the FBI to arrest all three men alive and out of sight of any other authority. The bureau, of course, is a part of MDQ. With the leverage of hard time in the balance, the chief of the organization—”

  “Dr. Carrie Norcross,” George completed.

  Paul Iniko nodded. “Yes. She could’ve worked a deal with the Daks and Fangan.”

  Susan slowly shook her head. “They’d tell MDQ how to manufacture controllers and stick them in humans in exchange for failing to prosecute, right?”

  Iniko smiled. “That’s right.” He pointed at George. “Except your husband and his partner. Bill Duncan, shattered the whole plan. The short of it is the FBI thought Maanka and his gang would hit one place, and those two cops on backup figured Maanka would hit someplace else.” He nodded his head respectfully at George. “I’ve seen the files. It was a brilliant deduction.”

  “I didn’t make it,” George said, sadness entering his voice. “A big, dumb, bigoted, Scot son of a bitch named Duncan figured it out.”

  “How?”

  “He’s a cop. He was a cop. He said his bunions hurt, so we left our post blocking a street and raced to the Third Street Penny Bank. The three of them were coming out the door of the armored truck just as we arrived. Maanka’s biological brother was killed during the arrest. I killed him.”

  “The vikah ta,” Susan said. Turning to Iniko, she asked, “And what does this MDQ have to do with what’s going on now?”

  “They couldn’t hide the arrest or otherwise work the same deal. A shootout in front of a bank? Amanda Reckonwith and the media were on it like chains on . . .” Iniko’s eyes changed color from embarrassment. “The media were all over it. There was no jiggle room for a deal. MDQ did the best they could. Under the guise of investigating the applications of Tenctonese science to mental health, they’ve been working with Maanka Dak over the past few years, attempting to recreate the Niyezian neural control technology and adapt it to controlling humans. Right now media representatives of Central Intelligence, the National Security Agency, and a number of other institutions are busily doing their best to make certain that no one responsible gets identified as responsible. Polishing perceptions, as one fellow put it.” Iniko stood and walked to the picture window. He folded his arms and stared at the streetlights outside. “To a large degree, MDQ is responsible for Maanka Dak’s escape, and for everything that’s happened as a result.”

  “I don’t get it,” Buck said. “Stuff like that isn’t legal. Why haven’t you or someone else blown the whistle on this?”

  Paul Iniko’s gaze shifted until he was looking at Buck. “Everything I’ve told you about MDQ is hearsay; my unsupported opinion. I have a few memos and can remember a few names, but there’s nothing worth bringing into court.”

  “What about the media? Go on the talk shows, CNN, Fox Fire?”

  “To many, Buck, I’m just an Overseer. Whatever I have to say is a lie.” He looked at Susan. “I wouldn’t just be sipping on a cup of tea. I’d be telling them that their very own government, of some of the humans, by a few of the humans, for a few of the humans, is corrupt, operates outside of the law, and got a lot of good people killed through suspicion, avarice, and plain stupidity. How many would listen?”

  “Then what’re you doing here?” she asked.

  Iniko looked back at the street. “I have my own piece of responsibility regarding Dak. I had him back on the ship. He was a murderer, I had him, and I let him go.”

  “Murderer?” Buck asked. “Who did he murder?”

  “It doesn’t matter who he murdered,” Paul Iniko answered. “I used to think it made a difference. I used to think it was justified to kill someone if he was a big enough monster and in a place where he could not be touched within the rules. I loathed the person Dak killed. I despised him so much I excused the murders of his entire family and violated my duty as both charkah and Overseer. Indeed, he was a monster. But it doesn’t make a difference. A murder is a murder. A murderer is a murderer. An accomplice is as equally guilty.”

  “Who did he murder?” Buck insisted. “It does make a difference.” He glanced at his father. “Was it on Itri Vi? Was it the pain minister, Mro Sheviat? We all knew about his death. Did Maanka Dak kill Mro Sheviat?”

  “No, Buck,” George interrupted.

  Susan allowed her arms to fall to her sides. “Buck, what do you know about that? You weren’t but six or seven.”

  “The Ahvin Yin, Mom. We—the children—we worshiped the Ahvin Yin. When Mro was killed, we all knew the Ahvin Yin did it. They were our heroes. If Maanka killed Mro, I can see why this Overseer let him—”

  “No, Buck,” George interrupted a second time. “Dak didn’t kill Mro Sheviat. You know he didn’t.”

  “No, Dad. As always, all I know is what I’ve proven to myself. Everything else is somebody else’s opinion.”

  George glanced at Susan, shifted his gaze to Paul Iniko, then let his gaze come to rest upon his son. “I told Buck before that Maanka didn’t kill Mro Sheviat. I did.”

  Susan’s eyes widened. “You?”

  “Me.” George refused to look back at Susan. Instead he looked at the floor before Buck’s feet. “There’s nothing pretty about it. I executed him. He was bound, helpless, and pleading for his life. In my hearts I had nothing but hate, revenge, pain. He had been responsible for the torture deaths of my parents, my binnaum, so many friends. Executing him was part of my initiation into the resistance.” George lifted his gaze until he was looking in his son’s eyes. “I ripped out his throat with a knife.”

  “That isn’t murder, Dad,” Buck protested. “That’s—That’s—”

  “Murder,” George completed and smiled slightly. “I did it for many reasons I thought were sufficient at the time. Perhaps it was. I’ve gone over it a hundred thousand times since, and I’d do the same given the same set of circumstances. But it wasn’t revolution, a political statement, or anything else. It was punishment, revenge, murder.” George’s lips were touched by a sad little smile. “Buck, don’t let your Hila catch you playing label games like that with your own head.”

  “What of the other murder?” Susan asked.

  George glanced at Iniko, then leveled his gaze on Susan. “It was on the ship, after Itri Vi. Maanka killed the Overseer pain minister Torumeh and his family.”

  “Torumeh?” Susan repeated, her eyes wide. “That was no murder! Torumeh was—was an incredible monster! How many men, women, and children endured intolerable suffering because of him? I remember his death. I remember blessing whoever it was that had done it.” She faced Iniko. “Letting him go, Overseer, made you as close to a saint as anything could have been on that ship. Maanka Dak was a hero.”

  He raised an eyebrow as he said, “And now Maanka Dak’s killed Tom Rand, Bill Duncan, dozens of innocent bystanders, and unless we can capture him and his equipment intact, it’s likely that Matthew Sikes will die, as well. He’s a murderer, Mrs. Francisco. He’s a psychopathic killer whose killings have only recently become distasteful. He’s always been a psychopathic killer, and I let him go.” He turned to the window and stood next to George as he studied the night. “I wonder where he is, now that he’s no longer brilliant.”

  “I wonder what else is coming at us,” George added.

  “Whatever it is, Dad,” Buck whispered, “it’s coming through the basement.” He pointed down toward the floor. “Emily’s toys. I heard something move.”

  Paul Iniko reached out and cut off the lights as George pulled his pistol and rushed to Susan’s side. “George,” she said, her voice edging into panic. “I told Emily to put those toys away before she went to bed. I swear I did. I’ll—”

  “Susan,” he whispered, “it’s all right. He’s not company. We don’t care what he thinks of the basement. Okay?”

  “Okay.” She gigg
led nervously, nodded in the dark, and grasped her husband’s left arm with both of her hands. “How did he get into the basement? There’re no windows or outside doors.”

  George held his lips next to her ear fold and whispered, “You can ask Buck while both of you are hiding upstairs with Emily and Vessna. If there’s shooting, I want to know where all of you are.”

  “Shooting?”

  “There shouldn’t be any. Paul and I rigged a little welcome down there.”

  “George, please be careful.” She glanced into the dark, her eyes not finding the FBI agent. “Paul too.”

  George kissed her cheek and gave her and Buck a shove toward the stairs. Walking past the stairway, he came up behind Iniko.

  The FBI agent held up his hand, showing four fingers. Checking to make certain that George understood, he made a fist, pointed at George, then pointed toward the shadow beneath the sink, where George had cowered the night before. As quietly as he could, George tiptoed to the spot and squatted facing the door. The door was padlocked and had two metal bars braced across it, one at chest height, the other at knee height. Concealed deep inside Buck’s tunnel, Iniko had placed a small explosive charge that he could set off by means of the remote control attached to his belt. Once the charge exploded, the tunnel would collapse, and whoever was inside the basement would be trapped. At least, that was the plan.

  Iniko pressed himself into the dark corner of the kitchen to the left of the door, held out his automatic and froze. George aimed his own weapon at the door, cupped his grip with his left hand and listened past the beating of his hearts to the sounds from the basement.

  Who would it be this time?

  Maanka himself, or more of his enslaved police officers? George hadn’t expected anything tonight. If Maanka had been as two dimensional as Malcolm Bone seemed to think he was, bringing Susan and the girls home and shutting down the command center should have shuffled enough labels to grind him to at least a temporary halt.

  He hadn’t really believed in the label game. He had been at a loss, however, as to what else to do. Besides, Iniko had gone along with it.

  George glanced at the shadow opposite his. Iniko, an Overseer, had gone along with the Hila’s suggestion. For a thousand reasons George could think of, he should have found that reason enough to reconsider the whole thing. Yet, there was a part of him, something new that had grown within him, that had trusted Paul Iniko. And now the wisdom of that choice was about to reveal itself.

  As a foot made the bottom stair squeak, George looked at the blacks and grays in the kitchen, grateful that there were, at least, no psychedelic light shows or stretches of blindness with which to contend. The third stair from the bottom squeaked, and he fixed his gaze on the door, his pistol sighted dead center. There was a bit of a gold tinge to the shadows, and the taste of copper in his mouth. The gold quickly faded to garnet, and the copper taste mutated to something resembling celery.

  Tension, he silently told himself. Stress brought on the light show; therefore, it was up to him to manage his stress. Relax. Take it easy. The next set of feet had yet to step upon the bottom stair.

  Why?

  The garnet began to sparkle with scarlet blooms. Why wasn’t the next guy in line on the stairs? From the sounds below, the other three intruders were waiting amidst Emily’s toys while the fourth climbed the stairs.

  A rush of all four would have made more sense. While he and Paul Iniko were occupied killing off the first two of Maanka’s slaved beings, the remaining two could open up with rapid-fire weapons, providing they could get through the door, of course.

  There was something wrong.

  The intruders appeared cautious.

  They seemed to care whether they lived or died.

  The blindness touched him for a moment as windows opened in his mind. Keeping his weapon pointed at the door, somehow he knew that the intruders were not under Dak’s control, nor were any of them Maanka Dak.

  The images came back to his eyes painted in vibrant blues and greens.

  Professionals. Quick. Silent. The almost inaudible click of a bubble switch, the third stair squeaking, then the bottom stair squeaked.

  MDQ.

  They were after Iniko.

  That bubble switch signaled an explosive charge set against the door. “MDQ, Paul!” George screamed. “Fire in the hole!”

  George turned toward the back door as he saw Iniko begin to spring for the living room. Just then the room filled with a flash and a sound beyond hearing as a giant hand picked up George and slammed him into the wall.

  The world kept spinning, feet over head backward. His head felt unpleasantly drunk; as though every fiber of his being was about to be puked out into the celestial commode. He could hear nothing. All he could see were lights and blobs whirling about. Some smell, acid and bitter, filled his nostrils.

  He tried to move and there was a numbness in his leg. He reached down with his hand and felt a piece of metal protruding from the fleshy part of his thigh. Another window in his mind opened.

  They weren’t just after Paul Iniko. To eliminate Paul, the four intruders would have to take out George and his entire family. No witnesses, no one left behind to tell tales about people and organizations back in Washington. Just another tragedy caused by that rash of unexplained mass killings out there in L.A. Perhaps it was El Niño, the Santa Anas, the cops freaking, or another grassroots political statement burning the damned city down, blowing it up, shooting it to pieces. Who the hell cared? It’s on the other end of the country, the home of Flakes R Us, and anyway, it’s only a bunch of rubberheads who were wasted. They’re taking our jobs and raising a bunch of terribly uncomfortable civil rights, defense, and space exploration questions. Good riddance.

  The metal was a piece of the crossbar George had spent part of the afternoon installing on the door to the basement while Paul set the charge in the tunnel. He didn’t know whether it made more sense to leave the bar stuck in his leg or to yank it out. Left in, it plugged up the hole rather well. However, it also left a foot or more of bent metal sticking out of his leg like a great fishhook looking for things upon which to snag.

  To yank or not to yank, that is the question.

  It made sense to yank out the metal while the leg was still numb. Waiting until the lights stopped dancing in front of his eyes and the paramedics arrived would mean having it yanked out when feeling had come back to his leg and he was screaming with the pain.

  George reached down, intending to explore the rod with his fingers. That’s when he found he still had his pistol in his hand.

  Another explosion, smaller, a pistol shot, made George look up. A lavender shape was standing in the bright red door to the living room. In its hand was a pistol. It. had just fired at the crumpled form of Paul Iniko on the floor.

  The figure aimed again, and George lifted his pistol and fired twice at the lavender shape, bringing the figure down. Another figure, also lavender, fired at George from the basement door, and George emptied his weapon in the shape’s direction. He heard the person’s footsteps running down the basement stairs. He spoke to another person in the basement, then they fell silent.

  George pulled the metal rod from his thigh, surprised that feeling had come back to his leg. He reached up to the counter and pulled himself up to his feet. Hobbling over to Iniko’s side, he looked down to see Iniko holding a hand over his left heart. He was breathing hard and was barely conscious. “Iniko. Can you hold it together for a bit?”

  The FBI agent closed and opened his eyes in assent. George reached to his belt, took the remote, and dizzily listened to the two shooters in the basement. When it was silent in the basement, he waited another minute and pushed the trigger. There was a whump sound followed by more silence. George slumped against the doorjamb and let the control fall to the floor. “Hope I had that timed accurately.”

  He felt Iniko’s hand gripping his arm. He opened his eyes and looked down at him. “What?”

  Iniko was h
olding up four fingers. He cocked his head and gestured toward the living room and the stairway to the second floor.

  The fourth one.

  One dead on the floor, two down in the tunnel. Where was the fourth?

  Panic gripped George’s throat as he dropped his own revolver and took Iniko’s automatic from the man’s fingers. He couldn’t seem to pull himself to his feet. Instead he dragged himself through the door and turned his head to look up the stairs. He saw a white jogging shoe vanish from view as it left the opening to the second floor landing. There was no way he could get a shot at its owner. He pulled himself up and stumbled, collapsing at the foot of the stairs as a loud “bong” came from the top of the stairs. As he pulled himself to his feet, a lavender shape tumbled down the stairs and piled up into a heap before him. Susan came running down after, crying, and brandishing a skillet that George was beginning to look upon as an old friend.

  “George,” Susan cried, “damn it, I told Emily to put this away! I swear I told her!”

  “I know.” He held her in his arms, allowed himself a breath and his own eyes to fill with tears. “I know.” He giggled and said, “I’ll talk to her about it.” He sobbed out another laugh and looked up to see Buck standing at the head of the stairs with Emily at his side and Vessna in his arms. George brushed Susan’s temples with his fingers and repeated, “Yeah, I’ll talk to her about it.”

  C H A P T E R 2 5

  DIFFERENT.

  Changed.

  The rules changed.

  It was all different from what had been intended. The event, the city, the planet, the universe, the life of Maanka Dak. Different.

  It was a new thought; as though a hitherto sealed door had been opened, allowing light to enter where no light had ever before been. The light showed that rules are made and rules are unmade. Rules are not physical laws of the universe. They’re creatures of choice, custom, ignorance, panic, prejudice, the idle selection of the moment. The rules chosen, the rules imposed, made the difference between freedom and slavery; war and diplomacy; cop and criminal.