Authors: Gordon Mackay
Not one of them said a word. Their thoughts were running wild though.
“I can stop the pain and mend the wounds, just like we did with the hairy one whose language hurts my ears and his foot my head and fingers.”
They all looked at Mike as if to say,
you speak funny, we told you so
. Mike on the other hand, didn’t see it the way the others did and wanted to take over from Scott’s position of ripping the goddamned head off his scrawny neck. But before he could make a move, Belinda stepped between him and the Grey.
“Are you telling us that you can replace the damaged parts on our friend’s … hands?” She almost pleaded to hear him say, yes.
“Yes.”
Phyllis stirred, releasing a sigh while moving as if she wanted to stand. Mike looked to see if she was conscious, noticing her eyes were opened at last. “How are you?” he asked, almost
expecting her to pass out again. She didn’t reply at first, waiting to focus her eyes on the other concerned faces. Then she saw the Grey looking at her.
“What is he doing here?”
Scott looked at the commander, who seemed to shrink as Phyllis asked her question, before telling her all that happened between the time she passed out and the present.
“If he can help me, then please tell him to right away. I am suffering an awful amount of pain.”
Mike stepped forward, as if his name had been called while on parade. “Ya’gorrit babe, we’ll get this little-al’ Grey slime-ball to fixya in no time at all.”
Gently allowing her to slip off his shoulders, Mike gave the Grey a gentle nudge with one foot as a reminder.
Phyllis swayed slightly, quickly regaining her balance to steady herself.
“Right, you piece of cosmic scumbag,” Mike said through gritted teeth. “Let’s get going to have
her hands repaired.”
Phyllis smirked at his humorous comments, returning some colour and a smile to her drawn face. The commander never spoke, he just pointed in the direction they needed to go.
“Lead the way, shit for brains. And I mean now!” Mike had given the order with another kick to let the Grey know he was in no mood for being messed around with, and it was not as gentle as the last.
The commander was inwardly seething, his hate filling his mind to the point where he might be persuaded to try and run for his life. He had also seen the mechanised weapon held by Scott,
wondering how it actually worked so he could use it to destroy the viruses that now humiliated him. His mind was working very quickly.
Belinda was about to lead the way, when Scott stepped in front. “Hey, Belinda. I think we’ll let the Grey lead the way with me and Akay babe following close behind. And if he tries to make a dash for it, I’ll personally blow his goddamned legs off his bony back-flaming-side. And you can tell him what I said.” She did.
Mike almost jumped with joy to hear Scott speaking like the Bro’s he left behind in Nam all those many years before. “Spoken like a true Marine, pal,” he said.
“Yeah, and spoken by someone who would dearly love to rip this bastard’s head off too,” Scott added into the celebration. “Right, shithead. Let’s get going. Take us to the place where we can fix her hands.”
The commander did not need to completely decipher all that he had heard. The kicks and the threatening sounds were enough to tell him his life was in danger should he fail to help the female ape or try to escape.
I will have my chance soon enough
, he thought silently so no one else could hear him or know he was planning something.
The tunnel echoed to the sound of their footsteps, with a spotless floor and shiny wall the sound reverberated around them. The Grey never once looked over his shoulder, he did not need to. The plodding from behind reminded him his time was no longer his own. Scott only saw the back of the commander’s head, noticing how large his cranium was in relation to the rest of his body.
The brain
, he thought,
couldn’t have been much bigger than his own, and yet he was supposed to be intellectually advanced
.
The room was a brilliant white, bathed in a light that was blinding to them all, except the Grey it appeared. They each covered their eyes upon entering from the lesser lit tunnel. The Grey looked over his shoulder to see them all deflect their eyesight with partially closed eyes. Scott saw the look, recognising it was the first time he had looked behind. He suspected the Grey might make a break for freedom while they were indisposed with the room’s brilliance.
“Hey, don’t you get any ideas about making a run for it,” he s
houted while prodding his back with the barrel. The commander was pushed forward by the force of the gun pressed against him, stopping suddenly while straightening himself as if to be defiant. His look stayed for a moment longer as if he was giving Scott the evil eye. It annoyed Scott. The safety came off with a loud click.
“Go ahead, punk, make my day.” Scott really loved the crime busting movie,
Dirty Harry
. He just loved to quote the cliché whenever he had an opportunity to do so. It was usually said in fun though, such as when driving his car and another driver was pushing their luck with bad manners and ignorance. Only, in this instance, Scott actually meant it. The Grey knew it too.
“Holy mother of god,” said Mike while entering the room. He may have been shielding his eyes, but what he saw reminded him of the time he first arrived on Mars. “This is where I remember being covered in foam, or my balls were.” He almost staggered across to a bed in the room’s centre, suspended by what resembled a single hydraulic ram in the middle of its underside. “Jesus, this is it. It’s here. This is where we can get you fixed up babe.” Mike turned to Phyllis, who seemed to look relieved
already.
Belinda gave the Grey a giant push, which was unusual for her or any of her kind. She had had enough of this palaver, knowing time was against them and Phyllis was in great pain. If her hands were repaired they could be on their way, although she was unsure where to at that
moment. Scott had a good idea where their search was going to take them; and how Mike was going to deal with the idea was anybody’s guess.
The Grey indicated the bed with one hand, gesturing where Phyllis should lie down. She approached uneasily, looking at the others for moral support as she did. The commander communicated with Belinda by telepathy, with pictures of the forthcoming process appearing in her mind. It was to be the same as Mike had had done to him. A nod gave her approval and the commander took that as a message giving him
permission to begin.
Scott had listened in to the conversation, while also understanding the involved process. Mike, on the other hand, had not, and was relying on his restricted senses to work out what might be happening. He correctly assumed all was in order as the Grey started to operate what looked like a control panel. The bed slightly elevated itself
as a portion of the ceiling directly above the bed opened. A large silver sphere lowered itself, gaining in brilliance as it closed the gap with Phyllis. Four separate panels opened on its underside, allowing individual arms to extend downwards. One arm held what looked like a small derringer pistol, while the others had attachments that certainly looked surgical. The derringer moved towards one hand while another twisted itself around and came in from the side. The surgical instrument was an intricate series of strands and wires, all shiny and gleaming like chromium plate. It burst open to reveal a claw-like hand with numerous fingers. It gripped one hand while the derringer moved a little closer before spraying white foam. The froth completely enveloped her hand, looking almost like a spongy mitten. It took only a few seconds. Without waiting, both arms retracted slightly before advancing on her other hand. Then it was a repeat performance.
Belinda’s attention to the operation was sidetracked by her noticing a complicated looking panel. She approached it, trying to deduce its function as she got closer.
Belinda’s eyes widened and stared at what she had found. “It’s a direct line into the Grey Empire machine, a link to its substantial database, for want of a better description.” She said it while testing a few controls in front of her.
Scott watched her playing her hand across the control panel, noticing the changes taking place on an overhead monitor.
“Can I use it to log in and find out what they know about me?” he asked, wondering what he might learn.
“Yes… and no! You
could
log in, but would not be able to understand the Grey language, which is why I would need to do it for you.”
“Great, if you’re up for it? He rubbed his hands together and had a smile
almost as broad as the panel in front of him.
“If I am up for it?” She paused while considering his latest remark. “Ah, you mean if I will do it?”
“Yeah... Sorry.”
“That’s all right, Scott. If you will wait one moment I will gain access to the mainframe.”
Belinda worked her magic on some sort of fancy futuristic keyboard, but nothing like anything Scott had seen before. It was perfectly flat and smooth with small illuminated patches where finger-tips moved to select various modes and functions. Each little patch connected with the operator’s mind, allowing thoughts to work the system. The rate of writing was fantastic, with letters appearing as quickly as a thought could flash across a synaptic cleft.
“We are in,” she whispered.
“Fan-bloody-tastic,” he replied in relief while placing his head almost in front of Belinda’s to see the screen. The lettering, or shapes, meant nothing to him at all, but he knew they did to her. “Now, let’s see what the hell they know.”
Belinda’s thoughts searched through the stored data as strange markings appeared in long and varied sentence structures. She hummed a little tune as she quickly read what had appeared, trying to give the information some meaning that Scott could comprehend. He didn’t recognise the musical little number she played out, deciding not to ask anything as she was busy concentrating on the job in hand.
“In summary,” she said, “they know very little about you. The bulk of the information concentrates on you having exceptional genetic codes and the area where you might reside on Earth, but not with any great level of detail. It seems there is yet another aspect to you that even my kind are unaware of.”
She turned to face him with an expressionless look, saying, “You seem to have extraordinary psychic abilities, much greater than can be attributed to many who actually profess to have it.”
“What!”
“The Greys consider you to be psychic.”
“Erm, I’m not so sure about that.”
Belinda looked as if she was giving the matter some thought, before asking, “Have you ever had any kind of psychic experience before?”
“Mmm, well, yes, as it happens. But I’ve always thought of these things as nothing more than coincidences.”
“Yes. Well, the Greys seem to think otherwise. They have dabbled into psychic phenomena much more than we have, as a population. It is something that almost frightens us because we do not understand what it is that some claim to have, how it happens or where it originates from. The Greys, on the other hand, believe the additional knowledge would make their hybrid even more potent, if they could harness the power it wields.”
“So, I’m supposed to be psychic.” He said it with a smirk of disbelief.
“Yes. And there’s more, much more. There is another, a woman, who has been drawn closer to you.”
“I’m not exactly sure what you mean by
that
,” he said suspiciously.
Belinda read the information again, to help clarify what she needed to explain. “She is an accomplished psychic doing what she claims to be able to do as an occupation. By her own will, she has chosen to move to live close by
you. She doesn’t actually know anything about you as a person, nothing that is recorded here, but the Greys certainly know enough about her.”
“How much
do
they know, and is it there?”
“There is lots. To begin with, she is of indeterminate parentage, possibly a gypsy lineage. She was adopted by a rural family at an early age, growing up on a farm. However, she has been on her own for most of her life, moving out of the farm home and living on her own from about fourteen years old. She claims to have the living spirit of a long since dead individual giving her spiritual guidance, a powerful man who died a violent death a
very long time ago.”
It took a moment of silence for his brain to accept and process the information. “Who was he?”
She asked the machine a series of questions, which answered almost as quickly. “He was a Native American, what was once referred to as a Red Indian. He was an important medicine-man and chief of the Sioux nation called,
Touch the Clouds.
He was seven feet tall and fought alongside another who he was related to, and he was called…, wait for this one,
Crazy Horse
.” She smiled as she read it aloud. “The guiding spirit was killed at the Battle of Wounded Knee, it seems.”
“What a couple of great names. They’re certainly more colourful than mine.”
“He was unusually tall, hence his given name.”