Quantum Cheeseburger Page 10

  Thirty-One

  The crackling campfire near the ladies’ VW van warmed the outside of me. The greasy smoke had the wonderful scent of mesquite. I scooped hot beans from the plastic bowl Liz gave me into the growling pit of my hunger. They were the most delicious thing I had ever tasted in my life. Soft pinto beans with onions, green chilies, and pork. Equal to my beloved, now departed (sniff) Guydoro’s green chili and bacon cheeseburger.

  I emptied the bowl and looked up. Liz had her eyes on me, a half smile on her face.

  “You want some more?” she asked.

  “Yes please,” I said, holding my bowl out.

  She slung a couple more ladlefuls into the plastic bowl. She also tore off a hunk of french bread and tossed it to me. I actually caught it. Maybe that superpower had stuck with me. Or maybe I was just better at catching things these days.

  Liz turned to Dr. Kincaid. “You sure you don’t want some, Doc?” she asked.

  Kincaid downed the last of the Corona he’d been chugging. “No thanks, beans make me fucking fart up a storm.”

  Beside him, Amber giggled. I was getting really tired of it.

  Kincaid leaned back onto the ever-giggling Amber. She rubbed his head, which was nestled between her generous breasts. She worked to massage away the head pounding effects of Julie's dart gun. How the hell did he rate a massage? I'd gotten the crap beaten out of me up one side and down the other the last couple days. Where the heck was my massage?

  I glanced at Liz. She stared at Amber and Kincaid, disgust on her face. I didn’t get an impression of friendliness from her. No massages coming from that direction.

  The other woman, Clair, sat over by the VW bus, strumming her guitar. Her hair was pale blonde and her face even paler. She wore a denim coat and jeans. Unlike the other two, she wasn't currently wearing a cowboy hat. Her eyes were closed as she played. I couldn't identify what she was playing. It was pleasant, though. Soothing, even.

  “So what’s in the backpack?” Liz asked.

  I jumped, startled out of the music’s trance. The pack sat at my right side. A black lump like the dead heart of a demon.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “Maybe Dr. Kincaid could tell us.”

  “That’s fucking classified, you fucking moron,” Kincaid said, “Oh, yeah, right there, honey. That’s the fucking spot.”

  I refrained from throwing the bowl of beans at him. It would have been a waste of really good food.

  “Why don’t you open it. See what’s inside?” Liz asked.

  “You should fucking leave it alone,” Kincaid said, “You don’t fucking want to fuck with it. Just sit your fucking ass here until Mattany’s boys find us.”

  I suppressed the anger that flashed through me.

  “Mattany’s boys tried to kill me. Julie’s tried to kill me. That Stickman, Azor, tried to kill me,” I said, “Some dude I never met before spiked my burger with some alien makers, whatever that is, and now people think I’m a human bomb.”

  “You’re a suicide bomber? Shit,” Liz said, “You should have said that before I wasted any food on you.”

  “He’s not a fucking suicide bomber,” Kincaid said, “He’s just a fucking moron.”

  I clenched the plastic bowl in my hand. It creaked. “Dr. Kincaid, you don’t want to make me angry,” I said, “So, please, tell me what you know about all this.”

  Amber massaged his balding crown and he grunted with pleasure.

  “What I fucking know is that you’re a fucking idiot,” Kincaid said, “You couldn’t follow a fucking simple instruction, and now look what happened.”

  “All I did was stop for a cheeseburger!” I said, “I was having lunch! Why the hell shouldn’t I have lunch?”

  "What did I fucking tell you?" Kincaid asked, "I told you to drive straight to Holloman, didn't I? Is that what you fucking did? No? Well, there's your fucking answer, genius."

  The rage wanted to explode out of me.

  But then the sound of Clair’s guitar washed over me. The anger receded. A little. I still wanted to get up and pound the crap out of my boss.

  “So open the bag,” Liz said, “Show us what this thing is.”

  Glaring at Kincaid, I set my empty bowl down and dragged the bag in front of me. I unzipped it and stuck my hands inside.

  “Leave it alone, fucking moron,” Kincaid said.

  “Go on, show us what it is,” Liz said.

  The soothing strums of the guitar continued. I hesitated. Did I really want to touch this thing, whatever it was?

  Sure, why not? I was already in deep poop with everyone. What did I have to lose?

  I touched the thing. Hard and sharp edged. And cold. I put both hands around it and lifted it out of the bag.

  It was roughly the size of a toaster and shaped, equally roughly, like an egg. And heavy. There was a denseness to it that didn't go with its size. In the firelight, it glittered blackly. I turned it over. It looked like a misshapen black egg with short, lumpy spikes all over it.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” Liz asked.

  Something inside it seemed to hum. I could feel something in it. My fingers were suddenly hyper-sensitive. Like I could feel the subatomic pits on the object's surface.

  “Just put it back in the fucking bag before you fucking drop it, you fucking moron,” Kincaid said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  The thing started to buzz in my hands. I tried to turn it over again. There was a slight problem, though. My hands seemed to be stuck to it.

  Kincaid sighed. “It’s an important alien artifact that got left on good old terra firma a long, long, long time ago,” he said, “It may be the reason why the Blinkies and Stickmen have been so nice to us. So far.”

  I pulled my hand. No go. It was stuck fast. I wasn’t going to panic. Not yet.

  “The Stickman who attacked Julie and her buddy said this thing was worth our entire world,” I said.

  “Could be,” Kincaid said, “We don’t know what it does. We’ve been studying it for years.”

  “Where did you guys find it?” Liz asked.

  Her eyes were fixed on the object. Was she one of those alien groupies? Someone who had an unhealthy fascination/obsession with aliens? That was all I needed.

  At the moment, I wanted a crowbar to pry this crazy alien egg off my hands. Sweat beaded on my forehead. Panic was approaching fast.

  “A miner in the Sierra’s found it decades ago,” Kincaid said, “It was part of an ancient crash site. The miner, a true patriot, contacted the government. They threw him in the deepest, darkest hole they could find and turned the crash site into the most classified area in modern history. There wasn’t much to be learned from the ship itself. It was basically a smear on the mountain. But that baby there was intact. At least we think it is.”

  “But what is it?” Liz asked.

  Kincaid shrugged his shoulders. “We have no fucking idea,” he said, “But we do know a few years after we found it, the Blinkies and Stickmen made first contact with us poor, fucking backwards earth people. They won’t share any technology with us. They tell us next to nothing about themselves. We don’t know how many alien races are out there, or where their home worlds are. We can make guesses, but that’s all.”

  “So how do you know the aliens want it?” I asked.

  I tried to keep the panic out of my voice.

  The thing vibrated. The sensation traveled down my arms to my shoulders. It felt like ants crawling over my skin.

  “The fuckers started casually asking if we’d ever found a wrecked ship,” Kincaid said, “Fucking asking if there was a certain object in it. That’s when the government boys really started trying to figure out what it was.”

  The object seemed to be changing shape now. It was subtle, but the stubby spikes seemed to be receding. My hands were still stuck fast. Turning the thing over, I saw my fingers starting to sink into the surface.

  Panic was sounding like a viable option.

  “How d
o you know it’s what the aliens are looking for?” Liz asked.

  A shrug from Kincaid. “We don’t. We haven’t let any of the creepy crawlies look at it. But they’ve hinted at its shape and color.”

  “But not what it does?” Liz asked.

  “Again, hints, oblique references,” Kincaid said, “We think it’s sort of a super computer that belonged to a now extinct race. The Blinkies and Stickmen really want it.”

  "So why haven't they just come and taken it?" Liz asked, "They could just swoop down with their space ships, blast everything in sight and bye-bye."

  Kincaid laughed. “Politics,” he said, “We’ve sussed out evidence of at least five races in their confederation–which they call SixUnion. It’s a carefully calibrated power balance. I have the impression that possession of that ugly little object could tip the balance in someone’s favor. So SixUnion’s version of a police force, the Stickpeople, have set up a blockade of our solar system. Earth is basically in quarantine until we turn the object over to the proper authorities.”

  I paused in my near panic to unpack what Dr. Kincaid had been saying. Five alien races? When earth had officially received first contact it was the Blinkies. Except they weren’t called the Blinkies. Their real name sounded like someone gargling Jello. The unfortunate fact of their third eye and their skin that resembled fish scales reminds some wit of something on an old TV show. The Blinky name stuck.

  The Blinkies didn’t seem to mind the name. A few months after they landed, they introduced the Stickmen to the world, telling us they were their partners. The Stickmen were the nightmare aliens people had been afraid would land here. At least the Blinkies had a face and a somewhat bipedal form. The Stickmen could form themselves into a vaguely human shape, but no one would ever mistake them for anything but alien.

  But now Kincaid was saying there were at least five races. That must include the Dons Julie had alluded to. And Kincaid had confirmed the blockade of Earth.

  The message of peace and benevolence the Blinkies peddled when they first landed didn’t seem so peaceful anymore.

  "Your artifact is melting," a new voice said.

  Thirty-Two

  I jumped. Turned to the voice. Orange light from the camp fire flickered over everyone. Fragrant mesquite smoke parted, revealing the speaker. The one who had just casually mentioned the black, egg-like alien artifact stuck to my hands was melting. It was the guitar player, Clair. She stopped strumming and stared at my hands.

  I looked down and yelped. The black object had lost its egg-like shape. Now it was smooth and shiny. It flowed up my arms like thick liquid.

  “Holy fuck! What are you doing you fucking idiot!” Kincaid shouted.

  He jumped up from his comfy Amber seat. Liz was up too, backing away from me. I saw her reach for the pistol she had holstered at her side. Great. Someone else to shoot me.

  “What’s happening!” I shouted to Kincaid.

  “You’ve fucked up again!” Kincaid yelled. He danced around me, pulling at his hair. “This is bad. This is very bad.”

  The black goo continued to slowly flow up my arm. It felt like millions of tiny legs marching on my skin. I tried to pull my hands apart, but the stuff had my wrists locked together.

  “What should I do!” I shouted.

  “I don’t know. It’s never done this,” Kincaid said.

  “Put your hands in the fire!” Liz said.

  I looked at the smoking campfire. The pot of beans still bubbled over it.

  “No! You can’t destroy it!” Kincaid said, “We need it. Who knows what the aliens will do if we don’t have it.”

  It is worth your entire world. The Stickman’s words echoed in me. My heart raced. Tried to beat itself out of my ribcage.

  “I’ve got an ax, maybe we can chop his arms off,” Liz said.

  She did indeed have an ax. Where had she gotten it so quickly? The edge gleamed in the firelight. She took a step toward me.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Kincaid said, “Stick your arms out and hold still.”

  I backed away from both of them. I tripped over a rock and tumbled to the hard ground.

  “Yeah, that’s better,” Kincaid said, “Go get ‘em cowgirl.”

  Suddenly Liz stood over me, the ax raised. “Sorry, it’s nothing personal,” she said.

  Rage sparked inside me.

  “Wait!”

  Someone grabbed the ax, holding Liz’s blow. Clair, the guitar girl. She pointed at me.

  “Look what it’s doing.”

  I stared down at my arms. The black goo was disappearing. The mass at my wrists parted and my hands were free. I sat up, trying to brush the stuff off. It kept getting smaller, but not from anything I did.

  “Where is it going?” Liz asked.

  They all stood around me. Kincaid crouched beside me.

  “Where’s that fucking flashlight?” he asked.

  Liz slapped it into his hand. He shined it on my arms and hands. There were still a few shiny globs left. There were shrinking, though. My skin still crawled. I felt like it was under my skin now. My whole body tingled. There was a buzzing in my ears, too.

  “Shit, it’s getting absorbed into the skin,” Kincaid said.

  “Maybe we should chop his head off,” Liz said. She fingered the ax blade.

  “How about you stop suggesting chopping off my body parts,” I said.

  “No one is going to chop any parts off anyone,” Clair said. She knelt beside me, put her hand on my face. “Are you scared?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said.

  No, having some ancient alien artifact dissolve itself into my body happened all the time. Nothing to worry about.

  Surprisingly, I wasn’t running around screaming my head off.

  “Just relax,” Clair said, “If it was going to kill you, it would have done it already.”

  That wasn’t exactly comforting. Maybe it was going to turn me into some kind of zombie. Take over my body and then use it to take over the world.

  “Why him?” Kincaid asked, almost to himself, “People have been touching that fucking thing for decades. It’s never done anything like this.”

  “What does it usually do?” Liz asked.

  Kincaid snorted. “Usually it sits there like a fucking ugly rock. It has some weird properties, but it’s never fucking done anything. If it weren’t for the aliens wanting it, we would have figured it was just some melted piece of crap.”

  The last of the black blobs shrank and disappeared. The thing was entirely inside me now.

  I looked up at Kincaid. “Now what do I do?” I asked.

  He gave me a searching look. “How do you feel?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I’m tingling all over, but it’s fading,” I said, “Otherwise I’m okay.”

  I don’t know why, but having him ask how I felt almost choked me up. After all the crap I’d been through the last couple days, it was nice to have someone show even the slightest concern.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” Kincaid, said, “I told you to leave that thing in the bag, moron.”

  Emphasis on slightest concern.

  Liz lowered the ax and leaned on the handle. “So do you feel like you have any super powers now? Can you hear aliens in your mind or anything like that?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  I guess she had already forgotten I had superpowers. A sudden thought sent a spike of fear through me. What if the alien thing messed with the other alien things in me? Would it turn me into an even bigger bomb?

  Even worse, would it neutralize my super rage powers? Returning to a normal life would be nice. But since I was still pursued by hostiles, having super powers was handy.

  A strum of guitar strings got my attention. Clair had resumed her seat next to the VW minibus.

  "We should hit the road before your friends find us," she said, "You two gonna stay or come with us?"

  Thirty-Three

  The VW minibus bounced and rattled down
the road. I thought my classic Jeep drove rough. It was as smooth a Rolls Royce compared to the VW. The bus smelled of incense and mesquite smoke. The uncomfortable seats were covered with brightly colored Navajo blankets. Probably to hide the decayed upholstery.

  The three women had packed up their little camp very quickly. Everything that didn’t go inside went onto the big metal rack on top of the van.

  Liz took the wheel, Clair next to her up front. Dr. Kincaid sat in the second-row seat with Amber. I got to sit in the back row, inches from the coughing, rattling engine.

  Kincaid was snuggled up to Amber. Who giggled at something he whispered in her ear. How did the guy do it? He wasn't even handsome. Portly, balding, foul-mouthed. None of that suggested chick magnet to me. Surely having a cool name–Dr. Houston Kincaid–couldn’t be enough. Could it?

  “Why did you come along, Doc?” I asked.

  It was dim in the VW. Kincaid was little more than a silhouette against the bus’ weak headlights.

  “You kidnapped me, what choice did I have?” he said.

  “Kidnapped? I di–”

  “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” he said.

  Amber giggled. I slumped down in the seat. I considered getting angry, but quickly cast the idea aside. It seemed like overkill given my current situation. Also, I didn't want to find out if the other alien thing that wormed itself into my body had messed with the other alien thing in my body, and by doing so messed with my weird superpowers.

  “So where are you lovely ladies heading?” Kincaid asked.

  “El Paso,” Liz said.

  “What’s in El Paso?” Kincaid asked.

  “We have a gig there.”

  “So you three are musicians? You have a band?” Kincaid asked.

  “No.”

  “We’re witch doctors,” Amber said. With a giggle.

  Kincaid didn’t say anything for several seconds. I waited for someone to say something. He finally broke the silence.

  “You’re witch doctors?” he asked, “What the fuck?”

  “Clair is the doctor,” Liz said, “We’re just witches. And the correct term is Shaman, Amber.”