"Inconvenient Proposal"

INCONVENIENT PROPOSAL
By Curtis C. Chen

Janet looked where Tim was pointing. The giant overhead screen flickered, and the magnified view of the arena stage disappeared, replaced by glowing letters on a black background:

JANET
WILL YOU
MARRY ME?
TIM

The audience began applauding and cheering. Janet saw people looking around, searching for the couple who had just been put on display. She looked over at Tim. He was grinning like an idiot.

Tim grabbed Janet's left hand in his right. His other hand disappeared into a jacket pocket.

Don't turn on the spots, Janet thought. Don't light us up.

A blazing white lamp swung around and centered its beam on Janet and Tim. Janet yanked her hand out of Tim's grasp, jumped out of her seat, and ran for the nearest exit.

She didn't stop until she reached the women's bathroom downstairs. Before the door could swing shut, Tim followed her in, holding an open ring box in one hand. Janet kept her back to him, but she saw the glinting diamond reflected in the mirror above the sink.

"What's wrong?" Tim asked. "I thought you'd be happy—"

"I was," Janet said. "Bringing me to the concert was a nice surprise." She pointed at the ring. "That wasn't."

Tim pressed his lips together. "Are you saying no?"

"We're not doing this here," Janet said.

"I thought you'd be happy," Tim repeated, staring at the floor.

Janet turned, stepped over to Tim, and placed both hands on his shoulders.

"I am happy with you. With what we have," she said. "Why do you want to change things?"

"I don't want to change anything. I want us to stay together." Tim made a hiccuping sound that might have been a laugh. "For as long as we both shall live." He held up the ring.

Janet shook her head. "Christ, how much did you spend on that rock?"

Tim smiled. "You like? Two carats."

Before Janet could say anything else, the diamond moved in its setting, making a high-pitched scraping noise. Tim dropped the box, put his hands over his ears, and fell to his knees.

Janet backed away and raised her arm a fraction of a second before the diamond lanced through the air at her. The face of her wristwatch took the impact, but the force sent her crashing backward into the bathroom sink. She cursed in an alien language.

The crystal embedded in her watch was cracked and glowing. The watch threw off sparks, straining to sustain its force field. The battery wouldn't last long.

Janet yanked off the watch and threw it into a wastebasket. She dumped out her purse and stabbed her cell phone with one high heel. She rolled Tim's unconscious form onto his side, pulled the cash out of his wallet, and tucked the bills into her bra.

"Sorry, love." She planted a kiss on Tim's forehead. "I'm not the one for you."

The wastebasket started to rattle. Janet picked up her weapon and checked its charge. She headed upstairs, ready to run or shoot.



Photo: A Proposal in the Museum by National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution, May, 2010

"Post-Apocalyptic Day Care"

POST-APOCALYPTIC DAY CARE
By Curtis C. Chen

"Sorry, Mrs. H," Sarah said. "We're full today."

The baby's weight on Bianca's hip suddenly felt like a crushing burden.

"I can pay you extra—"

"You know how this works, Mrs. H. I've only got so much space here, and it's first come, first served. If you can't take Jacob in to work with you, I can recommend another day care down the road."

"He's not happy anywhere else," Bianca said. "Please. Can't you make an exception, just this once? I promise we'll be on time tomorrow."

"Then I'll take him tomorrow," Sarah said. "If I make an exception for you, for anyone, the other moms will hear about it, and then they'll all want some kind of special treatment. That's a slippery slope."

"But Jacob needs medication!"

"Every kid here needs medication. Heck, I gotta take tannic acid every three hours or I fall over."

Bianca jerked back involuntarily. "You're GI-compromised?"

Sarah shrugged. "The comet did something to everyone, right?"

"I didn't know."

Sarah paused, then raised one hand, palm up. "Maybe you can call in sick today. Stay home and take care of Jacob yourself? Could be good for both of you."

Bianca shifted her stance, and the strap of her messenger bag bit into her shoulder. She thought about the laptop inside and the presentation she had to give in less than an hour, and she bristled at this twentysomething girl giving her parenting advice.

"Suppose I just leave him here." Bianca took another step toward the house. "You'd have to take care of him, wouldn't you? You'd be obligated."

Sarah shook her head. "Don't do that, Mrs. H. If you abandon your child, I'll have to call the authorities, and you'll have to sit through a CPS interview and fill out a bunch of paperwork to get him back."

Bianca felt her skin flush under her collar. "I've known you since you were in diapers, Sarah. Your mother was my best friend. Does our relationship mean nothing to you?"

"You don't get it, Mrs. H," Sarah said. "This is about civilization. This is about making rules and following them. If we can't do that, if we can't maintain order in our society in the face of a little hiccup like this, how do you expect humanity to endure after the next big disaster hits?"

"Don't lecture me," Bianca snapped. "You don't know anything about the real world. Rules get bent and broken all the time."

"Maybe in your world, Mrs. H," Sarah said, "but I'm trying to make a better one. Now please excuse me, I've got kids to watch and you need to get to work."

Sarah closed the door. Bianca fumed on the porch for a moment, then looked down when Jacob tugged at her sleeve. She couldn't help smiling back at his upturned face.

She's right, Bianca thought. I want you to live in a better world. I do.

She turned and walked back to the car while dialing her phone.



Photo: The Quad by Bill Barber, July, 2007

"Fools for Love"

FOOLS FOR LOVE
By Curtis C. Chen

"I need to speak to her. Now," Rebecca said.

The doctor shook his head. "Look, Miss Sachs—"

"Special Agent Sachs."

"Miss Cargill is very weak. We're lucky she didn't lose consciousness during delivery. You can arrest her tomorrow."

"I don't want her, I want the father. He's a fugitive. She may know where he's going, and we need to catch him before he crosses a border."

The doctor hesitated. "Nurse Lemperson will accompany you."

"Fine."

Lemperson led the way into April Cargill's darkened room. Rebecca couldn't help noticing how young this girl was—just like all the others.

Having her baby taken away from her was going to be a tremendous shock, but she'd have the rest of her life to get over it. Rebecca tried to convince herself that would be enough.

She shook April's arm gently. "Miss Cargill?"

April opened her eyes. Rebecca held up her FBI badge. "I need to ask you about Charles Risznowski."

April smiled. "Is he here?" Lemperson shook her head. "I wish he could see our baby."

"Did he tell you he was coming back?" Rebecca asked.

"Oh, no," April shook her head. "He was clear about that from the beginning. I just hoped—wow. I'm really dizzy. Is that normal?"

"Just keep your head still," Lemperson said. "It'll pass."

That's what you get for incubating a half-alien baby, Rebecca thought. "April. Did Charles say where he was going? How he was planning to travel? Airplane? Train?"

"No. Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"He may have information pertaining to a matter of national security." Rebecca leaned forward. "It's very important that we find him. And we can give him the good news about your baby. It's a boy, right?"

"Yeah," April said, smiling as if the world were a beautiful place. "I'm naming him Charlie."

Rebecca forced herself to smile. "That's a good name."

"I'm sorry," April said. "Charles never said anything specific about where he was going. But it sounded like it was going to be a long trip. He said he needed money."

Of course he did. "How much did you give him?"

"I didn't have any cash handy," April said, "so I just gave him my debit card and PIN number."

Rebecca contained her excitement, calmly patted April's hand, and stood up slowly. "Thank you, April. Get some rest."

She nodded at Lemperson, walked out of the room, and ran to the elevators, dialing her phone.

"Center, Sachs," Rebecca said. "I need live tracking on all bank and credit card activity for April Cargill." Rebecca stepped inside an elevator and pressed the lobby button.

"Risznowski's using her accounts?" said the voice on the phone.

"Yeah. With any luck, he'll lead us to his buddies before they skip this dimension. And listen," Rebecca said as the doors closed, "the mother's not going anywhere. Wait twenty-four hours to take the baby. Hospital staff's already suspicious, and we don't want to cause a scene."

"Delay extraction? Are you sure?"

Rebecca closed her eyes and saw April's innocent, trusting smile. "I'm sure."



Photo: Newborn Life by Roger Penguino, January, 2010

"Shoot First"

SHOOT FIRST
By Curtis C. Chen

"Police Inspector!" shouted the voice inside Takeshi's head. "This man is not our suspect!"

Takeshi relaxed his trigger finger. If Buki had decided the man was not a threat, it would not fire a round no matter what Takeshi did.

"Down on the ground!" Takeshi said out loud.

The man in the hooded sweatshirt, baggy jeans, and sneakers looked around, eyes frantic. The alley had ended in a blank wall. There was nowhere to run.

"I repeat, this man is not our suspect!" Buki said. Takeshi ignored his weapon.

The man dropped to his knees, sobbing. Takeshi pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt with one hand. "Put your hands on top of your head," he said.

"I am innocent," the man said.

"He is not our suspect!" Buki said.

"Be quiet," Takeshi said to both of them.

He handcuffed the man, dragged him to the unmarked police car at the mouth of the alley, and put him in the backseat. Takeshi closed the door and snapped his pistol back into the shoulder holster which doubled as an antenna and charging station.

"Diagnostic running," Buki said. "Testing audio transmission. Police Inspector Yamashita, if you can hear me, please respond—"

"I can hear you just fine, Buki," Takeshi said, stepping away from the car. "I did not feel a need to respond earlier."

"So you heard me say this man is not our suspect." The computer inside Takeshi's service weapon sounded more than a little hurt.

"Whoever he is, he resisted arrest. That gets him a trip to the station." Takeshi paced beside the car. "Did you compare his face to the police library?"

"Yes," Buki said. "I had ample time to perform the search while you were arresting him for no good reason."

"Innocent men do not run from the police," Takeshi said. "But I take it from your tone that his record is clean?"

"Maybe you should see for yourself."

Takeshi sighed and took his augear visor out of his jacket pocket. He fitted the translucent yellow panel over his eyes and waited for Buki to power up the display.

After a moment, two images glowed into being, appearing to float half a meter in front of Takeshi's face. The image on the left showed a hyper-color image of the man he had just arrested, as recorded by the sensors built into Buki's front sight assembly. The image on the right was a magnified scan of a student ID from Kyoto University, showing a photograph of the same man and naming him as Daijiro Nakamura.

"I have already cross-referenced with public records," Buki said. "This man is the second son of Genkichi Nakamura, CEO of Transfuture Technologic. Daijiro has no connection to our primary suspect or his associates. And considering the Nakamura family reputation, it is unlikely that Daijiro would involve himself with such people."

"Thank you for the information, Buki," Takeshi said, "but you still have a lot to learn about police work."



Photo: SIG Sauer P220 by Ken "kcdsTM," January, 2008

"It's Better to be Lucky"

IT'S BETTER TO BE LUCKY
By Curtis C. Chen

Everything smelled like smoke. Jenna wondered how she was going to get it out of her clothes and hair—like all Regulans, Harold would be able to identify the hydrocarbons and know exactly where she'd been. She hadn't wanted to use the casino, but Dr. Caffrey had insisted it would be the fastest way to launder his payments to her.

Jenna pushed the flashing button on the slot machine again. She just had to lose the rest of this stake to fake a gambling habit, and she could go home.

A row of glittering sevens ratcheted into place, and the machine went crazy.

***

The manager's office smelled of old wood and oiled leather. Jenna wondered if he was going to comp her a room. She had heard casinos sometimes did that for high rollers. That would be convenient; she could get cleaned up without putting suspicious motel charges on her credit card.

A stocky man came in and sat down behind the desk. He smiled at Jenna with dead eyes.

"Hello, Mrs. Pokorny. I'm Mr. Wick. It seems we have a problem."

"Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry—"

"No, Mrs. Pokorny, nothing like that. In fact, the casino apologizes for any inconvenience you may suffer as a result of this incident."

Jenna couldn't read Wick's face at all. That scared her. "What do you mean?"

Wick sighed. "That slot machine downstairs should not have paid out for you. Not your fault, of course; these things are random. But it does complicate things."

"I was supposed to lose money today," Jenna said, understanding. "Not win it."

"Exactly," Wick said. "This is not a situation we anticipated."

"But I don't want the money," Jenna said. "You can keep it. Dr. Caffrey's going to pay me more than enough just for scanning Harold's brain."

"Well, that's very generous of you, Mrs. Pokorny," Wick said, "but all our slots are wire-locked. The gaming commission already knows the Seventh Heaven machine has paid out. They'll want to know who won the jackpot, for tax records."

Jenna's heart sank. "That's going to be public information?"

Wick nodded. "Now, there may be an easy way to resolve this situation. If we can identify some service you can provide to us in exchange for the balance of your winnings, we'll be happy to call it even. But I can't imagine what you could do that might be worth five point three million dollars to my organization." He paused. "Except for one thing."

Jenna swallowed the lump in her throat. "My husband."

"No, Mrs. Pokorny! We'd never ask you for that. Who do you think we are?" He leaned forward. "You can keep your husband. We just want one of his Regulan friends, alive, for Dr. Caffrey and his associates to study. Just one alien. Maybe an in-law you don't like, somebody who won't be missed. We're not picky. Do you think you could do that for us, Mrs. Pokorny?"

Jenna felt lightheaded. She saw hazy spots flashing around Wick's head, and then she fainted.



Photo: Slot machines! by David Zeuthen, September, 2006

"Touchy"

TOUCHY
By Curtis C. Chen

The beeping sounds were driving her crazy.

"Stop messing with that," Helen said. "You don't know what it does."

"It's a control panel, obviously," said Ted. "I think we're supposed to break out of here. Why else would they put controls inside a jail cell?"

"They're frickin' aliens," Helen said. "How do you know why they do anything?"

"Please, honey," said Ted, "this is what I do for a living. Just let me figure it out."

Helen counted to ten while Ted continued prodding at the control panel. The smooth black surface lit up with different symbols every time he touched it. As Helen watched, Ted tentatively pressed two blinking symbols simultaneously.

The entire panel turned white, and the walls emitted a high-pitched screech. Helen stuck her fingers in her ears until the noise stopped.

"Please don't do that again," she said.

"I've almost got it," Ted said. "There's a pattern to how the symbols change. It's reset to the original state now—that sound was probably intended as a penalty, like shocking a lab rat when it pushes the wrong button."

"Can we take a step back here? Even if you do get the door open, what then?"

"We figure out where we are," Ted said, as if it were obvious. "Then we escape. Get back home."

"Suppose we're on a spaceship and already millions of miles from Earth," Helen said. "What then?"

"We'll figure it out," Ted said. "Why are you being such a pessimist?"

"If they went to all this trouble to trap us and test us, they've probably anticipated what we might do and prepared for it."

"So you just want to wait in here until they decide we're not interesting anymore? Maybe, if we're not useful to them, they'll just kill us. And weren't you the one saying we can't know what aliens might be thinking?"

Helen couldn't let him continue. "I'm pregnant."

Ted blinked. "What? Since when?"

"And I'm pretty sure it's not yours."

"Well, yeah," Ted said.

"Don't just dismiss this!" Helen snapped. "This isn't some problem you can solve and then just get on with your life. This is life. It's our life."

Ted folded his arms. "So who's the father?"

Helen chuckled. "Yeah, funny story. I think it's the alien flying this ship."

"What?"

"They don't want you, Ted," Helen said. "We were abducted because I'm carrying a half-alien baby."

"Why would they take both of us?" Ted asked.

Helen stared at him. "You're saying it would have been better if I'd gone missing without any explanation?"

"Well, it wouldn't have been a total surprise."

Helen bit her lip. "Fuck you, Ted. In fact, you know what? It's over. We're done." She banged a fist on the door. "Hey! Let me out of here!"

"Stop that!" Ted pulled her back. "We don't know how they'll react to a display of violence."

Helen punched Ted in the face. Then she pulled the engagement ring off her finger and threw it at him.

"Well," she said, "I guess we're going to find out."



Photo: Jasper quite literally biting the hand that feeds him, February, 2010

"Godwin's Law"

GODWIN'S LAW
By Curtis C. Chen

"Welcome back, sir," said the gargoyle as Michael stepped through the security gate. He nodded at the creature, not meeting its bottomless gaze, and retrieved his keys from the stone dish.

Michael walked to the memorial wall. The flags were as he remembered—USA on the left, CIA on the right—but the field of black stars floating above the white marble had multiplied. He now counted more than a hundred stars, each one representing a company employee who had died in the line of service.

He stepped closer and looked at the Book of Honor, framed in steel and glass below the starfield. Less than half the gold sigils painted in the book's pages had names written next to them, either in English or Runic.

Is your name in here, Linda? Are you one of these stars?

"Michael," said a gravelly voice behind him. "How've you been?"

Robert Denford didn't look like he'd aged a single day since Michael left the agency. The two men shook hands coolly. "Still suck at golf. You?"

"Took up bowling," Denford said. "Let's go to the archives."

Michael followed Denford into an elevator. Denford pushed a button.

"I hear you made director," Michael said as the doors closed.

Denford shrugged. "War is good for business."

***

Denford opened a portal before the elevator reached the basement. There was no way to tell where this archive was; CIA had secret underground caches all over the world.

The two men walked down a long aisle of bookshelves that looked as if they had grown right out of the rough-hewn rock walls. Michael watched Denford pull one shelf out from the wall and unfold it into an impossible space. They stepped inside, and Denford parted another set of shelves. Michael saw labels reading MONGOLIA and TIBET on his way into a closet walled by what looked like multicolored curtains, but were actually floor-to-ceiling file volumes.

"Curtain files?" Michael looked around in awe. "Nobody's used these since the 1940s."

"World War II." Denford tugged a cloth line, and the material poured into his hand and became a hardbound book. "This is why we're here."

Michael read the cover. "Hitler's daughter? You're joking, right?"

"The old man wants complete discretion. That's why I called you."

"I'm retired," Michael said. "You can get someone more expert to tell you, authoritatively, that this is a crock. Something the Third Reich made up to scare the Allies as a last resort."

"So you've heard the stories."

"Yeah. Nazis raping Romani and Jewish prisoners, trying to breed their supernatural powers into the master race. It didn't work."

Denford held up a modern file folder, bordered in red-and-white eyes-only logograms. "There's evidence that it did."

"If you actually had convincing proof, you'd be talking to the JIC."

"You're right," Denford said. "It's promising, but not convincing. We need someone to run it down. Quietly. The old man trusts you."

"And no one would suspect an elderly college professor."

Denford smiled. "Everybody fights."

Michael took the file. "Nobody wins."



Photo: CIA memorial wall, date unknown (2004?)

"That's Entertainment"

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT
By Curtis C. Chen

Kimberley wasn't expecting to see anyone in the observation lounge at the end of the hallway. She always came here to eat her lunch, secluded and safe from the constant barrage of requests she received at her desk.

Her producer, Dawna, sat in front of the one-way mirror that looked into the faux living room, where a viewer sat in front of a tabula, wearing some kind of wire-studded helmet.

"Sorry," Kimberley whispered.

Dawna waved her inside. "It's okay! Come here. You might as well see this now."

Kimberley closed the door and sat down. The display on Dawna's netpad pulsed in sync with the lights on the viewer's helmet. The tabula surface showed a swirl of colors—leakage from the alien energy impulses that the coupled viewer perceived as a coherent vision, showing him whatever he wanted to see and hear.

"What's he watching?" Kimberley asked.

"Next episode of Atlanta Knights," Dawna said.

"Didn't we already focus that?"

"Not with the helmet."

"Yeah, what is that thing, anyway?"

Dawna smiled and touched her netpad. The instrument readouts disappeared, replaced by a dreamlike scene of two police detectives running down a dark street, chasing a hoodlum.

Kimberley's eyes widened. "Is that his show?"

Dawna nodded. "The helmet's reading his brain waves and reconstructing what his visual cortex is processing. We can see the exact vision he's getting from the tabula. And we can record it. No more sub-literate show summaries written by Joe Six-Pack!"

"That's—that's amazing." Kimberley's pulse quickened. "Where did you get the helmet? I've never even heard of this tech."

"My brother-in-law, Elliott. He's a neurologist," Dawna said. "And that's my cousin in the chair. The helmet is a prototype. Elliott's company is trying to get FDA approval for diagnostic use—actually seeing a patient's hallucinations, stuff like that.

"But we don't need approval to use it for non-medical purposes. We just need a waiver. And you know I can get a schmuck to sign a contract."

Kimberley's heart sank. "I guess I should update my resume."

"Are you kidding, Hollywood?" Kimberley hated that nickname. "I'm not watching all this crap myself. Somebody has to write the coverage. And you can actually spell."

The images on the netpad shifted to a new scene. One of the detectives pulled his gun, shot the hoodlum dead, then turned the gun on his partner, who inexplicably started taking off his clothes. Kimberley waved a hand to get Dawna's attention.

"Um, Dawna?"

"What?" Dawna looked down at the netpad and grimaced. "Oh, Jesus. You see what I mean? Most people's fantasies are completely fucked up." She shook her head and stood up. "Call me when he's done watching. I promised my aunt I'd take Dirty Harry to lunch at the Grove."

After she left, Kimberley put her earpiece back in and made a phone call, trembling and smiling.

"Hey, Geoff? Kimberley. Listen, I've got something you're gonna love. Yeah. You can fire all your so-called actresses. This thing is going to revolutionize porn."



Photo: atlanta sunset by Ed Schipul, May, 2010