"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

"Assassination"

ASSASSINATION
By Curtis C. Chen

"So," Jake said, "who killed Abraham Lincoln?"

"And what's his full name?" Andy asked.

"No ID on the body," said the uniform standing just inside the police tape. His name tag said HOLLISTER. "Found the hack license under the front seat. Looked like the killer was in a hurry to leave."

Andy nodded. "So, robbery?"

Hollister shrugged. "Whoever killed him did clean out the car. Glovebox was empty. Took his wallet, cell phone, GPS—even the meter." He pointed to a blank spot on the dashboard.

"Why would anyone take the taxi meter?" Jake asked.

"Data," Andy said. "The meter tracks how far the cab's traveled. Even without the GPS, we could have guessed at where Abe picked up his last fare."

"He's got to have a chip, right?" Jake said. "Where's the ME?"

"Already been here," said Hollister. "Didn't have the right scanner. Said we'd have to wait for INS to show up."

"That's going to take all day," Jake grumbled.

Andy bent down to look at the wrinkled mass of the dead Varna'ut behind the wheel of the taxicab. The alien would have stood over seven feet tall fully upright, but they compressed their boneless bodies to fit into human vehicles. This one had kept its lower body extended, to reach the control pedals and to put its tentacles at the same height as the steering wheel.

Andy reached into the car and touched one of the tentacles still wrapped around the wheel. He pressed his gloved fingers into the spongy flesh and watched as the purple inkblots in the translucent gray skin broke into smaller bubbles.

"Still warm," Andy said.

He followed the ripples of purple up the tentacle into the Varna'ut's torso, and saw a small slick of something brown and opaque—almost like mud—underneath the spot where the limb attached to the body, where a human's armpit would have been.

"Son of a bitch," Andy muttered. "Hey, Jake!"

The other detective walked around the car, followed by Hollister, and leaned over to look where Andy was pointing. "What am I looking at?"

"You see that brown spot there, right under the base of the tentacle?"

"Please tell me that's not anything that starts with 'p'."

"Regurgitation," Andy said. "It's how the Varna'ut greet each other. Honest Abe knew his murderer."

"That's a bit of a reach, isn't it?" Jake squinted down at his partner. "I mean, I say hello to the greeter at Wal-mart, doesn't mean I know the guy."

"This is gastric secretion," Andy said. "Stomach acid. You can smell it, can't you?"

"I'm trying not to."

"Only friends and family get actual regurgitation. Strangers are greeted with saliva—just spit, not vomit."

Jake frowned. "Is there some reason you know so much about this?"

"My kid sister's dating a Varna'ut."

"You're joking."

Andy stood up. "You know, it could be worse. She needs to get the rebellious streak out of her system, and at least an alien can't knock her up."

"Okay," Hollister said, "now I'm going to be sick."



Photo: detail from Taxi queue at King St Station by Oran Viriyincy (via GIMP's "Newsprint" filter), April, 2010

"My Funny Valentine"

MY FUNNY VALENTINE
By Curtis C. Chen

"Why did Mary give you a picture of a rake?" Fred asked.

"Why did Mary give me poisonous cupcakes last week?" John examined the crude drawing. The medium appeared to be permanent marker on Galactic Survey Corps stationery. "I'm not sure that is a rake. Could be a hand."

"A hand with nine fingers."

"The Gorshiom aren't good with numbers. And we introduced them to representational art, remember?"

"Maybe it's edible. All her other gifts have been edible."

"That's debatable, especially after those cupcakes."

"I guess she's moved on to more durable tokens of her affection."

"We can only hope." John dropped the picture into a plastic bin labeled MODERN ARTIFACTS. "Maybe I can ask Mary to help us dig."

"Speaking of digging," Fred said, "where are you at with that anthropologist? Landy?"

"Landry," John corrected. "I'm getting nowhere. Every time I start to ask her out, she thinks I'm asking for some kind of scheduling favor and puts up her defenses."

"What does anthro have to do with scheduling?"

"Don't you read the bulletins? She was elected Leader last month."

"Huh." Fred stood and stretched. "If only I cared about expedition politics."

"You should," John said. "The council just voted to—where are you going?"

"Got a date," Fred said, pulling pants on over his undershorts.

"Really. Who's the lucky girl?"

"Amanda Landry."

John blinked. "The expedition leader's daughter."

"Yeah, you know, it wasn't weird before you told me Landry had been elected Leader," Fred said. "It was also more fun when I thought her last name was Landy, because then she'd be Mandy Landy."

"How old is she?"

"Nineteen."

John frowned. "How old are you?"

Fred shrugged. "Does that really matter? And this coming from the guy who's shtupping an alien?"

"It wasn't sex!" John said. "We don't even have the right parts!"

"Whatever you call it."

"It was a misunderstanding, and it was just that once!"

Fred put up his hands. "Look, man, all I'm saying is, glass houses. No judgments. We cool?"

John nodded. "I just want you to know, I'm doing this for your own good."

"What?"

John punched Fred in the crotch. Fred doubled over and whimpered.

"I know it hurts now," John said, "but you'll thank me later."

"I'm going to kill you later," Fred grumbled.

"Amanda Landry is a slut," John said. "You'd know that if you paid attention to camp gossip. And anyone dumb enough to sleep with her gets shafted by her mother afterward. Equipment, comms, rations—any supplies you want or need, she can withhold. Trust me, two minutes in heaven are not worth six months of grief."

Fred hobbled to the cabin door. "I'm going to go have a nice dinner now. Then I'm going to find a large blunt object and wait until you're asleep."

"You know, Mary's got a sister," John said. "You want me to introduce you?"

The door slammed shut.



Photo: Ayla's Rake by Don LaVange (via GIMP's "Predator" filter), October, 2009

"Kibitz"

KIBITZ
By Curtis C. Chen

"Why does religion scare you so much?" Edith asked.

"Why doesn't it scare you?" Bernice replied.

A clattering noise came from the other room. Edith bent back over her chair and called, "Play nicely, boys!"

The two children on the floor separated and muttered something affirmative. Edith turned back to Bernice and shrugged.

"It's not like he's asking me to pledge an oath or anything," Edith said. "Honestly, it's mostly about community. Clarence needs other children to play with. This is an easy, well-established venue for socialization."

"But it's all about superstition," Bernice said, making a face. "I mean, have you read some of the mythology? It's all magical transformations, talking foliage, and predestination."

"They're just stories," Edith said. "Don't we have the same thing in our past? People telling tales to explain the world?"

"Yes, but that's actual history," Bernice said. "Not ludicrous fantasies about omnipotent entities controlling people's lives."

"So they're fictional." Edith shrugged again. "It doesn't make them any less significant or instructive."

"Except these religious people actually believe they're true!" Bernice said. "Turning water into wine? And what about this transubstantiation business?"

"You're talking about Catholicism," Edith said. "Clifford's Jewish."

"Now you're just splitting hairs," Bernice said. "They all believe in an intelligent creator-entity that exists outside of time and space. That's crazy."

"So is quantum theory," Edith said. "That doesn't stop—BOYS! What did I say about playing nicely?"

The crashing noises from the other room ceased, and then two juvenile shapes chased through the hallway, shouting something indistinct about going outside to play.

"Put on your jackets!" Bernice called. "It's freezing out there!"

More affirmative noises, clothing shuffled into place, and then the front door opened and slammed shut.

"Hubert seems to be adjusting well," Edith said.

Bernice made a snorting noise. "Lower gravity. All the blood's rushing to his head."

"Now who's being superstitious?"

"Don't change the subject." Bernice sipped at her tea. "Have you thought about how this religious identification is going to affect Clarence's development?"

"Given that he's going to be living among humans, I think whether or not we practice a few harmless rituals is going to be the least of our worries," Edith said. "Besides, it'll give him something in common with them."

"Even if it's all a big fat lie."

Edith sighed. "Why do we still honor the lunar observances, Bernice?"

"I don't know. Tradition, I suppose."

"Exactly. And that's all this is. It's their culture, and if we're going to be accepted by Clifford's people, Clarence and I need to understand their ways."

"I agree with that," Bernice said, "but this kind of immersion... Aren't you afraid that Clarence will grow up actually believing these myths?"

"Children believe all kinds of silly things," Edith said. "He'll grow out of it. But the important thing is, he'll have that connection to their culture."

"You must really love this human," Bernice said.

"Well," Edith said, waving an eyestalk, "I had his baby, didn't I?"

Bernice mimed regurgitation with her upper stomach. "Don't remind me."



Photo: Grand lustre de la synagogue de la rue Dohany (Budapest) by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, August, 2007

"Everything but the Laugh"

EVERYTHING BUT THE LAUGH
By Curtis C. Chen

"I don't think I heard you right," Maddy said, grabbing one of Josa's tentacles. "He's going to what?"

The sinuous alien blinked his left eyes in a slow ripple. "Please, miss. I heard not clear. Sound like soo-iss-aye."

"Are you sure that's what he said?"

Josa wriggled out of her grip. "Please, miss. Much work to do. Big show tonight."

The alien slithered away down the hall. Maddy turned, went to Conrad's dressing room, and opened the door without knocking, interrupting his juggling.

"Fuck a duck!" he shouted.

Maddy couldn't resist saying, "I thought those were geese."

"Didn't your mother teach you to knock?" Conrad picked up the goslings and ushered them back into their cage. "What if I had been, I don't know, naked in here or something?"

"First of all, eww," Maddy said. "Second, Josa says you're going to commit suicide?"

Conrad shook his head and sat down. "Goddamn blabbermouth."

Maddy closed the door. "Please tell me this is one of your stupid pranks."

He looked up at her, and the dull, defeated look in his eyes told her it wasn't a prank.

"You can't do that," Maddy said. "I'll notify my mother. She'll inform the diplomatic corps, and they'll suspend your travel privileges."

"That'll take weeks. And a reprimand from the DC carries much less weight when you're dead." Conrad frowned. "Isn't that odd? The word 'mother' starts with M, but 'female' starts with F. And 'father' starts with F, but 'male' starts with M. Doesn't that seem backwards to you?"

"Don't change the subject," Maddy said. "I'll stop you. I'll watch you like a hawk."

"Will you, now? You gonna follow me into the bathroom, sit by my bed while I sleep?"

"You're going to kill yourself on stage," Maddy said. "You're going to do it to get a laugh. That's the only reason you do anything. The Barish think death is hilarious—"

"Did you ever wonder," Conrad said, "how your mother persuaded me to bring you along on this tour?"

"She's a politician. She has leverage."

"I'm your father."

Maddy sighed. "Really? You're trying this? Really?"

Conrad chuckled. "Yeah, I figured that one would bomb."

"This is what I'm talking about!" Maddy said. "You're a scientist. Experimentation, trial and error, observation. You've interacted with more sentient species than any human alive, been allowed into places that are forbidden to outsiders. If you die before I finish documenting all your knowledge—"

"I don't have any knowledge," Conrad said. "Don't you get it? I'm the court jester. They let me in because I have no power. I'm nothing."

Maddy knelt down and took his hand in both of hers. "If you kill yourself, I will tell everyone that you are my father, that you knew it and didn't tell me, and that you've been fucking me for the last six months. Your legacy will not be the greatest entertainer in the galaxy, but a disgusting, incestuous pedophile."

Conrad smiled. "You're a quick study."

"Please don't kill yourself. Let me do it after the tour's done."

"That's funny."



Photo: Dutch comedian Mike Boddé, October, 2009