Manipulate (Alien Cadets) Read online

  “Here, here, I’m a doctor,” she said. “Let me see.”

  His gaze remained fixed for a moment, but then he blinked and made the effort to look at her.

  “The bleeding…” he said. “Help me stop it.”

  She could see now that he was holding his wrist, not his hand, and that it was pulsing blood. The animal must have cut his radial artery, definitely the ulnar and radial veins too. She looked for the beast again. It wasn’t with the yellow suitcase. She whipped her head around – didn’t see it anywhere. A few people were still screaming and running around. People could be such idiots sometimes.

  “Hey, you, lady!” she yelled at a flight attendant nearby, as Claudia unzipped her suitcase. The woman glanced at her, and Claudia said, “Yeah, you. Call 911 right now. Tell them to get animal control. And tell them a man is bleeding out and needs a surgeon stat.” The woman nodded, but now Claudia was grabbing some athletic socks from her bag and didn’t look at her.

  “Thanks,” the guy said, focusing on her face. “Kind of light-headed here.” He laughed and then gasped. “I mean, catastrophe, pretty girl. Somebody has to faint.”

  Claudia gently pulled the guy’s good hand away from his wrist, and inhaled sharply in fear. The animal had cut through almost his entire wrist. Only one bone and a few ligaments held his hand to his arm. She swallowed the sudden thickness at the back of her throat and gently wrapped a spare T-shirt around the wrist. With one pulse, a thick red splotch appeared. She wrapped a couple socks around it tightly. Another pulse, and the blood dripped from the bandage onto her jeans.

  She held it in her hands, looking up in desperation, or perhaps for inspiration. On the rental counter stood a clear bowl full of blue plastic bracelets. The thick kind, half an inch wide and printed with the Avis logo.

  Claudia slid the man down onto his back, and set his wounded arm on his chest. She unwrapped it as fast as she could. The bandage wasn’t doing a lot of good anyway. A quick glance at his face told her he’d passed out. She carefully slipped one of the bracelets over his fingers, and then ever so carefully over the carnage that was his wrist. When she got it above the damage it was tight. She couldn’t slip a finger under it. She looked at the counter again, and found a pen. She stuck it under the bracelet and started twisting it around. She turned it three times, as tight as she could get it. Those bracelets were good quality. She’d never noticed. It made a decent tourniquet.

  Holding the pen with one hand, she awkwardly wrapped up the wrist again, applying as much pressure as she dared. The bleeding slowed. Her tourniquet wasn’t keeping all the blood from seeping out, but it was no longer gushing with each heartbeat.

  His eyes fluttered open. “Tourniquet, you’re right…”

  Now Claudia looked around for the flight attendant, but she didn’t see her. The room had almost emptied out, except for a lump of people on the other side of the conveyer belt. Must be another injury. Hopefully the people over there were taking care of it. The beast’s cage still circled the baggage carrel, looking still and menacing, like an empty wasp’s nest.

  “I like animals,” the man suddenly muttered. Claudia whipped her head around. He was looking at her, but his pupils were so dilated she couldn’t see what color his eyes were.

  “Well, sure you do,” she said. “What wacko doesn’t?”

  He groaned. “It feels kinda unfair,” he said, his eyes rolling down in the direction of his hand. “I mean, somebody should tell that trouncer I’m a nice guy. Oh, that burns,” he groaned.

  It was good that he was talking. Maybe he hadn’t lost as much blood as she thought.

  “Trouncer?” she said. “Is that what it is?” He looked like a nice guy. He’d probably be pretty good-looking if his lips weren’t white and his face covered in shock sweat and droplets of blood.

  “Yeah, Spo animal – for the biocomputers…” he trailed off and started again. “I’m not normally a whiner, but oh God. That burns.”

  “The paramedics should be here any minute,” she said. Surely if that stewardess hadn’t called 911 somebody else had by now.

  Sure enough, she heard an ambulance siren approaching, one long descending note.

  “I can hear the siren,” she said.

  “Distract me. Please,” the guy said.

  “Um...you met any aliens? I’m here to see my brother, he’s one of those cadets. The ones the aliens took for the LA exchange program.”

  “I know some of the Spo. Does that mean you’ll be in LA for a while?”

  “You asking me out?” Claudia asked.

  He fixed his eyes on her. “Please go out with me. I need a reason to live.”

  Claudia choked. “I don’t think you’re going to die.”

  “But when will I ever get to say that again?” he said weakly.

  “True. Sure, it’s a date.” He was silent for a few minutes, his eyes closed again.

  “What’s your name?” he said, eyes still closed.

  “It’s Claudia. I’m staying with a friend in Glendale.” He probably wouldn’t remember this conversation in a few hours, but if he did, he deserved to find her. “What’s your name?”

  “It’s Chris Tatlock. But I’m never gonna remember this, you’ll have to find me.”

  Claudia laughed, adrenaline making her slightly hysterical. “Okay, sure.”

  “No, seriously. Promise?”

  “I’ll find you. Promise.”

  The paramedics were finally coming through the door, the flight attendant leading them right to her. Claudia felt marginally bad for doubting her. The tan uniforms of animal control workers headed toward the box. She hoped they had guns.

  The paramedics gathered around and she showed them the tourniquet she was holding.

  “I thought...If it... I’m a vet...” Claudia’s words deserted her.

  One of the paramedics took the pen from her, another eased her away as they stuck an oxygen mask over Chris’ face. Huh, she already thought of him as Chris. They kept the tourniquet on as they unwrapped the socks from his hand and she could see the shock in their faces at the severed hand. They started working very quickly then, very carefully.

  “Severed artery, tendons, nerve damage, venous discharge…” the talk swished around Claudia’s head like a mop. The paramedics were applying another tourniquet.

  One of them turned to her, as the other three hoisted Chris onto a gurney. “You did the right thing,” he said.

  She tried to wave goodbye to Chris as they wheeled him away, but his eyes were closed.

  Claudia collapsed onto the tile, leaning against the wall, too drained to leave. Security officials swarmed around, but she was ignored. She watched the bags go round on the silver baggage carrel, around and around. Finally someone got their act together and turned it off.

  “Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him!” said an alien, bounding in from the front sliding doors. “Confused, scared, wouldn’t hurt anyone!” His voice made Claudia’s arches cramp - it was not loud but it buzzed - velvet over a band saw.

  This was her first alien encounter. She saw them on TV, but this alien looked bigger in person and more, well, alien. One kick from one of those four sectioned legs and she’d fly into the wall like a deflated soccer ball.

  The alien wore an L.A. Lakers basketball tunic. One of the security guys faced the alien. His teeth were clenched hard.

  “It is my baby! My wee one -” the alien said, then took in the shock on his face and started over. “Not my real baby, of course. Good heavens! I mean, she is my pet. Like my kitty, you understand?"

  “Your kitty injured three people, one critically. Why on earth would you ship an animal like that as checked baggage? Why would you even HAVE an animal like that?” asked the security guy.

  “My Reevse? She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She is highly intelligent and highly trained. Take me to her."

  The guy spoke in his radio, got a stream of curses in reply.

  “Come again,” he said, “Did you get it?”
<
br />   “…in a pod, finally…” More cursing. “Safe now. Coming to you.”

  A few minutes later the entourage arrived. A huge metal box, a pod for moving people’s furniture, led the way. Three men pushed it on a large dolly.

  “It’s locked in here,” one guy said. “It got two of my friends. They’re on the way to the hospital, stitches at least…”

  The Lakers alien laid a hand on the box. “What did you do? She is but gentle!”

  There was a grating roar and they could all hear the animal lung, teeth and claws crashing into the wall with a metallic clang.

  The alien leaped away, his long legs shooting him ten yards backward. “That cannot be my Reevse! What has happened? Where is Chris?” he exclaimed.

  Claudia blinked.

  “Chris would know. Where is he? This must be another animal,” the alien repeated.

  “How many of these do you think there are? That’s got to be yours,” the policeman said.

  “But she isn’t. The roar is wrong. There is some mistake.”

  A radio crackled and Claudia saw one of the airport guys lift it and push the button. “Yeah, Albert, go ahead.”

  “We’ve got more reports of these animal attacks. LAX. We need to contain this. How many animals at your location?”

  “Just one.”

  “Alright. Spook here says to take ours to Malibu.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t make the rules. Malibu. The alien academy.”

  “That’s nuts. How many at LAX?”

  “Four.”

  “Wow. Let me know if they figure out how to move ‘em.”

  “Will do.”

  The alien turned to him, “LAX? I was routed through there. They must have Reevse. They switched him with this ravening animal. We must rectify this immediately.”

  “If you have any suggestions, we’re listening,” the officer said, “but at the moment..."

  “No! You don’t understand! They might harvest them at any moment for the computers. I must get Reevse immediately!”

  The security guys tried to pacify the alien, but clearly he was beside himself.

  Only now someone noticed Claudia sitting on the floor watching the whole thing. She was escorted out and given a voucher for a free taxi ride. Her fingers stuck together with tacky blood as she clutched the paper. So much for her clean fingernails.

  Chapter 7

  Sam stepped into the hot sun outside Mann’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Ave. He felt more nervous than usual. As the first press event he’d planned from start to finish, he really wanted it to work. This casual event could go a long way towards humanizing the cadets.

  The concrete and asphalt of downtown Hollywood radiated heat, much like the desert on Spo. There were quite a few tourists, maybe sixty people, though he’d heard that was nothing compared to the tourists that would have been here on a Saturday before the spook invasion. Beyond the tourists were the homeless. Lining the sidewalks were cardboard boxes and filthy tarps suspended for shade. The homeless huddled under these makeshift shelters, though a few lay full length in the sun. There was a faint smell in the air, dirty humans and urine. It smelled foul to Sam, accustomed to the bleach-like smell of the Spo.

  This was one of the worst places Sam had seen in LA, though he knew many places in the city were far more crowded and filthy. After the Hadron explosion, many people along the coasts were displaced by rising water. The Midwest turned into a dustbowl to rival the 1930’s, and people fled to the cities. Then the Spo had come, with their energy sources and eco-scrubbers, and although they’d mostly stabilized the weather systems, they’d put a lot of people out of work.

  The rest of the cadets disembarked from the chartered buses, and people started gathering around. There were a lot of Asian school kids, and a few white families. Quite a few teenage girls seemed to be trying out the latest fashions. Sam saw lots of deep V-neck shirts and big jewelry. No yin yangs though. Some of the homeless gathered in behind the tourists, who flinched and moved away.

  All the people were gawking at the cadets now, whispering to each other. Their new security team began circulating through the crowd. They were tough, most of them former Special Services. Since the Spo executed the president and most of the upper echelon of government when they invaded, a lot of Special Forces guys needed jobs. They weren’t thrilled to be working for the Spo, but nobody could afford to turn down work. And the last few days more than proved the cadets needed protection.

  Greg got off the bus last, climbing awkwardly down the high bus steps, and swinging himself out onto the curb. Ripples of awe ran through the crowd, and they edged backward, the people closest trying to put space between themselves and the spook. Thousands of spooks lived on Earth, but lots of people still hadn’t seen one up close.

  Greg stretched his limbs in the sun, as if showing off for the humans. He probably just enjoyed the warmth. The average temperature on Spo was 105 degrees.

  Sam waited for the security guys to rope off the staging area. A huge gate opened from the sidewalk into the courtyard of the theater. The gate was grey and orange stone, in the ancient Chinese fashion, apparently. The courtyard inside was covered with concrete tiles commemorating actors and directors of the last hundred years. He could see people squatting down to place their hands in the handprints of their favorite actors. The sidewalk where he stood was called the Walk of Fame. Each block had a star with the name of a performer, but he didn’t know most of the names. Celine Dion, Alex Trebek?

  Sam had been here once before. When he was seven years old his family came to Los Angeles on vacation. They’d done Disney World and then Hollywood. Sam could picture his sister Claudia running into the courtyard. She climbed on the back of one of the stone lions by the door for Mom to take her picture. Sam’s dad took pictures of John Travolta and Buster Keaton’s squares, between business calls.

  Sam stumbled, disoriented for a moment, his vision doubled between the past and the present. He took a half step, to lean against a parking meter. He hadn’t pictured his family so clearly in years. His vision cleared slowly, but he still felt light headed. His feelings for his family were complicated, and none of them matched the feelings for humanity that he’d learned from Greg. Not that Greg hated humans. He didn’t. Sam shook his head to clear it. He had a press conference to deal with.

  The security guys had things set up, so Sam walked through the cadets to take his place next to Greg. The press noticed him.

  “It’s Sam!"

  “Are you the cadet leader?"

  “What do you think of the uprising in China?"

  Sam looked at Greg for permission to speak. Received it.

  “We understand their frustration, but regret that they’ve turned to violence. Rioting is only going to hurt them more. If they really want the best for their children they need to stop. We did the best we could in the aftermath of the earthquake, and our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones,” Sam said.

  “You always say, ‘we’ – do you consider yourself one of the Spo?”

  “Sam, what is it like being back on earth?”

  “It’s more colorful. And… louder,” Sam said, ignoring the first question.

  Another group of cadets got off the second bus, and Sam backed up as the reporters turned to them. Melanie scooted around the back of the growing crowd and grabbed his hand.

  “Hey, you okay?” she asked. “You look so serious. This is the most fun we’ve had in months. Years maybe.”

  Sam realized his teeth were clenched and he worked to loosen his jaw. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Sam! Sam!” he heard, “Is that your girlfriend?” A girl who could have been younger than him shoved a microphone in his face. Probably a Teen Vogue reporter. Sam pulled his hand away from Melanie. Who cared if he had a girlfriend? Sam instinctively looked around for Nat, and saw her looking away from him. Yeah, she’d heard that.

  “Just friends!” Sam said for the reporter. “Melanie’s one of my b
est friends.”

  Melanie stiffened but smiled anyway. Belatedly he realized it was kind of insulting to jerk away from her like that. But she knew about him and Nat. It wasn’t her. Sam sighed.

  The cadets gathered in a crowd around Greg and Sam, no rows or ranks today.

  A wet cement square waited for them. Like celebrities for years had done, Greg would leave his footprints in the cement for generations of tourists to gawk at. Melanie and Jonathan were going to put their footprints in the same square. Sam chose Jonathan because he would be the witness in Earth’s trial in a few weeks, and after that, would be famous. Melanie he picked almost at random, because she was the youngest cadet, only fourteen, and very outgoing.

  Sam felt his vision double again as he watched Greg push his long clawed feet into the wet cement and scratch his name with a finger. A small but growing part of Sam felt that he’d engineered some disturbing symbolism here. Greg sinking his feet into the wet Earth… making an indelible impression in a quickly hardening surface. It seemed like a good idea at the time. What was he thinking?

  Then it was Jonathan’s turn. He took his shoes off, gave the cameras a big thumbs up, and stuck his feet in the wet cement with a flourish. The tourists cheered and Sam grinned and waved. Jonathan used a finger to scrawl his name in the cement. His footprints looked puny compared to Greg’s.

  Melanie was next, and she looked just as cute and young as Sam wanted. A few people made catcalls as she took off her shoes, and she laughed and threw a kiss. Her feet looked even tinier next to Greg’s.

  “We’re going to enjoy a little R&R!” Sam told the reporters. “Feel free to hang around and get individual interviews while we enjoy Hollywood.”

  The cadets started to disperse and Greg reminded them, “You have three hours. You will remain within two blocks of this location and in sight of at least one security man. Report at the main doors,” he gestured to the big doors between the stone lions of the theater, “at four o’clock.” He nodded dismissal.