The Alien Manifesto

  * * *

  When we got to our suite, the door was open. Joe Jeffers was inside, as well as four uniformed security guys. Across the hall, Greta’s door was also open and security people were buzzing around inside. “Come on in, folks,” said Joe. “Looks like the party’s over. Sit down and I’ll tell you a little story.”

  “The guy in the blue parka, I’d guess,” said Jill. “But how—”

  “Here’s how,” said Joe. “He was prowling the halls and somehow slipped past all the security cams on this floor. He knew the numbers of your rooms. While the maid was turning down your bed and placing the Swiss chocolates, you know, he slipped into the big suite, snuck up on the maid, and knocked her out with a blow to the head. Then when he tried to pick up your laptop, the one we had loaned you….”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “The alarm on the laptop went off. If you don’t say the code word, anybody touching it will set off the alarm.”

  “Right. So he apparently took the master room keys off the maid, went into Greta’s room, and was rummaging through her suitcase when the security team came into the room. The guy pulled a gun and ran off down the hall and down the stairs with the security boys in hot pursuit.”

  “Quite a story,” said Leela, her eyes wide. “Now let me guess: Mr. Blue Parka runs into the lobby, sees Kate, grabs her and holds her at gunpoint and then drags her through the disco and onto the stage. That’s where we came in.”

  “How did you—” began Joe, then said, “Oh, right, I forgot who the psychics are around here! Well, sorry about the little security slip-up, folks, but as you know, shit happens. By the way, Mr. Blue Parka was thoroughly searched and didn’t have any of your stuff on him. We’ll I.D. him right away. I’m sure he’s with The Brotherhood, part of Black Swan. Sleep tight. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

  We all sat around the fireplace in our suite for a good twenty minutes, just breathing with eyes closed and letting the events of the evening wash away.

  “I feel violated,” sighed Greta. “The thought of that creep rummaging around in my stuff….I hope he didn’t mess with any of the flash drives. But anyway, I’ve got the hard drive backup.”

  “You can sleep on our couch if you would feel safer,” offered Leela. “It converts into a big bed.”

  “No thanks,” said our new friend. She looked haggard and exhausted, and her makeup was smeared. “I’ll be fine. I need to take a nice hot bath.”

  Leela, Jill and I needed a nice hot bath too. The three of us squeezed into our Jacuzzi tub and let the powerful jets soothe our aching muscles. Afterward, we crawled naked into our king size bed with the big down comforter. The two ladies sandwiched me, delightfully. I spooned Leela and Jill spooned me. Sex was not on anybody’s agenda.

  I slept deeply by consciously triggering a big dose of natural melatonin from the pineal gland. My implant was still working beautifully. I wondered how long I could keep my psychic gifts. The docs said two hundred hours. Maybe, maybe….

  23 Hostile Forces

  The Black Hawk 90-A Panther Cruiser is quite a helicopter. Not only can it carry up to eight passengers in cozy comfort, but it is loaded with electronic gear and enough firepower to take out nearly any airborne attacker. It has a top speed of 250 mph and a range of about sixteen hundred miles, just enough to take us from St. Moritz to the Nicosia airport in about six hours.

  Why the State Department in Cyprus had decided to assign us to a top-of-the-line, heavily armored military chopper instead of an airplane would become blatantly obvious in a few hours. Just for security purposes, our chopper was accompanied by a loaded Apache gunship. This awesome machine is really a flying tank, a helicopter designed to survive heavy attack and inflict serious damage. Some experts say it is the most lethal helicopter ever created. Knowing all this, I felt both secure and scared shitless.

  Helicopters are by nature noisy creatures, so our little group of four spent most of the trip in silence. I had noise-proof headphones and some heavy Stones on my Amigo, so the non-stop roar of the chopper’s mighty engines didn’t bother me. Leela and Jill huddled over our laptop, studying the files on the Black Swan organization that Greta had so cleverly downloaded. Greta was also studying those files on some hand-held device she had borrowed from Kate Jeffers.

  I had other priorities: opening several messages that had accumulated on my Amigo over the past forty-eight hours. All came via REBEL in deep encryption mode. There were three from Benny Bravo, and one—surprise!—from my dear friend Hacker. Hacker’s had to be opened first, of course.

  I ran my unscrambling program. Hacker never bothered much with punctuation. He figured you had to have at least a little sense to understand him anyway.

  “Dear Dude hope you are well Internet up & running again…you and Jill musta picked up on my code…good work! BS (his own code for Black Swan) had servers in fifteen cities - bit of a challenge but I think my Bird Flu Virus shut em all down…no more DNS problems now… so what’s with the fish? and did BS have AI to fug with the web? explanation please

  “also Jill sent me coupla fotos of her pretty feet via private wireless network I set up when we were still interfacing…as thank you for me sending the code via her psi-fi gadget and wireless network? what a gal! wish she’d take me back dot dot dot Sedona? oh nothing serious just martial law has seriously kicked in… streets blocked razor wire concrete walls…cops everywhere army units in flagstaff… only way to get around is auto rickshaws new in town just like india…drivers illegal aliens barely speak english take any currency like pesos and rupees bicycles OK too… very 3rd world here Also strange shenanigans Kali’s place benny b tell you more… most people who stayed in town moving to tent cities… me still home got three teens living here (female o course none jailbait) water on only sometimes no electric… stay safe write soon hacker

  I closed my eyes and let it sink in. My beloved Sedona. Martial law? Razor wire? Tent cities? I tuned in to the Stones music pounding through the headphones: “What’s confusing you/Is just the nature of my game,” belted Mick Jagger in his tribute to Lucifer. Whoever he is. I felt an urgent need to get back to Sedona to help sort things out, to make some sense out of the gathering madness—a madness that seemed to have infected the entire planet.

  We had been in the air for maybe an hour or so when I looked earthward from the big windows and saw, what, Mount Etna in Italy? Maybe we would see that damned thing erupt? There had been several volcano eruptions lately, almost an epidemic of eruptions. Pele in Hawaii. Mount Rainier in Washington, Mount Hood in Oregon. Yellowstone’s volcano had finally blown its top, sending thousands of homeless campers running for cover. Worse, the ash blotted out the sun over three states.

  I tapped into my short-term memory: Recent volcanic eruptions in Greece; Japan; the Philippines; Guatemala; New Guinea; Mexico; Iceland. All over the planet. Had the Black Swan organization figured out a way to trigger volcanoes? Earthquakes? Tsunamis? Or was it just the natural progression of Mother Nature’s current rampage?

  Greta had fallen asleep with her handset still on and running data from the pilfered Black Swan files. I turned it off, put it in a safe place, and covered her with a blanket. It was getting cold in our chopper. My two fellow telepaths were still poring over the Black Swan files and chatting away. Earlier we had all three scanned the copter for bugs; it was clean.

  I turned back to my trusty Amigo and brought up Benny Bravo’s messages. He reported that things were getting weirder across the board. Goddess Kali had actually succeeded in bringing some dead people back to life. Her insane scheme to plant the consciousness of famous people in the resurrected bodies had failed, however.

  Still, she had managed to create a race of zombies. Zombie temps. They were a great source of entertainment, while they lasted. The resurrected bodies lasted only two or three days, started to stink, and then died again. Ghoulish.


  Still, the suckers poured into her temple to be healed or reborn or…whatever. Many came for the zombie entertainment. The only way to get into Sedona, and to Kali’s temple, was through Cottonwood via the divided four-lane State Route 89A. The roadway was often clogged with cars, the drivers honking and shouting at each other. Traffic came to a complete stop for an hour at a time. Cars would run out of gas and be pushed to the shoulder. Many frustrated motorists simply abandoned their cars in the middle of the highway and walked miles to Kali’s temple, Benny reported.

  Benny was still staying in his house. He got water deliveries from a black market source, a brother who filled up huge containers from the spring up in Oak Creek Canyon, and made deliveries in a fake pizza van. Benny had a large supply of powerful battery cells which he had “collected” over the past few months. The batteries supplied his household electrical needs, and also powered his tiny motor scooter, which gave him wheels for tooling around town.

  So far so good. Message Two was a little more dire. Several days had passed. “Yo, Boss,” he began. This message was in audio, and he had returned to his annoying reggae-punk patois. It meant he was nervous. “Things dey get a li’l weirder here since message one. Now, I deduce dat de Mexican gangbangers has taken over de fancy subdivisions, you know, de ones with gates and code numbers and all. So we got the Mystic Hills gang, we got the Casa Contenta gang, we got the Foothills South gang, you know. But I dunno what dey be doin’ here cuz dere’s nobody buyin’ drugs, there ain’t much cash around anyways. So methinks dey just be squattin’ in dese fancy digs and killin’ each other for turf just out of habit.”

  Benny said Kali’s temple seemed to be winding down. “The Dakini chicks has left and I hears dey be offering Tantra sessions out at Chickentown. For food and cigarettes, you dig?” He was referring, of course, to the major tent city out by the wastewater treatment plant. “I goes out to de temple yesterday on me scooter just to snoop around and it look to be a dying scene. Some tourist from Kansas, he be all about leavin’, he tell me only Kali and a few die-hard followers still hangin’ out. I no try to get inside. Who know what happen to me skinny ass in dere.”

  I took a deep breath, then another, then brought up Message Three from Benny. Still in audio. “Late-breaking news, Boss. Kali has split. Word on de street. Destination unknown. On me way out to de temple yesterday, me squirrel down main drag and note dat odor of de town from mass toilet unflush now over de top! No water, remember? Hold yo’ nose, brudder! And also dis: High school now big tent city, football field gots hundreds o’ folks, cooking fires everywhere, people catch rabbits for dinner, I hear. We get water through tap sometimes, usually brown sludge, sometimes jus’ copper color, okay for shower-shave but no drinkee. Also no flushee. No prob, I got me pizza service for drinking stuff.”

  I turned my ahead away from the Amigo and looked out the window. We had been aloft for a little over three hours. It had been a smooth and uneventful trip so far. Through the clouds I could see a large land mass below. I figured we were just about over Greece, probably Athens. There was our escort, the Apache, about three hundred meters to the right of our craft.

  I saw the flash just a meter or so from our chopper, then the explosion. “We’re under attack!” screamed a male voice from the cockpit. The source of the voice, the co-pilot, suddenly appeared in the passenger section. “We are under attack!” he repeated, more calmly. “Be sure your seat belts are fastened and get ready for some rough weather!”

  “Who is it? Who’s attacking?” I asked without thinking, because I already knew from scanning the man’s mind that he had no idea. Gotta be Black Swan, Jill flashed to me. State Department said big Black Swan presence in Greece. Hang on tight.

  “Just stay in your seats,” said the co-pilot, and disappeared back into his little alcove, slamming shut the heavy metal doors.

  Another flash, plainly visible, another explosion. Then another. “The Apache! They got the Apache!” yelled Greta. A missile had indeed struck our companion helicopter, but it’s armor held; then the beast fired back at the source of the firepower, followed by a huge explosion on the ground and a fireball that leaped into the sky.

  “Bingo!” said Leela excitedly. “Got ’em!”

  “We’re not out of danger yet,” said Jill, calm and unflappable. “There’s no guarantee our armor could survive that kind of attack. Plus the State Department told me that Black Swan could have surface-to-air missile installations from Sicily to Cyprus.”

  The co-pilot appeared again in the doorway and had “bad news” written all over his face. He was tall, lean and angular, slightly hunched over in the cramped space. He didn’t need to speak, because Leela, Jill, and I already knew what he had to say. Greta obviously didn’t. We let him deliver the news.

  “Folks, it’s decision time. We’re about five hundred miles from the Nicosia airport. Under ordinary conditions, it would take just a little over two hours to get there. Now, we got a problem. We just got a transmission on the secure channel that civil war broke out on Cyprus this morning.

  “It’s all about water. The Greeks control what little is available, and they cut off the Turks’ water supply. So the Turks attacked the Greeks. Then Turkey, the country, started firing missiles at the Greeks on Cyprus. Now the whole island of Cyprus is on fire, chaos, fighting, just a hellhole. All of Embassy Row in Nicosia has been wiped out. Thank God our people in the American Embassy evacuated before the bombing started.”

  “The American Embassy…gone? How am I supposed to get my new orders?” asked Greta, somewhat inappropriately. “Oh….I get it. Sorry. Well, what are we going to do, Mr. Co-Pilot?”

  “That’s what I’m here to talk about, ma’m,” said the soldier with strained politeness. “We can take our chances and fly you into Nicosia International, which is right in the neutral zone between the Greeks and the Turks and hasn’t been touched by the fighting. There are still some good aircraft there we can all escape in. We hope. Unless the place gets bombed out before we get there. Then we’re stuck.”

  “Where else could we land?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Doesn’t America have any friends left in the Middle East?”

  “First, forget Turkey,” said the co-pilot. “There is an American airbase there, but the Turks on Turkey have gone completely insane. Then…Well, forget Syria. Lebanon. Jordan. Iraq? Iran? Ha ha! Okay, Israel. Airbase in Jerusalem. At least they still love us there. Only trouble is, Jerusalem is two hundred miles beyond our chopper’s maximum range. Chances are good that we would run out of fuel and have to ditch in the Mediterranean.”

  “Hmmmmmm,” I murmured. “And we noticed that some people on the ground are using us for target practice.”

  “That’s another thing,” said the co-pilot. “Hostile forces have launched an attack against our resources in the area. Our intelligence says it is the Black Swan organization, and that they may have weapons emplacements along the corridor we need to negotiate in order to land on Cyprus. Also, we may come under attack from other hostile forces on Cyprus. Intelligence says they are firing on any aircraft that attempts a landing on the island.”

  “In other words,” said Jill, “it appears that we are fucked.”

  The co-pilot stiffened. “I wouldn’t use that word exactly, ma’m. I would say that we are in imminent danger of being neutralized. Or better yet, obliterated.” He turned on his heels, said over his shoulder, “Please discuss your options and let us know what you decide to do. Our orders are to honor your decision to the best of our ability.” He looked out the window.

  “Holy shit!” he cried, suddenly dropping all military demeanor. “INCOMING!”

  He quickly disappeared into the cockpit. We all saw the missile fast approaching our chopper. The pilot executed an evasive maneuver and the thing missed us by about three meters. It exploded just above us, creating a concussion that shook t
he chopper like it was a limp doll.

  I glanced over at Leela and Jill. A look of understanding passed between us. When the chopper stopped trembling, I knocked on the cockpit door. “Yo, pilots! We have reached a decision!” The door opened slowly and a shaken co-pilot stood staring at me. “Full speed ahead, matey,” I said. “On to Cyprus, to that airport in the neutral zone. Take evasive action. We will do our part to keep us safe.”

  He shook his head and retreated back into the cockpit. I sat behind my psychic ladies and we began our secret operation: Together, we would create and maintain a force field around our chopper until we got to the Nicosia airport. It would take a whole lot of effort. Silence would need to be maintained. We would need to pool all of our psi mojo to pull this one off. We looked at each other, and joined hands.

  “All kinds of heavy firepower is gonna be coming our way, ladies,” I said softly. “That means bombs, rockets, heat-seeking missiles…Is this force field gonna work?” Leela and Jill nodded vigorously. I glanced over at Greta. She was busily biting her nails. “Anyone believe in the power of prayer?” I asked. The two psychics shook their heads; Greta nodded vigorously.

  “Then hold on tight and everything gonna be all right,” I said confidently, squeezing the hands of Leela and Jill and giving Greta a wink and a knowing smile. “I want to go home. I miss Sedona.”

  PART III

  Dateline: Beyond the Stars

  The Transition