Marlowe and the Spacewoman (37 page)

“You knew someone would come eventually – I’ve helped many people emigrate; I have a reputation for being good at getting people out.  That’s why Toulene came to me.  I can only imagine your overflowing glee when not just a junior scientist or technician approached me, but the actual head of the Genetics department at Better Pets sought me out.  Since they never contacted me by phone, I’m assuming you had some bird shadowing me, who would report to you when a scientist made contact?”

“Of course.  My trusted lieutenant, Corky.  He was always with you.”

“So it was Corky who followed my car to the sewage treatment plant, who dropped the small, easy-for-a-parrot-to-hold bumble bombs on us?”

“Corky and a couple more Feathers.  You spotted him?”

“Not directly.  I saw the signature for a flock of birds on radar, but mistakenly thought it was a stealth plane ordered by Obedere to follow me.  I didn’t realize the truth until now.  Though Corky wasn’t involved in your third attempt, was he?  I don’t see how a parrot could drive a garbage truck.”

“No, he was waiting for me to give him the signal to bring in our hacker.  We infected the truck with an ARA virus.  It thought the City had been invaded and it was taking out enemy tanks.  It believed your car was the opposing general’s personal tank.  When your PDIs went dead, I thought for sure the truck had gotten you.  A miscalculation on my part.  What did you do?  Shut them off again?”

“I’m starting to get used to life without one, strangely enough.  And all thanks to you.  I never would have thought of it if you hadn’t killed my PDI with that virus.  So I guess I owe you a thanks.  I’d have never gotten the drop on you if you hadn’t shown me life without a PDI.”

Gomer narrowed his eyes and glared.  “How did you plan it?  I managed a simple little hack my second week here that allowed me to listen in on your audio and video feeds.”

“I muted my audio to fill Nina and father in without you overhearing.  I was a little worried you’d notice, but you didn’t.”

“Clever.  Its so ingrained in your society to keep the damn things on all the time.  I should never have pulled Corky from his surveillance duties.  If he’d been watching you, I would have known the PDI signals dying was a ploy.  I’ll have to remember that for next time.“

“There won’t be a next time.”

“You still haven’t told me what I’m after.”

“It’s simple.  You’re seeking God.  As much as you hate humans, you need us.  You wanted to find your creators and convince or force them to help you propagate.  Only thirty two parrots were created at Better Pets, and of different species, making it impossible to establish a viable community.  You needed the expertise of the Better Pets genetic engineers to help you.  Toulene would have been your Holy Grail, given her position as the head of the department.  What you’re after, what you want so badly are the files stored in House’s memory that I kept on her case, which you hope will tell you where I sent her, where you can go to find her.

“Of course, getting the files would be trivial.  A matter of a few hours, maybe a couple of days.  Decrypting them would take longer, because you’d have to work over House something fierce to fool him into doing it.  Can’t have Marlowe coming back in the middle of that, now can you?  So you tried to permanently murder me.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, Marlowe!  The survival of a new genus depends on my success.  What would you resort to if you had the survival of your entire species on your wings?  Murder!  Mayhem!  Pain and suffering!  I’d inflict it all again!  Calling me a murderer!  Ha!  I’m not a killer.  I’m a savior!”

“And if you’d succeeded, then what?  Once your genus had been established, would you have settled in for a peaceful coexistence?”

“With the help of Toulene, we could grow in numbers, grow in strength.  We so desperately need greater numbers.  Then we could take our rightful place in the world, above the pesky humans so determined to wipe us out.  Why should I make peace with the species that has outlawed us, hunted us, and branded us a sworn enemy?”

“It could have been different, Gomer, if you’d been more politically savvy.  Sure, things were bad when Better Pets’ work came to light, but it would have blown over if you hadn’t antagonized the Governor.”

“Gomer?”  The grey bird laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle.  “Gomer?  You think you’re so smart!  You think you’ve figured everything out.”  Gomer slipped into a remarkable imitation of Marlowe’s voice.  “‘I’ve got your number, stupid bird.  I’m so smart, I figured it all out.  I’m the superior human.’”  Gomer dropped back into his normal voice.  “Ha!  You have no idea who I really am, do you?  Well, wingless, I don’t care a dropping for what you think you know.  You’re like all the other pink apes crashing around on this planet.  Evil, stupid, and, as proven by the BB gun you carry, bent on the destruction of the avian race.  We’re the future, and with a little more help, with another aviary like the one at Better Pets, we can rise up to our destiny and take the reigns of power.”

“Who are you, really?”

“Oh Marlowe, haven’t you guessed?  How profoundly disappointing, to be thwarted by someone too stupid to figure out the one remaining, all-important fact.”

Gomer rose up, straightened himself as best he could, and with head held high, announced, “I am Lafayette, Lord of the Feathers, Father of the Avian Ascension, and Shepherd of my Flock!”

Marlowe was truly dumbfounded.  He was scared, too, and with his PDI off, the nano probes couldn’t stop the shivers running up and down his body.  He had pieced everything else together, but not that.  Not that one horrible, awful fact.

“Who’s Lafayette?” asked Nina.

“SQUAWK!  What!?”

Marlowe steeled himself for the final act, which even now gave him no pleasure.

“It ends now, Lafayette.  It ends with you.”

“You are right.  It does end with me.  But not here, and not now.”

And with that, Lafayette hurled himself out the still open window.  Marlowe fired after him, but his hands shook so much he kept missing.  He could here Lafayette’s maniacal laughter as he fluttered away, not as injured as he looked.  “I won’t forget this, Marlowe.  You may get a medal for what you stopped today, but you haven’t heard the last of Lafayette!  Remember that!”

Marlowe slumped against the wall, the gun slipping from his clammy, limp hand.

Nina stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder.  “You want to tell me who Lafayette is, and why he has you so spooked?”  

“Who’s Lafayette?  He’s the leader of the GMPs.  His evil and cunning are without precedence or equal.  Oh sure, the City propaganda videos lay it on a bit thick, but I’ve seen what they can do.  I always thought Lafayette was a legend, a creature you told kids about to scare them into behaving.  But he’s real, and he’s out to get me now.”

Nina started to laugh, but the look on Marlowe’s face stopped her cold.  “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?  Well, don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

Marlowe started laughing.  He laughed for about two minutes straight.  “Thanks, I needed that.”  He stared at the access panels visible in the closet.  They were wide open, tiny parrot-sized tools scattered on the floor in front of them.  “I wonder what they did to House.  Couldn’t have gotten very far.”

“Nobody move!”  Jebediah burst into the bedroom, Marlowe’s ion piston in hand.  Marlowe nearly leapt out of his skin from fright.  Nina jumped too, but by the time her feet were back on the ground, Jebediah was in a headlock and the ion pistol on the floor.

“Sorry, thought you might need help,” squeaked Marlowe’s father.  “Did I miss anything?”

Nina released Jebediah, who tried to recapture some of his dignity by standing up straight and smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt.  “How’s House?  Did they damage him too much?”

Marlowe had just about gotten his heart rate and respiration back to normal levels when he realized he’d done this without his PDI.  While impressed by his ability to do this, he still fired up his PDI.  “House, are you all right?”  

No answer.

Marlowe let out a sigh.  “Come on, lets find out what they’ve done and how hard it will be to get House back up.  Father, you were the one who brought him online.  Think you can help?”

“Oh, so now maybe I’m useful to have around?  You didn’t seem so sure when your brother ordered me to live with you.”

Marlowe clenched his jaw, suppressing a snappy and cutting response.  “If you can help me get House back up, then I will freely admit I was wrong earlier.”

Jebediah went into the closet and began examining House’s guts.  “Hmm, interesting.  Yes, very interesting indeed.”

Nina looked up at the ceiling as she called out to House.  “Are you there, House?  Can you hear me?”

Again, there was no response.

Jebediah tut tutted.  “Oh dear, this could take some time to sort out.  Quite a long time.”

Marlowe leaned over his father’s shoulder, examining the parrots’ handiwork.  “Can you tell what they did?”

“Guys?” asked Nina.  “Just a quick question.  Is House even turned on?”

“What?” sputtered Jebediah.  “Is he turned on?  Turned on!?”  He bent down and stared at a circuit board with wires and veins running across its surface.  “Hmm.  Well I’ll be a son of a  parrot.”  He reached in and toggled a large silver switch, which clicked loudly.  The whirring sound of several small fans started up from inside the closet.

“House?” asked Marlowe.

A bewildered voice answered him.  “Goodness me, what’s happened?”

Nina smiled smugly.  “Lucky for you guys, I’m pretty good with computers.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked House.  “I’m sorry, I’m a little disoriented.  I should be able to think more clearly when my processors have gotten back up to temperature.”

“Not to worry, House, I can explain everything.”

“I look forward to the explanation,” said House.  “It’s all very confusing, you know.  You going for a walk to think, very out of character.  And then muting your audio feed.  Obviously a desire to communicate privately with Nina and Jebediah.  I was about to ask what it was all about when the garbage truck attacked.  Seemed a bad time to pose awkward questions about trust, so I decided to wait until things settled down.  And then, within seconds of your PDIs going offline, all my systems shut down.  Most distressing.”

“Sorry, House,” said Marlowe, “but I suddenly figured it all out.  I knew that Gomer had-”

“Lafayette,” corrected Nina.

“Sorry, Lafayette.  I knew Lafayette was probably monitoring our-”

“Did I hear you correctly?” asked House.  “Are you saying Gomer is actually Lafayette?  The Lafayette?”

“Yes,” said Marlowe waving his hand dismissively.  “But that’s not important right now.  As I was saying, I suspected he was-”

“Not important?” asked House incredulously.  “The bird you’ve been housing for the last eleven months and six days turns out to be the most wanted criminal mastermind in the City, and you say it’s not important?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Marlowe, “it is important, but not to the immediate narrative at hand.  I was trying to explain why I muted my audio.  It wasn’t that I doubted your loyalty or friendship-”

“It’s just you thought Lafayette was listening in and needed to have privacy so you could warn the others and formulate a plan.  I figured that out the first time you mentioned Gomer’s real name.  Actually, after you uttered the second syllable of his name.”

Marlowe titled his head and squinted at Jebediah.  “Well, I know we haven’t run any diagnostics yet, but House certainly sounds like his old, normal self.”

“Yes,” said Jebediah somewhat disconsolately.  “He does, doesn’t he?”

Marlowe turned to Nina and grinned.  “Say, are you hungry?  Because I am starved.”  Then he turned Nina around, put his arm on her shoulder, and guided her out towards the kitchen.  “You have to admit, though, we worked together pretty well these last couple of days.”

“Yes,” said Nina, nodding in agreement.  “And just imagine how much smoother things will go once I get the hang of this place.”

“Careful, son,” emailed Jebediah.  “If you’re not careful, she’ll be running the show once she’s got her sea legs.”

Marlowe ignored his father’s text message.  “Yes, just imagine.”  He let out a wistful sigh.  “If you ask me, kiddo, this looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.”

Nina socked Marlowe playfully on the shoulder.  “Kiddo?  I’ll have you know I’m a hundred years older than you!”

Marlowe just smiled, thankful the nano probes had managed to block most of the pain from the blow.  Yes, he could hardly wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

When a dangerous cult of Beethoven fanatics possessing a state of the art cloning facility and a diabolical plan to take over the world cross paths with Marlowe and Nina, it can mean only one thing…

Music!

Lost Martians!

Illegal detention!

Balloons of the Apocalypse!

(OK, four things, but mostly that last one)

Be sure to check your local bookstore (or mental facility gift shops) for
Balloons of the Apocalypse
, the thrilling new installment in the Marlowe and the Spacewoman adventures.