Rhubarb (22 page)

“Oh, cry me a river. Fine, then. If you don’t do it for
yourself, then do it for Cheryl, and poor Martin here,” said Jeffrey.

“Give me one reason I should let you walk out of this
Perkins,” said Martin.

“Because the next development analyst they send might not be
as easy on Cheryl,” said Jeffrey. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He pushed his
empty plates away, downed the last of his coffee, and slid out of the booth. He
picked up the bill and zipped it through his fingers. “This one’s on me,
gentlemen. Oh, and, Stewart? He’ll be here in…” Jeffrey checked his phone.
“…let’s say, a few days. So don’t take too long making up your mind. Have a
nice day.”

When Jeffrey had paid the bill and left, Martin poured out
his fury in the form of way too much syrup on his pancakes.

“You know, Martin,” said Stewart. “He made that offer to
you, too.”

“Yesterday, you said I’d be dead if I gave it to him,” said
Martin.

“Perhaps, but if you give the recipe directly to the CEO,
you might be able to win a solid deal for yourself. And Cheryl,” said Stewart.

“How can I even consider that?” asked Martin.

“I’m just saying,” said Stewart.

As they left, Martin tossed a few bills on the table.
“Bastard probably didn’t leave a tip.”

~ * * * ~

“It is no accident of history that gave the Rothschild
family controlling ownership of the Federal Reserve Bank. They control it
because they’re allowed to. And the CFR, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral
Commission, the Club of Rome—they’re only the middlemen to whom the Rothschilds
answer. These organizations mask themselves in public as think tanks or policy
research cooperatives, but those are only fronts. They perform tasks and affect
policy to shield the truly important organizations that cannot afford such
exposure: the Freemasons—and I don’t mean your little neighborhood lodge down
the street—the Vatican, and the Illuminati.”

“And those are the organizations that communicate with the
Reptoids?”

“The Freemasons learned their secrets from the Reptoids
during the building of the Egyptian pyramids. If you deconstruct their rites,
they’re about preparing the human mind for meeting with an actual Reptoid, as
well as preserving the knowledge for preparing the world’s infrastructure for
the Reptoids’ arrival. Think of the Freemasons as hardware, whereas the
Illuminati are the software. The Illuminati manage the preparation of politics,
economics, and propaganda.”

“What of the Vatican?”

“It’s strange, Lee, but there have been no reports of
Reptoid visitations to the Holy See in many years. The last rumored visit might
have coincided with the death of Pope John Paul I, who, if you remember, held
the office for only thirty-three days in 1978. This suggests that the Reptoids
may have been involved with his death. With no known contact since, we have to
wonder why the Reptoids have severed relations with the Vatican. Did they fall
out of favor? Or did they complete their preparations for the arrival?”

“Can you describe what might happen during the arrival? And
what preparations are being made?”

“Given the population-control measures that are being
devised, I think we can safely assume they’re not coming to eat us. Ha ha ha.
Seriously, though, they are preparing the world economies and the minds of the
human population. I believe that we are intended to be servants, or slaves, if
you will, but willing ones. It’s about mind control. We’ll wake up one day in a
familiar but alien world. There will be no more freedom. We will essentially be
breeding stock.”

“What of those who are helping to prepare the way? The Illuminati
and others?”

“Conspirators will be retained in positions of power and
maintain certain privileges, but they’re delusional if they think that the
Reptoids will tolerate their freedom for long. After several generations, human
intercessors won’t be necessary.”

“I suppose the questions are these: What can we do? Is this
inevitable? Has the countdown already begun? What hope do we have?”

“Those are exactly the questions, Lee.”

“Indeed. A wakeup call for the Waker Nation if I’ve ever
heard one. We’ll be back with your phone calls and more questions for our
guest, Raymond Erickson, after this short break. Stay awake and stay with us.”

Martin turned down the commercial. “Is any of that true?” he
asked.

“No,” said Stewart.

The tires thrummed along the road surface. The reflector
posts slipped by in time. The high beams stretched out, but blinded Martin to
all else beyond the dashboard and the few yards of pavement ahead.

“Then why do you listen to it?” asked Martin.

“To keep informed,” said Stewart.

“So some of it’s true?”

“Nah. It’s all bunk. But if you’re hiding in plain sight,
it’s good to know if anyone’s looking in your direction.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve put you in danger,” said Martin.

“I’m surprised it’s taken this long. You should have seen me
when I first took over Stewart Campion’s life. I had no idea how to be human.
Luckily, he was a bit of a drunk. Everyone assumed that having to take care of
the baby shook me straight. I got to be a new man, sober and getting my act
together. Everyone was more than happy to excuse my faults and quirks.”

“When Linda got back, did she…?” asked Martin.

“She figured it out pretty quick,” said Stewart.

“But she let you stick around, even after what she’d gone
through?”

“I promised to take care of Cheryl, and that was good enough
for her. She knew she wasn’t right.”

“Did you love her?”

“Linda? I don’t know if I’d call it love. I did what I
needed to do for Cheryl. If that meant taking care of Linda through her spells
and then through the cancer, so be it. I felt responsible.”

“You’re a good human, Stewart,” said Martin. Stewart
laughed, but his laughter turned to coughing. When his coughs subsided, Martin
asked, “So what are you? I mean, if it’s not rude to ask. Are you a Gray? Or
one of these Reptoids?”

“If I had to describe us in Earth terms, we’re something
more akin to squid or octopus,” said Stewart.

“You’re aquatic?”

“Part of our lives. We’re hatched underwater. Many return to
the oceans later in life. We often vacation there.”

“Aliens take vacations?”

“Why does that surprise you?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it.”

“We sleep. We dream. Some of us are artists and
storytellers. We have extended and complex families. For instance, I have 386
brothers and sisters. One of my sisters is a well-known dramatist.”

“A dramatist? Wow,” said Martin. “So you’re not all
genocidal purveyors of packaged food?”

“It was a job,” said Stewart.

A mileage sign flashed by. Still seventeen miles out of
Havre. Martin hoped the motel had held his room—their room—this late. He took a
long, sputtering drag on the last of his Diet Mountain Dew.

“You know,” said Stewart, “I’ve been thinking about what you
asked yesterday, about destroying the portal.”

“You said it was pointless,” said Martin.

“It is,” said Stewart. “That’s why maybe we need to think
about the production facility instead.”

“Destroying it?”

“Or disabling it,” said Stewart. “It’ll be big.”

“You haven’t seen it?”

“I saw a few drawing-board sketches on my way here. It’s
mostly a transport for all the bots that will do the work. They’re
self-replicating, so there’s just the bare minimum, but still…”

“How big?”

“Bigger than a city, smaller than a county,” said Stewart.

“Could you be a little more specific?”

“I wish I could,” said Stewart.

“And how would we destroy such a massive thing? This staple
gun doesn’t have a hydrogen bomb setting, does it?” Stewart sneered. “Plus
Cheryl’s up there. I presume we’d like to get her out first,” said Martin.

“I’m aware of that,” said Stewart.

“If you have an idea, out with it already,” said Martin.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” said Stewart. “It’s a
wild-assed notion.”

“And the first step is…?”

“We go back to Brixton.”

“Why? What’s in Brixton? A spaceship or something?” asked
Martin.

“More or less,” Stewart replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that,” said Stewart.

“You mean, you’ve had a spaceship this whole time and it
didn’t seem relevant to mention that until now?” Martin couldn’t believe he’d
just uttered that sentence. He felt like whiny Luke Skywalker dithering about
after the princess while Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t telling him the whole story. But
this wasn’t
Star Wars
. Or who knows—maybe it was.

“You have to understand how it works,” said Stewart.

“By all means, explain it to me then,” said Martin.

“Vehicles, like the semi you tried to stow away in, are
nothing more than shuttles. They can’t operate far from their mother ship.
They’re able to travel through the off-ramp portal, and on the roads here on
Earth; I wouldn’t even call them spaceships. They’re equipped with bits of
technology that make a temporary bubble, good for a few minutes of heat and air
to get you through space. Another bit talks to the portal and the mother ship
dock, which pulls the vehicles in.”

Caught in a tractor beam. Of course, thought Martin. Why
not? He’d barely slept since he’d shot at Jeffrey, and all he had to look
forward to tonight was another motel mattress and an audio tour of Stewart’s
sinuses. This is my descent into madness. Why fight it?

Forget Luke. WWHSD? What would Han Solo do? “So let’s go
hijack another truck and get Cheryl.” Either that or hide under the
floorboards.

“That would only get us onto the truck’s mother ship, not
the production facility,” said Stewart.

“How does that help us get her?”

“It doesn’t,” said Stewart.

Damn fool, I knew you were going to say that, thought
Martin. “I’m not getting this, Stewart.”

Stewart took a deep, wheezing breath. “I have the vehicle I
was issued in 1986. It has the devices installed that have the access codes.
That’s what will get us onto the production facility.”

“Do they know you have this ship?”

“Of course,” said Stewart.

“Then what makes you think they haven’t changed the codes in
twenty-five years?”

“Jeffrey’s propped the door open for me. He doesn’t want to
shut me out now,” said Stewart.

Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows
him? “Okay. I’ll buy that for the moment. But Jeffrey’s not just going to turn
Cheryl over,” said Martin. “And you said it yourself—anything we do risks him
pressing the button and heading for Earth, or hurting Cheryl.”

“All true,” said Stewart.

“And he’s probably not there alone,” said Martin.

“Actually, he might be.”

“Really?” asked Martin.

“There’d only be one or two others, maximum. Maybe a
laboratory guy, maybe a trainee. Have you ever seen Jeffrey with anyone, like
he’s working with them?”

“Never,” said Martin.

“Probably not a trainee then,” said Stewart.

“What’s this plan of yours? You’re still being vague.”

“That’s because I haven’t worked out all the details. It’s a
variation on a contingency plan I came up with years ago—something to put into
action if I ever got wind that they’d gotten the recipe. I was going to hijack
a truck, kind of like you did, take it back through the portal, and crash its
mother ship cargo vessel into the production facility before it could get
through the portal to Earth.”

“Sounds like a suicide mission,” said Martin. Han Solo would
have noted that right away.

“It might be,” said Stewart. “Although I was kind of hoping
to be able to set an autopilot and get back onto the shuttle vehicle before I
had to resort to that.” Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home, eh, Stewart?

“Are these cargo vessels large enough to destroy the
production facility?” asked Martin.

“Should be. Like I told you, the facility’s mostly a big
dumb warehouse. You crash into the engines or destroy the control section, it’s
not going to go anywhere.”

“And they wouldn’t shoot it down or anything?”

“It’s a factory, not a battleship,” said Stewart.

“I thought it might be armed.”

“This ain’t
Star Trek
; this is real life,” said
Stewart.

“What’s to keep them from coming back to repair it, or
building another one?” asked Martin.

Stewart shrugged and harrumphed. He coughed a few times,
then a few times more. “Sorry,” he said when the fit had subsided.

“Let me get this straight,” said Martin. “Your plan is to
hijack another truck, then for us to take that
and
your company
spaceship up there. Get on board the facility and rescue Cheryl,
while—what?—distracting Jeffrey with an imminent cargo ship collision?”

“That’s the general gist of it,” said Stewart.

“There’s about a billion things that could go wrong with
that,” said Martin.

“I know,” said Stewart.

“It would take really precise timing,” said Martin.

“Never said otherwise,” said Stewart.

“It’s completely crazy.”

“You said you wanted to do something. You got a better
plan?”

I could get two motel rooms in Havre so I don’t have to
listen to you snore all night. “So where’s this spaceship of yours?” asked
Martin.

“Hank’s junkyard,” said Stewart.

“Let me guess, Hank’s an alien, too?” Brixton, Montana.
You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

“Nah, he’s just my mechanic,” said Stewart.

We must be cautious.

~ * * * ~

Martin and Stewart left Havre long before the motel put out
the complimentary breakfast, and long before the sun began to rise. But when it
peeked over the horizon a few miles out of Brixton, Stewart checked his phone
for a signal and called ahead. “He’s an early riser,” Stewart told Martin as he
waited for an answer.