Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence Page 3

  "It was nice, I guess," Frank shrugged. He looked around at the hundreds of volumes of law books lining the walls of the office. Old books still bound in their original materials that looked like they'd fall apart if you touched their spine. New books programmed into individual scrolls of paper-thin plastic that contained rules of criminal procedure for ten thousand different species that fell under the judge's jurisdiction.

  The judge waived for his son to sit down and said, "I'm glad you're here. We have a lot to discuss."

  Frank nodded slowly and said, "Yes, we do."

  Judge Kelly cocked an eyebrow at him suspiciously and said, "I don't like the sound of that. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, I was just agreeing with you," Frank said quickly, feeling his courage begin to dissipate faster than he could keep hold of it.

  "All right, well then let's get to it. I've already made several inquiries about openings at law schools in this sector. Obviously, I'd like you to go to Marbrax U. since that's where I went, but I'm not trying to sway you in any way. Even though I golf with the Dean of Admissions and just helped his son on a serious criminal case. That boy's going to be a problem, you mark my words."

  Judge Kelly kept speaking, until his voice was nothing but a low buzz in Frank's ears, and Frank had to speak to stop the buzzing or else he'd have been driven insane by it. "Dad, I'm not going to law school," Frank blurted out. "I don't want to be a lawyer."

  The judge continued, not listening, "And you can always apply to Vegaview School of Galactic Law if you want a good back up university. I know people on the board there who will definitely want a judge's son in their class."

  "Dad," Frank said. "I'm not going to law school."

  His father's head cocked sideways in confusion, as if Frank had just spoken in an alien language. "Sorry," he said. "What was that?"

  "I don't want to be a lawyer. Or a judge. I'm not going to law school."

  "What are you talking about? You've always wanted to be a lawyer. Why the hell else did you major in Criminal Law at college if you didn't want to be a lawyer?"

  "Because that was what you said you'd pay for," Frank said. "In fact, it was the only thing you said you'd pay for."

  The judge leaned back in his chair and studied his son carefully, like an opponent who'd just produced a weapon unexpectedly. He shifted in his seat then, gearing up to deal with the new challenge to his authority.

  That would easily be dealt with.

  Judge Kelly was a man accustomed to speaking with people who needed to be instructed. There were plenty of young men and women and vorakks and P'authia Giant Worm Segments and hundreds of other misguided and directionless youths who came into his court on a daily basis who needed to be instructed. He got out of his chair and walked over to close the office door and lock it. He quickly entered a series of numbers into a keypad on the wall and the room darkened momentarily as a bright blue beam of light stretched from one wall to the other and quickly rippled across every surface. The computer on the judge's desk went dark, and one-by-one, every electronic device in the room followed.

  Frank reached into his pocket and looked at his phone. The screen was black.

  "Maximum level of privacy ensured," the wall unit's computerized voice said.

  The judge leaned his hip against the edge of his desk, taking his time and gathering his words in his mind before he said them. He looked down at his son with a patient smile and said, "I'm going to talk to you like a man, Frank. There are things about this universe you don't understand, because you were never exposed to them. You were protected as the son of a judge, growing up on this planet in an all-human colony. Now, I know you just came out of school and they spent four years filling your head up with all that feel good nonsense about humans and aliens, but I'm telling you that it's not really like that. I don't call them sludgesuckers, but let's face it, that's what they are. They aren't like us, and they never will be. And if we walk around with our rosy-shade sunglasses on, thinking they'll somehow appreciate us, we're living in a fantasy.

  "Out here in the real world, these aliens are waiting to try and overrun us, son. Now, luckily, we've got control of things for the most part, but they outnumber us twenty to one, and if they all get their act together some day it's going to be all-out war. We are going to be fighting for our own survival. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  Frank looked at his father and said, "My school was multi-species. The valedictorian of our class was a Baltricorian."

  The judge waved his hand and said, "Sure, sure, of course there are some good aliens out there. I even have friends who are aliens, son. They managed to make something of themselves and didn't ask for handouts and didn't take the easy way. But I'm telling you, I see it every day. These alien scum will gut you and eat you quick as look at you."

  "That's funny, people say the same thing about lawyers," Frank said.

  The judge folded his hands in his lap and said, "Before I go any further, let me ask you this. What would you rather do than go to law school?"

  Frank braced himself. This was the moment of truth. "I want to be a doctor," he said.

  "A doctor?" the judge said, laughing sharply. "You want to go to medical school?"

  "That's right," Frank said.

  "Well, you can forget it. Listen, the medical profession used to be something respectable. Your Uncle Michael was a pediatrician, back before the government mandated all this cross-training, multi-species nonsense. His last delivery took thirteen hours and he wound up pulling forty-two eggs out of an Arachnothoid's rear end. Can you imagine that? Having to stick your hand up the hind quarters of some enormous spider? So get this, he finally gets all of the eggs out and starts putting them into the incubator. He can see all the tiny little spider babies crawling around inside the eggs, their little faces and furry legs, pushing against the membranes trying to get out. Just when he thinks it's over, the mother goes nuts and starts eating the eggs. He's trying to pull her off to save the babies he just delivered, and when security finally shows up, guess who they restrain?"

  "Uncle Mike," Frank said.

  "Uncle Mike," the judge continued, before waiting for his son to finish speaking. "They restrain him because he's violating some sort of sovereign species birthing law and he's got to watch his own patient sit there and eat half of her own babies. They took away his license after that, Frank. They took away his livelihood. He died begging on the streets. All because of some sludgesucker who wanted to eat her babies."

  And of course, you were too embarrassed by him to help him, Frank thought. He pressed ahead, knowing it was not the time for accusations. "I thought you didn't use that word?" Frank said.

  "Oh, grow up. I thought we were having an adult conversation."

  "Dad, I know it sounds bizarre but it's completely normal for the Arachnothoid species. They're too weak to produce milk after such a long birthing process, so they consume enough of their own eggs to feed the rest of the babies. She wasn't trying to kill the eggs, she was fighting to save them. Uncle Mike should have known that before he started the procedure."

  The judge stared blankly at Frank and said, "Do you hear yourself talking? That was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what doctors have to deal with now. Forget it. End of discussion. You're going to law school, and that's final."

  Frank steeled himself, suddenly glad he was sitting down because he was sure his legs were shaking now. "No, I'm not," he said.

  The judge slammed the desk in front of him and said, "You little ungrateful son of a bitch, I paid for you to go to college so you'd have some sort of future instead of glomming off of me the rest of your life. You pick anything else and you are on your own. Don't ask me for a damn thing."

  Frank sighed deeply and said, "I kind of thought you'd say that. I understand."

  The judge slammed his fist on a hidden button on his desk and the lights kicked back on. He turned away from Frank to focus on his computer's vidscreen, busying himself with some suddenly-importa
nt message or a new legal decision he'd been writing for weeks that would eventually be included in one of these same books surrounding them. He focused on anything he could find that was not his only son, standing by his desk, looking down at him.

  Frank was used to it. He reached in his pocket for the graduation tassel and dropped it on his father's desk without another word, and then he walked out.

  He rode the lift down from the judge's chambers to the courthouse's main entrance. It was packed with people and aliens and prisoners and uniformed courthouse staff. Everyone was stopped at the front entrance and body scanned for weapons. Because of the multi-species makeup of the Unification employees and a thousand other reasons, courthouses were high-valued targets for terrorists.

  Not that any of the alien species working here had the good jobs, Frank thought. They were sludgesuckers, the most vulgar term imaginable to describe anything non-human that had the temerity to think and speak and do more than just serve as food or pets. Some of the aliens Frank had met at school came from races that were hundreds of thousands of years old with a rich and varied culture. They had pursued art and holistic technologies instead of building massive ships that could skirt around the universe and weapons large enough to wipe out entire civilizations. Unfortunately, the humans had done exactly those things and now, we've taken over, Frank thought.

  He watched the multi-tentacled Squiddites mopping the courthouse floors instead of swimming in their native ocean planets. There were several massive Mantipors standing guard in front of the courtrooms instead of roaming the caverns and ancient ruins of the once-great temples and coliseums of their home world. Now, they've become our low-paying janitors and security officers, and all of them have human supervisors to answer to. Somehow, that's called progress, he thought.

  For all Unification's speech-making about alien integration, the only people working on any floor above the main lobby were human. All of the faces in the photographs outside his father's office, or any other judge's office, to be certain, were human also.

  Frank watched another alien push a maintenance cart into the nearest bathroom to clean it and thought, Is this what the Sapienists are so upset about? Humans weren't even applying for that kind of work anymore. They considered it beneath them.

  Actually, I wonder how much those jobs pay. I'll have to find some way or another to afford medical school.

  He got into line to be funneled through the main exit, waiting behind a dozen others to be buzzed out the doors. He watched the people stepping into the body scanners and raising their arms, or wings, or tentacles, or whatever they had, waiting for the light on the scanner to turn from red to green. When he got tired of that, he saw a kiosk nearby with Unification Works! printed across the front and sides. He ran his finger along the pamphlet titles until one caught his eye that said, "Military Service - Securing Your Future, and Ours."

  The line continued to move as Frank scanned through the folded scroll, touching each image to make it come to life. There were short clips of sharp-looking uniformed men and women jumping over barricades and running to the rescue of some emergency with lots of smoke in the background. There were training montages of young men doing pull-ups, and women performing hand-to-hand combat moves. A starship pilot pulled up his display visor and gave Frank a wide smile and a thumbs up. The last image reflected Frank's face as he looked down at the scroll and he saw a soft red light blinking in his eyes and knew it was scanning him. The scroll was scanning his name and identity and personal history in order to find the most attractive, alluring image it could.

  Suddenly, a picture of Frank appeared on the scroll. He was walking into a court room wearing a suit, carrying a briefcase. The image dissolved to read, "THIS CAN BE YOU FRANK KELLY. UNIFICATION MILITARY SERVICES WILL PAY FOR LAW SCHOOL."

  Frank folded the scroll pamphlet and put it back in place in the information kiosk. "Wrong guess," Frank said.

  Just as he crossed through the threshold to leave, he saw a beggar walking toward the front door who looked at him and nodded encouragingly. "Keep going, friend," the man mumbled as Frank walked past.

  "I will, thanks," Frank said instinctively, thinking that somehow this poor man, this complete stranger dressed in clothes so baggy they were falling off of him, had seen the look on Frank's face and recognized the need for a brief affirmation. A little pat on the shoulders telling him not to give up.

  Frank picked up his pace as he walked into the warm summer sun. It felt good to be outside, breathing clean air instead of the tightly-controlled and sanitized oxygen of the courthouse. What did his father know anyway? Frank was half tempted to go back and grab some of the pamphlets from Unification Works! and slide them under the judge's chambers door.

  He looked back at the courthouse from the sidewalk, trying to get one last glimpse of the man who'd told him "Keep going," and saw that he was just about to walk into the scanning booth. In that moment, he saw that what he'd mistaken for a beggar's baggy clothing were actually oversized and loose enough to conceal hidden equipment. The man lifted his arms to enter the scanner and Frank looked in horror at the belt of thick plastic squares tied around his waist.

  Sirens erupted from the scanner just as the man cried out, "Humans forever!"

  There was a bright flash of light and everything turned white like Frank was looking straight into the sun. He heard a low, dull whumping sound that sounded like distant cannon fire and the next thing he knew, he was pushed backwards like someone shoved him in the chest. The force of the explosion sent him tumbling end over end, sending him onto his back and head, skittering across the sidewalk like a stone skipping across flat water.

  A Unification soldier came to visit Frank in the hospital later that week.

  The soldier was only a few years older than Frank, but his face was already weathered and lined with deep, furrowed marks along both sides of his face. The ballistic vest covering his uniform shirt read Unification Investigator in bright letters across his chest. Frank saw the outline of sizing stickers that still remained on the man's uniform and said, "Brand new outfit?"

  The soldier smiled and said, "I've never been big on wearing it. I try and spend as much time in plain clothes as possible, fitting in with the locals and gathering intel. But Command wanted us all down here in uniform just to show the flag, I guess."

  "Show the flag?" Frank said.

  The soldier tapped the word Unification on his chest and said, "You know, giving the panicked locals the reassurance that your government is here and everything is going to be okay."

  Frank laughed bitterly and said, "Is everything going to be okay?"

  "No, absolutely not," the soldier said. "Not for a really long time. But in the meantime, it's my job to find the people who did this and bring them to justice. Would you mind if I asked you some questions about what happened?"

  Frank shrugged and said, "Sure. Go for it."

  "The man you saw, the bomber. He said something to you in the courtyard as you walked out. I saw it on camera. What was it?"

  Frank closed his eyes and leaned back, trying to focus. "He said, 'Keep going,' and he called me friend," Frank said.

  "Keep going? As in, get the hell out of here?"

  "I don't know," Frank said. "Probably, but at the time, I was thinking he meant something else."

  "Like what?"

  "It sounds stupid."

  "I've heard stupider, I promise," the soldier said.

  Frank sighed, "I thought he meant, like, hang in there, or something. I'd just had a fight with my dad and probably looked like it."

  "I see," the soldier said. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat, obviously taking his time with the next thing he needed to say. "Has anyone spoken to you about that? About your dad I mean?"

  "That he's dead?" Frank said. "Yeah, the doctor told me. I guess that lets you off the hook from doing the death notification, huh?"

  "It's not something I enjoy," the soldier said.

  "I bet it isn't."r />
  "Do you remember anything?"

  "After that lunatic told me to keep going? Just that when I looked back I saw him lift his hands and there were all these plastic packages attached to his waist, like some sort of belt. Then I saw a bright flash and heard a low thump. There wasn't any big sound of an explosion."

  "It's because of the materials in the bomb," the soldier said. "Certain metals burn faster than the speed of sound, so they don't register to the human ear. You just hear the initial burst. They do it on purpose, so people nearby aren't alerted. It helps them raise their kill count." He frowned slightly and said, "Sorry, I guess you don't care about the details. I probably wouldn't."

  Frank sat up a little and said, "Actually, you're wrong. Obviously the bomber's dead, but somebody had to send him in there. It was the Sapienists, right?"

  The soldier looked over his shoulder at the door to make sure there was no one listening. "We're thinking the Sapienists are almost finished. They're breaking up into smaller cells that operate independently. They've adopted some sort of religious fanaticism about the whole thing that's driving people crazy. I'm working on a lead."

  "You are?" Frank said. "Really?"

  "Yeah. Not much of one, but it's something." The soldier pulled a tablet computer out of the side pocket of his vest and placed his palm on the screen to authorize access. "We got this video right after the explosion." He went to hand Frank the tablet, then stopped and said, "Are you sure you want to see it? I should probably leave you alone and let you get some rest instead of bothering you with all this."

  Instead of responding, Frank reached up and took the tablet out of his hands and laid it down on his lap. He watched as the screen filled with the digitized face of a man who muttered, "The human God has given us power over you, wicked servants of the Beast." The camera backed away to reveal fifty other men standing behind him, and all of them were dressed in dark robes with scarlet symbols of skulls printed across them. "The Beast shall be known by its hoof and fang, by its non-corporeal form, and slithering tentacles. Death to all sludgesuckers and those that would enthrone them. Today, you saw the flames of God's decision to punish you. We are his punishment. We are the cleansing fire."