Lucy and Ray Read online

  Lucy and Ray

  by Stan Ruecker

  Text copyright © 2013 Stan Ruecker

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  Prologue

  Ray

  Boiled cabbage

  Trouble

  Historical interlude

  Ray leaves town

  A bad flight

  Alien machine

  Face to face

  No damage

  Lucy

  Ain’t nobody here but us chickens

  Reveries of a solitary walker

  Secrets

  Trouble with women

  Ted’s friend

  More cryptic talk

  Pup

  The dog gets a name

  Cinnamon digs something up

  Ray takes up a musical instrument

  Don’t try this with children

  Always something new

  Kevin

  Ray takes up cooking

  Another restless night for Ted

  Ray has a bad day

  Kevin’s intuition

  Ray’s existential dilemmas

  Rachel Norman

  Cabin fever

  Ray is reborn

  Kevin pursues his new hobby

  Moonwalk

  An inauspicious beginning

  Ray makes a proposition

  Cairo

  Kevin does his spring cleaning

  Descent into methane world

  Someone finally notices

  The planet with no centre

  Trouble in India

  Eavesdropping on a foreign language

  Kevin loses sleep

  Saying hello to the neighbors

  Real sports fans

  Debriefing

  Kim

  Alien spaceship

  A couple of fixers

  Kim’s schedule

  White peacocks

  Education

  Purge

  Prison break

  Lucy gets the boot

  Everyone else gives up

  Kim, Usha, and Martin

  A horse of a different colour

  Lucy’s time alone

  One hundred to eight

  An invention

  An afternoon at the movies

  Pick up

  Kevin goes through a bad spell

  Settling in

  What partnership means

  Karen’s backbone

  Amateur locksmithing

  Fencing lesson

  Getting to know all about you

  Dust

  Things get worse for Kevin

  Contact

  Nightmare

  Technological alternatives

  Ray comes to the inevitable conclusion

  A bit of consolation

  More bad news for Ray

  Rachel and Kim take a big next step

  Arrival

  Final approach

  Conquered planet

  Setting up the grab

  Lucy’s designers

  How they kill Lucy

  Kidnapping

  Recovery room

  Up the ladder

  Ray meets the boss

  The noose tightens

  Ray and Cinnamon make a plan

  Proof positive

  Survivor

  Release

  Survivors

  Ray and Cinnamon meet a snag

  Rachel’s decision

  A nightmare reunion

  What happens to Hisssttnnn and Cinnamon

  Rachel sets up a meeting

  Hell ride

  The President

  An alien fleet

  Home again, home again

  Resistance

  Ray uses his new skills

  Left and right

  DNA

  Kevin’s explanation

  Bait

  Return of the alien machine

  Back in the can

  Resurrection

  France, 1789

  Multiple personality order

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “I want them alive!” Commander Ash shouted at his commandos, but they were too busy keeping themselves alive to pay any attention, the fools. The defending forces had been allowed to conceal a large underground complex of barracks and weapons. Ash had privately nurtured this bed of insurrection for years, hoarding the opportunity like a secret pleasure, until at long last he’d chosen today for cleaning it out.

  “Take prisoners,” Ash ordered again, but all he could really do was slither back and forth in discomfort. The air was too hot here. He should’ve worn his climate-controlled suit. He knew the slaughter would be widespread, because it always was. But on this occasion he’d hoped to have survivors. There were so few left on this planet, it almost made him despair. And now his troops were firing chemical weapons into the maze. He just hoped the chemists had been right, and there’d be some aliens who would recover enough to undergo a slower destruction.

  Three probes had come back in the last hundred years, while the careful work of annihilating the homeworld of the Lhnnn went on. Each of the probes had done its work and located a potential new target, but none of them satisfied the aesthetic sense of Ash. They were all too easy, too primitive. There was a pleasure in destroying a species in its nativity, but it wasn’t a lasting pleasure. What Ash’s people needed was someone with some technology. Someone in space, or at least on the edge of it. That was where the Lhnnn had been.

  A sudden flurry of activity formed itself at one of the tunnel entrances in front of him, and Ash found himself surrounded by his own soldiers.

  “What is it?” he shouted, but then he saw the juggernaut the aliens had brought to bear. It was tearing its way through the stone around it, enlarging the tunnel enough for it to get through and bring its weapons to bear on his position.

  Why can no one do anything right? he asked himself, and pulled a rocket launcher off one of the carriers nearby. When I tell them I want prisoners, they allow the enemy time to get its heavy artillery in motion. When I tell them they have a free-fire zone, they end up taking prisoners. It’s enough to make any sane person doubt the superiority of our species.

  Ash took aim at one of the guns and let fire with a small nuclear device. The enemy machine swallowed the attack against its designer’s intention, and swelled as the explosion went off inside the armoured shell.

  There won’t be any survivors of that, anyway, Ash thought with satisfaction, and clipped the rocket launcher back into place.

  “We’ve captured the barracks, your Nullity,” one of his troops reported. There was alien blood on his uniform, and Ash suppressed an urge to reprimand him for it.

  “How many captured?” .

  “Twenty-five thousand, your Nullity. Almost a fifth of the defenders have been preserved alive.”

  “A fifth is remarkable,” Ash warned. “Half would be normal.”

  “They were heavily armed,” the trooper said, but it was already slithering back to its position of command, making every effort to avoid drawing attention to itself.

  I can’t maintain control of my people without a proper target, Ash thought. This place is almost at an end.

  In spite of his carefully controlled program of deterioration, the Lhnnn homeworld couldn’t hold out for even so much as another decade. There had to be another probe back soon. Where were all the probes, anyway?

  Ash found himself wondering, not for the first time, if he shouldn’t check personally into the management of surveillance and reconnaissance. The absence of good data had almost gone on long enough to draw someone to his attention. And getting the attention of Commander Ash was never a good idea.

  Ray

  Ray’s computer woke him up at 5:00 a.m., a
ccording to its instructions.

  “Ray,” it said, “time to get up.”

  “Uh,” he grunted, and rolled over. Ray said the same thing every morning, but the computer had no entry for “uh” in its lexicon, so it tried again.

  “Ray. Time to get up.”

  “I’m up, I’m up,” Ray told it.

  The computer checked the phrase dictionary, found “I’m up,” as an adequate answer, and shut itself down until the next milestone.

  Ray went back to sleep. Ten minutes later, the computer checked its log of house activity. There hadn’t been any movement, so it double-checked that Ray had spoken earlier, found that he had, and tried again to wake him up.

  “Ray,” it said, “time to get up.”

  Ray rolled out of bed, and headed for the shower. He’d been working until 11:00 the night before, arranging a custom’s clearance for a shipment going to Nigeria. There was no reason he couldn’t have slept in for an extra hour, but he’d programmed the computer to refuse all reprogramming between five and seven o’clock, and he’d forgotten to reset it the night before to let him have the extra hour. The computer would try every ten minutes, and keep nagging until he got out of bed. But he’d been late too many times to allow himself the luxury of changing the alarm routines first thing in the morning.

  The computer observed Ray’s movement and shut itself down.

  He woke it up again while he ate his cereal.

  “Computer,” he said, “what have I got today?”

  “7:00 review second draft of the report on Ecuador. 7:30 you have to call Paris. 7:45 you’re meeting quickly with Don. 8:00 double-check Nigeria. If that’s okay, 8:10 you can go to the bathroom. If not then Nigeria until 8:30, when—

  “Okay,” Ray said. The computer didn’t know what that meant, so it kept going.

  “—you have to call printing. 8:35 is—

  “That’s enough,” Ray said, which was one of the right phrases. The computer shut up and Ray drank the rest of the milk out of his bowl.

  Ray found himself having to work late not so much because the office was understaffed, as because each job seemed to require the undivided attention of one specialist. Unfortunately, there were more jobs than there were specialists, so nothing got done the way it should be, at least in the opinion of Ray’s superiors.

  It was almost noon when Ray read the e-mail announcing a staff meeting during lunch, which meant sandwiches. What he really wanted was a walk outside the building and a Greek salad. Ray decided that a staff meeting could run itself without him. His arm was through the sleeve of his coat and his mind on black olives when he noticed his secretary waving at him to get his attention.

  “Ray, call for you on two,” the secretary said, and fanned his palm past the hold sensor. “I think it’s Ted Jones.”

  Ray walked back to his desk, cursing under his breath. He had an appointment for one o’clock, so if Jones was long-winded there would be no lunch at all, much less a soothing Greek salad and Brio Chinotto.

  There was also the problem that Ted Jones was a bull-nosed, pig-headed, thick-skinned pain in the butt. The last time he’d called Ray, the final result had been an international incident that was even now painful to recall.

  So, feeling like he had nothing to lose, Ray put on his most abrasive manner. No sense, he thought, going like a sheep to the slaughter. Ray ran a hand through his hair to make sure it was dramatically unkempt, then waved to the sensor switch. The display showed Ted in conference with yet another display. Ray didn’t wait for him to finish.

  “Ted!” he said. “This is Ray!”

  “Yeah, uh, listen Ray,” Ted turned from the other caller with a bland face. “I’ve got a little piece of business over here that I thought you might be interested in. I wonder if you could stop over some time today or tomorrow and see me in my office?”

  “Nothing you want to talk about on the phone?” Ray asked. It was an idiot’s question, but he didn’t have many options for keeping Ted away, and if looking like an idiot would help, Ray was all for it.

  “No,” Ted said. “Not on the phone.”

  “Okay. You know I would really like to do that, Ted, come on over in person to your building, I mean, but I’m sure you’re aware that things are pretty tight around here just at this second. I think you’d be pretty safe to say I’ve already got quite a bit on my plate right now. There’s that mess in Puerto Rico, and I’ve also got the Jakarta operation going.”

  “Yes, I know about Jakarta.”

  Okay, Ray thought. So much for aggressive. And stupid doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. Maybe whiny. Whiny is just about all I’ve got left. He scrunched up his eyes as if his stomach was bothering him.

  “And Puerto Rico, Ted. Don’t forget what’s going on in the islands. I’m supposed to meet with Owen at 1:00 today. We need three hours, minimum, and I’m not sure if I can get him rebooked or not, We’ve had that on the boards for more than three weeks already, and he’s out of town starting tomorrow. So you can see—”

  “That’s all fine. I know everyone’s busy over there. But listen, Ray, I need to ask for a minute of your time. I understand it might be a little short notice, but it shouldn’t take too long, and I think you might be interested in this. What can you do for about 2:00 today?”

  “Today? Look, Ted, I really have to have a little more notice than that. I just can’t get out of the office so…”

  “So 2:00 this afternoon will be fine? We’ll meet over here.”

  So much for whinny, Ray thought, with an inward sigh. The only thing left is an outright refusal.

  “Look, Ted,” he started, but he never got any further.

  “That’s fine, then. 2:00,” Ted said, and hung up.

  Boiled cabbage

  “Rebook Owen for tomorrow,” Ray told his secretary, “and postpone his flight. And make sure he hears about it.”

  He pulled on his coat and headed out of the building. The call had put him smack in the middle of everyone else’s lunch, instead of a few minutes ahead of it, but it still only took fifteen minutes before he was shoulder to hip with someone on a bar stool. His table hadn’t been cleared after the last customer, but Ray had his Greek salad.

  He reviewed his options, thoughtfully chewing the last bit of olive off an olive pit.

  He could call Jones and reschedule. But that would only put off the inevitable, and Ted had seemed relatively civil. No sense annoying him if it didn’t get any results.

  He could just not go. But then he’d already rebooked Owen, which wouldn’t look good if it’d been unnecessary. There was also the consideration that Ted Jones was Ted Jones, and you couldn’t say no to him. Not very easily, anyway. There were only a few people who reported directly to Jones, but plenty of people worked for him. Many of those people didn’t know they did. If Ted Jones actually called you directly, you might as well face fate. If you didn’t jump to the gun, someone higher up would. Then you could jump to the cannon instead.

  Maybe, he thought, spearing a chunk of feta cheese, I could come down sick. But there again, it would only delay things and delay wasn’t what Ray wanted. He wanted to weasel out altogether.

  Okay, he thought—so there’s been a big international disaster, and I was the only one who could handle it, so it had to take priority. Unfortunately, diverting big international disasters was his job.

  Space aliens, he said to himself. The solar system’s been invaded, and I have to take care of it. Even Ted would recognize the necessity for my not showing up if I had to handle something that size. He watched the headlines rolling past on the overhead display, but the only mention of space aliens had to do with their abducting three seniors for what seemed to be hanky panky.

  Ray found himself at 2:00 standing in front of Mr. Jones’s secretary. She looked at him as if he was a piece of boiled cabbage that had somehow gotten on the rug.

  “Yes,” she said. Just yes, with a distasteful squint that suggested that it couldn’t be good en
ough for her to have bothered looking up, so he had at least better make it fast.

  “I’m Ray,” Ray said.

  If the revelation meant anything to her, she wasn’t letting it slip.

  “I’m supposed to meet Mr. Jones at 2:00,” Ray tried.

  “Just take a seat over there.”

  She pointed with her eyes at a chair as far away as she could see, then went back to her work.

  Ray toyed with the fantasy that space aliens would abduct Mr. Jones’s secretary, but decided they’d have to be pretty tough to get away with it. So he went where he was told. Some obscure corporate logic had placed half a dozen magazines on an endtable near the chairs, as though Jones were a doctor. Ray selected an old issue of one of the architectural magazines and read a reprinted article about two couches that looked like hippopotami. He looked at an advertisement for chairs you couldn’t sit in. He was just settling down to a complicated interview with a dozen or more overseas contract specialists in interior design when the secretary’s voice broke in.

  “Mr. Jones,” she was saying into her phone, “there’s someone here to see you.”

  “Why did you wait so long?” Ray called across the room to her. “Our meeting was supposed to be at 2:00.”

  “Mr. Jones has been on a priority call,” she told him. “His line just cleared.”

  She didn’t actually add the words “so shut up, Jack,” but then she really didn’t have to. Not with an expressive face like hers.

  Ray went back to the article.

  It was 2:35 when he finally sat down across from Jones.

  Trouble

  “So you wanted to see me,” he said. He didn’t really believe it by this time. Ted had an exasperating habit of changing stream several times in the course of a conversation, as if he could never make up his mind. In half a day he could become a completely different person. Ray looked at him carefully and decided that he’d been wrong about Jones being in a comparatively good mood. What it looked like instead was that today Ted Jones was trouble. He gestured Ray to a seat, and Ray went so far as to walk over to it, but he didn’t sit down.

  “Listen, Ray,” Jones said. “We want you out at Phoenix II. We’ve had a little bit of a stir-up out there, and I think it just might be something up your alley. Our people have been working around the clock on it, and they haven’t gotten the kind of results I’m hoping to see from it.”

  “What kind of a stir-up, exactly?”