I went down, arms flapping as if I could fly instead of fall. I hit hard, desperately trying to gain ground in a spastic scrabble. Rubber bullet, I mentally chanted. I hope that was a cop firing rubber bullets.
There was a wide white apron around the Bug Trap. Supposedly when you reached that you came under Bug protection. It was two body lengths away, the Trap itself thirty feet beyond. I writhed toward this promised safety like a Tazed caterpillar, tensed against another shot.
A prickling sensation washed over me as I crawled onto the smooth white stuff surrounding the trap, and for a second I was afraid I was feeling my soul splitting from my body like a banana squeezed from its peel.
“You are safe now,” intoned a voice from someplace above me. Was I hearing angels? I didn’t hear harps.
This was followed by a barrage of gunfire. I cowered with my hands over my head—like that could help. Amazingly enough, not a single bullet reached me.
When a second fusillade began, urged on by a lot of cursing, and still nothing was reaching me, I had to twist myself around and look.
A dozen Chrome Lords were at the barricade, armed with everything from handguns to full auto drive-bys. When they saw their quarry—me—staring at them they went nuts, doing their best to blow enough holes in me to give them a clear view of the Bug Trap behind me. The bullets flashed into sparks as they hit an invisible wall rising up from the edge of the white apron. The aliens had to be protecting me. That was nice of them.
But it was one shot too late. There was blood on the smooth white ground under me. It was soaking the front of my clothes. There was quite a bit of it. As if my brain had been waiting for the proper visual cue before reacting, pain blasted through me. I moaned as the world began to spin.
No other option than to continue on. I tried to shove back the vertigo. Getting to my feet took a tremendous effort, and once up I wavered, jelly-legged and woozy.
More yelling erupted at the barricade, contradictory demands to come back and to go let the Bugs eat my ass. A police drone swooped in, belly-mounted spot lighting me up. Speakers blared commands to Halt! and Back away from the artifact right now!
A movie zombie shamble got me to the doorway. I turned back for one last look. A couple dozen screaming and cursing Chrome Lords now ringed the barricade. Two NYPD drones buzzed angrily overhead. The copette in the spook suit watched impassively from a nearby rooftop.
I gave it all the finger, got myself turned around, and more fell than stepped into the Bug Trap.
My first impression was of whiteness. Absolute and unrelieved whiteness.
Now I was standing at the bottom of a vast snow-white bowl, the sides curving up and away from me in some distance too ill-defined to measure by eye, seeming to merge with a white ceiling far above. I flashed on the image of a spider at the bottom of a bathtub in an all-white bathroom. I was seeing something similar to what it might see, only with fewer eyes and no particular urge to snack on flies.
And about the same clue quotient as to where I was, and what it all meant.
Then I noticed something strange and wonderful.
I wasn’t in pain anymore. In fact, other than being a bit weirded out, I felt pretty damn good. I checked myself over. The bullet wound was gone. A ragged hole went through my shirt, vest, and coat where the decidedly non-rubber bullet had passed through me, but there was no hole in my hide, and all the blood was gone. Moreover, my clothes were dry. Even my socks and sneakers.
A quick further personal inventory told me that all my tools and toys were still with me. I even had my phone, though I had a funny feeling that calling for takeout Chinese might just be pointless.
I pulled out the phone anyway and almost placed a call to Jimmy’s Noodle Kaboodle. Two things stopped me: Was this a chicken or shrimp situation? I wasn’t sure. Besides, there had to be a smarter move than that.
But what? I’d been presumably transported to Venus and given some first-rate medical treatment. The place I’d ended up didn’t look anything like the alleged probe pictures the government spread around to prove the planet was such a hellish place only monsters could live there. Was I supposed to walk around and start exploring, like in a game? Stay put and wait for a tour guide—or the ET Emeril who would be preparing me for dinner? At least I wasn’t a baby or a virgin.
I was starting to put my phone back in my pocket when it began playing the theme song from Close Encounters. Not a song I’d ever loaded in it.
I put the phone to my ear. Nervously. “Hello?”
“Good day, Giorgio Lennon Phale, most commonly and familiarly known as Glyph. Welcome to Venus.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said. The voice on the other end sounded human, with the smooth, educated, weighty diction you’d hear on a PBS documentary.
“You’re entirely welcome. This is a courtesy call to let you know that a facilitator will be joining you shortly. We do this because not everyone reacts well to surprise.”
“Consider me warned,” I said. My next words were chosen carefully, like half-price California rolls at a downscale sushi joint with giant cockroaches for wait staff. “Will this facilitator be, ah, human?”
“Does that matter, Glyph?”
“I guess not.” Except it might. People on Earth still had no idea what Bugs looked like. All we had ever been shown were obviously artificial avatars. The question had been posed many times: Why can’t we see you? The answer was always the same: You can. Come on out and take a look. I had always figured this was some sort of curiosity test, one I’d flunked up to now.
“Very good. Orientation will now begin.”
“Which means?”
“It means we have a talk, and get to know one another,” said the same voice behind me.
I nearly dropped my phone, lurching around toward the source of the voice.
Where there had been an expanse of eggshell nothingness, there was now a white desk. A white straight-back chair faced the desk. And behind the desk was…
…Gumby?
“Have a seat,” Gumby said in that voice that made me expect a pledge break or an explanation of the sexual habits of penguins.
“Sure. Thanks.” I shuffled toward the chair, keeping a wary eye on the entity across the desk.
“Not too scary looking, am I?” Gumby said.
“Not really,” I replied, screwing a smile on my face and struggling to look and act cool. The aliens look like Gumby?
“Hardly any resemblance to the creatures from Alien one through thirteen, is there?”
That earned a nervous laugh. “Not much at all. You’ve really seen those movies?”
Gumby nodded. “Sure. We’ve studied a whole bunch of your art and media. A personal favorite among my kind, alien-wise, are the invaders from Mars Attacks!”
I was amazed to find myself discussing classic movies with a person from another planet. That amazement was nothing compared to what I felt when Gumby suddenly sort of whirled and turned into one of the fishbowl-helmeted, bare-brained aliens from the Tim Burton flick.
“Ah,” I said, trying to pretend there hadn’t been anything the slightest bit freaky about what I’d just seen—and was seeing. I had to reach hard for a snappy comeback. “Uh, so have you banned Slim Whitman just to be on the safe side?”
The alien made a soft popping sound. “We haven’t banned him, but we’re not big fans. We much prefer Roy Orbison.” The creature sat forward, elbows on the desk. “I’ve let myself get sidetracked, Glyph. Pardon me for not introducing myself. My name is Orchid.”