The Unexpected, page 12
Somehow her aide, Felix Lane, had managed to master all the different sounds, no matter how disgusting, but that didn’t surprise Jelly. He was a rather disgusting piece of humanity himself. He’d been shipped off about halfway through her training program which hadn’t hurt her feelings at all.
The city didn’t look like a city at all, even from ground level. A long, dark-pink mud flat stretched from the forest edge about fifty meters away, the stunted trees with their ground-hugging branches and trunks looking more like a heavy green ground fog than a forest.
The mud flat terminated at a lava flow that dropped to the ocean fifty meters or so in the opposite direction. A rough square made of piles of dry mud sat in the middle of the flat and several mounds were a few meters beyond on the other side of the square. The mounds were hollowed out, Jelly knew from studying the reconnaissance photos back at the base, serving as doorways to the tunnels and caves down below.
Her blobs did her proud, humping off the transport in perfect formation and performing spectacularly in front of the blob chieftain who looked like he could’ve been related to the human mafia types she’d seen on historical vids. The corners of the chieftain’s mouth pulled down in a huge frown that folded onto the ground with what looked like white snot dangling from the left corner like a melted cigarette.
Yep, everything was perfect. Until she saw the pair of disembodied eyes pop out from behind Yawn. A slug slid into view as the blobbies humped past. Jelly waved the slug toward her, so focused on how to explain the slug’s presence to the chieftain that she didn’t hear the man behind her until he spoke. “I didn’t know you had a new recruit.”
Jelly controlled the urge to roll her eyes like a disgusted teenager. “Slime is my new aide,” she said, keeping her gaze focused on the blob soldiers as Fart put them through their paces. “What are you doing here, Felix? I thought they’d shipped you off-planet.”
“Not off-planet. Just off-base. I’m serving as the chieftain’s translator and head diplomat.”
Diplomat. Now that was a joke. Felix Lane was about as diplomatic as a smelly turd. He kind of looked like a turd too. He was a little man, Jelly’s height, and thin as a skeleton with matted brown hair and brown eyes. The man even had brown lips.
Slime slid up beside Jelly and bowed his eye stalks.
“At ease,” Jelly said, hiding a smile. Though Slime was ginormous when compared to Earth slugs, he was still small, about the size of a rat terrier, and she was always afraid she was going to trip on the little guy. He hung around during training, slipping away when she shooed him off, but always coming back, eye stalks waving like an excited puppy. She thought she’d discouraged him, sending him off on a long errand right when they were scheduled to leave. But Slime had evidently figured out her ploy and had pulled one of his own.
The chieftain had evidently tired of all the ceremony. He humped a loud whistle from his proboscis, sending more snot flowing down into his mouth, and looked at Felix.
“Ah, yes. His giant Pinkness wants me to inform you that you are late and ugly.”
Jelly raised an eyebrow. Felix cleared his throat. “That is a literal translation, I assure you.”
“Right.” If Felix was going to play his little power games, this was not going to go well. Slime tapped her leg with one of his eye stalks. Jelly glanced down and the slug shook his head. She smiled. Maybe the rat-sized slug would come in useful after all. “Come on, Felix. You can think of a better insult than that.”
Felix frowned at Slime, then shrugged. “His Greatness welcomes you to the city…”
His next words were drowned out as a shriek came from the forest.
Jelly barked a command as a tsunami of furry figures rushed across the mud flats and hurled themselves at the gathered blobs. The stench of rotted vegetation and monkey feces swarmed around the square.
Her soldiers moved quicker than Jelly had thought them capable, hurling themselves into the air and contorting their bodies this way and that, maneuvering until they had the chieftain surrounded. Jelly whipped her .45 Martini-Smith automatic from its holster and backed into the circle with her soldiers.
Gunfire crackled above the sound of approaching gremlins, but she hadn’t fired her weapon. Jelly glanced around, looking for the source of the shots.
A bullet snapped close overhead and Jelly ducked. She spun around, expecting to see the chieftain stretched out on the ground.
Instead she found herself staring at Fart’s limp body.
The blob had taken one for the gipper.
Fury choked Jelly’s throat as her eyes burned. She spun back around as another shot rang out.
This time she spotted the muzzle flash.
Coming from her own transport.
She started moving, but slipped on a trail of slime that led straight toward the transport. Not the gooey plop prints left behind by the blobs. A smooth trail of shiny mucous that could only have come from Slime.
Gremlins poured into the square, yipping and howling like rabid hyenas.
And each of them carried a needle.
They raced around the square, poking wildly at any blob that came close. The blobs bobbed and weaved and jumped and farted.
But they couldn’t get away.
Jelly had a decision to make: go after the sniper or find the gremlin leader and take the pack down.
They needed to get the chieftain to safety. Then she could deal with the gremlins.
She’d familiarized herself with the layout of the city before leaving base camp. Quickly she ran the plans through her head. The blobs lived in caves below the square. Most of the caves were connected by multiple tunnels. There was one cave, however, with only one entrance and one exit.
“Felix. Take the chieftain down to the sewers.”
She flashed a series of hand signals at her men, letting them know that Felix was in charge, and telling them to stay with the chieftain. Burp humped up and down in acknowledgment and the small group started to edge away.
For once Felix didn’t argue. In fact, the man looked rather stunned. He started to follow the blobs, then turned and snatched at Jelly’s weapon. “I need a gun,” he whined, his face drawn and pale.
“You don’t need to grab,” Jelly said, pulling her weapon out of his grasp, turning it around, and handing it to him by the butt end. What was the idiot thinking, grabbing at her gun like that?
Then Jelly saw the sneer in his eyes and realized a second too late that Felix knew exactly what he was doing. He pursed his lips and chirruped, echoing the gremlin noises coming from all around.
The fucking creep was a traitor.
Time seemed to slow as all Jelly’s focus narrowed in on Felix holding the .45. The muzzle flashed, but she didn’t hear a sound. Pain tore through her stomach as she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Felix and carrying him to the ground. Felix grunted, struggling to bring his gun hand around so he could pull the trigger again.
Jelly’s insides burned and she could feel herself fading. No, she told herself. People survived gut shots all the time. Anger burned the pain away. No way was Felix getting away with this.
She lifted enough to let Felix shift position, then she grabbed the gun barrel with both hands and shoved it away from her just as he pulled the trigger.
Felix sagged under her. Jelly waited a moment, grabbed the .45, and struggled to her feet.
The chieftain was gone.
And so were her blobs.
Jelly studied the blob prints leading to the tunnels.
The chieftain was safe. Her men had gotten him away.
She glanced at the giant pink puddle in the middle of the square, all that remained of Fart. No time to grieve now. She had other things to think about.
The gremlins seemed to be running out of steam. A few of them still raced here and there, poking at innocent blobs, but the needles weren’t really doing any damage as far as Jelly could see. Any wounds inflicted by the needles oozed for a moment, then slowed to a stop, leaving a lump of pink goo hardening around the wound. The gremlins kept looking at Felix and when he didn’t move, they slowly started drifting back to the forest.
Jelly wrapped one arm around her belly and followed the slime trail back to the transport. The shot that killed Felix had burned the hell out of her hands. She clung to the .45 like a drowning man clings to a rope. She tried not to think about poor Slime and the fact that he didn’t stand a chance against an experienced sniper. Tried not to think about poor Fart lying all alone in the middle of the square.
There was only one thing that mattered right now. Taking down the enemy.
Jelly could understand Felix turning traitor. He’d been a weasel from the get-go.
But Felix couldn’t be in two places at once. And he was a follower, not a leader.
Jelly eased up to the transport door, took a deep breath, and peeked inside.
The transport was empty.
Except for a tiny lump just inside the ramp.
Jelly leapt inside, cleared the rest of the interior quickly, making sure no one was hiding anywhere.
Then she bent down and lifted Slime in her arms.
For a minute she thought the little slug was gone too. Then one of his eye stalks lifted and gave her a bleary look.
There was more work to do, but for now, the emergency was over.
Her blobs had been heroes, Jelly realized. She’d trained them in blob-to-blob combat which mostly consisted of learning how best to throw their weight around. They knew how to scale walls by either hopping from ledge to ledge or using the pulley system. They knew how to bob and weave, ducking their opponent’s blows. They could sneak beneath low branches; it’d been really weird watching the blobs stretch themselves into a long thin line and hump along the ground like skinny caterpillars.
And they could follow orders, throwing themselves in harm’s way when the situation demanded it.
She couldn’t ask for more.
Introduction to “Nice Timestream Youse Got Here”
I love Lee Allred’s fiction, and this story is no exception. But it was the voice in this story that I found so unexpectedly delightful. It reminded me of my family in New York. And even better, I got to voice the audio version of this story and channel my grandmother at the same time.
Lee Allred relishes time travel and alternate history. His classic novella, “For the Strength of the Hills,” is a Sidewise Award Finalist. Rookhouse Books reprinted it in a standalone volume. He’s sold a lot of short fiction and has penned tales for DC (Batman Black and White, Batman 66), Marvel (the ongoing monthly series FF), and Image Comics (Madman Atomic Comics). Lee frequently collaborates with his acclaimed comic book pop-artist brother Michael Allred, creator of Madman as well as the iZombie comic the new hit CW television series is based on.
I never tire of reading this story. But I always regret not having a true New York slice of pizza in hand while I do.
Nice Timestream Youse Got Here
Lee Allred
“Say, you know what the hardest part of being in the Agency is, Vince?” Maizie asked me as she slid her little square of butter off its waxed paper backing and scraped it across her toast.
Her voice carried easily over the clatter of plates and clatter of voices in the crowded Brooklyn diner. Breakfast rush, the joint was crowded, but not so crowded I couldn’t keep watch out the window for our collar.
I didn’t answer. The dingy chrome trim in the diner was brighter than Maizie.
“Keepin’ track of things,” she said like I’d answered back anyways. She wasn’t looking for conversation, she was what they call waxin’ philosophical about the job again.
In this racket, it don’t pay to get philosophical about the job. Get in, get done, get out. There’s a reason why I’m the number one troubleshooter for the Agency and it ain’t cuz I wax any which way, philosophical nor other type wise.
“Like rememberin’ what things is called what where,” she went on. She held up another papered square of butter. “Like this here. They call it a ‘pat’ of butter here. That guy at the counter looked at me like I was some kind of creep asking for a flop of butter like a regular person.”
She waved the butter square like it offended her delicate sensibilities, not that she had any. “This ain’t no pat of butter. It’s a flop. A pat is what comes out of the other end of the cow.”
“Sure,” I said around a forkful of eggs. “Like youse know about cows. The closest youse ever came to a cow was walking past the milkman’s cart at 2 a.m.”
I bit into my own slice of toast. “So theyse call it a pat here in this neighborhood,” I said, swallowing and chasing it down with a cup of black coffee. “So what? So maybe theyse call the other end a cow flop? Who cares? You see me in an uproars just cause they got ‘scrambled eggs’ printed on the menu ‘stead of ‘stirred eggs?’ I made myself understood like, didn’t I? Got my order the way I like, didn’t I? Shaddap and eat. You’re givin’ me the pepto.”
She shadapped and ate. For two whole minutes anyways.
Now, some of my other partners have got to waxin’ philosophical about the job, and let me tell ya, brother, nothing good ever comes of it. Givin’ themselves the pepto about who just got in the White House, who just won the World Series, who just got their ugly dead political mug plastered all over the face of a coin by an Act of Congress.
Who cares?
Life goes on, don’t it?
Mugs in the Agency who worry about that kind of stuff don’t last too long, and I’m one of the reasons they don’t. I ship ’em back upstream without their paddle, they start waxin’ philosophical.
Unless of course their name is Maizie. Her, I don’t ship back.
I know what you’re thinking, and it ain’t like that. And don’t start smirking like there’s something wrong with me neither, or I’ll butter your necktie. I’m just as red-blooded as the next regular Joe.
Yeah, so it might not look it from the way I act all calm and collected and disinterested around her, but trust me, I know better than anyone else how Maizie’s put together. You’ve seen those newsreels about Our Boys At Sea and all them mighty battleships and whatnot heaving and rolling and yawing and pitching on the high seas? Well, bub, when Maizie walks down the street, you better believe it’s Naval Appreciation Day, and let me tell ya, brother, the fleet’s in.
Trust me, I know. I gotta work with her all day long. And that’s just what I do and that’s all I do.
See, I got to be the one stuck with her as my partner because the Chief he knows I’m his one guy in the Agency who’s smart enough not to sink her battleship if you catch my drift.
He knows I wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot canoodle on account of a) she’s the Chief’s daughter; and b) I gotta listen to her yammer day in, day out, all day long—you think I wanna listen to her all night, too, once I get home? And I wouldn’t be able to do nuthin’ to shut her up neither on account of c) she’s the Chief’s daughter.
So me and Maizie, we’re strictly business. I’m the Brains and the Muscle of the team, and she’s the Distraction. Boy, is she ever. Kewpie doll face. Kewpie doll voice. Kewpie doll brain. And her very own pair of Sink-The-Bismarks that no Kewpie doll nowhere has ever had.
So I sat there and just let her yammer on about this, that, and some other fool thing while I finished up my eggs and bacon. The way the Agency keeps us on the road, I don’t get many chances to eat a real breakfast in a real New York diner like a civilized person—you should see some of the joints I gotta eat at ‘cuz of this job—so I was going to enjoy this breakfast, come Maizie or highwater.
Besides, I knew this chump we was tailing was buying his own Kosher breakfast two delis up the street. No hurry. Mister Regular Routine, he was.
Anyways, I like making a collar after we’ve both had our breakfast and our morning coffee and our blood sugar is nice and level. They’re less likely to try something stupid on a full stomach, and I’m less likely to blow their fool heads off from them givin’ me the pepto.
Little touches like that is why I’m the Chief’s Number One and got the New York beat, not makin’ the rounds in, say, Racine, Indiana. Or Wisconsin. Or wherever Racine is.
So therefore on account of my advance planning, a few minutes later I’m sitting there leaning back in my chair and just finishing my fifth cup of coffee when I see our pigeon go walking past the window. I slap a silver dollar down on the table to cover the bill, grab my hat, and yank Maizie (“Hey! I ain’t finished yet, Vince!”) by the wrist and drag her out the door after him.
Like they say, time and tide don’t wait up fer no man, even if youse work for the Temporal Protection Agency an’ got all the time—and timestreams—in the world.
***
We followed our prize chump down two blocks and over another block to the crummy little brownstone he was rooming at.
Now, us guys in the Agency got all kinds of fancy augments embedded and gene-spliced and nano-grown and what have you inside us. Some of dese help make us stronger and faster—Maizie could benchpress Joe Louis wit’out breakin’ a sweat—and others just help us get the job done, like the gizmo we got that lets us track a time traveler by them chrono-sumpthin’s he gives off, him not being a native of the here-and-now.
That’s not even counting all the extra augments I’ve picked up over the years from here-and-there-and-then that the Agency don’t know I got (and I ain’t telling ’em I got). If youse gonna be the A-Number One, youse gotta have a hole card, ya know?
But I didn’t need all that schmanzy stuff to trail this bird. All I needed was my own eyeballs. He was wearing his fedora like he ain’t never worn a hat in his life, and also he couldn’t figure out hows to cross the street wit’out there being no streetlight. Even Maizie could spot him just by looking.
Still, we had a nice little stroll anyhows.
As far as 1940 New York Cities go, this was a pretty good one. No giant red Schicklgruber flags deckin’ the halls, no surrendering your wallet at Henry Wallace Economic Justice checkpoints, no zeppelins filled with killer bees. Just shiny new DeSotos and Hudsons honking their way down the street, ragamuffin newsboys standing on the corner hawking their papers, and brawny construction guys wolf-whistling at Maizie as she bounced past ’em in her checkered sundress .
