Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers, page 7
Marilyn had been with the agency a year longer than Walter, a fact she often flaunted at unit meetings to make sure he knew who the more experienced and therefore the smarter one was. She blushed. “Well, I have seen a few more cases than you,” she said, emphasizing the word “few” with a dramatic roll of her fingers that would have turned traffic the wrong way on a one-way street or caused the cannons to fire at the wrong point in the 1812 Overture. “Let me think…”
As requested, Walter let her think while they drank their Cokes, watching through the windows another normal day in Pitville, New Jersey. When lunch arrived, he picked at the turkey in his sandwich and ate a few slices of the tomato and some of the bread. Marilyn inhaled her strawberry pancakes. Walter tried not to watch.
“It’s possible,” she said, sopping up the last of the syrup with her final piece of pancake, “that you might find a better address for that company or dissolution information in the file of another claim, maybe one closer to the time they went under.”
Walter knew there was a reason why he liked strawberry pancakes so much. Forget fish. Forget beef. Strawberry pancakes were the only true brain food. They had to be. They even worked on Marilyn. He thanked her profusely, they both passed on dessert, and each took a coffee to-go back to the office.
When Walter got to his desk, he logged on to the mainframe in Baltimore and submitted a work order to get a complete list of Social Security beneficiaries who had any reported earnings from Pandactic Enterprises. From that, he could pull up their files and go through them. When he saw that his request was well down the daily job list and that the projected delivery date wasn’t until the next morning, he spent the afternoon making follow-up calls on his outstanding cases.
Bill Ruben came into his office with a lollipop in his mouth about a half hour before closing and shut the door behind him, never a good sign, especially not at the end of the day. He sat down and cleared his throat.
“Walter,” he began, “when I was younger, much younger, before I was married, I had lots of girlfriends. I was a regular party animal, a dating machine, if you can imagine that.”
Walter couldn’t, but bald men were supposed to be sexier if you believed the Kojak reruns, and though Mr. Ruben wasn’t completely bald, he did have the lollipop thing going for him. Walter waited patiently while Mr. Ruben gathered his next words between his deliberating fingers.
“But I always made it a rule never to date anyone from the same office.”
“I’m not dating anyone,” Walter said.
“I understand that you want to keep it hush-hush, and it’s really none of my business as your boss, but as your friend…”
“I’m not dating anyone,” Walter said again.
“That’s not what Marilyn is telling people.”
“I bought her lunch today. I was looking for advice on a case, and it seemed like a nice thing to do.”
“Oh,” Mr. Ruben said. “Are you going to expense it?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” said Walter.
“Take my advice, expense it. That will make it look like it wasn’t a date.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Anything you say, Walter.” His boss patted the desk as he always did when matters were settled in his mind. “Get that expense report to me first thing tomorrow, and I’ll sign off on it right away. That will put those dating rumors to bed.”
Walter stayed at his desk with the door closed until he thought everyone had left. After making sure all the non-essential lights and computers and other energy-wasting devices were turned off, he locked up. Marilyn was waiting outside.
She smiled at him. “Do you want get a drink at the Krazy Kat?” she asked. “I have my car.”
The Krazy Kat was a singles bar in Wendora, a nearby town that didn’t aspire to normalcy but did admit the occasional normal person looking for a good time. Walter had been there once and that was with Marilyn on their infamous and only date.
“No, thanks. I have to water my lawn and fix the screen door.”
“What’s wrong with your door?”
“The paperboy uses it as a target, which is fine except Sundays when the paper is more like a WMD.”
“WMD?”
“Weapon of mass destruction?” Walter said.
She twirled a bit of hair around her index finger as she considered that.
“It’s a joke, Marilyn,” he said.
“Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?”
“I guess they are,” he shrugged. “Thanks again for your help today.” He waved, said good-bye, and extracted himself from the conversation.
“Thanks for lunch,” she waved back. “I had a nice time on our date.”
Walter mumbled, “It wasn’t a date,” and kept walking.
He stopped on the way home to buy a new power strip and then at Mrs. Giamotti’s to pick up a can of tuna and a box of egg noodles.
“If you’re making tuna noodle casserole,” she said, looking up from the romance novel she was engrossed in when he came to the checkout, “you’ll need a can of cream of mushroom soup and a box of frozen peas.”
Walter went back for the soup.
“What about the peas?” she said, putting her book down after he returned with one can of cream of mushroom soup.
“Mom never puts peas in tuna noodle casserole.”
Mrs. Giamotti eyed him skeptically. “Did you read the recipe on the soup can?”
“I guess she uses a different one,” said Walter.
Her frown told him that there was no recipe for tuna noodle casserole other than the one on the can, and it included one cup of frozen peas.
He caved under pressure. “Can I at least use fresh peas?” he asked.
She shook her head, pinched his cheek, and went back to her book while Walter fetched a box of frozen peas.
Mrs. Giamotti liked romances. She had liked them even before her husband passed away, but she seemed to devour them non-stop after his death. It made Walter unhappy to see her so lonely. He had invited her over for dinner many times. She always refused, but he never gave up.
“Want to come over and make this for me?” he grinned. “I have a bottle of wine.”
“È piccolo diavolo,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “I’m too old for you, Walter, and you’re too skinny for me. Put some meat on those bones and I’ll think about it.”
When he got home, Walter threw the peas into the freezer, got showered and changed, and called his parents. He wanted to see how they were doing, to find out if they wanted to get together for dinner Sunday, to ask his mother if she wanted a box of frozen peas, and to see if it was all right to top a tuna noodle casserole with crushed potato chips as he had no cracker crumbs in the house. His mom and dad were golfing Sunday at a course near Ocean City, so they invited him to join them afterward for dinner at Cappy’s Crabs, their favorite restaurant on the Boardwalk. Walter added the appointment to both his kitchen calendar and his smart phone, put together the casserole without the peas, and flopped onto the sofa. The screen door would just have to wait another day.
After plugging everything into the new power strip, he channel-hopped for a few minutes before settling on a cartoon channel where they were having an all-day The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers fest. Not to be confused with his favorite comic strip Galactic Rangers, Galaxy Rangers was more a space western parody than real sci-fi. Those rangers rode metal robot horses called Cybersteeds and fired beams of light from six-shooters. As hokey as it was, Walter stuck with it until the casserole was ready.
He wasn’t in the mood for TV after dinner, not even an episode of The Outer Limits that he had never seen, so he sat down at the computer at his desk next to the TV and did what he did many nights — scanned the headlines. Apparently, not much was happening in the world that day, so he searched for frozen pea recipes where the peas didn’t taste like frozen peas. Not finding any, he resigned himself to giving up thirty-three cubic inches of valuable freezer real estate to something that he would never eat unless the world ran out of cardboard.
Next, he searched for any Galactic Rangers commercials that had made it to the Internet. He didn’t find any, but he did come upon a story about the Comic-Con, as they were calling it, that would be held at the convention center in Dantford that Saturday. Kelso was giving a talk in the main auditorium at 2:00 p.m. and would be available for autographs after that.
Walter spent hours surfing that time-sink they call the Internet, and it was nearly midnight when he realized that he was bug-eyed and tired. He shut down the computer, and as he was reaching for the brand new power strip to “really” turn everything off, he noticed the little red power light begin to flicker like it had the previous night. Disgusted, he took a sheet of paper from the printer, wrote “RETURN POWER STRIP AGAIN” on it in all capital letters because that meant in text-speak that he was mad and shouting, took the note to the kitchen, and taped it to the refrigerator so he couldn’t open the door without ripping it in half.
When he returned to the living room to dismantle everything again, the TV was on. The screen was black except for a text box with the words, “Set frequency,” and a number, 71.256.135.123. He copied the message and number onto a piece of paper and pulled the Getting Started with Satellite TV book from the shelf, the one he had gotten from the dish company when they’d first installed everything. He called customer support. As he was reading the message to the support person, the TV dissolved into static.
“Sir, that is not a standard error message,” the woman on the phone said.
“Someone was out Sunday to make some adjustments and I think he messed something up,” Walter said.
“I see no record of a service call Sunday.”
“It wasn’t a service call. I didn’t call you. You called me.”
“There is no record of a call, sir.”
“Well, someone was here. It was an upgrade or something. Can’t you just fix what’s wrong?”
“There isn’t anything wrong at our end,” the support person said, and then obviously reading from a script, she added, “Power off and on your system and call back if you’re still having issues.”
Walter wasn’t listening to her. He was listening to the voice coming from the TV.
“This is Galactic Ranger Scout Ship Alpha calling Earth. Come in, Earth.”
The image flickered between the static and the message in the text box, “Set frequency 71.256.135.123.”
“Can you send someone over tomorrow to take a look at it?” Walter asked. “I’ll leave the key under the mat.”
“Someone has to be at the house to let us in, and unless there is a problem, there will be a charge for a service call.”
The static on the screen was resolving into images.
“Repeat. This is Galactic Ranger Scout Ship Alpha calling Earth. Come in, Earth.”
And again the message appeared on his TV, “Set frequency 71.256.135.123.”
“That’s fine,” Walter said. “Can they come at noon? That’s my lunch hour.”
“I can give you a four-hour window, morning or afternoon, Mr. Stickle. I can’t be any more specific than that.”
The static became Captain Kleeg standing over Communications Officer Sparks.
“Afternoon, then,” said Walter. “What does ‘71-point-256-point-135-point-123’ mean?”
“Do you mean ‘71-dot-256-dot-135-dot-123?’”
“I guess so. It’s that funny number I told you was after the message.”
“It sounds like an IP address, sir,” said the representative.
“You mean, like a website?” Walter wasn’t the most technical of people.
“Yes, sir, like a website.” After a short pause, during which Walter heard a lot of clicking keys at the other end of the phone, the representative said, “All right, sir. I have you scheduled for tomorrow afternoon and have noted that this call is discretionary and that you will be charged at our standard service rate if no issues with our equipment are uncovered. Will there be anything else?”
“No, thanks,” Walter said and hung up.
“Captain, there’s still no response,” Sparks shook his head.
“Keep trying,” the captain said, patting him on the shoulder.
Walter looked at the number on the note and turned his computer on again. When it had booted up, he typed “71.256.135.123” into the address box of the browser. The screen that loaded was a simple one with the instructions, “Click here to activate microphone.”
Walter owned a nice headset with a microphone that he’d never used. The guy at the store that sold refrigerators, washers and dryers, barbeque grills, microwaves, and also computers had talked him into getting the extended warranty for his computer by throwing the headphones in for free. Walter put them on, tilted the microphone until it was in front of his mouth, and clicked “here.” The light on his computer’s webcam came on.
“Hello?” he said.
“Captain,” Sparks said. “I’m getting a response. It’s one of the humans.”
“On screen,” said the captain.
The TV flickered, and Walter Stickle experienced something he’d never experienced before — watching himself on TV. More accurately, he was watching the Galactic Rangers watching him on their view screen.
“Hello?” he said again.
“This is Captain Kleeg of the Galactic Ranger Scout Ship Alpha. Identify yourself.”
“I’m Walter,” he said. “Walter Stickle. What are you doing on my TV?”
First Officer Gak looked up from the sensor array. “Sir, it would be unwise to communicate further with this alien.”
The captain gave Lieutenant Sparks the cut sign and Alpha’s view screen went dark, but Walter could still see them on the bridge watching the blank screen. He could still hear them too.
“Maintain an open muted channel, Mr. Sparks,” said the captain. “I don’t want to lose him.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Explain,” Kleeg said to Gak.
“Sir, this indigenous species is not prepared for an encounter with extraterrestrial life-forms and will not be for centuries. That is why the Congress of Planets has forbidden all but emergency contact with them. This human will be of no help to us and any further contact only increases our chances of mission failure.”
“Captain,” said Sparks. “We’ve been hailing the scout ship for three days. We’ve sent the activation codes to the Sleepers. There has been no response from the ship and nothing from them. We can only assume the worst.”
“Recommendations?” asked the captain.
Sparks took the communicator out of his ear. “Sir, with all due respect, we could be walking into a trap. I recommend we utilize the alien to determine our scout ship’s status.”
The ethereal shimmering around Gak darkened. “Captain, enlisting the aid of this inferior species is dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Objection noted,” the captain said, motioning for Sparks to reactivate the viewer. “I want to know how he is able to communicate with us with a technology that shouldn’t exist on his planet.”
Walter saw himself on the TV again and on impulse, waved. “Hi,” he said.
“Mr. Stickle,” the captain began.
Walter interrupted, “Wow. I can’t believe I’m talking to you on my TV. I don’t know how you’re doing this, but this is great.”
Kleeg turned to Gak.
“TV is the Earth acronym for ‘television,’ Captain,” said Gak. “The term comes from their earlier communications device called the telephone to which they added visual capabilities. It is quite primitive and not based on quantum entanglement.”
The captain turned back to Walter. “Mr. Stickle,” he began.
“What’s going on?” Walter said. “Is this a publicity stunt or something? You make a great Captain Kleeg, by the way.”
Kleeg glanced at Gak and then at the screen again. “How is it you know my name?”
“I know all you guys. There’s First Officer Gak. He’s the smart one. Communications Officer Sparks — he lost a brother in the Goldotti War. And there’s Navigator Klaxon. He’s the hardened veteran. Don’t expect any mercy from him when it comes to those slugs. The rest of your crew is in cryo-stasis.”
“Have you been spying on us?”
“No, of course not. I don’t spy on people. You’re in a comic strip,” Walter said.
Gak turned back to his console, typed in a command, and his data screen flowed with new information. “Sir, the term ‘comic strip’ is defined in The Universal Encyclopedia under Earth as a primitive art form the Earthlings apparently use to encourage the deforestation of their planet. It is unclear how this relates to us or how Mr. Stickle knows so much about us.”
“Don’t you know it’s rude to talk in the third person about someone who is right there with you?” Walter said. “Wait, I think I get it. You’re making Galactic Rangers into an interactive TV show, aren’t you? Or, will it be a movie? This is fantastic. I’m actually on TV. I’m in the show. Is everyone on this channel seeing this or will it be broadcast later? And how do you make that shimmering effect?”
Captain Kleeg motioned for Klaxon to cut the outgoing voice transmission again, but Walter could still hear them. “With such primitive technology, how can he transmit and receive instantaneously at such distance?” he said.
“Unclear, Captain,” said Gak. “But something is clearly not right. This species will not achieve quantum communications for several hundred Earth years.”
Kleeg nodded to Klaxon to reengage the audio link.
Walter said, “You know, I saw this old movie once where some guy boosted the power of his radio to pick up Mars. Maybe it’s like that.” As the words came out of his mouth, he realized that he needed to come up with something better or they would kill him off in the next episode in some horrible fashion and find someone else to play the helpful human. He thought a moment. “I’ve got it,” he said. “It’s…” and Walter paused for dramatic effect. Though he had never been in any class plays, he had seen enough of them to know the value of the pregnant pause. “Tobine,” he said. “He’s the only one on the planet smart enough to figure out how to jimmy a dish to make it receive your transmissions.”
