Puppet Chapter 5

Puppet Chapter 5


The "Liberation Plague" as it was later called, wiped out over 80% of the Puppeteers. The official death toll for their human hosts was about 50 million people.

For Mike, the cure was worse than the disease.

For a week after he recovered from the encephalitis, he stayed in bed. Mike didn't know what Alice's phone number was or where she lived so he could not call her or see how she was doing.

Where the world had seemed to be bathed in light before, it was now gray and dull. Mike knew that things were much as they had been before, but everything seemed to be turned way down.

Finally, one day, Mike got up and went down to the diner where Alice and he had occasionally had coffee together. The service was still terrible but at least the coffee had improved. Mike mostly just sipped and stared out the window.

Now he could go back to his life, he thought. His bleak, miserable life.

Mike went to the diner most days, but it was a week before he saw Alice again. He had been staring listlessly out the window when she came by. When she saw him she waved frantically and then came into the diner.

"Hi Mike!" she said loudly.

"Hello Alice." Mike smiled wanly. "I don't suppose your..."

"Nope, gone for good!" She grinned, but Mike noticed that her hand was clenched into a fist.

Mike stirred his coffee.

Alice raised her voice to call over the waitress. "So is the coffee any better?"

"Yeah, I suppose." Mike said, lifting his cup and taking a sip.

The waitress came by with Alice's order.

"Thanks!" Alice said.

Mike looked out the window again. The silence grew between them.

"So, do you still want to fuck me?"

Alice's offer jarred Mike out of his thoughts. She had a skull's grin on her face.

"Um...ah...yeah, sure, I suppose."

"Let's do it!"

Now both of her hands were clenched, but her grin remained.

"Look, I have to go."

"Fine, we can go back to your place."

"No, look, I need to think."

Mike almost ran out of the diner. It wasn't until he was a block away that he realized he had left her with the bill. He turned around to head back but then remembered the grin on her face.

Mike turned around again and headed home.

* * *

In the days that followed the liberation of the Earth, the world’s governments decided to pool their resources to combat the alien menace. The new organization was called Planetary Defense, and all things Puppeteer were of interest to it. There was also a lot of old fashioned military style recruiting going on for the "the Force" as it was sometimes called.

At first Mike didn't care or notice PD. As the days passed, Mike realized that his life was steadily heading downhill: unless he did something, he was in for the same train wreck that he had been heading for before the Puppeteer had come into his life.

In a moment of inspiration, Mike realized that if anyone would know about where to find any remaining aliens, it was the Force. It was for that reason that Mike found himself one day talking to a soldier with the PD...

“So you want to fight the blobs eh?”

“More or less.”

The soldier quirked an eyebrow at Mike.

“That’s an interesting answer.”

Mike shrugged.

“Do you have any special qualifications?”

“Just one.”

“And what’s that?”

Mike had been dreading this.

“I’m willing to...serve as a host for one of the Puppeteers.”

“You are willing to let the Blobs control you again?!”

“That’s right.”

The soldier looked like he was trying to decide whether or not to shoot him.

“Just a sec.”

The soldier turned away and made a call on a cell phone. He talked for a while, occasionally glancing at Mike.  Finally he hung up.

“Follow me.”

Later on that day, Mike found himself in a windowless room being interviewed by a couple of men in black.

“Most people would do anything to avoid being controlled by a blog again. Why is it that you want to host an alien again?”

Mike sighed. This was the fifth time today that he was explaining this.

“The Puppeteers - aliens - have a different effect on me than they seemed to have on other people.”

“Because you’re crazy.”

“Depressed.”

“Whatever.”

The two guys glanced at each other.

“And why would we want to do this, I mean what even makes you think that there are any blobs left on the planet?”

“There have been tests all over the place for them - and I can’t believe that some of them were not in an isolated location or weren’t captured before you unleashed the plague. I mean, how else would you have tested it?”

“As it turns out Mr. ah” at this the guy glanced down at a sheet of paper “Smith, there are no more
blobs...anywhere. So while we appreciate your ah...willingness to sacrifice on behalf humanity we have no need of your services.”

Mike stared at the two men for a while.

“Alright, mind if I leave?”

“Actually, we do. There are some questions we’d like to ask you...starting with where you live...”
What followed was several tests to satisfy the agents that Mike was not actually harboring a blob. Then there were many questions to make sure he didn’t know of any free blobs. Then there were several questions that appeared to be gratuitous.

Mike spent several uneventful days in what amounted to a cell, although it was somewhat nicer than your average prison.

* * *

“And you are sure you want to go through with this?”

One of the men in black, Tom, was asking Mike one last time.

“Yes.”

After a few days of sitting around in the cell, Mike had been flown out to some "facility" where some more testing had taken place. After a couple of weeks of this, it looked like they were finally going to take some action.

Tom nodded once and led Mike into a room that had a stool in the middle of it. Mike experienced a sense of deja vu at this, but sat down on the stool and started taking off his shirt.

“Please take off your shirt” Tom said, stubbornly ignoring that Mike already doing this. Once his shirt was off, Tom nodded to a couple of orderly types who left the room and then returned shortly.
One of them held a box. They approached Mike and opened one end of the box. They placed the box against Mike’s back and tipped it forwards. Mike felt the familiar sensation of the Puppeteer flowing onto his back.

“Welcome home” Mike said under his breath.

This time, the experience was different.

For one thing, the Puppeteer was a lot weaker. Mike figured they had been keeping the ones they had in some sort of holding area. Whatever the case, it was not a good environment for them. The one that they had given Mike was barely alive.

Despite the state it was in, the alien tried to talk to Mike immediately.

We’ve got to warn them.

Warn them about what?

The rest of the people the Puppeteer said weakly, they will try to kill you.

Why would they want to kill me?

Not just you, everyone.

* * *

Mike was sitting behind a plexiglass window speaking to Tom.

“Where do you come from?”

I’m assuming that he means “where do the Puppeteers come from.”

“I’m assuming you mean where do the Puppeteers come from.”

Tom frowned. Mike did not react the same way that most of the other subjects did to a “possession” as it was informally known. For one thing, he maintained a sense of self aside from the alien.

“Where do the aliens come from?” Tom rephrased.

I’m assuming he means “where do the Puppeteers come from” as opposed to “where do illegal aliens come from?”

“Now stop that.” Mike said out loud.

“What?” Tom said.

“Not you.”

Well? Mike directed the question at the Puppeteer. It took the thing a while to answer.

I don’t know.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!”

Mike shifted about on his seat. His hosts required him to keep his shirt off so that they could ensure where his Puppeteer was. Mike scratched his back. The Puppeteer moved obligingly out of the way so that Mike could reach the spot.

“I’m guessing that the Puppeteers erased the memory of where they came from so that you couldn’t find out.”

Did not.

Then why don’t you know?

I may have just forgotten for a little bit.

Tom jotted something down on a notepad.

“Why did the aliens invade?”

It was a terrible mistake, but we felt we had to do something before you destroyed yourselves.

 “It’s strange – on the one hand they seem to have a total disdain for human beings” at this Tom grunted “but on the other hand they seemed desperate to…”

Mike paused.

“To what?” said Tom.

“To, well, save us.”

“What?!”

“They thought we were going to destroy ourselves through war.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Is that your opinion or is it what the alien says.”

Tell that twit that it’s the truth.

“A combination of both and with some observation of other guided.”

“Other...guided?” Tom asked.

That’s not what I told you to tell him.

“Shut up.” Mike said out loud. Mike looked Tom apologetically. “Sorry, not you, I’m just…getting
accustomed to this new Puppeteer.”

Things were so much simpler when I just ordered that other guy around.

“Sorry, that’s my term for people who are being controlled by an alien.”

Tom glared at Mike for a while.

“Do they understand that being a host is not a pleasant experience for most people?”

“Yes.”

“And they have no empathy for them?”

It was a mistake. We’ve got to stop the rest of the People before they make an even bigger one.

“That's the strange part. My first guide felt like human beings were only mounts for them. This one
is...different.”

"How so?"

"This one seems to think that the whole invasion was a mistake."

"Hmph. You mean they got their butts kicked and now they wished they hadn't messed with us."

And you killed off 50 million of your own people in the process…

Mike frowned. "That may be the case, but it doesn't feel like it."

“Is there anything else you would like to say?”

“Yes - the Puppeteers are probably planning on wiping out the human race.”

Tom stopped writing. “What?”

Finally some progress!

“It’s weird, but the Puppeteers think that, in order to preserve the human race, they need to wipe out our civilization and start over.”

Tom was dumbfounded. “How would they do that?”

They would probably bombard the planet with asteroids.

“My guess is that they would bombard the planet with asteroids.”

I just told you that they would…I mean that’s hardly your guess!

“They would throw rocks at us? That’s ridiculous!”

“Remember the crater in the Yucatan peninsula? The one that they think killed off the dinosaurs? That’s the sort of rocks the Puppeteers will throw at us.”

Mike leaned forwards to the glass.

“We have got to start working to stop them now if our civilization is to continue.”

Tom loosened his tie.

“But…but you just said they wanted to save us."

Mike sat back.

“Yeah, that’s the weird part. They seem to think that if they cannot save us that they should destroy us. I think they’re a little crazy.”

“A little crazy?!!”

“OK, maybe more than a little.”

Hmph. We’re not the ones who came up with “Mutually Assured Destruction!”

“Even if I did believe you, and I could convince others, how exactly would we stop them? I mean, we barely have the ability to go to the moon!”

“The Puppeteers are extra-terrestrial, that much seems clear. They must have come in some sort of ship. All we need to do is reverse engineer their ships and we will have space flight. From there we need to find their base in system and destroy it.”

Tom got to his feet. “I need to talk to some people about this.”

The dead-pan delivery with which Mike announced this was perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole exchange. The prisoner just sat there, announcing the fate of the world as if he were making a prediction about the weather. Tom stared at him and then walked quickly out the room. Behind Mike the door to the interview room buzzed open. He got up to leave.

I thought that went pretty well.

Shut up.

* * *

“And why should we believe that the aliens are planning to attack with...rocks. Why wouldn’t they just try another invasion?”

Some sort of military type, maybe a general, sat in the room on the other side of the window opposite Mike.

The general had his arms crossed. It didn’t look like he was buying Mike’s story.

“They may well try to invade again, but given what happened last time, I doubt that they'll do it."

I don’t think he is taking this seriously.

"Hmmm...it sounds like a standoff to me."

"Not quite: they're sort of insane."

Hey!

“Yes…” the general consulted some notes “…didn’t you also say that the aliens were trying to ‘save’ us from ourselves with their invasion?”

OK, look I already admitted that was a mistake. I mean, how many times do we have to over that one?

My guess would be 50 million times.  Replied Mike dryly.

You know, if we spend all our time on recriminations, who is going to stop the People from bombing your race back into the stone age?

OK, so you have a point.

“Well yes. But they seem to regard the whole invasion as crossing some sort of line – since they’ve already done that, they may as well go all the way.”

"Well...Mr. Smith, I'll take this into consideration."

Mike looked at the general.

"I don't think you’re treating this seriously enough."

"And you are wearing one of the enemy so excuse me if I don't accept whatever you say at face value. Can you prove any of this?"

Sigh

"You can watch for asteroids whose orbit changes."

"Well, perhaps that can be arranged."

"But by the time you notice something is wrong, it will be too late."

"Hmph."

The general left.

* * *

Tom was talking to Mike again.

"He didn't buy it.” Mike stated flatly.

"Well, we are including what you said in the scenarios we're planning for."

"Dammit Tom, that's just not good enough!"

"It will have to do, Mr. Smith." Tom said coldly.

“Tom, you gotta listen to me. The Puppeteers, these...these aliens...they don’t care about sunrises.”

“Oh please.” Tom was interested despite himself. It seemed like the first time Mike had shown any emotion of any kind.

“It’s true! They don’t understand sunsets, they don’t understand what a hug is or a flower or a song. They look at a mountain and all they can see is something to rip apart for its minerals.”

Tom was shocked to see a tear rolling down Mike’s face.

“They don’t care about love and they don’t feel a cool breeze or a cold glass of water when you’re too hot and they don’t even wonder why they’re here.”

Mike was standing up now and he had his hands on the glass between the two of them.

“They only care about what they can eat next. The only satisfaction they will take is turning this world into a world of puppets; and if they can’t do that, they will burn it to a cinder!”

“I can’t sit by and let them do that, Tom, and neither can you! While we have an ounce of strength, while we have an iota of will, we’ve got to try and stop them.”

The buzzer for the room sounded and two of men in isolation suits came in. They grabbed Mike and tried to drag him off.

“We gotta stop them Tom! You and me! Because there is no one else - these other people, they’re scared of them. They won’t listen. By the time they figure it out it may be too late. We gotta stop them...”

The door to the cell slammed shut. Tom sat there looking at the place where Mike had been.

* * *

A few days later, Mike found himself walking down a corridor with a person in an isolation suit. This was nothing new in and of itself, but the man who was leading him (following actually, so that Mike couldn’t slap a blob on the man’s back), told him to go down a corridor that he had never been down before.

Do you think they are going to “retire” us? Mike asked the blob.

Well, thanks to your outburst I think that is a possibility.

We’ve got to make them listen!

Yes, but that’s not the way.

Do you have a better idea?

On that point the blob was silent, as they continued down an unfamiliar corridor.

When they got to another door, the man instructed Mike to open it. It seemed to be a loading dock of some sort.

A familiar voice spoke from behind him: “I hope you’re being straight with me about the martians using an asteroid to incinerate the planet...”

“Tom!”

Tom was busy changing out of his isolation suit. He glanced nervously at the monitor cameras, hoping that the loop he had programmed them to play would hold up long enough for them to escape.

“Get in the back of this truck.”

Can’t we sit in the front?

Oh shut up.

Tom directed Mike over to an empty semi and closed the door after him. The truck left the loading dock and reached the checkpoint to the facility.

“Tom! What are you doing driving a truck?” The guard at the checkpoint asked.

“They’re short handed so they asked me to pitch in. Either that or trying and find someone else with a
clearance.”

“Alright, but I’ll have to clear this.”

Are we there yet? The alien asked in a peevish mental tone.

No!

As it turned out Tom actually had been asked to drive a truck to pick up supplies for the facility. They
eventually waved him through without searching the payload area carefully (Mike hid under some old blankets).

Eventually, the truck stopped and they got out.

Tom looked at Mike. “OK, we have one truck that will be reported stolen very soon, two guys who are wanted by every police organization on the planet, and one alien blob which most of the planet wants to see dead. We will be branded as traitors to everyone and everything and thanks to some new tests, it will be very difficult to go walking around with that alien on your back.”

“So what’s our next play?”

“We visit the nearest mental ward.”

“I know what you mean.”

“No, I’m serious, people with mental disabilities are the best suited to help us out. For whatever reason, the Puppeteers can’t wholly control someone with mental issues. We need to go in and “recruit” some of them.

Tom narrowed his eyes: “We are not starting a new invasion.”

“We’ll only need 10 or 20 people.”

“And we are not going to make any new slaves.”

“To be able to bypass security screenings, the human partner will have to remove the puppeteer. During that time they will be in complete control of themselves. If they want to jump ship at that point they are free to do so.”

“Great, so what do we do with this little team?”

“We acquire a space ship.”

“A space ship?!”

“We can’t stop the Puppeteers from bombarding the Earth from the surface – we’ve got to get into space to do that.”

Tom massaged his face with his hands “How did I get talked into this?”

“Flowers and sunsets, remember?”

Chapter 4, Chapter 6