Occupied Earth Read online

  “Yes sir.”

  Slowly the car began to move forward, picking its way, with the help of one of the escort skimmers, through the crowd of people and aliens. As they moved, a path gradually began to clear in front of them. Harper put his head back against the limo’s car seat and shut his eyes.

  “And many happy returns of the day to me,” he said, and then added with a sigh, “Moses on a pony.”

  Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

  George S. Patton

  5:50 P.M.

  I yawned as the middle-aged white man bled to death on the sidewalk.

  Hot dogs wrapped in bacon or…?

  Hot dogs not wrapped in bacon?

  I yawned again, pushed back my sweaty blue baseball cap, then peered at the shuttered liquor store behind me. Smelled like urine and spilled malt liquor. The more things change…

  Meanwhile, the 65-year old man—Seth Friedlander, according to his I.D.—kept dying.

  Carotid artery. Ain’t no comin’ back from that.

  Andreas, crouched beside the patient on the bloody sidewalk, pressed useless pads of gauze against the man’s neck. Sweat and blood glistened on my partner’s tawny-colored arms.

  We both ignored the two Mahk-Ra over-sheriffs monitoring the call.

  The September sun sat low in the cigarette-smoke sky. The little light that broke through the cinders reflected on a fallen alien ship four miles from where I stood. It spanned from Olympic Boulevard all the way north to Wilshire, and rose just as high. The new skyline of Downtown Los Angeles. No more fancy 90-story skyscrapers with rich men’s names on top. Anything over twenty stories had been blown to shit.

  Back under the old skyline, lookie-loos would’ve crowded us. Man down? Camera phones up and out. Selfies with the body in the background. Now, nobody gawked or hung around. Folks were more scared of these Mahk-Ra mo-fos than the LAPD.

  What a world, what a world, what a world.

  Back under the old L.A. skyline, Mr. Seth Friedlander would’ve died a more dignified death. In a hospital bed. At a beachside condo. A final squeeze of his nurse’s ass, and a ‘good night, sweetheart’ and that was that. Now, his bloody Italian loafer sat in a gutter. Now, a size 15 combat boot worn by some sum-bitch from some planet way over there had trampled on his bloody silk tie. And now, his classic Tag Heur watch was being hocked by a thug who specialized in all things pre-Occupation.

  Life had changed for Mr. Friedlander. So had death.

  Or maybe grilled chicken. Better for my heart.

  I glanced at my digital wristwatch: seven minutes to six.

  The man on the ground finally stopped breathing.

  Andreas craned his neck to look at me. “Call it, Joe.”

  I lifted my scarred brown wrist again. “Five fifty-five.” Then, I reached into the back of the rig, grabbed a white sheet and tossed it to Andreas. Eyes on the ground. Eyes on the vic. Eyes anywhere except for the strange gaze of the Mahk-Ra over-sheriffs who now monitored the scene. And us.

  Their eyes. Couldn’t see the whites of the Mahk-Ra’s eyes cuz they didn’t have any. All pupils. Just black. Strange shit.

  Fortunately, these two mocks still wore their sunglasses. In an hour, though, once the sun set, those sunglasses would come off. And then, those eyes…

  Scared me more than their weapons.

  “Just don’t look at ‘em, Joseph,” my mom, Porsche, had instructed me so long ago. But kids don’t listen, and so I looked. Nightmares until I hit my twenties, and by then, there was other shit to fear.

  Once the meat truck rumbled off to take Mr. Friedlander to the county morgue, I climbed behind the rig’s steering wheel. Kept my attention on the alien cops now questioning my partner. Ready to jump out if he needed me to. Certain death? Yeah. But he was my partner. He was all I had.

  The mocks towered over Andreas, and strong enough to bench-press Sherman tanks. Not that height and strength mattered when they all carried those Piecemakers.

  Andreas Saldana was taller than me, six foot three easy, and built like a heavyweight boxer. Born just a year or so before they came, he’d grown up in East L.A. and didn’t remember that life at all. He did remember burning buildings. Corpses left in the streets. The vibrations in his silver baby teeth as alien ships roamed the skies in search of more shit to blow up. Andreas didn’t know that 20th- century and early 21st century people in his neighborhood had been scared of ELA13 and Avenues who had wielded AK47s and Uzis to kill each other.

  Sunrise, sunset.

  And now, Andreas slammed himself into the passenger seat. “Fuckin’ mocks.”

  “What they say?”

  He screwed up his pug face and sucked his teeth. “Wanted to know why we didn’t stop for the mocktard back on Vermont.”

  “What you say?”

  “That another crew took the call.”

  I flushed. “So, you lied.”

  “Yeah, I lied.”

  I grit my teeth and ignored the burn in my belly. “They write us up?”

  “They can kiss my butter-Rican ass, man. I been on for three days. I look like I care?” Andreas plucked his flip-phone from his shirt pocket.

  “You’ll write the run report?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Mr. Friedlander dead so he don’t give one fuck about no report. You decide yet?”

  “Yep.” I turned the rig’s ignition. The rumbling engine made the steering wheel quiver beneath my palms. “Dogs with bacon.”

  Sure. Why not?

  6:45 P.M.

  Static and chatter burst from the ambulance’s radio but no calls came for us, 87 CHARLIE. As I drove the rig east, I spotted an alien ship just a mile away, hovering about one-hundred feet from the ground. “That’s gotta be about twenty semi-trucks-long,” I said, awed by the engineering.

  “What’s it doing now?” Andreas asked.

  The ship’s spotlights were shining into apartment and business windows. Inside, people probably stood facing those lights, eyes squeezed shut, hands held up, prayers on their lips.

  “Reminds me of police helicopters that used to patrol where I grew up,” I said.

  Coliseum Avenue. Palm trees. Apartments. Jungle Bloods.

  “My grandpa told me about them helicopters,” Andreas said. “He called ‘em ‘ghetto birds.’”

  “Yeah.” I squinted at the Mahk-Ra ship. “But these fools, though. They’re worse than the cops. They don’t fuck around. If you run from ‘em, you die and ain’t nobody marchin’ in the streets demanding justice.”

  Andreas snorted. “Fuckin’ mocks will shoot you even if you don’t run. They roll up on you with them pulsar-things and just… BAM! You ain’t you no more. Gone like tears in the ocean.”

  I tore my eyes away from the ship and considered the passing neighborhood. Historic Koreatown. Everybody squatted here now, though, and Koreatown was now Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia and Pico Rivera combined.

  Black, white, asian, hispanic, blue-eyed, brown-haired… Arm in arm, hand in hand, chatting and laughing, like those Coke commercials from the 80’s. All of humanity had united once the 7-foot freaks with black eyes had landed. World leaders—earthlings—had come up with different ways of moving and living. Solar power. Desalinization. No nuclear. Fuck nuclear. But we still got around and did shit without a lot of oil. Had babies with whoever wanted one, just to be sure we’d still be here fifty, 100, 2,000 years from now. All because of the Mahk-Ra.

  Thanks but fuck y’all anyway.

  So different from the Los Angeles of my childhood. Yeah, there were still cell-phone towers and grocery stores and nail shops, but since Iran, Iraq and all of the Middle East had been cut off of from America, from the U.K., from anybody not them, oil no longer flowed as freely as it used to. Not a lot of cars now. More walkers. More bikers. A good thing in some ways. And if cosmic dust and human ashes weren’t still polluting the skies, the oceans would stop rising, and polar bears would get to fuck around on the ice again.

  I ch
uckled.

  Andreas glanced at me. “What’s so funny?”

  “Polar bears.”

  “Heard about them, too. Like dodos and shit.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Like dodos.”

  Andreas’s phone chirped and he smiled. “Aww, yeah.”

  I tossed my partner a look. “Must not be Alizé.”

  “Nope. My sweet-baby Letty.” He opened the phone and cooed, “Estoy caliente y te deseo, baby.”

  At a red light, I plucked my own phone from my shirt pocket and peered at the cracked glass.

  No voice-mail. No missed calls. Not even from a telemarketer hustling Mahk-Ra insurance protection plans. Looking at my phone, it was like I no longer existed. In many ways, I didn’t.

  With a shaky finger, I pressed MESSAGE. Phone to my ear, I squeezed my eyes shut and waited to feel the hurt of living.

  “…supposed to get drops for the water. We can’t drink the water without the drops, Joseph. Boiling ain’t enough, okay? You don’t know everything. I read, too.” Destiny had taken a deep breath and had then slowly released it. “And hurry up, okay? Kiara’s scared. Get the—”

  “Daddy,” Kiara had shouted. “Daddy, the lights ain’t comin’ on. Hurry up and come fix the lights!”

  Hot tears filled my eyes as my wife’s and my ten-year old’s voices surrounded me like fiery mist. Not the most romantic message but it had been Destiny’s last words to me. And Kiara’s.

  Just one more chance. Lord, give me one more chance.

  My everyday prayer. If God gave me one more chance, I wouldn’t stop this time at The Cork for beer and wings and the Raiders. This time, I’d stop at the army surplus store and buy those water purification drops. This time, I’d be at home and I’d hear that ship approach and I’d throw Destiny and Kiara into the F-10 and drive until the gas tank hit ‘E,’ somewhere up near Solvang. Just one more chance. This time, I’d save them.

  Fifteen years had passed since then, and I still couldn’t tap the DELETE button to erase Destiny’s message. I needed to hear. I needed to hurt. I needed to remember that I didn’t come home until nine o’clock that night, and by then, my home on Haas Avenue had been consumed in flames just like the six other bungalows on that part of the block. Courtesy of the Mahk-Ra version of an electromagnetic pulse bomb with a fire back. So powerful that it had denied me my family’s ashes.

  And now, I only saw Kiara and Destiny in my dreams. The sober ones, at least.

  7:28 P.M.

  The line at Doggy-Style wound west on Pico like a slow-moving snake. The aroma of onions and bacon called folks as far west as Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Fifty years ago, those snobby sumbitches wouldn’t have driven east of La Brea. But Doggy-Style mixed charcoal and wood in their barrels. Sure: infrared also got the job done, but the meat didn’t taste grilled.

  “We’re pulling up now, baby,” Andreas whispered into the phone. “Is it wet? Yeah, baby… Diantre!” He chuckled. “My, my, my.”

  The radio squawked. “87 CHARLIE,” the dispatcher called.

  I reached for the handset.

  Andreas swatted my hand. “Next one. Earthlings gotta eat.”

  Like all EMT-Paramedics, Andreas and I didn’t have to queue up for food. At least that perk hadn’t changed since the Occupation. Out of the stuffy rig, I inhaled and filled my lungs with greasy air. Nothing like the smell of charred meat in the evening. Smelled like… 2012.

  Trudy, the owner and head cook of Doggy-Style, had served with me back in Operation Free Earth. She could handle an M16A4 better than the spatula she wielded on her truck. And now, she grinned at me, and the pearly scar running from her right ear to beneath her chin tightened into a smile of its own. “No grilled chicken today?” she asked. Her voice tinkled like the Italian-glass earrings I’d given Destiny on our tenth wedding anniversary.

  “Nope,” I said. “Dogs and swine.”

  “Me, too, Tru.” Andreas gazed at a trio of women sitting just a few yards away on the hood of a red and black Camaro. “Skirts up to there. Shirts down to there. Looking at them makes my little Dre go pitter-patter.”

  Down the line, a man cried out, “Hey!”

  A mock wearing torn jeans and a tight T-shirt stood in front of a red-faced muscle-head in camouflage shorts and a gray beater.

  “This ain’t gonna end well,” Andreas whispered.

  “You can’t fuckin’ cut, dude,” Camo Guy complained to the mock’s massive back. “I know y’all supposed to be our lord and savior and shit but you on the street now and—”

  The mock’s left hand struck Camo Guy in his face and we all heard something crack.

  The crowd gasped.

  Camo Guy collapsed to the sidewalk as blood spurted from every hole in his face.

  Andreas muttered, “Damn.”

  I groaned and made my way toward the bullshit.

  “Be careful, Joe, ” Trudy shouted.

  “I’m hurt,” the mock told me. He held up his giant hand—the middle finger now zigzagged.

  “Looks like it’s dislocated,” I said.

  Camo Guy writhed on the sidewalk, lost in blood and bone. At least he was still alive. For now.

  “Hold still,” I told the alien, taking his hand.

  A bearded line-dweller shouted, “What the fuck, man? He ain’t even hurt and you’re treating him first? That’s bull—”

  The mock reached for his waistband and pulled out Big Baby, Piecemaker’s little sister. “What’s that? You sayin’ something?”

  Line Dweller’s mouth popped close. No one else in the line complained. No one even left the line.

  On the count of three, I snapped the alien’s finger back in place. “Better?”

  The Mahk-Ra flexed his hand. “Yep.”

  Then, in accordance with the law, Andreas tended Camo Guy’s broken nose.

  Five minutes later, Trudy passed us Styrofoam cups filled with red punch and vodka. “On the house. You need it more than anybody.”

  Andreas chugged half of his cocktail before leaving the window. Full of liquid courage, he sauntered over to the women relaxing on the Camaro. “Ladies,” I heard him say. “How are y’all this fine e-ven-ning?”

  Still waiting for our dogs, I wandered over to the group. I recognized the chunky mulatto as Andreas’s girl, Letty. The two other women eyed me, and their pointy, pink tongues licked the sides of their cracked, painted lips. At nearly sixty years old, I still had a square jaw and my height, low-cut salt-and-pepper hair and good teeth (most of them my own); but my heart hurt and I hunched when I walked and my smile felt as real as a polyester. For some women, though, especially in times like these, that was enough.

  For the gray-eyed chick on the Camaro—Carla? Darla?—it had been plenty. Two weeks ago, we had rolled around the back of the rig. She had tasted like onions and penicillin, and over those ten minutes, I’d wanted to vomit. Miracle of miracles, I came just in time. Afterward, Carla-Darla had asked for my number. I’d lied and told her that a Mahk-Re had stolen my phone.

  And now, I muttered, “Hey,” barely meeting Carla-Darla’s murky eyes and feeling gaggy from just remembering our time in the rig. Almost overcome with fatigue and the dull funk of depression, I watched Andreas flirt and flex his muscles for Letty, and tried to ignore the nagging twist in my gut. Because Letty was half-human, half Mahk-Ra. A product of what happened whenever Imperialist males from this world, and now, other worlds, landed on foreign soil.

  Then you get the power. Then you get the women. By force, most times.

  Couldn’t trust Letty even if her momma had been born and bred in Echo Park. If Andreas decided to dump her ass and be a good husband to Alizé for once in his life, Letty would lash out and declare war. Report him just out of spite. Or kill him.

  Human. Alien. Half and half. Dog. Crazy bitches be crazy bitches.

  8:49 P.M.

  I climbed back behind the ambulance’s steering wheel.

  Andreas slipped into the passenger seat with a sigh and
a smile. “That’s better.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I grumbled as I strapped on the seatbelt.

  Andreas sucked his teeth. “Can’t help it. Letty got great tits, man, and her choca is umm-umm-magically delicious.”

  “Great tits? Them rolls of fat?”

  “Fat with nipples is called ‘tits’ in my book. And for real: you need to hook up with Theresa again, man.”

  Theresa? Where the hell did I get Carla-Darla?

  “So what, she smell like a deli in a pharmacy,” Andreas said, shrugging. “It ain’t like it’s 1985, man, when bitches smelled like Opium and Obsession and shit.”

  The nerve above my left eye twitched. “So I hook up with her again. And then what?”

  “And then what, what?” Andreas shook his head. “Who say you gotta get all close and shit? That ain’t the point. It’s just fun, Pops. You remember what that is, right?”

  No. I tasted my dinner again. “I’m not goin’ there with her. Especially with her. It’s pointless.”

  “Whatever, man.” Andreas pulled out his flip-phone and dialed. “Stick to your sock and lotion. I don’t give a…” He smiled. “Amorcito. Precioso. Just thinkin’ ‘bout you, baby.”

  Precioso? Had to be talking to the wife.

  The radio blurted, and the dispatcher said, “87 CHARLIE. Respond Code 3.”

  A blast of static and then…

  Silence.

  Not even white noise.

  Dead air.

  And then…

  That familiar rumble in the sky.

  “Hello?” Andreas said. “Baby, you there? Hello?”

  The walls of my stomach vibrated and the skin across my face tingled. The metal fillings in my back teeth buzzed, alive now with electricity.

  Andreas glared at his phone. “What the hell, man? They ain’t supposed to come so fuckin’ close.”

  I leaned forward to look up and out of the windshield. “We got some cowboys.”

  The rig’s cabin darkened and shimmied.