Occupied Earth Read online

  He and I spent the rest of the morning working on our costumes. We went to a nearby garbage dump and scavenged a large burlap potato sack, a length of cable, a battered metal tray, a stained man’s jacket, a plastic bucket with a hole in the bottom, a two-foot section of pipe, and – the major score – a full-face gas mask with a crack running through the plastic that covered the eyes. We carted everything home, laid it out on the living area floor, and Marcus grabbed the pipe, thrusting it out like a sword. “I want to be a soldier!”

  We made Marcus a soldier outfit by using the cable to attach the metal tray to the burlap sack, and cutting eye holes in the bucket and strapping it to his head. If we’d had some paint and a little more detail, it could’ve passed for the cheap armor they stuck earth recruits in for their first combat mission.

  For me, I just wore the old jacket, which was so huge on me that it hung to my knees, and the gas mask. Marcus eyed me, puzzled. “What’re you supposed to be?”

  I thought for a few seconds and answered, “A gas mask salesman!”

  Marcus frowned; he didn’t think it was funny.

  Next, we made our arsenal: A handful of pebbles in an old tin can made a noisemaker. We didn’t have eggs or toilet paper to spare, but we found some foul-smelling sludge near the dump that we scraped into sheets of old paper and carefully wadded up inside a backpack.

  The parades would start at noon. We had to be ready by then, because the troops that were usually quartered inside the Detention Center would be out strutting with the rest of the Mahk-Ra. At eleven, Dad came in, looked at us, and burst into laughter. “You two look great! I wish I had a camera.”

  We went over the plan again. Marcus didn’t really listen, but I knew he’d be fine. His job was to run around and scream like a maniac, a role he was born to.

  At eleven-thirty, Dad had to go. He got down on his knees and gathered us up in a big hug, one arm for each of us. “I’m really proud of both of you,” he said. “But I want you to be careful.”

  “Let’s just get Mom back,” I said.

  Marcus shouted, “Happy Halloween!”

  Fifteen minutes after Dad left, we took off our costumes. Marcus whined, “Why can’t we just leave them on?”

  “Because, dummy, somebody might see us and report us before we even reach the Detention Center.”

  He kicked his foot, sullenly. He was ready.

  We left the apartment, each of us lugging a big pack. As we closed our door behind us, Teryn and her mom came out of their apartment. “Hi,” she said, before spotting our packs and adding, “What’re you carrying?”

  We hadn’t even left our building yet, and already things were going wrong. What were the chances of running into my best friend right then? I thought fast. “Oh, just some stuff we have to give to Aunt Marcia.”

  “Oh.” Teryn wrinkled her nose; she’d met Aunt Marcia once and her opinion had been no better than mine. “So you’re not going to the parade?”

  “We are, but over by her place.”

  Teryn’s mom tugged at her. “C’mon, Teryn, we’ll be late. Let’s go.”

  “Okay. See you later, I guess.”

  “Right. ‘Bye.”

  Teryn and her mom strode off. Marcus looked up at me, frowning. “You never said we were going to Aunt Marcia’s place.”

  “I just told her that, moron, because otherwise she would’ve asked us to go with them to the parade.”

  Marcus nodded. “Ohhhh. Okay.”

  He wasn’t always the brightest. At least the Mahk-Ra would never put him in a special school with extra work.

  The Detention Center was about eight blocks away. The parade had started by the time we reached the street, and the sidewalks were lined with onlookers who were waving little paper flags on sticks that we’d all been issued. Mahk-Ra in gleaming armor, tall and proud, marched down the streets in perfect unison as military music blared out of speakers on the buildings overhead.

  Marcus and I had come prepared – we pulled out our own little flags and waved them overhead as he pushed through the rear of the crowd. It wasn’t easy weaving in and out of all the spectators, but nobody paid any attention to two kids waving their flags.

  We hadn’t counted on the crowds and we were a couple of minutes late reaching the Detention Center. We went by it once, and sure enough, there, at the top of a short flight of steps leading up to the main doors on the front of the big concrete building, were four Mahk-Ra with pulse rifles.

  Dad and his two friends were on the street nearby, waving their own flags. I approached and nudged Dad from behind. He looked down, nodded once, and went back to cheering the troops on.

  At the end of the Detention Center building was an alley lined with dumpsters. It was empty. I pulled Marcus down behind the first bin and shrugged out of my backpack.

  Marcus asked, “Now?”

  I grinned at him. “Now.”

  He lowered his own burden and dug into it excitedly. I helped him pull on his burlap “armor” and “helmet”, then cautioned him to wait until I got on my jacket and gas mask.

  “You got your rattle?”

  He held it up and shook it, and I nearly flinched at the terrible racket it made. I checked my own weaponry: the pack full of sludge-bombs.

  We were ready.

  “Remember, Marcus – you take off running when I tell you to, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got it. Let’s just GO.”

  He ran off, full of prankster spirit. I just hoped he’d actually listen to me when it counted, then I ran out after him.

  The people on the street were intent on the parade, and nobody noticed us until we reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the Detention Center. My mask was hard to see through clearly – the crack split my view in half – but I made out two of the Mahk-Ra looking down at us curiously.

  Marcus darted up the stairs, shaking the homemade rattle joyfully, shouting “Happy Halloween!” over and over.

  The Mahk-Ra all looked down at him, perplexed. That’s the thing about them; the Mahk-Ra just don’t get humor at all. If you hand them something deliberately ridiculous, it kind of short-circuits them for a few seconds.

  Marcus went nuts.

  He darted around their feet and between their legs, a blur of motion and energy and noise that could be heard even over the piped-in marching music.

  The Mahk-Ra looked down and tried to back away. The commander ordered Marcus to stop.

  He laughed and jumped up and down, shaking the rattle.

  One of the Mahk-Ra started to lower his rifle.

  My heart jumped into my throat and for a second I froze. But the Mahk-Ra in charge made a motion, and the rifle went up again.

  I caught a glimpse of Dad watching, too, and knew he must’ve been as nervous as I was.

  And that was my cue.

  I hopped up the steps, yelling the phrase Dad had taught me: “Trick or treat!”

  The four Mahk-Ra turned away from Marcus to focus on me. That was when I threw the first sludge-bomb. My aim was good, and it hit the closest Mahk-Ra in the chest.

  The expression on the alien’s face as he looked down at the gooey mess and then smelled it was priceless. I couldn’t help but laugh, even though I knew it could get me imprisoned or killed. I laughed because I felt powerful, for the first time in my life. Ironically, hiding under a mask had liberated me, and I felt wild and free. I’d never felt this way before.

  I threw the next missile. It hit another soldier in the leg. My third lob was a direct hit, and the Mahk-Ra commander blinked as he wiped dark brown filth from his face.

  Oh, he was mad. He yelled and gestured.

  I didn’t need six years of studying their language to know he’d just said, “Get them!”

  I turned to run. If I’d stopped to think, I might have imagined a pulse ray burning my back, sending me crashing down to death; or the humans on the sidewalks siding with their captors and encircling me, trapping me.

  But instead I was filled w
ith the joy of the Halloween spirit. I was invincible. I laughed and ran.

  The humans parted, giving me room.

  I heard a crash. I couldn’t resist stopping to look back.

  Two of the Mahk-Ra had tripped and tumbled down the steps. Six feet away, Marcus pointed at them, shaking with laughter.

  I understood: The little demon had tripped them.

  I waved to him to join me, and he ran up. “C’mon!”

  The Mahk-Ra picked themselves up and came after us – all four of them. This was better than we’d hoped. They might have no sense of humor, but they could certainly get mad.

  We flew down that sidewalk and cut into the alley. As we ran, we tore off our costumes and tossed them into the dumpsters. We heard the Mahk-Ra coming behind us, but we still had a good lead on them. We reached the other end of the alley and turned right. We pushed through the legs of the mob, and I handed Marcus one of the flags I’d saved from the pack. Other kids had lined up at the front of the crowd, so they could see the parade. We were just two more, dutifully celebrating Union Day in state-approved style.

  I heard the Mahk-Ra behind us, but we were indistinguishable from the rest. We’d made it.

  We stayed there until the parades ended and the crowds started to dissolve, heading back to their homes in the late afternoon.

  Dad was waiting for us at home.

  Mom was with him.

  It turned out we’d actually done our jobs a little too well, and had put one wrinkle in the plan: Dad had originally been planning to knock one of the Mahk-Ra out and take his pass-card. Fortunately, though, there was one other soldier none of us had known about stationed just inside the door, and he came out to see what had happened when his four fellow guards disappeared. Dad had taken him down with one blow from a lead pipe. Nobody noticed, since everyone else was watching the parade.

  The rest had been easy. They’d found Mom quickly and gotten her out. Once they were two blocks away from the Detention Center, they’d removed her identification chip, ground it underfoot, and inserted a new one.

  It turned out that one of Dad’s new friends worked for the Red Spear and they got us out of Sacramento with some forged transfer papers. We were shocked to find out how big the Red Spear was, and how well organized. By the time we wound up in Atlanta, on the other side of the country, I knew change was coming – maybe not this year, or even next year, but sooner than the Mahk-Ra thought.

  We lived quietly, though, with our new names and our new apartment. But when October came around, Marcus started talking about Halloween again. Dad tried to hush him up, but he wouldn’t be dissuaded. So we made him a costume – this time he wanted to be a vampire like Dad in the old photo.

  We went to the Union Day parades in the afternoon, with everyone else, then we came back to our new, bigger apartment, and we all giggled and teased as we helped Marcus into his costume, with a cape made from a black plastic trash bag and white makeup that had once been chalk dust.

  At about eight o’clock, we were surprised by a knock on our door. We opened it to find two kids there, one dressed in a makeshift spacesuit and the other as a soot-smeared hobo. “Trick or treat,” they cried, holding out cloth bags.

  Marcus saw them, shrieked, “Trick!” and ran to join them.

  I still had some of the Mahk-Ra issued candy left over from the day’s celebrations, so I tossed one piece into each of their bags. “Happy Halloween,” I said.

  I meant it.

  GAIGE-RA MOVES his pen as if he was carving something intricate. He is always and forever taking notes. Many think it’s because he’s methodical, his precision being a testament to his skill as a leader. Others believe he does it to increase pressure on whoever is addressing the Mahk-Ra High Command. That he enjoys making speakers simmer in the silence.

  If that’s the case, and Jaylon-ra assumes that it is, then the tactic works.

  Ten feet and a trillion miles away, the back of Jaylon-ra’s neck grows hot. A tiny muscle next to his eye twitches. He had mentally prepared himself for a variety of scenarios: Applause, dismissal, laughter, reprimand.

  He was not prepared to be written at for three full minutes.

  The other members of the High Command are also uncomfortable. They fidget in their seats at the horseshoe-shaped table, looking at each other, at Gaige-ra sitting at the head. Their brows arched and their mouths turned up, wondering when their leader is going to speak.

  Jaylon-ra can’t take his mind off the encroaching feeling of dread that he can feel circling the boundaries of the room like a predator.

  Gaige-ra places his pen down, carefully lining it along the edge of his paper. The entire High Command freezes in anticipation. Jaylon-ra holds his breath.

  “I remain unconvinced,” says Gaige-ra. “There is far too much risk here, for too little perceived gain.”

  There’s murmuring and head-nodding from the High Command, all of them working very hard to visibly agree with Gaige-ra’s assessment. Jaylon-ra winces, and glances at Paul, his human affairs advisor, whose face is blank as a stretch of sand.

  “I know this plan is… unorthodox,” Jaylon-ra says. “But you have said, on several occasions, that we must think creatively if we are to blunt the Red Spear.”

  “Yes,” Gaige-ra nods, eyes looking up and away, like he’s trying to recall if he did, in fact, say that. “But what you’re suggesting…”

  “I’m not asking that we hold a real election,” Jaylon-ra says. He pauses, realizing he interrupted Gaige-ra. He searches the leader’s wide, flat face for signs of disapproval. He sees nothing, and wonders if that’s good or bad.

  Jaylon-ra continues, “All we have to do is give the humans the appearance of a choice. If we can make them believe it, and I’m elected anyway, then they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.”

  Gaige-ra clasps his hands together in front of him. “This opponent you’re suggesting… Councilman Mancuso. His cousin is currently incarcerated for orchestrating Red Spear activity in Chicago. A close childhood friend is suspected in a Red Spear bombing. These are troubling instances of dissent.”

  Paul clears his throat. Everyone in the High Command looks up at him.

  “If I may,” Paul says.

  Gaige-ra looks at Jaylon-ra. “You’re using the translator? This is highly unorthodox. Humans are not permitted to listen in on High Command meetings. You know this.”

  “I understand that,” Jaylon-ra says, regretting that he didn’t make that clear up front. “But he is a trusted advisor and integral to this plan. I would not have included him on this meeting if he didn’t offer valuable insight.”

  Gaige-ra frowns, seething. “Fine. He may speak.”

  Paul clears his throat again. “You’re… sir. Every person on this planet has some tenuous connection to the Red Spear. Councilman Mancuso backed us when we did the curfew. He backed us on the school integration program. He has been with us on a number of extremely unpopular votes, and he’s never let us down. He’s an old man who wants to take care of his district. He understands how the game is played.”

  Gaige-ra clenches his teeth. “And how is the game played, human?”

  “It’s politics one-oh-one,” says Paul, not ruffled by the disdain in Gaige-ra’s voice. “There’s a reason his district gets awarded more discretionary spending than anyone else. If anything, he owes us on this.”

  Gaige-ra gazes at the ceiling. Then he sighs and leans forward. “Leaving the New York City Council in place was an experiment. Even with their veto power removed, we hoped this gesture would mollify the uprisings. Perhaps even engender some trust. Out of fifty-one seats, we had hoped to elect a dozen Mahk-Ra council members by now. There are three. Worse, human on Mahk-Ra violence has risen in the past year.”

  Paul steps forward, a little surer of himself. Jaylon-ra is worried. He’s watched humans killed for less. He’s been a very good human affairs advisor. It would be a shame to see him incinerated.

  At least he looks presentable
, in his pressed suit, his blonde hair carefully swept back. Gaige-ra values neatness.

  “District races are different from citywide races,” Paul says. “We’ve run the numbers. We know the Mahk-Ra will vote in high numbers. Even taking into account a surge from human voters, based on our projections, the voting machines only need to dump every third human vote, and we’ll take the election in a walk.”

  “I would not put this plan in front of you if I wasn’t confident it would work,” Jaylon-ra says.

  Gaige-ra puts his hand flat on the desk. Breathes deep.

  This is it. Jaylon-ra leans back in his seat. He had high hopes when he woke up this morning. He worked over this plan for a month. It was supposed to impress the High Command enough that maybe, just maybe, he could serve out one more four-year term and then get the hell off this planet. Get promoted to someplace that hasn’t been strip-mined to oblivion, where you could get a decent meal more often than on special occasions.

  Gaige-ra looks up and there’s something on his face that looks almost encouraging.

  “We lost three shipping facilities in that region this month alone,” he says. “Clearly something needs to be done. We fight them and they fight back and nothing gets solved. Perhaps we can try this plan. I’m not so sure, but your record has been… fairly consistent.”

  Jaylon-ra is so shocked that his mouth falls open. He tries to regain his composure, express some form of gratitude, when Gaige-ra sticks a thin finger into the air. “But understand that if it fails, you will be held accountable.”

  As Jaylon-ra and Paul absorb the warning, the hard-light hologram displaying the Command disappears, and with the blue-tinted glow of it gone, the room is plunged into darkness, illuminated only by cloud-choked sunlight drifting through sheer blinds.

  Jaylon-ra looks out on the empty expanse of the crumbling City Council chambers. The scratched wooden desks and leather maroon chairs, patched with strips of red duct tape, are pushed off to the edges of the room, revealing a maroon carpet that’s worn pink from foot traffic. The statue of Thomas Jefferson against the far wall, dinged and chipped, looms in the shadows like a ghoul.