Chapter 11

The newspapers that landed on our driveway the morning following our zombie attack were all aflutter with the news of a body that had mysteriously risen from the grave and wandered around the graveyard a bit before lying down next to its grave and dying - again.

It was, in reality, a bit more complicated than that. The Negatoids had used their technology to open the grave and control Holtzman's corpse in an attempt to kill us, or frighten us into abandoning our efforts to stop them. Once I had possession of the controller and the alien power wand, I had simply steered Holtzman's body out of the grounds of our home and given it the 'go home' command. That caused him to return to the place where the alien bio-technology implanted in his body had been activated - the graveyard. When the controller I had taken from the aliens told me that he had reached the place of his awakening, I gave the self-destruct command, then destroyed the zombie controller. The wand, I kept.

The self-destruct command caused the alien parts of Holtzman's corpse to melt away, leaving only an unidentifiable residue in its wake, in case anyone should choose to do a second autopsy on the rotting corpse.

Finding the wand had triggered 'memories' from my internal database that suggested that these aliens had been on Earth a lot longer than fifty years. In answer to enquiries from Ana and Sarah I demonstrated a few of the wand's powers: the invisible tractor beam that could cause objects to float in the air, the energy beam that could vaporize small objects and give humans a painful burn, and the field that could mask the presence of people or objects, making them seem to disappear.

"The original 'magic wand'," I explained. "Ancient magicians who started the myths about magical feats were apparently in league with one faction or the other of the Negatoids, who gave them these things to use. This wand worked in conjunction with the controller I destroyed, as well as various other devices. By using it as a transmitter, the controller manipulated bio-technology that was implanted in Holtzman's body when he was in their care."

"If they had that kind of control over his body, why didn't they use it when he was alive?" Sarah asked.

"It doesn't work on bodies that are under the control of their own brains, or, more importantly, their immune systems, and it takes a while after death to infiltrate the nervous system of the corpse. Since the control is very rough and only works at very primitive levels, you get the zombie-like stumbling around and difficulty with such things as opening doors or climbing stairs. Now that I 'remember' the details, though, the presence of the technology in Holtzman's body might explain some of his developmental shortcomings."

"Do you mean to tell me that these alien artifacts are behind all the legends about magic and zombies and such?" This from Ana.

"I'm only just now 'remembering' this stuff, but apparently so," I answered. "Maybe not all the legends, but this technology apparently got at least some of them started."

"So why don't the aliens still give them to their human recruits, like me and Holtzman?" Sarah asked, puzzled.

"As human understanding of technology developed, the Negatoids started to worry that we would catch on to what was behind the 'magic', so they repossessed their wands. Their disappearance is no doubt responsible for the relegation of such tales to realm of myth and legend."

Ana once again proved my faith in her intelligence by asking, "So, if the aliens have been around since medieval times, why has it taken them this long to get around to destroying us?"

"That's a multi-part answer," I told her. "First, you have to remember that they have to get us to destroy ourselves. They can't do it for us. For that to happen, we needed a certain level of technology, and a global economy. This, by the way, is not their first attempt."

"No? What was their first attempt?" Sarah asked.

"World War II," Ana answered, almost under her breath. "It was supposed to be a nuclear war, wasn't it?"

I hugged her and nodded, bursting with pride.

"So what happened?" Sarah was still puzzled.

"Hitler happened," I answered. "Germany wasn't supposed to enter the war between Japan and the United States until 1942, after its nuclear program had matured somewhat. Instead, Hitler took power and decided that Germany needed 'lebensraum'. When he invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1939, Japan had no choice but to join in an alliance with him, even though it accelerated their own timetable. I'm a little fuzzy on the details of the actual history, but it seems that Pearl Harbor, in 1941, was Japan's bid to keep the US from having the ability to commit to the war, but the attack, instead, forced us into the conflict earlier than expected, thus accelerating our own nuclear program."

Ana added her own thoughts, "The addition of US troops and materials allowed the British to step up their own efforts against the Axis powers, including espionage which uncovered Nazi efforts to develop a nuclear capability. They were aided in this by Russia, which, by then, was under attack from Germany."

"That's true," I nodded, "and those discoveries led to sabotage and bombing raids that kept Germany's nuclear program from producing effective weapons during the war. Meanwhile, the Manhattan Project in the US was picking up steam."

"And the rest, as they say," Sarah nodded, "is history. The USSR's nuclear program must have gotten underway during or shortly after the war, though."

"Yes, with the help of German scientists, and the Negatoids certainly tried their best to tip the cold war over into a nuclear conflict," I told her, "but were unsuccessful, thank goodness. The closest they came was the Cuban missile crisis. Since the collapse of the USSR, however, they've turned their efforts to destroying the economy and the environment."

"And that is where you come in," Ana said tightening her embrace. "So what is your next move?"

"I've been thinking about that," I answered, "and I think I've come up with a tentative plan."

"And?" Sarah asked impatiently.

"And I think I should let them capture me," I answered.

I had to wait several minutes for the expected outburst to subside, and when it finally did, I said, "Temporarily."

That, of course, created even more confusion and feminine outrage that I had to wait out.

When, finally, they ran out of steam, I said, "It was your idea, Ana. I'm just taking the next logical step."

"My idea?!" she exploded. "I never suggested that you surrender! You must keep fighting! How can you abandon your cause, then blame it on me? I never..."

My finger across her lips stilled Ana's protest long enough for me to begin an explanation.

"Where are the Negatoids?" I asked.

"I don't know," Ana had to admit. "Presumably on their spaceship, wherever that is."

"It was your suggestion that I take the fight to them, was it not?" Again, I had to forestall her protests. "If I am to take the fight to them, I have to find them. I can't very well track them to their ship, and even if I knew where it was, I would have no way of getting there, ergo, they must take me there."

"But, can't you grab one and force it to take you?" Sarah asked.

"No. Their transportation system converts matter to energy and back again, like on Star Trek, and it can select what matter it converts and what it leaves behind. If I tried to extort my way aboard, I would either be left behind while the aliens transported out of my reach, or my energy would simply be dissipated into space, with no chance of reconstitution."

That wasn't strictly true. 'My' energy is no different than any other energy, so if the image of my matter was still stored in memory in the alien transport device, I could, theoretically, be reconstituted at any time, but first the negatoids would need a reason to expend the energy to perform the reconstitution. If I was their prisoner, they would have that reason. Once aboard their ship, I hoped to be able to learn enough to do as Ana suggested, and physically 'bring the fight to them'.

"You can't be serious!" Ana cried. "If they get you aboard that ship, there's no telling what they will do to you!"

"Actually, I can tell you with pretty fair certainty what they will try to do to me," I answered. "They will try to get me to tell them how to stop the measures I've started against them, then they will try to kill me. It's what I intend to do before they get to that last part that's important, however. They don't know I have this wand, and with any luck I'll be able to smuggle it aboard. Having done that, perhaps I can use it to escape and learn how to stop them."

"It's too risky, Nils!" Anna protested.

Sarah chimed in with, "What happens to your programs here if they get you?"

I heard them out, then said, "Look, if either of you can come up with a reasonable alternative I'll be happy to hear it! Meanwhile, I've got another problem that may make the whole argument moot."

"And what is that?" Anna was still worried, but she was thinking.

"I have to figure out how to get kidnapped," I answered. "I don't want to make it too easy for them, and I can't exactly look them up in the yellow pages and request an appointment to turn myself in. Let me think about it. Maybe we'll have to come up with another plan."

I did think about it for the next few days, but try as I might, I couldn't come up with a solution. One day, when the girls were out shopping, however, the matter was taken out of my hands. I had taken to carrying the alien wand with me and practicing with it whenever I had the chance. This particular day, I was sitting on the throne in the master bathroom, playing with the wand, having just completed my business, when I felt a sudden increase in air pressure.

It took my internal database only a moment to help me realize that someone, presumably Negatoids, had just materialized in the bedroom on the other side of the bathroom door. Thinking quickly, I finished my paperwork (you know, with paper from the roll next to the toilet. Do I have to spell it out for you?) as quickly as I could, and had just stowed the wand in what I hoped was a safe place, when the knob on the bathroom door turned, opening in spite of the privacy lock.

(Author's note: For my sanity, and the reader's benefit, from this point on I will relate Negatoid conversation as if it was normal English, instead of trying to track all of the negatives in the narrative.)

The first alien through the door pointed a weapon at me and said, "You will come with us without struggle or you will be disintegrated."

"Whoa!" I said, as if surprised by their presence, "at least give me time to pull my pants up!"

"Since you might be hiding a weapon in your clothing, it will be left behind. Please stand."

I did as I was told. Aliens are not big watchers of television, and are not as likely as humans to hold a long conversation with you before they blow you away or disintegrate you, so I didn't give them a hard time. I did have a weapon in my clothes that I would like to have taken with me, but that seemed out of the question, now.

No sooner had I reached my feet than I found myself, naked, in a large open space that clearly had not been made by humans. It appeared to have been grown, rather than manufactured or built, and the angles, where there were any, were all wrong. I could feel a whole boatload of new memories being triggered in my implanted database, but I had no time to assimilate them.

I was quickly caught in a tractor field of some sort and whisked onto a kind of free-form table. Suddenly, my database was supplying me with memories of what this sort of table was used for, or rather, what the forest of probes surrounding the head end was used for.

Mind wipe. This was a machine that was only supposed to be used on criminals to erase their personalities and replace them with personalities acceptable to Union of Systems society. Aside from the fact that the victim of the process retained no memory of his past life, the new memory set, at least as applied to criminals, was exceedingly simple, consisting mostly of basic skills like walking and speech, and unless the being who was wiped got lucky and someone re-educated him, he would spend the rest of his life at a tremendous disadvantage.

The system didn't affect intelligence, but it wiped out virtually all education, even at the most primitive level, since that is where anti-social behavior is generally rooted.

The recognition of the machine triggered a burst of memory from my database that overrode all of the others while my adrenalin surged in fear. Suddenly my brain was out of my control. My entire life, literally, flashed across my consciousness in the few minutes before they got the machine warmed up and ready to go.

I didn't know if this was the old 'life flashing before my eyes' that people claimed to experience in near-death situations, or something triggered by my implanted database. I didn't have long to contemplate the problem.

I strained against the restraining field with every fibre of my will and muscle to no avail. Was this to be the end of me after all? Would they make me one of their stooges, perhaps another Holtzman? In the moments before they turned on the machine, I had time to realize that Ana and Sarah would be in very real danger if I came back as someone else, and terror flooded my mind. Would I, the man Ana loved and trusted, and the man in whose hands Sarah had placed her life and safety, would I be the instrument of their destruction? I had never believed in any deity, but with nowhere left to turn, I began to hope there was one out there, and that she was on my side.

The machine began to whine and I blacked out.

When I awoke, I was wrong. I don't know how else to describe it. I was me, but not me. I was lying on the alien equivalent of a cot, and the tractor field no longer held me.

"It has been completely reprogrammed," one of the Weldnustri standing nearby was saying. "As you know, our technique is more advanced than that used on criminals. Its mind is now imprinted with the new pattern, including memories of an entire life. All diagnostics are normal."

The new pattern? What in the world were they talking about? These wonderful beings had saved my life, I knew, and I loved them and owed them more than I could ever repay! I knew it had been a long, delicate procedure for them to bring me back from the dead, and I was so grateful, I wanted to kiss them. I also knew that, as soon as they sent me back home, I was going to kill my treacherous wife and her slutty girlfriend. It was their fault that I had almost died, and if it hadn't been for the munificence of the Weldnustri, they would have succeeded in their nefarious scheme.

Once those two were out of the way, I would be able to undo the damage they had caused to the programs my saviors had tried to put in place to save Earth from itself. Such evil beings did not deserve to live!

"The planetary program can now proceed without interference. This one will see to that," another Weldnustri was saying, "Won't you Karl?"

"Of course," I answered in their language. "I would do anything for the Weldnustri."

And I would have, had they asked me at just that moment to do it. Unfortunately for the Weldnustri - the people I had been calling Negatoids, my implanted database chose the moment of their departure from my room to reverse the process that had been triggered moments before my mind-wipe. They didn't see me go catatonic for a few minutes as my implant regurgitated my life, apparently putting all my memories back where they belonged. This process didn't replace the new personality, so much as compartmentalize it, making Karl Nordlund accessible to, but controlled by Nils Gustafson in a weird kind of split personality. Whenever I wanted to, I could be Karl, but as soon as the need was over, I would once again be myself.

I realized, too, that the wand I had been playing with in the bathroom just before my abduction was still with me. I just needed a little privacy to retrieve it from its hiding place. The Weldnustri had been kind enough to provide the privacy by closing the door to my compartment as they left, so...