TOC MetaStories: Ineen Aldrop's 'He Stood taller Than Most'

Part 14 -Bagged and Tagged-

Paulie was a little sad, but a larger part of him was angry. Angry at himself for getting into this whole situation, angry at Mack for not immediately just telling him what the hell was going on. And above all he was mad at the universe for letting such terrible things happen to him.

He slammed a fist into the table, leaving a sizable dent as Mack let out a startled sound.

“Damn it! I want to know what the hell is going on in this place, what kind of operation is the GGI running here?!” He yelled, not really trying to scare anyone but angry enough not to care if he did. Violence ran through his veins like a drug as he tried to suppress the building rage he was feeling.

It didn’t matter. Once more he heard a strange noise and the air filled with the smell of sulphur.

Mack’s neck quills shivered and he gasped, “Oh hell. You made Flurn do it again, you know my quills are very sensitive to smells right?” he complained, running over to the room’s control panel again and turning up the ventilation.

Paulie couldn’t help himself. He pointed towards the shimmer that was Jakiikii and asked, “No, answer the question, detective.” He put emphasis on the last word as he said it, spitting it as though it were a curse.

Mack paused, his long neck flexing as he turned to look almost one-hundred-and-eighty degrees behind himself and then looking back towards him with those large grey eyes. “I don’t know to what extent this discrepancy goes. Paulie..” He put up his hands in a measure of defense as if they would do anything to stop him. Paulie suspected that he could run rings around anyone on this miserable planet without breaking a sweat.

He shook his head as he wrestled with himself internally. “Not good enough, I am here against my will and I want to know how many thousands of others like me have had the misfortune of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So do your job, do some of that detecting you seem to be known for.”

Mack’s face grew angry and he stomped one of his forward feet. “That isn’t fair. You have no idea the kind of shit I have been through in my life to get here.” It was the first time he had seen the man outwardly display strong emotion.

Paulie nodded and then sat heavily enough that the stool creaked audibly. “Yes, you are correct. I also have no idea what any of this shit means, does, or can do. I am not going to try and get away, but I do want to figure out how many others have died to these bastards. And who is behind my own abduction, some person called Oomoo think I heard..” He growled.

Mack slapped his hands down on the table with a bang that made him jerk in surprise, the first real display of frustration he had seen from the Censec detective so far. “I know you are confused and angry, zalc, I would be too. But you are not going to get anywhere by yelling at me. I am just a small cog in the machine, really. I will of course look into it further, but in the meantime we need to administer a UI to you and find a place to keep you. I don’t want to stash you in a cell, that seems unfair as you have done nothing wrong.” He seemed to sigh and then looked into the corner where Jakiikii was still sulking.

He gestured, “Jakiikii, I know you are still there. Can I ask you to help with the Urre.. er, the Human’s protection? Clearly he is wanted by somebody, you said Oh-no?”

Paulie shook his head. He leaned onto the table, the nutrient cubes now making him feel lethargic as the excessive amount of calories he had consumed started to digest. “No. I said Oonoo. Or maybe it was Ooounoo. I can’t really remember.” He frowned as Mack seemed to flinch and Jakiikii suddenly uncloaked and took a step forwards towards the table. The shadows falling from her as if she were discarding a clinging garment.

“Did you just say Ooounoo?!” she demanded. A look of recognition passed through her six roving eyes.

Paulie tensed. He could almost feel the anxiety and tension that was radiating off the termaxxi woman as all six of her eyes locked onto his face. He coughed slightly and then spoke tentatively, “I might have. Why? Are they important?”

Mack put out a soothing hand towards her as he began to pace across the other side of the table. His strange movements like unto that of a pigeon or perhaps a chicken. “Ooounoo is suspected of running illegal gang activities, though the proof of this has been difficult to find. I cannot move on her without the express permission of the conclave, and they tend to take far too long to get anything done to be of any real use.” He swore under his breath, “Stinking bureaucrats.”

He looked at Jakiikii, the termaxxi was quite a bit more agitated than just over some gang activity. No, She seemed positively livid. Clearly something more was going on than she was letting on. He was determined to get to the bottom of it, later.

For now he needed to focus on getting his feet back under him.

He sat back into the stool with a sigh of resolution. “Well. I guess that's that. Are there any more questions you want to ask me now? Because I am very tired.” He looked around the small room, the bare grey walls and white tiles were starting to wear on him. He longed for something, anything, else.

Mack gathered the papers and placed them back into the file between them. Tapping the table with one of his five fingered hands idly, he stepped back from the table and moved around it to his side. He held out a hand and gestured towards the door, “Well then, by all means. I hope you are okay to answer further questions I may have at a later time.”

He nodded. Not exactly sure what that would entail, but wanting to be cooperative with the first friendly people he had met.

He smiled at that thought. Despite their strange and obviously alien appearances, they didn’t act in a manner that felt unfamiliar to him. In fact, were he to ignore the strangeness of his surroundings He might have been in any normal police precinct back on Earth.

But then he was brought back to reality. As Flurn stepped up to him and asked, “Come closer please? I need to administer the inoculation.”

Paulie nodded quickly, he wasn’t really that fond of needles and was kind of dreading a shot. But to his immediate surprise the short oniuh didn't stab him with a needle at all. Instead they took a piece of material that looked like foam and peeled off the surface. This sheet was about the size and thickness of a sticker and they placed it on the side of his neck almost tenderly. As if they were comforting a sick child.

The short alien doctor nodded as he administered the patch. “That should also assist in the rapid healing of your injuries. You don’t seem to have any injuries that go much beyond surface level. Though your neural scans..” They trailed off, muttering under their breath.

He felt a slight pinch as the patch was applied, and then nothing. He reached up and rubbed his neck as the smaller alien skipped away. “Huh, that wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.” He snorted.

Mack smiled, the tightness around his face seeming to relax slightly as he chuckled. The quills on the back of his neck chattering quietly at the motion. “What were you expecting. Some big ass needle? For us to laser cut your chest cavity open and place it directly into your heart?” He waved a hand as he shook his head as the idea was ridiculous

Paulie feigned a laugh. “Yea, who the hell would do that kind of thing anyways.” But secretly he was a little annoyed. He pushed it down alongside all the other negative emotions that swirled inside of him.

Mack gestured towards the hall as they stepped out through it. “Alright before you are allowed to leave the complex I will need to register you and get a geneprint. Nothing too invasive, just standard procedure. If you would follow me please, Paulie.” He started off towards the end of the hall. The tile floor muffling the sound of their footsteps.

He glanced behind him and saw Jakiikii leaned down and talking to Flurn. Two of her orange eyes were locked on him but they flicked away as she noticed him looking. He didn’t know what to think about the strange alien woman. She seemed like somebody who had been through a lot of personal trauma, something about the way she acted spoke to him of a deeper sadness. One that he was curious to figure out, maybe help her if he could.

He walked behind the centauroid alien, his stubby second legs intriguing Paulie as they made their way through the precinct. They were like little baby legs, the main ones seeming to do the main bulk of the lifting while his little secondary legs seemed to be for little more than keeping his ass from dragging on the ground.

He jerked as he realised that the detective was looking at him, his flexible neck allowing him to turn his head nearly all the way around while still walking forwards. “Is there some reason you are staring at my backside?”

Paulie had the good conscience to blush slightly as he realised that had been exactly what he had been doing. He pointed to the man’s short secondary legs and tried to defend his position. “I was watching your little legs actually, they remind me a lot of a creature we have on my homeworld called a caterpillar. I was just thinking it was funny.” It sounded kinda lame to him, but it was better than letting the man think he had been acting unseemly.

Mack cocked his head and then turned to look forwards. “Well, to me you look a little like a Snooc. It’s an arboreal creature from Gavvun that liked to climb the trees and nest amongst the branches. Reportedly they were quite tasty though difficult to catch.”

Paulie chuckled. “Sounds like a monkey.”

“What was that?”

Paulie smiled. “Nothing. So, what’s next?”

Mack turned the corner and led him into a small open area with desks filled with various aliens seemingly hard at work. The general air of the room was tense, and the tension grew dramatically as he entered, eyes and other various sensory organs turned their way as Mack sidled up to what could only be simply described as a mass of writhing black vines covered in tiny red eyes.

The mass burbled and then seemed to turn, a single vine-like appendage reaching out towards the detective as he took it in his five fingered hand and gave it a brief squeeze. “Hello Rozz. I need to process this Human, he is new to the area and not yet registered.”

The mass shuddered and then roiled again, many of the vines seeming to try and get a look at him all at once. It burbled again, this time a low buzzing noise that seemed to come from many different parts of the thing all at once. They harmonised and overlapped, the discordant base noises taking on meaning in his mind despite the fact he could hear no discernible language.

It seemed to speak slowly. “I am glad to see you, miriam friend Luemf’gran’taakk. This is highly unusual, bringing a creature of its type into the center of the facility. Are you sure this savage creature is safe to handle? Is it to be neutralised?”

Paulie frowned. He waved a hand at the thing to get its attention and retorted, “Hey, this thing as you put it can hear you talking. Is this the way you treat everyone you first meet?” He was a little harsh, but truth be told he was more than a little grumpy.

Once more the thing roiled and the final few conversations around the room died. The mass Mack had called Rozz buzzed again. “It speaks, it is sapient!” It recoiled a little, though it seemed to be at war with itself as if it were not sure whether to flee or hide.

Paulie crossed his arms and nodded. “Yeah, I do. Why does that keep surprising everyone? What, have you never seen an alien before?” His tense muscles made him bounce slightly into the air as he shifted on his feet. The lower gravity of the planet still taking some getting used to.

Mack said, “Yeah. Lots. Just not many apocalypsers like you. Remember, up until a few minutes ago I didn’t know you were conscious either. So it’s still a bit of a mystery to me too.” He turned back to Rozz. “I need to register this human, his name is Paulie. Can we get a quick geneprint too.” he glanced at Paulie. “Give them your hand. Don’t worry, they don't even need to break the skin to get a taste.”

Paulie reached out tentatively and looked at Mack. “A taste.. of wha..” His question was answered before he got the question out as one of the tendrils, a little thicker than the others, enveloped his hand and seemed to lick at him with a thousand tiny tongues. The contact left a thin sheen of some sort of viscous slime over his skin and he withdrew his hand quickly. “Hey! What the shit?!”

Mack was guffawing, the chattering of their neck spines loud enough to constitute a racket. More than one of the others were chuckling at his expense as well and he looked around for something to wipe his hand off as the mass of tendrils burbled again.

“Geneprint stored. Identification communicated. Translating additional information, you said they were human but this species is clearly registered in the system as urrenian.” The mass withdrew inwards slightly as he gave it another sour look.

Mack nodded and gestured to Paulie. “Yeah, that isn’t the name their species identifies with however. They call themselves humans, they call their home world Earth and their system..” He glanced at Paulie.

“Sol. S-o-l.” he spelled out, as if that was really going to help in any way as he shook drops of mucus off his hand.

Mack nodded. “Sol it is then. Listen, can you keep this on the downlow for the moment. He is a key witness to an investigation I’m running and I would really rather prefer that those sharks in the media don't get a hold of this. Thanks, Rozz. I owe ya a million.”

Mack gave Paulie a pat on the shoulder, the contact was light. But it was the friendliest contact he had yet shared with the man, and he smiled. He wiped his hand on his pant leg as the miriam started to walk away. “You could have warned me about that at least.” Paulie grumbled.

Detective Mack looked over his shoulder in that unsettling way again, his small mouth breaking in a smile. “If I had, would you have given Rozz your hand?”

Paulie pursed his lips, one eyebrow raised as he shook his head. “Fair point. I guess not.”

The miriam nodded and laughed again. “Could have been worse, Rozz used to take a blood sample. That was a while ago, then we got them set up with as much blood as they wanted.”

Paulie blanched. “Blood sample? What do you mean?”

Detective Mack smiled. “Rozz is a sanguivore.”

Mack shook his head as Paulie glanced over his shoulder at the mess of black vines and followed him to a nearby door. He was led out of the building into an alley behind the main precinct, Paulie following Mack into the unknown future.