Shara watched the NBC morning news while she waited next to Gate 13 at LAX airport. The newscasters were covering the latest cadet story – Jonathan’s disappearance and collapse. Jonathan didn’t remember anything. Perfect. She’d suffered serious anxiety after leaving him alive. The human subconscious was a curious thing. She woke in the middle of the night, sweating and terrified. She’d dreamed of her superior, punishing her for carelessness, making small slices in her soft, human flesh.
As a Rik, Shara had dreamed plenty of times. She’d dreamed memories of the day, memories of childhood, or meaningless color-scapes. The human brain took dreaming to an amazingly dark sensory level. It created scenes she never experienced – with color, smell, and pain. She rubbed her side, still able to feel the knife touching her ribs. If humans could sell their dreams, they could take over the galaxy.
Culture was money, in the galactic community. Hard resources – minerals, oil, water – you could get those anywhere. Culture, on the other hand… was profitable. The Crosspoint, ugly little slugs, made bundles on their phosphorescent body paint and tactile poetry scrolls. The Merith made the most on their food, Merith restaurants dotted the galaxy. But Earth – Shara had never seen a culture with so much potential. The movie industry alone would support Earth for years. Their music, the ridiculous number of languages, their art… they had everything. If they could learn a way to record dreams – the galaxy would go nuts. Earth could be the first planet to enter the council as a level 8 culture.
That was why she was here. The Rik wanted Earth. Unlike humans, the Rik had no discernible culture. They were parasites with no name. The original Rik were an ocean-dwelling people with gigantic underwater cathedrals. A few generations ago, Shara’s people took over the Rik planet. They converted the Rik bodies to their own use, as Shara had done with this human girl. Now they were known as the Rik, but even their name was stolen.
Of course, the galactic counsel knew what had happened, and the Rik were generally despised. If they were discovered throwing Earth’s trial – bad things would happen.
All that would change soon. When humanity lost the trial, they would be declared non-sentient. They would have no protection from a Rik invasion then.
Shara smiled as she saw her next target come towards the gate.
Akemi sat in a wheelchair with a special plastic oxygen tank hanging from the back. A thin plastic tube stretched from the tank to a clear mask over her nose and mouth.
She was a slight girl, probably 90 pounds. At need, Shara could carry her without any help. That might be useful.
Akemi was wheeled down the tunnel to the airplane before anyone else. She was allowed to pre-board before the first class passengers because she needed assistance. After her empty wheelchair was brought back out the flight attendants started boarding.
“Flight 8410 to Tokyo, flight 8410. First class passengers and AirPass members may begin boarding.”
Shara waited until Section 6 was called to grab her bag and get on the plane.
On the plane, Akemi had been moved to a normal seat. The oxygen tank rested at her feet, and her mother adjusted the mask over her face. Akemi’s eyes were closed, and she looked in pain.
As Shara came down the aisle, Akemi opened her eyes. She gave a slight smile as Shara stopped across the aisle from her.
“I guess this is my spot,” Shara said. She pushed her backpack around a bit until it slid under the seat, and plopped down next to Akemi. She was silent for a moment, but saw that Akemi was looking at her. Perfect.
“My name is Shara. I wanted to tell you, I love your top. Very organic yet… self-contained.”
“Thanks.” Akemi looked ready for a distraction. “This is one of my favorites. The neckline reminds me of an iris,” she paused. “Plus, it’s loose, so I can wear it over my bandages.” She pulled her neckline down a few inches to show the top of the thick bandage covering her scar.
“Ouch, that looks bad.”
“Well, it means I’ll get better, so I can live with it. I like your boots, too.”
“Thank you!” Shara glowed. “I love fashion. I’d like to start my own line someday.”
“Really? Are you a designer?”
“Yes, for a few years. Just grunt work so far, but I have my first big job now. You’ll never believe this…it’s with the aliens,” she whispered.
“The spooks? Do they like fashion?”
“Oh, they don’t really care. But they want the cadets to look a certain way. I’m doing research and then I get to design a uniform for them! I’m so excited. I even suggested that while I’m at it I could design something better for the aliens, and they said go ahead. Can you believe it?”
“That’s amazing. My sister…” Akemi blinked a bit, “she’s one of the cadets. Maybe you’ll meet her.”
“Oh my goodness. What are the odds? Tell me all about her,” Shara said.
***
July 4th
Less than twenty-four hours later Sam leaned against the side of a fortune telling booth watching Downy make a fool of himself.
“We should definitely not be here,” Sam said again. “This isn’t safe, and it’s not necessary either.” He gave a half groan as he stretched his arms over his head and then slumped back against the booth. He’d told all this to Greg and been overruled. Sam wanted to look into who had the resources and motivation to kill five cadets scattered around the world. And who wanted so very much for Earth to lose the trial.
Instead he was at a cheap Fourth of July festival. Two mobile carnivals were sharing space in a huge, muddy field, with lots of neon-lit rides and loud motors. A tall, plywood stage stood next to the game booths, where a country music group was finishing a song. They left, probably to get beer and corn dogs, and their absence lowered the noise level a fraction. The other cadets seemed to be enjoying themselves, which was good, because there were press in the crowd. There were also about twice as many security people as before, and all the cadets had been fitted with GPS trackers. But Sam still didn’t like it.
The Ferris wheel on his right inched along letting people on and off, while the kids at the top yelled and rocked their cars. It was dusk and the lights of the rides and booths were starting to shine in the darkness. Red, blue, and yellow lights decorated the spinning cups, while the merry-go-round shone mainly yellow. All combined, the light cast a pinkish glow over the whole place.
“We’re celebrating July the fourth, that’s why we’re here.” Downy paused.
“Wow. What is this? What. Is. This?” Downy turned pink in wonder, almost the same color as the cotton candy swirling around in the pot next to him.
“It’s cotton candy,” said the man running the cart. He swirled some on a cardboard cone. His beard was long, tied in two bunches against his chest. “You want some – four bucks.”
Downy pulled out a ten. “I would like two. Purple and pink.”
The guy jerked his head at the sign on his cart. “Three for ten.”
Downy smiled, stretching his dolphin smile and showing teeth. “That is excellent.”
Downy held pink in his left hand and purple and yellow in his right as they walked away. “Oooh,” he moaned. “This is wonderful. Really wonderful. If you pass the trial this should be one of your first cultural exports. It would establish your Level 8 ranking for sure.”
“Our what?” Sam said, jogged out of his lethargy.
“Your level 8. I’m not surprised the Rik want to…” Downy’s eyestalks twitched together, crossing his eyes in embarrassment. “Oh, sheep poop. I can’t tell you that.”
Sam grabbed his arm and pulled Downy into the shadow behind the Ferris wheel engine. “Downy. What’s a level 8? What do the Rik have to do with this? You know Nat is the new primary witness in the trial. She needs to know everything. If you have anything, and I mean anything, useful to tell me, you better cough it up.”
“Sam, it’s a galactic policy. I can’t tell you. No choice,” Downy said.
Sam pictured the flaming bottle spinning toward Nat, the homeless people lining Hollywood Blvd.
“You absolutely have a choice,” he said. “You can watch my planet self destruct - and lose our sentiency status in the trial, whatever that would mean - or you can tell me what you know. Humans work much better with a goal in mind. Are the Rik behind Jonathan and the other killings?”
“Greg would kill me,” Downy said.
“Please Downy. You like Earth, don’t you? You like the sheep and the cotton candy and the root beer. Don’t you want us to win?”
A strange color swept through Downy for a moment, but Sam couldn’t fix on it before it was gone.
“I’ll tell you,” Downy said, “if you promise not to tell.”
Sam and Downy were in deep discussion when Sam suddenly felt a flash of fear. He stepped away from Downy, scanning the crowd around him. Just people… drinking beer, eating popcorn and sausage on a stick. Just… men. Huh. Sam didn’t see many kids around, and there’d been hundreds an hour ago. Only a few women, not many. It was getting quite dark, almost 8:30 now. Sam and Greg would address the crowd at 9:00, before the fireworks.
“There’s something wrong,” Sam said. “I don’t know what…”
Greg came towards them between the booths and carts, a path opening in the crowd. He looked pink in the light, but that couldn’t be right.
“Time to get on stage,” he said.
Sam shook his head. “There’s something bothering me… I don’t know what.” He closed his eyes. “It’s… No. I can’t think.” Closing his eyes made him sleepy, he really needed a good night’s rest. Nightmares about Jonathan kept him up.
“Just talk to them,” Greg said, pulling him onto the plywood stage. “It’ll get better.”
Greg took the microphone from the lead guitarist and began to speak about the Fourth of July. The rest of the cadets made their way to the stage, gathering in messy ranks behind Greg. They were tired too, but Greg thought it important the cadets make an appearance on Independence Day. The irony of the aliens holding Fourth of July celebrations was lost on Greg.
Sam struggled to focus while Greg addressed the crowd. There was something wrong.
An angry rustle went through the crowd.
“What do you know about freedom, you roach!” someone yelled.
“Are you serious?”
“You don’t belong here!”
Sam jerked his head up. What just happened? There was no trigger.
A can of Dr. Pepper sailed through the air and hit Downy in the head. He was standing just behind and to the left of Greg.
Greg paused. “Violence will not be tolerated.”
“You don’t have the right!”
“Go *&% yourself!”
The yelling started to drown out the grinding ride engines.
A bucket of popcorn sailed forward. Then a beer bottle. It shattered against the stage, peppering the cadets with broken glass. Sam threw an arm up to protect his eyes.
Another bottle flew through the air and Greg tossed the microphone on the ground. He’d already palmed the defense device from his pocket. Greg cupped his hands and thrust them forward, like he was shoving someone away from him.
“No!” Sam shouted, but Greg didn’t hear him or didn’t care.
A ripple of orange went out from his hand. A thunderous clap shook the air as the kinetic force wall expanded and popped. The bottle hit the field and shattered, rebounding into the crowd. People started screaming, some because they’d been shattered with glass, some in fury.
Sam felt the scream jump from person to person, like tongues of flame igniting kindling. It rose up and engulfed the crowd. They turned from a lot of ticked individuals into an incandescent beast. They surged forward and Greg thrust his hands again. The orange plane of force slammed into the mob and threw five guys into the air and back into the crowd. They were reabsorbed into the beast. Two new surges came around the huge speakers in the middle of the stage, like a Greek monster that grew two new heads when you lopped one off.
Greg tossed another kinetic device to Downy. “Cover the right!” he said.
Greg threw his arms to the left, causing another flailing mass of bodies to shoot into the air. Downy shoved his field toward the right, but he wasn’t close enough to the back ranks of cadets. He deflected part of the surge, but four of the cadets in the back were outside the range of his shield. Men swarmed toward them. Sam saw broken bottles slamming at the cadets and boots swinging.
“Get them!” Sam shouted, “We’ve got to get to them!”
But Greg was busy deflecting the unending surge on his side and Downy was clearly outmatched. Their kinetic devices were only for personal defense. The cadets were packed together, trapped on both sides. On the edges they tried to fight, but the mob kept coming. Sam was stuck in the middle of the group, fighting to get to the ones taken down in the back.
Downy threw wall after wall, but couldn’t gain any ground.
Sam’s mind was on fire. This was impossible. He’d known about the riots, but this was - monstrous. It happened so fast – Sam gasped. The note, the flyer he’d seen in Hollywood! July 4th. This wasn’t a random mob, it was planned. Shoot, shoot, shoot! He’d been so distracted by Jonathan’s disappearance he forgot about it.
Never mind. Sam pushed past Melanie, but she grabbed his arm.
“Sam! Sam!”
“Let go!” Sam said, shoving her off and pushing toward the rear of the stage. The stage was a plywood prefab, the back wall covered with decorations and something that looked like vomit in equal portions. But as he neared the back of the stage where he could almost reach the downed cadets, flames began licking up the back wall.
The backdrop of the stage was on fire. Sam’s feet were sweating hot in his shoes, and he could see fire under the stage as well. The cadets nearest the wall were yelling and shoving forward. He could barely hear their screams over the roar of the crowd.
“Fire, fire!” Sam yelled. “Get them to – ”
He broke off. The sharp popping of an automatic gun pierced the roar.
Sam froze, seeing the muzzle fire of five or six handguns fired point blank into the crowd. The security men on the stage opened fire. The beast-crowd moaned in pain but only got more aggressive, a wounded bear.
Suddenly the whole place lit up, spot lights from several helicopters roved over the crowd, temporarily blinding Sam.
“BACK AWAY! BACK AWAY!” blared the raspy voice of a Spo on a loudspeaker. “We will fire. BACK AWAY.”
Nets fell, tangling around the seething crowd. As the voice penetrated the smoke, rope ladders snaked down from the helicopters towards the stage.
Sam sat against the wall in the infirmary, his hands shaking. Five cadets lay on cots in front of him. Their clothes - ripped, bloody, and burned – were piled in the corner. The doctors Greg commandeered from the hospital were stitching up cuts and sterilizing burns. No one was in critical condition, though Micah had a concussion and was still throwing up.
The doctors kept glancing at Sam. He didn’t meet their eyes.
Greg had ordered him out of the infirmary, but Sam refused.
The riot happened so fast. But Sam had known about it. How could he have failed to report that flyer? He didn’t make mistakes like that. Did he? He’d forgotten it that day because Jonathan disappeared… and he never once remembered to tell Greg?
It was impossible. Normal people might just forget, but Sam had been trained to memorize and analyze a hundred options at once. He could look at a ship computer board and remember every detail for hours.
He had to face it. Some part of him must not have wanted to warn Greg. Now five of his friends were scarred for life. The security guys who heard him yell ‘fire,’ had mostly fired over the heads of the mob, but Sam knew many had been hit. He suspected there were deaths. Sam dug his hands into his hair and pulled.
When Greg ruined things with Nat, Sam had an immature desire to get back at him. What Greg saw as an interesting assignment was Sam’s life. He’d done nothing about it, but since coming back to Earth, he’d felt more and more distance from Greg. Maybe on some level Sam still wanted to betray him. Maybe subconsciously he wanted to prove all the reporters wrong, he wanted to prove that he was loyal to humanity. But in betraying the Spo, Sam only got more people hurt.
Everywhere Sam looked, that same fact slapped him down. He had been innocent when he yelled ‘fire,’ but still it was his voice that started the shooting. It seemed any way he turned, Sam could get more people hurt. If he tried to distance the cadets from the Spo, assuming Greg would even let him, it could get even worse. At least the Spo wanted to protect them.