Marianne
Copyright 2011 Vincent L. Cleaver
Marianne Boyle was a Ranger, and her current mission had brought her to Earth. She had been on Earth for only a few weeks, traveling about and gathering information. She was human, but not of Earth, and so she found every detail of life, on Earth, alien. She took a job as a waitress in a greasy spoon, following a few leads. In this small city on the west coast of North America, there might be a facility where the United States government kept the alien technology they had recovered, and the scout she was looking for.
It wasn’t glamorous work, and for that and other reasons, she was tired. She walked past an alley way before she realized that she had heard a woman crying out. She stopped and retraced her steps. A pimp was slapping one of his prostitutes around, apparently for not making enough money. This was all in the briefing but the reality was not the same as a dispassionate report. When the prostitute fell, Marianne frowned. Her orders were to not interfere.
"Remember, whatever you may see, would happen even if you were not there. The mission comes first. Someone is counting on you to rescue her. Bring her home." Karen Boyle, Marianne's mother was a Ranger as well, like her father, before her. She had to have known exactly how hard to follow that advice would be.
"What do you want, bitch!?" The man called to her, standing at the mouth of the alley. Marianne walked towards him, noting the slick asphalt and garbage, the poor lighting. Bad ground, bad idea.
"You are very rude, and hate women."
"What're you, my social worker?" The pimp raised his hand to strike her.
Marianne blocked his open fist, and back-handed him, hard. He fell into the garbage. She turned to help the prostitute up.
"Why the hell did you do that? He's just going to be even more pissed off, and take it out on me. Why didn't you mind your own business?" She went to help her pimp.
Marianne walked away, muttering in Ilshani, ("What a messed up planet.") There was a click, and she spun around. The pimp, now back on his feet, had pulled a gun.
"Like she said, you shoulda minded your own," he said, aiming.
Just as he fired Marianne dodged to her right, and ran towards the threat. The bullet grazed the top of her left shoulder, and she turned off the pain. The two blurred faces registered shock as she grabbed the pimp's gun hand, forcing it down between them, then twisting it to one side and behind him, spinning him around in the process. She held the gun hand up between his shoulder blades with her right, pinching the thumb so that the gun fell from his fingers. She took the gun in her left, and turned it, in her hand, examining from various angles.
"Pretty damn quick, bitch."
Marianne absently forced the hand higher, and he yelped in pain. She stopped turning the pistol and addressed him. "Make that rude and stupid. This gun is not commonly used in North America. What is it?"
"A Giamatti." He giggled in shock, and some internal witticism. "An Italian piece, with style, like me."
"Style? I do not think that that word means what you think that it means."
"Whatever." He sullenly turned his face away from her.
"Why do you hate women?"
"Because they’re weak, and always, always, betray you." He glared at the prostitute, which made absolutely no sense to Marianne. She had tried to help him, in spite of the abuse.
"I am not weak." Marianne didn’t know why she was even bothering with this one, but she trusted her instincts. Besides, seeking knowledge is never a waste of time.
"Yes you are. If you were strong, you would already have used that gun on me."
Marianne shook her head sadly. Was this what her species was really like? The Mother of Man was infested with sociopaths and fools. Marianne let the pimp go and pushed him away, passing the gun to her right hand, and covering them both two-handed.
"There are only two things which you can do with a mortal enemy- kill him or make him your friend." Marianne was quoting her hero, Old Complications. She did not add the rest- Ignoring him only postpones dealing with the problem.
"The dead are useless to everyone, including themselves." That was traditional. "A friend is-" She paused, trying to translate the Ilshani concept. The word meant, literally, 'limitless and mutual potential.'
"I'm not your friend!"
Was it possible that this man was brain-damaged? Marianne ejected the ammunition and tossed it at their feet.
"And I'm not your enemy. Don't be mine."
She fired the chambered round over both of their startled heads, and then threw it into a dark corner of the alley.
Police sirens were getting louder, coming nearer. The pimp had been completely confused by this encounter, but he knew what to do now.
"Don't just stand there, you silly slut. Let's get going before Johny Law asks us to come down and answer a few questions. You didn't earn me enough money tonight, not for jail."
They disappeared into the darkness, and Marianne was all alone when the police arrived.
***
Jared Clark was on his way home, after a long and difficult shift as desk sergeant at the precinct. It was that time of month and the crazies were howling at the moon. He heard the call on dispatch, some sort of altercation, and at least one shot fired. Then he heard who had caught it, 'Evil Joe' Candido, and his rookie, Mike Hardesty. Young, impressionable, and he hadn't really earned a nickname, just yet, but if he was going to be learning the ropes off of Evil Joe, and as earnest as a rookie ever was, Hard-ass or Minnie-Joe were possibilities. Jared swore and called in, adding his name to the list of responders.
He rolled up just as the pair was approaching their perp, a young woman with a bloody left shoulder. She looked fit but out of place somehow. She stood wrong, or there was a, not defiance, but purpose and matter-of-factness about her stance. She stood her ground, comfortable in her ability to deal with the situation, and not expecting trouble. She had no fear. That was odd for a young woman in this part of town, dealing with, he was ashamed to admit, the local cops.
"Good evening, officers. I had a little trouble with the local color, but it's all good now." She had an accent, nothing he could place. The words were almost whispery, yet precisely enunciated. Jared blinked, realizing he'd pulled a ten-dollar word out for the occasion.
Medium height, blue eyes, short-of-shoulder-length brown hair pulled back in a pony-tail (not a pony, something whispered, in the back of his head, and he shivered), and well-muscled for a woman. Jared could see fine scars, here and there, peeking out from under her sweat-jacket sleeves, and at the neck. She also wore an apron over her skirt, so maybe she was a waitress. There was a long, puckered scar running down from her knee to her calf, and he really wanted to know about that one. Either a vehicular accident or a damn big blade...
Mike and Evil Joe were not taking her seriously, that was obvious. They had her surrounded, but both of them were too close. Jared wondered at that observation, too close, when there was absolutely no sign that she was making trouble.
"Young lady, I'm going to have to ask you to come down town with us, so we can ask a few questions," Evil Joe smirked, and Jared winced. Joe waved casually at Jared as he got out of his car. Mike took out his cuffs and put them on her. She didn't resist, merely looked curiously at the process, as it if was alien to her. She frowned when he put the other cuff on her remaining wrist and tugged at her elbow.
"Is this really necessary?' She asked mildly.
"Resisting arrest would be a bad idea, girlie," Joe said, again with the smirk. Actually, it was more of a leer, and he was completely oblivious to the tired, annoyed look that passed over her face. She said something, sibilant and whispery, that Jared didn't understand, but he was quite sure it was some sort of language.
("What a messed up pl
anet.")
Her head whipped forward, catching Evil Joe off-guard, rapping his temples, and ringing his bell pretty good. Joe went sprawling, while Mike stood there, his mouth agape. She half-turned and drove her right elbow into Mikes' chest, then upward, catching him under the chin. Jared thought that he would be damn lucky if he got off without a broken jaw. She jumped up, tucking her legs and feet in, and had her cuffed hands in front of her as Joe staggered to his feet, pulling his pistol. She spun, kicking the gun out of his hand, and, coming halfway around, landed both hands solidly in Mike's solar plexus. The rookie went down and out of the fight.
Facing Joe again and breathing lightly, she waited him out. Jared could see that that just pissed off Joe all the more, and he came at her, this time with his night-stick. What followed was a blur, and like no martial art Jared knew of, although he coached Tae Kwando for the Police Athletic League and had seen many styles demonstrated over the years at competitions. The night-stick shattered; possibly the hand that braced it, as well, there seemed to have been a sick wet snap there. Then another blur and Joe was wobbling. The young woman allowed herself a split-second grin of satisfaction, which she wiped off her face immediately. Jared thought that she seemed to be listening to some voice in her head. She nodded, and delivered a spinning kick.
This, at least, was the sort of thing Jared knew about, and he would have sworn of a stack of bibles that as she spun, slowly, pulling the blow, she also redirected a kick that would have destroyed Joes' knee, turning it instead into a sweep that dropped the officer into the trash. That was right where he belonged, in Jared's opinion.
Jared realized that his gun was out and trained on the woman. She turned to him, and made a curious gesture with both wrists cuffed together, but it looked like a clenched right fist, right armed bent, which she thumped on her chest and held out in a salute.
"Marianne Boyle. I’m pleased to meet you."
For any number of reasons, Jared decided to pass this on to The Hole. Mostly because, while he was quite certain that this woman was in somebody’s Special Forces, he was just as certain, as he said later, “She isn't one of ours.”
***
Marianne’s fellow Rangers teased her for her many scars. They were nothing to be proud of they said, not unkindly. “You risk too much, when we are so few.”
“I live and learn,” she would say to them. “After all, Old Complications wasn’t always fast enough, either, in the end.” That was who she measured herself against, her hero and her mother’s teacher, Old Complications. Ol’ Cee. He had been so particular about the white patches where he had been burned, refusing to have them fixed. They had held meaning for him.
Even legends die, lay down their burdens and are still.
But have we really lived, that have not been touched by fire?
The Rangers have many sayings, but her mother’s favorite, because it had been her teacher’s favorite, was this- “Do you wish to burn bright, and so light up the Galaxy?”
***
The Blue Book agents had her treated while they conducted the preliminary interrogation. ‘Blue Book’ was more in the way of a nickname, but, like ‘No Such Agency,’ they existed in the shadows, and part of their work was to remain black as night. So they went by the name of the former US Air Force UFO investigative unit, which had had ties to the CIA, and that was as close to the truth of things as dry facts would come. Many of the operatives were former military, usually Air Force.
"That's quite a furrow in your shoulder." The older agent said. The warmth in his eyes came and went. Just now, he seemed interested and sympathetic.
"Live and learn. I always do."
Marianne had let the pain block go and was feeling it. She was also tired. She hadn't been sleeping well. The nightmares involved seeing millions, billions, of the same faces. Faces which only came with two eyes, a nose and a mouth, no variety. Alien.
The agent smirked. "'This pain means that I am alive?' I can relate."
"Pain is a necessary illusion. There is no pain, only Will." You could almost hear the capital 'W'.
"What the heck is that, Nietzsche? Whatever. 'Pain is weakness, leaving the body.'" He got up and walked into the next room, where his partner, ten years younger, was observing through the inevitable one way mirror.
"You like her." The man smiled his white teeth bright against his dark skin.
"Maybe. And maybe, when my Uncle Sam tells me to cap her, I'll shed a single tear."
"That's cold, brother, very cold."
As they watched, a tech dimmed the lights and ran a UV-light wand over her. Her Ranger tattoo, in Ilshani script, glowed on her cheek. The older man snorted.
"Another alien super-cop, but human this time. I feel special, don't you? Privileged to have our little planet visited by ET, again."
"Not just us. NSA copied us an intercept from the Guoanbu (China's Ministry of State Security), about the problems they've been having with PLA and PLAN personnel going missing. Don't laugh, but..." He glanced sideways at his partner, "Abducted."
"I'm not laughing. I've got a buddy in the Bureau who's been going Mulder on me about that sort of thing. We're talking hundreds, or thousands."
The younger man whistled. "What the hell are they doing with hundreds of Chinese soldiers and sailors, thousands of Americans and Europeans?"
"Other places, too." The older agent shook his head. "Hell, we can ask her. Maybe our alien cop knows."
***
It was possible that this not what she was meant to do. Marianne had had her doubts before, but never like this. She paced the little cell, too restless to sleep, although she needed it. She feared what dreams would come.
Her great grandparents practiced a monotheistic religion that they had brought with them from Earth. Apparently, you would know what this 'God' person meant for you to do from the gifts he had provided you. Perhaps these pointed her in another direction?
But she had always wanted to be a Ranger. To be like her mother and all the recruits she had trained, and her grandfather, all the others. She was active and restless, frankly, aggressive. As her father liked to joke, she was a hammer, and "Everything looks like it needs to be bent, or broken, or pounded into submission. Every kitten looks like it needs rescuing, and every wrong needs to be righted, right now!"
Marianne smiled, and rubbed at her face. She was so tired and sleepy. She turned around in the small space, looking around her cell, one more time. Then she curled up on the cot, almost like a dog, or some other wild thing, a wolf, perhaps.
"I'm tired, Ol' Cee," she muttered, and fell asleep.
***
"I'm not surprised. We climbed the lower slope of Big Rock Candy Mountain today, but you were also up and down off of my middle back at least half a gross of times," Old Complications said. The tiger-centaur had three ‘backs’ and four pairs of limbs, three-quarters of which could be considered legs.
"Nuh-uh! Did not!" A five-year old Marianne squeaked indignantly. “I counted! It was only 43 times!”
OC made the coughing, chuffing sound that passed for laughter among his kind. There was a human word for this, in what he privately called the ‘Bastard Tongue’. This human girl-child was his grandchild-of-the-heart, and she was a blessing.
"Can we have ice cream?" Marianne asked, sleepiness forgotten.
"I'll check with your Mom and Dad, but I think so. How about Fudge Ripple?"
"Yeah!”
***
Marianne woke up as she often did- coming to complete awareness, without giving any outward sign that she was awake. There was someone outside her door... As she waited, she thought, idly, how often Ol' Cee had praised her, his 'Little Hunter', for just such quirks. At least once she had fooled even him. Or perhaps he had merely pretended, pausing at her door before he had left for the last time.
The old hurt ached again, but it wasn't so bad, as she thought of how Ol' Cee had sent her a good dream, instead of the nightmares
she'd been having.
There was a click, as the door unlocked, and the older man from before rapped on the door-jam. "Wakey, wakey, wacky galactic super cop. Time for some more questions. Oh, and breakfast."
Marianne actually smiled, at that.
***
"Girl can really eat."
The Blue Book agents were watching through the mirror-window. Marianne had just started on a second double cheeseburger, but when the man from the cafeteria set the bowl of ice cream on the table, she thanked him and scooped up a heaping spoonful of fudge ripple and popped it in her mouth. Her expression, and the way she licked the spoon, sent the young man off with an embarrassed smile on his own face.
“Yes. Yes, she can,” said the older agent with a chuckle. The younger man glanced at him, and he went on. “I’m starting to think that they don’t feed their super-cops at all, out there.”
“They keep them lean and mean?”
A silence stretched out, but not the usual, comfortable, silence of two partners long accustomed to each other’s habits and thought processes. At length, the older one said, “Do you really still think that this is a gambit? She’s not some Jedi knight, going into Jabba’s den. She doesn’t have R2 for back-up, for one thing.”
The younger agent scowled.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to mock you. I just don’t see how she could expect to come in here and- what?”
Tightly, the younger man said, “All I’m saying is this. We know she’s here for a reason, has some mission, whatever. We also know, or rather, alright, I think, that someone like her doesn’t just get arrested by accident.”
“Paranoia,” The other said, but he nodded, even so.
“No, I really don’t think it is. She’s playing us.”
“If she is, how is she playing us- from the inside of one of our cells?”
“I’ll figure that out, hopefully before she pulls it off.”
“You do that. Then you can tell me, ‘I told you so,’ all you want,” The older agent said, then went through the door to start the interview.
***
"Good Morning."
"Is it, morning, I mean? I slept for a little while, but it doesn't feel like it's been that long," Marianne said. The Blue Book agent glanced at the mirror.
"We might have handled things a little bit better, earlier," he said, and held out his hand. "I'm Fred Donovan. Pleased to meet you," he added, as she took his and shook it, and his partner came through the door.