After nine years as a ranger in the U.S. Army, this
ordinary guy - the one that his army buddies nicknamed Lucky - took his
honorable discharge from Fort George G. Meade in Maryland and started to hitch
his way west to Las Vegas. His idea was
to pick up a beat up Porsche sportster he'd won in a poker game while waiting
for his ride back to the States at Hamid Karzai airport outside of Kabul. That was the plan: once he was a civilian,
keys in his pocket, just pick up that damn car and then figure out what to do
with the rest of his life. But before he
got to Nevada, there were a deepening series of complications. Lucky tripped up along the way and tumbled
into a sort-of crazy-land, a detour that was not in any way (at least not very
much) his fault. But there was a good
side to all his troubles...well, not exactly good,
but at least instructional. He found out
something amazing: there were at least three breeds of alien creatures vying
for control of the earth, and he was related to one of them. And he had grown up thinking he was just an
ordinary guy. How the hell could bizarre and outlandish things be happening to
him? How, and why?
Maybe the first time he noticed his ordinary life had
started slipping off its routine track was that time he was at a barbeque joint
on the western edge of Iowa, where the Hawkeye
State meets the Flickertail State (North
Dakota). Lucky's dad, the godlike
creature of legend known as Prometheus (no, serious here), was waiting to snuff
him out at Famous Dave's barbeque joint.
Let's switch POVs for a moment and see things through the eyes of the
dad:
This godlike guy was feeling superior in his silent
invisibility the way most immortals do.
Prometheus - known as Pro My on a sprinkle of sentient planets
throughout the Milky Way - was looking
down on Lucky from a love bower he'd chosen high in an old hickory tree and
wondering how to firm up the resolve to kill another of his children. Zeus, Pro My's old
man and Lucky's grandpa, was insisting he squash the unfortunate youngster like
a flea - hades supreme, he had
already demanded a quick snuff several times before now. But Prometheus was cunning and stubborn, and
thought he might have a way out; the intergalactic com-lines were bad with at
least two connecting wormholes on the flutter again, and Papa Z was half way on
the other side of this universe.
Assuming he wasn't hanging out Dark Side in his natural habitat, the
cantankerous old fart was in another
galaxy far, far away. Prometheus was gambling the old fartster
didn't really care enough to get active over the snuffing of one more
insignificant human.
The demi-god nuzzled the nearest tit of a young earth
girl nestled kitten-like in his embrace.
He had picked her up at the library of a nearby small liberal arts
college earlier in the day. His was a
lonely life and he reassured himself (as was the custom with self-righteous
demi-gods who generally regarded their human sex subjects as more or less
beloved pets), he wasn't causing any problems. That was one of the rules; do no
harm. Of course, the question of harm was subjective. It depended on your point of view.
"What do you think honey-bunny?" Prometheus said, gently
licking her nipple. "Should I zap him?"
The girl had no idea what he was talking about.
"Mm, as long as you save some of your zap for me." She
giggled; her semi-sentiency was deep under his spell. He was just making talk with her. It didn't matter to him what she said. He wasn't seriously asking anyway, just
something like an owner asking Woofie the sheep dog
if he thinks it's going to rain today.
The cause of this godly unrest, the young male sap named Lu
Ky (Lucky in the English variant of
the universal Milky Way language), was down there on the ground, a dozen feet
under and a bit away from Prometheus' tree bower, leaning with his back against
a meat freezer, all but invisible in the dark shadows, and convinced he was out
of reach of the abnormally bright moonlight.
Prometheus agreed; his son did seem for the moment to be unreadable to the
sharp senses of a nearby pair of hungry Tomis, his
body heat negated by the cold metal of a meat locker he happened to be leaning
against. Happened to be? Probably not, Prometheus was thinking.
He didn't believe in coincidence. Lucky
was more than lucky, he had that survival-sense.
The Tomis, short for Tomungis, were another matter. They were the lobby scum of at least two
parallel universes (multiverses) that Prometheus knew of; they were agile shape
changers, but could only survive here in this universe by feeding on live
sentient sperm, and they preferred human sperm.
Always hungry, the Tomis called themselves brights, and
conducted themselves like angelic strumpets, leading human males into bondage
and death with illusion and chemical magic, their pheromone-based powers nearly
as strong as his own.
The Tomis could change their
density at will, shaping their outer appearance as they went along, and their
human victims rarely had any idea they were being taken down until it was too
late. The Tomis
advertised themselves as saviors of sentiency, but on the Dark Side and in
other planes where they were known, they were despised by some and feared
others. They were known as cold-blooded
life-sappers who would snuff out lesser beings as their right, without remorse
and for slight advantage. Of course,
there were worse creatures in the scale of all things, beasts of questionable
morality that were certainly more dangerous.
Time to get on with his assignment; Prometheus sighed and
with a snap of the thumb and finger on his left hand returned his maiden to her
own bed where she would wake in the morning with memories of sleeping with a
godlike creature.
And taking his leave of her was a good thing because
thirty seconds later another of Prometheus' famous (or at least renowned in
earth legend) sons materialized, rez-ing up in that
bumptious way of his.
"What's up, Dad?"
"Hercules. What a
surprise."
"Grandpa Zee-ster says we have
to kill somebody."
"That's what he says, but we're not going to."
"Who is it?"
"The kid down there."
"But that's Lu Ky."
"Right. I forgot
you know him. He has certainly turned
into a powerful force of a fellow, hasn't he?"
"Well, I could take him, sure."
"Maybe..."
"Well, I could, even though rumor is, he's a killer, too...well,
a soldier who has killed, though I don't see much difference."
"You wouldn't.
Saps are only semi-rational," Pro My said.
"Hey, so you say.
Don't forget, you're part sap, too, Dad."
"Like pure gods are any better than demi-gods?" Hercules
said.
Prometheus sighed. "I know, I know. It's not fair; Grandpa says that's the way
it's going to be, and so Akto gets eaten by dog bots
just for watching Art My pleasure herself."
"And you get pecked by giant birds for gifting fire to
the saps."
"Well, Herk, that was no more than a stupid
misunderstanding. We both know Old Zee
is going senile. The saps had already figured out combustion. I simply refused to blank their minds like he
wanted. It was all a stupid waste of
time. It's a lot of trouble, running
around blanking minds. I mean, what did
they do to deserve it?"
Hercules flexed his arms, looking around for something to
crush or smash or maybe a boulder to throw.
"Okay, back to reality, Pops - you want me to hit my own brother with a
magic rock or should we call in the really big birds?"
"No can do, muscle boy.
Magic is out. Don't you ever scan
the updates? We've got new rules on this
earth. It's got to look real."
"Yeah. Real."
"Okay, scientifically
plausible. That is, if we were going
to do it. But we're not."
"Why not?"
"Because I say so.
Old Zee shoves a ton of crappy new rules up our butts - on top of the
bothersome old ones. I'm tired of it."
"Yeah. No more transmogging fair maidens into flowers or trees. I read that part."
"Transmogrify. I
didn't know you knew that word."
"Come on, Pops. We're on the same page here. I'm tired of all the Zeusian
restrictions, too. No more zapping villains
and schemers with bolts of energy out of a clear blue sky; It makes no sense -
we can still zing a zap or two to change some mortal's sorry fate if we go
through the trouble of whipping up a storm, but so much bother and all for
what? It's a pain in the ass; demi-gods like
us have to stick around and be responsible for running things - and yet we less
and less get the go sign to do the good stuff."
"Maybe we're spoiled.
Maybe it's not as bad as we're saying."
"Yeah, when's the last time you had the go-ahead to gift
eternal life-spans on the best sap warriors and virgins?" Hercules said.
"Well, there might be some good reason for that one."
"Like what?"
"Combine sap foibles with immortality, you got cause for
worry, particularly now they know uranium can blow things up."
A beep told them the wormhole transmitter was working
again. "Yeah. What?" Prometheus said.
A scratchy voice came at him out of the sky, "Where are
you, Pro? Z is asking."
"Earth KT480. He
knows that."
"Yes, but he doesn't know why."
"I haven't been back since the 1960's. Just catching up on who's screwing who and
how come."
"Whom."
"Huh?"
"Who's screwing whom."
"Oh, yeah.
Grammar. Look, I'm supposed to be
on vacation. No grammar and no decisions
to kill anybody."
"Pro My, you haven't exterminated Lu Ky yet, have
you." More a statement than a question.
"No, and I don't see why I have to. He's my son for crap's sake."
"You have to because Zee is Zee and you are you."
"And you're just the messenger," Pro My said.
"And you're just making excuses. You have lots of sons."
"Not as many as the big schlong."
"What will I tell him? He said you're supposed to crush
Lu Ky like an ant."
"No. I don't get
it. The boy isn't hurting anybody. In fact, there's a pair of Tomi's right here
want to suck up his sperm and spit the rest of him out like dirt."
"Good. They can
take him out for you."
"No son of mine will ever be sucked dead by a filthy
Tomi. Not if I can help it. Talk later."
And with that Prometheus nipped off the transmission.
In spite of his reluctance, Prometheus was wondering if maybe
Big Zee had a point; enormous and unexpected tragedy was such a frequent
happening in this particular solar system. Maybe this earth's sun was
preordained as an unlucky star. Just
look at their solar system: Mars had been populated with sentient scorpions,
and, before that, there was Phaeton with their smart water monkeys. Nobody could blame the saps for either of
those extinctions; they hadn't been around back then. And yet Phaeton had been
hit and blown to asteroids with a wayward mini-planet on the loose from some
other galaxy, and as for Mars, well, it simply dried up once the sentient scorpion
people inadvertently got rid of their own atmosphere, something to do with Freon
gas in their pop sticks.
A lot to think about: There were earlier times when the
Big Zee had been more patient and humane (humane: an oxymoron if Prometheus had
ever heard one). Be that as it may, back
then the Zeester had endlessly preached to anybody
who would listen that his guiding principal was live and let live, and so what if there was an occasional genocide,
just get on with it. But here on the
planet earth Hitler and Stalin and Truman and Hirohito and the atom bomb had
put screeching brakes on his tolerance.
In the Big Z's mind, the defects in the sap species had advanced from
mere genocide to death-of-the-planet happenings.
For his own part, Prometheus had endured the Zee's legendary
punishments until he decided enough was enough.
In his heart of hearts he secretly believed the old god was just as
fallible as any other immortal (but he wasn't going to say that one out loud). Prometheus was sure he knew the saps at least
as well as Zeus, even though his upstart beliefs were heresy to the Old Fartster. So
what? Prometheus figured humanoids and
even humans were basically good creatures and, if left alone, might work things
out on their own. And if not, well, this
galaxy - indeed, this entire universe - was blooming with young sentiency, so
what did it matter?
So Prometheus dawdled
and delayed the cindering of his son and at the same time kept rash Hercules
from doing anything bold and stupid, young muscle boy's usual mode of operation. Prometheus told himself he didn't have enough
information, and, after all, Lucky was his own offspring and as such his
personal responsibility, and he only had a hundred or so children scattered
around this universe, while Zee had maybe tens of thousands. More as a formality than anything serious,
Prometheus tried callback three or four times to lay out some excuses, but
control was three wormholes away and the mag-link - always if-y - was down
again and so he felt his excuse was he could say he thought that with the
system out he was more or less on his own, and that probably (maybe. might
possibly) play okay in the Big Zee's fusty mind..
At least that's what Prometheus was thinking until the
familiar voice-like-thunder practically knocked him off his tree branch.
"What crap are you pulling now? When I give an order, it's an order!" That thunder-voice, of course, from Zeus -
direct line, naturally. The old fartster couldn't just use a normal talking voice. Prometheus sighed and stirred up his pot of
excuses, looking for something original, or at least faintly plausible.
"I've been trying to call you, Dad. How come you get to use the direct line and
we don't?"
"You have any idea how much this costs?"
"Ah...lots, I suppose."
"And it's coming out of your allowance."
There was a dull click and the voice was gone. Prometheus reluctantly raised one finger to
cinder his offspring, but a big fat ugly moth fluttered into his line of
sight. Clearly a dissenting voice from
some other god. Pro My wondered who it
was, but he wasn't going to question a gift from the gods. He lowered his hand.
Time passed. After
dawdling for a half hour, Prometheus took a closer look across the patio at the
two hungry Tomungi girls. If he wanted, he could enlist them to do his
dirty deed for him. It would be easy;
they needed Lucky's joy juice to stay alive in this universe, they would be
happy to oblige. Still, what a slutty
pair, and what an unfortunate end to a promising life! And,
come on, this was his favorite earth kid!
Sure, the voracious twosome of Tomis
could take his son down and then he wouldn't have to bother. But that would be a shame, and the outcome
wasn't that certain. Lucky belonged here in a way that neither the Tomis nor the other aliens did. Lucky was over half human, like Hercules, Jesus,
Attila the Hun, Joan of Arc, St. Francis, Alexander the Great and a few others
who had carved their mark for good or bad on the clay tablets of the history of
mortal mankind. This was Lucky's solar system,
his little corner of the galaxy. And
although the young sap had no idea - and might never realize - who he was or
what he was capable of, by rights it should take a lot more than a pair of
hungry Tomis to take him out.
Prometheus was frustrated by his own indecision, but
finally he again raised a finger-of-death in his son's direction. And again paused, remembering the strange
appearance of that rare night moth.
"Maybe later. I
leave it in the hands of the gods," he muttered to nobody in particular, or
maybe he was in some sort of argument with the entire universe. He lowered his hand for the final time, and
slowly vanished from the tree branch.