The Quantum Connection

I heard a gunshot and another right after.

The freckle-faced Gray had attempted to make a run for it, but Tabitha was too quick on the draw for it. She shot both of its legs out from under it and it went flailing across the rooftop onto its face, screaming in pain. At the same time, the pilot of the vessel the Regency had sent was moving frantically over the controls of the vehicle. A throwing knife suddenly appeared right between the thing's eyes where a nose should have been. 'Becca carefully approached the thing and retrieved her dagger. She wiped the blue syrup from the blade and then the blade vanished somewhere into her pants. I had never even known she was carrying a dagger. I wondered what else she had in there. Jim looked at the controls on the vehicle but couldn't decipher them.

'He was fiddling with something here, but I'll be damned if I know what it was he did,' Jim said.

'We need to quit dicking around and find this Regency!' Anson said.

'I agree.' Tabitha reached down and grabbed the choke collar and pulled it very tight around the Gray's neck. 'We see now that we cannot trust you. Tell us how to contact this Regency or I will pop your little head right off!' She pulled it up onto its feet causing it to feel the pain of the gravitational pressure on its now ruined legs. The bullet holes in the thighs of the creature oozed the blue-green syrupy blood down its legs and onto the rooftop.

'Eeeekkk! Please stop! I will not tell you without the Regency's permission. I cannot by physiological function disobey the Regency.' The Gray tried to rub at its legs but Tabitha kept it upright with the choke collar.

'Then I suggest you get on the horn and call up your boss and tell it to get its ass over here, now!' Tabitha yelled at it.

I could see why Anson liked this lady. She has some serious chutzpa, spunk, fortitude, and a whole lot of other stuff. She reminded me of Tatiana.

Baby, you okay? 

I haven't gone anywhere yet. 

Still working on it, Tatiana. I will get you out. 

Steven? 

Yes? 

I love you. 

I love you, too. 

The Gray made some facial twitches that were nearly unperceivable and then it fell over . . . dead.

'What the hell?' Tabitha said.

I walked over and checked it for any type of vital signs as Tabitha had just done. Nothing.

'Perhaps one of them knows where this Regency is,' Anson said. He pointed out across the rooftop at a group of seven balls of blue-white light. As the balls got closer they vanished and then reappeared a few meters in front of us. The balls flashed inward and seven large Grays with red gill-like markings on their necks and blue stripes on their foreheads and ears appeared before us. These Grays were about thirty centimeters taller than the others and they were wearing blue and black tights. I guessed that the tights were of the same type of condensed matter material as the alien armor Tatiana had designed.

'You will cease your hostilities, Earthlings,' the largest of the Grays said.

'We might. But we do not follow your orders, alien,' Tabitha said calmly. 'Are you the leaders of your, uh, people?'

'We are the Regency and are, as you perceive, the leaders of The Species,' another one of the regally marked Grays answered.

'Why are you here, humans?'

'We have discovered that you have been abducting our people, torturing them, and manipulating our history for thousands of years. We want to know why—and we want this to stop!' Tabitha said.

'Ah, you have finally grown up,' the Gray in the center said.

'Grown up! Prawmitoos, you are soft. They are still primitive monkeys. Just look at them. If your soldier drones were as adept as you claimed, these monkeys would have been taken care of by now.'

'Yes, a nuisance that, but that soldier drone will no longer fail me.'

'His demise was too painless.'

'Feyibi, you always have a harsh view of all creatures, don't you? If these creatures have not grown up then how are they here and why have we no control over their implants?' Prawmitoos replied.

'Tell us exactly what you want, humans, and perhaps we will spare your lives,' another one of them said bitterly as it toed the standard Gray that 'Becca had taken out with her dagger. I was curious if the arrogant royal Gray was bluffing or if they really could take us.

'To start with, where is Tatiana; the one of us that the freckle-faced gray shot with the confinement bubble device?' I asked.

'She was infected by the Himbroozya and had to be removed,' Feyibi said.

'Himbroozya, himbroozya, what the hell is this himbroozya?' I yelled at them.

'Human, we can hear you and there is no need to be loud. Why do you not ask your Servant that you carry hidden away in your abdomen?' Prawmitoos said.

'He doesn't know,' I told him. Mike, you're my friend, not a servant!

Thank you, Steven. But you did program me to follow your orders.