Midnite Moving Co

George said, looking around the room, “Do you wish to meet Kima?”

Sparrow said nothing, presumably because he’d met her. Avtar said, “It’d be an honour,” and Jesse heard Michel make a noise of disbelief through the open balcony door. He and Colin glanced at each other, and nodded at George, who followed them out. In the doorway, Jesse turned, and having noticed that George was tense, said, “Quit worrying, she’ll be fine.”

Michel appeared to be holding hands with a forty-five kilo cuttlefish. Four smallish tentacles, beige speckled with brown, boiled over the side of the barrel. They reached out to grasp the hands of Colin, Jesse, Avtar and George, all of whom, with varying degrees of comfort, surrendered to the gesture.

“Hi,” said Kima.  Her voice was pitched the same as a woman’s, but sounded robotic.

“Hi,” Jesse said. “Can I pick you up?”

Everyone but Michel looked at him as if he was nuts. Michel, of course, was grinning and waiting to see what would happen next.

“What? She wanted to know if I could carry her!” Jesse said, and stood next to the barrel. Kima flowed over the side and, grasping his clothes and his shoulders, draped herself around him. She put her diaphragm against his ear and whispered, “George likes you. I want to like you too.”

He whispered back, “If you tell me how to be your friend, I’ll try.”

“Okay.”

She nearly pushed him over as she dived back into the bucket. Michel, who had been expecting it, turned himself into a shield and prevented the displaced water from flying all over their guests.

“Nicely done,” George said. “It’s a little chilly for the folks, so I’m going back inside for the meeting. Michel, if you’d do the honours.”

“Did I err?” Jesse said, into the atmosphere of general disapproval.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Avtar said.

“Me either,” Colin said.

Sparrow had watched from inside and was slowly shaking his head from side to side as they came back in.

“Did you disrespect her by picking her up?” he asked in a low voice.

“She’ll be the judge of that,” George said, softly.

“She’s an elder, you can’t just throw her around,” Sparrow said.

“That isn’t what happened,” George said.

There were new folding chairs in the apartment, set up in a circle around the coffee table, which was water-damaged enough to have been rescued from an alley.  George gestured for everyone to sit.

“I asked a number of people to come tonight. The most distinguished guest is Sparrow, so I’ll ask him to open the meeting.”

Sparrow looked at George, and there was a long silence.

“Should I open with a blessing?” Sparrow said.

“We’re on your land,” George said. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Michel tip-walked the barrel in, sloshing a little, set it between himself and George and sat.

Sparrow rose, intoned his way through three sentences of what might have been a prayer, and sat down again.

“I’ve asked the Creator and our ancestors to watch over what we do,” he said.

“Thank you,” Jesse and George said, simultaneously.

“Are you guys having a bromance or something?” Colin said resentfully.

“No, that’s me and Michel,” Jesse said. Michel rolled his eyes and then yawned.

“Jesse’s beating raised a fairly serious issue for me,” George said. “Being associated with me is going to put every one of you at risk.”

“I thought Jesse being a silly bugger put his own self at risk,” Michel said.

“Kinda how I was thinking about it,” Jesse said.

The entry buzzer sounded and all the humans jumped. Kima extended a tentacle across the room and held down the button. Sparrow put his hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

George sighed. “Kima, you’re supposed to check who it is first.”

“It’s the frightened one,” Kima said. “I was looking out the window,” she added.

“Seriously,” Jesse said. “The frightened one? You guys scare the shit out of me all the time.”

“Stephanie,” George said. “Her name is Stephanie. She doesn’t want to be here, so give her a welcome.”

“With no food?” Sparrow said.

“Yeah, George, you know about humans and food,” Colin said.

“There’s pop in the fridge, and snacks on the counter,” Michel said. “Don’t all thank me at once.”

“Thanks, Michel,” Jesse said.

“But — there are no plates,” Colin said, having gotten up to inspect the food. He brought out a couple of cans of pop and a bag of nacho chips, which Jesse promptly ripped open.

There was a timid little knock on the door, and Colin, who was closest, answered.

A polished professional woman, white, in her early forties, eyes wide and expression guarded, was standing there.  Colin said, “Hi, I’m Colin,” and shook her hand to prove that he wasn’t an alien.

“Stephanie,” she said.

She gave a tight little smile as Colin took her coat and hung it up, and walked, with obvious reluctance, into the room.

“Please, take a seat. We were just getting started,” George said.

“I’m George.”

“Sparrow.”

“Jesse.”

“Colin.”

“Avtar.”

“Michel.”

Kima raised a tentacle and waved it without speaking. Stephanie sank into her seat with a look of polite horror and the faintest detectable twitch of disgust.

Jesse felt really, really sorry for her, whoever the hell she was.

Colin thought, I should know who this is.

Sparrow and Avtar, who both knew Stephanie virtually but had not previously met her, looked at each other and smiled, and then gave welcoming smiles to Stephanie, who accepted them with some relief.

“I took the liberty of bringing an agenda,” Stephanie said.

Michel said, “If you think it will help.”

The buzzer sounded again. Once again, all the humans jumped, and in reaction both Colin and Jesse started to giggle into their hands. Kima took her diaphragm along for the ride this time and as her tentacle hovered over the button she bellowed into the speakerphone, “Who is it?” in her unnerving voice.

A young woman said, “Who’s this? Is George there?”

“This is Kima. George is here. Who are you?”

George made his eyes pop out, with no subtlety but brevity. “Let her in, Kima,” he said.

Kima buzzed the anonymous woman in.

“Notice how all the women are late,” Jesse whispered.

“Steady on old son they actually have lives,” Colin whispered back, and they started giggling again.

“I’m going to make you swap spots with Avtar if you don’t quit,” George said.

“I’m fine over here with Michel. C’mon guys it’s like you’re passing notes in school,” Avtar said.

“I was homeschooled, but I appreciate the metaphor,” Jesse said raising his hand in acceptance. Being around Colin was bringing out his inner snarks. His qualms about Kima, who was every bit as compelling and remarkable as rumour had encompassed, were making him jittery and talkative, rather than terrified and silent.

“Both of you, be quiet, unless you have something to say germane to our purpose,” George said.

Colin rose five seconds before the knock, and ushered in a woman in her twenties, notably short and Asian. Once again he hung up the newcomer’s coat. “Colin,” he said. “Anh,” she said.

Colin brought up another chair. Jesse thought he was enjoying the sidekick gig too much, and slapped himself mentally for being so narrow-minded.

Colin after all was able to make himself useful in field conditions around aliens, a skill which would likely keep him employed in the future — if it didn’t wind him up in a black site for the rest of his short life, as he had darkly predicted over beer at some hipster dive in East Van.

Jesse remembered frowning as Colin got all gloomy.  “Didn’t he give you the speech?”

“What speech?” Colin said. He was trying to drink everything on the board that wasn’t an IPA.

“Didn’t he tell you you’d never spend a night in jail on his account?”

“I always thought that meant that he’d kill me,” Colin said, apparently serious.

“Lemme get this — fuck man I don’t think I could — I mean why the hell would you work for a guy that you think would kill you if you crossed him? He told me he’d come get me, with lawyers or without.”

“You think he’d do the same for me?” Colin said. “Remember, I work for my granddad, not him.”

“I’m not sure George sees it that way, but whatever. He can’t keep all the gradations of ownership,” here Jesse turned his hands into mock fireworks, “and employment and government straight in practice, for all he knows the codes. I’m certain he thinks of you as part of his familia. The rest of us crew of even-tempered non-conformists would prob’ly not be happy at him ditching you, and even if no-one else cared I would.”

This heartening speech, followed by a few others, allowed Colin to toss his angst overboard (they were drinking at the Rowing Club at that point, neither of them could remember afterward why, although Jesse thought it had something to do with losing a bet about running around Lost Lagoon.) Colin was further cheered by the thought that Michel would pry prison bars apart to win his freedom, and their pub crawl continued until both of them got puking sick within minutes of each other.

“I’m a lightweight — haaaaggh-khuhk-khohk,” said Jesse. His size was no defence, and he’d gotten a late start on alcohol, since bioMom didn’t drink and Rhonda didn’t drink at home, preferring to binge elsewhere. Colin was almost a stealth puker, which seemed at the time somehow admirable.

It was also during this record-breaking evening of debauchery that Colin tried to tell Jesse how hard it was to be a white guy who liked Asian girls while living in Vancouver.

“I’ll have to stop you right there,” Jesse said. “What you’re saying is gross, sexist, not news and not calculated to make me like you.”

“Whaaat? This is a boys’ night out,” Colin said, slurring.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting drunk and looking at women. I’m just asking you not to talk about it or leer while you’re doing it.”

“There is just no fucking escaping from feminists,” Colin said, disgusted.

Jesse emitted a cartoon laugh and said, “I’m living proof you can escape from feminists.  Escaping from feminism, though, unless you want to live in a remote compound free of birth control and Person of Interest re-runs, that’s a little harder to arrange.”

“You’re a right fuckin’ killjoy, you are,” Colin said.

“I have all the joy I need to stay sane, and I wasn’t put on earth to piss on someone else’s. When you act like a jerk toward women, or talk about them among men or women as if they neither need nor deserve agency, you’re hurting women’s joy. You can have all the goddamned sex you want — and then some — without hurting any women’s joy. Once you figure that out — and get serious about what you need out of sex, companionship, parenthood and partnership — your requirement to talk tough about women in front of other men will vanish.”

“I don’t want any of those things but sex and companionship,” Colin said, serious.

“Then find a woman who wants to get laid and have a well-mannered companion for family gatherings, and doesn’t want children or a live-in boyfriend.”

“Where the hell do you find a woman like that?”

“I’m not you. And I’m not the one with a thing for petite Asian woman so why don’t you start by looking where they are.”

“I suppose I could go back to school, except at this point I’m ancient.” Colin was twenty-seven. Of course, he was an old soul, Jesse thought, trying not to guffaw. Half a second later he was sniggering.

“You think I sound like an idiot. I’m not a hyper-buff lumberjack dude with forearms like fucking cord wood,” Colin had said, reacting to the mockery. 

It was with these recent words in mind that Jesse observed how his friend had become mute in the presence of the newcomer.

“The agenda,” Stephanie said, with a degree of enunciation which in itself commanded attention.

“After we go round the room,” Anh said, moving her forefinger in a circle and looking at everyone, “and I need to know which of you are aliens. I’ll start with me. I’m Anh. I’m the media intern.”

“You getting paid?” Jesse and Colin said. They looked at each other and Colin said, “Jinx.”

“Don’t feel obliged to answer,” George said peaceably, as Anh drew a breath.

“Then I won’t,” she said, and looked directly at Jesse, who said, “Jesse, driver.”

“Who punched your face in, Jesse?” Anh asked.

“I never saw his ID,” Jesse said, in the blank tone he had once used when his mother was grilling him. “We’re giving our names now,” he said, frowning, and glanced at Colin.

“Colin, research and logistics.”

“Congratulations, Kima’s asleep,” Michel said, pulling his hand out of the bucket. “You guys are fucking boring. I’m going out on the balcony.”

Jesse and Colin waved at his back, more or less at the same time. “The entrainment is complete,” Colin said under his breath.

George said, “That’s Michel, and he’s an alien using a human appearance. Michel, without scaring the neighbours, show your true form.”

Michel obliged, held the pose for a couple of seconds, and then they could hear the balcony door open and slide shut; Michel vanished. George heard Stephanie gasp, and then try to control her breathing.

“I am not asleep,” Kima said. She braced herself on all of her tentacles and  balanced on the edge of the barrel.  Stephanie’s blood pressure tanked and George caught her before she slid out of her chair and hit her head on the floor. Kima, sensing that rearing up like that was not very friendly, slid back into the bucket with a bubbling sound.

Jesse and Colin fetched water and sat Stephanie up. Sparrow sat with his eyes closed, no more than perceptibly shaking his head.

Everyone else was trying to look at anyone else but Kima. Kima had all the manners of a toddler, and it was quite unnerving, except to Jesse, who had to assume that Michel standing outside was either a signal of trust that Kima wouldn’t do anything stupid or a desire to have no responsibility for the outcome if she did. Or both. He was a canny bastard, that Michel.

Those in the circle made anxious noises of concern until Stephanie came to. She excused herself to the bathroom, fending off the assistance of both young men with thanks and a wan smile.  In her absence, Colin, with what appeared to be his normal commonsensical officiousness, picked up her agenda from where it had fallen next to her chair and wondered aloud if they should continue with the check-in and then start in on the agenda.

George looked at Colin for a long moment.

“Everyone in this room is in danger because of me. Stephanie fainted because that’s a reasonable thing for a human being to do the first time they see Kima. She’s out of the room, so let me just say she’s one of the people that’s going to make O-day a success or a failure. Success means nobody dies.  Failure means the city burns down.”

“The only real agenda today is that you get to know each other. I can’t predict what makes certain people like each other and others not, and in that way Sixers are just like people.”

“I like Avtar,” Kima said.

Avtar briefly showed all of his teeth, and then settled into a more social smile.

“Because he’s intelligent and helpful,” Kima added.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Sparrow said.

Kima said something in Halq’eméylem and Sparrow looked thoughtful.

“Is that the Sixer language?” Anh asked.

“No,” George said. “We’re learning downriver Halq’eméylem.”

The balcony door slid open, and Michel said, “I already know both official languages. My brain is “officially” full.”

Full of something, that’s for sure, Jesse thought.

“There’s no Sixer language that matches the auditory range of human beings,” Kima said.  She was trying to be helpful. Everyone was looking at her again.  She interpreted this to mean that they wanted her to keep talking, so she added, “Sixers communicate with light through a modified tentacle. We link up, in pairs, and speak through a pipe analogous to a biological fibre-optic cable.”

“Is there any way to translate that into English?”

“Once we’re living openly among humans, it will be the only means of communication we have which can’t be hacked,” George said placidly. “There is not a snowball’s chance that other Sixers would sit still for us translating the language of light.”

He let that sink in, and tried to shift the meeting back to its original purpose.

“I’ve asked for your help because I want to prevent something like Chelyabinsk. I want to become an astronaut and then fly a mission to keep an eye on everything that’s any size moving at any speed upsun of Earth.”

“You want to address a planetary threat,” Avtar said, smiling. He was on board, stating the mission with pride. Jesse started to feel jealous, that Avtar was more in the know, and then he tucked it away. George was talking again.

“I think I’m uniquely qualified for the job, as well as wanting it so badly that I’m prepared to suborn half the public officials in a town the size of Vancouver.”

“So you are bribing people,” Colin said, straight-faced.

“One might consider it filling a war-chest, although variously distributed among interested parties,” George said. “Except it isn’t for a war.”

Colin finally woke to the reason there was a Musqueam man sitting among them. He took a breath, and then George shoved a tiny diaphragm on the end of a tiny invisible tentacle into his ear and said, “Not.another.word.” Looking shocked and sitting back with a twitch of his shoulders, Colin thought better of speaking.

Stephanie returned to the circle and sat down.

“I trust you are feeling better. You mentioned an agenda,” George said politely.

“It seems pointless,” she said. She deliberately looked anywhere but at the barrel. “And nobody is taking notes.”

Kima put her diaphragm over the side and started playing back the audio of the meeting. “I asked a number of people to come tonight,” they heard.

“What?” Stephanie said blankly

“George, a little honesty, please,” Jesse said, shifting uncomfortably in his tiny chair. “Sixers have the ability to take continuous audio and video recordings.”

Kima hung a laptop-screen-sized blob of herself over the side of the barrel and showed a more or less colour image of the room. It panned around until she was looking at herself. They all stared at it, including Stephanie, with varying degrees of fascination and dread. 

Then the lens dove into the barrel and started weaving itself through her tentacles. You could see light coming up, and sparkling on the ceiling. A tiny airplane, pulling a banner stating GEORGE IS A DOOFUS / GEORGES EST ÉCÅ’URANT, appeared to fly through an equally tiny space in the water. Jesse, Colin and Avtar all cracked up. There was a flurry of splashing in the barrel as Kima chased down Michel’s tentacle, which was responsible for the visual, and ejected it.

“Ow,” Michel mouthed through the glass. Jesse wondered where Michel had squeezed his tentacle through and just how narrow a hole he could squeeze through.

“Holy crap,” said Anh. “Do you have video of other Sixers? Of any gatherings of Sixers? Documenting all of this is really important.”

George said, “Yes and no. Without the express permission of any other Sixers shown, we can’t share it.”

“Point being,” Avtar said, “that anything you say to a Sixer can be recorded.”

George said, “Assume that we are recording. Memory doesn’t work in Sixers the way they do in humans.”

“You’ve recorded everything I’ve ever said to you?” Stephanie said.

“Yes. I need to keep the recordings, as I use them to track action items,” George said apologetically.

“You can delete them?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” George said, after a pause. “I can shove them away into a corner, but I’m not convinced I can delete them. I can make them unavailable to other Sixers through the social tentacle, but other than that, I couldn’t say.  May I remind you that one of the reasons I’m coming out is so that we can all learn, Sixers and humans, what our physiology consists of.”

Stephanie said, “George, may I speak to you privately?”

Colin turned to her with an expression of disbelief, and was going to say something when George poked him.

“Sure,” he said. ‘Talk among yourselves,” he said, and they stepped out into the hall.

“We’re toast if she quits,” Sparrow said.

“Who is she?” Colin said uneasily.

“The City Manager,” Sparrow said.

“Of the City of Vancouver?” Colin said, sharply.

“Yup.”

“George’ll find somebody else,” Jesse said. “And he’s kinda got her over a large blue barrel.”

“Like all of us,” Avtar said, but if anything he seemed amused rather than irritated.

“So Kima, who did you meet first?” Anh asked. The crosstalk started.

“I met the man in the costume and then Avtar,” Kima said.  “Then Sparrow and his people.  And then you guys.”

“When did you learn English?”

“I’m still learning English.  It is a ugly language,” she said.

“You’re very fluent.”

“Fluency implies not having to work to speak. I have to stop using the rest of my brain to leave enough room to speak English and follow a conversation properly. I don’t have problems with mathematical notation or chemistry and I prefer text to speech as it is much less emotional while being processed.”

Anh tried a different tack. “George says you can be any colour of the rainbow.”

“Or I can look like a human.” A glamorous woman, with radiant skin and immense dark eyes, dressed with rich elegance in the style of the late forties, appeared to perch on the barrel.  Her expression was rather waxen, and her motion almost too smooth, but most people would have looked at her twice just for her makeup, not realizing she wasn’t human.

“Wow!” said Jesse.

Colin said, “Brava!”

Anh was speechless.

Kima reverted to her normal appearance. It was very tiring to stand in the air and she only did it to show off.

Stephanie and George quietly returned to the apartment. Stephanie came no further in than the entrance way, and as everyone turned to look at them, said, “I’m not feeling well enough to participate this evening, so I’m going home.”

“Colin,” George said. Colin nodded, rose and said, “Let me give you a lift.” Stephanie looked at George, who said, “He’ll get you to your door.”

“I could take a cab,” Stephanie said.

“I guarantee that my grandad’s Lincoln is more comfy,” Colin said. “And it’s got wifi,” he said, as if this would be the clincher.

Stephanie gave a wan smile of agreement and went to gather her things. They departed.

“Well,” George said. “The smartest and hardest working woman in Vancouver thinks we’re all a bunch of idiots.”

“She can speak for herself,” Sparrow said heavily.

George said, “I concur, but for the meantime, the secret’s safe and she’s scaled back her involvement. If you run into her, which doesn’t seem likely, since she never does anything except go to work, go home, and go to City functions under protest, pretend you don’t know her.”

“I’ve forgotten who she is already,” Michel said, coming in off the balcony. “I don’t mind being around humans who hate and fear me when they deserve to feel crappy, but that was a bit much.”

“Please don’t mock her,” George said. For a moment, he seemed both exhausted and downcast. Brightening, he said, “There’s always the magic agenda.”

“You’ve made it more sound more interesting than when she first suggested it,” Avtar said.

“It’s not the agenda that’s interesting, it’s the assumptions she made doing the ‘SWOT’ analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Let’s not forget that she’s received the Feds’ briefing for municipal leaders on terroristic and other threats to urban civilians.”

Jesse said, “Do you suppose a properly trained realist could ever really fit in with your crew?”

Ignoring him, George said, “There are, according to her, six separate threats to the project of getting me into space. One is me, two is all you including you two,” and here he stabbed a finger at Kima, who ignored him, and then Michel, who shrugged elaborately, “three is local law enforcement, four is the Canadian Forces,” and here Jesse snickered, thinking of the four-tanks-and-a-popgun Canadian military, “five is international sanction including whatever your biggest ally, bully and trading partner, the US, chooses to hand out, and six is well-funded non-state actors.”

“Holy crap,” Avtar said. Jesse felt stupid for laughing.

“Put like that,” George said, “It does seem like a really dumb idea. Which is why I’m trying to figure out how to prevent the worst of what could happen. Jesse, I hope you understand why I wanted you to bring your colourful phiz to the party.  Being my associate is an existential risk and I thought a reminder might be useful.”

“Well, I’m already fucked,” Avtar said cheerfully.

“How so?” Jesse asked.

“Who do you think is spoofing the telecoms for your free secure phone service?” Avtar said.

“With my help,” Kima said.

“Well, yeah,” Avtar said.  “You told me how to do it, I just implemented it. But I suspect I’m the one that will do the time.”

“Oh,” Sparrow said. They all looked at each other. “Thanks for giving me all these names and faces for me to rat out during an ‘enhanced interrogation’,” he said.

“It would have been hard to have a really effective criminal conspiracy without secure coms,” Avtar pointed out.

Jesse said, smiling his toddler smile, “I suppose we can all be thankful you’re helping aliens instead of the Hell’s Angels. George, you said I’d never spend a day in jail over something I did for you.”

Kima’s uncomfortable voice said, “If George is dead he can’t help anybody.”

“But you’ll avenge me, right?” George said. It was obviously a running gag. Michel was swinging his head from side to side in a large, unequivocal ’NO’, while shooting out his lower lip.

“That isn’t traditional for our people,” Kima said. “Either the killing or the vengeance,” she added, to clarify. “At least since we got to Earth,” she added, which clarified nothing.

George answered the implied question. “Jesse, I can’t protect you, and even if I had an army of Sixers at my command — possibly one of the most horrific images I can conjure in a lifetime that has spanned the Armenian Genocide, the Great War, the Second World War, about a hundred and fifty coups and revolutions, the Ukrainian famine, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur — I probably still couldn’t protect you. It’s possible that every last one of you, sooner rather than later, will be jailed, in secret, for life.”

“Which is one of the reasons you have a retired judge in your corner,” Michel said. “Very handy.”

“Colin’s not here to be offended, so I may as well say it: His grandad won’t live forever. Once he’s gone I’ll be paying for my legal help, just like everyone else.”

“He’s working pro bono?” Jesse said, startled.

“Not exactly,” George said, “but he’s been very modest in his demands.”

“Having warned us,” Anh said suddenly, “What would you do if we walked out the door?”

“To you? Nothing. You’re all independent actors.”

“Oh man,” Sparrow said. “I almost wish I could believe something that stupid.”

“I’m not a man, which is why the whole stupid issue comes up,” George said.