Unwilling From Earth Read online

  Mark sat at his desk and checked his email to see if anything interesting had turned up overnight. He doubted that there would be, but it is one of working life’s rituals, so he checked anyway. There was one surprise. An email from building security to say that they were going to fit a card reader and keypad entry system to the door to the archive to supplement the existing security. Other than that there were just project updates for projects he wasn’t on, diary notes that didn’t include him and newsy articles from the IFG’s head office in Chicago that were of no interest to anybody apart from the people who wrote them.

  He took the large bunch of keys out of the top drawer in his desk that he needed to get into the archive. These made him look like a jailer, but he felt like he was the prisoner. He walked down the corridor to the somewhat worn but freshly painted double doors leading to the stairs and walked down to the document archive in the sub-basement.

  A Far Away War

  Commander Fangur Rey looked pleased with himself. He was a dumpy shaped reptile with a large head. His broad and elongated muzzle opened wide when he spoke, showing a double row of long, serrated, razor-sharp teeth.

  He addressed his officers: “The invasion force is ready. We have eight newly commissioned troop transporters each carrying four thousand fully armed troops and twenty landers. They are supported by two carriers which, as well as orbital weapons platforms, carry a heavy lander and all the support equipment, supplies and staff we need to suppress the native population. The bad news is,” He paused for effect, “that the planet has a population of almost nine billion!” he paused for effect again, and then, with a big, mirthless grin, continued, “But the good news is, they are a low technology civilisation with only a rudimentary space program. They have a few undefended colonies on some of the planets in their solar system which are hardly worth the effort of bombing. They are split into many independent states that spend their time squabbling with each other, fighting pathetic, puny wars and are incapable of getting together to form an alliance. They have poor weaponry systems and they are non-aggressive. Even better, they are an avian species, so should make good eating!”

  The Commander sat back in his chair as his officers banged their fists on the table and cheered.

  “Officers!” The Commander roared after a suitable period of adulation. The officers fell silent as the Commander swept his gaze around the table. His officers were a mixture of species and genders. They were mostly reptiles, a lot of mammals in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours and a few insectoids.

  Having got the attention of his officers back, he continued: “The planet is called Gnn’Ath. It’s in a backwater area of the galaxy with no nearby advanced civilisations. By the time that anyone who might care notices that we have occupied the planet we will be entrenched well enough to defend against almost anything and we will have reduced the native population to just those that we need. The People will know of course, but they won’t do anything apart from making a note of it in their archives. This is a straightforward campaign. Bigger than anything we have done in the past, it is the first step to establishing a secure sphere of influence. The beginning of our mighty leader’s plan to subdue and conquer the entire galaxy!” He stood and leaned forward, raising his voice, “This, my friends, is the real beginning! Those who take part in this will be richly rewarded with the spoils of war as we conquer civilisation after civilisation. There will be planets to rule, civilisations to enslave, whole sectors to control and to do with as you will. These are the rewards of the victors, and victorious we will be! We will stand against the mightiest powers in the galaxy because we will become the conquerors! No one will dare oppose us! We are unstoppable! Come, my comrades in arms, prepare yourselves to lead your troops to the ultimate victory. We are ready to leave now and it is a short journey from the wormhole before we reach the planet and cast our shadow over it. Our armada will leave as soon as you are all in place with your troops. Do not delay! The last officer to signal their readiness to leave will die by my hands. Go, now!”

  The officers, eager to preserve their own lives leapt from their seats, fighting to get out, desperate not to be the last to be ready to leave. Death at the hands of the Commander was unlikely to be swift or painless.

  And so the invasion of Gnn’Ath was launched. The all-out war that threatened to engulf the galaxy had begun. The citizens of Gnn’Ath would be the first to know about it.

  Leaving London

  Alan had almost finished in the Natural History Museum. Everything had been catalogued and noted. The time spent there had been fruitful and without him being unduly stared at, which made a change. Alan didn’t normally fit into a crowd, what with being six feet eight inches tall and with a shape that was a bit off the norm. He was fairly slim but with a bulging midriff, a shape that had been commented on more than once as being like a piece of string with a knot in it.

  That was London completed, as well as all the other major UK cities. It was now time to move out and sample one of the smaller provincial towns. He had decided on his next target. An ancient City which although fairly small, had the distinction of having once been the capital of England and was home to an extensive documented history as well as a few interesting museums and a historic Cathedral.

  Once that was finished, Alan would have completed his field work. He had enjoyed this assignment, but if he didn’t draw a line now, he could be here forever. He would then settle down to pull his work together in a comprehensive file and prepare it all to be archived for prosperity. The field work was enjoyable, but it was not without its discomforts and although he was a little saddened that he would be leaving soon, the prospect of being able to work in the comfort of familiar surroundings with everything needed to hand was something he looked forward to.

  He left the museum and walked briskly towards the lodgings he had taken for the stay in London. The sight of Alan moving through the streets may have gone unremarked in London where strange sights were normal, but elsewhere he stood out due to the leather beany hat pulled down tight over his ears, the wrap-around sunglasses worn everywhere, even indoors and at night, and the long off-white coat buttoned tightly all the way from his throat and reaching almost down to the ground. The exceptional politeness and good manners were also a little distinctive and got him more curious looks than his appearance

  Alan pushed open the door to his lodgings and called out to his landlady: “Good evening Mrs Wright. You have remembered that this is my last night here haven’t you?”

  “Oh yes, Alan.” She replied as she bustled out to see him. “I’m so sorry that you are leaving. You’ve been such a good lodger and you haven’t cribbed once about paying for the damages. I really don’t know how you managed to break off both the bathroom taps. And it was such a shame about the bath overflowing. Who would have thought it would bring down so much of the ceiling.”

  “I must get on Mrs Wright, I’ve got to get all of my stuff together and get packed, I’m leaving first thing.” Although he always travelled light and everything would fit into the large backpack he kept in the wardrobe.

  Mrs Wright would miss Alan. His manners reminded her of her husband who had always been so well-mannered and caring before he left with that blond bitch from the off-licence.

  He started up the stairs and paused, turning towards Mrs Wright “I will leave very early tomorrow morning Mrs Wright, so I won’t see you before I go. I do appreciate how patient you have been with me and how well you have looked after me. This has become like home for me and I will miss you. I don’t like long and emotional farewells, so I’ll just say goodbye and thank you.” Alan turned and continued up the stairs. He didn’t mean a word of it of course. This was just somewhere to stay for which he had paid generously. However, the social norms required a farewell statement and he fastidiously followed the manners of the society he was living in at the time – even though they were a little overdone and about 50 years out of date.

  Mrs Wright stood in the hallway look
ing up at him with a trace of a tear in her eye and a lump in her throat, oblivious to his insincerity.

  Alan planned to start out on the first train in the morning which left Waterloo at half past five. The train should be almost empty, the tidal wave of commuters would be going in the opposite direction. He carefully packed his belongings into the backpack except for two silver flasks of about a litre each. He gingerly stretched out on the bed fully clothed, still wearing the sunglasses, and one after the other drank the contents of the two flasks. He then collapsed the flasks down to small discs and packed them into the rucksack. Alan lay still and remained unmoving until the morning.

  First Step

  Mark unlocked the door of the document storage archive. When the project was started the document archive was designated a secure area. The door was an old and flimsy panel door. A new Yale lock, two mortise locks and a padlock and hasp had been added to make it secure. There was enough money in the Premises Security budget to pay for the supply and fitting of the new locks, but none left in Building Maintenance to replace the door. So the door was securely attached to the wall with multiple high security locks on one side while the other side was held up by two lightweight hinges with screws missing. The whole door would have fragmented if you were to sneeze on it. To add a little more security, and in honour of the late Douglas Adams, Mark had pinned a sign on the door saying in big letters ‘Beware Of The Leopard’.

  Mark wasn’t sure how adding a card reader and keypad entry system would help stop anyone getting in if they were determined, or even if they were not very determined when all they needed to do was to give the locked door a bit of a shove.

  Mark eventually got the door unlocked and opened it carefully in an attempt not to dislodge the hinges. He switched on the lights and surveyed the archive. It was huge. About four metres high, with walls and ceiling painted white. Pipes hung from the ceiling with a fair complement of dusty old spider webs. That puzzled Mark because they were two levels underground and he had never seen a fly this far down. There were various insects that made a living out of eating some of the old documents stored here but none of them looked like they could make it up into the ceiling, and why would they anyway when the only things up there were webs and presumably the spiders to go with them. Another of life’s many mysteries that Mark didn’t understand.

  Mark walked into the archive which seemed to stretch forever. It was full of boxes and it reminded him of the scene at the end of The Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Ark was being filed in a huge warehouse full of anonymous boxes where it would never be seen or found again. The archive was a large space extending to about two thirds of the entire sub-basement area.

  Seeing the vast quantity of paper still to be sorted Mark decided enough was enough. He was going to fix his life. Transform it. Get a social life. Get a new job. Stuff the IT industry. It was interesting when he got into it when he left school with seven good A level passes and the world was his oyster. Now, eighteen years later, everything in IT was pre-packaged and even the most interesting projects weren’t much more than picking solutions out of catalogues. Even the deployment and implementation didn’t take much more skill than was needed to put together Ikea furniture. He was going to make a clean break and start something new.

  Mark felt a surge of adrenaline pulse through his body at the prospect of escaping his dull boring life. This slowly drained away as reality started to bleed into his consciousness. He hadn’t a clue what else he could do for a living, and as for getting a social life, he didn’t like socialising.

  His remaining determination told him it was now or never. All he had to do was just do it. He was determined to make one first step today. “Every journey starts with a single step.” He said out loud, thinking that he could probably have thought of a better cliche, but that would do for now.

  “Sorry, did you say something?” said Sally as she walked through to door with a big grin.

  Mark noticed that as usual, Sally had managed to get lipstick on her teeth.

  “No, just thinking out loud.”

  Sally shook off her umbrella, hung up her coat and went to make tea.

  She liked working on the archive. At least, she enjoyed it as much as anything else at IFG. It was something that she could do without anyone complaining that she wasn’t doing it the way they wanted it done. No one made snide comments about her arriving late and leaving early and Mark never said anything or even looked perturbed when she knocked over another pile of papers or spilt tea into a full filing box. And she liked Mark. He was always polite and kind. On the few days when she had arrived at work tired and depressed he always made her sit down and made her a coffee. She didn’t drink tea. Whenever she fell asleep across a desk, he always did his best to work quietly and not disturb her.

  The day passed with Mark and Sally sorting and marking up filing boxes and putting them out ready to be taken up for scanning, and they made good progress with a large pile of boxes ready to go, but as he looked out across the archive Mark thought that, as usual, they still hadn’t made a noticeable dent in the huge amount of paper to be sorted and processed.

  The work wasn’t intellectually challenging and Mark had spent the day thinking about how to change his life. He had the spark of an idea but wasn’t sure it was a good one. He had few friends, more acquaintances than friends, and they weren’t the socialising type. But he wondered if Sally would go for a drink with him. It would be a small step, but a step nonetheless.

  There were two downsides of this plan. First, Mark wasn’t a drinker and hadn’t been out for a drink for a while. The last time was two and a half years ago on a Friday night when he was persuaded to go for a quick end of week drink on the way home with three of the men in the Treasury department. He had been to school with them. They were members of the gang of bullies who had made life so miserable for him. But on that day they seemed to have put that behind them.

  “Come on Mark, man up and join us. Just the one." Said James Blackstone, the leader of the trio. "To end the week and start the weekend!".

  Mark reluctantly agreed, although on balance he would have preferred his usual Friday night treat of a takeaway curry and a late night of Gears of War or Call of Duty on his Xbox.

  Unfortunately, he hadn't stopped at one drink. He woke up the following Wednesday morning under a table in Bar Scheisse, Berlin with no memory of how he had got there. It wasn't just his memory that had gone missing. He didn't have his shoes or wallet either and he wasn't sure which bothered him more. He suspected his drinks had been spiked.

  The British Consulate in Berlin had been surprisingly helpful getting him back to England.

  When he got home and checked his bank statement online, he found that he had paid for all the drinks and meals from Friday to Tuesday night, and for four return Eurotunnel train tickets to Berlin. Every time he saw the trio after that they sniggered and asked if he fancied another night out with the boys.

  The second downside to the plan was that he didn’t know how to ask someone out for a date. It was a very long time since he had been on one. Just the once, when he was eighteen, and that was when he got coerced into going on a double date with his friend Martin’s sister. He shuddered at the memory.

  When it was almost time to leave, he summoned up his courage and spoke to Sally.

  “Er, Sally, do you drink?” He asked.

  “A little. Why do you ask?”

  “Would you like to go for a drink with me sometime?” Mark was braced as best as he could, ready to be shot down, but at least there was no one else here to see him being humiliated by being turned down even by Sally.

  “OK,” said Sally, with a beaming smile, “when?”

  Sally’s response took him aback. He hadn’t considered when or even where to go as it hadn’t occurred to him that she would say yes.

  “Er, it’s a bit late to arrange it for tomorrow but what about Saturday?” he asked.

  “Oh, sorry, I can’t make Saturday, I promis
ed my flatmate that I would go to the movies with her and she’s booked the tickets.”

  “Oh, never mind, what about Sunday?”

  “I can’t make Sunday, I always watch Antiques Roadshow on Sunday.”

  “Right, what about Monday?”

  “I have Pilates on Monday night.”

  “Tuesday?”

  “Italian lessons.”

  “Wednesday?”

  “I have an appointment at the hairdressers.”

  “Thursday?”

  “I’m taking my cat to the vets for its cat flu injections.”

  By now Mark realised that Sally was just being kind by not turning him down flat and would have a reason why she could never actually manage to fit him into her diary, thus not having to go out with him, but not saying no either. The greyness started to settle on his soul again.

  “What about tomorrow?” Said Sally. “Why is it too late, do you have something else arranged?”

  “No, no.” stuttered Mark, “I just thought it was a bit sudden to suggest tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow is good for me,” said Sally. “where did you want to go?”

  Mark, of course, had no idea. “I have no idea.” Said Mark. “Do you know anywhere good?”

  “I hear that the Chequers is a good pub. Let’s go there. We can meet in reception after work – say five thirty?”

  “Er, yes, that sounds great.” Said Mark, although he thought that the Chequers was one of those pubs that respectable people avoided and he included himself in that category, but Sally seemed to be more in touch with places to go in town. That seemed a bit weird because she didn’t strike him as the sort of person to have a social life and if she did why had she agreed to go for a drink with him?

  “Must rush,” said Sally, although it was only just half past four, an hour before she should leave, “see you tomorrow at half past five in reception. Bye.” And with that, she pulled her coat on, grabbed her umbrella and rushed out of the office.