Earth Girls Aren’t So Easy
Chapter Twelve: The Battle of Kenneyville!
Somewhere in Middle America, at a most inconvenient time
“Go! Go!”
“Go where?” Nicole darted left, reconsidered, and shifted right. She looked back at Paul, who was close behind. A bolt of yellow plasma slammed into the ground to her left. Her eyes widened into saucers. “Where, Paul?”
She was terrified. They both were. Paul cycled through their limited options, settling on the “car. Behind that car! Go go go!”
Nicole reached the Mazda and threw herself behind it, coming to rest near the passenger side door. Paul, stumbling over the curb, fell forward and landed on his hands and knees in the grass. Jenny’s next shot followed them, catching the sedan at the roofline and shattering all of its windows. Bits of tempered glass showered down on Nicole as she screamed.
“Paul! Get up! Get up here! Get against the car!”
He scrambled to her. Without thinking, he began to brush the shattered glass out of her hair. “Fucking hell! We’re going to die, we’re going to die from getting shot with a raygun, what the fuck do we do?” He eyed the house across from them, its windows dark, porch light off. “We gotta get indoors. Come on.”
Nicole cradled her X77 in her lap. “No, wait! We have the raygun, right? It does more than shoot lasers.” She slid the lever on the side to a new position. “Freeze, Incinerate, Hypnotize, Laser,” she said, tapping the gun each time. “It’s like four guns in one. Jenny’s using the laser, but we don’t have to. Distract her for a sec.”
Paul stared at her. “What?”
“Just… run over there behind that other car! I need to get a clear shot to freeze her. Draw her fire for me!”
You’re the one who wanted a girlfriend, Paul. He steeled himself against the car door and counted to ten. At five came another “pew-pew” and the loud pop of a tire exploding. The Mazda sagged away from him.
Eight, nine, TEN!
He dashed to an old yellow hatchback parked across the street, fully expecting to catch a laser in the chest. He heard the dreaded “pew-pew,” and felt the sting of hot rocks and molten asphalt striking the back of his legs. Then he was safe behind the fender.
He could hear Nicole shouting. “Alright Jen, freeze! Freeze, you… aw, fuck me! Work, you piece of SHIT!”
Pew-pew. A thud—more of a thop, at least to Paul’s ears—and then silence. He cringed. “N-Nicole? Are you okay?”
“Yeah! But the freeze ray’s not working! Hold on.” Pew-pew. A laser blast went wide and slammed into the side of a brick building, leaving a glowing crater in the middle of the wall. Flames danced around the edge as bits of pulverized brick pelted trees and grass. It was enough of a sight that Paul momentarily forgot where he was, what danger he was in. Then Nicole was in front of him, breathing heavily, her hands on his shoulders.
“She’s coming this way. We gotta move.”
“Hypnotize her with the hypno-beam! That’ll stop her!”
Nicole shook her head. “No, the mind-beam is less powerful than the bracelet. That’s why they made us wear them. Even at full power I can’t override it. We’re gonna have to think of something else.”
Pew-pew. “Well we’re gonna have to think of something else somewhere else!” He grabbed her by the hand. “C’mon, let’s go!”
In an instant they were on their feet and running, uncertain of where to go or what to do.
Behind them, Jenny obeyed.
Meanwhile
“Yes, slaves. Touch me there, and… oh yes. Yes, right there. Excellent! Ooooh yes. Put your hand around… yes, massage that! Oh, that’s fantastic!”
Q’nan settled into his space-chair and smiled, in a way that even the Kzzrks themselves would not likely recognize as such. “No one has… mmm, slave! No one has touched my… antennae in that way in a long, long time.”
“Yes, my benevolent master.” Becky leaned over the space-chair, her generous breasts resting against Q’nan’s forehead. He briefly considered ordering her to stand up—any further leaning and she’d be smothering him—then reconsidered. Being suffocated by a buxom humanoid female wasn’t the worst way to ascend to the Sacred Plane.
“Mind slave… hmm. What do I even call you?” He gestured at Laura, who was kneeling by his left arm, wearing a placid smile on her face. “Mind slave number two?”
“I am Laura Alvarez,” she said.
“You… what? You are nothing! Not Laura, whatever, just nothing! And why are you letting the other slave do all of the work? Get in here and grab my other… oh. OH! That’s much,.. oh! Yes, grab that instead!”
Bzzt The communications center crackled with a sound Becky and Laura would have associated with angry hornets. Q’nan did not know what a hornet was, but he knew what that bzzt meant, and he was just as frightened by it.
“Q’nan. Q’nan! Come in, you idiot. Q’NAN!”
“Great. Just great, What does he want now? Can this solar cycle get any worse?”
“Yes, my benevolent master,” said Becky. “It can get worse.”
“Shut up! From now on, you’re both on my side in this, understood?”
“I’m on your side,” they both agreed.
Red and white lights on the panel began to flash rapidly, a sure sign that B’nak was misusing his communicator’s emergency contact button. “Q’nan, this is an emergency! I know you’re listening to me! Answer!”
“See? He will not quit. I am finished with you now, humanoid females. Return to your storage positions.”
“Yes, my benevolent master.” Becky rose from the space-chair and began drifting towards her assigned alcove. Laura, on the other hand, remained on her knees.
“It’s not comfortable in there,” she pouted. “Master, it’s cold.”
“Fine, I will set the environmental controls to—wait.” Double takes were frowned upon in Kzzrk society, but Q’nan, alone and a bit stunned, did one anyway. “Did you just… mind slave two, did you just—”
“Q’NAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!”
Q’nan growled and stomped over to the panel, barely resisting the urge to smash his fist against it. “YES. I am here, B’nak. Thanks, you’ve interrupted a nice session with the two mind-slaves. What is it now?”
“One of the humanoid females has turned against us!”
A unprecedented second double take. “What? That’s not possible!”
“She’s broken free of the control unit, and she still has our X77! A humanoid male is helping her. I’ve sent the other humanoid female to kill them. I am returning to the ship with five slaves. Monitor the humanoid transmissions and see if—no, when they raise the alarm. With all of this noise, it won’t be long before the other humanoids begin heading towards our position.”
“B’nak, what will we do if they catch us? We have no weapons now!”
“Our humanoid female drone still obeys us, Q’nan. She will die for us. That will have to do.”
Meanwhile
“Okay, we lost her,” Paul said, panting.
“For now.” They were hiding behind a dumpster in the parking lot of the Gas N Go.
“No, for real! I think we really lost her back at the thrift store. Have you seen her since?”
Nicole hadn’t. “No, and she hasn’t been shooting at anything either. That’s bad, though. That means she knows we’re hiding. She’s gone from chasing us to hunting us.”
“She’s still just one girl. Did the aliens give you anything like a radar thingie, or a… tracker maybe? Night-vision goggles?”
“Just the guns.” She held up the X77 and, with her free hand, slid its control lever to the ‘laser’ position. “What the fuck do we do now? I don’t want to kill Jenny. It’s my fault that she’s doing this.”
“No, it’s their fault she’s doing this.” He briefly peered over the top of the dumpster, then ducked down, slumping against it. “If we can lose her here, we can swing around the rear of the gas station and double back to the field. She’ll spend the rest of the night walking around town looking for us.”
“Do you think she went back to Gamma House?”
Paul considered it. “She might have, thinking we’d go there too. We’ll have to watch for her going up the road, too, in case she’s covering their retreat.”
“Okay, let’s get moving before she comes this way.” She placed the raygun on the pavement and crawled to the corner of their hiding place, inching as far forward as she dared. She squirted into the darkness. “Nothing on this side,” she reported. “Check your end?”
“On it.” Paul followed her lead. Then he recoiled, as if stung. “Fuck,” he coughed, teeth clenched, eyes burning. “Fuck, she’s here. About a block away, heading west. Fuck!”
“Shit! Did she see you?”
“No. Maybe? No.”
A blast struck the side of the dumpster and passed straight through it, causing both Paul and Nicole to throw themselves forward, landing hard on elbows and hands. A sizzling orange hole behind them indicated just how close the shot had come to killing them. Acrid ozone filled the air. With no other options immediately available, they scooted back to the temporary safety of the dumpster, still on their hands and knees, trying to keep as low as possible.
“This is a terrible spot.” Nicole risked a quick peek around the side of the dumpster before crawling back to Paul. “If she hits one of those pumps, we’re all dead!”
“You go,” he said. “Give me the gun and I’ll try to hold her off while you make a run for it. Get yourself someplace safe.” Another pew pew, this time too high, the laser beam passing over the dumpster and causing the overhead lights in the gas station canopy to explode in a shower of sparks that briefly rained down on them.
“Paul, no.”
“Yes! Look, try to get back to Gamma House and get those fucking cops to get their asses over here.” Paul reached for the X77, but Nicole twisted away from him.
“No! I’ve got this. We’ve got this, Paul. I’ll hold her off while you run!”
“Nicole, if you give me the gun, I can… I play video games all the time, I can do this.”
A third pew-pew just missed the dumpster, as well as both of the pumps, before slamming into the convenience store behind them. Washer fluid from shattered bottles pooled around their feet.
She shot him an annoyed glance. “Look, she’s my friend, I get to shoot at her!”
B’nak struggled up the hill. Pausing for yet another chance to catch his breath, he took in the confusion happening in the town below. He could see flashes of laser fire, which meant that the stupid humanoid female had not completed her mission. In the human settlement beyond, he could make out the colorful but stationary lights of what he assumed was the humanoid male’s vaunted task force. They were too far away, and would be of no help to him now.
He looked at the group of entranced sorority girls standing before him, and got an idea.
“Humanoid females! You will pick me up and carry me. I will tell you where to go.”
Ashley bent down and held out her hands. “Yes. You will tell us where to go.”
Ten arms hoisted him into the air and began moving, steadily if awkwardly, up the hill. As he struggled to maintain his balance, B’nak tapped the control unit. “Humanoid female, you will report!”
“Jenny, I’m sorry, okay? I just want you to know that. I’m sorry I got you into this, I’m sorry they brainwashed you, I’m sorry they’re making you do this. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. But I have to do it, okay? It’s either you or us.”
From the other side of the dumpster came nothing but silence. Curious, Nicole peered over the edge. Twenty feet away, Jenny stood motionless.
“What’s she doing? Why did she stop shooting?”
Nicole could just make out the red lights dancing around Jenny’s ear. “She’s wearing some kind of communication thing. I think she’s reporting back to the aliens.”
“So it’s now or never.”
“I know. I… fuck. I know.” She took a deep breath and rested her X77 on the top of the dumpster. “Steady… don’t move, Jenny, just stand there and take it, okay? I don’t want to, but… I’m so sorry!”
She squeezed her eyes and pulled the trigger.
The bolt was dead-on but gained altitude as it approached Jenny, passing well above the blonde’s head. It plunged into a stand of trees at the edge of the parking lot, leaving behind an orange-reddish trail of burning leaves and branches. Jenny, now on alert, sank into a crouch and took aim at Nicole. Even from twenty feet away, Nicole could see those blank blue eyes and the programmed sneer on Jenny’s face.
“Shit! Goddamn it!” Now it was a choice between trying to get off a second shot before Jenny could return fire, or ducking behind the dumpster, knowing that it offered her absolutely zero protection. Indecision held her in place, head completely exposed, her finger no longer on the X77’s trigger.
“Nicoooolllleeee…” Paul’s voice was a million miles away. Everything and everyone seemed to be a million miles away. Nicole tried and failed to will her trigger finger into action. Her knees betrayed her, too, keeping her from dropping out of sight. She watched helplessly as, in slow motion, the blonde steadied her aim. Jenny’s X77 was pointed squarely at Nicole’s face.
“Geeeeeettttttt…”
It won’t hurt it won’t hurt it won’t hurt it’s instantaneous oh God Paul I’m so sorry I love you
Behind Jenny, a miniature inferno took hold in the tree canopy. It produced a series of sharp cracks as damaged limbs sagged and bent, then snapped, each pulling down others in a fiery cascade. Two of the larger branches collided on the way down, pivoting away from their respective trunks and tumbling forward into the lot.
“…dowwwwwwnnn,” Paul yelled. “Niiiiicoooooolllleee…”
Crash. Thud.
Although each tree limb was about as wide as a human torso, both miraculously missed landing on Jenny’s head. Blackened branches clawed at her, though, throwing her to the ground, her X77 scattering away on the pavement. The blonde rolled onto her back, made a weak attempt to sit up, and then collapsed, unconscious, partially buried in leaves.
“Nicole!” Everything returned to normal speed. “Nicole! Get down before she… wait, did you get her?” Before she could answer, Paul sprang to his feet and surveyed the scene for himself. “Whoa. Shit.”
She followed Paul over to the pile of branches and leaves, walking much more slowly, a goofy, disbelieving grin plastered across her face. She reached his side and casually brushed away some of the loose branches to reveal more of Jenny’s unmoving form. Impulsively, she raised her X77 and blew a puff of air across its tip, like an Old West gunfighter.
“Lights out, huh?”
“Holy shit! That was incredible, Nicole! You knocked her out cold! H-how did you know that would work?”
“I was, um, kinda aiming for her head.” She shrugged. “But, you know… yay!”
Even during normal times, few things brought B’nak more joy than the sight of his spaceship docked, prepped, and ready to carry him off to the stars. As he approached it now, bobbling precariously on the arms of a bevy of hypnotized humanoids, his twin hearts nearly exploded with relief. Here, at last, was a link to safety, and home, and success.
“Come to a halt, humanoid females!”
They did as he commanded. Still balanced between them, B’nak brought out his control unit. “Q’nan, are we ready to go?”
Bzzt “Where are you right now, B’nak?”
“Almost at the ship. Get us ready to take off as soon as I’m aboard.”
“We’re not going to wait for the drone to return?”
“No, we’re not going to wait for the drones! They can kill each other, for all I care. Do you want to risk sitting here waiting for them to return?”
“Not in a million solar cycles, no.”
“I thought so. Program the nav computer and I’ll join—whoa… whaaaaaaa!”
The arms supporting B’nak fell away unexpectedly, causing him to slide forward and to his right. He fell, landing on his feet, hands spayed against the cold grassy earth. The humanoid females formed a tight circle around him, motionless as if hit by the X77’s freeze ray.
Except for one.
“I feel dizzy,” Simone groaned. “Where… where am I?”
“Is…” he looked down at Jenny. “Is she… alive? Dead?”
“She’s fine. She’s breathing.” Nicole, crouched by the unconscious blonde’s side, rose to her feet. “Here. Take this.”
Nicole handed Jenny’s X77 to Paul, who held it at an awkward angle, afraid to point it at anything of value.
“That little fucker is slow,” said Nicole, “but it got a hell of a head start on us. If we don’t get to that ship before it does…”
“I know, I know. Can you run?”
“Not great, but yeah.”
“We don’t have to catch up entirely, we just have to get within shooting range.” Paul cupped a hand to his ear, and waited. “Dammit! You can hear the sirens, but none of them are getting closer. She just shot up half the fucking gas station and nobody cares? What the fuck? If we had a car…”
“Whatever, we can’t wait for the cops. Come on!”
With that, Nicole broke into a run, cutting a sharp left at the corner of the now-ruined convenience store and aiming for the alley entrance off of Squire Street. From there it was a straight shot to the old farm gate and the road leading up to the fields and the UFO. Paul followed, trailing by a few feet and closing quickly. His status as the faster of the two of them did little to comfort him; they were well behind the alien as it was, and the steep hill beyond the gate was bound to slow their progress. He took a deep breath and doubled down, leaning as far forward as he dared.
Ahead of him, Nicole reached the alley. She leaned into a right turn and tried to pick up speed, but her feet failed to find traction on the pebble-strewn pavement and slid out from under her. She half-skidded and half-fell onto her side, her right hand taking the brunt of the fall as she began shouting curses.
Paul reached her just as she was rising to her feet, holding her wrist and examining her right hand. She shook it, sending bits of embedded gravel tumbling back to earth.
“Are you okay?” He helped her to her feet.
“Yeah, I just… oh shit, look! Look!”
Paul grunted. He did not look at Nicole or take up her invitation to look anywhere else. His attention was focused only on the alley, the street beyond, and the coming confrontation with aliens that came after that. He pressed his feet against the pavement, until he was certain that he wouldn’t slip, then crouched like a track sprinter at the line. In a second he’d be running full-tilt up the hill, faster than he’d ever attempted to run in his life.
He was so engrossed with psyching himself up that he nearly missed Nicole’s next words, which turned out to be the six most wonderful words ever said by anyone, ever.
“Paul, wait!” she shouted at him. “We have a truck!”