Chapter 1: Delicious Business
Paulie sat on a low stool obviously made with the large plethora of different alien shapes and species of the GGI in mind. It was not uncomfortable, but neither was it particularly relaxing. He shifted and looked around the large open space, he was in some sort of alien mall. What looked remarkably similar to one he might have seen back home on Earth had he been teleported there in that instant.
The walls were plastered in decals, advertisements and holographic projectors that spilled their aggressively colored alien advertisements across any and all available space like some kind of artist's nightmare. He had to blink and look away to clear his head of the dazzling and often startling displays. Some of them had looked as if they might have emitted into spectrums of light he couldn't see with his human eyes.
The meanings of the pictures and words flooded his mind as if it were a small town under a collapsing dam, complete chaos. The falling lines of alien text still meant little to his mind, the translation parasite that was embedded deep in the grey matter of his brain seemed to deal only with verbal speech and not visual language.
He shook his mind to clear it as he felt that all too familiar squirming in his mind. He cursed at the parasite silently and slapped the mental cage he had erected around it. It shrieked in fear and what might have been embarrassment and slung down deeper into the shadows of his subconscious.
He shifted on his seat, uncomfortable despite the mundane nature of their setting. Across the small square table from him sat Jakiikii and Mack, the man had recovered well from his plasma-bolt wound. He barely even winced when he moved and only emitted low grumbles of pain when he shifted the wrong way in his long dapper greatcoat. Despite his difficulty Paulie knew the man was absolutely excited to get out of that hospital bed. And likely even more excited to finally eat some decent food, he smirked at that. It didn’t matter where in the universe one was, it seemed that all hospital cafeterias had the same criteria for simple and unseasoned food.
He looked around, wondering where their server was. They had already been seated for nearly five minutes. As if thinking it made it appear, an inexplicably young looking alien walked up. The female vishu’uieum’s body was oblong and covered in a thick layer of colorful downy feathers that seemed to move slightly as of their own accord. As the female alien took down their order he looked at her head, at least where he would have expected the head to be on any other species. Instead there was just a slightly pronounced hump between her shoulders from which trailed two massive muscular arms she used in conjunction with her stubby legs to move about in a manner almost comically similar to a silverback gorilla.
She seemed to notice him staring and turned his way with one of her eyes, both of the orbs being set on large fin-like protrusions that sprouted from the top of her muscular shoulders. Her upper chest was dominated by a large mouth around which was arrayed six fleshy tendrils that he knew were her peoples equivalent of noses. She spoke, that large mouth moving as she enunciated her low grunting coughs.
Despite the abject alieness of the women's speech patterns, Paulie found that he could intrinsically understand her as though he had some deep seated understanding of her language. He cocked his head, intrigued once more by the strange biological translator that had been implanted into his brain when he had been abducted.
Something tapped his shoulder and he jerked. “Huh? What, what happened?” He said in a startled manner, his eyes once more roving around the table.
Mack and Jakiikii were looking at him in mild concern. Jakiikii’s six bright orange eyes blinked independently of each other and looked at him in what might have been either concern or mild annoyance.
She gestured towards where their server had been standing with one of her second pair of arms. The other five still resting by her sides or on the table. “She was wondering if you wanted to get it fried or baked? I know how you love greasy food so I told her to just fry it while you were staring off into space like a lost goorf.”
The last few weeks had been a bit troubling to him, all truth be told. He rubbed tired eyes and shook his head slightly. His short brown hair was just one step shy of shaggy after a while without a haircut. Looking towards the termaxxi he waved a hand and picked up his argonated frubble juice, “I’m sorry. My mind was wandering again I guess.” He took a sip of the drink, the coolness and sweetness of it soothing his nerves as well as his throat with tiny bubbles.
He set it back down just as Mack started in on him. “Paulie, I understand that you had no previous law enforcement experience before you were abducted, but I have nevertheless been mightily impressed with your results.”
Paulie smiled thinly and ducked his head. Praise from the man was nevertheless rare and generally preceded the miriam detective telling him something he had done wrong recently. Paulie made a gesture towards Jakiikii and asked, “What about the thing we were talking about earlier?”
Mack’s large expressive grey eyes strayed from him to Jakiikii and back. He folded his arms. “What, you want a weapon carry license? I told you, you need to pass your last certification exam and then improve your marksmanship dramatically before I am ever trusting you with an electron gun, human.” His addition of the term felt a teensy bit derogatory, but Paulie snorted and retorted quickly.
“Yeah? And what am I supposed to do when Ooounoo’s thugs rock back up on me again, because we both know they are simply waiting for an opening.” He glared back at the Censec detective who shifted nonchalantly. “What about my other request?”
Mack shrugged. “We will just have to cross that bridge when we get to it, Paulie. But for now, you have three officers on escort and Jakiikii to keep an eye on things as well. I assure you, you are as safe as I can make you while still allowing you to move around in public.” Mack frowned as he said it.
And there it was. The reason the man was so grumpy with Paulie. It had come up on multiple occasions now, but things had slowly been building to a head and he could feel the instant tension that the comment had injected into their conversation. He still thought that Paulie would be better off cooped up in some tiny little apartment without windows. But he was tired of that, nearly sick to death of it in fact.
He sat up straighter as he felt his fists clench in mild anger. He pointed to the miriam and saw his neck quills shiver as Paulie demanded, “Yes. And until such a time that I am proven to be a real and present danger to the public I see no reason why I can’t walk around like anyone else.”
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Mack shook his head. “You know why I can’t let you do that. And I am getting a little annoyed with you asking me thirty-two times every day. I told you a million times, Paulie, once we get the matter behind us then I will feel comfortable getting you a citizenship permit. And then you can go back to some semblance of a normal life. Until then, you are only allowed out with an escort.”
Paulie sat back on the stool and crossed his arms. “I want to go home.” He grumbled.
Jakiikii, who was seated to his immediate left around the square table, reached over and patted his shoulder with one of her longer upper arms. “Oh you will, I believe in the system. It helped me, it can help you too. You just have to be patient.” Now he snorted out loud in response causing her to frown slightly with her little slash of a mouth.
Paulie slapped a hand on the lightweight polymer table hard enough to make their drinks jump as he retorted angrily, “The only reason I had agreed to help in the first place was because I thought I would be helped in return…” He stopped as he said it though, almost immediately ashamed of the selfish words.
He tapped on his head and ducked towards the table as he tried to regain control of the rampant negative thoughts in the back of his mind. Inside his head he thought he could hear a faint cackling. But it faded nearly as soon as he noticed it, and he shook his head. Damn parasite.
“I’m sorry, Mack.” Paulie said quickly. “I know you are just trying to take down Ooounoo, and please believe me that I want that too more than anything. I want the killing and kidnapping to stop too, how long has she been doing it, and for what purpose?” Paulie spouted in a rush as the alien detective pulled out a small datapad and tapped on it for a moment.
He seemed to look for something and then turned it to show Paulie. “Here. look, this is why I wanted to meet you in public anyways.” He reached out and handed the tablet to Jakiikii who was closer and she in turn leaned towards Paulie with it.
He watched as she manipulated the alien text on the screen and pressed the orange circle that appeared. After another moment and a few more button presses he was graced with another wall of falling alien text. It flashed orange though instead of the normal blue and he glanced at Mack before shrugging.
“It means nothing to me, might as well be calculus.” Jakiikii snickered, her lower torso gills fluttering as she covered them with her middle pair of arms.
Mack frowned, his sharp pointed teeth flashing in the bright light of the public space. He reached out and took the device before stowing it in one of the many hidden pockets of his coat. “Well, I figured as much. But I wanted to share it with Jakiikii and you anyways. It is a verification of resources to form a task force with the express purpose of raiding Ooounoo and her companions. After they got the data crystal and tried to kill me I think they went back into hiding, but they must not have known I made a copy of the date.” He leaned forwards, his arms lying flat on the table as he whispered more conspiratorially, “You need to keep it quiet though. There are only about sixteen people besides you and me that know about this impending raid. And I want to keep it that way, I want them getting very comfortable in their golden towers before I come to kick the doors in.” He nodded in a satisfied manner before clapping his hands, his gaze turning to look past Paulie.
“Ah, here is our food.” He nodded and Paulie turned to look.
He saw the large knuckle walking alien approaching again and tried his best not to stare rudely. He had apparently already made a poor impression according to Jakiikii, but as the large colorfully feathered vishu’uie reached them and set down a large tray on the table he couldn't see any animosity in her behaviour. He felt like apologising anyways but stifled it, he had already been enough trouble for the large alien woman.
She looked around the table, that large tentacle ringed mouth on her upper chest spoke quite dexterously in her native tongue. “Here is that order of double breaded and fried caallc you wanted, with some of the house brown sauce too. Another roll of steamed mokku and the sweet and spicy agual broth is for you dear.” She spoke as she handed a large steaming pitcher and cups to Jakiikii who took it with glee.
Their waitress stood back on thick legs and tucked the two smaller arms back into the hidden recesses at her sides. “Well, if there is nothing further I can get for you all?”
Mack gave her a nod. “No, this will be quite alright. Thank you, miss.”
Jakiikii quipped, “Yes, thank you.” She elbowed Paulie and he nodded courteously before giving an awkward little wave. Jakiikii hissed low as the alien lumbered away, “What was that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have anything to say, I have never tried kalp before.”
“Caalc.” She corrected him as she dragged the dish in question to the center of the table and opened a small container that seemed to be full of some thick gelatinous fluid. Though it looked about as appetising as boot polish, he saw Mack smile and immediately grab one of the small breaded bites and dip it into the container before popping it into his mouth with a satisfying crunch, a little puff of steam exiting through his sharp teeth as he chewed contentedly.
He murmured, “Oh, hot! Mmm, yes, that’s good.” He gestured towards Paulie who grabbed one of the unknown mystery blobs and inspected it closely.
Jakiikii let out a chuckle as she slurped her own meal through the long hollow tongue that had slipped from her dainty mouth like a snake from its burrow. The appendage was nearly forty-five centimeters in total length, though she had only extended about half its length to dip into her steaming mug of agual tea.
She pointed to the delicacy he held with one of her shortest third pair of arms and giggled even while her mouth was occupied, her laughter coming from deeper in her torso than a man’s would have. “You are supposed to eat it, not try and determine the meaning of life from it.”
He shrugged. If he was going to hate it then he might as well get it over with. He had found through much trial and error that there were in fact things he was incapable of eating. He reached forwards to dip the morsel into the sauce when Mack stopped him from taking a bite.
The detective gripped his arm suddenly, not strong enough to restrain him but firm enough to immediately halt him in his progress. “Hold up, wait a minute. I almost forgot, I remembered that little problem you admitted you were having the other week at the complex. So I asked Flurn to whip this up for you in his spare time.”
Mack reached into his cavernous inner pockets once more and pulled out a slim handheld device that looked like something straight out of a 1980s science fiction television show. He took it gently as if it were as fragile as a glass spider's web, but he needn't have bothered as it seemed quite durable on closer inspection.
“It’s a multitector. Not really common hardware nowadays as everything is generally so sterilised. But they come in handy from time to time, I had yours configured to read in your native tongue based on the data I have been scraping from your literacy exams.” Mack said proudly. “You can use it to see if something you want to eat is going to cause you internal issues. Among other things.”
He nodded to Paulie as he switched it on and was immediately delighted to see the screen light up with familiar Latin-script letters and numbers. He pressed the main menu button and saw a great variety of options, several of them which made a little less sense than he would have cared to admit. But all in all it was a legible, serviceable device.
Paulei looked up to Mack and smiled widely, the alien ducking his long neck as the blue sensory spines that ran down its length clattered slightly from the motion. “This is incredible.. Thanks, Mack!” He held the device over the breaded morsel. “How do I use it to test things?”
Jakiikii pointed to the screen. “You need to go into the detector menu, there..” He followed her instructions. “Just there, now choose the scan external option and test for harmful contaminants.”
He did as she had instructed. The small device whirred and beeped for a moment before the screen lit up a solid blue and a list of the caalc’s molecular and elemental makeup seemed to scroll across the screen. On it there was also a readout that told him it was safe to eat and should cause him no distress. He smiled and popped the morsel into his mouth.
The double fried and dipped caalc was tasty indeed, the crunchy outer shell contrasting nicely with the tender sweet flesh beneath. That combined with the savoury brown sauce that reminded him a lot of real soy sauce, it was a pleasant and satisfying dining experience.
Paulie nodded to the other two, his voice muffled slightly by his full mouth, “Mmrpph.. igs reawy gudff.”
Mack chuckled as he reached for another piece and gestured to the other dish. “Wait till you try the mokku.”
Paulie nodded at the man’s words and reached for another piece of food as he set the multitector down. He was content to try a few more pieces just to make sure he really liked it, apparently Mack had ordered the largest portion size the place served. And Pauie was determined to clear the plate.