Creative Destruction

by Bill Kowaleski

Cast of Characters and Species

Table of Contents

Chapter 3: Jason Wise

Jason Wise knew he was handsome. He knew because he’d designed his face and body himself, patterning both after well-known male heartthrobs. His slender, Sirian frame took the convincingly lifelike artificial skin well, filling him out into a trim, muscular, early-twenties human male whose face evoked puzzled recognition. I’ve seen him somewhere, people would think. But they’d never quite pinpoint whom he resembled.

Sometimes he felt female, not unusual for a hermaphroditic species, and then wore his Jana Kovan disguise. She resembled a famous pornstar and evoked even more stares than Jason did. He loved the attention; it got him lots of sex partners.

In either disguise, he oozed the self-confidence of a highly trained Senior Agent of the Sirian Special Forces. His two hundred and sixty-one Earth-years of life, sixty of those years on Earth itself, had given him many skills. He could defeat almost anyone alive in hand-to-hand combat, both Sirian and human; he could speak eighteen Earth languages and twelve languages of other worlds fluently and without the slightest accent; he knew more physics and chemistry than even the most renowned earthly experts.

But his greatest skill was the design and fabrication of second-skin disguises. That skill had allowed him to operate on Earth undetected and never even suspected, and it had also allowed him to pursue his passion: uninhibited sex with humans, male and female. He, like most Sirians, found humans irresistible, and so his posting on Earth was, for him, a posting in paradise. He lived a life as perfect as any he could imagine, and he began every day with a silent thank-you to the Sirian Supreme Council for his good fortune.

His thoughts wandered to his favorite pastime as he briskly walked into the Upper Zion Power Generation apartment complex, a young security guard at his side. The facility, just north of Chicago and on the shores of Lake Michigan, was among the most tightly guarded places on Earth. From the time of his arrival at the front gate, security procedures had dragged on for ninety minutes before he’d finally passed through to approach the apartments located only a few hundred yards from the entrance.

Every visitor suffered a full body search. The MRI scan inevitably led to the disturbing discovery that Jason was not human. He couldn’t understand why he had to go through the same tiresome routine every time. The guards were, of course, never the same people from one visit to the next; nothing more than good security practice there, but why hadn’t they established a protocol for Sirian visitors?

Each time he arrived, he had to wait while the guards expressed their shock, called their superiors, verified his credentials, and finally got approval from the facility’s Executive Manager, James McDermott, to allow Jason to enter. And this time they’d even required an escort. He toyed with the idea of trying to seduce the young, stone-faced man who walked beside him — Jason’s heightened senses had picked up an interest — but he decided that it would probably just lead to more delays. He couldn’t resist one veiled try, though, as they approached Keyshawn and Elka’s door.

“You could definitely find work as a model, you know,” he said with a sly smile, staring hard into the guard’s eyes. “I do it myself, and it’s good money.”

The guard’s stone face softened just an instant. “I’ll take that under advisement, sir, though the pay here is really pretty good.”

Jason handed the guard a personal calling card, which the young man discretely tucked into one of his many pockets. “I’ll wait outside the door here, sir.”

“I could be several hours.”

“If my shift ends, someone will be here to replace me.”

“That would be a shame.” Jason gave the guard his most seductive smile, then turned to the steel door, designed to withstand large-caliber bullets, which was already opening.

“Our sensors alerted us that you were approaching, dude!” Keyshawn said, his voice filled with the energy and enthusiasm that had always appealed to Jason. “Who’s the goon?” Keyshawn added when he noticed the guard.

“Hey, this is my new friend, Keyshawn. He’s doing a very important job. Show him some respect!”

Keyshawn laughed. “OK, I see what’s going on here. Sorry I called you a goon. We do appreciate your work.”

The guard nodded but said nothing as Jason stepped into Keyshawn and Elka’s spartan quarters.

“Every time I come here, Keyshawn, I want to tell you to demand nicer furniture, more rooms, something so that people will know what an important person you are.”

“This works fine! We’re hardly ever here anyway. Elka spends all her time working with the Cygnians, and I’m traveling all over now, on the planning team for the next five fusion power plants.”

A stunning young blonde woman walked into the living room. She wrapped an arm around Jason, turned to face him and hugged him fiercely. Every time he saw her, she impressed him with her incredible beauty, her martial arts skills, and her formidable height — she towered over both Jason and Keyshawn at six feet two inches. He stood on his toes to kiss her cheek, then tried to get a kiss on the lips, but she laughed and ducked her head out of the way.

“Jason, you are never changing. Always you are flirting.”

Her Swedish accent was still strong but easy to understand. It had taken Jason some time to accept that scrawny, African-American Keyshawn, who looked more like a boy than a man, and Elka, Nordic and as beautiful as any Earth woman he’d ever seen, were a couple. But they’d been through a lot together, and Jason had been witness to much of it. For Keyshawn and Elka, Jason was a very special friend, someone who had risked his own life to help rescue Keyshawn from fanatic kidnappers who had taken Keyshawn to a faraway planet, holding him while making unreasonable demands.

“McDermott’s on his way,” said Jason. “He had to approve my entry as usual.”

“Mr. McDermott approaches,” a neutral female voice announced.

Keyshawn opened the heavy metal door and directed Jim McDermott to one of the two bulky, brown armchairs that took up a good part of the small living room. Jason sat on the other armchair while Elka and Keyshawn settled into a matching brown loveseat.

McDermott was a trim fiftyish man, dressed in a well-tailored charcoal business suit and Allen-Edmonds wingtips. Jason hadn’t seen him in casual clothing since their adventure on Tertia, now three years ago. McDermott, never a man for small talk or niceties, jumped right in.

“OK, we’re all here, so let me begin by telling you that we’re revealing Andrew to the world in just two days. He’ll take part in the next regular news conference. We’ve already alerted all the media that we’re going to be announcing something big, so I hope they’ll all show.”

Everyone nodded.

“It’s all about to hit the fan. We’ve got to be ready. The backlash will be huge. FBI is following three groups fronted by big oil or big coal that are working in Congress to lobby for all kinds of restrictions on fusion power. They’re also watching two extreme left groups that are anti-nuclear for environmental reasons.”

Keyshawn jumped to his feet. “If they were really environmentalists, they’d know that fusion power is the best thing that ever happened to this planet. They’d know that fusion produces nothing but helium and power, that it burns nothing but water, that it—”

“Don’t preach to the choir, Keyshawn,” McDermott said. “We all know that, and a lot of smart people at all levels of business and government know it, too. But there are all sorts of crazy ideas circulating right now. Add a furry, panda-like alien with eyestalks to the mix, and the crazies will really get frothed up.”

“So why are we involved?” asked Jason.

“I want all three of you to be ready on short notice to take part in operations to neutralize any threats that appear. There’s one I can almost assure you will need Mr. Wise’s particular set of talents. It’s a radical anti-fusion group that I think you could disrupt very nicely. Keyshawn and Elka, I don’t have a specific assignment this minute, but be prepared to drop everything and move quickly after the news conference.”

“Do you have any idea what we might be doing?” asked Elka.

“Unknown, and that’s what bothers me. I just have a feeling that something is going to blindside us. We’ve got to stay very alert. The problem could come from anywhere.”

“A feeling, Mr. McDermott?” asked Keyshawn. “That’s so unlike you. You’re always so sure of everything.”

McDermott gave them a rare treat: a smile. “I know. My time on Cygnus Prime working with other species, working closely with Dr. Landis, mellowed me a little. I’m not quite as wound up as I used to be, and that’s allowed me to tap into my intuition. It’s a valuable new skill for me. Sometimes logic doesn’t get the job done.”

“So true,” said Jason. “We Sirians have long known that. I, too, feel like something is lurking out there, something that’s going to cause us a lot of trouble. We definitely need to keep our eyes and ears wide open.”

Proceed to Chapter 4...

Copyright © 2019 by Bill Kowaleski