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Back in January or so, 2009, when many of us were in the winter doldrums, one of the more enthusiastic Swam authors got the idea that we should have a contest, the theme of which to find out who could write the best pickup story. There was a twist, though, and it was that the story had to involve one or more of the actual Swam authors. This was my entry. It didn't win, and it sat around languishing ever since, but I ran across it today and thought some of you might enjoy it. Keep in mind that it is a parody, and not part of the Swarm canon!
THIS IS IMPORTANT! This story contains references to some real people, but only by their pen names. I have never actually met those people. All descriptions of the characters contained herein are solely figments of my imagination. Some of you may take offense at those descriptions, but they are not intended to insult, or to actually describe how any particular individual may look, speak, behave, or react. They are intended simply to make a FICTIONAL story flow, in a manner that creates humor. Do not assume that these descriptions are either accurate or even plausible!
License is hereby granted to individual users to download this work for temporary use as personal reading material only, after which it must be discarded. Each user may also download and keep one (1) digital copy of this work, on one (1) computer, as a backup or for the purpose of providing for that same user's personal offline reading. All other uses, including specifically, republication by any means or in any type of media, are prohibited, without first obtaining permission, in writing, from the copyright holder.
Mulligan and Thinker were busy setting up tables in one of the hotel's smaller meeting rooms, while Duke went out to check on the availability of snacks. The hotel would have done it, but this meeting was already over-budget for many of the attendees, so the organizers were cutting corners where ever possible.
"I'm really surprised at the attendance," Mulligan remarked. "These folks generally try to isolate this aspect of their lives as much as possible from the rest. They're risking at least the loss of anonymity provided by the internet..."
"Yeah," replied Thinker, "that's the beauty of it! And we have Melissa to thank for the orignal idea, too. You see, at this particular conference, it's considered normal for people to show up in costume. What better venue than a Dragon Con ™ to come in disguise? Just waltz right up wearing your Groucho Marx nose and glasses, and introduce yourself - nobody's the wiser!"
About then Nuke and QM showed up. Nuke's outfit made him look like Mr. Hyde, from that crappy movie, "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," and QM, having gotten a hint of what the group might expect, was wearing purple coveralls, red contacts and thick, fake glasses, and a bright yellow wig that clashed with his hunter-green mustache and beard. Both headed for the coolers, which had already been hit pretty hard, to find nothing left but a couple of sodas and several bottles of water.
"Where's the beer?" Nuke demanded. "I can't think on an empty stomach!"
"I guess we ran out," observed Thinker, which utterance unfortunately coincided with the entrance of Doc Tufferson. The good Doctor, upon hearing those dreaded words, promptly fainted dead away.
Melissa, who had been trailing the Doc into the room, sat on the floor next to the unconscious Doc, and began to fan his face. It was difficult to do, dressed as she was in battle armour, but it's the thought that counts, not the fact that her gauntlet accidently connected with his temple, thereby prolonging his involuntary nap.
"I'll make a beer run," QM offered, being among the soberest of those present. "It won't take long," he continued as he made his way out the door. The consensus among the others was positive, especialy since he had forgotten to ask for cash contributions to the effort.
By the time the rest of the crew showed up, QM had been gone about fifteen minutes. Except for the dearth of intoxicants, the party... er... meeting... was in full swing, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Suddenly, Alan shouted over the noise, "Someone's knocking at the door!"
Thinker, sure that it was QM returning with a truckload of beer, strode confidently over and threw the door open.
It wasn't QM. They all knew that because even in costume, QM's blonde tresses didn't reach his waist, he didn't have a perfect hourglass figure, and most of all, he didn't have to duck when he came through the door. Furthermore, he hadn't shown up for the conference trailing two beautiful, armed, and deadly-looking Amazons in uniforms that were reminiscent of the Cylons of "Battlestar Galatica."
Thinker managed to recover from his shock quickly enough to avoid drooling, and offered, "I think you have the wrong room..."
The leader smiled and shook her head. "No," she replied, "this is the right room, and you are the Swarm authors' group."
Duke, being ever the suave, aristocratic Brit, approached her, saying, "I don't believe I've had the pleasure.."
Her smile disappeared as she interrupted, replying "... and it's unlikely you ever will. Please step back to the tables, and everyone..." looking around, she raised the volume a bit, "... and I mean EVERYONE, please sit down!" The armed escort levelled their weapons at the crowd, emphasizing the command.
Doc had regained consciousness, of course, and spoke to the intruders. "You don't expect us to believe that those outlandish things are really weapons, do you?"
In answer, the leader nodded toward one of the escorts, who promptly vaporized the water glass sitting directly in front of Doc.
"Okay, I could be wrong about that!" he backtracked quickly.
"Now everyone be quiet and listen," the leader began. "My name isn't important to you. If you have a question, and I decide to allow you ask it, you will address me as 'Major.' It is my firm belief and hope, however, that few questions will be necessary. You see, we are here to perform an extraction."
Seeing disbelief on the faces of her audience, she smiled and continued. "Yes, we are the Confederacy Space Marines, and like the extraction teams in your stories, our job tonight is to evacuate a few selected individuals from this location. You will note, however, that things aren't going to appear much like you imagined. There will be no interdiction field, for instance, nor will we be making any announcements to masses of people. Those things attract too much attention, and for the moment, we don't want any attention."
She strode over to the table and took a sip from an unclaimed glass of water. "As things proceed you will notice other differences. Obviously, there is no pool of candidates here from which you can select concubines. That isn't a problem. You don't get concubines anyway." She sat the glass back on the table and began pacing the floor.
"You do not have a future as Space Marines after extraction, and we do not care what your CAP score might be, if we were to evaluate it. If you have a future at all, it will be solely because you use your imaginations to successfully promote the Confederacy as a collection of benign intelligences, who have only Earth's best interests at heart. We don't know, and don't care how you found out about us to begin with, but we don't like the way we've been portrayed in some of your writings. Particularly those portrayals that come too close to the truth!"
"Wha... what do you mean?" Thinker asked
"The floor isn't open for questions!" she snapped, but then loosening up, she went on, "It seems that some few of you have tumbled to the fact that Earth is simply a source of breeding stock and entertainment for us. We have no need of your soldiers and fighters, but healthy bodies with all the procreative parts working are valuable for a variety of purposes. We don't need for that fact to become common knowledge. It doesn't make our jobs impossible, just a little harder and more unpleasant. It stops here."
Everyone in the group was visibly shaken. DeGaffer raised his hand, and when the Major nodded, he asked, "Exactly what do you intend to do with us? Can we just agree to not publish anything like that again?"
"Nope," the Major replied, "it would be too hard to enforce your continued cooperation. Instead, we're taking all of you with us!"
Rod raised his hand next, and when the Major pointed at him, asked, "So are we to become part of that 'breeding stock' you mentioned?"
The Major snorted, "Only in your dreams! We can have our pick of the best bodies on Earth, not to mention quite a few other planets. Do you seriously think any of you would be of interest to any of us? Get real. Melissa will appeal to some of our men, but you fellows need to be real nice to your right hand. That's the only loving you're likely to get for the rest of your lives."
While the Major was talking, one of her escorts had moved to an empty corner of the room and place a device on the floor. When she pressed a button on the device, it expanded suddenly into a shimmering circle, flat on the floor. It was difficult to look straight at it. When she was done, she gave the Major a thumbs-up and moved back to the door of the room, weapon ready. A third Marine appeared, fading into view in the center of the circle and stepped off. That one was male, and he was quckly followed by a fourth, also male.
"Okay, time's up and the twenty questions game is over. All of you need to stand up and start marching toward that shiny disk on the floor," the Major said. "When you get there, step into the center of the circle. You will experience slight momentary vertigo, and then find yourself in another place, standing in the center of another circle. Move off immediately, or you will be forcibly removed. Others will be following immediately behind you."
Things were looking bad. The Marines obviously meant business. The group reluctantly left their chairs and began moving toward the disk. One after another, each author stepped onto the disk and disappeared. When they were all gone, the Major sent her escort on as well. She opened the door and after a quick look down the hall, closed it again and walked over to the disk. She paused, looking around for any evidence that needed cleaning up. Nothing appeared obvious, so she bent down and pressed some buttons in sequence on the nexus generator.
That was the scene that appeared to QM as he opened the door to the meeting room. As the Major bent over, her ass presented such a striking impression, that he momentarily forgot that his intention was to yell for help in bringing in the beer. He had left it stacked on a freight dolly that he'd borrowed from the loading dock, and the load was too wide to go through the door. It woiuld have to unloaded in the hall.
She straightened up and stepped onto the disk, turning to face the door just as she reached the center. It was then that she noticed the strange-looking figure seemingly frozen in the doorway, and she almost finished the expletive phrase, "Oh, shit!" as she stumbled backward off the nexus aboard the ship. She started to go back through the nexus, but was restrained by several technicians.
"Let me go!" she demanded, "There's still one down there!"
"You can't," the tech leader responded, "You set the nexus for auto-destruct and it can't be unset! All you can hope for is that he gets caught in the blast!"
"This is SO going to fuck up my record," she fumed.
It was pretty obvious to QM what had happened to the tall blonde, but not so clear where everyone had gone. He looked quickly around the room to see if anyone had left a clue, and found one. The tables were covered with paper tablecloths, and with nothing else to drink, everyone had had a glass of water at their seat. The seat where he would have expected Thinker to be had some wet spots on the paper tablecloth. On closer examination he could make out letters, made by a wet finger tracing on the paper.
Those letters said "CSM pickup. Bye."
In a rush of insight, it all became crystal clear and QM ran out of the room in a panic. He just managed to get out of the door ahead the explosion, which slammed him into the wall on the far side of the hall. It didn't knock him out, but it came damned close. Fortunately, the beer on the freight dolly was outside the effective range of the explosion, and was thus unperturbed.
He sat in the hall, next to the dolly, as the emergency response people attempted to determine what happened. The meeting room was a mess, and the explosion had pushed its walls into the adjoining spaces, in pieces. There wasn't a fire, but all of the flammable articles in the room had been scorched. When questioned by the responders, he simply told them that he had been sent out for beer, pointing to the dolly for effect, and that the explosion had occurred as he attempted to re-enter the room. When he was asked who else was supposed to be in the room, he could honestly say that everyone was in costume and he didn't know.their real identities.
His interrogators finally left him alone, looking wistfully into the room.
What grand adventures they're going to have - while I'm still stuck here on Earth, he mused, dejectedly. It's probably for the best. The Confederacy wouldn't likely have allowed my post-menopausal wife to go with along, and I wouldn't have been happy leaving her behind.
C'est la vie, he concluded with a sigh. Now what am I going to do with all this beer?