James Huston - Fallout

“Did you agree to call this the Area 51 Café?” Luke asked Glenda.

“You know how he is. If I didn’t let him, then we’d have to explain him wearing that hat all the time, wouldn’t we? Now those who don’t know just figure he’s wearing a hat after the name of the café.”

Luke laughed out loud. Just then Raymond walked in from the back of the café. Luke and Glenda exchanged a glance without saying anything. “Three eggs scrambled with some bacon, and an English muffin.”

Glenda nodded.

Luke stood by the counter and watched Glenda put the eggs on the grill. He watched her husband fill the refrigerator with gallons of milk from the back. Luke addressed Glenda again: “Have you decided whether to let Vlad use your voice?”

Glenda shook her head. “I just don’t know about that, Mr. Henry. I don’t think I even understand.”

“Simple. A lot of the warnings in the MiG-29 are voice recorded. They say things like ‘Raise your landing gear,’ “ he said in a quiet voice, like HAL, the computer in 2001 . “Or ‘Your left engine is on fire.’ That sort of stuff. The MiGs came with Russian warnings, which of course are not a lot of help to those of us who don’t speak Russian. Vlad—probably his company, actually—had some German woman record the warnings for us, but in English. They sound hilarious. Nobody can understand her—‘You haff ze left enchine on fi-ah!’ He must have paid her about five bucks. She is as far from fluent as you can get. We’re all running around saying, ‘Achtung! Race ze lahnding gee-ah?’ We’re starting to talk in German accents. Vlad’s tired of taking shit all the time, so he decided to ask you. I think you’d be perfect. It’d be like our mothers warning us that we were about to fall out of the car or something. I guarantee you your voice would get our attention.” He spoke quietly and gently, “ ‘Low fuel!’ ”

“I don’t know, I’m afraid I would do something wrong,” she said, smiling warmly.

Luke grabbed a porcelain cup off the stack next to the Bunn coffeemaker and poured himself a cup. “There’s nothing to go wrong. If it gets screwed up, we’ll just redo it. We can record it here. Why don’t you? It’ll make you famous.”

“Oh, all right.”

Luke spied Raymond again. “Hey, Raymond. How are you doing?”

He replied in his humorless way, “Fine, Mr. Henry. How do you like the café?”

“Great. Don’t know about the name, though.” Luke didn’t realize that Vlad had come into the café and was standing right behind him. “You seen Sluf? His airplane is already here.”

Glenda answered. “Not yet, but he always comes here first thing. He’s so nice.”

“Don’t be too charmed,” Luke warned. “He’s a ladies’ man. They all like him, and he just uses them.”

“Good morning, Vladimir,” Glenda said over Luke’s shoulder. “I’ve got your bread ready.”

“What bread?” Luke asked.

“Black Russian bread. Good for butter and jam. Filling,” Vlad said enthusiastically.

Luke turned and looked at Vlad, whose hair was a wreck. “Hard night?”

Vlad frowned. “What you mean?”

“You look like something the cat dragged in.”

“What does this mean, cat dragging?”

“I finally got my cell phone working, Mr. Henry,” Raymond said, proudly taking his phone off his belt clip.

Luke glanced at him. “That’s great.”

“I need your home phone number.”

Luke was surprised. “What for?”

“I always keep the home phone number of my boss in the cell phone, in case of emergency. I mean, around here anything can happen. Right?”

Luke looked at Raymond’s hat again. “Right.” He gave him his home phone number. “Don’t be giving that out to any intergalactic salesmen.”

Raymond frowned. “Like who?”

“Any of them. And make sure you get Vlad’s number at the BOQ, too. Wake him up first if there’s an emergency. He’s much more likely to actually be able to do something about it.”

He nodded. “Your number’s safe with me.”

Glenda handed Luke his plate. “Several of the others are outside, if you want to join them.”

Luke nodded and went outside. Thud, Crumb, and Stamp were chuckling at one of the tables under an umbrella. They had finished their breakfasts and were leaning back in their chairs.

“Morning,” Luke said. He sat down at the table.

“Hey, boss,” Crumb said. The others greeted him quietly.

“What did you think of that mission-planning session with Khan and his boys yesterday?” Luke asked as he sat down.

Thud shook his head. “Bizarre. It was like we were planning an actual mission for him. I mean, hardened concrete targets, laser-guided bombs, no SAMS, some possible fighter defense? It sounded like an actual event to me. It was spooky.”

“I saw you give Stick that ‘dial it down’ signal, Thud,” Stamp commented.

“Absolutely. I’m giving this guy only C-plus or B-minus information. He’ll never learn all I know about fighters—”

Crumb laughed. “Shit, Thud. You don’t know anything about fighters! I could kick your ass with my visor taped over!”

“Except for Crumb,” Thud continued, “who is unbeatable and therefore would gain nothing from whatever I know, others, like Khan, I wouldn’t tell left from right. We just need to get him through the class and get him out of here.”

Luke nodded. “You know what I noticed?”

“What?” Crumb asked.

“One of his guys was writing down every word and copying our rough drawings of flight paths we did on the board.”

“I just don’t get it,” Thud said. “Hayes may be right. He get anything from his brother yet?”

“Nope.”

“You know, maybe we should take it up a notch. Maybe we should formally ask the CIA to look into them for us.”

Luke frowned. “And what would we tell the Undersecretary?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

“More coffee?” Raymond asked as he brought the carafe to the table. He left the coffee and was about to turn and walk back inside when Crumb stopped him. “Hey, Raymond,” he said. Raymond looked at him. “I hear you been watching for aliens.”

Raymond frowned at Crumb. He was growing tired of constantly being belittled for his interest in UFOs. “Who told you that?”

“Word is you go out in the middle of the night and sit on the hills.” Crumb watched his face. “Is that true?”

“What if I do? Something wrong with that?”

“Depends.”

“Leave the poor man alone,” Thud said, taking a bite of his omelet. He felt responsible for Raymond and Glenda’s being there. Anything Raymond did that was odd reflected on him, he thought.

Crumb pressed right on. “And you use these huge binoculars.”

“Something illegal about that?”

“No,” Crumb said, controlling his mirth. “I’m just wondering if you’ve seen anything. Had any close encounters?”

Raymond assumed a tone of authority. “I’ve seen some curious things, but nothing I’m prepared to report on to you.”

“Well, shit, Raymond, how are we going to know all this good stuff if you won’t tell us?”

“Because you don’t believe anything I say about it. You think it’s a big joke.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“I can tell,” Raymond said, putting his hands on his hips. “Everybody thinks it’s all real funny.”

“Just tell me something that will convince me there are UFOs out there. Just one thing,” Crumb said.

Raymond thought about it. There were so many things he could tell. Finally he said, “All right. This here Area 51 that’s nearby. What goes on there?”