THE BIG SWITCH by Christopher Leeson Chapter 18

 

10-07-23

THE BIG SWITCH

By Christopher Leeson

Chapter 18

 

The General Narrative, continued

 

Just before eight in the morning, the Callahan- and Leigh-aliens picked the lock on Blackjack's pad. Once they were satisfied that they weren't triggering any ambush, the two of them bulled their way inside. A 30-second search uncovered their buddies' corpses stashed in the storeroom.

"Damn!" Spielman cursed. "Do you think our people escaped their bodies before dying?"

The other shook his head. "No. If they had, we'd have heard from them by now. Someone will fry for this. We've go to who's responsible."

A hasty hunt discovered D.C.'s discarded hooker dress.

Spielman recognized it first. "Callahan!"

"Gerrog was dead-set on trapping that meddling dick, but got himself whacked instead!" his partner growled." Even as a hundred and twenty-six pound woman, that damned P.I. managed to take a trained agent out. Unbelievable!"

"Osakond, the real Blackjack is missing too," Spielman reminded him. "He’s another loose end left dangling!" She sighed despondently. "I can't remember having such an awful week. Are we losing our edge?"

Her colleague's mouth was grim. "Damn Gerrog! By covering up our blunders, he's gotten us in ever deeper! We should've admitted to our mistakes and taken our licks. After all the screwups since then, the Committee is going to have our heads!"

"The cops haven't gotten here yet," Spielman said, "but humans saw the two of us enter. We can't risk staying in these bodies much longer. There'll be an APB pinned to our backs pretty soon."

The male alien clenched his fist. "Nobody gets away with this! We've got to find Callahan and settle the score."

 

Chapter 19

Martin thanked the cafe man and drew me with him outside. We went to the edge of the lot and took another gander at the factory. A padlocked gate blocked the driveway.

"I'll try the girl's keys in the lock," Martin said.

I let him go and waited next to the car. He returned about five minutes, his lips curled in a satisfied smile.

"One of the keys fits," he announced.

My skin tingled, sensing we were getting close to Schitz, and maybe even to the thief who'd stolen my body.

"There's a lot of box elders growing inside the walls," Martin went on, "so no one in the factory will spot if we stay under cover. But those aliens could have futuristic scanners. We might be walking into an ambush. It'd be smarter waiting until dark, just in case we have to bolt for the hills."

I rejected the idea. "No, Martin. With high-tech gadgets, darkness won't matter much. We're here to save a life and can't waste time. I'll jump into the fire, but won't ask anyone to leap in after me."

"What? You're the nuttiest dame I ever met! No way am I letting you go in there alone."

"Fine, I can use the company. But I don't want you risking your neck."

He shook his head. "If you want company and safety, we ought to head back to my place."

"Stow your lecherous hopes for later, Dewitt. Either come with me or don't, but remember—if you don't make it home, I didn't twist your arm."

Looking nonchalant as possible, we walked to the gate, unlocked it, slipped through, and then closed it without closing the lock. Then we took advantage of the camouflage that the untrimmed brush afforded.

"Damn!" I hissed, clutching my leg.

"What's wrong?"

"I tore my pantyhose!"

"For crying out loud! They aren't even yours. Stifle the five-alarm for Christ's sake!"

"Do you want me looking like a tramp?"

"Yeah, I kinda do."

I was in a mood to slug him again, but this wasn't the time or place. Martin was gesturing urgently, hastening the tempo, acting like we was the big chief taking over. I should have put my junior partner in his place, but the way that Martin was exuded so much steady confidence reassured me in an odd way.

With Pard in the lead, we slunk up close to the building and then sprinted beneath the windows with our heads down. After that, we tried every door we came to.

"Blast! There's no way in. These doors don't even have a keyhole, so the locking mechanism may be something fancy," Martin complained.

"I've got a hunch," I whispered. "The locks we need could be disguised."

"Disguised? If a lock's disguised, how do we find it?"

Wordlessly, I plucked the fob-key from his hand and touched it to each metal fixture on every door in sight. Finally, one door clicked.

"Baby, you're incredible!" Martin exclaimed.

I tried to look modest. "Yeah, man—call me Honey West!"

"You're prettier than Honey West. Prettier than Anne Francis."

I gritted my teeth. "Don’t be obsessing over appearances! What do looks matter?"

"It'd matter to you if you looked like Roseanne instead of Teri Hatcher!"

"Personally, I find the Hatcher comparison odious. That dame's getting long in the tooth."

"It happens to all of us," he said with a shrug.

Just then I bent to heft a fallen brick and put it into my plastic purse.

"What's that for?" Martin asked.

"A secret weapon," I explained, stuffing it into my bag. "I don't know karate like Modesty Blaise, so this ballast could come in handy in a tough spot."

He shrugged and then, clutching his peashooter to his chest, he opened the door. Finding nothing hiding inside, he ducked through. I followed, with all the tension of a drawn bowstring.

A little way ahead, we came upon another door, but this time the swipe box that controlled it was plain to see. Martin's card worked perfectly.

I said, "For interstellar travelers, these jokers have bootleg-era security. I've seen better systems guarding toy stores against eight-year-olds."

Martin, ignoring me, slightly cracked open the door. "A silent alarm could be sounding each time we swipe," he muttered. "Things might get hairy at the drop of a pin."

"Okay, so it's risky. I said you didn't have to come."

We each took deep breaths and slipped inside, braced to die. My knees quaked like gelatin, but recovering my stolen body made this a do-or-die operation!

#

It didn't take long for us to decide that the building wasn't abandoned. Around the corner, a few doors down, a guard stood watch. We didn’t have much choice but to take him out. Even if we could bluff our way past the guy, leaving an armed thug at our backs was a short cut to suicide. So that he couldn’t eyeball us, we slipped into the deserted employee cafeteria to make with the strategy session.

"Create a distraction and I'll bash him from behind," Martin suggested.

"What kind of distraction?"

"Aliens have hair-trigger libidos, remember?"

"No way!"

"What's with you? Outside you were gung-ho for walking into certain death, and now you're not up to wriggling your backside when the risk is nothing worse than getting some guy's attention?"

I jabbed my thumb into his chest. "That's idea is straight out of a sitcom. I'd be in an open firing range and, besides, I've got my pride."

"You've got pride, but do you have any better idea?"

"Why don't you seduce him? It doesn't seem that these aliens care what sex they are. They must swing both ways."

"Can the jokes, Sheila. The two of us have to either fish or cut bait."

“Yeah, well I don’t see you doing much fishing.”

“What do you have against fishing?” he said. “You’ve got on fishnet hose.”

"Grrr," I said. There wasn't any doubt that I looked gorgeous, but I didn't have to like the downside of the situation.

"All right," I said, "but you'll owe me for this."

"Kind of currency do you want to get in payback?"

I touched my purse. "Don't get suggestive with a gal who’s packing a brick."

"Point taken. Maybe it would be better if we walked up together, with you just ahead of me. That might warn him not too get too fresh, and I'd be a lot close when the time comes to slug him."

"Finally a good idea out of you!"

We settled on the remaining details in about twenty seconds. But Martin was looking unhappy. Was he so scared to have to come out of cover?

"Sheila," he asked, "is saving Schitz really worth the risk?"

"I’ve already told you that I'm no chicken."

"You don’t have to be brave. You've got nothing to prove."

"I have plenty to prove!" I turned and headed for the exit before anything chivalrous could come out of his mouth.

This was one of those make or break moments. I had to make the jerk think that I was a girl -- and an alien girl at that. I hoped that using English wouldn't give me away right off. I knew that Martin had my back, but I would have preferred having him in front of me. I sashayed toward the blue-shirted guard just ahead of Martin, trying to remember how the downtown hotties walked when they were on the prowl for a trick.

The guard was eyeballing my red-and-black outfit, ignoring Martin completely. I hoped that he really was sex-crazy, because he had any sense I'd be dead meat.

"Hi," I bubbled, doing my Gina voice. "Still wearing the same old husk, huh? I swapped my bod yesterday and its made me feel like a new woman." I took a risk and winked at him.

"Yeah," he said. "I don't know what you looked like before, but this has to be an improvement," the alien leered.

So far, so good. I had an interplanetary admirer. Now was hoping his eyes would stick to my legs like a pair of ticks, which would allow Martin to blindside him. But before I got beyond the guard's arm’s reach, the guard grabbed my shoulder.

"Hey! That hurts!” I said. “We can't be having fun right now; I'm overdue for giving my report!"

"Who are you?" he snarled. "Your vibrations are all wrong! You're human!"

I swung my weighted purse fast and hard. With a grunt he doubled over. I maced him damned hard as he crumbled to the floor.

Martin pushed me aside and bent over the guy. "He's out cold! Nice work," he whispered a few seconds later. Pard made quick to snag the revolver and keys from the alien's belt. "Might come in handy," he said as he pocketed the blue-metal Rossi.

"He knew me for human just from my 'vibrations,'" I said. "We can't get by these guys by using any simple tricks."

Pard nodded grimly. "That was close." He looked at me hard. "If...if anything..."

"Save the mushy stuff for coffee time, pal. We've got mean, hard things to think about."

I detested mushy sentiment but if I heard something mushy just then, I might have started to  like it. There was something about Martin that was making it hard for me to think straight today! He could be tough and sweet simultaneously and that was a one-two punch that could flatten any girl.

Any real girl, I mean. Obviously a tough mug like me was immune.

The Belgian moved ahead and tried out the new keys, hoping to find Schitz's Prison. But the lab we entered only held computerized equipment.

"Give me a hand," Martin hissed. "We can stash Sleeping Beauty in here."

Dragging the alien’s dead weight wasn't easy for my new arms. I wondered if lifting weights could pump up a physique as pitiable as mine.

"They post guards on this place, so the machines must be important," I said. "Could this be their whole operation's database?"

"If it is, what of it? I'm no computer whiz. You?"

I shook my head. "I didn’t learn much beyond word processing."

Surrounded by so much enemy tech, I wanted to do the bull in the China shop thing. "Wish we could smash them, but it'd take too long and make too much noise."

He agreed. Then we quickly we tied up the guard using insulated wire from a spool.

Afterwards, we scoped out the hall again. Fortunately, the coast looked clear. I was happy about that, but the sloppy security that these aliens had wasn’t earning much respect from me.

"Let's find the basement," I suggested. "Baddies always stash people in basements."A muscle ticked in Martin's jaw. "Fine, but stay behind me this time!"

"Why? Because there's no armed man up ahead waiting for us?"

"Can it for once! You’re our secretary. I'm responsible for you. I aim to return you to your mama in one piece."

I glared icy daggers. "Are you always going to treat me this way? If you are, that’s not going to make me want to stick around?"

"That’s good. You belong where it’s safe!"

I shook my head in disbelief. "Martin, the Earth is under alien invasion. How safe is anyone?"

He clammed up then and a short distance ahead we found the stairwell. The bad guys had made that discovery easy for us because they had left up a sign saying, "Stairs."

Most doors on the lower level weren't locked, but the rooms were barren. Wherever we came to a locked door we'd listen closely and tap gently, hoping for a response.

"Maybe Schitz's not here after all," Martin sighed dejectedly.

"Just a few more doors," I urged. "We can't give up on a fellow human being just because we're scared and dejected."

"I'd rather get you out alive than rescue a hundred Schitzs!"

"I'm flattered," I told him, "but your sentimentalism is getting monotonous."

"Is that so? Where did you get the idea that you're the toughest mug on the block?"
Before I could rejoin, a snippet of song reached my ears:

I don't need no guru for to lead me to grace;
All I want is a sweet man who's a number one ace.
I know Man's the master and that girls only tease;
But they're glad I’m not praying when I'm down on my knees!

That same tune had been playing at Blackjack's. Was the singer a human or an alien?

"Who's in there?" Martin whispered through the door, gun at the ready.

"Jes' lil ol' me, Latisha!"

Neither of us had heard that name before.

"Latisha, are you locked in?"

"Yeah, honey."

"Why? What have they been doing to you?"

"Nothin' much. Guess they’re keeping me cool until my man comes in."

"Wouldn't you rather be walking around free?"

"Sho' nuff! But who're you? Anyone with a voice like yor's has got to be big, strong and cuddly!"

"I'm all that," Martin said, trying one key after another until he hit pay-dirt. A lone fluorescent bulb lit the room—a makeshift holding cell with restrooms. I instantly recognized the black girl as the missing Schitz.

"Schitz! Why the hell didn't you tell us it was you?"

She looked bewildered. "Who's Schitz? I'm Latisha Jones!"

I turned to Martin.

"That's Schitz, or used to be," he agreed.

"What's happening? Did they switch her again?"

"It'd take two swaps to put a regular hooker into that body. Why would they bother? Miss Jones, how long have you looked like that?"

"Whatchu mean? Since forever, naturally!"

"She's got Schitz's memories," Martin said, "sort of. But what did they do to her?"

"It must be brainwashing! We can't abandon her!"

"You're right. Her memories might return once she's someplace familiar."

I took her arm. "Come with us, Latisha."

"But I gotta wait for my man!"

"Who's your man?"

She thought hard. "Guess it must be Blackjack."

"That's right, B.J.'s waiting for you," I agreed. "Know where you are now?"

"No. Mr. Callahan brought me from Blackjack's, and that man in the white coat left me here."

"Maybe you don't know that this is a jail. Callahan's a police spy," I confided, and he double-crossed you and turned you over to the cops for...whatever you did. Blackjack sent Martin and me to get you back on street." Oops, poor wording there. "I mean..."

Schitz beamed. "B.J's always thinking of his gals! Ain't he the sweetest! Let's blow this joint together, girlfriend!" She winked at Martin. "You kin come along, too, honeybuns!"

Dewitt took Schitz's arm and we backtracked toward the stairs, the brainwashed Congressman chattering softly. "Honey, your nylons are ripped!" she suddenly whispered.

I shot Martin an icy glare. "See! It's noticeable!"

"You dames are certifiable!" He took a couple broad strides and moved farther ahead.

What an attitude! I could've told him neither of us "dames" were the real McCoy, but I kept mum.

Nearing the upper landing, Martin peered between the doors. "Shoot! Some guy in a lab coat and a guard are coming!"

"If they're going downstairs, we're toast," I said. That was obvious, but it bore mentioning.

I had a brainstorm. "Latisha, stand on that landing in plain sight. When they come in, just raise your hands and smile. We'll jump them from behind while they're staring at you."

The brainwashed Schitz eagerly scurried to her place. So far, the personality transplant had seemed like a vast improvement in the disagreeable Congressman.

Martin and I assumed our ambush positions just as the dry hinges squeaked faintly. I held my breath and gripped my pistol tightly as the Martians entered.

The lab coat spied Latisha first thing. "You! How'd you get loose?"

As hoped, neither he nor the guard glanced sideways. "How'd you get free?" the tech alien demanded.

The senator merely raised her hands and smiled.

"Grab her!" Lab Coat told the guard. As they mounted the steps, Martin bellowed "Now!" and tackled the guard like a linebacker, also propelling the stunned technician backwards. Latisha darted clear as both aliens tumbled down in a heap.

Martin and I raced down after them and pounced on the groggy duo. The dazed guard reached for his gun, which caused Pard to slam his balled fist into the mackerel's face, laying him out cold. Then he rolled the tech over on his back. He seemed to be down for the count.

I helped Martin hogtie and gag the wrongos and once we had the dirty duo wrapped up like Christmas presents, I grasped Latisha's wrist.

"Come on, honey. We want to take you away from all this!"

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 20