AN: To read this, it helps to be Australian :) Many OCs. If you don't like OCs, look away.
S.A.S – Australia's Special Air Service, a branch of the military. Will accept recruits from the army, navy, or air force.
A.S.I.O – Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Spies and spying.
(The RAI is completely made up, btw)
"Well, that was disappointing." Holding out the remote, she ejected the DVD.
"What was?"
"Like you haven't noticed. An injustice has been done." My companion sat up a little straighter and glared sternly over at me still slopped all over the lounge. Inwardly, I groaned, feeling an indignant speech coming on.
"There are no Australians on the Stargate program." She announced.
"Imagine that. On a Canadian/American production." I said mildly. She shot me daggers.
"That's not what I meant." She said. "I'm talking about when Stargate Command informed the other world leaders of the existence of the Gate, and we weren't there. We're supposed to be one of America's greatest trading partners, right? So why aren't we at any of these global summits?"
"Hm."
"Even in Atlantis, which is supposed to have been a global effort thing, there's not a Tassie, or even a New Zealander. No one at all."
I shrugged. It had never been really an issue to me. "Maybe someone thinks since we're so far away from everything that if aliens bomb earth, we probably wouldn't notice." I said. "There was that line in Stargate: Continuum, though…"
Both of us smirked, remembering Ba'al in Continuum offering to give the continent of Australia to the free Jaffa.
"One line in ten seasons, the movies, and the spinoffs, though."
"Maybe we were invited but Canberra told them to piss off 'cause the government can cause enough trouble without needing to go interplanetary."
"Do you want to know what I think?"
"Will it make a difference if I say no?"
She grinned at me.
"Here's what I reckon…"
December, 2003.
All her life, Blue Jones had a sneaking suspicion that most of the people she knew were aliens. But still, imagine her surprise when she found out her first instinct was disturbingly accurate.
"You want me to what?"
She faced her boss, her commanding officer, unsure of herself. Surely he must have been joking. But he just stood there, stoic, waiting for Blue's face to erase its highly dubious expression.
"You've been here for almost ten years, and your track record speaks for itself. And it's not completely to your disadvantage that you mother is a foreign ambassador and your father in the ASIO." Major General Douglas Gordon said.
"Funnily enough, I knew that. I don't see why that makes me any better qualified for this… mission, though."
"The Australian Government has agreed that you have the correct… requirements for this level of clearance."
"I'm inspired with confidence."
"Don't get snappy, soldier. You offered to do your duty for your country when you signed up, and now your country is calling that in." Douglas said. "They were looking for someone who knew the value of being diplomatic and the advantages of… covert operations. Naturally I gave your name at once."
"Of course." Blue said sarcastically. She'd picked a bloody good time to develop an attitude problem. "But sir, you know… they don't really exist, right?"
"You can tell them that when you get there." He smiled humourlessly. "Now get your ass out that door before I kick it out myself."
And that was more or less how Blue Jones gained top-level clearance, lost her job with the SAS, and walked into the RAI, or Royal Australian Intelligence. The RAI spied on the spies, and was so secret that employees were left wandering around trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. Not Blue. She knew exactly what she would be doing.
She'd become an alien hunter.
It had taken months to track down her first alien, and then she almost had a conniption when she realised that the sneaky bastard had been under her nose all along.
She'd followed her target all the way from the supermarket, looking for the perfect opening.
He was kind of cute in a way that she couldn't place, and he walked with a slightly faraway look in his eyes like only part of him was down here on Earth. Blue peered at him from behind her oversize mirrored sunglasses that gave her the appearance of a giant bug, and pretended to be involved in reapplying her makeup, while watching her target take a phone call. He didn't look any different to anyone else out in the streets, kind of average and beaten down.
The RAI didn't tell her why they wanted this guy. Well, of course they wouldn't, in case she decided to keep him, or sell him to China or somewhere. These organisations were very clandestine like that. You had to guess what the other guy was thinking and leap into action based on the most plausible scenario.
A lot of recent wars had started that way, incidentally.
His name was Max Campbell, and he was qualified in everything from English to Astrophysics. Blue had doubts whether the RAI wanted him because he was an alien, or the government wanted his DNA so they could breed a new race of super-geniuses. She closed her purse as Campbell slipped his phone into the pocket of his jacket, his brow creased in worry. Blue frowned too. It looked like somebody had given him some bad news.
He was leaving. She followed, wondering why he had changed his mind and was now walking in the opposite direction. Nothing but a few abandoned houses from the turn of the century and a cement skeleton of a building that no one seemed to get around to finishing stood on that side of town.
At one point, he heard her heels and turned around to swiftly examine the person who was sharing the cracked pavement with him. He stared at her for a moment before his gaze shifted elsewhere. Blue almost shivered. His hard eyes had brushed against something in her deep down, something that told her that a man so young should not have eyes that looked so old.
It was… wrong.
Okay, Mr Alien, it's time to get all X-Files on your ass. Blue bent over, a perfect mimic of stopping to tie up her shoelace as Campbell turned around once more, his gaze puzzlingly fixed at a point above her head. As his eyes swung forward once again, she could not resist the impulse to look at the area of sky behind her, which had so entranced her alien.
There was nothing at all to be seen. Puzzled, Blue glanced back.
"Hell!"
In the fraction of a second that she had used to tilt her head, her quarry had completely vanished from her line of sight. Blue cursed again.
He knows you're after him.
She brushed away the thought. There was no way he could have possibly known. Unless…
Unless the phone call he had taken at the supermarket was from someone inside the RAI.
Great. Just great. Perfect first day on the beat. She strode down the deserted street, getting progressively faster until she was actually running. At that point, protocol demanded that she call in reinforcements, but strange feeling had built up inside her, a feeling that was unusually territorial. There's no way some dick alien beats me on my own turf!
Three hours later, she had to admit that she was indeed beat, and that there was nothing left for her but to go home and have a cup of hot chocolate while waiting for it all to start again tomorrow.
Blue ambled up her driveway. The neighbour's cats had left yet more surprises in her front yard and Blue looked at the steaming piles, for a moment seriously considering bagging them up and dumping it all in one great heap on the doorstep.
Bitch.
Inside the door, she tossed her coat at the hat-rack and missed. The little red light on the answering machine was flashing, and Blue stabbed at it, leaning back against the wall.
"Hi." Said a voice Blue didn't recognise. She folded her arms. It was probably another mate of Ian's, thinking that because she was now single, she was fair game. "I saw you in town earlier, and from the moment you looked at me, I knew I had to say something to you…"
Here it goes… Blue sighed.
"You should have stayed away from me. People will get hurt." The voice said. Blue snapped to attention and lurched to the phone, anticipating the rest of the message, but with a loud crack, the line went dead.
"Hello, Mr Alien," Blue mumbled, snatching the handset out of its cradle and punching in the RAI's number. Perhaps they could trace him! She felt exhilarated, thrilled. She was on the hunt, and it didn't matter whether this guy was an alien or some other fugitive from justice. She'd gotten all the confirmation she needed that this bloke was up to something. The phone beeped in her ear, twice. And then the signal died.
Suppressing curses, she gave the cradle a smack. And then she inspected the cord and the phone line.
"Ah." She said, looking up. A childhood of watching horror movies had brought her into adulthood subconsciously expecting the next twist. "That would explain it, then."
Max Campbell was leaning against the doorframe leading into the lounge. He was still in his scuffed leather jacket, ripped jeans and ratty sneakers; not your typical alien warlord. But Blue's phone cable was dangling from the ends of his fingers. As she watched him, strangely composed, he dropped the cable.
"What do you want?" She asked, bypassing her first question, how-the-hell-did-you-get-in-here-and-you-better-not-have-cleared-out-my-fridge-you-alien-bastard.
"You're in danger." He said to her, his strange eyes keeping her pinned against the wall.
"Oh, says the man who broke into my house and rewired my security system. You think, muchly?" Blue snapped back.
Campbell's face took on a sour look. "Why are you here?" Blue repeated. He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get any more words out, a scream echoed down Blue's street. Both of them reacted at once. Blue pushed past him and into the night. She was aware of him following her.
The street was silent and deserted, though she could feel the eyes of other residents on her back, those people who dreamt of being the Good Samaritan, but were too afraid of being sued to ever rise up to the challenge. Blue gritted her teeth and started forward.
She could hear footsteps on the ground behind her. Max Campbell gripped her arm tightly, halting her in her tracks. "It's a trap." He hissed.
"I can't take that chance." She retorted. It was only when she was running full-tilt toward the old construction site that she thought to wonder, trap for who?
Her alien must have left while the getting was good, for she was the only one that crept around the corner of the unfinished building. Blue light danced over her skin, and she pressed her back against the unfinished cement wall, reaching for a length of loose pipe above her head.
There were no more screams, and the only sound now was a low hum, rather like a microwave. Blue pursed her lips. She was handy with her fists, and wasn't too bad in a fight, but she still hadn't eyeballed the other players yet. She was about to risk sticking her head around the corner when two giant three-fingered hands landed heavily on her shoulders and yanked her around.
"Oh. Oh. My. God." Dazed, Blue wordlessly stared at the huge creature hulking over her. Scaled, rope-like muscles flexed in his arms as he held her firmly in place with one hand and reached for his scanner-thing with the other. A long lizard's tongue rolled out of its mouth, searched around in the air a moment, and then rolled back up. It grunted something at her in a language she had no hope to understand.
"What?" Blue asked dumbly, not sure of what else to say. All that she had been taught about aliens had dribbled out of her head faced with the stark reality. The terrifying figure released her and touched something set in his collar.
"Good evening." The alien suddenly said in perfect, if detached, English. "I am frightfully sorry, but I am afraid that you will have to be terminated."
What?
"Excuse me?" Blue blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means he's going to kill you." Snarled out a voice. Max Campbell leapt lightly down from the unfinished brick wall. "Isn't that right?" He challenged the other alien.
"The female has fulfilled her job and is no longer necessary." It replied in that infuriatingly polite way that could only have been gleaned from How To Speak English cassettes.
"You're wrong. The female is coming with me." Max countered.
"I am afraid you are most mistaken."
"Does the female get a say in this?" Blue demanded, thoroughly incensed by the thought of aliens deciding her fate for her. She jabbed a finger into Mr Lizard's squishy flesh. "First thing, back off, buddy."
Amazingly, it did, seemingly unsure of what to do next. Blue felt Max gently tug on the back of her shirt, and she allowed him to pull her away. "They're brutal, but they're not very bright." He said softly by her ear, indicating Godzilla. "Too many problems confuse them. You two could become best mates." He added snidely.
"Screw. You." Blue whispered back fiercely.
Just then, Lizard-Man decided that he was tired of thinking and was going to just mow them down. He let out a roar that was probably heard at the other end of town and charged.
"Run!"
She was acutely aware of the lizard thing lurching along behind her as Max Campbell loped along beside her. The two of them turned into a deserted playground and squashed themselves into the alcove below the barbeque in the lunch area. "They don't have very good eyesight or smell. Most of their superiority is based on only their technology." Campbell said. "So if we stay small and quiet it'll probably get bored and wander off."
Blue recognised the gleam in his eyes and reached out to smack his arm, hard. "You're getting off on this," she accused.
He frowned at her. "Don't thank me for saving your life. It's not like I had anything better to do, like getting off this bloody planet," He hissed.
"What are you?"
The lizard-creature stomping around the area cut off the conversation, and for the next hour Blue sat cramped and cold squeezed in beside another alien in complete silence, and when Campbell finally confirmed that it was safe to get out, every possible way to shish-kebab ET had gone through her head.
"That thing tried to kill me,"
"Yes,"
"Hey. Hey!" Blue grabbed his arm. "That monster tried to kill me! Exhibit some concern, if it's not too much trouble."
"He was only going to kill you because you found me." Max said. "He used you to lead him directly to me. After you'd done that, he considered your contract terminated."
"My contract?"
"You were supposed to locate me, weren't you?" He asked bluntly.
"Well, yes-"
"And you were the only one assigned to the case, right?"
"What are you getting at?" Her eyes narrowed.
"What am I getting at? Look back through the RAI's archives, and I bet that there will be no record of this mission, and I bet that all your personnel files have already been erased from the database."
"You need top level security to do something like that."
"Yes."
"Are you suggesting that the government are taking backhanders from aliens?" Blue said scornfully, trying to picture the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in cahoots with Mork form Ork and Dr Spock. Okay, maybe not so implausible…
"There is no government on Earth that can conclusively say that they have proof of aliens. To reveal without a doubt the existence of other life forms in your galaxy would cause a panic." He eyed her curiously, like he wasn't quite sure what he should do with her.
"What's your name?"
She hesitated. "Blue."
"Your real name."
"What's it matter, Spaceman?"
"I want to get to know my stalker a bit better."
Blue scowled. "It's a secret I'm only giving up on my wedding night." She replied bluntly. "So, who're you then? And you better not say John Smith or Doctor Who."
"I'm not sure who I am. Not anymore."
"Then who-?"
"Come on. That thing will sweep the area and then come back here since it was the last place it saw us. Let's find somewhere safe."
Blue looked at him, frowning. Safe? Yeah, right. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what you are." She said stubbornly.
"That thing employed your superiors to hunt me down." He grinned at her humourlessly. He paused. "I'm an Ancient."
Blue looked confused.
"An ancient what?"