Zette's Storybook

From: Alan Orion, Head of FUTURE
March 19, 1996
Report # 111423
Message Begins:

We grabbed Mickey out of the car just before the Van took the vehicle. They weren't happy -- they certainly made that clear enough with a few shots at our engine pack. Totally against the Terran Non-Interference Treaty, but by now that document wasn't anything more than useless electrons making pretty computer screen designs. This had gotten way out of hand.

Some of my people were less than happy to find out that the human they had just illegally taken into the ship didn't actually have the files. I was delighted, however. It had been too damned close, and I didn't want the Van to get the files. The best way to avoid that, I thought, was to pretend we did have the plans and the Sangres were no longer important. So I called them up.

"Yeah?" Apache answered, sounding distracted.

"Now that we have the files, FUTURE is no longer in need of your services. Don't bother to come back to The Office. Your behavior during this matter has been inexcusable."

"Fired? Are you sure you want to do that to us? We could go to the media --"

"Just two more strange UFO fanatics," I said. "No one's going to listen to you. Just don't bother us again. We'll send your last checks to your old address."

I hung up. Mickey, sitting stiffly in a chair by the main view screen, looked at me with wide eyes.

"The best I can do," I said, with a wave of my arm toward the world below. "Now it's all in their hands."

The man had gone through an alien abduction and a star ship battle in the last hour and not shown much concern. But the thought that the Sangres now controlled the fate of the universe undid him.

Mickey moaned and buried his head in his hands.