Chapter I
Max Copeland hadn't heard his name spoken out loud in quite some time, his real name that is. His neighbors in Billings Montana knew him as James Olsen from Portland Oregon. They knew nothing about his real life or his origins in Toronto Canada. And they knew absolutely nothing about what he had become since he stopped being Max Copeland.
The changes he had gone through over the past eleven years sometimes scared Max. Scared him shitless!
He had once been just like every one of his neighbors. He had been born, grown up, gotten a job and married just like everyone else.
That all changed when they came.
The aliens arrived eleven years ago just after Max's wife died. They stayed for a while and taught the people of Earth how to cure cancer and a few other horrid diseases. They showed us how to erect buildings made of enormous stone blocks without using even an ounce of mortar to join the stones together. They helped mankind create hovering cars that used ion power to jet around. They taught people how to do a myriad of things that we couldn't do before.
Then they left after it was discovered that they had once been slave masters who had brutalized and subjugated the Human race in ancient times.
All those things had changed mankind irrevocably. We could never go back to what we had been before they appeared in orbit those eleven years ago.
For Max, those things had seemed almost petty to the changes he had undergone.
Their leader Ëa, a seven foot tall figure who always appeared wearing ancient style Roman or Greek togas, as did all the aliens, had taken a liking to Max for some reason he could never fathom. He supplied Max with a glass vial filled with a solution of what he called
Wasu Azu
. Ëa also taught Max the secrets of mind magic. At least that's how Max referred to it.
The day he drank that solution was the day he became something he didn't even recognize sometimes.
-*-
"Hey neighbor," Ellen Pritchard said as she strolled the sidewalk at the foot of James Olsen's driveway.
James waved and smiled and continued on to his Ford T-Rex with its scooped back and slanted headlights designed to look like dinosaur eyes.
"Do you really like that hover thing?" she asked with a frown, "My Bill still has his twenty year old pickup and he likes that just fine!"
"Pickups are good!" James replied cordially, "He's hauling and towing things all over creation all the time isn't he? A pickup is just what you want for that!"
"I suppose," she said half-heartedly.
She waved again and sauntered off on her own business.
James smiled and crawled into the spacious seat in his T-Rex. He turned on the key and the dashboard lit up. He pushed the forward button and eased into the empty street. He drove for two miles and pulled into the lot for the Albertsons grocery store. Inside he picked up what he needed and made his way back home. The whole trip took about thirty minutes. It was just after three in the afternoon.
As he carried the three bags of supplies into his house he was startled to see something coming out of the sky. He stopped and stared in shock. It was an alien shuttle. It came quickly toward him and stopped to hover about fifty feet over his front lawn.
The neighbors began to scurry out of their houses as they stared and pointed at the small craft. They hadn't seen one of those in six years, not since the UN had voted unanimously to eject the Dingir from Earth. Some of them had never seen one in person.
A porthole opened up in the bottom of the shuttle and seven aliens, all but one wearing their burnished bronze armor and carrying seven foot pikestaffs, gently floated to the ground.
The figure in the center was a woman. Like the others she was very tall, over six and a half feet. The Guards around her stood much taller than that. She had a bronze breast plate belted over a richly beaded toga that fell to her knees. There was a long sword in a sheath at her left hip.
"Inanna," James breathed almost silently.
Inanna was a strikingly beautiful woman despite her great height. Her shoulder length hair appeared auburn, though when she turned her head it could appear blonde. Her eyes were so green they almost glowed. Everywhere this woman went she attracted attention.
"Greetings Max Copeland, friend to the Dingir!" she called out loudly with a grin, "My Lord Ëa sends his compliments!"
Max grimaced and glanced briefly at his neighbors.
Every one of them heard what she said and now they looked at him quite differently. No longer was he their friend and neighbor. He was a stranger who colluded with aliens.
With a heavy sigh Max continued inside to stow his groceries.
Inanna followed him into the house. Two of her Guards trailed behind her.
"You know I won't be able to stay here now, don't you," he said bitterly, "I guess that was your plan."
Inanna smiled broadly and propped one hip on the kitchen counter.
"You Humans were always so petty," she snickered, "They worshipped us and bowed and scraped but whenever we tried to lift one of your kind out of the dust, the others around him destroyed him."
"They only worshipped you because they didn't want to die," Max said with a sigh, "If they didn't bow and scrape you would have punished them."
"Yes," she said laughing, "Those were good days!"
"Why are you here?"
"That is some way to address a god," she said with a sniff.
"You're not a god and we both know it," Max countered, "Now what do you want?"
"Absolutely nothing!" she said with relish, "I only came to ensure your life is not peaceful. Your law enforcement people will show up soon. I will stay that long and then leave."
"You're not going to stick around to see me arrested?" he asked as the last of the groceries were put away.
"Perhaps," she said, "Though my ship will be cloaked by then."
Max left the kitchen and walked unhurriedly to his bedroom. Inanna followed once again while her Guards remained in the kitchen. She watched with amusement as Max packed a rucksack with clothes and toiletries.
She turned her head to the front of the house and snickered.
"As I expected, your law enforcement are here."
Max briefly glanced out the window to see Sherriff Ben Jones climbing out of his patrol car. He never once took his eyes off the Dingir shuttle hovering serenely overhead and the troupe of four armored Guards standing at attention directly beneath it.
"My quest has succeeded," Inanna said happily, "Farewell Max Copeland. I have no doubt you will be able to extricate yourself from these troubles."
She turned on her heel and marched outside followed by her two Guards. Max shouldered his rucksack and stepped out onto his front porch.
She strode to the cadre of Guards on the lawn and turned with a flourish of her longsword.
"Be aware people of Earth," she called out, "The Dingir will return!"
The seven aliens were drawn up into the air as if by magic. As soon as the last of them cleared the porthole, it closed and the ship soared away to the west at great speed. There was a streak of light and then it was gone.
The crowd gasped in amazement. The Sherriff wiped the sweat from his brow and looked down at the ground panting heavily. With a final whoosh of air he straightened and looked directly at Max.
"You want to tell me what's going on here Jimmy?" he asked with a shaky voice.
Max smiled ruefully and directed Ben to a chair on the porch.
"Have a seat Ben," he said, "I've got a story to tell you."
"I bet you do!" Ben replied with a sigh.
"Have you called for backup yet?" Max asked.
"Didn't need to!" Ben said, "Half the city called the state police. The other half phoned my office. Poor Mildred's been off her socks since the calls started coming in!"
"I'm sorry about that Ben," Max said with a sigh, "I should tell you what's going on quick."
As he said it they both heard the sound of sirens wailing in the distance and getting closer.
"My name is not Jimmy. It's Max Copeland. I'm not from Portland, I'm from Canada, and there are some very bad people who'll be here very soon. They've been looking to take me in for eleven years."
"Eleven years!" the Sherriff breathed.
"They think I've been conspiring with the aliens. It's not true. I know them and I've spent some time with them. That is true. But I never did or said anything to help them in any way except one. I advised them that they could trade technology for gold. The UN and almost every government in the world was thrilled to do that. And that was where my association with the aliens ended."
That last sentence was a lie, but it was a small one. Max knew no one would accept that the gifts the aliens gave him were harmless. The concoction of nanites called
Wasu Azu
alone were something every intelligence agency in the world would dearly love to get their hands on. As for the mental abilities he had learned from the Dingir leader Ëa, that was something those same agencies would kill for.
The state troopers pulled up with a squeal of brakes as they skidded into position around Max's house. There were three cars with two troopers in each one. They exited their vehicles with rifles and fanned out into a semi-circle on the front lawn. Ben watched them with his mouth open in something like awe.
"They must really think you're dangerous," he said, "Are you dangerous Jimmy? Should I be worried?"
Max sighed heavily and looked at the floor between his feet.
"Max Copeland!" a voice boomed through a megaphone, "Put your hands on your head and step down off the porch!"
"No Ben," Max said sadly, "I won't hurt anyone. I'm going to stand up now. I want you to handcuff me and take me to your car. I'm your prisoner."
The Sherriff made a pained expression and sighed.
"Jesus Jimmy!" he said angrily, "How could you fool all of us like that? I thought we were friends!"
"We are friends Ben," Max said, "You just didn't know my real name. Now take me in Sherriff. I surrender."
Max stood and Ben handcuffed him with his hands behind his back. He led him to the patrol car and placed him in the back seat. With a nod of acknowledgement to the state troopers, now with their rifles slung over their shoulders, he got into the driver's seat and took the man he knew as Jimmy Olsen to the town jail.
-*-
Max sat in the small jail cell looking around him curiously. Like the cell he'd spent a short time in while in Texas several years ago, it was a throwback to an older time. One inch steel bars traveled between the concrete walls. The whole room was no more than twelve feet wide. There was a small window high in the wall to the outside. It did nothing more than let some light in to alleviate the cold dimness of the interior.
The Sherriff's office was to his right down a short corridor and beyond a reinforced door. Ben Jones was in there talking quietly with his two deputies, Hank Rawlins and Jake Tipley.
"You know," Ben said with a shake of his head, "I still can't believe Jimmy Olsen is this Max Copeland fella they keep talking about! The feds told me he's highly dangerous and we should keep him drugged. Shoot, we can't do that kind of thing around here! Besides it being downright un-American we don't even have a doc on staff for that!"
"Maybe we should put an armed guard on him," Hank suggested.
"Armed guard?" Ben said excitedly, "This ain't John Dillinger we're talking about! This is Jimmy! I've sat and had breakfast with the man more times than I could count! Nah, whoever this Max Copeland fella is, it can't be Jimmy!"
"Didn't you see that spaceship over his house?" Jake said.
"Well, sure I saw it!" Ben replied, "That don't mean he's the dangerous felon they say he is!"
