“I’m not gonna lie and pretend this’ll hurt me more than it hurts you, but it is gonna hurt me. A bit. I don’t like pickin’ on the little guy, ya know?”
The bodyguard cried and wretched on his gag. He rolled in his bondage, thick iron chains. He was in a circular clearing in a cornfield. He spat out the gag, one of his own socks. “What are you going to do to me? Who are you? What are you?”
“I’m the Scumbug,” burbled the Scumbug. The Scumbug was greenish ooze, like swamp-sludge—about 600 gallons, over 6000 pounds. A host of objects cluttered its interior. One of those objects—a large wooden crate—moved through the Scumbug’s membrane and flopped wetly onto the cornfield. “From beyond the stars I’ve brought your worst nightmares, buddy.”
“Oh god, oh, please!”
“Earth should’ve kept to itself. Now you gotta deal with me. I combed your whole planet for the most awful animals your monkey-ancestors ever met. If you don’t answer me, I’ll sic them on you.”
“What do you want! What do you want!”
“Where’s the ambassador who represents Earth?”
The bodyguard sobbed. “I can’t tell you.”
“Then suffer.” The Scumbug tore open the crate with abominable amoeba-strength.
“No, no! I—Umm.” From the crate, a flood of puppies and kittens mobbed the bodyguard. They playfully licked his nose. “Scumbug?”
“Save your pleas. I’ll fish your broken body from the beasts when you’re ready to talk.”
“Uh. Okay.” Bunny-rabbits hopped by. “Is this your first time on Earth, Scumbug?”
“Yeah. Until humanity entered the galactic theater, this solar system was off-limits. Now…” The Scumbug extended a pseudopod and plucked the bodyguard into the air. The kittens bat at his dangling shoelaces. “Where is the ambassador?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“Last chance,” said the Scumbug. “Tell me or I’ll chuck you back to the ravenous beasts.”
“I’ll take my chances with the beasts.”
“Are you sure?” The Scumbug hung the guard near the rabbits. “You’re not… um… terrified?”
“Of course I am,” said the bodyguard. “Please don’t throw me to the bunnies, I beg of you, spare mercy.”
The Scumbug sighed, somehow, deflating in disappointment. “It’s always tough to interrogate a new species. Are any of these animals intimidating?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Not even these?” The Scumbug held the bodyguard above the crate to peer inside, where a pile of piranhas had dehydrated to death.
“You were close with those ones, actually,” said the bodyguard.
“Fine. I’ll do it the old-fashioned way. I’ll cut off one of your legs, ask you again, and if you don’t answer, I’ll cut off your other leg.”
“Oh, lord, please, no!”
“Quit whining. Legs grow back.”
“No they don’t!”
“Really? How about fingers?”
“No!”
“Can’t you grow anything back? I’m trying to let you off light here.”
“I’ve heard… um…” The bodyguard knew he shouldn’t say this, but couldn’t stop himself. “…Nipples grow back.”
The Scumbug vibrated. “Don’t foist your fetishes on me, freak. Tell you what: fess up where the ambassador is or I’ll cut off your head. Then you’ll be just a sad little coconut, rolling back to your friends to tell them not to mess with the Scumbug.”
“…Humans don’t live as just a head!”
“Oh, you guys are pathetic!” The Scumbug smashed the bodyguard on the ground. The hoard of adorable animals scattered into the corn. “Don’t make me blorp you up! Where’s the ambassador!”
The bodyguard sobbed. “What are you alien assholes gonna do to his daughter?”
The Scumbug said nothing.
“You’re after the bounty, aren’t you? Why do you alien assholes want the ambassador’s daughter? She’s eight!”
“You’re pretty tight-lipped, bud,” said the Scumbug. “If I had your children, do you think you’d be so cocky?”
“Don’t you dare threaten my kids, sicko! I don’t even have any kids!”
“That’s exactly why the Big Cheese wants the ambassador’s daughter,” said the Scumbug. “The Big Cheese knows it could blow up your planet before you’d surrender, but with the right child-hostage you’ll be under the thumb. Earthlings are more useful as slaves than debris.”
“Then you know why I can’t tell you where to find her.”
“And you know why you gotta tell me,” said the Scumbug. “I’m humanity’s only friend right now, and with friends like me, hoo boy, you’d better hope you never meet your enemies! Now.” The Scumbug smashed him against the ground again. “Where is the ambassador?”
The ambassador pushed up his glasses. He and his daughter sat at a desk in a darkened office. Behind them were four armed guards. Before them was alien who looked like a man-sized seahorse. “It doesn’t look good,” the seahorse bubbled.
“Lay it on me,” said the ambassador.
“The Big Cheese upped the bounty to two trillion units,” said the seahorse. “My sources know of at least two hit-men out to capture your daughter. They were spotted in your solar system.”
“Don’t worry, Julia.” The ambassador pat his daughter’s head, but she just played disinterestedly with her smartphone. “Who are they?”
“The first is an awful mammalian-type, Germa the Gerbil.”
“A mammal? If we can milk it, we can kill it.”
“The other is Lady Mantoid, an infamous insect.”
“I swat flies for breakfast.”
“Don’t take these professionals lightly,” said the seahorse. “Both want the bounty for your daughter’s capture, but if capture seems unlikely, they’ll assassinate your daughter instead, just so no one gets the bounty. In fact, if one captures your daughter, the other might kill you so the girl is worthless to the Big Cheese.”
The ambassador cocked his head in smug disbelief. “Why? You said the Big Cheese wants my kid for leverage over Earth’s representative.”
The seahorse shook his head. His snout bobbed. “Not leverage the way humans understand it. You think the universe is a game with Earth and the Big Cheese on opposite sides. In reality, Earth is one of the paltry tokens with which the game is played. The Big Cheese placed the bounty to teach you your place. Whether you or your daughter live or die is beside the point. The galactic theater is a hell you know nothing about.”
Julia tapped her phone.
“What do we do?” asked the ambassador.
“We wait,” said the seahorse. “This secure location is still secret. Our sources are spying on Germa the Gerbil and Lady Mantoid. If either advances on our location we’ll deploy the appropriate countermeasures. We can show the Big Cheese that Earth isn’t just a paltry token—it’s a token so paltry that it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
There was a knock at the door. The seahorse turned to see there was no door in this office.
“Ah, that’s my ringtone.” The ambassador pulled out his phone. “Oh. One of my bodyguards is video-calling me.” He tapped the screen. “Hello? Holy crap, what happened!”
The bodyguard was black-and-blue in a hospital bed. “I’m sorry, sir. They know where you are. They beat it out of me, and threatened my parents. I can’t believe they let me live.”
“Who?” asked the seahorse. “Describe your alien assailant. Were they mammalian, like a furry nightmare?”
“No,” said the bodyguard.
“Then it’s not Germa the Gerbil. Were they sleek and chitinous, with chattering mandibles?”
“No,” said the bodyguard.
“Then it’s not Lady Mantoid. What did they look like?”
“They were a pile of sludge. It called itself the Scumbug.”
The seahorse screamed and jumped from his chair—it had three floppy legs. “We’re doomed!”
The ambassador turned off the video-chat and chased the seahorse flailing around the room. “Don’t panic! This is the safest bunker humanity’s best scientists could build!”
“Where’s the escape-pod?” The seahorse scrambled on the walls. “Open it! Now!”
“Don’t!” said the ambassador to his armed guards. “You said it yourself: the Big Cheese will decide if humanity’s worth plundering based on our reaction to his goons. If we take the escape-pod right away we’re spineless.”
“Would you rather be spineless or dead?” asked the seahorse.
“I don’t mind dying.”
“It’s not just your own life you’re wagering,” said the seahorse.
Julia looked up from her phone. “We have to take that risk,” said the ambassador. “Tell me about the Scumbug. It knows where we are. Can it get here against the whole might of Earth’s military?”
“The Scumbug likely won’t realize there is a military opposing it.”
“We’re at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Can it survive this deep in the ocean?”
“The Scumbug won’t notice the water, either.”
“Well, can the Scumbug get through sixty bank-vault-doors guarded by the most highly trained—” A sizzling sound interrupted the ambassador.
“Oh, please, open the escape-pod, I’m begging you!”
The ambassador and his armed guards looked around the room for the source of the sizzle. “Um. Sir?” A guard pointed to the ceiling, where a solid metal circular vault-door was starting to glow.
“Open the escape-pod for Charlie-Horse over there,” said the ambassador.
A panel opened on the wall. The seahorse jumped into a closet-sized space and coiled into the fetal position. “Ambassador! Your daughter!”
Julia looked up from her phone. “Should I get in the escape-pod, Ambassadaddy?”
“No, Julia. Stay right there.” The ambassador pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket. “It’s take-your-daughter-to-work day.'”
The vault-door melted.
The Scumbug dripped through the ceiling shining like the sun. The armed guards opened fire, but the bullets shot right through. The Scumbug splashed over them like a wave. The guards screamed, burned, melted, and died. “Hello sir.” The Scumbug released the red-hot magma it had carried. “Did you know your planet is filled with this stuff? It’s a security hazard if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Get in!” shouted the seahorse. The ambassador and his daughter stayed still. The seahorse shut the panel, sealing himself in the escape-pod.
“I was expecting you, Scumbug.” The ambassador walked behind his daughter and pointed his pistol at the Scumbug.
“Also, did you know humans drown? Why are you hiding under all this water if you drown? I asked a couple people, but they didn’t tell me. They just kept bubbling. You guys have weird interrogation-resistance techniques.”
“You can tell the Big Cheese mankind won’t be pushed around.” The ambassador stuck the pistol in his daughter’s right ear. “You want the two trillion units, don’t you? If you move to kill me, I’ll kill her and then myself. You’ll get nothing.”
The Scumbug burbled.
“Humanity won’t be bullied. We’d rather die here and now than give in to the Big Cheese.” The ambassador pulled the pistol’s safety. Julia stared down the Scumbug without moving an inch, as if her thumb was stuck to the screen of her phone. The Scumbug had no eyes to stare back, but its surface bristled with heightened awareness. “Leave my office, Scumbug.”
The Scumbug swung a pseudopod slimmer than piano-wire and cut off the ambassador’s head. Nuts and bolts and shrapnel flew from the decapitation. The ambassador slumped, a pile of broken machinery.
“Huh. That’s new.” The Scumbug rolled over to the ambassador and blorped the whole guy up. The ambassador floated in the Scumbug, and his arms and legs popped off. “Oh, I get it. He’s a robot. I’ve killed robots before.” The Scumbug swelled, then contracted to the size of a tombstone. The Scumbug’s contents were crunched until only twenty fist-sized lumps remained. Then the Scumbug expanded to its usual size. “Kid? Where’d you go?”
The escape-pod panel clicked closed. The Scumbug crawled to it.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Launch the escape-pod,” said Julia.
“I’ve been trying since I closed it,” said the seahorse.
“I disabled the escape-pod before I came in,” said the Scumbug. “That was, like, the first thing I did. I don’t know kittens from puppies, but escape-pod-disabling is rookie assassin stuff.” The Scumbug oozed through the razor-thin gap between the panel and the wall to pry open the escape-pod. The panel clattered to the floor.
Seeing the Scumbug, the seahorse shook. With a gut-wrenching grunt he spurt ten-thousand young from his stomach. Tiny pale seahorses quivered.
“…You got lucky, daddio. Take your kids and scram.” The Scumbug scooped the seahorses out of the escape-pod, then contracted to fit into the pod beside Julia. The Scumbug snaked oozy limbs into the circuitry and reconnected some wires. The escape-pod rocketed up into the bottom of the ocean. “I’m the Scumbug. What’s your name?”
“Julia.”
“Your daddy turned out to be a robot.”
“I’m adopted. But that robot was controlled by a real guy, the guy who adopted me.”
“Well, I’m adopting you now. You’ve been double-adopted.”
“Octuple-adopted,” said Julia.
“Oh. Is that normal on Earth?”
“Nope. When Ambassadaddy heard the Big Cheese would put a bounty on his kid, he adopted me because I’ve been passed around so much. He figured I wouldn’t mind being kidnapped. Or, at least, no one else would mind me missing.”
“That’s… really sad.”
“All my parents tend to die,” said Julia. “Maybe that’s why Ambassadaddy had a robot. He knew adopting me put a target on his back.”
The Scumbug shivered. “Are you making this up?”
“This wasn’t the first time one of my daddies pointed a gun at my head,” said Julia.
“…Was it the second?” Cryptically, Julia did not answer, but raised her eyebrows and looked away.
The escape-pod shot out of the ocean into the sky. A military jumbo-jet swooped down from the clouds and caught the escape-pod in open bomb-bay doors. A soldier opened the escape-pod and saluted. “Are you safe, Ambassad—oh my god!” The Scumbug swallowed him and digested him, and everyone else on the jet.
“This ride will do for now. C’mon, kid.” Julia sat in the co-pilot’s seat while the Scumbug flooded the rest of the cockpit. “Julia, right? If I could break into your bunker, Lady Mantoid and Germa the Gerbil could’ve done it in half the time. I’m taking you somewhere more secure.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure yet. Saving kids from the Big Cheese has been a hobby of mine for a while, but I’ve never gotten this far before.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“Then we’re going to Neverland, baby.” The jet steered up toward the sky.
Ten minutes passed. Julia kicked the Scumbug’s surface. It was like viscous water. “When you said Neverland, did you mean we’d never get there?”
“This spaceship is awful. How long does it take human vehicles to leave the atmosphere?”
Julia laughed. “This isn’t a spaceship, it’s an airplane!”
“You mean… humans invented a vessel that can only go where there’s air? But why?”
Julia shrugged. “There’s air everywhere we want to go, usually.”
“Okay, well… We’ll get high as we can, then we’ll go the old-fashioned way.”
Julia kept kicking the Scumbug, making it ripple slowly. “What even are you, Scumdaddy?”
“I’m begging you, please don’t call me that. I’m an alien. Humans entered the galactic theater a few Earth-weeks ago, so now all us space-folks are swinging in.”
“Enter the galactic theater? What does that mean?”
“The Big Cheese ignores most sentient life that keeps to itself, within a few tens of millions of miles. Your ambassadaddy burst that bubble and broke your egg. The Big Cheese wants to scramble that egg.”
“Why?”
“It’s how you make omelettes, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s how you make scrambled eggs.”
“Look, kid, in this big ol’ universe, there are two kinds of life-forms: the kind that eats their kids, and the kind that eats their parents. The Big Cheese thinks Earth is a tasty little youngin’.”
“What kind are you?”
“See these?” The Scumbug swirled the twenty fist-sized lumps within its volume. “I was born with kids, and I blorped ’em up. I got that allll outta my system.”
“…So, if you’re no longer the kind of life-form that eats their kids, then now you’re the kind of life-form that eats their parents?”
“No. There are three kinds of life-forms: the kind that eats their kids, the kind that eats their parents, and me, the Scumbug. Now close your eyes.”
Julia closed her eyes. “Why?”
“To keep calm. We’re high as this vehicle can take us.” The Scumbug bubbled up Julia and her co-pilot’s chair. “I’m taking you to a safe-house in another solar-system, and we’re going the old-fashioned way.”
“What does that mean?”
“When humans first went to space, did they use spaceships? Did they use airplanes?” The Scumbug raided the munition’s bay for explosives. “Of course they didn’t. They swam to space with nothing but their birthday suits.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Really? It’s how every other species first gets to space.” The Scumbug blew up the jet’s payload. The jet detonated and the Scumbug was thrown into orbit. “Humans are weird.”
Ted Writes 