Free short story, Intergalactic 911: Technically Issues (Sci-fi)

Intergalactic 911: Technically Issues, by Joseph Wolfe. 2,415 words, Approx 10 minute read.

Zed had just finished a sip of coffee when the “incoming call” button lit up. As the only human in his department, it was imperative he make a good name for his species and handle as many calls as possible. His haste to set his coffee down resulted in a small, brown tidal wave as a couple of sips Free Willy’d over the edge of his “I’m in!” coffee mug. The hot brown liquid streamed down the face of old earth actor Nicholas Cage.

“Intergalactic 911, what system are you in?” Zed fired off the practiced line automatically while he quietly looked around for something to clean the coffee off his desk. A box of tissues would have to do.

The response from the other line was about ten seconds delayed, and the caller spoke in alien gibberish to Zed, but the auto-translator quickly compensated. “Hi. I want to report a murder and another murder in progress.”

Zed abandoned the tissues. “I’m here to help, what system are you in?”

“Oh, um. Vallinine system, planet Pudo, city of Symmetra.” The caller sounded weirdly casual about the whole thing. Zed usually had to gently coax out information from the callers, especially with something as nightmarish as a murder in progress. Had the caller been human, he would have been concerned. Granted, there could be some things lost in translation, but Intergalactic 911’s auto translator was the best in the universe, and translated inflection based on species habits into something the call taker could understand.

Zed was already punching in the details to get the local Peace Officers dispatched. “And what is your name?”

“Dumenduitinitu.”

One of Zed’s brows went up. He entered the data into the computer, copying the spelling the auto-translator suggested. “Are you safe where you are?”

“Uh…for now.”

“Can you get somewhere safer?”

“Not yet.”

“But you can keep talking on the phone?” The back and forth was akward with the long delay, and Zed typed another line to the Peace Officers, emphasizing the urgency.

“Sure.”

Sure? Zed thought. No time to riff sarcastically on that for now. “Alright, who was murdered and who is being attacked?”

“Oh, right. Both are me.”

Zed blinked.

“I’m a Danabrax.”

Zed’s computer immediately brought up the info on the alien race. They regenerated even from death and only died permanently from old age or a blast from a vaporizer.

“So, Dumenduitinitu,” Zed said, quietly congratulating himself as a green light from the auto-translator indicated a correct pronunciation, “where is the person who is trying to hurt you now?”

“I lost him for a moment, but I’m worried he will find me. I’m currently hiding under a rock.”

Zed wasn’t sure if that was figurative or not. “And what does your attacker look like?”

“Uh…blue, with gold eyes, mass of approximately 45 kilos. He has a vaporizer gun, that’s the only thing that can kill my species.” The auto-translator put the description into terms Zed could understand and relay, but the “eyes” were likely something a bit different. “He used a standard laser before to try to cripple me, but I regenerated and ran.”

Zed typed furiously to let the Peace Officers that the subject was armed and dangerous, then added the description of the attacker. “Do you know the person who attacked you?”

“He’s kind of my brother.”

Ouch, that was rough. Zed’s familial relationships were…complicated, but no one in his family had tried to kill him before.

“Dispatch, this is Officer 15678 from Pudo Peace Force, I’m en-route with backup, copy.”

“Copy Officer 15678,” Zed responded, then went back to Dumenduitinitu. “Help is on the way.”

“OK, do I need to keep talking? I don’t want to make a lot of noise.”

That was always a tough call. No pun intended. Well, maybe pun intended. The more information Zed could get from the caller, the more likely things were to go well without anyone getting injured or dead or…dead again. But Zed had all the necessary information for now. “Stay on the line if you can, but you don’t have to say anything.”

The call went silent beyond the normal delay.

Zed checked Officer 15678’s progress on the computer interface. The information updated about every ten seconds, which was how long it took for communications to travel to Pudo. Thanks to a breakthrough that quite frankly gave Einstein the middle finger, the Intergalactic Federation of Planets found a way to accelerate communications beyond the speed of light, and thus Intergalactic 911 was born.

“Dispatch, we found a Danabrax matching the description. Engaging now, copy.”

“Copy,” Zed replied. He took a sip of coffee, eyeing the progress on the computer. “Dumenduitinitu, are you still there?”

Ten seconds later, a “boop” noise was a quiet confirmation.

“Officers have closed in on your attacker and are engaging now.”

Silence again.

Zed kept as close of an eye as he could with just the data being transferred from his computer. The display changed now that a Peace Officer’s transmitter was there, providing Zed with a 360-degree scan of the landscape. It wasn’t a live video feed. The data had been compressed it into a very basic overview so it could be sent long distance. But it was like the difference between Civilization II for the PC and the more recent Civilization XII for the Virtual Console. The graphics were night and day, but the display in II gave you all the same information.

Everything was going about as well as it could; but this part always made Zed nervous. If that Danabrax landed a good shot, he could kill a Peace Officer. Zed also had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was off. He tabbed back up through the transcript with the caller. The conversation was odd, but he was speaking with another species.

“Dispatch, we have the suspect in custody without incident, copy.”

Zed let out a quick sigh of relief. “Copy,” he answered, then switched over to the other line. “Dumenduitinitu, the peace officers have apprehended your attacker. It’s safe to come out now.”

“Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.”

Zed considered the question. Perhaps the other Danabrax was far enough away that Dumen couldn’t hear the arrest happening. But that didn’t seem right. The Peace Officer’s position was only about ten meters away.

“One moment,” he said to Dumen. He had to be sure it was safe or he could lead Dumen to his death. This time, instead of checking his transcript with Dumen, he looked back through his conversation with the Peace Officer.

And he noticed that the Peace Officer only confirmed his call sign number the first time. Not always a problem…but it wouldn’t take long to clear up.

Zed switched to the line with the officer and asked, “Peace Officer, can you confirm your call sign?”

Over ten seconds later, the response, “Uh…why do you need that?”

That set off alarm bells louder than the incoming call button. Something wasn’t right. Zed frantically searched Dumen’s name in the intergalactic net. Articles about him being the son of a tech mogul’s empire filled his search results. What did that mean? Dumen and his brother, both sons of a tech empire, engaged in a fight for life and death…

Zed did one more search, this time punching in the name of the tech company: Databrax. The results came in, showing that Databrax was not only located on Planet Pudo, but this time the search results spoke of Databrax’s specialty. It managed faster than light communications for dozens of corporations.

Including Intergalactic 911.

“Scrap!” Zed muttered. He first pulled up communication with Dumen and told him to stay put and quiet, then he contacted the Intergalactic 911 on-call tech expert, or texpert for short.

“Thank you for calling Databrax tech support,” a pre-recorded voice spoke. “We are proud to partner with Intergalactic 911! A tech expert, or as we call them, ‘texperts’ will be with you shortly.”

“Seriously?” Zed nearly shouted. The other call takers in the center glanced over at him. The hold music blared in his headset.

“I’ll get over you, I know I will. I pretend my ship’s not….SIIIINNNNKING. AND I’LL TELL MYSELF—”

“Yeah?” the texpert answered, then belched loudly into the mic. “This is Ted.”

When you’re one of the very few people who knows how the system works, you can get away with a lot.

“This is Zed with Intergalactic 911. I believe I have a communication intercept event in progress.”

“Holy eff, a C-I-E?” Ted said. There was a loud crash over the line, then Ted’s voice came back in. “Sorry, fell off my chair. It’s broken. Route me into the call.”

Zed punched in the command to do exactly that.

“Dispatch, you can tell the caller it’s all clear,” the Peace Officer said, forgetting to add ‘copy.’” The mask was slipping even further.

“Gott dang-it,” Ted said. “Yeah, someone took over the line with the Peace Officer and is using AI to mimic his voice and respond. The Peace Officers on Pudo have been scrambling trying to reconnect to you, they said there was nothing at the location they went to.”

“Is my line of communication with the caller safe?”

“It looks that way.”

“You sure?” Zed wanted a lot more confirmation if he was going to risk someone’s life.

“Well, there’s no way to be 100% sure. Someone could be tapping into the call and re-routing the tap signal through the call itself. It’s a highly advanced form of spoofing that uses–”

Zed switched back to the caller’s line. “Dumenduitinitu, someone is hacking our system. I need to know where you are so I can send help.”

A moment later, faint sounds of shouting were picked up by the translator, but not clear enough to pick out any words. “He’s close,” Dumen said. The translator picked up on the Danabrax equivalent of fear and terror in Dumen’s voice.

“It’s the only way I can help, where are you?”

Even though the delay was only ten seconds, it took about thirty before Zed heard, “Meldon Wildlife Preserve.”

That probably explained Dumen saying he was hiding under a rock. Zed switched over to his line with Ted, who was still talking.

“–and it’s just a theory, but I was at a conference last summer and–”

“Can you tell the Peace Officers to get to the Meldon Wildlife Preserve ASAP?”

“Oh. On it boss,” he answered.

Zed waited, wringing his hands together. If this went badly, he knew he had followed protocol, and wouldn’t get in much trouble. Then he immediately felt guilty, thinking of what would happen to him professionally instead of what would happen to Dumen.

Such is the life of Intergalactic 911.

Zed’s computer screen suddenly updated, now translating the proper coordinates for the Peace Officers. There were twenty of them, not six, and their land cruisers closed in on the Meldon Wildlife Preserve like a swarm of angry Manal killer wasps.

“Found you!” the auto-translator said. It noted that the voice was not the same as the caller.

Zed’s heartrate spiked.

“Hurf!” Dumen’s voice came through. The translator just said (cry of surprise and possibly agony).

“Dumenduitinitu, are you alright? Dumenduitinitu?”

Silence. Ten seconds. Silence still.

Not even background noise? Zed frantically looked for anything he could do remotely. He sent a message to Ted to tell the Peace Officers that the caller was in immediate danger. Ted relayed it, but no response other than that.

More Silence.

“Dispatch, they got him, the caller is safe,” Ted said.

Zed took off his headset and dropped it to the desk in a moment of pure victory and relief. Then he remembered protocol and quickly put it back on. “Dumenduitinitu, are you alright?”

Ten seconds later, a voice followed some crackling noises, “Yes. They got here just in time. The emissions from the vaporizer knocked out my cell for a moment.”

“Vaporizer?” Zed asked, nervous.

“It’s cool, I only got half vaporized, so I will be alright. I guess my brother wanted all of the company instead of just half.”

Zed had been so caught up in the rush of it all, he hadn’t put those pieces together. “That’s why he attacked you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Zed felt terrible. Officially, the next step was to wrap up the call. But he couldn’t just leave it like that.

“I’m sorry, Dumen.”

“For what? You saved my life. Thank you.”

“I’m…sorry that all this happened.”

“It’s not your fault. Thanks again. The Peace Officers are taking care of me and medical is here so…bye.”

Dumenduitinitu hung up the call.

“Nice job, dispatch,” Ted said. “I haven’t had that much excitement in a long time. Not a lot of people out there could hack or systems that effectively, but I guess when you’re the son of a tech CEO that built your communications platform, it makes sense.”

Zed didn’t feel like he had done a nice job. But Dumen was alive. That was something. “I suppose so.”

“Hey, I got a Dungeons & Dragons group going this Saturday and we need a cleric. You in?”

It took Zed a moment to register what Ted was saying. “Um…I…you know these calls are recorded, right?” Zed answered.

“Uh…what’s your name?”

“Zed.”

There was nothing for a moment, then Zed’s phone buzzed. It was against protocol to look at it while at his desk, but he took a quick peek at the text.

“This is Ted with IT. You in Saturday?”

In spite of everything, Zed chuckled, then put his phone away. Ted’s friendliness could be considered a bit creepy, especially since he used Intergalactic 911’s database to find Zed’s personal number.

Then again, it was nice to have someone other than just Garrney being friendly to him. The job was pretty lonely; a lot of office politics were involved and you never really knew who you could trust. And since moving, he hadn’t made a lot of friends. Ted was also a human, like him, since there was no need for the auto-translator’s help on that call.

Zed’s eyes drifted to his coffee mug. Meh, it’s crazy, but why not. He wrote up a quick report of the call, then changed to his status to “on break.” He pulled out his phone and opened the convo with Ted, texting back a gif of Nicholas Cage.

“I’m in.”

Thanks for reading! This one was on the shorter end of my short stories, closer to flash fiction. For more Intergalactic 911, check out the other story I posted by clicking this link.