“Let’s see, we’re looking for a bug green alien about 8 foot tall. I don’t think we’re going to miss her coming through unless they chopped her up, eh?”
“A little less with the wisecracks, Hal, and more with the observing. She could be all bent up in a smaller piece of luggage, we don’t know. We don’t know much about alien physiology. Do we Hal?”
“Um, guess not,” he replied, thinking, you’re not really my boss, Jill, you’re just an on-site supervisor. I don’t have to listen to you. In fact, I could report you for abusive language right here and now. Except you’re a woman and I’m a man — the chumps at the station would laugh me out of the airport if I tried to pull that one. Still…
“Hal,” she said, looking at his glazed eyes. “A little less with the daydreaming too, hmm?”
—–
“Okay, so I’ve actually been counting cards and… I’ve seen an extra heart being played.” Silence from the poker people around Andy, use to him being jovial and fun. No one except Otis had seen him in this light. But Otis didn’t mind, since it meant the *real* game was starting now. “The alien has left the station,” he imagined saying into a nonexistent talky device strapped to his wrist.
—–
Burt, coins already inserted, hits play on a song about two lips and how they are like one pink, smiling at Doris Lilly all the time, dining with her starter husband Jack. Like Otis, both are happy the gears have been set in motion.
From the track, Thelma Louise Day at the pool table knows what’s going on too, and that a substantial check would be coming up soon. All her hard work as a snitch at the office canteen finally paying off!
Standing directly above Hal, co-conspirator Howie Sprague dares to snap a photo of the valuable cargo leaving the bay, smuggled right out from under his eyes. Jill was spot on! Alien physiology is little understood, especially since the one in this game can change into *liquid*.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 