Ambassador

fiction by michael werneburg

"Honey," said Jane, "I'm a biologist. I was -- we three were all -- with the team studying the creature. Believe me; it's not designed for walking across flat ground. At the facility, the thing spent most of its time climbing on the furniture."

"You worked with the Ambassador?" the waitress said, incredulous.

I motioned at Jane, and caught her eye with a warning look. The last thing I wanted from the two despondent scientists was a scene. Such things had a habit of finding their way into people's blog posts, and I was already losing enough sleep.

But with my attention on Jane, it was Cuong that blurted out, "Right! We were involved from the beginning."

One or two heads around the bar turned our way. "I thought we agreed we weren't going to do this," I told him. I'd made Jane and Cuong agree to silence before we left the car. "Are we going to have to leave?"

"Calm down," Cuong said, and I saw something hard in his gaze. The disrespectful punk!

I looked around the place. It was the same as I remembered: a bit awkward in its use of space, it was too lacking in character for a pub, and too dominated by large wooden structures for a restaurant. The floor was crowded with tables but booths that were if anything oversized. There was lots of wood, which was usually welcome, but it was all too big and solid in a way that had once looked slick but now had marks and dings from decades of use too well lit by the sterile white light. Lacking any kind of comfort or coziness, it had the air of an unloved convention center, all business. I'd chosen it because it was a perfectly forgettable place to level with these scientists about their pay.

"Well," I suggested tightly, "let's move to a booth then, shall we?" On the screen, the subject went to riots in what looked like a Chinese city: the central government there was losing its grip. The Ambassador's arrival had touched off a global tsunami of unpredictable behavior. New religions were popping up: "if god made us in our image, who made the ambassador?" Strikes and shortages were rampant as people walked off the job after reconsidering their lives. The handful of wars previously in progress had stopped as the futility of slaughtering other humans over resources or grudges or the whim of some strongman had finally gotten through to people. And no one seemed to be buying luxury goods because signaling status through material things suddenly seemed embarrassing. The general population was reacting badly enough, but who knew what baggage the day-drinkers around this place might be carrying.

The waitress gestured with her palm held up. "Is it true that the thing eats squirrels?" she asked hesitantly, her nose scrunched as if she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Live squirrels. Yes," mocked Jane. "Sometimes. But it prefers chickens."

The waitress made a face. Jane sneered at the woman's discomfort.

I stood up and went toward the booth. This brought me behind Jane's seat, and I placed a hand on her shoulder to encourage her along. She tensed slightly and Cuong leaned toward Jane in a proprietary fashion as they stood. Surprised, I watched Cuong step between Jane and me, and guide her to the booth with his hand on her lower back. I realized then that at some point, they'd become lovers. Was the reality of going home to his wife what explained the edge in Cuong's glare?

With an apology, I told the waitress we were moving, and we crossed the floor to a secluded corner.

As the scientists sat, I plunked my payment card on the booth's meter and found the televised meeting of the Ambassador with our world leaders. It was a big deal. Maybe the biggest ever.

It had been five weeks since the landing. The Americans had been keeping the Ambassador under wraps near the landing site. Publicly, the reason had been "ensure public safety" and "to establish a dialog in a controlled environment".