A Day In The Park

It was a beautiful May 1st in Rochester. Meagan Hannigan took her two children, Mazie and Marcus to Zumbro Park West, to enjoy the playground, and get some fresh air. The weather was perfect, 70 degrees, and there was a slight breeze that provided the perfect amount of cool. She sat on the bench, with Mazie in the sand at her feet, and Marcus climbing the jungle gym. All was perfect, and then she saw them…

It was a short five years ago when the Terran Confederation defeated the Nint’ian, ending the threat that they presented to humanity’s grasp on the stars. One of the provisions to the peace treaty stipulated that the Nint’ian could immigrate to Terran systems, Earth included. Something about their own being extremely overcrowded. Meagan had discussed this with Dan, her husband, at the time, and thought it was compassionate of them to allow these poor aliens to thrive on human worlds.

She even voted and campaigned for the governor, partially based on this position, that promised that Minnesota would be a haven for these dispossessed. And then she saw them. Giant insects that looked like a cross between a cockroach and a pill-bug, but they had two hands that ended in four fingers. Their language was a chittering sort of pops and squeaks, very difficult for humans to make, but apparently they could understand English quite well.

A group of Nint’ians had come to the park as well that day. They ignored the equipment, and proceeded to dig in the mulch pit that was installed for them, making all sorts of strange noises. Fortunately, it was a little bit of distance from the playground, so Meagan pulled out her SmartLink to scroll, keeping one eye on her children.

A shout of “Mom!” broke her concentration of the video, and Meagan looked up. Her heart stopped as she saw one of those creatures grab her son, and began to scurry away as she began to scream. She leaped up and started to run frantically after him. She started yelling, as she wasn’t catching up to them. “LET GO OF MY SON, YOU BUG!!!”

Immediately she was surrounded by several larger Nint’ians, waving their limbs about, chittering loudly. “GET OUT OF MY WAY, YOU BUGS! GIVE ME BACK MY SON!” The Nint’ian’s chittering got more agitated sounding, and one of them had some drone flying about its ugly head. She swung her purse at the closest one, hitting it in the head. It fell over, and before she could exploit the gap, another jumped in, trying to reach for her purse.

Her hands shook and her heart beat loudly in her head, as she breathlessly looked around for someone, anyone, to hunt down that bug and get her son back. Meagan’s head spun, and as tears started to run down her face, everything went black.

****

“Miss Hannigan, are you awake?”

“Its Mrs.”

“Mrs. Hannigan, do you know where you are?”

Meagan opened her eyes, looking around at her surroundings. The 1st Precinct Police Station greeted her with a serenity that seemed wrong. “My son! He has been taken! You must help me! I need to call Dan!”

The policewoman’s look didn’t change at all, “We will get to the Mrs. Hannigan. Please calm down. Do you know where you are?”

Of course she did. She had protested outside this very building fifteen years ago over police brutality. Now, she wanted some applied on her behalf. “I’m at the police station. Why am I here? I think I fainted.”

The policewoman set down her pen, and pushed the glasses on her face up higher on her nose. “You did faint, Mrs. Hannigan.”

“Meagan. Have you tracked down my son?”

She appeared stern, “We will get to that. The Nint’ian you struck is pressing charges, and there is some consternation about your choice of words you used in the altercation.”

“My son is five...what?”

Meagan couldn’t believe her ears. This had to be a joke.

“You are being charged with assault, and potentially with making threats.”

Meagan’s mind raced back to the incident, playing it over in her mind, “You mean that I’m in trouble for hitting them with my purse and calling them a FUCKING BUG?” A nearby officer looked over at them, and the policewoman shook her head.

“Yes, you committed an assault, and that type of language is threatening to our visitors. It is all on the security cameras which we have reviewed. Now, you are a citizen in good standing, so we are willing to allow for bail…”

“ALLOW FOR BAIL? What is this bullshit? I need to speak to my attorney.”

“Of course, you can call your attorney. We will need to place you under arrest first, which we were waiting for you to come to before Mirandizing you. Please remain calm.”

The policewoman nodded, and another office came over, and read her rights to her, and placed her in handcuffs. Meagan couldn’t decide if she needed to punch the woman sitting in front of her, start screaming for Marcus, or just cry. She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. “Mazie!”

“Your daughter was placed with protective services when we brought you in. We have contacted your husband to inform him what has happened, and that after evaluation, she might be returned.”

“EVALUATION?”

“Please calm down Mrs. Hannigan. Your use of slurs and violent behavior demonstrate that your house may not be a safe home for children. CPS will make that determination.”

Defeated, the tears poured. “What of my son?”

The policewoman picked up her tablet and tapped on it a few times. “Your son is safe and alive. The Nint’ians have a creature on their homeworld whose cries at night helps them rest. They sound remarkably like what a human child’s cries sound like. We believe that is why they took him. They mean him no harm, and he will be well cared for.”

Meagan’s breath stopped, and blackness crept in around the edges, but she pushed it back. “What? You mean to tell me that my son is a sound machine for these bugs, and helps them relax? Tell me the SWAT team is headed over there right now.”

The policewoman pushed her glasses up once more. “No, since he is in no danger, we are sending no officers. We must be tolerant of our guest’s customs. They have had such a wretched existence, we must do all we can to make them feel welcome. They always release the children after a short bit, anyway. And I don’t appreciate you using that slur in referring to the Nint’ain.”

Red steam flowed over Meagan’s eyes, but she drew in a deep breath and it passed out her ears. “You mean to tell me they have done this before, you knew about it, and you never thought to inform us about the danger?”

“As I said before Mrs. Hannigan, the children are in no danger. They are well cared for, apparently the creature from their home is thought of as a pet. The mayor and governor both thought it best to not draw attention to this, especially when those supremacists vandalized the Nint’ain Welcome Center last year. Such a dreadful incident. Fortunately, we caught them and punished them accordingly.”

Meagan remembered that. Four young men in the community spray painted several slurs and derogatory remarks about the Nint’ain the day after the Center had been completed. Meagan had forcefully chastised their parents during the town hall the following week. At the time, she felt proud to shame them. Now she wanted to do a lot more than spray paint that building.

*****

The police released Meagan that evening, after her attorney came down, and put forth bail in the amount of $10,000. Apparently it had been set so high as a discouragement to people committing crimes against the Nint’ain. It was a strain on their finances to pay it, but that wasn’t the primary thing on Meagan’s mind then. Her attorney drove her home.

Dan was over at CPS, called in from work over at Mayo, trying to get Mazie back. Meagan was crumpled on her hallway floor, just inside the garage door. She tried to curl up more, but every movement was agony. Tears puddled on the floor, the most she could muster was a whimper at this moment.

Douglass sat next to her, his head resting on his paws. She had pulled his leash down to take him out when she got home, but collapsed here instead. He waited patiently, laying vigil with her.

“What am I going to do? How am I going to get Marcus back?” Douglass licked his lips, but said nothing. “I can’t do nothing. My baby was kidnapped by monsters. Monsters who have no business being here. What am I going to do?”

Douglass breathed out his nose, and farted. He raised his head expectedly as Meagan’s hand holding the leash moved slightly. “Well that is an idea. Lets get your walk in. You probably need to pisswee.”

Douglass stood up and wagged his tail. Meagan took a few moments standing up, with Douglass licking her face excitedly when she was halfway. She clipped his leash in, and opened the door to the garage. She pressed the large button, and the big doors opened. She and Douglass stepped out into the night. They made it four steps, when light exploded around them, and suddenly they were surrounded.

“Mrs. Hannigan, tell us why you used a dastardly slur today?”

“Are you a racist Mrs. Hannigan?”

“Are you going to spend time in jail Mrs. Hannigan?”

“Where is your family Mrs. Hannigan? Are you a bad mother?”

Meagan held her free hand over her eyes, trying to see beyond the camera lights. Douglass, to his eternal credit, started barking and snarling at the reporters, keeping them back.

“Your dog is a violent as you Mrs. Hannigan.”

“Keep that animal away from us. We demand to know what kind of person you are!”

“Have you always hated our guests?”

Meagan pulled Douglass back, not for their sake, but she decided to retreat back into the house. The assembled throng came up to the garage threshold, but did not enter. They were still shouting when the door closed them off.

How could they ask such things? Didn’t they know that those creatures had stolen her son? Did they care? The media certainly must have known this about the creatures. Why hadn’t they told everyone? She moved to the living room, leaving Douglass’s leash still attached. She turned on the screen, and flipped to a local station.

Her house was there. On the screen. An overhead drone shot to be sure, but it was hers. In bold letters on the bottom it screamed “Local Racist Hides Inside House”. She sat down without even realizing it, and Douglass barked. She unhooked his leash, and changed the channel. Her again. And again. And again.

The national news services was her. The international news service, her. The system feed, her. Even the three alien channels from Gusniamra and Beltra Consortium were her. Not one of them mentioned that those vermin had her son. Not one. The video of her screaming at them cut out her words before you bug, and they all showed her hitting one with her purse.

Apparently the one that stole Marcus was a child, so now she was labeled as a dangerous supremacist, yelling slurs at children. If she hadn’t dehydrated herself already from tears, she would be crying now. She sat there, her mouth agape, wondering what she ever had done to deserve this.

She was still sitting there when Dan came home, hours later. Part of her was convinced that she was the worst person ever to have lived, as the media told their audience that she was. He let Douglass out the back, and sat next to her on the couch, cradling her in his arms.

“I think Mazie is coming home tomorrow. I explained to them that it was momentary insanity, what you said. They are going to have a followup visit in a few weeks, to check on everything. I can’t believe all of this Meagan. It is surreal.”

“Did you know you married a racist, Dan?”

“That's not funny Meagan. You aren’t a racist, I know you.”

Meagan breathed in deeply. “I don’t know anymore. Everyone in the universe thinks I am, for calling that cockroach a bug. They stole Marcus, Dan. Stole him. And nobody is willing to help me get my baby back. I should have never stopped you from buying that gun.”

Dan squeezed a bit harder. “It wouldn’t have changed anything today. You wouldn’t have been carrying it in your purse. And they would have charged you with murder.”

Meagan sniffled, “But Marcus would be here. And you can’t murder a bug.”

Dan whispered, “I know. But we can’t argue about them being here anymore. They aren’t going anywhere.”

Meagan sat up, staring at her husband. He had said nothing when she talked about the governor’s race, and how compassionate she was. He never said a word about her protest about the Welcome Center. He stayed quiet whenever she bragged to their friends about how proud she was that Rochester was chosen for a settlement. “You didn’t vote for her, did you?”

Dan shook his head.

In some ways, it was the biggest shock of the day. She thought she knew him, but this changed everything. Had this come out yesterday, Meagan would have railed Dan up and down the walls. Today, she wished that he had shook her, telling her how stupid she had been, and told her to vote his way like the old pictures with patriarchal men telling their wives what to do. Because she realized that she was part of the problem. She had supported all of it.

Meagan had thought that creatures would be shipped to the Megapolis-St. Paul. Not her backyard. Her neighborhood had applauded her when she fought for them to be brought here, and her activism for the governor. They applauded her speech in front of the vandalized Welcome Center, stating that hate had no place here in Rochester. She ignored the little voice in her stomach that said that it was bad, but no one would applaud listening to that voice.

****

Meagan woke up at 4:29 am, in a start. Dan breathed softly next to her, Douglass on the floor, legs kicking as he dreamt of better days. She walked out to the kitchen, and grabbed a drink from the refrigerator. She needed a run. She peered out her window, and spied nobody out there. It was now or never.

The cool night air dried the sweat as soon as it gathered on her skin. Her heart ached, but as each step connected with the pavement, her resolved gathered. She would get Marcus back, and then her real work would begin. They had to leave.

The other aliens they encountered out there weren’t permitted in large numbers to live amongst them. Certainly not on Earth. The Nint’ain could deal with their own problems. They didn’t belong here. Stealing children could just be the beginning. There was no way for them to become more human, or assimilate. They would always be foreigners.

The idea would have been something that just a week ago she would have called a person explaining it to her a racist or supremacist. Now it was clear as day. She needed to find a platform and get the whole story out. People had to know that their children were in danger from these creatures, and they needed to start the grassroots.

There had to be other parents out there that had gone through the same thing. Meagan began to plan out how to reach out to them, pool their resources, offer a support for other parents. She needed to apologize to the parents of those vandals she had condemned. She thought that some of them had moved away, but what she did to them she needed to make right.

Meagan rounded the block, and saw her house ahead. No reporters. Good.

She reached the end of her driveway, and out of the bushes stepped a young woman, with blue hair in a ponytail and Save the Earth, Kill a Nazi t-shirt. “Are you that lady on the screens?”

Meagan put her hands on her hips, “You don’t know the whole story. They stole my Marcus. I was just trying to get him back.”

The girl tilted her head, “Oh, I see. Then its alright then.”

Meagan breathed out, releasing the tension. The girl smiled, and pulled out a large pistol from her back. She pointed it at Meagan and pulled the trigger once.

Meagan looked up at the stars, laying on the cool concrete. The girl stood over her, a large grin on her face. “Stop the hate, Save the Earth!”

She pulled the trigger once more.