Must be this Tall to Ride, Part Three

Artino looked up at the Altairian with the gun and realized that he was tall for one of his kind. Maybe even three and a half feet even without the head scarf. He'd noticed so little about him before but now he, like everyone on the bus, was very interested in what might be going on inside the shooter's mind.

Even the man who he'd shot was looking up at him, his eyes glazed over with the pain of his wound but with his brow furrowed in confusion. The idea that a Stump might have shot him, might have hurt him, seemed to confuse him as much as anything.

For a moment Artino wondered if the tears running down the human's face were as much to do with that quandary as with the spreading pool of blood. He pushed that thought away though. The only thing to worry about now was trying to salvage the situation and possibly save his own life, as well as those of his family back home.

“My name is Artino.”

The words felt flat and stilted, even in the deep baritone of his kind, but he armed them with every bit of friendliness he could. The other Altairian looked at him again then and said, “I cannot tell you my name but you may call me Fighter.”

“Fighter.” Artino let the word roll off of his tongue and hoped that his nervousness was well hidden. He had never seen the blood of a human in person and the stench was overwhelming to his sensitive nostrils. “Why is today going to be a glorious day?”

He immediately regretted the words as he saw the face of the Fighter light up in enthusiasm.

“Today will be a glorious day for many reasons.” He paused and Artino could see his eyes narrowing in a fit of rage as his four shoulders arched backward. “Today will be the day that the Freedom Fighters of Altair show how strong we are and how strong we will be.”

And suddenly every person on the bus, human and alien, locked eyes on the one calling himself Fighter, searching in his eyes for a vague hope that the day might not end with all of their deaths.

“Listen well, Whistles.” The derogatory word for humans came out with such violence from the Fighter's face that Artino started. He'd never heard anyone use the word in the presence of one from Earth, though he imagined they all knew what the word meant. “You have taken everything we have and given nothing back. Our technology, which we offered in peace, and our culture. You mix our homeland's music with the horrible noises you call entertainment and you have fattened yourselves off the plant altering techniques we brought, but what have we gotten in return?”

He paused for effect and waved the gun in air above him before noticing that the bus was slowing down and that the driver was looking back at him as well. The barrel of the pistol came across the side of her head then and the pierce of her scream followed the small spray of blood to the back of her seat. The Fighter though, seemed to have calculated the pressure of his strike and she continued to drive, though whimpering all the while.

“We scrub your toilets and we build your terrible junk products which are too dangerous for your own weak bodies. We work for you for nothing and always under the fear that we might offend. You have turned us into slaves, but no more.”

Artino noticed the blue and red lights then, circling the bus. It seemed the driver had pushed the emergency alarm after all, though the Fighter seemed to ignore it.

“But now, now we shall--”

The man on the floor interrupted him then, his words falling from his lips as gasps of breath but loud enough to stop the Altairian.

“You won't do shit. You're just a bunch of weak willed little piss ants.” The man took a deep breath and tried to lift himself against one of the seats, only to fall back into the puddle of blood beneath him with a grunt.

“You dumb little fucks couldn't do anything with that tech anyway, dying fast as you do. We've done you a favor and if any of these assholes in the back of the bus had any balls they'd take you down now. What's the world coming to that we're letting goddamn Stumps talk to us like this. . .”

The Fighter lifted the pistol then and pointed it toward the forehead of the man, barely three feet away. The man's eyes were not on it though; he examined his knee, seemingly for the first time as he trailed off and the tall Antairian tensed.

Between his gun and the body of the human suddenly stood the body of Artino, as surprising to himself as to any other on the bus.

“No. This is not the way to do it.”

Must be this Tall to Ride, Part Two

“Now, listen. You’re going to let me on this bus, then you’re going to sit down and drive like nothing’s wrong. Understand?”


Between the beads of sweat breaking out along the bus driver’s brow and the way her eyes locked onto the barrel of the gun pressing into her cheek, Artino doubted the bus driver had understood anything the young Altairian had said at all. A nervous murmur rippled throughout the bus. Was this for real? Artino could hardly believe it himself. It was illegal for Altairians to own weapons. Any human caught selling them faced imprisonment; any Altairians caught selling or owning a gun faced the rope.

Fear gripped Artino’s stomach like a vice. If the humans managed to take that gun away, there would be no arrest and no trial. His family would find his body in a ditch on the side of the road.

“What is this, some kind of joke?”

A square-jawed man with clipped blond hair rose from his seat and strode toward the front of the bus. The young Altairian eyed him warily, but the gun remained firmly planted into the cheek of the bus driver.

“This is some kind of alien rights shit, isn’t it?” The man stopped just short of Artino, towering over them with his six feet of height. “If it is, you can take your little toy gun and march your stump ass right out of here. If you’re so damn angry about the life we let you live on Earth, just go back to your own fucking planet.”

The air in front of Artino exploded. That was the only way to describe it. One second the man was towering over them, hand raised as if he was about to strike one of them; the next, there was a sound next to his ear so loud it pierced his ear drums like a knife, and the man was one the floor, screaming and cursing and gripping his bleeding knee. The murmur turned into a chorus of screams as the humans in the front seats rose and tried to flee to the back; all three dozen human clustered around the back few rows of seats like a flock of sheep threatened by an angry dog. Blood flowed in rivets from the man’s knee, following the slight slope of the bus floor until a shallow pool of blood formed around Artino’s feet.

“Any of you try anything else, and you’ll end up worse than him,” the Altairian said. He turned back toward to the bus driver, who had fallen back in her seat and given over to panicked blubbering, tears and snot dripping off her chin as she begged him not to kill her.

“Drive. Drive until you reach the Capitol building. You stop for anything, I’ll shoot you and do it myself.”

The bus driver complied, and the doors closed behind Artino with a swoosh. The engined revved and the bus eased out of the station and onto the highway, gliding swift and silent toward disaster.
Inside, the bus was full with the sounds of whimpers and sobs. The man who threatened them had finally stopped screaming, but started to let out a low, continuous moan as he doubled up over his knee. It occurred to Artino that he should have left when he had the chance, should have jumped out the doors before they had closed, should have never stepped out of bounds in the first place, but all he could focus on was the blood. Everything other thought in his head seemed vague and muted in comparison, like hearing someone shout from the other side of a closed window.

Next to him, the Altairian slipped a small, square contraption from his coat. He flicked a switch and a small display lit up and began to count down. He turned to Artino and smiled.

“Never fear, brother. Today is a glorious day.”

Must be this Tall to Ride, Part One

The Number 14A was late. The Number 14A was always late.

Artino had taken to calling it the “Number Late-Teen A” in his thoughts but the extra twenty minute wait at the stop honestly wasn't the worst thing in the world. He always left an hour early, just in case, and the extra time to himself was always a nice reprieve from the twelve hour shifts and the monotony of home. Still, it would be nice if the bus could come on time, at least once this millennium.

But today it wasn't and after an hour and ten minutes Artino was starting to get a little antsy. If he showed up more than fifteen minutes late at the office they would dock his day's pay and still expect him to finish the shift. Not only that, he'd have to speed through cleaning the first two floor's bathrooms and bins. Not something he ever looked forward to, though doing it faster wasn't that much harder than doing it slow.

If only there were jobs closer to home; the only work for Altairians was in the city as cleaners, janitors, dishwashers, and bellboys and that meant taking the bus. No one would hire one for anything else, especially out in the suburbs and honestly, the work was pretty well suited to his kind, if degrading. Standing about three feet tall on average, their race had fallen right into the roles of servants since they'd landed on Earth thirty years ago. Not that any of those from that first wave were left alive, what with their lifespans lasting only fifteen to twenty of the local's years.

Scratching his left hind ear Artino thought of his grandfather Marcina, one of the original scouts for the first landing ships. He remembered how the old one would complain endlessly of the life they'd found here. He'd talk all day about how desperate the command crew of the massive generation ship had been and how they'd picked this planet as the only inhabitable one in range as the stocks ran low. Of course even that had been many generations before grandpa; at least 100 of the Earth years.

Second Grandmother Icknaria, though, would always stop him and say how grateful they should be that the humans had taken them in at all, what with their desperation, but the First Grandmother Asnap would scream and yell and flap her four arms about how this was no heaven, how they were all slaves, etc. etc.

Sometimes Artino was glad the old cunt was dead.

“Number 14A Bus is canceled for the next two cycles due to mechanical difficulties.”

The words started to scroll across the top of the stop as Artino was lost in sight and on the second pass he noticed them, only to stand with attention. If the bus was canceled he would not only loose his pay for the shift but he would end up being docked for the week. An entire week without pay would mean he, his three parents, two di-wives, and six children would go without food for the meantime.

Two other Arturians stood up at the same time and began to fidget nervously, edging closer to the electric rails which the buses rode on, eyeing each other and looking up at the sky as if the weather might somehow affect the bus schedules. The weather on their home world, though no Arturian had seen it in millions of their own years, had harsh enough weather to imprint on their instincts even now.

Looking to his right he noticed that one of the others on the platform was dressed a little shabbier than those who were obviously here on their way to work. That one was dressed in the same humanistic clothes as the rest of them but his were festooned with little splashes of color and a head scarf of brilliant red geometric patterns. The styles of their home world were catching on with a part of the youth, Artino had heard, especially those in the new movement for Arturian rights.

What ones weren't imprisoned or “disappeared” by the humans.

The Number 14 bus though, rolled right in on time as they fidgeted and when it did the couple of humans waiting patiently on their own bench stood up and started to walk toward it, making a point to not look down at the aliens or notice their presence at all, much less their anxiety.

Artino looked at the screen on the side of the bus emblazoned with number 14 and the time, doing the math in his head as he figured that if he could somehow take this bus he would make it on time to work, but barely. Of course he wouldn't be allowed on the 14 bus proper, that was only for humans, but maybe they would listen to his plight. Maybe this once, he'd even pay double the Arturian fair. Surely they'd take that since the human buses were free.

Rushing toward the door as it whooshed open he stood behind the two humans and after each walked aboard he lifted his small left feet to put them upon the bottom step. Mid way through though, the bus driver, an older human woman with dark skin, stood up and shouted down at him.

“Hey, don't y'all see the goddamn sign?”

Of course Artino saw it though, that sign that he'd seen so many times in so many variations. Must be this tall to ride, the words emblazoned in red against a marker at roughly three and a half feet.

“But I really have to get to work and I--” His voice the deep monotone of his race, was cut off by the woman before he could finish.

“Yeah yeah, and don't be tellin' me that shit. Sign say's y'all can't get on so back off before I call the cops.”

“But I--”

“Hey, stumps, let me tell you--”

And quicker than either one could register there was the one in the shabby clothes and the Arturian scarft between the two of them staring up at the woman on the steps with her angry eyes and shouting in the same deeply baritone voice as Artino, “Who you callin' stumps, huh sec-mo fucker?”

“Y'all better back off 'fore the cops get here. I just pushed the panic button and you. . .”

But she went silent when the other one's second left arm came out holding the gun and reaching out toward her head with the barrel pressed nearly against her cheek.

“What now, whistle?”