The Parrots

By the time Mary O’Hara had finished filling out the last consignment note, the space invasion was already fledging; and nobody had even noticed yet. In fact, the invasion was so well disguised, the whole world seemed to go about their own business and only the most bored and unfulfilled persons remarked upon the odd formation of the clouds.

“That cloud looks like a really large fried egg,” said Jocelyn James, fellow bored switchboard operator of Mary O’Hara, “Look at how the sun’s rays slice through the white swirly bits. They’re almost like spotlights. It’s so pretty.”

Mary took a brief glance out the windows of the reception area. The sky was indeed very pretty. A soft peachy pink had seeped into the usual motley blue and was spreading with the rolling of the clouds, painting the sky a warm, glowing coral. Bright orange rays shone through the glass and bathed the foyer with warm light. This is probably what it looks like inside a womb when someone shines a torch at it, thought Mary, squinting through the orange hue.

Not quite immediately, but neither entirely slowly, Mary noticed that smaller clouds were beginning to gather at a larger central cloud – the cloud Jocelyn had described as a fried egg. The smaller clouds seemed to be drawn towards the central cloud, stretching out long and thin before wrapping around the fried egg cloud like spun sugar. Rays of light still beamed through to the earth. Weird, maybe it’s going to storm soon, Mary thought, gazing at the spinning cloud and wondered if her office umbrella would fit into her handbag.

“Mary, check it out! The fried egg cloud is turning into a boiled egg cloud!” Jocelyn exclaimed in fascination. Sometimes, Jocelyn became excited over small things.

“There could be a spacecraft hidden in there and those sunrays are actually their searchlights,” Mary replied in mock seriousness, thinking she might as well humour dear Jocelyn. There wasn’t anything more interesting to do as a switchboard operator at the Department of Interplanetary Warfare and Disaster Relief anyway.

Jocelyn put her hand over her mouth and gave a little gasp of understanding. Mary smiled humourlessly and watched the time on her screen. Two minutes until half past five. Two minutes until she could go home, make dinner for her fiancee, nag some at him and call it a day.

It was one minute until half five when the phone rang. Mary pressed the answer icon on her projected keyboard and spoke into her headset.

“Welcome to the Department of Interplanetary Warfare and Disaster Relief. You’re speaking with Mary. How may I assist you?”

“Good god, finally! A person! Don’t you dare put me on hold, Mary!” a male voice shouted in her ear. Mary winced. It was Professor Larkwaithe from Research and Communications, two floors above. Although fitted with a remarkable brain and startling good looks, Richard Larkwaithe had a problem with volume control. “I need to talk to General Du Preez immediately! It’s an emergency!”

“Oh! Hello Richard! How has your day been? ” Mary replied with false cheer. For the past two months Larkwaithe had been calling the switchboard demanding to speak to authority concerning some ‘emergencies’. Mary suspected he just needed an excuse to talk to someone who spoke with words rather than numbers.

“Just put me through, sweetheart,” Larkwaithe said-yelled.

“One moment, please.” Mary tried the extension to General Du Preez’s personal assistant. When no one answered after six rings, she went back to Larkwaithe.

“Sorry, Richard. General Du Preez isn’t answering his extension. Would you like to leave a message or t -.”

Larkwaithe cut Mary off with another wince inducing howl, “This is a global emergency, woman! No, I don’t want to leave a message. Put me through to someone with power – Jekyll? Underwood? It is of utmost importance that the defence force is made aware of the situation and for some godforsaken reason, Du Preez and Hachette and both their PA’s have turned their bloody mobiles off! I’ve got to tell someone that we’ve detected movement from the Parrots!”

Mary frowned. The Parrots were eliminated months ago. Even she, a person who rarely kept up to date with the worldly events, knew that. By God, the company she was working for made sure of it!

“That can’t be right, Rich,” she said, “The Parrot’s were defeated after the fall of Volynski-6 and Alsteen-8. Besides, a resurgence this fast is virtually impossible. I mean, the whole world physically saw – well on TV, I suppose – the entire Parrot Fleet retreating from Earth. From our whole galaxy, actually.  Wouldn’t it take lightyears and lightyears for them to repair themselves and then lightyears and lightyears more just to travel back to the Milky Way?”

By then, Jocelyn was eavesdropping heavily onto the conversation. “Who is it?” she mouthed when Mary glanced at her. Jocelyn took an incoming call.

“Richard,” Mary mouthed back, pointing at the ceiling and wincing again when Richard hollered at her about making rubbish assumptions from office gossip.

“Sorry Richard,” Mary said, cutting Larkwaithe off when a light on her monitor flashed green, “I’ve got another call coming in. If I see General Du Preez come by I’ll be sure to inform him about the Parrots, okay?”

Larkwaithe’s voice lowered into an irritated growl. “Fine,” he said, “I’m going to keep trying his mobile. And watch the sky if you don’t believe me. There’s definitely some sort of Parrot activity in that cloud that looks like fairy floss and it’s driving me mad because I have no idea why we weren’t able to detect them before now. My charts are going bloody bonkers…”

“Good luck,” Mary said and hung up to receive the incoming call.

“Welcome to the Department of Interplaneta –.” She was cut off by the gravelly and permanently angry voice of General Du Preez.

“Mary, I want you to stay calm and listen carefully to what I say,” growled General Du Preez in her ear, “Don’t ask me where I am, just listen.I want you to shut down the foyer and launch Code Yellow.”

“Blast! Not again,” Mary hissed, “I thought we took care of it last time!”

“I thought we did too, but apparently we might be at war again.”

“Bother, and I just packed away all the guns for the summer as well! Did Richard get through to you?” Mary rapidly flicked the switches and unplugged the chords from her operator desk.

“No, but his assistant did,” General Du Preez replied, “Anyway, I need to attend some emergency meeting at the Whitehouse. Goodbye and good luck, Mary.”

He hung up and Mary swore.

“Jocelyn!” Mary called, “We’re going Code Yellow.”

When Jocelyn didn’t respond, Mary clicked her tongue and started to walk over to where the other operator was, standing strangely still in front of the window.

“Jocelyn, what –.” Mary paused a few steps behind. There was something eerie, something unsettling about the way Jocelyn stood there in front of the glass, head tilted up towards the sky.

“Mary…” she whispered, “You’d better take a look at this…”

Mary stepped cautiously towards the other woman

“Jocelyn, what is it?”

“Look at it. Just look at it.” Jocelyn’s voice shook.

Mary kept her gaze fixated on Jocelyn. She couldn’t bring herself to look up. A complicated knot had coiled itself in her stomach and she just couldn’t. But I must, Mary thought angrily and looked up. Sunlight hit her face and burned her vision for a moment before she blinked the spots away and focused on the spectacle before her.

The large cloud shaped like a fried egg had grown exponentially larger and rounder over the last fifteen minutes. It seemed to be drawing in more strips of cloud from greater distances and swirling them around and around, almost as if it were digesting. The cloud was larger than any other Mary had ever seen before. It blocked out the sun completely and made everything glow a dusty orange.

But it wasn’t the cloud’s grandeur or the speed of its growth that had both the women frozen in front the window in horror. There was an enormous crack, slicing vertically down the cloud and through it, one gigantic, dazzling ray of sun beamed out and hit the earth. The cloud hovered over the city like a humungous split piñata. Only the small objects that fell out of it was not candy but –

“Bodies,” Jocelyn breathed, “Human bodies.”

White, limp and lifeless, hundreds of naked human bodies fell at impossibly average pace, thudding lightly as they landed. It was gruesome and horrendous, yet somehow…entrancing.

It was only when the sharp blast of a gunshot splintered through the air did Mary blink and tear her eyes away. She blinked again and noticed the noise from outside. The entire city was in chaos.

“Come on,” Mary said, pulling Jocelyn away from the window. Jocelyn stumbled a few steps back but still stood, fixated.

“Come on,” Mary repeated and slapped Jocelyn across the face.

Jocelyn gasped and her eyes began to water. She stared down at the shorter woman for a moment before collapsing to her knees and throwing up.

Code Yellow. Code Yellow. I must remember that. Mary thought as she ran briskly to the utilities room, swiping her employee card and turning a sharp right when the door slid open. She swiped her employee card again across a well-camouflaged interface, which opened up to a weapons storage. She took out a Slijper .47 raygun, a LMG, a Glock .19 pistol and cartridge of tablet sized screen bombs.

“Guess we’re working overtime,” Mary said, passing the LMG to a shaking and reeking Jocelyn. Jocelyn smiled weakly, strapped on the LMG and took several deep breaths.

“Foyer shutdown,” Mary said into her headset and pressed a tiny purple button on the side. She removed it from her head and put on her jacket, placing the screen bombs in her pocket. On one side the Glock .19 pistol sat in its holster on her belt and she gripped the Slijper .47 in her hand.

Finally, she took out her umbrella from her top drawer and placed it into her handbag.