“Mercury,” Stanley muttered, sipping his Scotch.
Of course, they wouldn’t tell the public that just yet. Who knows how they might react to news of a potential third visit? Then again, after two, did it really matter any more? Whatever these things wanted, the human race was powerless to stop them from taking it.
He watched the replay of the president’s address, a show of leadership to allay fears. Turner just told the people what they already knew: that the aliens had indeed returned and the strange phenomenon had occurred again. The people of Victoryville had blacked out, yet this time when they awoke, no one was missing. Everyone in Victoryville was accounted for, Clean Skins and Striped Ones. The president noted there was one major difference from the first time, however—it appeared the Striped Ones had been healed of their illnesses. But the president said nothing about the mercury link, or the data upload of the cures. They didn’t want to get people’s hopes up until the data was verified. Still, he gave enough of a positive spin to keep the people of the world pacified. For now.
Once order had been restored in Victoryville, several CDC units had been dispatched into the town. Testing was underway to confirm whether the genetic defects of the Clean Skins had also been rectified. The president asked for everyone to continue to remain calm while further investigations took place, but Stanley felt that such exhortations weren’t really needed. There was something very different about things this time. People seemed less afraid. No one else had gone missing. The sick were now healed. This second visit hadn’t cost the people of Earth anything.
Yet.
News coverage from around the world showed most people had retreated from the streets, incidences of looting almost ceased and angry mobs were dispersing. Something good had occurred, and they couldn’t quite bring themselves to act badly in the face of that. Some were even calling it a miracle. Even Victoryville was peaceful, despite the atrocity that had taken place prior to the second Occurrence.
The reporter, Richard Keene, and scientist, Dr. Pellan, had handed themselves over to the authorities, while they also, along with Deputy Cann, Chief Blackstone and town resident, Abbie Randell, had brought those responsible for the Victoryville killings to justice. The Magnus Bracks problem was under control.
Stanley sighed as he finished off his drink and considered having another, thoughts of his part in the town’s combustion were haunting him. The truth was he wanted to drink the whole bottle, but he knew he would regret it in the morning. Tomorrow was another day, and there was a lot of cleaning up yet to be done. There were continuing investigations, there were barricades to be torn down, and who knew? There was always the chance that this mysterious phenomenon could occur yet again.
In fact, he was certain it would.
*
Richard sat in his apartment in New York and scrolled down the comments to his news story on the outcome of Dr. Pellan’s case. He smiled, content. Although there were some who thought both he and Pellan had acted rashly, most supported what they had done in bringing the truth to light. Richard had gotten off more lightly than Dr. Pellan. He’d been slapped with a heavy fine and charged with several offences, but his lawyer quickly had them quashed. And Harry Dean made sure his legal costs were covered.
Dr. Pellan was up against heavier charges, namely, the ones brought against him by Homeland Security, but also that of the death of Austin Saller and Langdon Swan. A top criminal lawyer by the name of Thomas Calhooney came to his defense, free of charge. Calhooney was one of the best, and he never missed the opportunity for a little limelight. Dr. Pellan’s case was the biggest the world had ever seen and Calhooney did his best to bring the house down. Public opinion was on Pellan’s side, and in the end, he was cleared of the deaths of Austin and Langdon; they were ruled as self defence, and the charges brought against him by Homeland Security were rather uniquely pleaded out behind closed doors. Pellan’s sentence was to serve some time in prison, then spend the rest of it confined and monitored in his home. His time spent in custody during the trial meant that once the verdict was handed down, his time behind bars had already been served. Calhooney, for good measure, saw the charges against Abbie for Trent Ford’s death quickly dismissed also.
Richard had been there throughout Dr. Pellan’s trial, covering it for CNN. It was the only story Richard had agreed to, having told Harry he needed some time off. Harry agreed, just telling him, “Whenever you want to hit the saddle again, kid, the door will be open for you.”
Richard knew he couldn’t focus on another story, because Victoryville was still very much inside his head. While people had moved onto Pellan’s trial, word soon got out that there had been a massive data upload during the second Occurrence. The government advised it was analyzing the data from the alien upload and would report back when they knew more. Between the mysterious upload and talk of whether the phenomenon would occur yet again, the pressure on them was mounting. Still, Richard felt as though what happened in Victoryville had not really been dealt with properly. Rather, it had been quickly swept under the rug: a black spot, a very dark time in US history, as the world moved on to attend to more “pressing” matters.
Mayor Russo had stood down from his office, the stigma of the events something he, along with the rest of the council, were keen to distance themselves from. It soon came to light that the mayor’s adversarial relationship with Magnus Bracks had served as a catalyst for the Victoryville siege. Russo was in full PR drive, though, working hard to rescue his career, offering to do his duty and testify against Magnus Bracks. He wanted to ensure the man was put away for life, and as Russo took the stand to do so, the smug look he gave Bracks screamed there was no love lost between the two.
The barrier between zones was quickly torn down, the military perimeter gradually dismantled, and movement in and out of the town eventually went back to normal as the CDC and various scientists began their testing on the survivors.
A massive effort was mounted to match orphans with families who wanted to adopt a survivor of the alien visitation, to repair damage to houses, and to thoroughly catalogue each survivor. The government had officially declared the people of Victoryville free of contagion. However, both the Striped Ones and the Clean Skins were now required, by law, to attend regular checkups every three months to ensure nothing about their health, or their DNA, changed over time. Richard, along with the other survivors of Victoryville, would be tracked by the government for the rest of his life. He felt a bit like an ex-prisoner in that regard, checking in regularly to his parole officer.
So, there was a massive effort to get the town back on its feet, and volunteers arrived to help boost the medical and police staff numbers, and do what needed to be done. As Richard had hoped, the people he remembered coming to the beach to help the animals injured in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, had come to help Victoryville.
As time passed, and the ship had not reappeared, the government realized that they could not keep the residents—now referred to by the press collectively as the Healed Ones—hostage any longer and they were finally allowed to leave. Not that many did, however. The aliens may have gone again, but fascination with the town remained.
Before long, the first tourists arrived in the town, eager to get a close-up look at some Striped Ones. For this very reason, few of those with stripes had wanted to leave the town. Forever marked, although the stripes were faded and faint, they would always be a freak show to outsiders. They would always be a memory of that ship, and of what happened in that town. And what could happen again.
Still, things almost seemed normal. Well, as normal as they could be with the mystery of the visitors still unresolved, with the faded stripes as a constant reminder, with the healthy still missing, and with the continuing government surveillance.
Although the Clean Skins had more anonymity—no one could identify them at a glance like the Striped Ones—Richard felt as though he may as well have been Striped. His face was too well known now and
anonymity was something he would never experience again. Assimilating back into the general population was something he couldn’t do. And not just because his face was well known. It was because he simply couldn’t just sweep things away like that and return to normal. The people out there, outside of Victoryville, needed to know what really happened. And future generations, he thought, needed a reminder of what the human race could have become had it given in to fear and hate. What Victoryville had almost given itself up to.
He’d met with Dr. Pellan several times while covering his trial. The man had aged before his eyes. Shocked by all that had happened, he was surprised that he too had become a central figure in the story; that Pellan’s Theory was now a part of world history.
“My hands are clean, Mr. Keene,” he’d said during one visit, “and yet I feel they are stained with blood.”
“If you hadn’t shot Austin, he would’ve killed Abbie. You saved her. And Langdon was going to kill you. Almost did kill you.”
“Yes. But how many others did I hurt by unleashing this truth upon the population?”
“If people hurt others, they did that themselves, Dr. Pellan. All you did was help set the truth free.”
Dr. Pellan had nodded sadly, events weighing upon him greatly. “Professor Meeks was always hounding me to step into the limelight. Now, here I am.”
“Yes. Here we all are. But we can do some good with this attention, Dr. Pellan. Help me. Help me write a book on what happened. Let’s tell people what really occurred. What it was like on the inside. Our stories, the stories of those in the town, they need to be told.”
Pellan looked thoughtfully at Richard for a moment before nodding. “Alright, I will.” Then he smiled, melancholy. “I don’t think what I have to say will please Professor Meeks much though.”
Richard nodded. “Well, as Abbie told me once, that’s the power of the truth. It hurts.”
So, the scientist had agreed to help with the book Richard was writing on the Victoryville phenomenon. Clearly, Dr. Pellan also wanted the events in the town to never be forgotten. He wanted to share what he saw.
And Richard knew that people would listen. For good or ill, Victoryville had become the town synonymous with alien contact. Forget Roswell, that was a joke. Richard, Dr. Pellan, Abbie, Kaitlyn, Josh, the Chalmers, and even Magnus and Roy: the world knew their names, and Richard didn’t want them to ever forget. Both he and Abbie, along with Dr. Pellan, were making sure of that. This wasn’t just about the big picture of the alien contact; this was about the detail of the individuals whose lives were turned upside down by their fellow man.
Whether they had wanted it or not, the three of them had inadvertently become the spokespeople for the Striped Ones and the Clean Skins, and they had to use their new positions wisely. Richard, given his status as a reporter, had been called upon for endless interviews afterward, but Abbie and Dr. Pellan had also been dragged in, and to their credit they had accepted the responsibility.
Richard stared at the photo displayed at the top of the article he’d been reading. It was a shot of Pellan in the witness stand, which also captured his two daughters sitting in the row behind his lawyer. Richard smiled, pleased that Dr. Pellan had finally been reunited with them, although he regretted that they had to see their father like that, cuffed like a criminal, standing in orange coveralls.
Richard recalled sitting in the Victoryville police station in one of the little cells with Dr. Pellan as they awaited their fate after handing themselves in. Dr. Pellan had looked at him, studied the dried blood that covered their healed bodies.
“We are lucky men,” Pellan had said.
“Yeah,” Richard said, although his voice didn’t portray a man who felt lucky after what he’d witnessed that day, nor looking at the cell in which he sat.
“We’ve been given a second chance,” Pellan told him.
Richard nodded, looking down at the hands in his lap.
“We’ve been given a second chance,” Pellan said again.
Richard looked up, and saw Pellan was looking past him. He turned to see what Pellan was staring at and saw the chief escorting Abbie into the cell next to theirs.
“We’ve been given a second chance,” Pellan said yet again, carefully, accentuating each word.
Richard looked back at him.
“Don’t waste it, Mr. Keene,” Pellan had told him. “Life is too short.”
He saw Pellan glance at Abbie again, and Richard turned to look at her too. She noticed his stare, and gave him a tentative smile. He returned it.
“Don’t waste it,” Pellan repeated, tilting his head back to rest on the wall behind him, and closing his eyes.
Sitting in his apartment’s study, Richard came out of his reverie and sighed. He turned his eyes away from the article and picked up his dictaphone, deciding to play back one of the recordings he’d made of his musings.
“We believe that the aliens took our healthy and they used them to heal us. The government is still trying to decipher the full implications of the data upload they gave us, but whoever these aliens were, it seems they tried to save the human race. But what have they saved? Sometimes I think they have saved a lot of good: the Abbie Randells, Dr. Pellans, Deputy Canns, Chief Blackstones and Shonda-Mays of this world. But I also see the Magnus Bracks and the Roy Kennys and can’t help wishing they’d been taken instead of the healthy.
“To save the human race from illness and disease the cost for the people of Victoryville was great. Many out there are still angry that these beings stepped in and made this decision for us. That they took us over, probed our bodies, our research, and played God. I’m sure most people of Victoryville would rather see their healthy returned than see their illnesses healed. Have the healthy gone for good? Or are they still alive somewhere? We may never know the answer. And we may never meet the aliens that did this and get the chance to ask why.
“Regardless, I don’t think we can live in a world where we wait and wonder. I see this as a second chance, a new beginning. I see this as an awakening. The phenomenon created a brutal society where survival of the fittest, or should I say, survival of the “sickest”, almost tore us apart. The aliens were trying to heal us, and we nearly destroyed ourselves in the process. That was our primal response. We gave in to fear and hate. Maybe that’s what this was about? Maybe this was a test. To see how we would react. To see what this species, alien to them, would do. And if so, what did we show them? Were they impressed by our rate of destruction? Or were they disappointed at how quickly we crumbled?
“You know, I think that’s why they showed themselves to the people of Victoryville when they came back the second time. They wanted us to see them. And they didn’t remove the stripes when they came back. If they could heal us, then they could have removed those stripes, but they didn’t. I think they left the stripes as a reminder. A reminder of what almost happened. A reminder of what not to become, of what not to do again. To remind us that we are not alone. That this is our second chance. Or maybe, our last chance. We were sick and dying before, the Striped Ones, the Clean Skins, but now we are collectively the Healed Ones. All of us. And I think that’s why it is our second chance. But will we humans heed the warning? Can we learn and rise above? Will we use these stripes as a reminder? I hope so . . . I really, really, hope so . . . because I love this Earth. And I want to live a long happy life with the people on it. This truly is the time of the stripes. This is our second chance. To never forget what happened, and to do things right moving forward.”
Richard hit stop and looked back at the screen as new comments popped up on the opened article.
“Hey,” Abbie’s voice called softly from the doorway. Richard turned his eyes to her and smiled. She leaned against the doorframe, arms folded.
“How’s it coming along?”
“I’m just taking a break,” he told her, looking at the screen, “reading the comments on the Pellan verdict.”
Abbie m
oved up behind him and scanned the screen. “Good or bad?”
He looked around at her beautiful face, her concerned eyes, the faded stripe running down her chin and neck.
“It’s all good,” he said softly. “It’s all good.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “Are you ready for your interview, Abbie Randell? Are you ready to tell your story?”
She nodded, squeezing his hand back.
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
*
Abbie searched the aisles for the spices she was looking for, glad to be able to do this, go grocery shopping like a normal person. She’d spent the afternoon being interviewed by Richard, which had been harder than she’d thought, despite the months that had passed since the second Occurrence. But in some ways the interview had been cathartic. Now, though, she needed to take a break and set her mind to other things.
Richard had suggested dinner, and she’d agreed. After drying her tears, they’d left the apartment and headed to their local grocery store. Abbie was now a resident of New York. Victoryville was somewhere she couldn’t set foot for a while. This was her home now. Richard’s home had become hers.
She looked over her shoulder and saw him walking along the fresh produce aisle, basket in hand, plucking out potatoes and shallots. Things with Richard had been unexpected, and it had happened fast, but at the same time it had felt so right, so natural. Welcomed. After the madness of what had happened, they’d been by each other’s side ever since.
She had watched as Magnus and Roy were taken into custody, and she watched as Richard and Dr. Pellan had voluntarily gone with the chief and soldiers. Abbie had gone with them, but Chief Blackstone had released her soon after. Richard told her to go home and wait with Kaitlyn and Charlie. So she did.
The Time of the Stripes Page 37