by S. A. Beck
The craft flew faster and farther than anything produced in the United States. There had been talk at the Bureau that the craft might be some super-advanced foreign government or a secretive team of leading scientists, but their spies had found no evidence of either. Those theories didn’t make sense anyway. No one on Earth could make a craft that could fly from the dark side of the moon to low Earth orbit in five hours—not the Japanese, not the Russians, no one. Clone an army of Steven Hawkings and they still couldn’t do it. It would take decades of research and development.
Centuries, more likely.
So the most plausible explanation was that extraterrestrials existed. Some egghead at the Bureau had suggested the crafts were manufactured by future humans who had mastered time travel and come back to visit their own past, but that was a bit hard to swallow. General Meade had looked at enough intel to know the simplest explanation was usually the correct one.
He’d also seen enough battlefields to know that once your enemy had surprised you, you’d better wrap your head around whatever they’d done and deal with it, or you would get fried. Like that nasty skirmish he’d been in back in 1991, in the frozen sea north of Siberia. A team of Navy Seals, Army Rangers, and Russian Spetsnaz had gone up there to suppress a rebellion by the Russian Mafia, who’d threatened to break their portion of Siberia off from the rest of Russia. They wanted to claim the oil and natural gas in the region, and they had enough Soviet-surplus nukes to do it. The secession would have led to a nuclear civil war in Russia just as Communism was going through its death throes.
The mobsters had drilled holes in the ice, climbed inside, and covered the holes with tarps covered with a thin film of water that quickly froze. When Meade and the others parachuted into what everyone thought was empty terrain, the mobsters broke through. Meade’s team had been caught in a withering crossfire, Americans and friendly Russians dropping all over, until Meade had grabbed a flamethrower and started blasting the craters. The mobsters drowned in the melted ice, which promptly refroze in the -40° temperatures.
For all he knew, they were still up there, entombed in the ice.
That would have made a good story—the last battle of the Cold War saw Russian and American troops fighting side by side to destroy an army of Russian mobsters.
Of course that story never made it into the newspapers of either country.
Neither would this UFO threat. Think of the panic. Think of the religious nutcases. No, the general population could never know they were being spied on by aliens.
Meade had no doubt that was what those beings were doing. As strange as it still seemed to him, he had to accept the fact that Earth was being spied on in preparation for an invasion.
The techniques of military reconnaissance didn’t change from culture to culture, and there was no reason to believe they would change from species to species. The flight paths of the UFOs over the past few years supported his theory. The crafts orbited the earth in a regular search pattern in order to cover the entire globe. Whenever the craft came closer, reaching the upper limits of Earth’s atmosphere, they invariably did so over sensitive military bases such as missile silos or Air Force testing sites. As far as the Bureau could tell, they did it with all the other highly militarized countries too.
The aliens had even helped them out once. Radar had picked up a silver disk hovering a mile over a secret base in North Korea. The Bureau had already heard rumors that the North Koreans were building a crude atomic bomb, and the aliens’ interest led the Bureau to send a tip to the CIA about what the rogue state was up to. They told the CIA spooks the intel had come from a Korean defector. Meade wondered how the CIA’s Korea bureau would have reacted if they knew the report had been written in a secret Pentagon office using intelligence based on UFO flight paths.
General Meade shook his head in wonder. He never used to believe in aliens. Back in the eighties, when he was a young and fast-rising officer, he’d been stationed at Holloman Air Force Base near White Sands, New Mexico. It had been one of the test centers for the then-secret Stealth Bomber. The Stealth had caused no end of UFO sightings. It made sense—the plane looked unreal, just a big black triangle. No one had ever seen a plane like it before.
He and his buddies at the base got a big laugh reading the local papers every time some wide-eyed rancher or camper reported seeing an alien ship. The idiots always embellished the tale too. One guy claimed the craft had bloodshot eyes that looked at him; another said it shot out a purple tractor beam that sucked up one of his cows.
Nobody ever said, “I saw a strange airplane. Is the Air Force testing something?”
He supposed that wouldn’t make as good of a story. Got to sell papers, after all.
When the Stealth’s flight crew came to the base Halloween party dressed as alien Greys, Meade thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.
He wasn’t laughing now.
There was no way America could fight against such advanced technology, even if the whole world allied with them, which it wouldn’t. If the aliens invaded, humans would be crushed like the Conquistadores had crushed the Aztecs and Mayans. Steel swords and muskets against flint spears and stone clubs. Spaceships and God-knows-what weaponry against Stealth Bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The civilian government would probably cut its losses and give up after the first battle.
General Meade wasn’t the quitting kind. They had one chance to beat the aliens, and it was almost as unbelievable as the aliens themselves.
The intercom on his desk buzzed.
“What is it, Major Jefferson?” he asked.
“Agent Melody Crown to see you, sir,” Jefferson’s gruff female voice replied over the intercom.
General Meade nodded. And here was that unbelievable chance, punctual as usual.
“Hold on,” he told his assistant.
He closed the dossier and put it in the safe in his office, which he locked. Agent Crown knew a lot of things most people didn’t, but she didn’t know about the spaceships buzzing overhead. She didn’t need to know. The general ground his teeth. Being briefed on so much privileged information used to make him feel special. Now it was giving him an ulcer. Ignorance really was bliss.
Sitting back down at his desk, he jabbed the buzzer. “Let her in.”
An automatic lock on his door clicked open. Agent Crown stepped into his office. At only twenty-eight, she was the youngest of his operatives and looked even younger. Her red hair was styled in the latest fashion for high schoolers, and her petite body and youthful features made her look as if she was no more than eighteen.
That could be very handy on some missions.
“Agent Crown, welcome back to the world of adulthood. Please take a seat.”
“It’s good to be back, sir. Living in that group home with a bunch of juvenile delinquents was beginning to make me feel crazy myself.”
“Not the usual sort of assignment for an operative, yet an important one, I assure you. How’s the subject?”
“Jaxon Andersen is depressed at how things turned out, and obviously afraid of having to move again. She’s resigned to it though. You’ve read her dossier. This is how her life has always been.”
“The Grants will give her stability until she is ready.”
“I haven’t met those operatives.”
“You might have to. Jaxon has bonded with you, and it could be useful to exploit that. The Grants are a husband and wife team and two of my best agents. We’re lucky to have them, seeing as they have to play husband and wife for the next couple of years.”
Crown nodded. “I can see how that would be useful. So they’ll be honing her abilities?”
“Yes. Of course they’ll have to pretend not to know about them at first. They’re subtle though, good at long-term infiltration. We’ve used them to wheedle into the confidences of people far more suspicious and dangerous than Jaxon Andersen.”
“She’s lonely, the poor thing, like all those kids. If the Grants
go softly, she’ll open up soon enough. As suspicious and jaded as she is, she’s dying to bond with someone.”
“The husband will be good for that. It’s a stroke of luck he’s a botanist. They can bond over weeding the garden,” General Meade said with a derisive smile. “His wife will have to learn to warm up though. She’s one of our best assassins. Raising a surly teenager without snapping her neck will be more of a challenge for Isadore than icing foreign diplomats.”
A flicker of concern passed over Agent Crown’s features. “They’re not going to hurt her, are they?”
General Meade shrugged. “The training will be rough once it starts in earnest. Don’t worry though. People with the Atlantis gene are hard to hurt.”
Agent Crown shifted in her seat. “If I may ask, sir, is Atlantis just the name for this project or is it… because the subjects are descended from the people of Atlantis?” Crown blushed, turning her freckled face scarlet and making her look even younger. “It’s a silly question, I know, but considering what these people can do…” She studied the general, waiting for an answer.
He decided to give her half of one. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Agent Crown sat back in her seat, her jaw slack with wonder. There was a moment’s silence as they studied each other.
General Meade decided to break it first. “Did you give the subject your number?”
“Of course. I told her to call me whenever she wants. If she goes silent, I’ll text her to say hi. She’s a bit shy, so I might have to maintain the contact.”
“Good. She’s still not on any social media?”
Agent Crown shook her head. “She doesn’t have any friends, so being on Facebook or Twitter would only depress her, the poor kid.”
“That poor kid is potentially the salvation of this nation, along with the rest of her kind.”
“From what?”
“You know better than to ask that.”
Agent Crown stiffened. “Yes, sir.”
“Keep up the good work, agent. Keep in touch with the subject, and we’ll call you when we need you.”
“Yes, sir,” Agent Crown said as she got up.
She was from the CIA, a civilian agency, so she didn’t salute. General Meade sensed she got some satisfaction from that. As she left the room, the general rubbed his jaw and considered the situation. A bit soft, that one. Civilian agents usually were, although the CIA had a few real thugs on the payroll. Meade preferred military agents, ones with training he understood. Finding a soldier who could pass for a teenage girl hadn’t been possible though.
The problem was, the civilian agencies had their own agenda. CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, BATF, and a dozen other agencies all vied with one another for funding and didn’t want to risk their chance at the limelight by sharing any information. All covert operations would run better if the military maintained sole control. With an alien invasion coming, the military should be running the entire country.
General Meade got up. He had a meeting with some brass at the Pentagon. His superiors wanted to know the results of the Poseidon Project. They were complaining that the project was progressing too slowly and had threatened to pull the plug. Those bean-counting bureaucrats didn’t understand that this wasn’t like bombing some rogue state. You didn’t get results in twenty-four hours. The project would take months, years, to achieve fruition. General Meade wasn’t a scientist, but he had worked with enough of them to know they ran at their own pace and you could only hurry them up so much. Sloppy science was no use to anyone.
The general gritted his teeth as he went out the door and locked it. He had to make those idiots at the Pentagon understand. His project was the best hope for this country, and he wasn’t about to let anything get in his way.
Chapter 5
MAY 30, 2016, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
10:45 AM
“So, like, what are you anyway?”
The tall blond girl stopped Jaxon in the hallway by stepping right in front of her. Jaxon recognized her type immediately. She was another Lizzie, another Amanda, another Natalie. Wherever Jaxon went, the Queen Bee would sniff her out as different and make sure everyone knew it.
Not that it was hard at this school. Jaxon was the only one without lily-white skin. And that, of course, was what this girl’s question was about.
Jaxon sighed. “So what’s your name this time?”
The girl screwed up her face. “What kind of spaz question is that? My name’s Courtney, everyone knows that.”
“I’m new here. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care.”
Courtney let out a little laugh. “Yeah, but do you know who you are? You look like a Chinese and an Indian got squashed together and rolled in the mud!”
A leering crowd had gathered, as usual. Now Courtney would find fault with everything about Jaxon—her different looks, her clothes, being the new kid, and probably a few made-up things too. The crowd would laugh and join in with the popular girl, and Jaxon would have to use every bit of her self-restraint to keep from popping the girl’s smug, empty head right off her shoulders.
That was how the first day of school always went down.
In public schools, the race thing never came first. Apparently with rich white kids, it wasn’t so taboo. They all looked so respectable, didn’t they? The young men and women of Hidden Hills Academy. Clean faces, straight teeth, boys in blazers and ties, girls in green plaid skirts. Little rich brats.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Courtney taunted. “Where are your parents from, some refugee camp or something?”
Jaxon flushed. She hated questions about her family.
“Her mom’s white,” one of the other girls said. “I saw her drop her off this morning.”
“That’s not my mom,” Jaxon said. Oh crap, I can’t believe I let that slip.
Courtney wore a confused expression. Jaxon suspected she got confused often. “So wait, some other woman drives you to school? They don’t let your real parents out of the refugee camp?”
“Enough already,” Jaxon said, pushing past Courtney.
As her shoulder collided with the little snob’s, Jaxon realized she’d put too much force into it. Courtney spun around and fell against the girl next to her.
“Ow! Watch it, mongrel!”
Jaxon hurried through the crowd, which parted to let her past. She went around the corner and to her locker to collect her books for her next class. Great, she’d been at her new school for all of about two hours and had nearly gotten into a fight already.
She still could. Courtney and her crew were tromping down the hallway after her, a crowd of curious kids following in their wake.
Jaxon stared back at her locker, heart pounding. Don’t hit her. You’ve got to lie low. You found a safe place for the moment. Courtney isn’t your real problem—it’s those guys who attacked you. They’re the real danger.
But can’t I hit her just once? Why am I always the one who has to show restraint?
“Hey, you!” Courtney shouted.
Jaxon turned to look at her.
Just then, Courtney’s face transformed into a bright, fake smile. “Welcome to our school!”
Jaxon stared at her. “Huh?”
A teacher walked by.
“Oh,” Jaxon mumbled.
The bell rang for class. Jaxon grabbed her books and hurried down the hall. As she did, a guy her age fell into step beside her.
“Don’t mind Courtney. She’s an idiot,” he said.
Jaxon glanced at him. Blond. Cute. Rich. Could be Courtney’s brother.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jaxon grumbled.
The boy laughed. “My name’s Brett.”
Courtney. Brett. Next I’m going to meet Chad and Britney.
“I’m Jaxon.”
“Cool name. Sorry about all that racist crap she said.”
“I didn’t hear you objecting,” Jaxon snapped.
Brett laughed again. “Courtney’s totally
tweaked out. You can’t talk to her about anything. Half the time she doesn’t even hear you. Most people can’t stand her, but she’s popular because she supplies the…” Brett held one nostril shut and made a big sniffing noise with the other.
Jaxon stopped. “She’s a coke dealer?”
Brett’s eyes widened. “Say it a little louder! I don’t think they heard you in the principal’s office.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not a narc. I have enough trouble in my life as it is.”
They stopped outside Jaxon’s English classroom.
Brett glanced in the room, where all the students were taking their seats, and back at Jaxon. “So… um… do you like golf?”
“Golf?” she asked. What a weird question. If that was supposed to be a pickup line, it was the worst she’d ever heard.
“I’m the captain of the school golf team.”
“There’s a golf team?”
Brett looked at her as if she was the one who had asked a weird question. “Yeah, wasn’t there one at your old school?”
“No, and I don’t care, because golf is boring.”
Brett looked her up and down and smiled. “You’re not boring though. I can tell. It’s going to be interesting having you around.”
Jaxon glanced into the classroom. Everyone was sitting now, and the teacher was giving her a sharp look and tapping her pen on her desk.
“Got to go,” she said, trying to summon a smile.
“See you soon,” Brett said.
Jaxon went into the classroom and took a seat. As the teacher droned on, she seethed over the scene in the hallway with Courtney. She hated the first day at a new school. It was always the same—some obnoxious girl would start in on her.
Why was it always like that? In this school she stood out, so it was more understandable, but wherever she went, it was the same. In public schools, the black kids and Asian kids rejected her as much as the white kids. It wasn’t just that she was mixed race either, because the mixed-race kids rejected her too.