by Ken Warner
He stalked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
Sydney jumped to her feet and ran out into the corridor, but Babcock was nowhere to be seen. She made her way toward where she thought she’d come in but only managed to get lost in the labyrinthine building.
Finally, she ran into a security guard who provided her instructions back to the main entry.
The midday sun blinded her as she emerged from the building into the parking lot. She found Brian’s Mercedes parked next to her truck. She tried calling him, but it went to voicemail. She decided to wait for him—she wanted to know what the hell was going on. She was pretty sure Babcock would be the one interrogating Brian, too.
Chapter Two: Stranger in the Night
Sydney didn’t have long to wait. Brian came strolling out of the building only fifteen minutes later.
“Hey,” she said, sliding down from the hood of her Explorer. “That was fast.”
“Yes,” he replied with a grin. “I learned right before arriving that we’ve both been granted a pardon, so I knew Babcock’s interrogation was toothless. I didn’t answer most of his questions.
“But why don’t we stop for coffee, and we can compare notes?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “Is there a Starbucks nearby?”
They got into their cars, and Sydney followed him out of the complex. As they approached the gate, she saw a crowd of TV crews waiting for them just beyond the fence. Reporters shouted questions at them as they drove past, but Sydney kept her windows up.
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting down with their coffees at the local Starbucks.
“So, you first,” said Brian. “What did Babcock have to say to you?”
Sydney told him all about her interrogation.
“Funny,” he said when she was done. “He tried to convince me that you might have been involved with bringing the Malor here.”
“Are you serious? What the hell is he up to?”
“I’m not sure. I had a meeting with an agent from the NSA a few days ago and went over everything with her. So, the government already knew everything that happened with the Othali and the Malor, from our perspective, before Babcock contacted us. It would seem that he was just trying to sow distrust between the two of us.”
“And he was trying to make me distrust Melissa and Bomani, too,” Sydney observed. “But for what purpose? They’re gone, and it’s all over now. And Jaden and Malia left, so it’s not like he can get control of them anymore. I don’t understand what he wanted with us.”
Brian shrugged.
“It’s hard to know with him. But it doesn’t make any difference at this point—the pardons put us out of his reach.”
“Yeah, and about that—who pardoned us, exactly?”
“There’s only one person who can issue pardons for federal crimes,” he said. “The president,” he added in response to her blank stare.
“The president? Like of the United States?”
“The one and only,” he said with a chuckle. “The NSA agent who interviewed me must have relayed the information to her superiors. I am a little surprised at how quickly this happened, though. Under normal circumstances, this type of thing would take months to come to fruition.”
“Well, the circumstances weren’t exactly normal.”
“Hardly,” he agreed.
“Hey, what was with all those reporters back there?”
“You mean they haven’t been camping outside your house yet?”
“What? No—why would they? Are they camping outside your house?”
“I doubt they’ve been able to find where I’m living right now…”
“Off the grid?” she asked knowingly.
“Not exactly. Well, the press is aware that you and I were both closely involved with the events surrounding the invasion. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before all the major outlets have people stationed at your residence.”
“Lovely,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So. Tell me what this new job of mine is going to entail.”
“You’re still on board?”
“I am. The hospital was destroyed in the attack, so I would have been looking for something else anyway.”
“Ah, yes,” he said with a frown. “Well, I think, for now, we’ve both earned a little vacation. I’ll start paying you immediately, of course, but take some time off. I’m sure you could use the rest—I know I could.”
“Okay, fair enough. But what will I be doing once the vacation’s over?”
“I’m not exactly sure yet. I’ve spent much of my time in recent years investigating the power station. After recent events, that project has come to an end. But I’m sure something else interesting will come along.”
“You don’t plan on having me work for your security company?”
“Not directly, no,” he said. “I still oversee that business but have not been involved in the day-to-day operations for quite some time. It pays the bills, don’t get me wrong. But I prefer to spend my time on more interesting pursuits—the power station, for example. The history of Atlantis. I was thinking of having you work with me in those sorts of endeavors.
“But it’s hard for me to say at this point precisely what you’ll be doing until the next, ah, pursuit presents itself.”
“Okay, then,” said Sydney, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “It doesn’t sound like I’ll have much job security this way…”
“You do, trust me,” he replied. “After the way you took care of my niece and nephew, and the danger you put yourself in—and the resourcefulness you showed through the whole affair… the job is yours as long as you want it. Don’t worry; we’ll find plenty of work for you to do.
“At this point, I suspect the job will involve Malor activity in some capacity.”
“Oh? How so—they all went down in their ship, didn’t they?”
“Most, but not all,” he said. “The majority perished in the inferno, but thousands survived. The military has been transporting them to holding facilities in Guantanamo.”
“Cuba?”
Brian nodded. “But they weren’t the only survivors. They had scout ships doing reconnaissance in most heavily populated areas around the globe. Those ships—all their technology—have reportedly lost power since the destruction of the mother ship.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m not exactly sure. But it seems they had some method of transferring power from the engines on the mother ship across great distances to the smaller vessels.”
“How intriguing…”
“Indeed! We’ve got the tech to transfer power that way using microwave radiation or lasers, but in both cases, a direct line of sight is required. The Malor were transmitting power to locations around the globe, so no such direct beaming should have been possible.”
“How, then?”
Brian shrugged, throwing his hands in the air.
“This may end up being one of our first pursuits,” he said. “My first guess would be satellites, but who knows.
“In any event, governments around the world have been rounding up the Malor who have become stranded in their territories. But I’ve heard reports that some of them have found ways to generate their own power and are causing mischief for the local authorities.”
“Ah,” she said with a nod. “They’re pretty resourceful, too.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “They certainly are.”
They left Starbucks soon after and agreed to stay in touch. Sydney drove back to her house.
Her cat, Charlie, greeted her at the door when she went inside.
“Hey, buddy,” she said, scratching under his chin. “Who’s my good boy?”
She spent the rest of the afternoon doing housework but couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had happened with the twins and the invasion. She had some leftovers for dinner and fed the cat. Then she poured herself a glass of wine and went to sit outside on the front porch.
Sipping her wine, she watch
ed the sun setting over the neighborhood. It was so peaceful here, so quiet, but she knew the devastation of the attack was only a few miles away.
She’d driven inside the beltway a couple of days after it happened. The road she was on just ended, and beyond lay a hellscape straight out of some apocalyptic nightmare. The smoldering ruins of the city spread out for miles, plumes of thick smoke rising to the sky.
The wood frame buildings in that area had been obliterated, and nothing but ash remained. Ruins of some brick and steel buildings remained in places, random stalagmites poking out from the barren landscape.
Most striking, in a way, was the lack of color—everything was black and gray. Sitting now on her front porch, remembering that destruction, the green of the trees seemed like a miracle. So much life surrounded her here when nothing but death and ruin remained in the city.
A news truck pulled up across the street, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“Aw, shit,” she muttered, getting to her feet as a reporter emerged from the truck and hurried toward her.
“Ms. Hastings?” the woman said.
Sydney didn’t answer, moving back inside her house and locking the door behind her. Thirty minutes later, several other news crews had joined the first; each came knocking at her door when they arrived.
She ignored them all and sat in her living room drinking her wine, with all the blinds closed and her curtains drawn tight. She had music playing on the sound system loud enough to drown out the noise coming from outside.
Well, at least Brian had warned her this was coming.
She peered out through the curtains periodically, and as the evening wore on, the trucks departed one by one, giving up on getting an interview with her. Finally, there was just one car sitting at the end of the street. She wasn’t even sure it was from a news organization.
Sydney was feeling pretty tipsy by this point, having polished off most of the bottle of wine. She brushed her teeth, changed into her pajamas, and made her way to bed.
She drifted off to sleep in minutes. But suddenly, there was a noise, jarring her awake.
Sydney sat up in bed, listening intently. There it was again—someone was knocking on her door.
“Oh, come on,” she said, getting out of bed. It was probably another reporter. “Just go away.”
She made her way downstairs and peered out the front window, but there was nobody on the porch. Someone knocked again—it was coming from her back door.
Sydney went to the kitchen and peeked through the curtain. There was an older woman on her back porch—she did not look like a reporter. Her hair was disheveled, as if from the wind, though the night was calm.
“Yes?” Sydney called through the door.
“Sydney? Sydney Hastings?” the woman said.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Martha—I’m in trouble, and I need to speak with you. I don’t know who else to turn to…”
Sydney looked through the window again. The woman appeared to be extremely distressed. Her facial expression was anxious, and she was practically cowering away from the porch light.
“What kind of trouble?” Sydney asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m being followed—they’re coming after me. I have information—people need help! I need help! Can I please come in?”
Letting a stranger into her house in the dead of night went against her better judgment, but Sydney felt compelled to find out how she could help this woman. Perhaps it was instinct from years of working as a nurse, but she couldn’t just turn someone away who clearly needed help.
She unlocked the door and let the woman inside. Martha moved past her, a heavy satchel hanging from her shoulder. After looking around her backyard to see if anyone else was out there, Sydney locked the door again and led the woman into the kitchen. She offered her a seat at the kitchen table. Martha sat down, lowering her satchel to the floor. Sydney took the chair across from her.
“Thank you—thank you so much,” said Martha, her voice full of relief. “I’m so sorry for disturbing you in the middle of the night like this. But I’m afraid they’re going to kill me, and I had to tell someone what’s going on before it’s too late…”
“Who’s going to kill you? What’s going on?”
Martha let out a long sigh. Sydney could see now that she’d been crying.
“It’s a long story, and it’s not something that most people would believe,” she said. She seemed panic-stricken—she was breathing heavily and had a look of fear in her eyes. “But I know you’ll understand—after everything you went through with those—aliens… There’s so much; I’m not sure where to start…”
“Take a deep breath,” Sydney suggested, “and start at the beginning.”
“Okay,” Martha said. “I’ll try. It started, for me at least, about thirty-five years ago. I was just out of college. This was back when I lived in Kansas before I moved here to Washington.
“Anyway, I was staying with friends in Topeka for a few days, and I was driving back home. It was late at night. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky—it gets very dark out there at night. Without all the city lights, you can see the Milky Way very clearly.
“But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, these clouds moved in. And there were these lights inside of them—it wasn’t lightning, though. It’s hard to explain. It was like floodlights, a ring of them, but hidden in the clouds. And it was like they were coming right at me.
“I turned off the route, down a side road, but it followed me…”
“The clouds?”
“Yes, and the lights, all of it. And then my car died. In the middle of nowhere, nothing but cornfields as far as the eye can see. And the lights—they came down just over the road. Still shrouded in those dark clouds, so I couldn’t properly see where the light was coming from.”
Martha paused, taking a deep breath and letting it out again.
“And that’s all I remember. The next thing I knew, I woke up in my bed in the morning, and my car was parked in my driveway.”
“Wait, I don’t get it,” said Sydney. “What happened out there? What were the lights? How did you get home?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Well, I think I know now, after researching this kind of phenomenon for all these years. But I can’t remember any of it myself.
“What I know for sure is that I lost an entire day. It was late on a Monday night when I was driving home. But when I woke up in my bed, it was Wednesday morning.”
“What were you doing between those times?” asked Sydney.
“I don’t know—I have no memory whatsoever of anything that happened during that time period. I think I was abducted.”
“Abducted? By whom?”
“Not whom. What.”
Sydney only stared at her in confusion.
“I believe it was aliens,” Martha told her. “I’m almost certain of it.”
Sydney had heard stories about alien abductions before but had never given the idea much thought. And she’d certainly not considered it in light of the recent events and revelations surrounding the invasion.
“Go on,” she said.
“Well, I spent a lot of time trying to reconstruct what happened. I drove back to the road where it all started. But there was no sign of anything strange happening there. Nothing at all.
“I was afraid to talk to the authorities, for fear that they would think I was crazy. I did go to my doctor for a complete checkup. I didn’t say anything about aliens, but I told him there was an entire day I couldn’t remember. He was no help. Said I was totally healthy, and there was no sign of trauma or anything.”
“And you hadn’t been drinking or anything? Nothing that would cause you to black out?”
“No, I didn’t drink back then.
“But I started looking into it, and I discovered that I’m not the only one who’s had an experience like this. There are thousands of people who have reported incidents just like mine.”
“Thousands?”
“The first widely documented case in the U.S. was Betty and Barney Hill, back in 1961,” said Martha. “But there were cases going back as far as 1954. There have been thousands since then, all over the world.
“And mostly, they’re just like mine. People out in the middle of nowhere at night report seeing strange lights in the sky. Sometimes they can remember a spacecraft of some kind landing on the road. But almost nobody remembers anything beyond that. They all report missing time—some as much as two weeks.
“And then they wake up at home, or somewhere they’d normally expect to be as if nothing had happened. Except that they’re missing time that they can’t account for.”
“You said almost nobody remembers anything else,” said Sydney. “Some people do?”
“A few. And those people say for certain it was aliens. They describe beings who look very much like the aliens from the invasion. But these incidents date back decades, so I don’t know how that could be possible if these Malor didn’t show up until now.”
“Well,” said Sydney with a sigh, “they have been here before. They’ve been sending scout ships here for centuries. Trying to determine if our planet was ready to be processed to replenish their resources.”
“Hmm, that might explain it,” said Martha. “The thing is, the number of abductions has skyrocketed since the invasion. I’ve had reports from people all over the world these last several days.”
“That’s strange,” said Sydney. “I’m not sure I understand why the Malor would be abducting people. Especially now—with the destruction of the mother ship, their technology has stopped working.
“Is it the Malor who are following you?”
“No, it’s a man,” she said, suddenly sounding more anxious again. “A man in a black suit. He follows me wherever I go.”
“Wait—a man in black—like in that Will Smith movie?
“They based the movie on this man, yes,” said Martha. “But unlike in the movie, there’s only one. And he doesn’t make you forget—the forgetting happens on its own.”
“Okay, so what does he have to do with anything?”