by Ken Warner
“So, what, you have someone around here who keeps the place stocked for you? You’ve been in D.C. for weeks,” she said, recalling the arrangements he had for his log cabin out west.
“That’s correct,” he said. “There’s a local service that comes out weekly. I have an attached storage area on the back of the house—it’s got a cooler and freezer. They have a key for that area that doesn’t work anywhere else on the building.”
Sydney shook her head.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Everyone thinks I’m paranoid, but it’s times like this when it pays off.”
“Oh, I can’t disagree,” she said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself feeling grateful for your paranoia.”
Minutes later, he set down platters of scrambled eggs, French toast, and bacon. They discussed their situation while they ate.
“In all the chaos, do you know if you got any messages resulting from your interview?”
“Oh, no—I forgot all about that. I’ll have to check my old phone.”
“After breakfast, I’ll show you how to set up your e-mail accounts and such on the new one.”
“Perfect.”
“My team has processed a little over half of the records from Martha’s place,” he said. “Nobody from San Juan yet, but they did find something interesting.”
“Oh?”
“There’s an area in Kansas that has seen an inordinately large number of abductions,” he told her. “More than any other place she recorded, by an order of magnitude. On this one stretch of road, in particular, they’ve found records of over a hundred abductions.”
“That’s crazy!”
“My staff have started calling it Alien Alley.”
“Like tornado alley, only different?”
“There’s one couple there that had been abducted six times, as of Martha’s last interview with them.”
“Oh, my…”
“So, I was thinking…”
“That would be a good place to go next!”
“Precisely. But I think I’ll be joining you this time.”
“Safety in numbers?”
“That, and I can’t let you have all the fun without me!”
“Oh, you mean like in Puerto Rico? Yes, so much fun. Let me see—I was kidnapped by a drug lord, hunted down by a secret agent on steroids…”
“I was thinking more about the beach and the piña coladas…”
“It’s Kansas, Brian. How much fun do you think it’s going to be?!”
After breakfast, Sydney got dressed, and then Brian helped her set up all of her accounts on her new phone.
She did indeed have messages from her interview in San Juan—well over a hundred of them. It took a couple of hours to get through them all.
More than half were presumably single men expressing a romantic interest in Sydney. A significant minority of the remainder were women expressing a similar interest. Only about ten percent had anything to do with the actual reason for her interview, and of those, not one came from anyone claiming to have spoken to Martha.
“I give up,” she announced to Brian when she was done, dropping into the sofa.
“Nothing?”
“Well, if I want a different date every night for the next year, I’m pretty much set. But other than that, no. Not a thing.”
“Ah. Well, I think my team has found something interesting.”
“Yeah?”
“Come here, check this out.”
Sydney joined him at the table across the room, sitting next to him to see what he had on his laptop.
“Miguel San Juan?” she asked. “Are you kidding me? San Juan was a name, not a location?”
“Possibly,” he said. “Martha interviewed him about a year ago. Seems to be a garden variety abduction story out in Arizona.”
“Nothing noteworthy, though?”
“Well, no, but I wonder if maybe she’d heard from again, right before the man in black got to her. If something critical had happened with him before she sought you out, she probably would have included his file in the batch she gave you, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“But what if he reached out to her with something new after her initial meeting with you, but before that night by the river?”
“Makes sense,” she said. “Yeah, the way she said it… when she said San Juan, she could have been naming a man, not a city. Have you tried calling the number?”
“Not yet.”
Sydney pulled out her phone and entered the digits. It went straight to voicemail.
“Hi, Mr. San Juan,” she said. “My name is Sydney Hastings. I spoke to Martha McClure right before her death, and she asked me to contact you—well, I have reason to believe you’re the one she wanted me to contact.”
She left her phone number and asked him to call her back.
“That’s a start, at least,” she said to Brian.
He nodded in agreement.
“Why don’t we lie low today,” he suggested, “rest up a bit. And then tomorrow morning, we can head out to Kansas. We’ll keep trying to reach this Miguel San Juan in the meantime, and if we do make contact, we can hit Arizona next.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That works.”
“Dave is already on his way up here with the jet, so he’ll arrive in plenty of time.”
“Oh, nice—where’s there an airport near here?”
“There’s a small airfield about fifteen minutes away.”
“Well, there we go!”
“I’m going to run into town,” he said. “Is there anything you need?”
“Actually, yes—some cat food… and some litter and a litter box.”
“Oh!”
“Yeah. I’m going to have a look around—there’s a good chance Charlie’s already found a spot to do his business. I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up, I promise!”
“I’ve never had a cat; I didn’t think of this.”
“After that, you think it’s safe if I go for a run? I need to get some exercise.”
“I have over a hundred acres here,” he said. “There are trails throughout.”
Brian left, and Sydney began her hunt. She didn’t have far to look—the cat had relieved himself on her bathmat.
Sydney took care of that and then headed out herself. She took only her phone and had no trouble using that to lock the door behind her. It was a little chilly out, but it was bright and sunny, and the brisk air was invigorating.
She started out heading down the same trail she’d driven with Jaden and Malia the last time she was here. Before long, she came to a creek and ran along a path that followed that for a couple of miles.
The run was exhilarating—and the landscape here was beautiful. But she felt constant anxiety that the man in black might show up and remained much more alert to her surroundings than usual. In the end, she did about seven miles, and it was completely uneventful.
Sydney showered and got dressed. Brian had returned by the time she was done. She fed Charlie and set up his litter box.
After that, she contacted her insurance company to file a claim for her house. They said they would send out an inspector and advised her to get an estimate for the repairs. She spent some time contacting a few contractors in her area and making arrangements to get quotes from each.
Brian cooked dinner for them that evening, and then they settled down in the living room. He’d started a fire in the giant fireplace.
“That must be gas,” Sydney observed.
“Yes. The heating is geothermal, but I have an underground propane tank just for the fireplace.”
“I could get used to this.”
“Oh—I almost forgot. Stay put; I’ll be right back!”
“Staying put!”
He returned a minute later carrying a decanter of a golden-colored liquid and two glasses, and a water bottle tucked under his arm.
“Uh oh,” Sydney said with a chuckle.
“I think we’ve earned it,” h
e said.
“What is it, exactly?”
“Scotch,” he replied, setting the glasses down and pouring some into each. Next, he opened the water bottle and poured a bit into each glass. He handed one glass to Sydney and said, “Cheers!”
She tapped her glass to his, sniffed it, and then crinkled her nose.
“Remind me what Scotch is again?”
“Whiskey. Aged twenty-one years in this case.”
“Uh-huh. And what’s the water for?”
“Brings out the flavor.”
Sydney took a sip and resisted the urge to spit it out all over the carpet.
“I think I like my piña coladas better.”
“I will admit it is an acquired taste.”
“You can say that again,” she said, taking another sip.
They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the fire.
“I miss them,” said Sydney. She could already feel the alcohol going to her head.
“Hmm?”
“Jaden and Malia. And Melissa.”
“Oh, yes,” he replied with a sigh. “I do, too.”
“I wonder what it’s like out there. They must be outside of our solar system by now, right?”
Brian nodded. “By quite a bit, I should think. Interstellar space would be very dark—the Sun would appear only as a point of light, like any other star in our night sky.”
“It was hard, finally reconnecting with them—the kids, and Melissa, only to lose them again so quickly. Melissa was the best friend I ever had.”
“I know what you mean. I regret I never had the chance to reconnect with my brother. It was wrong to let things come between us.”
He poured them each another glass of Scotch.
“I mean, from what I remember, Stephen was the one who kind of separated from you, didn’t he?”
“Sure, but I drove him to it,” said Brian, taking a deep breath. “I spoke my mind, and I should have let it go after that. But he was my little brother, and I was worried about his safety. I should have known to let him find his own way. He did anyway, so driving him away like that served no purpose.”
“For some reason, I always thought he was the older one.”
“No, I was. Only by a year, though.”
They sat quietly for a minute.
“Can I make a confession to you?” Brian asked.
“Of course,” she said.
He let out a long sigh.
“I have never vocalized this to anyone before,” he began. “And I feel like a horrible person to think this way. But… there is a part of me that wonders… if we should have left well enough alone.”
“How do you mean?”
“Bringing the twins to life.”
Sydney said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“I will always love Malia and Jaden dearly, even though I’ll never see them again. They are family, and they will remain forever dear to me.
“But we opened a Pandora’s Box when we entered that hidden chamber in the Great Pyramid—bringing the twins to life and accessing the power station. Had we not done that, none of those people would have died in Miami or D.C.”
Sydney nodded. Then knocked back the rest of her drink.
“Fill me up,” she said, holding her glass out to Brian.
He finished his glass, too, and then poured them each more.
“You know, not a day goes by that I don’t think about standing on the bridge of that Othali ship, watching the Malor fire their weapon,” said Sydney. “Wondering maybe if I had fought harder to get them to do something… well, that perhaps then those lives could have been saved.”
“Ah, but if you had, then the Malor would have destroyed us, and there would have been nobody left to stop them.
“In my case, having a hand in bringing the twins to life and investigating the power station—those actions are what brought the Malor here in the first place.”
Sydney considered this for a minute. She took a sip of her whiskey.
“On the other hand,” she began, “how many other civilizations out there in the Milky Way would the Malor have exterminated if your actions hadn’t brought them here?”
Brian opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He sat back in his chair, considering her words. Then he downed the rest of his whiskey.
He covered his face in his hands, and Sydney realized he was crying.
“I think you and I have something in common,” she said. “Something profound.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
“We both need to learn to forgive ourselves.”
They each had one more glass of whiskey after that but sipped it very slowly. Then they said goodnight, and Sydney retired to her bedroom. She got undressed and slipped into the king-sized bed. Within minutes, she fell into the deepest sleep she’d had in months.
Chapter Nine: Alien Alley
Sydney woke at the crack of dawn and somehow, blessedly, did not feel hungover. She went for a run, came back and showered, and found Brian in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
“How ya feeling this morning?” she asked.
“Me? Oh, I’m fine. A little groggy perhaps, but no worse for wear. How about you?”
“I feel great,” she said, sitting at the table. “Which is surprising. I drank more this week than I have in a year—and I felt terrible the next morning in Puerto Rico.”
He set down the food at the table, and they dug in.
“I was thinking,” she said. “Even once the repairs are done, I’m not so sure I’d feel safe going back to my house after this trip…”
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like,” he replied.
“Perfect, thank you. So, we can probably leave Charlie here while we’re gone, yeah? I can leave plenty of food and water out for him.”
Brian nodded.
“I don’t expect we’ll be gone more than a few days.”
Sydney set out way more than enough food and water for the cat, just to play it safe. They packed their things and went out the door. Sydney stopped short and screamed halfway to the car.
The man in black was standing in the driveway.
“Final warning,” he drawled. “If you want to live, mind your own business!”
“Back inside, quick!” said Brian, pulling out his phone.
They dashed back into the house, slamming the door shut behind them. Brian locked it, and not a second later, the man in black tried the handle.
It was silent for a moment, then there was a crashing sound, and the entire wall shook from the impact.
“Come with me!” Brian yelled, taking off through the house.
Sydney followed. He led her to the far end of the building, into an attached garage, and closed and locked the door behind him.
“Get in!”
There was an old pickup truck in the garage. Sydney moved to the passenger side, tossed her suitcase behind the seat, and climbed in.
Brian got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Hang on,” he said. He pulled out his phone, checked the exterior camera outside the garage. “We’re clear,” he said and tapped a button to open the door.
The man in black was standing there, wagging a finger at them.
“Oh shit!” Sydney shouted.
Brian threw the truck into gear and gunned it. A moment before impact, the man in black shot into the sky to avoid being run over.
“Okay, that I cannot explain,” said Brian, accelerating down the same path Sydney had used to escape with the twins when the FBI were after them.
Brian drove while Sydney kept a lookout for the man in black. But they made it to the main road without seeing him again.
Brian called the pilot and told him to have the jet ready for takeoff right away.
It took only fifteen minutes to get to the airfield. They’d had no further contact with the man in black. Brian pulled right up next to the jet and slammed the brakes.
&n
bsp; “Quickly,” he yelled, jumping out of the vehicle.
Dave was waiting for them by the steps to the cabin.
“Hey, Dave,” said Sydney.
“Here we go again, huh?”
“Yeah, this is getting old pretty fast…”
They boarded and took their seats. Dave started the engine, and they taxied toward the runway. Sydney kept staring out the windows, looking for the man in black. But she still hadn’t seen him by the time they took off.
She sat back in her seat and breathed a sigh of relief.
“So, what do you think?” she asked Brian. “That flying thing he does makes me think he must have some sort of… powers, I guess, like the twins do.”
“Anything is possible,” he said, furrowing his brow. “I truly can’t explain it.”
“How did he find us? I thought your places were all completely off the grid?”
“Most are, but not the ranch. That’s my legal place of residence, so the listing is public. It’s a fortress, but not a hidden one.”
“Ah…”
“We’ve been lucky so far,” he said. “I think, at this point, he’s only trying to scare us.”
“He’s succeeding. But he blew up my garage—doesn’t that make you think he’s trying to kill me…”
“Not yet,” said Brian. “Seeing firsthand what he can do, I believe we’d already be dead if that’s what he wanted.
“I am curious, however, how he made it so close to the house without setting off any alarms.”
He pulled out his phone and tapped away at the screen.
“Uh… you have a connection up here?”
“Satellite,” he said. “Provides an internet connection for the onboard Wi-Fi, but there’s no cell service.”
“Well, that would’ve been good to know,” she muttered.
He stared intently at his phone for a few minutes, occasionally tapping on the display.
“This is decidedly strange,” he said finally. “The man in black doesn’t show up on any of the cameras until the moment he walked up on the front porch. The video footage shows him trying the latch and then slamming himself bodily into the door. After that, he walks off the porch and disappears again.”
“Does it show him out back, by the garage?”
“Yes, but only starting as the garage door opened. And then, of course, he does his Superman move, and that’s the end of it.”