Abducted (The Kwan Thrillers Book 2)

by Ken Warner

  “Let’s start exploring this,” Brian suggested. “Sydney, why don’t you start with Dr. Lee and see if he can suggest any kind of stimulant that might counteract the alien neural inhibitor. Meanwhile, I’ll look into an implantable tracking device. It’s too bad we don’t have the tech to commandeer the aliens’ device—we won’t be able to come up with something so small!”

  Sydney called Dr. Lee right away and explained what they were planning.

  “Hmm,” he said. “We were eventually able to identify the compound they used, so that’s no trouble. The hard part will be determining what kind of drug might counteract it. To be sure, we’d have to run tests—inject you, or someone, with the alien compound, and then administer the stimulant and see if it works.

  “And while we’ve been able to identify the alien compound, we have no way to manufacture it.”

  “And that means there’s no way to test an antidote,” Sydney remarked.

  “Precisely. The best we can do is make an educated guess. It would be ideal to develop something that directly neutralizes their compound—thus stopping it from ever working in the first place. But again, we don’t have the means to do that, and even if we did, we don’t have the time—that would take years.”

  “No, we can’t wait that long,” Sydney agreed.

  “The next best approach is to use a stimulant that would directly counteract the effects of their compound. I’ll need to do a little research on this. Give me a few days, and I’ll come up with something.”

  “Great, thank you!”

  Sydney and Miguel didn’t have much to do for the next few days. Brian was hard at work exploring the best options for a tracking device, and they hadn’t heard back from Dr. Lee yet.

  But finally, Brian came up with the best solution.

  “This is it,” he said, sitting down with them in the living room one night. He held out his hand, showing them the device.

  “It looks like a drug capsule,” Sydney observed, “only thinner.”

  “So, how does this thing work?” asked Miguel.

  “It’s a subdermal implant,” said Brian. “Typically, they would inject it just under the skin in your hand. For our purposes, we’ll want to position it somewhere less apparent—the inner thigh, probably, to make it less obvious to the aliens.

  “There are two types of microchips for this kind of application—active and passive. The passive variety does not have its own power source. When you scan it with the chip reader, the radio waves from the reader power the chip, and it emits a signal with whatever information you’ve programmed into it. But it’s unable to emit a signal without the reader, and even then, its range is less than a meter.”

  “No, that wouldn’t work at all,” said Sydney.

  “This is an active tracker. It has a small battery, which it uses to emit a signal, even without the presence of a reader. And its range is several hundred meters.

  “This still presents us with some challenges. The range is better than it would be with a passive tracker, but we’ll still have to be close by to detect the signal.”

  “We ain’t gonna be able to find her if we’re far away when she’s abducted,” said Miguel.

  “Exactly,” said Brian. “You and I will need to station ourselves in Monument Valley with scanners. As long as one of us is within roughly eight hundred meters of Sydney’s location, then we’ve got her.

  “The other issue will be timing. We don’t know how far underground the bunker might be. But the tracker’s range will be much shorter going through the earth, probably by an order of magnitude.”

  “Which means you need to find me before they take me underground,” said Sydney.

  “Now, wait a minute,” said Miguel. “Can’t you use a GPS tracker? Don’t those have way longer ranges than that?”

  “Sure,” said Brian. “We could use an app on her phone for that. But I don’t believe that would work. First of all, there’s a good chance that ship is shielding its EM radiation—which would explain why it wasn’t visible on the drone’s video footage. That shielding would prevent any type of GPS tracker, including her phone, from transmitting any kind of signal.

  “Again, there should be a brief window of time, when they transport her from the UFO to the bunker, when she would move beyond that shielding. But GPS trackers would need access to a cell tower to transmit their location data…”

  “And we had no cell service out there,” said Sydney, “so we already know there are no cell towers in range.”

  “Exactly,” said Brian. “This device is based on a standard RFID chip—it’s typically used for identification. It can be used in place of an ID badge to open doors in a high-security building, for example. I was able to modify it to boost its signal—the original had a range of only about two hundred meters. But that same window of time will still apply—the signal from this tracker most likely will not be able to penetrate the UFO’s EM shielding. We’ll have to find you while you’re being transported from the ship to the bunker.”

  “If that’s true, then why does it have to be implanted?” asked Miguel. “She could keep it in her pocket, no?”

  “Yes, that’s a possibility,” said Brian. “You both remember still being clothed when they moved you into the bunker. But on the other hand, should we end up needing to mount a rescue mission, having the chip implanted could help tremendously once we’re inside the bunker with her—so long as they don’t find it and remove it first.”

  “This whole thing is going to be tricky,” said Sydney. “You two will need to be ready to go in Monument Valley when I’m abducted. And you’ll have to be pretty close to the bunker. This doesn’t exactly sound like a sure thing.”

  “It’s not,” Brian confirmed. “But with current technology, it’s the best we can do. We’ll have to sit down with a map, and with the memories you both have of your abductions—specifically the position, orientation, and distance to Monument Valley—come up with our best guess as to your location. Miguel and I should then each take a position within an eight-hundred-meter radius of that location, at opposite sides of that circle, to maximize our chances of detecting your signal.”

  “Let me walk through the plan, then,” said Sydney, “and make sure I understand this. I’m going to need to be in Kansas—Alien Alley is the one place we know we can count on regular UFO visits. But this won’t necessarily happen the first time we try it. I’ll have to go out to the Driscoll homestead night after night until the aliens decide to show up. And that means you two will need to be out in Arizona, and you’ll have to set up shop out in the desert every night.”

  “Correct,” Brian agreed.

  “And then as soon as I see the UFO, I’ll have to call you to let you know it’s on,” she said.

  “Wait a minute,” said Miguel. “How is that going to work if there’s no cell service?”

  “I’ll bring my satellite phone,” Brian replied. “It works from anywhere on the surface of the Earth.”

  “Oh…”

  “And then they’ll abduct me,” Sydney continued. “The UFO will bring me to their bunker in Monument Valley. And when they take me off the ship, you two will have to locate me before I go underground.”

  “Yes,” said Brian. “Now, there’s also a chance that we’ll have visual contact with the UFO when it comes into range. So Miguel and I can move toward its location as soon as we see it, and that should improve our chances of finding you. We should use walkie talkies, too, to make sure we can communicate with each other while this is going on.”

  “And as long as you’ve located me, then you should be able to find the entrance to the bunker,” Sydney concluded.

  “At the very least, we should have the possible location reduced to a sufficiently small area to make a ground search feasible,” Brian said.

  “Alright, and then what?” said Miguel. “We knock on the door and politely ask the aliens to return Sydney to us?”

  “Hopefully, this doesn’t need to be a resc
ue mission,” Sydney replied. “They do what they do, and then they return me to Kansas. That’s how it’s gone in every single case we know about.”

  “I still don’t like it,” said Miguel. “Why does Sydney have to be the bait? We could run this game the same way, but instead of them taking Sydney, we wait for them to take someone else, and she lets us know when they take whoever that ends up being.”

  “We wouldn’t have the ability to track such a person,” Brian pointed out.

  “Sure, but you just said we’d make visual contact when the UFO shows up in the area,” said Miguel. “We could still find the bunker that way.”

  “Possibly,” Brian replied. “But keep in mind, we don’t know for sure that we’ll see the UFO out there. And without the tracker, we won’t be able to pinpoint their location nearly so precisely. The area we’d have to cover with our ground search would be much larger. But we could try this first, and see how it goes, and keep Sydney’s abduction in reserve, as a last resort.”

  “No,” said Sydney. “That could be a huge waste of time, and it’s even less likely to work than sending me with a tracker. On top of which, we lose the potential to do some recon inside the bunker. Let’s stick to the plan.”

  Miguel opened his mouth to argue, but Brian cut him off.

  “Why don’t we sleep on it, and we’ll discuss it further tomorrow?”

  They went their separate ways for a couple of hours. Brian cooked dinner for them. After they ate, Sydney and Miguel went for a walk under the stars.

  “Beautiful night,” he observed.

  “It is,” she agreed with a smile.

  They walked in silence for a minute.

  “You thought about this plan any more?” he asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “I don’t need to. I’ve already made up my mind.”

  He didn’t reply for a moment.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Why do you care so much? Why is it so important to you to do this?”

  “Because whoever is behind these abductions is up to no good, and I have the power to help do something about it!”

  “Fair enough. But at what cost? You heard that CIA guy—the man in black has something special planned for you. What if they don’t release you as they have before?”

  “Then we’ll figure it out,” she said. “What we learned from Babcock only strengthens my desire to help.

  “Look, those CIA assholes murdered my best friend’s husband. They kidnapped her children. I was able to help those kids, and that was the right thing to do. They didn’t have anyone else.

  “Knowing that the people behind these abductions tried to get to Jaden and Malia proves they’re cut from the same cloth. They put power before people. Someone’s got to take a stand and put a stop to this. We have the power to do that.”

  “We could call in the government like they did when they rescued us from them gray aliens,” he said.

  “And how would we know whom to trust?” she asked. “Babcock confessed he’s been compromised—he’s working for the people who are behind the abductions. And no matter who else we contact, we’d have no way of knowing if they’ve been compromised, too.”

  Miguel took a deep breath.

  “I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”

  “Not a chance. I watched as the Malor killed hundreds of thousands of people during the invasion. Even though I was powerless to do anything about it, I’ve had to live with the guilt, the nightmares. There’s no way I’m walking away from this.”

  “Okay. I get it. But you’d better promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you’ll come back to me.”

  Sydney turned to look him in the eye.

  “Look, I ain’t never gonna try to tie you down or anything,” he said. “I value my independence too much to do that, and I respect your freedom. But truth is, I’m falling in love with you, Sydney Hastings. And I don’t wanna not have you in my life anymore.”

  “I’ll come back,” she said. “You can count on it.”

  Pulling him into her arms, she kissed him.

  “I have a confession to make,” she said.

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “I think I might be falling in love with you, too.”

  “Might be?”

  “Yeah… just maybe…”

  “You’re such a tease.”

  “I know,” she replied, kissing him again.

  Back inside, they found Brian in the living room. He’d started the fireplace.

  “We don’t need to sleep on anything anymore,” Sydney announced as she and Miguel took their seats.

  “Oh?” asked Brian.

  “Resisting this woman is futile,” said Miguel.

  Sydney smiled.

  “Alright, then,” said Brian. “We can leave tomorrow. In the meantime…”

  He got up and poured them each a glass of Scotch.

  “Here’s to kicking some alien ass,” said Miguel.

  The three of them clinked their glasses.

  Chapter Twenty: Abducted

  The next morning, Sydney drove into town to visit Dr. Lee. He gave her a bottle of capsules.

  “Take one of those when it seems like you’re about to be abducted,” he advised. “It’ll take a little while to work its way into your system, but it should take effect by the time you need it.”

  She gave him the chip Brian had provided her. Once he’d sterilized it, he implanted it under the skin of her inner thigh.

  “Good luck out there,” he said when they were done.

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  When she got back to the ranch, she found Miguel with Brian in his office. There was an image of Monument Valley projected on the far wall.

  “Whatcha doing?” she asked.

  “Check this out,” said Brian.

  “Monument Valley,” she said.

  “Yes. This is a 3D simulation of the major mesas and buttes in the area. Miguel and I were trying to determine the approximate position of the alien bunker by calibrating this simulation to his memory of the orientation and distance of these formations.”

  “Ah, neat,” she said, staring intently at the projection. “That’s pretty accurate… but I think they weren’t quite that far away.”

  Brian adjusted the simulation to bring the background closer.

  “Yeah, that’s better,” said Sydney.

  “I agree,” said Miguel. “I think that’s about right.”

  “Now, I feel like this big mesa here was farther this way…”

  They spent the next twenty minutes fine-tuning the simulation. Once Sydney and Miguel had agreed that it was very close to what they remembered, Brian plotted the point on the map that would match that vantage point.

  “Where is this relative to that Malor camp we found?” asked Sydney.

  “Give me a second…” He checked something on his phone, then tapped a set of coordinates into the mapping program. “Right about there.”

  “That’s not too far,” said Miguel.

  “It’s about half a mile from where we found the Malor,” said Brian. “Not very far at all.”

  “That’s a little strange, isn’t it?” asked Sydney. “If they were that close, wouldn’t they have detected the Malor, or vice-versa?”

  “That’s quite possible,” said Brian.

  “Does that mean they’re all working together after all?” asked Miguel. “The grays and these cat-eyed aliens?”

  “That’s also possible,” Brian replied. “Hopefully, we’re about to get some answers!”

  Later that morning, they flew to Kansas. Sydney deplaned there, while Brian and Miguel continued to Arizona.

  Sydney rented a car, booked her room in the usual motel, and drove over to the Driscoll homestead. She met Mrs. Driscoll at her front door and told her what she was planning.

  “Let me get this straight,” the woman said. “You’re trying
to get abducted again?”

  “That’s right,” Sydney replied with a chuckle. “I am.”

  “My dear, that is about the craziest thing I have ever heard.”

  “I know, me too. Listen, unlike before, I’ll want to make myself an easy target. I’m planning on basically camping out by the side of the road at night. I noticed you’ve got an ample supply of firewood; do you think I could use some of that?”

  “Take as much as you want,” she said. “And let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

  That night, Sydney came back, parked her car on the side of the road, and with Owen’s help, set about lighting a giant bonfire.

  “Thank you for the help,” she said once the fire was roaring. “But listen, you’d better head inside. We don’t want to get you abducted, too.”

  “I hate to leave ya all alone out here,” he said.

  “I appreciate that, but I’ll be alright.”

  He headed into the house. Sydney called Brian on his satellite phone.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m in position; how about you boys?”

  “We’re here,” he replied. “Took a little longer than we anticipated—part of the trail was washed out, so we had to go around the hoodoos instead of through them. But we’re ready.”

  “Great. I’ll call you if anything exciting happens.”

  Sydney took one of the pills out of the bottle the doctor had given her, slipped it in her pocket, and got comfortable in her lawn chair.

  Minutes passed, and then hours. She added more logs to the bonfire periodically. A car went by every so often, but by dawn, nothing interesting had happened.

  She checked in with Brian again, and then returned to the motel and went to bed.

  Two more uneventful nights went by. But on the fourth night, around two in the morning, Sydney noticed a satellite passing overhead.

  She kept a close eye on it. It made its way across the sky, doing nothing remarkable. But as it approached the horizon, it stopped.

  “Bingo,” she said out loud and called Brian.

  “I think I’ve got something,” she told him.

  “What?”

  “I thought it was a satellite, but suddenly, it stopped.”