Project Integrate Series Boxed Set

by Campbell, Jamie

  “Is the Department keeping you safe, honey?” Mom asked. Her voice sounded so innocent, like she really believed the Department was doing the best thing for everyone. I wished I still believed that too.

  “No, they’re not. I’ve left,” I managed to choke out. “But I can’t tell you everything now.” A silence greeted me on the other end. It seemed to drag out forever. “Mom, Dad? Are you still there?”

  “We are,” Dad replied. “Remember that time we went on a picnic and you were bitten on the leg by the ant? You said you’d never go back there again?”

  My brow wrinkled in confusion. Why was he bringing up that painful memory? The little bite stung like crazy for days, it was hard to sit down without inflaming it again.

  “Yeah, I do, Dad.”

  “In two days, it will be the anniversary of that happening.”

  No, it wouldn’t be. That happened in winter, I remembered because the ant had to crawl up my jeans to bite me. It was a determined little bug. Either my parents had completely lost it, or I was in the complex for longer than I thought.

  Looking around at the sun’s rays, the air was warm. My instincts were right, Dad had lost his marbles. “What are you talking about, Dad?”

  Mom was the one who answered. “Listen to your father, honey. Remember to have some lunch.”

  “I have to go,” I said, wondering if they had someone standing over them, listening in. The Department would have looked for me at my home first. I hoped they weren’t standing there under duress. “I’m safe, I hope you stay safe too. I miss you both.”

  “We miss you too, honey.”

  “Remember the picnic, Ame,” Dad finished before hanging up.

  I stared at the phone for a long time, not ready to go back inside yet. At least Lochie and my parents knew I was safe now, really safe. That was one thing off my mind. I expected the Department had spun Mom and Dad a good story about protecting me and not allowing phone calls for security. They pretty much confirmed my theory.

  The picnic kept playing on my mind, my father’s voice repeating in a loop. The day had started off well but then ended so badly with the ant bite. I didn’t like ruining the day but I was a teenager that preferred to be at home anyway. The bite got me home a lot quicker than we normally would have.

  My father wouldn’t have brought up the story for no reason. He was a federally trained agent, he never did anything randomly.

  It struck me like a lightning bolt. My dad was sending me a message. It wasn’t about the picnic at all, but the place and time. He was arranging a meeting with me.

  The picnic spot would be a good place to hold a private meeting. There were no houses around, only trees and they wouldn’t do any talking. There were a few access roads for a quick escape and the foliage provided privacy from the street. It was also a place that wasn’t signposted, the Department wouldn’t know to look for me there.

  Dad also mentioned that the false anniversary was supposedly in two days. That had to be when he would meet me there. Two days. That didn’t give us much time to get there but we could do it. We had the picnic at lunchtime so I guess that was also the time when they would be waiting for me.

  A little voice in the back of my mind reminded me I shouldn’t trust anyone – including my parents. Last time the Department were after me, I couldn’t trust them to help me evade their capture. What had changed now? I felt awful thinking like that but I had to. At the end of the day, they were still Federal Agents and I was still an alien. The Department could be very convincing when they told enough lies.

  Yet something in my gut told me this time was different. Something in their voices was desperate, like they really had been concerned about me. I wanted to trust them with my life, but I would still have to be careful.

  The sound of the door opening behind me caught my attention. I turned around quickly, my nerves still on edge. Garrick closed the door behind him as he stepped out into the sunshine.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he apologized gently. “Finished making your calls?”

  “Yeah. Did you want to use the phone?” I held it out for him, just in case he wanted to call his own parents. He didn’t accept it.

  “No, it’s alright. They’ll think I’m in the complex, it’s best they keep believing that.”

  “Unless the Department have told them you escaped,” I pointed out.

  “Did your parents know?” I shook my head, they didn’t mention it so I guess the Department were playing their cards closer to their chest than usual. Normally our parents would be the first to know. “That’s what I thought. Are you okay? You seem a bit sad.”

  “I guess it was just talking to my parents. I miss my old life.”

  Garrick took a step closer to me. I welcomed his company. It was simple with him. Without even needing to say anything, he understood what I was going through. Nobody but another alien could completely understand.

  Before I realized what was happening, a few tears escaped my eyes. I guessed talking to my parents had upset me more than I realized. Garrick took another step and completely closed the gap between us. He threw his arms around me, enveloping me in a tight hug.

  I buried my head in his chest and let the tears flow. I hated crying, especially in front of other people, but I was at the end of my tether. I just wanted to go home so badly but I didn’t know if I ever would be able to again. There was no saying how long the Department would take before they continued on with the project and stopped pursuing us – if they ever did. It might be a fight to the death for us.

  Garrick’s arms were strong and it felt safe to be in them. I closed my eyes and pretended everything was normal. If I really concentrated, I could – but only for a few fleeting seconds. I knew I couldn’t fix things if I ignored the problems. The only way forward was to fight like hell.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Garrick whispered into my hair. “We’re totally going to get out of this. You just need to give it some time.”

  “I know,” I sniffled into his shoulder. “I’ll be fine once I have a moment. I just need that.”

  The door opened again and we quickly let each other go. For some reason, I felt guilty being caught in Garrick’s arms. My face flushed with embarrassment.

  Hayden stood there, holding his own phone in his hands with a tight grip. “Sorry to interrupt, guys. Ryder called. He received a response.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I doubt Hayden had ever driven as fast as he had when taking us to meet with Ryder again. He barreled along the backstreets with an effortless skill in his old, matte black van. We whisked around corners and barely stopped at traffic lights. We were on a mission and Hayden obviously took it very seriously.

  It seemed like no time before we were sitting in Ryder’s hot attic again, all crouched around his computer with nervous anticipation. The wait was unbearable.

  “So what’s the message?” I prompted when he seemed to be taking an interminably long amount of time. It felt like my life depended on hearing the message he received. In a way, I guess it did.

  “I’ll play it for you. Ready?” Ryder looked at us each in turn. I wanted to push him out of the way and hit the play button myself. I was never the most patient person in the universe. The rules of the project just forbid me to let that part of me be shown to anyone.

  “We’re ready,” I shot back quickly, speaking on behalf of Garrick too. Hayden and Harmony waited for us downstairs like before.

  Ryder nodded and started the message. It was very crackly, statically, and short. I grabbed a pen and tried to write down what I heard. I had to confirm a few of the words with Garrick and Ryder to make sure I had heard correctly.

  After listening to the message a dozen times, I thought I got the whole thing. Or what I was ever going to get anyway. The beginning and end were both cut off. We got a portion of what they were saying and not much else.

  By the end of it, the message read: “… one-three-five… rio grande… Portview…”
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  “Portview is where I live,” I commented, trying to make sense of the message. It was in English but they had a thick accent, one I didn’t recognize from any Earthly dialect. Although, I could have been mistaken with the quality of the message.

  “It has to be an address then,” Garrick added. “135 Rio Grande. Is there a street called Rio Grande in Portview?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  Ryder started typing frantically on his computer keyboard. He had Google Earth up in seconds. “There it is, 135 Rio Grande, Portview. It’s a house.”

  It looked like an ordinary, single storey house in the suburbs. I don’t know what I expected, but for a message from outer space giving me an address, I guess I expected something more impressive. Seeing the house on the computer screen, it only helped to confuse me even more.

  “It’s just a house,” I said bluntly. “Why would they give us an address for a house?”

  “I guess they want us to go there,” Garrick replied. It sounded more like a question though. He was equally as confused as I was. The answers weren’t going to magically appear out of nowhere. I shouldn’t have got my hopes up about the message.

  “Dudes, do you realize how awesome this is?” Ryder said excitedly, breaking the silence. At least one person was happy with the message.

  I had to admit, it was pretty cool. We had sent a message into outer space asking for help and they had actually replied. Who was it on the other end? Was it one of our parents? A leader? What did they look like?

  Ryder’s unbridled joy continued. “I can’t wait to tell everyone on the boards about this. They’re going to freak. I’m going to need you two as witnesses or they won’t believe me.”

  Panic filtered through me. “No, you can’t tell anyone about this. Nobody can know this address. Seriously, Ryder, it’s so important it stays a secret.”

  His face fell, I kind of felt bad for cutting short his party. “I have to tell them, this is huge. It proves the existence of extraterrestrials. Aliens, dude.”

  “It’s life or death,” I continued, trying my best to convince him. “I promise you will be able to tell people later on, but not yet. If this address gets out, our lives could be in danger.”

  “How much later on?”

  “I don’t know, a while.”

  “Is it really life or death, or are you just being dramatic?” He asked, cocking his head to one side. At least he was listening to me.

  “I’m not being dramatic. Until Garrick and I are out of this situation, our lives are in danger. If this gets out, the government will know exactly where to find us. Please, Ryder, you can have the scoop when everything is over.”

  There must have been something in my tone of voice that betrayed my desperation because Ryder finally nodded in agreement. “I wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger. But you have to tell me when I can release it. The people need to hear this, they need to know the truth. We can’t censor ourselves.”

  “And they will,” I promised. If they didn’t hear it from Ryder, they should still hear it from the government one day. I couldn’t give up hope of that happening.

  We climbed down the ladder from the attic and joined Hayden and Harmony in the living room. Garrick and I hadn’t exactly discussed our plans, but I knew what we had to do. I was certain Garrick was thinking the same thing.

  “We have to go,” I declared. “Garrick and I need to return to my home town. The message gave a clue about how we can stay safe from the government.”

  Hayden nodded, like he was expecting it. “Do you need anything we can help with?”

  I exchanged a look with Garrick. We didn’t have any way of getting to Portview. No money for gas, no car, and we couldn’t risk public transport. It looked like we might have to walk.

  “Do you have a car we could borrow?” Garrick asked sheepishly, like he really wasn’t expecting a positive answer.

  “Can you drive a manual?” Hayden replied, not fussed by the outrageous question. We both nodded that we could. “I have something you might like then.”

  We wasted no time in piling into the van. In under an hour, Garrick and I were on the road. We were encased in a tiny VW Beetle, a throwback from the seventies. It didn’t have any air conditioning or fifth gear and it rattled a lot, but it would hopefully get us where we needed to go.

  I don’t know how many times I thanked Hayden and Harmony for their generosity. I made them both promises that we would return their car and money we borrowed. They took a huge risk giving us their things and wishing us well on our travels. I had no intentions of not returning the favor.

  According to the map Harmony gave me, we were a thousand miles from Portview. We would have to drive for a full day with no breaks in order to get there before the meeting with my parents. I hadn’t told Garrick about it yet, I didn’t think he would want us to attend. He didn’t know my parents like I did.

  Garrick took the first shift of driving, we would swap when he got too tired to continue. We couldn’t speed for fear of attracting attention, the old car did enough of that for us. Hopefully a cop wouldn’t notice the smoke coming from the exhaust and feel the need to give us a lecture about harmful carbon emissions.

  I lay my head against the window and closed my eyes. The constant rocking put me to sleep in no time, even the rattling of the car couldn’t keep me awake.

  Garrick let me sleep for hours as day turned into night. I only awoke when he stopped for fuel. I went to the bathroom and picked up some food inside the store while he pumped gas. There wasn’t anything nutritious on offer so I chose some pizza pockets. At least they were a hot meal, even if questionable.

  We ate in the parking lot and I started my driving shift. The roads were all but deserted, only the occasional car passed us in either direction. The VW didn’t have high beam headlights so I had to have my wits about me to see on the dark roads.

  We changed shifts three times before passing through the border of Portview. It was the best sign I had seen since being with Lochie in the park that day. It felt like home, even if I couldn’t actually go home. I would need to keep a low profile to make sure nobody recognized me.

  “Garrick, wake up,” I urged, slapping him on the leg gently. When he didn’t stir, I did it again a bit harder. He snorted before blinking. “We’re in Portview. I need directions to Rio Grande.”

  He grabbed the map frantically and started fingering through the index. He turned the map over several times and tried all different directions before he located the street we needed. “Turn left.”

  I hoped he was holding the map up the right way after all. Still, I followed his prompts at every corner. We wove our way through the streets, our anticipation building. I couldn’t imagine what would be in the house at number 135.

  How did the aliens even know it existed? According to my former Department case officer, Rob, the people of Trucon had only visited Earth once to deliver us and sign the project agreement. I doubt they had lingered to sightsee. I hoped it wasn’t someone else with a radio trying to play a joke on us. Ryder said there was no way to tell for sure where the message had come from, only what frequency it transmitted on.

  I pulled up the old VW a few houses down from our target where we could get a good look at it while not being obvious. I prayed the occupant didn’t have particularly interested neighbors. If someone in my street parked and then sat in the car for hours on end, I don’t think anyone would notice. But some people were nosier than others.

  “It looks like the right place,” I said to break the silence. Garrick was still yawning. “Should we watch it for a while and see if anything happens?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. I don’t want to go charging up to the door until I know who will be on the other side.”

  “Do you think this could be a trap?” I asked warily. It had been playing on my mind during the long drive in the dark.

  “How so?”

  “The Department could have given us that message. They could
have been listening to the radio waves, expecting us to do exactly what we did.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Garrick confessed. I wondered what he had thought about during his drive. His family? Nice memories of his past? I didn’t dare ask. “You could be right though. The government listens in on everything according to Ryder and Hayden.”

  “I think we need to be ready to leave quickly if something doesn’t feel right. We need to be on high alert,” I warned him, even though it went without being said. I needed to voice it, just to make myself feel better. “The Department could be anywhere.”

  Even though I was quite good at spotting agents after visiting the Department every year for my entire life, it wasn’t a perfect science. It would only take me not noticing one little detail and they’d be close enough to do us some damage. I doubted we would be taken back to the complex. They probably had orders to shoot on sight.

  We had to sit there for close to three hours before there was any movement at the house. By that stage, we were both starting to doze off. I grabbed Garrick’s arm to wake him. “Garrick, there’s someone there.”

  He instantly sat bolt upright and watched the house. A man in his thirties with dark hair and casual clothes emerged from the front door. He checked the letterbox and then climbed into his white four-wheel drive. As he started his vehicle, I started ours. There was no way he was going to disappear out of my sight.

  I had never trailed a car before. It always looked easy on television, but it turned out not to be so in real life. I had to pay attention just to keep him in my line of vision, let alone keep up with him.

  We drove to the exciting destination of the supermarket. It was a bit of an anticlimax. We waited in the parking lot for him to return, which he did almost twenty minutes later. From there, we followed him as he ran errands at the dry cleaners, the bakery, the bank, and then back home. There was nothing remarkable about anywhere he went or how he acted. For all intents and purposes, he was just a guy doing his chores.

  We parked back on the street where we stayed for the rest of the night. Garrick and I slept in the car, moving the vehicle occasionally so people didn’t start to notice us. The house remained quiet all night.