She considered going to the police, but knew she couldn’t. Not until she had an idea of what she was dealing with. She had been responsible for the death of three men. This fact impacted her more now than it ever had. She had avoided thinking about this for some time, but she was a murderer. Plain and simple.
How had she let her life come to this? It was like a nightmare from which she couldn’t awaken. Had she become just as monstrous as the people she studied?
Maybe so.
And while she had been sure no one knew of her involvement with these deaths—other than Drake—she was now forced to question everything. Maybe others did know, after all. Which meant going to the police might be a very bad idea. Especially since she had been the one who had just assaulted two men, used a tranquilizer gun on these two and one other, and hijacked a helicopter.
This had all been in self-defense, but it would be her word against a wealthy organization, and she had no doubt whom the police would believe. Even so, she doubted Steve Fuller’s people would report what had happened to authorities. She imagined the helicopter pilot would invent a story to cover up his landing at Cedars-Sinai. An accident. Wrong coordinates. He felt dizzy and needed to land before he passed out. Something like that.
Upon arrival in Tucson, Erin took a cab to the Saguaro Inn on the outskirts of town and checked in under an assumed name, paying cash in advance for the room. The motel was a one-story structure in the shape of a large L, with a small lobby at one end and a rectangular parking lot offset twenty or thirty yards from the inn. It was fairly cheap, but not seedy. The rooms were good sized, didn’t smell of mildew as could happen at the bottom of the lodging food chain, and were otherwise clean.
The saguaro cactus, pronounced with a w—sa-whar-oh—was native to Tucson, and could grow to over seventy feet tall. True to the motel’s name, two impressive specimens of the cactus, which looked like green, prickly telephone poles with arms pointing skyward, abutted each end of the L, rising three stories into the sky.
Erin loved the giant saguaro, but on this night she was in no mind to notice them, or to care. The bed in her room was comfortable, but she still tossed and turned until three in the morning before finally managing to fall into a fitful sleep.
When she awoke she took a long, hot shower and tried to clear her head. Too much was going on and no matter how hard she tried to use her considerable powers of reason to solve the puzzle, the big picture continued to elude her. The small picture did, too, for that matter. She just didn’t know enough. But she decided not to mention anything about Steve Fuller to Drake until she knew more; her gut instincts, hit-or-miss as they had proven to be, guiding her once again.
She still had the GPS tracking device she had purchased in San Diego, but nothing else. She couldn’t risk returning to her apartment for her gun, and she couldn’t possibly complete the purchase of one before her meeting with Drake. She thought for a few minutes and then used the motel phone to call a few pawn shops. The second one she called had a Taser in stock. It wasn’t much, but she’d feel far less naked with this in her pocket—along with a phone.
She took a cab to the pawn shop and then to Walmart, where she bought a prepaid, disposable cell phone, before grabbing a bite to eat and returning to the motel. She told the desk clerk she would be staying for a second night, paid, and then set off in a cab for the university grounds to meet Drake.
The cab dropped her off on a circular road that abutted the University of Arizona Student Union, the absolute center of campus both physically, socially, and sustenance-wise, since the school had a large undergraduate population and no cafeterias. The union had a large food court, spread out over several stories, and teemed with students at all hours of the day and night, especially since most were on meal plans, paid for in advance by their parents, and every eating establishment in the union accepted a preloaded plastic CatCard, which could be debited for meals with a single swipe.
Erin stood outside the door to the bookstore, which was open to air but shaded from direct sunlight. It was nearing one thirty, the tail end of lunch hour, and the place was less a madhouse than it had been. Still, it was teeming with throngs of students carrying backpacks and wearing clothing of all types emblazoned with Wildcat logos and the familiar red and blue of the university.
She had only been waiting a minute or two when a man, about five eleven in height, broke from the crowd and approached her purposefully. She tensed and realized she had never had the chance to look at the photos of Drake he had sent over, and probably wasn’t in possession of her phone when he had. She couldn’t imagine whoever was after her could have tracked her here. Even so, she wasn’t prepared to let down her guard no matter what. It wasn’t as though she could trust Drake any more than she could trust Fuller.
The man approaching appeared to be about thirty years old and was handsome, not in a rugged way, but in a friendly, approachable sort of way. He had sandy hair and deep set, expressive blue eyes.
“Erin Palmer?” he said when he was within a few feet of her.
She was about to say something like, “You must be Drake,” when she realized with a start that this wasn’t him. The voice was all wrong—again. She tensed even more and examined him for weapons, although it was unlikely he would do anything that would attract attention with this many people around.
“Who are you?” she demanded in low tones.
“I’m Kyle Hansen,” he said matter-of-factly, just stopping short of adding, of course, as if his name was supposed to mean something to her. He looked confused by her blank stare.
“Drake couldn’t make it, so he sent me instead,” he added, as though reminding her of this rather than explaining it for the first time. At her continued blank stare he winced. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Drake told me he texted you about this several hours ago, and even sent my picture.”
Erin nodded. That would explain a lot. “Yeah, well … I had a little trouble with my phone,” she said, as her mind leaped ahead to try to assimilate this unexpected development.
What new game was this? Who was this Kyle Hansen and what could sending him to meet with her possibly accomplish?
The man she had known as Hugh Raborn had insisted he would explain his multiyear ruse to her. Since she and he were the only ones in existence who knew about the psychopathy cure and her work testing inmates—at least she continued to cling to this supposition—a surrogate would be useless.
“Sorry again,” replied Kyle Hansen earnestly. “We didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“Look, I’m sure you’re a very nice guy. And I’m sorry that you had to make the trip for nothing. But I came here to meet with, um … Drake. At his suggestion. He wanted to clear up a personal matter between the two of us. So sending a substitute isn’t going to cut it.”
“Just give me ten minutes,” said Hansen. “If at the end of ten minutes you still think meeting with me instead of Drake is a waste of your time, I’ll leave. But I really can clear up everything.” He sounded sincere and nonthreatening—although this could just be an act.
Erin took a deep breath and nodded. “Ten minutes,” she said.
“I’m told there’s a food court around here.”
Erin gestured to the long building that paralleled the bookstore across a twenty-foot-wide concrete walkway. “Closer than you think,” said Erin.
“Have you had lunch?”
She shook her head no.
“Then I’m buying,” he said in a friendly tone.
“Look, I’m leaving after ten minutes, so you might want to get our food to go,” she said pointedly.
He grinned, an easy, unself-conscious smile. “I’m willing to take that chance,” he said, and there was undeniable charm in the way he said it. “Look … Erin … Drake filled me in, and I know you’re confused. I also know he’s given you plenty of reason not to be trusting. But if you just give me the chance, I’ll explain everything to your satisfaction.”
“I doubt that. This is
about a sensitive matter.”
Hansen pursed his lips and his face took on a more somber cast. “I know more than you think I do,” he said. “And I’m a friend. More than a friend, as I think you’ll soon discover. An ally. A comrade. I’ve been working with Drake even longer than you have.”
“Drake told you we were working together?” she asked, squinting in confusion, as though unable to fathom why Drake would lie about something like this.
“That’s right. And although I know you’ll see this as another betrayal, I know the exact nature of your collaboration. And that you’ve just made a major breakthrough.”
15
ERIN TOOK A long drink from a bottle of cold water and then bit into the turkey sandwich she had purchased, or Hansen had purchased for her, spending all of seven dollars. “Okay … Kyle,” she said. “Now that we’re settled in, I’m all ears.”
They were sitting at a small rectangular table and there was a cacophony of conversation from hundreds of locations in the massive open food court. There were several groups of students within earshot, but they were self-absorbed—laughing, debating, flirting, working on their Facebook accounts, playing or talking on their phones, or watching one of the many television screens that descended from the ceiling in a seemingly haphazard fashion, and Erin wasn’t worried in the slightest that anyone would listen in, or have any idea what they were hearing if they did.
So Drake had told this Kyle Hansen about work that could get her thrown in jail. After he had sworn he would never mention this to another soul. So what was another huge betrayal among friends? And this also begged the question, who else knew? Was there anyone who didn’t?
Hansen seemed famished, and had finished a large bag of chips while they were waiting in line and had almost finished half of his chicken-salad sandwich in the brief time they had been sitting. “There’s no easy way to start,” he said. “Let me just say that you won’t believe me at first. But I plan to prove everything I say. I’m not crazy. So if you could just pretend to believe me until the proof comes, that would be a big help.”
“Go on,” said Erin.
Hansen blew out a long breath. “Drake isn’t human,” he said simply, watching her face for a reaction as he did so.
Erin rolled her eyes. She must still be asleep in some kind of crazy, extended dream, she decided. Either she had entered the Twilight Zone, or she had used up her life’s quota of bizarre, surreal surprises in the past four days, during which her life had been turned upside down and twisted into a pretzel. “Come on, Kyle. I’m not in the mood.”
“Remember, I did tell you you wouldn’t believe me. Anyway, that’s why he didn’t come himself. He can pass as human for a time, but it’s a risk to do so for too long.”
“So what is he?” said Erin, deciding to play along. “An elf?”
Hansen actually laughed. “No. He’s from a planet about thirty-seven light years away from here he calls Suran.”
“Suran,” she repeated, as if testing the word out on her tongue. “What, like the wrap?” she said, rolling her eyes once again.
Hansen’s eyes widened. “Very good. Spelled with a u instead of an a, but it’s funny you should say that, Erin. Because that’s actually what I call Drake and his species. Wraps.” He grinned. “Beats the hell out of Suranians.”
Erin studied him for several long seconds, as if he were a science experiment, looking for some telltale sign that he had recently escaped from a mental institution. He returned her penetrating gaze with a relaxed patience, looking anything but crazy. Still, it was becoming obvious that he was, despite any appearances to the contrary. She looked at her wrist pointedly, even though she didn’t have a watch. “You know your ten minutes are about up.”
“I’m not wasting your time. And if you’d humor me as I asked, this would go a lot faster. I get it. This is crazy and you’re waiting for the curtain to fall. It isn’t, and it won’t. Humor me,” he repeated.
She tensed her muscles to rise from the chair and leave, but there was something about his eyes that stopped her. A confidence. An easy intelligence. A self-awareness of how insane he must sound to her, but also a deep courage of his convictions and a certainty that he would ultimately convince her. She blew out a long breath. “Okay, Kyle. It’s hard for me to imagine I’ll ever believe you, no matter what you tell me, but I’ll humor you just a little longer.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“So if Drake’s from this Suran, how can he pass for human for even a minute? All the aliens on Star Trek looked human, but that’s just because they didn’t have a big enough budget for more imaginative aliens.”
“Not entirely true. There is such a thing as convergent evolution. The Wraps are fairly close to us in appearance, yes. Close enough that the extensive plastic surgery and genetic engineering he underwent before he came here allows him to pass as human for a short time. But there are other alien species whose appearance couldn’t be any more, ah … alien … to us. Drake’s problem passing for human isn’t his appearance as much as his mannerisms. We’ve evolved to pick up on dozens of subtle cues regarding human expressions and appearance. That’s why it was such a challenge for Pixar and others in the early days to animate humans. If an animated animal is slightly off, it isn’t a problem. But make a human just a little bit wrong and we can sense this somehow, and it gets under our skin. Weirds us out. That’s one of the reasons he took the appearance of Hugh Raborn when you Skyped. That and to buy credibility when you Googled him.”
For the first time, Erin’s expression wasn’t one of complete skepticism, and Hansen seemed to pick up on this. “Drake told me when he explained how he had used software to transform his face into Raborn’s, you said it couldn’t be done. Not so convincingly, so seamlessly. Not in real time during a conversation. Well you’re right. It can’t be done. At least not with human technology.”
This gave Erin pause. It had been one hell of a magic trick, however he had pulled it off.
“When I’ve finished explaining everything,” continued Hansen, “I hope you’ll trust me enough to let me take you to Yuma to meet Drake in person. It’s the only way you’ll be absolutely convinced I’m telling you the truth. You’ll see for yourself he’s not human. A short time with him and you’ll have absolutely no doubt.”
Erin studied him once again. She was far from convinced he was telling the truth, but if his purpose had been to get her to come to Yuma with him, there were far simpler lies that could have done the trick. In fact, he had to have known that the approach he was taking was certain to make her more suspicious of him rather than less.
Hansen seemed to read the indecision in her eyes. “The ten minutes you agreed to give me are up. If you’d like, I’ll leave right now. Or you can. I won’t stop you. But I can’t believe that someone with your kind of curiosity, your passion for knowledge, would refuse to at least hear me out the rest of the way. Not unless you really think I’m certifiably insane. Which I don’t think you do.”
Erin sighed, realizing that he was right. “Go on,” she said in surrender.
“To be honest, Drake is trying to limit the number of people who know of his origins. For obvious reasons. And you weren’t supposed to be among them.”
“So why are you telling me this now?”
“He had no other choice. You saw the real Hugh Raborn and then, being understandably suspicious and feeling betrayed, you weren’t willing to give him the dosage combination for the cure. So he knew he had to come clean. He set up this meeting, knowing all along he was going to send me. Inviting you to Yuma to meet him and verify what I’m now telling you would have been the most direct route. But he knew you didn’t trust him enough to do that. You needed to be eased into what is an entirely new and earth-shattering reality for you. A two-step process, begun on your home turf, where you would feel reasonably comfortable.”
“Okay,” said Erin. “In the interest of humoring you some more, you mentioned other alien species. Are repre
sentatives of all of them on Earth?” She leaned toward him and raised her eyebrows. “You’re not a member of the Men in Black, are you?”
Hansen laughed. “No. Black isn’t my color. And I’m afraid Drake is it. Period. I’ll tell you why later on, but he’s the only nonhuman on the planet.”
“Uh-huh. Well somebody gave him bad directions to end up in Yuma. He does realize that Area 51 is to the west of him and Roswell is to the east, right?”
A warm, genuine smile flashed across Hansen’s face once again, revealing two rows of perfectly straight teeth, no doubt perfected after years of wearing metal in his mouth when he was young. “No aliens at either of those places, I’m afraid.”
Hansen paused as if searching for the best way to bring Erin up to speed. “Now that you’re willing to hear me out, let me start at the beginning. There are seventeen known intelligent species in our section of the galaxy. The level of their technology is all basically equivalent. The growth in our science and technology has been exponential, but you can’t maintain that forever. And any significant differences in the technology of these seventeen civilizations has been smoothed away over thousands of years of trade, so now it’s all perfectly homogeneous. Some arrived at this level thousands of years before others, but progress has slowed to a crawl now that they’re pressing up against the maximum capacity the universe will allow in many fields.”
Erin was fascinated despite herself. If it was a hoax, at least it was a well-thought-out hoax.
Hansen finished the last of his sandwich, washed it down with a long drink of Coke, and continued. “Recently—at least in the scheme of things—our closest intelligent neighbors caught our transmissions and began to relay them to the other sixteen known intelligences. Now they are all aware there is an eighteenth intelligence in the stellar neighborhood—which is a very big deal. A species which still has quite a ways to go before reaching the level of technology of galactic civilization. They’d like to welcome us into the galactic community. But they became alarmed upon viewing our transmissions.”
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