by Black, Chuck
Drew stopped and turned away, hoping he hadn’t given away his position to the invaders. If he had, all would be in vain. He disappeared into a small drugstore and hurried to the back. He found his way to the storage room, where he bumped into a stocker. Drew didn’t dare look behind him.
“Is there a back door?”
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” the man said.
Drew ignored him and kept moving until he spotted the exit. He opened the door into the alley and pressed on. He dodged between two buildings and onto an adjoining street, where he meshed into a crowd of people. At a crosswalk, waiting for a light, he took a chance to scan. As he turned to glance behind him, an invader glared at him just inches away—at least that’s what Drew thought until he realized that it was a Goth complete with a dozen piercings, white skin, black and purple makeup, and white pupil contacts.
Drew jumped and the Goth just smiled. Drew breathed a sigh of relief as he realized there was no sign of any real invaders. He started making his way back to the Reliance building, circling the block kitty-cornered to the Reliance block six times … pacing and thinking.
What should he do now? Ben was a target for assassination and might not make it through the day—the dark invaders had obviously figured out his importance. Drew had to make contact with Ben, but without exposing himself to the invaders. If they figured out that he was in Chicago and had found Ben, he could only imagine what kind of forces would be brought against both of them. Neither would survive, that was sure.
After two hours of considering his options, Drew was ready. He had to save Ben now, if it wasn’t already too late.
24
SAVING BEN
Drew waited until he was certain there were no dark invaders outside the Reliance building, then walked past the entrance a couple of times to get a view of the inside through the large glass windows that lined the front of the building. When he was convinced the lobby was clear, he entered. The neomodern lobby and reception desk contrasted the exterior architecture and yet was quite appealing. Drew scanned as he approached the receptionist. She was a perfect complement to the décor with her black bobbed hair and sleek, straight-fitting business dress.
“Can I help you?” she asked with a pasted smile.
“Yes, I am a close friend of one of your employees … a Mr. Chider Anderson?”
“Yes, he’s one of our computer technicians. Would you like me to call him?”
“No, that’s all right. I don’t want to bother him now, but I was hoping to catch him for lunch. Could I write a note and have you pass it on to him?”
She handed him a piece of paper, and he wrote, I’m in town and was wondering if you wanted to buy me lunch in exchange for the help I gave you years ago on your science project. Charley’s Deli—11:00. He folded the paper twice, wrote Chider on the outside, and handed it to the receptionist.
“Thanks.”
Drew had never heard of a computer technician dying while fixing a computer, although anything was possible when conditions and events were manipulated by the dark invaders. He figured if the invaders were going to make another attempt on Ben’s life, it would be when he was outside and in the open, where they would have unlimited access to people and machinery. There was a slim chance that a break in Ben’s routine might throw them off. Knowing Ben, Drew figured he wouldn’t normally leave for lunch, so the invaders might not even track him until after work.
At 10:45, Drew positioned himself on the second floor of the parking garage that faced the Reliance building. At 10:50, he watched Ben exit and walk west. Initially Drew was elated that no dark invaders were in sight, but when Ben reached the corner of the building, one came through the brick wall beside him. The invader looked perturbed as he whispered into Ben’s ear. Ben stopped and looked around him in all directions. He glanced back at the entrance to the building, turned around, and started walking back. At the doorway, he stopped again, even though the invader was relentless in trying to influence him.
Ben rubbed his hand across his eyes and forehead, then went back onto the sidewalk and retraced his steps to the end of the block. Despite the constant buffeting of the invader, Ben continued onward.
The dark invader scowled and flew south across the street to pass right below Drew, through the main level of the parking garage. By the urgency of his movement, Drew suspected he was going to report this change in Ben’s routine. It was a break Drew hadn’t expected, and odds were that the window of opportunity wouldn’t last long.
He ran down the garage staircase and onto the street. Ben stood at the intersection across the street, waiting. Even though the Walk light was green, he wouldn’t cross. Four lanes of moving traffic separated Drew from Ben. The seconds ticked by, and the window was closing. The dark invader would soon return, and when he did, others would be with him to finish what they had started earlier—the termination of Ben’s life.
A man stepped around Ben and started across the crosswalk. Ben looked both ways four times, then followed close behind the man. Drew turned and ran parallel to Ben across his side of the street. He then turned and waited for the light so he could get on the same side as Ben. He watched as Ben stepped up onto the curb and proceeded down the street. Drew considered darting through the traffic, but it was too thick to take the risk. The yellow light seemed to take hours to turn. Drew looked south, down the street behind him. He caught sight of distant movement but couldn’t be sure what it was.
Cars slowed and stopped as the yellow light finally changed. Drew dashed into the street, narrowly missing one car that was trying to skim through the intersection. He cut the corner and ran to catch up to Ben, who was now fifty feet up the sidewalk. Drew took one more glance down the street to the south and saw the movement again, this time much closer.
They were coming.
Drew sprinted ahead, losing line of sight of the attacking invaders because of the building across the street. He had less than ten seconds to either make contact with Ben or disappear before the invaders spotted him. He had no choice. He had to abort. He was just a few feet behind Ben when he decided to veer off and away. He looked across the street, where the invaders would appear in just a few seconds.
Had he just set up his long-lost friend to be killed?
Right beside him a taxi driver honked his horn to get the traffic ahead of him moving, and Drew reacted. He moved forward and grabbed Ben’s arm. “Ben, it’s me, Drew—get in the cab now!”
Ben jerked away, but Drew didn’t let go. He pulled Ben to the cab and reached for the door as it started to move forward. Ben resisted at first, then just froze.
“Drew?”
Drew saw a flash at the corner of the Reliance building. It was an invader just materializing through a bus in the street. Drew grabbed Ben’s waist and the back of his head, bent him over, and threw him into the cab, then jumped in behind him and slammed the door shut.
“Stay down!” Drew kept his hand firmly on Ben’s head.
“Anywhere, fast—please!” Ben said to the cab driver, who didn’t seem the least alarmed at what might appear to be an abduction.
The cab lurched forward as Drew pulled his hood over his head. Out of the corner of his eye and through his sunglasses, he saw three dark invaders searching the sidewalk up and down the Reliance building block. Drew’s heart raced. Maybe, by some freak chance, they wouldn’t think to check the cab.
The cab driver made a swift lane change, putting the bus ahead between them and the searching invaders. He made a couple of turns and headed north. Every second that passed was a moment of relief.
Ben tried to lift his head, but Drew wouldn’t let him. “Not yet, Ben.”
“Drew? Is it really you?”
“It is, my friend. Just hang on for a couple of minutes.”
“Cars aren’t safe.”
“We don’t have much of a choice right now, Ben.” He continued to scan for invaders. The cab driver raced away from the Reliance building. After a few minu
tes of dodging traffic and avoiding red lights, and when Drew was sure they were in the clear, he let Ben sit up.
He looked at Drew with wide eyes. “Oh man! It’s good to see you!” He gave Drew a quick one-armed hug.
“It’s good to see you too, Ben. I wondered if I would ever find you.” Drew couldn’t hold back a broad smile.
“How is it possible that I’m being abducted by a blind man? I thought the doctors said you would be blind for life.” Ben waved his hand back and forth while looking into Drew’s eyes as if he were inspecting some new technology.
“I guess doctors don’t know everything.” Drew shrugged.
Just then the cab pulled over to the curb.
“How’s this?” the cabby asked without turning around.
Drew realized that the parking lot his car was in was just across the street. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the cabby staring back at him. Drew got the strange sensation that often came over him when he was near an invader. He fully expected to see a gun in his face followed by a barrage of bullets. Drew looked at the back of the man’s head to see if he could make out a double image, but he couldn’t. But something in his eyes looked familiar …
Drew held the man’s gaze. “How much?”
“No charge today,” the cabby said. “Got a pickup in three minutes, so be on your way.”
Drew reached for the door without taking his eyes off the cabby. He made sure Ben was out of the cab before he was, and as soon as they closed the door, the cab drove off and turned a corner. They stepped up onto the curb. Drew did a quick three-sixty scan to check for invaders and saw none, but there were too many buildings close by to be sure.
Ben frowned when he saw Drew make his scan. “You have to live like you don’t know they’re there.” He began shaking his head, then quickly looked behind him and back again. “Otherwise it will drive you mad … I know.”
Drew furrowed his eyebrows. Like you don’t know they’re there? He grabbed Ben’s arm. “Come on. My car’s just over there.”
Ben shook his head again. “Cars aren’t safe. Most transportation isn’t safe. I figured that out quickly.” Ben’s speech accelerated with each word. “Power stations, large equipment, airports, subways … I’ve got a list. Do you want to see it?”
Drew eyed Ben. Something was out of place. “Are you all right?”
He looked at Drew a bit wild eyed. As if catching his mental breath, Ben calmed down. “Yes, I’m all right.”
Paranoia was really tightening its grip around Ben. Unfortunately, much of his paranoia was justified. After all, he had just experienced an attempt on his life by the dark invaders. Ben needed help, and Drew knew just how to give it.
“Come with me, Ben. I promise it will be safe.”
“There’s no such thing as safe.” Ben glanced over Drew’s shoulder.
“Yes, there is.” Drew kept his voice confident, and he looked Ben straight in the eye. “Come on.”
Ben finally got in the car with him, and they drove north out of Chicago about twenty miles, until they reached Winnetka. He rented a canoe at an outdoor shop on a local resort lake. It was no small feat to keep Ben’s mind occupied throughout the journey, but Drew kept asking questions that helped Ben focus on things unrelated to the invaders. Drew set their course for the middle of the lake. After twenty minutes of rowing, Drew stopped, scanned all about them, and finally looked across the length of the canoe toward Ben.
“Water is safe. I haven’t figured out why just yet, but”—Drew scanned once more—“we’re safe here.”
“You know as well as I do that there is no place safe from them,” Ben said. “This is pointless. It’s all pointless. My life is pointless. We’re just sitting here waiting to die.”
“Keep your voice down. They can hear very well.”
Ben looked at Drew and smirked.
“Ben, let me finish telling you what happened before you start asking a bunch of questions.”
Ben stared at Drew with a blank expression and then nodded.
Drew did another quick scan. “When my vision came back, I discovered that … I could still see them.”
Ben’s eyes opened wide. As the full impact of Drew’s statement settled into his brain, excitement built in his eyes—excitement that he struggled to contain.
Drew held up his hand. “At first I couldn’t believe it myself. Once I started to see images, it took many days for my vision to clear. Then one day in Rivercrest, I saw one, an alien—I call them invaders—just like the one in the lab. I couldn’t believe it. At first I thought I had gone insane, but everything was too real to be my imagination. I watched and then realized he didn’t know I could see him. That is my one and only defense, that they don’t know I can see them. I have to protect that or I’m a dead man.”
Drew scanned again. “I knew I had to find you. You were the only one who would believe me. I needed someone I could trust … someone who knew I wasn’t crazy. I’ve spent the last six months looking for you so that we could have this conversation.”
Ben’s eyes became red.
Drew fought tears himself. “There are places that are safe, Ben … if we are careful. Do you believe me?”
Ben’s gaze fell to the floor of the canoe, almost as if he were looking for something. “Is it possible?”
Drew slowly nodded. “I swear it.”
“The lens of your eyes … Somehow the plasma coupled with your body’s electrical energy must be able to excite the photons entering your eyes. But the plasma is no longer—”
Ben started to stand up and come to Drew, but the canoe wobbled left and right at the uneven weight caused by the movement.
“Whoa! Sit down.”
Ben sat. “I need to see your eyes.”
“Not now. We’ve got more important issues to discuss.”
Ben let loose of his scientific analysis of Drew’s ability to see the invaders, at least temporarily. He smiled. “It’s incredible. Can you really see them … I mean, really see them clearly?”
“As clearly as you are sitting there in front of me. It’s rather … disturbing actually,” Drew said with a frown.
“What have you learned? How much do you know about them?”
“Not nearly enough and certainly not even a fraction compared to what they know about us. There are many of them—thousands at least. This isn’t just an alien visitation.” Drew hesitated. “It’s an all-out invasion. That’s why I call them invaders.”
Ben sat back in a daze. “It makes perfect sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. What better way to take over a world than without the inhabitants even knowing it’s happening? If an alien race has cloaking technology, it would be the perfect invasion.”
Drew nodded. “You’re right. But their ability to cloak themselves goes beyond just being invisible.”
“How so?”
“They can walk through walls and doors. It’s like they are in some interdimensional state. What I don’t get is how come they can see us but we can’t see them. Oh yeah, I can’t hear them at all. It’s like watching a silent movie.”
“Of course … the LASOK dealt only with light. I wonder how sound is transmitted in their dimension?”
Drew could see Ben’s genius mind already contemplating a whole new set of experiments and theories.
Ben refocused on Drew. “Aliens from another dimension … fascinating … and unbelievable. How do they interact with our dimension, and what are they hoping to gain?”
“I haven’t figured that all out yet, but they can affect the outcome of naturally occurring phenomena. Like make a tire go flat to cause an accident or maybe weaken a support in a bridge to cause it to collapse.”
“Or cause a plasma generator to overload and burn down an entire research lab,” Ben added sardonically.
“Yeah … or that. It’s usually the small things though. They do what they do in such a way that people would never suspect the event has
been tampered with. They are extremely careful and crafty that way.”
Drew could tell that Ben was soaking up every word, analyzing all of this new data. “Are they trying to take over or destroy us?”
“I don’t know, but they definitely cause a lot of damage. I can’t quite figure out their motive. It seems as though they are causing chaos so that we don’t advance. Perhaps they’ve been trying to keep humanity from gaining the technology to detect their presence, which would certainly make Dr. Waseem and us a big target.”
Drew let Ben soak the new information up for a minute as he took time to sweep the area once more. When he looked back at his friend, Ben was staring at the floor of the canoe, shaking his head.
“What is it?”
Ben looked straight at him. “Imagine where we would be if they hadn’t been messing with our future for … decades … centuries … millennia?”
Drew nodded.
“Imagine what is happening in our government,” Ben continued, “in governments all over the world. I’ll bet they’re messing with all of the world’s leaders.”
“Here’s the kicker, Ben.”
Ben waited, anticipating Drew’s next words.
“The invaders—they’re not all bad.”
Ben cocked his head to the side.
“These invaders are at war with each other. Some are trying to destroy us and some are trying to help us. It’s the craziest thing you can ever imagine. They all have swords, but any weapon is an option for them. The battles I’ve seen …” Drew shook his head, momentarily lost in the memories of the ferocious duels between the good and bad invaders.
“You mean—” Ben started, then stopped, apparently considering his next words carefully. “So what you are telling me is that these aliens from another dimension have invaded our planet and are fighting each other to see who will rule.” Ben crossed his arms. “That’s what you’re saying.”