He was trying to save himself.
His cone was turning a darker shade of red, a deep crimson, and it was thickening around him.
“Please, Abel!” he shouted. He was caged in what looked like a viscous, purplish-red fluid.
Then his body began to melt, conjoining with the gelatinous fluid. Tiny, thin blue lines—capillaries?—started to emerge from his liquefying body. They swam up to the top of the cone, and there, they gathered themselves into a tiny ball, the size of a marble.
A few seconds later, Ben’s body completely melted away, and the cone disappeared. The only thing left of Ben was that blue marble, which still hung in the air. But what was it? Was it capillaries?
My heart was thumping wildly, and sweat coated my brow. My thoughts were as jumbled as my feelings. I was terrified and panicked, but I also felt relief, because whatever it was that I’d just witnessed, I was grateful that it hadn’t happened to me.
“Take the blue sphere and put it in this,” the synthetic voice commanded.
I turned to Abel—which was what Ben had called the disfigured man—and realized that I was no longer in the cone of light. I also noticed that there was now a white object, the size of a thimble, sitting on the mahogany desk.
I followed orders.
I stepped up to the desk, picked up the white thimble, and walked over to the blue marble, which was still suspended in the air.
As I reached for it, Abel warned, “Don’t touch it with your hands.”
I obeyed. I carefully scooped the marble into the thimble, and as soon as the marble was inside, a tiny lid automatically slid across the top of the thimble, sealing it.
I brought the thimble over to Abel, and as I did, I saw a new object sitting on his desk. It was gold colored, the size and shape of a credit card, but completely smooth and lustrous, with no markings.
“You now work for me,” Abel said. With a gloved hand, which rose from the shadows, he slid the gold card toward me. “Keep this with you at all times.”
I put the thimble down and picked up the gold card. It felt metallic, but it was as light as air. As I waited for Abel to explain what it was, my thoughts became less jumbled, at least enough to understand that I’d gotten my wish: I had the job.
And my thoughts were also clear enough to understand what would happen if I slipped up. Ben had been murdered right in front of me, and though the method of murder was bizarre, it had made one point perfectly clear: my new employer had no problem with murder.
“Time for your orientation,” Abel said.
He leaned forward out of the darkness and into the dim light.
I gasped.
His face was horribly disfigured—far worse than anything I could’ve imagined. It had no features, except for one. A large, almond-shaped eye. A polished black gem. The purest black I’d ever seen. No white, and no pupil.
The rest of his face was taut brown skin. No nose, no mouth, no contours. There were no wrinkles and absolutely no blemishes. It looked fake, or surreal, the effect heightened because there were no features to break up the rigid surface.
What in God’s good name had happened to this man?
“Get used to it,” the synthetic voice said.
That was a tall order—getting used to it was going to take time. And right now, rather than getting used to it, I was trying to make sense of it. And that led to a realization.
Abel wasn’t a man at all, was he?
That would explain his peculiar appearance.
Of course, it was still possible that my first instinct had been right. That he’d been disfigured by a horrible disease.
Only—he didn’t look disfigured. His skin didn’t bear any signs that it had been grafted. It was perfectly smooth, without a blemish. And his single, magnificent eye—it didn’t look like the result of some corrective surgery. It didn’t look like a doctor had done the best he could with what he’d been given. Abel’s lone eye looked perfect and all-seeing.
The man was a living Cyclops.
Except he wasn’t a Cyclops.
When I took into account what else I’d witnessed tonight—the red cone that had liquefied Ben, leaving no trace of his body except for the blue marble—I had to consider the impossible.
“I’m an extraterrestrial,” Abel said, as if he had been following my train of thought and wanted to help me reach this implausible conclusion. His synthetic electronic voice gave no hint of the outrageousness of his statement.
“More than that doesn’t concern you,” he added.
I took this in and thought this through. I was already predisposed to believe in alien life. Not in a kooky, science fiction way, but in a pragmatic, scientific way. Probability dictated that we weren’t the only form of intelligent life in the universe. When you did the math, you had to conclude that in a universe so vast that its size was unfathomable, there were other forms of intelligent life. The quote from the film Contact put it best: “The universe is a pretty big place, so if it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
But I had never imagined humans would make contact with this alien life. Or that aliens were here on earth now. Or, even more far-fetched—that I would make contact with that alien life.
That was science fiction.
“I give you the targets,” Abel said, “and you deliver them to me. When I’m done with them, you return them. Those are your duties.”
I knew the targets were the women.
“I’ll give you a supply of tranquilizers,” he said. “You use the tranquilizers to capture the targets.”
Like big game hunting, I thought. But what was Abel doing with the spoils of the hunt? What was he doing with the women?
Abel scooted his chair closer to the desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out a small tin box and what looked like a metal straw, copper-colored, about the length of a cigarette.
“Use this like a blow dart,” he said, “but don’t blow hard. Breathing out once is more than enough. The tranquilizer pellet travels up to twenty yards almost instantaneously. It travels through anything in its path, except for humans. Once the pellet hits a human, it immediately dissolves.”
I took the tin box and the copper straw. The straw felt cold, as if it had been refrigerated, or had its own internal cooling system. I slid the straw into my pocket, then opened the tin box. There were twelve gel pellets inside. It was obvious that the pellets were to be loaded into the straw, so there was no need to confirm that with Abel—and if I did, that would probably lead him to believe that I was far too slow a learner for the job.
Somehow, I supposed because of Abel’s terse manner, I knew I should ask questions only if it was absolutely necessary. I’d already gathered that this was one of the main requirements of the job.
So, though I wanted to ask him how I should pick out the targets, I decided to ask the only question that mattered. The only question worth the risk of asking it. Because the answer to that question was the reason I was here.
“What’s the salary for the job?” I said. Using the term “salary” was a way for me to whitewash the illegality of the job. Wouldn’t the term “bounty” have been more appropriate?
“It depends on the target,” Abel said.
That left me no option but to ask a follow-up question. “How?”
His black eye stared at me, as calm as a dark, moonless night. “Some targets are more valuable than others,” he said. “But the minimum payment is one hundred thousand dollars per target.” The synthetic voice didn’t register just how much that was.
But I did—and I was elated. My confidence surged. I stood up straighter, felt stronger. I didn’t know what lay ahead, but at that moment, I was sure I’d made the right decision.
I wondered how many targets there were per year, but I didn’t have to wonder too long.
“There will be one target every two weeks,” Abel said.
A quick calculation left me holding my breath. He was talking about two and a half million dollars a y
ear. Minimum. My financial problems were solved. If I could do the job. Without slipping up.
“You may choose to execute the assignment in any manner you wish,” Abel said. “And if you execute the assignment properly, the target won’t remember anything.” He leaned forward and took the thimble from the desk. ““I will contact you through the gold card. The card will give you the first target.”
I’d been dismissed already, which was another sign that questions were to be kept to a minimum. I wanted to ask what he meant by “execute the assignment properly.” Was there a risk that a target would remember the abduction if I didn’t execute the assignment properly?
But I didn’t ask Abel anything more. Instead, I said, “Thank you.” It was time to exit. I had accomplished my mission. I reached into my pocket to make sure the gold card was there. It was. And it would stay with me at all times, as he’d ordered.
I headed out of Abel’s dimly lit office and down the hallway into the living room. A breeze was blowing in through the open patio doors. I took in a deep breath of fresh air—a life-affirming breath—and as I walked through the living room, I decided that on my next visit, when I delivered the target, I’d use one of my small allotment of questions. I’d ask Abel how I was supposed to keep a target from remembering she’d been abducted. For how could I know if I’d executed the assignment “properly” if I’d had no training?
I stepped outside and was suddenly confronted by Ben’s car. It gave me a jolt. It brought back the harsh reality that Ben was dead. Murdered. Mason would be devastated. I had just ruined the life of a great kid. A cold chill swept through me—guilt—and I began to shake.
But I fought back against the guilt. I told myself that I’d had no idea that my determination to land this job would result in Ben’s death. I couldn’t have foreseen it. I thought it might result in my own death, not his.
I told myself that this was my new life—my new career—and that meant I had to accept what came with it. For better or worse. I had experienced the “better”—a lucrative job—but I had also unintentionally generated the “worse.”
I had to adapt. Adapt or die. And in this case, adapting meant learning to live with guilt. Not only to live with it, but to move forward in spite of it—to thrive. Otherwise, I’d fail in my new career.
So I started right then. Rather than letting the guilt take over, I focused on my next move—my immediate move: getting back home tonight. I gathered that Abel would get rid of Ben’s car; if he’d wanted me to do it, he would have ordered me to. That left walking.
It would take me an hour to walk back to the Starbucks where I’d left my own car. So I got started. As soon as I stepped up to the iron gate, it opened, and I was on my way.
A thousand questions raced through my mind as I trekked toward Mulholland. I tried to focus on only one: my role in the alien’s operation. Why did he need a human employee? Wasn’t he technologically advanced enough to get away with abductions without human help?
I’d seen some evidence of his superior technology: the cage of red light, which cleanly and efficiently disposed of human life; the tranquilizer pellets, which traveled through anything until they hit human targets; and the thin gold card in my pocket, through which the alien would give me my marching orders. But the most compelling evidence of his superior technology was the fact that he was here at all.
So why did he need humans?
When I hit Mulholland, I stared up at the broad night sky, at the vast reach of space from which Abel had come. But it was only when I looked down at the Valley below, with its dazzling lights strung out in long tidy rows, that an answer to that question began to take shape. My investigative reporting instincts kicked back into gear, and I realized I’d come at the question from the wrong angle.
Forget the “alien” part of Abel’s operation. What mattered more was the illegal part—the very fact that it was illegal. Abel wasn’t trying to run his operation with maximum efficiency as a goal. His main objective—after the abductions themselves—was the same as that of any ongoing illegal enterprise: minimize the risk of getting caught. Minimize the risk that he’d be exposed. He didn’t want humans to suspect that aliens had anything to do with the abductions. And it was also possible—although I couldn’t be sure of this—that he didn’t want his own kind, his own species, to suspect either.
He was using humans to do his dirty work so he could keep his distance from the nitty-gritty vagaries of human interactions. For it was those very interactions that were the riskiest part of the operation, and no amount of superior technology or intelligence could eliminate that risk.
Abel had eliminated that risk by taking himself out of the abduction equation.
That seemed right.
I’d seen the same structure in all sorts of illegal operations, from drug rings, where the head honchos were shielded from the dirty work by their street-level employees, to corporations, where the top executives were shielded from criminal activities by their managerial-level employees, to governments, where public figures where shielded from covert operations by “unaffiliated” secret paramilitary groups.
When I made it to the Starbucks, I added another part to this analogy. Those who did the dirty work were replaceable—whether they were street dealers in a drug ring or managers in a corrupt corporation.
I was replaceable.
On the drive home, I turned that over in my mind. Before I was replaced—before I slipped up—I had to earn enough money to cover Jenny’s treatments no matter how long they lasted and how expensive they got. Before Abel liquidated me, I also had to earn enough money to cover Jake and Hannah’s college tuition, plus a comfortable cushion to cover them in case they wanted to go on to graduate school. And I had to earn enough money to pay off the house.
It seemed inevitable that at some point I’d slip up, just as Ben had.
I could accept that.
But I had to meet those objectives first.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I walked into the house, I was ebullient, focused only on the positive. For now, my unanswered questions had been pushed to the side, along with my guilt. The gold card in my pocket was proof that I’d secured a job—a great job—and I wanted to tell Jenny. I wanted her to know that the good news she’d been expecting had been delivered.
But how would I frame that good news? That, I didn’t know.
Jake was at Sam’s house, along with a few of his other friends, all gathered to download some cutting-edge video game that had just been released. Hannah was at swim practice; the coach liked to schedule extra practices at night.
So it was just Jenny and me, a great opportunity to make my special announcement—and also to celebrate it.
I stepped into the kitchen. She was at the table, typing on her laptop. “Let’s go out to eat,” I said, ready to take on the celebratory aspect of my announcement, even though I didn’t know what I was going to tell her.
“Eddie, we can’t afford it,” she said.
“Let’s do it anyway.” I didn’t hide my grin.
She cocked her head, smiled, and immediately gave in. “Okay, let’s live a little,” she said. My grin had given away my surprise. She knew what was up.
She insisted I pick the restaurant, another sign that I’d already let the cat out of the bag. I chose The Counter, the family favorite, a place where we’d had many celebratory dinners.
The short drive over wasn’t totally worry-free, but it was far more worry-free than any drive I’d taken in quite a while. I could feel a lightness on my side of the car as well as on hers. The anxiety about the cancer hadn’t disappeared, but the gloom stemming from my rocky job prospects had lifted. Sure, I was feeling uneasy about coming up with a cover story for the new job, but I was no longer feeling like a loser who couldn’t provide for his family.
At The Counter, we “built” our burgers, which were the restaurant’s primary attraction. You created your own custom gourmet burger by ordering from a menu of a w
ide range of exotic toppings, from Danish Blue Cheese to Jicama.
When we finished giving the waiter our order, I added a beer, which I hadn’t had in months. Jenny ordered a glass of wine, and when the waiter took off, she beamed at me. Her blue eyes sparkled with anticipation.
The grin returned to my face, but I still held back on the good news. And it wasn’t because I was trying to create suspense. It was because I had to lie again, and that part wasn’t sitting so well. On the other hand, the money part was sitting very well—and that was the part I needed to channel.
“Are you ready to spill the beans?” she asked. “Or do you want to wait for our drinks and make a toast?”
I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. “Let’s wait for the drinks.”
Her smile grew, and I supposed her anticipation grew along with it. I was also enjoying the moment, regardless of the lie I was going to have to spin, until out of nowhere—the gold card in my pocket suddenly felt heavy.
I wondered if Abel was calling me, interrupting our celebration, to give me my first target. I couldn’t check the card in front of Jenny, so I told her I needed to use the restroom.
In the restroom, I pulled out the card. Nothing about it had changed. It was me who had changed. I was feeling self-conscious about the card. It was a reminder of the lie I was about to tell Jenny. And it was more than that. It would be with me at all times, a kind of private Scarlet Letter, reminding me that I was a sinner, and making sure I would never forget that.
When I got back to the table, the waiter was delivering our drinks. As soon as he walked away, I raised my glass, hoping I could get through the upcoming lie as fast as possible, so we could enjoy the celebratory part of the dinner.
“I got the job,” I said.
“Congratulations!” Jenny raised her glass, and we clinked. “I’m really happy for you,” she said. “I know it was a long haul.”
Alien Abduction Page 11