Alien Abduction

by Irving Belateche

  As I drove down the small winding roads that led to Abel’s grand home, I went through the exact words I’d use to issue my blackmail threat, in case it came to that. While I was rehearsing, it hit me: I could leave the blackmail package with Larry instead of with the LA Times. I could take advantage of the very media I hated; he’d run with the story even if the evidence was flimsy.

  Talk about clickbait.

  And he could protect himself by running the story with his own commentary doubting the veracity of my story. He’d merely be laying out the flimsy evidence for the reader to decide for him or herself.

  So the decision was made. If I made it out of Abel’s alive, I’d prepare a blackmail package for Larry. Then maybe, in addition, one for the LA Times.

  When I pulled up to the gate in front of Abel’s house, it opened. He was expecting me because he was tracking me through the gold card. As I drove toward the house, the garage door opened, as it always did.

  I pulled into the garage and waited until the door closed behind me before I got out of the car. Another ritual I was used to. The door to the house was open, inviting me in.

  I walked inside, and my eyes immediately fell on the door leading to the harvesting room—the room with the loveseat. But the door was closed, because I didn’t have a target. The door to Abel’s office was closed as well.

  So I walked down the hallway and into the living room.

  A few seconds later, Abel came down the staircase from the second floor. This was the first time I’d seen him enter the living room from upstairs.

  I immediately noticed the alien’s gait was different. He was moving slowly, as if he wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings. And as he got closer, I noticed something else different about him: his large black eye had an extra gleam to it. It was as if its surface was glassier, more reflective, shinier.

  Was the alien betraying some kind of emotion for the first time? If so, I would’ve expected to see anger, and this didn’t look like anger. But I was anthropomorphizing him. Maybe for his species, anger looked exactly like this.

  I reminded myself that I needed to focus on the surfaces the alien touched, if any, and not on trying to read his emotional state. The only way to get a Touch DNA sample was to make sure I swabbed the exact spot that Abel touched.

  Abel stopped about four feet away from me. That was also a change. He usually stopped much farther away. But what didn’t change was his electronic voice.

  “I expected you to contact me sooner,” he said.

  “I should’ve. I made a mistake.” My eyes flicked to the device in Abel’s hand, the one from which the electronic voice emanated. There was no doubt the device was covered with skin samples.

  “You were supposed to dispose of her body,” he said. “Didn’t you understand what that meant?”

  “I did. But I thought it was too risky to drive around with a dead body in my car. I should’ve buried her much deeper.”

  “You should have made sure there was no body to be found.”

  I remembered that this had crossed my mind. The Breaking Bad solution.

  “I did a poor job,” I said. “Is there something I can do to fix it?”

  “No.”

  “Is there something you can do?”

  “What would you have me do?”

  Was Abel asking me for advice? That didn’t make any sense. I stared into the alien’s eye, trying to figure out if he was actually being snarky. But all I saw was that glassy surface, gleaming with its newfound sheen.

  “My guess,” I said, “is that you’ve already done everything you can to keep yourself isolated from the crime.”

  Rather than acknowledge whether or not he had, he asked, “Is there anything else I need to know about what went on in Del Mar?”

  “Just that I did my best to cover my tracks.” That wasn’t a lie. The problem was that, although I’d become better at my job—abducting targets and returning them—I was far from a pro when it came to covering up a crime scene.

  Abel didn’t respond.

  Again, I got the same impression I’d had when he came down the stairs: that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. Was his mind on something else? Had he already moved on to a new employee? Should I issue my blackmail threat now?

  “Are you going to give me my next assignment?” I said, hoping his answer would give me some indication of what he was thinking.

  “Yes. But it won’t be the usual assignment.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked. I couldn’t help but think he was going to send me on a suicide mission.

  “I’ll contact you.”

  I didn’t know whether I should follow up with another question. As it stood, it looked like issuing my blackmail threat would be premature. The alien wasn’t making a move to liquefy me, which gave me time to put teeth into my blackmail threat; I could gather more evidence.

  He turned and started back toward the staircase. He hadn’t touched anything in the room, but I wondered if I should still swab a surface. Of course, I’d be relying on luck—for only luck would steer me to swabbing a spot that Abel had touched.

  I looked at the open patio door—had he touched the handle? The door had always stood open; for all I knew it had been open for years. I looked at the fireplace tools—had he touched the poker? The fireplace looked like it had never been used, so he’d probably never touched the poker.

  But then I realized, I couldn’t swab anything in this room because I couldn’t just hang back while Abel headed up the staircase. He’d see with his all-knowing eye that I was hanging back. I’d have to swab a surface in another part of the house.

  So I moved toward the hallway, as if I was planning to leave, and I slipped my hand into my pocket. I wrapped my fingers around a tiny plastic baggie, one of three, into which I’d put a cotton swab.

  I glanced at Abel just before I stepped into the hallway. He was progressing up the staircase slowly, as if his mind was a million miles away.

  In the hallway, I headed toward the garage. As I passed the door to Abel’s office, I saw a swabbable surface staring me in the face: the doorknob. Abel had to have touched it.

  But then I had a better idea. I didn’t know when Abel had last touched this doorknob, but there was another doorknob that he had touched probably less than thirty minutes ago: the knob on the door leading into the garage.

  That door had been open for me when I’d pulled into garage—as it always was when I arrived—and there was no doubt that Abel had opened it himself, since there was no one else to do it.

  I pulled the plastic baggie from my pocket and glanced over to my shoulder to make sure Abel hadn’t changed course. He hadn’t.

  When I reached the door, I’d already pulled the cotton swab out of the baggie. But before I swabbed the doorknob, I checked the hallway behind me again, nervous that Abel would appear and catch me red-handed.

  The coast was clear, so it was now or never.

  I leaned down and swabbed the doorknob. Then I carefully placed the swab in the baggie.

  I stepped into the garage, leaving the door open behind me as I always did. But as I moved toward my car, I had a moment of doubt. Should I close the door behind me? I never had before, but that’s because I’d always had a target in my arms. Would leaving the door open now give away my betrayal?

  I told myself I was overthinking it. I climbed into my car and put the baggie with the sample in it in the glove compartment.

  A minute later, when I drove through the gate and off the property, I felt a sense of relief. I’d gotten out alive.

  But could I stay alive?

  ABEL

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The human feared for his life—and rightly so. If it wasn’t for the Kalera, I would have disposed of him during his impromptu visit. He’d never know that the Kalera had saved his life.

  And it had done so much more. This batch had turned out to be even more powerful than I’d thought. The clarity
and speed and complexity of my thoughts were unparalleled. As soon as the drug had permeated my system, my mind shifted into a hyper-intelligent state. I was able to instantly dissect numerous plans to integrate myself back into life on Tracea.

  One plan passed all the checks.

  I had been working on that plan for a few days, non-stop, under the influence of the Kalera, when Eddie dropped by. I should’ve expected the visit because, even as I’d been working on my plan, I’d been paying attention to the unfolding investigation into Rose David’s death. The human had done a terrible job of covering up his tracks, and unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to do as much as I would’ve liked myself. If this had happened decades ago, I could’ve easily pointed the investigation in another direction. If this had happened during the Richard Deaks years, I could’ve made the problem go away days ago.

  But as it stood now, I wasn’t able to manipulate the investigation enough to throw the police completely off-track. There was still the possibility that the investigation could eventually lead to me.

  I had hoped my heightened intellect, thanks to the Kalera, would enable me to come up with some new way to manipulate the case. But regardless of what angle I took, it was clear there wasn’t much I could do. So instead of helping me come up with a solution, the Kalera only reinforced what I’d already concluded: that over the last few cycles, it had become much harder for me to manipulate information without leaving a trail.

  The Kalera did deliver on another front though. During Eddie’s visit, I’d picked up cues that indicated he’d become the new Richard Deaks. The human wanted to expose me. But this time, it wasn’t because he wanted to go down in the annals of history as a hero. Eddie was motivated by pure selfishness. He wanted to protect himself and his job. He reflected the values of his generation, just as Deaks had reflected the values of his.

  But though the values that humans held dear changed from generation to generation, it had become clear that their behavioral characteristics didn’t. For example, in all my cycles here, I’d seen that the species was consistently empathetic. I believed that their capacity for empathy was far greater than that of any other species. At least of the ones I knew about. I often wondered whether their capacity for empathy was what made up for the species’ lack of intellect—or at least, whether it would eventually do so. By empathizing with each other, might they as a species make great strides? There was power in unity. I’d seen that across the universe.

  My thoughts suddenly slowed down; the Kalera’s effect was waning. It was time to focus on putting the final touches on my plan. The plan had to be perfect if I was going to have any chance of reintegrating myself into life on Tracea. But the more my thoughts slowed, the harder it was to focus.

  I was tempted to take another Kalera capsule right then. Sure, it was a terrible idea. The second time wouldn’t be as powerful as the first—and the second time was the road to addiction.

  I postponed that decision, and instead ran another simulation of my plan on my workstation. I also continued to monitor the Rose David investigation. I was plugged into the internal police communications in San Diego as well as the private networks of the news outlets. And the number of news outlets covering the story had grown exponentially.

  If Eddie had known the truth about how far the police investigation had progressed, he would no doubt have threatened to expose me during his visit, rather than wait. Although the human knew the situation wasn’t good, he didn’t know that one of Rose David’s neighbors had reported seeing something unusual on the day before Rose David went missing. The neighbor told the police that he’d seen a tourist strolling along Lunela Drive taking in the view of the Pacific. That wasn’t unusual for the neighborhood, but what was unusual was that he’d seen the tourist a second time, on the same day, taking the same stroll.

  And there was something else the human didn’t know: the police were looking through security camera footage from businesses in Del Mar to see if anyone who’d walked by or stopped in on that day fit the description of the tourist that the neighbor had given.

  I felt my mind slowing even more, but now I was fine with it. I’d finished running the simulation of my plan, and it looked good. More than good; it looked excellent. But unfortunately, the plan still called for one element I couldn’t get by myself. I’d tried to work it out so this element wouldn’t be necessary, but I hadn’t been able to. This was the reason I hadn’t disposed of the human during the visit; this was the reason the Kalera had saved him. I needed him for one more job. I needed him to get this element. That was why I’d let him walk out alive.

  Next time the human wouldn’t be so lucky.

  JENNY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jake’s method of breaking into Eddie’s computer had worked like a charm. An evil charm used by a snoopy wife, I thought, because I’d felt guilty every step of the way. Still, my suspicion had overpowered my guilt.

  When I checked Eddie’s computer files, I didn’t see any evidence he was doing research on companies that ADM was looking to acquire. I couldn’t find a single Word document or Excel spreadsheet about an acquisition target. I couldn’t find one PDF download from a company website. And I couldn’t find any summary of an interview with a company executive.

  There wasn’t a single file on his computer indicating that he’d been conducting research on even one company, much less a bunch of companies. And what surprised me even more than that—shocked was the right word—was something else I couldn’t find: any file, document, or email that had anything to do with Archer Daniels Midland. That set off alarms. If he was working for ADM, surely there would have been some sign of that.

  There wasn’t.

  There also wasn’t anything on his computer to indicate that he was working for any other organization. In short, there was no indication that he had a job at all.

  So how was he paying for our expenses? How was he paying for our medical bills?

  After checking a few more files, I looked at his search history and saw that he’d deleted it.

  I was tempted to ask Jake if there was a way to retrieve someone’s search history, but I thought I’d already lied to him enough. Besides, I’d confirmed my suspicions. Eddie was definitely hiding something.

  As I checked a couple more files, ready to end my snooping, I realized something else. Eddie didn’t have many files on this laptop. It was as if he’d transferred very little from his other MacBook Air onto this one. And what about the files from the original computer? The one he’d owned for years, the one he hadn’t wanted to pass on to Jake—where were those files? He’d had thousands of files related to his work at the LA Times on that computer. Had he purged them all?

  That didn’t seem right. He’d want access to those files—they contained resources, research, and contacts he’d spent years collecting. So where were they?

  Had he kept his old computer? The one he claimed to sell on Craigslist?

  I put this question aside for now and circled back to the matter of his job. If Eddie wasn’t working for ADM, what had he been doing for the last few months? And what was he doing when he left the house for hours on end? Where the hell did he go?

  I suddenly felt queasy and chilled. Not because of chemo—the effects were long gone—but because my string of questions had led me to a question I didn’t want to think about: Was Eddie having an affair?

  That was ridiculous. He was lying about a job that he didn’t have, and he had found a source of money that I didn’t know about. None of that suggested anything to do with an affair.

  Still, I couldn’t push the thoughts of infidelity away; I was already trying to string together evidence to prove it. But the evidence was all circumstantial: primarily his odd schedule, which included a lot of interviews with executives at night. He had explained these away by telling me that they had to be low profile, so no one would get wind of ADM’s acquisition plans.

  I wondered if his trip to San Diego hadn’t been a busines
s trip, but an illicit jaunt with his mistress. And that upsetting thought suddenly led to another piece of circumstantial evidence—a very personal one. Since my cancer diagnosis, though most things in our relationship had remained the same, a few hadn’t. We’d always had a great sex life, but the cancer had changed that. Specifically, the chemo aspect of the cancer. I didn’t feel like having sex as much as I had before the treatments, and my desire to have sex was only just now returning.

  A bit late, I thought.

  Surely, my lack of desire had affected Eddie. When we’d talked about it, he’d been understanding. But what kind of husband wouldn’t be understanding? Or at least say he was?

  I decided that when Eddie returned from Thousand Oaks—or from wherever he really was—I would confront him. Not about infidelity—I understood that on that front, I was jumping to conclusions—but about his job. I’d demand to know the truth about ADM. Then from there, I’d decide if I’d also accuse him of being unfaithful. That would depend on what he said about ADM, on whether or not he really had a job.

  *

  Eddie came back shortly after noon, but I had to wait a little longer before confronting him. I didn’t want Jake in the house when Eddie and I talked. But as soon as Jake left for Sam’s, I marched into the den—where Eddie had been holed up on his laptop since returning—and got right into it.

  “Eddie, we need to talk,” I said.

  He closed his computer. “Is something up with Hannah?”

  “No. Something’s up with you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think you’re lying about your job.”

  He swallowed, and his eyes widened.

  “No. Not really,” he said.

  “‘Not really’? What does ‘not really’ mean? Are you lying or not?”

  “It’s just that there are some things about my job that I can’t talk about.”