by Tom DeLonge
It hadn’t come from nowhere. It had come from the base. It was one of ours.
Alan fought to track its fall, guiding the saucer as best he could as it lurched haphazardly into its final descent, but his mind was darkening, as if he were sliding into the water in some subterranean cave.
“Coming down,” he murmured, barely awake. “Sphere. Get to that ship.”
He wasn’t sure if Riordan could hear him, or Regis, or anybody. He was really only talking to himself.
He watched the sphere struggle, fight to regain its momentum, and fall. As he finally slipped into the dream, his hands slid lifeless from the console, and the disk tumbled from the sky.
75
JENNIFER
Nevada
“COMING DOWN,” SAID THE SPECTRAL VOICE ON THE radio, a voice of inexpressible weariness, quite unlike the man Jennifer had bickered with in the bar not so very long ago. “Sphere,” the voice said. “Get to that ship.”
“Major!” called Regis into the radio. “Alan! Can you read?”
But the pilot did not reply. Suddenly there was a steady thrumming in the air, rising in pitch and volume, and when she looked up, Jennifer could see the light coming down in a hard, straight line.
A ship. Not landing but crashing to earth.
“Follow it!” bellowed Regis.
Jennifer turned the key in the ignition and set the Humvee lurching down the ridge toward the road.
She saw the burst of light, heard the deep, resonant thud of the crash, the echoes trembling in the air over the noise of the Humvee’s engine, and then they were speeding along an old, forgotten highway, their eyes fixed on the fiery glow that rose up from behind a ragged line of barren hills.
They made for it, though what they would find when they got there, Jennifer could not imagine.
76
TIMIKA
Indian Springs Auxiliary field number 1 (closed), Nevada
THE BOX WAS TOO HEAVY TO MOVE, ESPECIALLY WITH HER right arm crossed painful and useless against her chest, so Timika fumbled in her pocket, drew out her cellphone, turned on the flash and took three pictures of the stone tablet in its curious metal frame. Then she slid the drawer closed, locked the door to the safe, secured the key and clambered awkwardly back up to the desert and the bodies.
She was halfway up the ladder when she heard the distant boom and emerged to find Simmons gazing off to where the sky was lightened by an amber, uneven glow.
“Something crashed,” he said, awestruck, barely aware of her. “I saw it come down, right there.”
As he pointed, the second craft descended. It wasn’t lit up, but the whole thing seemed to glow softly, like a ball at the end of a long punt, accelerating as it fell.
The impact sounded different, shorter, less booming, but there was still something jarring about it. It shook her from her watchful reverie and sent her running to the white sedan the fake cops had been driving.
“Hey,” said Simmons. “You can’t take that. You’ve got to stay here until the med team arrives.”
“You keep your eye on him,” Timika shot back, pointing to the handcuffed man on the ground and climbing into the driver’s seat.
The keys were in the ignition.
She had to see.
77
ALAN
Nevada
SLEEP. IT FELT LIKE SLEEP, BUT IT WASN’T. NOT QUITE. It was a drowsiness that closed his fluttering eyelids and shut down his senses, but his mind still worked. Just. Thoughts reached out, thin and wavering. It felt like trying to move an oak tree by pulling on its outermost branches, his mind straining. Alan, who was no longer Alan but the broken disk, flexed and dragged, and then the branch was sliding through his fingers and he was holding nothing, forgetting the metaphor of the tree, of the saucer, just drifting through the blackness of space.
The disk struck the earth. It did not bounce, instead blasting a crater that it excavated as it slewed, plowing up rock and dirt and carving its way across the desert floor, glowing hot, so that the dry bushes it touched flared with sudden fire and were gone, but slowing,
Slowing,
Stopping.
All noise ceasing, as if all sound had been sucked out of the night.
78
JENNIFER
Nevada
THEY REACHED THE FRACTURED DISK FIRST. REGIS sprang from the vehicle, picking his way along the trench the ship had made when it hit the ground before Jennifer had shut the engine off. She jumped down from the Humvee, slipping where the sandy earth had turned into hard, crystalline glass from the heat of the impact.
A curved panel that might have been a door had popped off the disk. She directed her flashlight inside, where Regis was unstrapping the man in the chair. Alan. He was unconscious but, amazingly, was not dead. His body was intact, despite the crash. She stepped back to examine it. The saucer appeared to be largely intact, if battered and bent out of shape. It ticked as it cooled.
A handprint—Regis’—had burned onto the side by the hatch. It smoked still.
Jennifer approached, feeling the heat of the thing shrinking her hair as she got close. She could smell it smoldering.
Careful not to touch the strange metal, she reached into the hatch and helped guide Regis out, taking as much of the pilot’s weight as she could manage. Regis’ bare arm brushed the edge of the hatchway and she heard the flesh sear, but he only grimaced and kept working.
Once they had him out, they moved him away from the ship and laid him on the ground, where Regis pressed his ear to the pilot’s chest.
“Is he alive?”
Regis hesitated. “I think so, but his pulse is very faint. He’s breathing.”
As Regis barked into the radio again, Jennifer got back in the Humvee. There was another ship to see.
79
TIMIKA
Nevada
THE WHITE SEDAN STRUGGLED WITH THE TERRAIN THE moment she left the road. Timika drove as fast as she dared. When the big man stepped into her headlights, waving his arms frantically, she swerved to go around him before she realized who it was.
The officer called Regis.
She skidded into a sliding halt, then reversed when she realized what he wanted. He had a man with him. The man lay slumped on the ground, his head tipped back in an alarming manner. He was wearing a tan flight suit, and for a moment, Timika thought he was dead.
“Help me get him in the back,” said Regis.
Timika shone her flashlight to where something sparkled and smoked at the end of a deep, black trench.
“He was in that?” she gasped. “I’m not sure we should be moving him.”
“Sphere,” said the pilot, his eyes cracking open a fraction. “Take me to the sphere.”
“You heard the Major,” said Regis.
“What if he has … I don’t know. Broken bones, or internal bleeding?” said Timika.
“I’m fine,” breathed the pilot. “Just … tired.”
Timika gaped at him.
Tired?
“The craft wasn’t breached,” said Regis. “He’s shaken up, but he’s okay. If he says it’s important to get to the other ship, that’s what we should do. Okay?”
Timika bit her lip, then nodded and pulled open the back door.
To her surprise, Regis didn’t need her help. The pilot—whose name badge read A. Young, presumably the Alan Jennifer had mentioned—was recovering rapidly, though he still seemed strangely shell shocked. His eyes were vague and unfocused, but once Regis had him on his feet, he seemed able to stand by himself.
Even so, he labored clumsily into the back seat and slouched there, breathing hard as Timika got into the driver’s seat and pulled away.
“Over there,” said Regis.
The underside of the white sedan whined in protest as the car picked its way among the stones and scrub brush. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, eying a particularly nasty looking rock, she’d peel open the gas tank like a sardine can.
“Faster,�
� said Regis. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Who’s they?” she shot back, irritably.
If he knew the answer, he didn’t say, turning over his shoulder to consider Alan, sprawled on the back seat.
It wasn’t hard to see where the second ship had come down. There was a wide, blackened track, part of which still smoked in her high beams, and a few small brush fires.
Timika nosed the car up the side of a ridge, grimacing at the scraping of the underside and feeling the wheels spin as they tried to get enough purchase on the sand and gravel to haul the vehicle to the top, and then they were tipping over the crest and the headlights fell on the scene below them.
It looked like the sphere had clipped the ridge, then bounced over the downslope before slamming into the next rocky outcrop. There were more scattered fires up here, and a wider swathe of scorched undergrowth. Though it had been badly distorted by the impact, the ship had not exploded. It was smaller than the disk and sat in the blasted ground like the egg of a dragon, sparkling with strange energy. A portion of the outside had been torn away—the source, presumably, of the debris they had been following—and it provided a dark opening into the heart of the craft, as if the egg were hatching.
Jennifer was sitting on the ground beside it, the Humvee abandoned halfway down the ridge, its lights blazing. She stared into space, her face creased into a stunned bewilderment that was unnerving to look at.
“You okay?” Timika demanded, getting out of the car.
The other woman didn’t answer. She looked dazed. Drugged.
Timika rushed over to her.
“Jennifer?” she said. “What is it?”
The Englishwoman seemed to grow slowly aware of her, looking up and focusing. There was dirt and something like oil smeared across her face but she seemed unaware of … anything.
“Jennifer!” Timika said again. “What’s wrong?”
Jennifer licked her lips and said simply, “Look.”
80
ALAN
Nevada
ALAN SLITHERED OUT OF THE BACK SEAT, FORCING HIS legs to work. His body was intact, he was pretty sure, but his mind was still sluggish and his limbs felt heavy when he moved. He got his feet on the ground, but as he stood up, the world swam and he had to steady himself against the car.
The sphere was there, a great rupture in one quadrant, though whether he had done that or if it had been split open by the crash, he didn’t know. A surge of nausea rose up in him as he considered the awful probability.
Friendly fire.
The craft had risen to protect him, and he had taken it down because he hadn’t been able to keep his mind focused any longer. He had done this. But he had to be sure.
Regis was already scrambling up the ridge toward the sphere, flashlight held out in front of him. Alan saw two women, sitting together. Then one of them followed Regis, peering over his shoulder. He needed to know what they saw.
There would be insignia, surely? Badges. Identifying marks so they would know for sure which side they were on. And maybe, just maybe, the crew wasn’t dead.
He took a cautious step, then another, still clumsy, and then dropped to his hands and knees to make the climb up to the ship.
But then Regis was pulling him up and whispering into his face.
“Come on, Major. We gotta go. We can’t be here.”
“What?” Alan muttered. “No, I have to see …”
“You don’t,” said Regis. “You’ve seen too much already. We all have.”
Alan shrugged out of his grip and nearly over-balanced, but he spoke with determination. “No,” he said. “I have to know. Was it ours?”
Regis stared at him, his face contorted with emotion. Then he shook his head.
Thank God.
“Theirs,” said Alan. “Hostile.”
Regis dropped his eyes, then shook his head again.
Alan stared at him, trying to understand.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Not ours, Major,” said Regis. “Not theirs. Different.”
“Different how?” Alan pressed.
“These craft you’re flying,” said Regis. “Where did we get them?”
“What do you mean?” he said. The two women were staring at them.
“Where did these ships come from?” Regis demanded, his voice raised. “Who built them? What built them?”
Alan opened his mouth to speak, but no words came, and suddenly the night was full of a familiar and steady droning sound. He saw lights in the sky over the base.
Helicopters. Coming in fast.
Alan took a step towards the downed sphere.
“You don’t want to look in there,” said Regis, pulling him back. “We need to be elsewhere. Now.”
Alan fought back, but in his present state, he was no match for the big man.
“Get back in the car, Major,” said Regis. “We gotta go.”
But Alan had to see, and with his last ounce of strength he worked out of Regis’ grasp and stumbled toward the fractured sphere.
He looked.
He saw.
And dimly, inadequately, he understood, even if what he saw merely confirmed that all he thought he knew before that moment was wrong.
THEY TOOK THE HUMVEE, ALL FOUR OF THEM PILING IN and sitting in silence as Jennifer drove it back toward the road. The helicopters arrived before they made it. Soldiers spilled out, rifles raised, so they stopped and got out, hands on their heads, watching as a pair of dark SUVs came speeding along the road toward them. The men who got out wore black suits and sunglasses.
81
JENNIFER
Indian Springs Auxiliary field number 1 (closed), Nevada
THEY RETURNED TO THE ABANDONED AIRSTRIP, WHERE Timika, in spite of her arm, insisted on being the one to lead the soldiers down the ladder to the three tiny vaults. They looked the same as before, she said. When they came back up, the drawer that had contained the box with the stone tablet held only a laminated information sheet detailing the identifying marks and habitat of a rare breed of fish.
“What the hell is an Ash Meadows Speckled Dace?” she said.
It was almost funny, Jennifer thought, wiping the dust and filth from her face, thinking about her father and the men who had killed him, about all she had learned, and all the new questions she still had to answer. Almost funny.
The soldiers, the medics and the so-called EPA men, had decided to give them some space. They had a lot to explain, they had been told, but criminal proceedings seemed unlikely.
Which actually was kind of funny.
While the various representatives of officialdom filed reports and documented the scene and did God-knew-what else to spirit it all away in the trucks and choppers, Jennifer asked a question.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” she said, giving the men in the distance a look.
“Cover stories,” said Regis. “The Roswell protocol. My money’s on marsh gas.”
“Weather balloon,” said Alan with a bleak smile. “Definitely weather balloon.”
For a moment, they all turned to watch as men in hazmat suits climbed down from yet another helicopter. The patch of desolate ground, empty of people no more than a couple of hours ago, and for the last fifty years, was starting to look like Piccadilly Circus at rush hour. For a minute or more, the four of them watched.
“So now what?” said Timika.
Regis shrugged.
“They’ll take statements,” he said, “get us to sign declarations …”
“No,” said Timika. “I mean what do we do next? After we leave here. I mean, I had a life, I thought, but it doesn’t seem to make much sense now. I think there’s stuff I need to do, questions I gotta ask, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Jennifer. “I know. I’ll be right there with you.”
The two women caught each other’s eyes and grinned.
“You could probably use a pilot,” said Alan.
“Easy there, Cap
tain America,” said Timika. “I’m not sure you’re on our side.”
“Well,” said Alan, “to be honest, neither am I. But I think maybe I am.”
Jennifer stared at him. “Are you serious?” she said.
He seemed to consider this, then nodded. “I think so,” he said. “I’ve spent a long time doing what I was told. I’ve got some questions of my own. What about you, Barry?”
“Barry?” said Timika. “Who the hell is Barry?”
“Me,” said Regis.
“I thought your name was Regis. Like Regis and Kelly or some shit.”
“My name’s Barry Regis,” said the big man, scowling. “And yeah, I guess I got some questions.”
“Well all right then,” said Timika. There was a long silence as a strange and unexpected harmony settled within the group.
Off to the east, Jennifer saw a long slash across the horizon that was slowly turning the sky pink.
“Hey, whadyaknow?” said Timika thoughtfully. “Sunrise.”
And so it was, though what the new day would bring, Jennifer could not begin to imagine. But, she thought vaguely, at least the night was over.
82
TIMIKA
Indian Springs Auxiliary field number 1 (closed), Nevada
ANOTHER HELICOPTER ARRIVED, THEN A TRUCK, AND another couple of Humvees. Last, with a dragging roar that anticipated its arrival by over a minute, came a cement mixer. Timika had no idea where they got a cement mixer at this time of night, but she had a pretty good idea what they were going to do with it. The vaults at the foot of the concrete shaft had, after all, been emptied already.
She took a minute to upload the pictures she had taken to a private drop box. It was too much to hope that she’d be allowed to walk away from this with her phone. As to what this was …
“This way, please, Miss Mars,” said one of the newly arrived soldiers, gesturing toward his Humvee. He was not wearing a name badge.
“I think I’d rather stay with my friends,” she answered, wondering a little about the ease with which she had said that last word. It wasn’t a term she used much, and certainly not to describe people she’d only just met.