by Stacy Jones
In her alarm, she’d stupidly forgotten to remain calm and shut the lab door.
Turning in her chair, she saw one of the black ops security guys standing in the entryway to the lab, staring at her. She thought his name was Luke, but didn’t know for sure, since she avoided him and the rest of his buddies. They all seemed nice enough, but there was something in their eyes—a detached kind of coldness—that never failed to set off her internal alarms. Mira knew it was their job to protect her and the rest of the people who worked in Area 51, but instead of making her feel safe, they unnerved her.
Maybe it was knowing that, if it came down to it, she was disposable, and they would be the ones to dispose of her.
“Everything’s fine. Just a ping from the… translation software telling me it decoded something. Nothing to worry about,” she assured, smiling calmly.
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he eventually nodded then turned to leave. Mira didn’t relax until he was out of sight, and the sound of his booted footsteps faded down the hallway. She had a bad feeling he didn’t fully believe her lie and mentally chastised herself for not controlling her reaction better. Now, there was a better-than-good chance he’d keep a closer eye on her.
“That might not be a bad thing,” she whispered, as she read the information on her screen, confirming a signal had been sent.
The potential implications of that were unnerving, to say the least.
Mira wasn’t overly reckless, nor was she naive enough to think she was perfectly safe in the underground lab, but after a few minutes passed with no answering signal, she decided she wasn’t willing to throw in the towel and give up what was quite possibly her only chance to advance her career.
If she sounded the alarm now and revealed her prior knowledge—and the fact that she’d kept it to herself—without anything to show for her subterfuge, she’d be facing a world of trouble, up to and including her termination. And not the kind where she was just fired. The permanent kind. But if she kept it under wraps for just a little while longer, she could be looking at an even bigger leap in the ranks than she’d initially anticipated.
She was so close to cracking the device and discovering everything it was capable of. Being able to present that breakthrough would be huge, but if the device was signaling aliens, and she was the one to inform the General—and was, therefore, instrumental in facilitating first contact—she’d make herself invaluable.
I need to confirm this data and see if I can pinpoint where the signal is being sent, before I report my findings.
Keeping everything to herself was still a gamble, but it was one she was willing to take… right up until reality wormed its way past her ambition and excitement. It sank in that first contact on a military base/secret underground lab might not end well for the alien.
Horrific images of it being experimented on and vivisected for the rest of its life flashed through her mind, making her stomach roll and her heart squeeze.
That served to make her hesitate in her plan where the possibility of her own death hadn’t.
For a long minute, Mira fought with the sudden and foolish impulse to send another signal through the device to alert whomever or whatever might be on the other side and warn it off. Only her inability to convey such a message with any guarantee of accuracy made her pause long enough for other possible outcomes to occur to her. Who was to say her attempt at warning them off wouldn’t have the opposite effect and draw them to Earth even faster, leading them to their demise which would, at that point, be directly her fault? No amount of ambition would let her live with that.
Her time as an orphan had taught her to distance herself from people, and being a scientist hadn’t done anything to improve that inclination, but in spite of hard life lessons, she’d always had what she considered an overdeveloped sense of empathy. It made the biological sciences courses she’d taken more than a little difficult to bear because of the dissections and experiments on lab animals. To think of those things happening to an intelligent being made her feel physically ill.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Mira worked through her options of what to do next.
She decided to give herself four more days. In that time, if she hadn’t decoded what she needed from the device, she’d take it offline.
The next three days made her new plan seem both half-witted and dangerously assumptive. That same night, not hours after the device pinged, an alarm went off, though it originated from the base above, and she didn’t learn about it until the next day.
She dismissed it initially. She’d overheard some of the security guys quietly talking about it in the hall outside her lab but didn’t think much of it when they speculated that it was caused by an animal. However, when it kept occuring, she began to worry it was connected to what was happening with the device.
From what she could gather, the alarms were set off by little things—a motion sensor here, a redirected camera there—but it added up to an equation that worried her.
A staff meeting ended up being called during which everyone was reassured about the rumors and told that the alerts were most likely due to a curious coyote and that they needed to be extra vigilant, to report anything unusual.
Mira returned to her lab at the end of the meeting, trying to convince herself the coyote theory was right and the bad feeling in her gut was wrong.
When she walked into the break room later that afternoon, deciding it was worth braving the masses for further information they might be able to unwittingly provide her, she heard a few of the other scientists joking about the possibility that it was an alien come to reclaim their stolen technology. Listening to them voice her exact fear demolished any progress she’d made in convincing herself she was wrong.
That night, after everyone else left, she made a decision. If she didn’t succeed tonight, she would take the device offline and report herself to General Harrison first thing in the morning. There was a chance she was being paranoid and the alarms really were caused by some inquisitive animal, but she couldn’t in good conscience take the risk, not when a being’s life may be on the line.
Maybe I’ll catch the General in a forgiving mood, and I won’t be fired or taken out back and put down like a rule-breaking, secret-keeping, rabid dog. Stranger things have happened.
7
Zaek
Zaek crept, cautiously but quickly, up to the large building from which the soldiers had just left. Peeking around the corner of the open hangar doors, he saw a dozen of the white pickup trucks they used, weapons stations, and various other military equipment. What was most interesting were the elevator doors at the very back of the hangar and the two armed men, dressed in black, standing guard in front of them. What he didn’t see was another entrance that he could sneak through.
Sighing with irritation, but not surprised to find breaking in wouldn’t be as easy as he’d hoped, Zaek reluctantly withdrew one of the rocks he’d pocketed for a snack. He threw it at the opposite side of the wide doorway, making sure it clanged against the metal wall of the building, then darted inside to a shadowed corner.
From what he’d seen of their comrades’ easily encouraged complacency, he didn’t think the soldiers guarding the elevator doors would actually go outside to investigate. He’d just wanted to distract them from his entry, but they surprised him. Both men immediately peeled off and moved in a bent-legged, shuffling walk to the open doors, weapons raised and ready.
Zaek instantly recognized that these men were different from the ones that went to check out his previous disturbances. These were better trained, and that was a problem.
Aside from cataloguing their responses, timing, and weaponry, he’d also used his reconnaissance as an opportunity to examine their training. He thought he had a good chance of success with what he’d seen, but if a different, better trained contingent of soldiers guarded the underground, his chances of sneaking around until he found the beacon, and extracting it without being detected, just dropped significantly
.
Zaek hated going into a situation without any insight as to what he’d face, but it didn’t look like he had much of a choice. It had been almost two weeks since the beacon went live and he couldn’t afford to waste any more time scouting.
I guess we are winging it.
Chuckling silently at his own pun, he silently withdrew a tranq gun of his own design. It used the same diamond-tipped darts he had in his security system and would penetrate their armor.
When they came in line with his hiding place, he fired twice with a soft puff of air, his aim perfect, then darted to the closest one and grabbed the plastic card off his uniform. They’d be out for at least six hours, given their size and the dose in the darts.
More than enough time.
Using a flashlight to blind the camera to his approach, he quickly stabbed the lens out with his wing claw. Someone somewhere would surely notice the loss, but it was preferable to his image being captured.
He gave the doors an assessing once-over but, other than the small screen set into the wall beside them, he didn’t see any booby traps or sensors that would set off alarms. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, but he was running out of time to be as thorough as he’d like. The soldiers investigating his latest disturbance would return any second and find the ones he’d sedated. He needed to be out of sight before that happened.
Scanning the card only succeeded in making a password prompt show up on the screen.
“Open sesame?” he muttered with a chuckle as he yanked the screen off the wall, used his claws to cut the main power wire behind it to reset the system, then twisted it back together.
The doors opened with a soft swish and he carefully situated the screen back in place so it wasn’t immediately noticeable that he’d broken their toy.
Folding his wings tightly so he’d fit, Zaek stepped inside, pressed the card to the scanner, then selected the button for the lowest level. The tracker would tell him when to stop.
“Macero-cursed humans and their tiny fucking bodies,” he growled, hunching over when the tips of his wings scraped the ceiling of the little box.
As he descended, he listened to the steady beeping of the tracker in the bag slung over his chest, waiting for it to speed up. He was damn near at the bottom of the seemingly endless shaft before that happened.
Pressing the button for the next level down, he listened hard while the elevator slowed to a stop but, thankfully, didn’t hear anything on the other side. He clicked the flashlight back on and stepped out, scanning the hallway. Other than a camera recessed into the ceiling in the corner, that he quickly disabled with the claw tip of his left wing, it appeared empty.
Unsheathing one of his knives, he wedged the blade between the bottom of the door and the tracks. The doors would stay open in case he needed to make a quick getaway, and the security measures wouldn’t allow anyone up top to recall the elevator and ambush him on his way out of this level.
That done, he stalked down the hall, his tranq gun raised, and his ears trained on the hallway in front of him.
He knocked out every camera he passed, turned to stone to trick the tiny sensors, and flew over the cute little lasers they mistakenly thought were invisible as he turned down one hall then another. And another. Nine turns later and he still hadn’t found the beacon. The damn place was built like a maze, but he kept track of where he was going so he wouldn’t get lost on his way out.
Finally, the tracker made a single, loud beep, echoed by a corresponding ping coming from the other side of the thick metal door to his left. Unfortunately, it was answered by a gasp. A human gasp that, unless he was mistaken, was distinctly feminine.
Fuck. So much for remaining undetected.
He was out of time. He’d already been down there far too long, and his chances of being caught by a hell of a lot more than one measly human increased with every minute he stood there.
Grumbling at his luck, Zaek prepared himself to be screamed at and called a monster. Still, there was no reason to scare the poor fool anymore than necessary.
“Why go crashing in when knocking works just as well,” he reasoned, raising one fist to rap on the door while his other aimed the gun at what would be neck height on an average Earthian.
He heard a clatter and the squeak of wheels on the floor before a surprisingly pleasant-sounding, if audibly annoyed, voice asked who the hell would be knocking when the other door was wide open.
“Hmmph. Should have checked for another entrance before announcing my presence,” he groused under his breath.
“Yes. You should have,” he answered himself dryly.
“Too late now.”
8
Zaek
The door swung open, revealing an alarmingly small female and wafting a scent over him that literally made his mouth water. His trigger finger froze, refusing to obey his command and tranq the tiny woman.
Zaek felt the base of his horns heat and a peculiar tingle start in his mouth as he took her in. As wholly disconcerting as he found that singular, distinctive reaction, he couldn’t stop himself from scanning her quickly, but thoroughly, from head to tiny little feet covered in sensible, flat shoes.
She had a mess of long, black curls that looked to be home to at least three pens stuck haphazardly within them. Her wild mane framed a face dominated by large, shockingly bright blue eyes, currently staring up at him in stunned disbelief. Her full pink lips were parted and, worryingly, she didn’t seem to be breathing.
She reminded him of one of those adorably fluffy angora bunnies, and he had the almost unbearable urge to pet her.
Clearing his throat and dismissing the odd and completely unexpected attraction he felt for the miniature female, Zaek rumbled, “Hello Earthian. You have something that belongs to me.”
The sound that came from her mouth was not a noise he’d ever heard a human make. Not that he had much experience with them, but he honestly hadn’t known they were capable of such a… warble. As best as he could discern, it sounded like a half-swallowed scream, mixed with a very high-pitched squeal, and a few vowels thrown in as if she’d attempted to say words.
Seeing as he’d learned almost every language humans spoke during his many, many years trapped on this planet, he should have recognized what she said, but he didn’t, which led him to believe they weren’t actual words but rather a reaction to seeing an alien.
Better than screaming.
We should have shot her.
NO! That would have hurt her.
When she didn’t make any further noises, or move for that matter, Zaek decided he must have stunned her to insensibility. Dropping his still-aimed gun to his side, unable to bring himself to use it, he holstered it and peeled his gaze off of her with an effort, looking over her head into the room. He immediately found his beacon set on a table, half disassembled and hooked up to at least two dozen wires.
Zaek turned narrowed eyes on the motionless female. Adorable and sexier than anyone he’d ever encountered or not, he was thoroughly peeved to discover she’d tried to destroy his beacon. She blinked up at him rapidly and sucked in a sharp breath, her first since she’d opened the door to find a six-foot-nine, horned, winged, tailed, dark grey alien with an ugly mug, even by Khargal standards, standing on the other side.
Worried she’d start the screaming he hated so much if he gave her the opportunity by just standing there like a dunce, he hurriedly slid past her, keeping his tightly folded wings against the door frame, then the wall, so there was as much distance between them as possible.
Unfortunately, him moving seemed to be what she needed to snap out of her comatose state.
“I have until morning! Y-you aren’t supposed to be here,” she stammered, her voice shaking and breathy, as if she were close to passing out.
Zaek didn’t have any idea what she was talking about with ‘having until morning’, but thought the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be there was pretty obvious so didn’t bother to respond. He was still holdin
g onto the hope that he could snatch up his beacon and get out of there before he was found by the men in black or the pretty female started screeching.
She must have noticed where he was headed, because he heard her make a little cry of what sounded like dismay before her footsteps rushed up behind him.
His first thought was that she was going to attempt to tackle him, something he found himself not completely opposed to, even if he also thought she should know how ineffective that would be.
In an instinctive effort to assist her, Zaek halted and relaxed his wings, so she’d have a softer surface to crash into, while readying himself to spin around and catch her if she reverberated off and fell to the hard floor. Why his first impulse was to protect her, he didn’t know.
Further proof that I have become completely unhinged.
The impact never came. Instead, she used his hesitation to dart around him and block his path to the beacon, leaning her body back over it and spreading her arms wide. Her running past wafted a stronger gust of that scent over him, making the tingle in his mouth grow more intense.
Refusing to acknowledge the ailment affecting him for the moment, he glared at the human, both irritated she was trying to block him from retrieving his beacon and a little secretly miffed she hadn’t tackled him.
“Move. That is mine,” he demanded lowly.
“N-no. This is the pr-property of the United States government!” she countered.
Zaek raised the skin over his brow, giving her his favorite human expression, one that conveyed just how absurd he found that statement.
Her eyes widened even farther before a bit of confusion bled across her features. Whether that meant he’d performed the expression correctly and she understood his message, he had no idea. He’d only ever used it on Roc, and it never had much effect on that impertinent male.
When he took a step closer, she blurted panickedly, “Finders keepers, losers weepers!”