Trespassers: a science-fiction novel

by Todd Wynn

  The digital arrow led them to Room 215. Behind that door, Mindy was hurrying back into her skirt and pulling her shirt back on. The bounty hunters psyched themselves up for a confrontation.

  “New Guy, you ready?” Stewart asked.

  Stewart heard him tap his mic twice as a sign of silent acknowledgment.

  “Count us down,” Stewart instructed.

  Three taps. New Guy nonchalantly strolled down the hall toward the trio of trespassers. Two taps. He drew near. One tap. He was right on them now. Right on cue, door 215 flew open. Grizzly, nephew, and Stewart bounded out, with Web joining a step or two later. The trespassers were quickly overpowered and placed in handcuffs. It couldn’t have gone any better.

  With their hands cuffed behind their backs, Dexim, Jin, and Tobi were marched down the stairs to the lobby, where they were surrounded by the whole team. Mindy was the last to arrive. Just as she began soaking in the victory, she got the sense that things were about to go wrong. It was something she saw out the corner of her eye. By the time she was aware of it, it was too late.

  A bone jarring snap echoed through the lobby as Michael-James fell to his knees and grabbed his arm, wailing in pain. At the sight of this, Mindy’s legs froze. She was as agile as a statue and just as mobile. Lyntic stepped from the fallen bounty hunter and quickly locked her arm around Mindy’s neck, holding her from behind as a human shield.

  If Mindy had been able to think, she probably would have wondered how Lyntic managed to break Michael-James’s arm. The answer to that unasked question was being carried in Lyntic’s right hand: a wooden cube that was quite effective at focusing energy in very specific ways. All eyes turned to see Lyntic press this quoret against Mindy’s temple. No one knew what it would do to Mindy if it went off against her skull, but judging from the shrieks of pain coming from Michael-James, it wouldn’t be good.

  Grizzly’s gun instinctively rose from its holster and took aim, and the nephews followed suit. Stewart bounded forward and threw himself in front of the pistols.

  “No!” he ordered, using his body as a shield. This was pure impulse and emotion. He faced the danger without hesitation or second thought. Seeing that Grizzly and the nephews were relaxing their aim, Stewart turned to the two women: hostage and abductor. Mindy’s heart melted, certain that this compassionate act was for her. She hadn’t guessed that, at that moment, Stewart’s concern was only for Lyntic, a face he hadn’t seen in many years, except for every night, moments before sleep drifted in. In those brief seconds, when his thoughts were no longer under his control, the face of this angel would float back into his life and haunt him with sweet memories.

  As Mindy gazed lovingly back at Stewart, she noticed that his gaze was just a bit off. He was missing the mark. She felt Lyntic’s grip loosen enough so that she could turn to see the woman’s face. She saw that this strange alien beauty had Love in her eyes. It was a guarded love, though—as guarded as it was intense. It was as if she had to work to keep it under control, or else it would betray her.

  “Lyntic,” Stewart said, as if saying her name would confirm her presence.

  “Stewart.” She was just as surprised by the sight of him.

  In the silence that followed, Lyntic could see in Stewart’s familiar eyes that he was going to let them go.

  “I can’t let you take a hostage,” Stewart said.

  These words hit Mindy with all the grace of a mackerel to the side of the face. Hostage? she thought. Take a hostage? Had she really been reduced to the low-level title of hostage? Was that how he thought of her? It had such an impersonal feel, as if he was negotiating the release of a piece of furniture that belonged to the Limestone Deposit Survey Group. She quite well expected him to produce a receipt to prove his point. Where was the impassioned plea to save the woman he loved? Just a moment ago she was taking a shower with him. Her hair was still wet from the reality of it, as were other things from the mere thought of it.

  “Let them go,” Lyntic said. She wasn’t asking or demanding. She was simply laying out the terms. Stewart instructed the bounty hunters to remove the handcuffs, and Jin snatched the tracking device back from Web.

  “Where’s the girl?” Lyntic asked Dexim.

  “She’s not here,” Dexim said. “It was a fake signal.”

  “You can fake a heart signal?”

  “Somebody did.”

  Lyntic turned to Stewart. “She’ll walk us out, in case these guys get jumpy.”

  Stewart didn’t say a word, but his look communicated everything. He would agree to whatever she wanted. He was happily defeated in a way that only she could manage.

  All eyes watched as Lyntic and her team backed through the doorway and disappeared into the harsh sunlight. Grizzly and the nephews rushed to the aid of their fellow bounty hunter writhing on the floor.

  “It’s not broken,” Stewart said coldly. “It just feels that way. And it’ll feel that way for another twenty minutes or so. He’s fine.”

  Stewart was right. Michael-James was fine. The quoret Lyntic used on him was a simple pulse emitter, which had many purposes: industrial, medical, and even military. Lyntic’s was the military version, specially modified for field use. It certainly had the capability to break human bone. But if it had been turned up that high, it would have severed the entire arm. The pulse that Lyntic sent into the man’s bicep only tightened the muscles into a dense mass of contracted tissue. It would gradually loosen, but only after a painful waiting period.

  Outside, Mindy stood in the middle of the street, watching her abductors drive off. A refreshing thought grew in her mind: Stewart had to treat her coldly. It was a tactic. This brought a smile to her face. It was like the way Superman kept his private life a secret so that villains couldn’t take advantage of his weakness for his loved ones.

  She was suddenly disappointed in her own thoughts: comparing Stewart to Superman. That gave the whole thing an adolescent feel, as if she were some schoolgirl fawning over an idealized teacher. That took all the substance out of it, and she wanted substance. She didn’t want to believe it was just an idle crush.

  “Are you okay?” Stewart asked. As he approached, he knew her reaction was going to be either very good or very bad. That’s how it worked with intense situations like this. From what he had seen of Mindy, her reaction was going to be heartfelt and extreme. Whether it would be positive or negative was yet to be seen.

  Mindy’s eyes quickly found Stewart. Her arms flew up from her sides. Here it was . . . a bright smile.

  “Did you see that!?” Mindy gushed. “Holy cow! That was intense!” She let out a deep, satisfying laugh and wrapped him in a bear hug.

  Stewart breathed a sigh of relief. This would be easier to deal with than the panic-attack version, not to mention the lawsuit that probably would have followed.

  “You’re okay, then?”

  “I’m okay,” Mindy answered.

  28

  Bruner Kills Some Time

  By the time Stewart and his crew were loaded up in the SUV and headed back to Home, Stewart had officially called the whole thing off. Mindy didn’t understand how he could go from being so excited about this case to suddenly dropping it. Was he scared of these trespassers? He didn’t seem scared—more like annoyed.

  “I don’t understand,” she finally said.

  Stewart turned halfway around in the front passenger’s seat to point an ear in her direction.

  “We’re just dropping this altogether?” she asked. “Why?”

  “There’s nothing there.” Stewart shrugged.

  “You knew that girl, didn’t you?”

  “We worked together before . . . a long time ago.”

  This caught Web’s attention.

  “Would she have used that thing on me—that arm-breaking thing?” Mindy asked.

  “No.”

  “She worked for the Limestone Group?” Web asked.

  “Not really . . . we worked on several projects together. We were both after t
he same trespassers, so we teamed up.”

  “If she used to chase trespassers,” Mindy asked, “why would she be trespassing now?”

  “I don’t know,” Stewart replied. “But I’m sure they have a good reason.”

  “What’s our official take on this?” Web asked.

  “It never happened,” Stewart said.

  Two-and-a-half miles away from the Juniper Hotel, Bruner was settling onto a barstool to kill an hour and a half the best way he knew how. The bartender poured Dewar’s Scotch Whiskey into a chilled glass, and Bruner began swirling it on the counter.

  The thought that began swirling in Bruner’s mind was a familiar one—his wife’s shoulders. He was remembering the way she would use them to communicate. Come closer . . . touch me . . . hold me . . . whisper in my ear, she could say it all with a subtle curl of her shoulders. Several years ago though, those shoulders had turned cold, and all they would say was stay away.

  A voice from a booth in the corner drifted over and caught Bruner’s attention: weather balloon . . . tracking device . . . can’t vote for anybody.

  Bruner stopped the swirling and angled his ear to listen. He picked up something about a stranger needing a ride. The drink would have to wait. Bruner drifted over to the booth and made eye contact with the old man.

  “What were you saying,” Bruner inquired, “about . . . weather balloons?”

  Suddenly, Stewart Faulkner wasn’t his best lead.

  Twenty minutes later, Bruner’s car was parked just outside town, along a certain county road that cut straight as an arrow through endless fields of corn. Parked just ahead of Bruner’s car was Ken Thompson’s truck. Bruner walked to the passenger’s door and opened it to hear Ken Thompson’s voice.

  “That’s where I dropped him off,” Ken called from behind the wheel. “Then he headed out through the corn.”

  Bruner turned and gazed into the thick corn. This was the type of unusual behavior that he was always on the lookout for. He crouched down and inspected the ground.

  “Okay,” Ken called out over the idling engine, trying to get some reaction from the man. Bruner just stared into the corn, and Ken stared at the back of Bruner’s head.

  “Can you shut my door?” Ken finally said.

  Bruner eased out of his crouch and reached behind to push the door closed, his eyes still scanning the terrain, trying to find a footprint in the soil.

  “Thanks again,” Bruner called out, still not taking his attention off the ground. Ken nodded and eased down the road.

  A few minutes later, Bruner found himself enveloped in cornstalks. The vegetation was thick enough that he could rest his weight on it as he pushed his way forward, searching for anything in the shape of a clue.

  Bruner wasn’t able to pick up the path that Jin had taken, but he did see the tall, proud farmhouse peering through the ragged edges of the cornstalks. He approached with caution. He didn’t want to get bitten by a dog or shot by a farmer.

  He tapped his pocket to make sure he had his wallet. Inside that wallet were his credentials—a nice government photo, a metal badge, and an official-sounding title. These credentials usually went a long way to keep him out of trouble. Credentials were no guarantee against dogs or farmers with shotguns, though.

  His current wallet had been purchased for him by his wife. Contrary to popular belief, federal agents are not issued convenient flip-out wallets for their credentials. They are given ID cards, credential certificates, and badges in a plain manila envelope. Before Mrs. Bruner made his life a whole lot easier by purchasing a flip-style wallet, more often than not, Bruner would find himself flashing a credit card, library card, or gas card when declaring that he was representing the federal government on official business. Tiring of hearing these stories, his wife put an end to all that when she presented him with a simple $49.95 leather wallet with a folding outer sleeve. Now, with one flick of the wrist, Bruner always looked like a proper federal agent, right off the TV screen.

  As he moved across the lawn toward the farmhouse, he was ready to flick that wrist. But he didn’t see anyone to flick it at. He made his way up the steps of the porch and poked the doorbell. Bruner wasn’t expecting an alien to come to the door. He was expecting to be greeted by the homeowner. And he hoped that homeowner could answer a few questions about a stranger who claimed to be in search of a weather balloon. Bruner didn’t buy that weather-balloon story for a second. It sounded to him like a cover for someone who was snooping around.

  Bruner always kept an eye out for others who were in search of aliens. He knew there was a lot to be gained from them and didn’t want to miss out on anything they might have discovered.

  Bruner could hear movement inside the house. The long, wooden planks of the floor creaked under the weight of moving feet. He turned and gazed out across the yard as he waited. He wondered where this weather-balloon chaser had headed. Many people who claimed to have seen UFOs often took up the search for aliens on their own, after their reports were summarily dismissed by the authorities. Bruner suspected that this weather-balloon chaser was just such a person. The door behind Bruner opened with a deep resonating creak. He turned to see Jin standing in the doorway.

  “Hello, my name is Karl Bruner.” He flipped his wrist and his wallet flopped open perfectly. “I’m with the Alien Research Agency.” He had learned long ago not to beat around the bush. Many people would chuckle at the thought of a federal agency dedicated to alien research, but Bruner found it best to be right up front about it.

  Jin was not chuckling. The words Alien Research Agency struck him exactly the wrong way. He was instantly breathless and slipped into a panic. What he did next was about the worst possible reaction he could have had.

  29

  Home Again

  In Stewart’s office, George had taken up residence in a chair across the desk from Stewart, and he got right to the business of drawing up the paperwork to assign a new military specialist to Stewart’s team. It was as routine as a handshake around here. Military specialists flow in one door and out another. Stewart’s gaze broke from the paperwork that George was filling out and landed on George’s bald spot, which hasn’t been filled out in decades.

  “Actually . . .” Stewart thought hard as he heard these words coming out of his mouth. “I think we’ll keep him.”

  “Ha!” George chuckled and pushed the form over to Stewart, along with a pen for him to do the signing.

  “I’m serious.”

  This one military specialist was proving to be the surprising exception. New Guy hadn’t asked to be reassigned. He hadn’t mentioned reassignment at all. In fact, as Stewart reflected on it, he didn’t recall seeing any of the telltale traits of insurrection or mutiny. As difficult as it was to accept, New Guy hadn’t given any reason to be replaced.

  George cocked his head, befuddled. “Well, a group of scientists can’t really hold a marine against his will, now can they?”

  “I think he wants to stay,” Stewart said.

  George gave it a brief thought. “Did he actually say that he wanted to stay?”

  “You know these guys never say anything.”

  George nodded agreeably and slowly retracted the paperwork and the pen. George was that rare type who had piles of red hair springing from the sides of his head while at the same time being mostly bald. If you were to draw him on a napkin, you would invariably end up with an unmistakable portrait of a circus clown. However, in real life, there was nothing clownish about him. He had a certain dignity and aged charm.

  “Still though,” George said, “we better get him in here and be sure.”

  On that advice, Stewart called New Guy into the office and, with George watching on, put the question directly to the stoic marine, who was standing with that certain muscular posture they all seem to have.

  “Do you want to stay on the team?” Stewart asked.

  New Guy’s pupils shifted ever so slightly to meet Stewart’s.

  “Sir?”


  George quickly spoke up, like the voice of legal counsel, “You’ve completed your tour of duty here, and you now have the option of being released so that you can be reassigned to another position . . . outside of the Limestone Deposit Survey Group.”

  New Guy’s pupils slowly floated over to George.

  “So, do you want to stay . . . or do you want to go?” George asked.

  New Guy weighed this decision carefully, with Stewart and George hanging on his every lack of expression.

  “I’ll stay, sir,” New Guy responded.

  “Ha! Told you.” Stewart gloated. George deflated into his chair, having lost the unspoken wager.

  “So, let’s tally it up. I was right about the deployment to the Aztec mines, the appointment of the CIA director, the cover-up of Flight 417, and the Russian Space Station. And now you have one—the whim of a marine,” George said, as he always did after losing one of their little wagers. It was his modus operandi to list out all his major victories and pit them against his latest defeat. It was his way of minimizing it. Stewart just smiled. He enjoyed this part as much as the winning itself. He had come to think of it as the victory ceremony: a congratulatory speech doled out in the only way George knew how.

  They were interrupted by the odd sound of a marine speaking when not spoken to.

  “Sir,” New Guy interjected.

  Their attention shifted to him.

  “I don’t believe I’ve been properly briefed.”

  “Briefed?” Stewart asked.

  “Sir, is there somewhere that I can learn more about the aliens?”

  Eureka! George and Stewart felt it at the same time, and their jaws fell open in amazement. This was the first time a military specialist had used the word alien in a way that wasn’t derogatory or part of a request to be reassigned.

  “You see,” Stewart whispered to George, knowing full well that the marine could still hear him, “he is one of us.”