by Todd Wynn
“Oh shit,” Denokin said, in his native tongue, as he saw Stewart, Web, Lambert, and Mindy—the ones who had captured him before.
“It’s okay. They’re with us,” Dexim shouted over the wind, which was quickly fading.
Denokin nodded, but he still didn’t understand how this could be.
“Let’s pack it up,” Dexim called out. He turned to the shovelers. “Anything?”
Right on cue, Tobi dropped his shovel and lifted his hands over his head. Lambert and Jin took a look and spontaneously clinked their shovels together like champagne glasses. Could it be?
“Don’t toy with me,” Dexim said, still shouting, though the wind had completely dissipated.
Tobi flashed a big grin as he squatted down and took hold of something below the surface. He gave it a yank, but nothing budged. “I’m going to need a hand with this,” he said with a laugh. “It’s heavy.”
The image of everyone converging on the dig site—with the spaceship in the background—appeared on the screen of a digital camera. The video had been running fourteen minutes, according to the numbers rolling at the bottom of the frame, and it had captured a wealth of evidence to support the existence of aliens. Bruner carefully held the camera on the action as he eased forward to get a better view, staying concealed behind the cover of the forest. He had played a hunch, and it was paying off beyond his wildest dreams.
Denokin, Tobi, and Lambert hoisted a sphere out of the ground. As Bruner shifted his eyes between the camera and real life, he sensed the importance of this discovery, though he had no idea what it was.
Just as a great speech was about to materialize, it was Jeremy’s unexpected voice that broke through the silence.
“Sara,” Jeremy said, taking her hand. All eyes turned to them. “I . . . ah . . .” He shook his head and abandoned words. He took hold of her and pulled her in. He planted a kiss on her—but a real kiss this time, a passionate, soulful, earth-shattering kiss. He had stolen center stage. Even Bruner tilted his camera to get this.
As he finally released her, she fluttered and stared at his face.
“I know you,” she proclaimed. . . . “You can undress me in twelve seconds.”
“That’s right!”
The spectators exchanged quick looks and raised eyebrows.
“But you’ve never kissed me like that before,” Sara said.
“I wanted to.”
“I’ve been waiting for that,” she remembered.
Jeremy shrugged. “Now seemed like a good time.”
Sara turned to Dexim. “You don’t have to take me back now. Now that you have the Metraball, I’m not a target or an asset.”
Dexim couldn’t argue with that, but before he could respond, Lyntic interjected, “No, you have to go. You have to leave him here. It’s the only way you’ll know for sure.”
All eyes turned to Lyntic.
“It’s too big a decision to decide now,” Lyntic continued. “You have to leave, go back home, get back in your element where you can think clearly. You have to allow the possibility that things are going to be different when you’re apart. That’s the only way you’ll find out what’s right. If you feel it, come back for him. If not, let it be. Let him move on.”
As Stewart listened, his emotions flopped back and forth. He couldn’t tell which side Lyntic was on, and he couldn’t tell whether she was referring to Jeremy and Sara or herself and him.
Bruner stopped the camera to conserve the battery, not realizing it would cause a loud chime to ring out. As he looked back to the action, he saw all eyes staring at him—he had been discovered. As Bruner scanned over the faces, he saw a gun in Lambert’s hand. The gun fired, sending a dart whistling toward Bruner, slamming into his leg.
As Lambert and Web waded into the bushes to gather Bruner, Stewart lifted his phone to his ear and placed a call to George. “I found the girl,” Stewart said, skipping the salutation.
“What do you mean?” George asked.
“I mean the Limestone Group is looking for a girl, and I have found her. But the Mundle don’t really want the girl. They want the Adari Metraball.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about—I have the Adari Metraball. It’s smaller than you’d think . . . and not really that much of a ball. Anyway, it’s headed off the planet, which means the Mundle won’t be searching for it anymore, which means I’ve pretty much saved the Earth from probable extinction . . . again.”
George was silent.
“Just let the Mundle know that you know what they’re up to and that the Metraball is off the planet,” Stewart said. “I’ll go ahead and start moving my things into the new office.”
37
All’s Well
Bruner felt himself breathing. Perhaps that’s always the first thing one’s aware of when coming out of sedation. He began to hear his heartbeat. He could hear movement in the room. His eyes opened to see a large office . . . a picture window with a tenth-story view . . . Stewart arranging items on empty shelves.
“I think he’s waking up,” a voice said.
Bruner turned to see Web sitting at the corner of a desk, the same desk he was sitting at. Web looked him square in the eyes, like a doctor examining a patient. “How do you feel?”
Bruner took a deep breath and his bearings returned. “I’m okay.”
Stewart pulled a few more items from a cardboard box and placed them on the shelf. Then he turned to see Bruner.
“Do you know who I am?” Stewart asked.
“Stewart Faulkner . . . Limestone Deposit Survey Group,” Bruner said.
“And do you know what I do?”
“You cover up alien activity.”
Stewart eased into the chair across from Bruner. This was his first time actually sitting in it, and he was struck by how much more comfortable it was than his old chair. He took a moment to run his hand along the leather, before returning his attention to Bruner. “And how do you know that?”
“I have a nice video of it,” Bruner said, tapping his pockets. “But I guess you have that now.”
“Don’t worry about the video.”
“I have about a million questions about that video.” Bruner smiled, knowing better than to expect answers. Stewart smiled even wider, as if Bruner had made an inside joke without knowing it.
Stewart paused long enough for both their smiles to die. Then he nodded to a small machine on the desk, which looked like an iPod with earphones attached. “This is a memory-blocking apparatus.”
“You’re going to block my memory?”
“No, I’m going to unblock your memory.” Stewart allowed a moment for this to sink in . . . but it never really sinks in—not at first.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Bruner said.
“Doesn’t it? Aren’t there holes in your memory? Aren’t there things you can’t explain? Don’t you know deep down that there are aliens? But you have no evidence of their existence—does that make sense?”
Stewart nodded to Web, who activated a video on an iPad and tilted it for Bruner to see—a video Stewart had held for just such an occasion. It showed the three of them—Web, Stewart, and Bruner—all sitting at a table. In the video, Bruner had the earpieces in his ears from that same iPod-looking device. The Bruner in the video had a smile on his face, but tears in his eyes.
“You used to be my partner,” Stewart explained. “You saved me from the darkest point in my life, by pulling me back to reality and making me face my life. And now it’s my turn to do the same.”
Bruner looked up from the video. It wasn’t making sense, but it was hard to ignore what he was seeing.
“The reason you blocked your memory—” Stewart continued.
“I blocked my memory?”
“Yes, no one can block your memory against your will,” Stewart explained. “And the reason you blocked your memory . . . is because you lost your daughter.”
Bruner didn’t react. He just lis
tened.
“Your daughter’s name was Kaitlin. She was killed in a car accident. You couldn’t cope with the pain. And you sacrificed all the memories of her to block out that pain. You persuaded me to let you go through with it, and I allowed it. But we’ve tried this method long enough . . . and it’s not working. You need to face it.”
Web had put the iPad away and was now holding the earpieces. “You put these in your ears and close your eyes. Then just listen to my voice, and I will guide you through the process.”
“You’ll get your memory back,” Stewart said. “And you’ll get a second chance at life.”
Bruner wasn’t convinced about any of this.
“Keri has asked me a thousand times to restore your memory,” Stewart said.
That name shot right to Bruner’s heart—Keri, his wife.
“She’s waiting for you,” Stewart said. “So many people have told her to move on, but she’s waiting for you.”
Bruner needed not another word of convincing.
When the restoration was complete, Bruner could see it all. His wife had been by his side through everything. But when she had needed him the most, he wasn’t strong enough to be there for her. He would have to be strong enough now. He could see his daughter’s face. He could hear her laugh. He could feel her sitting on his shoulders. The pendant—the one he wore around his neck, the one he found at the investigation site—was not a random discovery. It had belonged to Kaitlin. He had given it to her, and she adored it. She wore it everywhere. When she died, he buried it under her favorite tree in Cosgrove Park; that’s where he dug it up. That’s why he was drawn to that investigation site. That’s why he was drawn to keep the pendant for himself and wear it around his neck.
When the memories of Kaitlin had been pruned from his mind—along with the Limestone memories—he had been left with only the sorrow of a distant wife, with no explanation of why she had turned cold. It was that first night without the memory of Kaitlin that he stumbled into the Washington bar and met Harold Stanton. It was that night that he ranted about knowing aliens existed. It was that night he gave birth to the Alien Research Agency.
As Stewart walked from the old, dented door, down the tight corridor, into the open limestone lot to his car, he placed a call to Keri. Stewart hadn’t told Keri that he was planning to restore Bruner’s memory. He didn’t want to get her hopes up. Now he could give her the good news and let her know to expect a call from her husband. It wasn’t clear yet whether Bruner would be able to recall all the memories of the last six years, but most of them were intact. His memory block had been far less intrusive than Sara’s, allowing him to more easily connect his older memories to his newer ones. It was still going to be an uphill battle, though. Life had dealt Bruner and his wife a hand that most couples wouldn’t survive. But Stewart was confident they would make it.
As Stewart made his way back to his house, stopping only for a few groceries along the way, he reflected on his new assistant, Mindy. She deserved high marks for her first assignment in the field. She was an asset, and he looked forward to having her on the team.
He then thought about Jeremy and Sara. Was theirs a short fling or something more substantial? Only they would know for sure. Lyntic had been right: time apart would help those two young lovers sort out their feelings—just as it had for Lyntic and him. Stewart liked Jeremy and Sara’s chances for survival. He was rooting for them—of course he was rooting for them: he was in a good mood. He had no choice but to be in a good mood. He was carrying fresh groceries up the stairs to his house and looking forward to two days off . . . and he knew exactly what he was going to do with those two days.
Stewart warmed up the stove and laid out the raw ingredients that would soon be dinner . . . dinner for two. It had been a long time since he had cooked dinner for two.
Lyntic appeared from the hall and leaned against the doorframe, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else . . . an orange shirt . . . that vibrant orange that’s only found on Earth.
TRESPASSERS
October 13, 2014
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GLOSSARY
Abduction: the process of drawing a local inhabitant onto a spaceship, usually for the purpose of extracting blood for a vaccination; also referred to as plucking; illegal on Earth, but still quite common Adari Metraball: a fabled propulsion system that has been lost for centuries; its discovery would revolutionize space travel Adashi: (uh-DASH-ee) an alien government, heritage, and language Aeosic: (ay-AH-sick) a method of stimulating the subconscious to allow the blocking of memories; more common than Protetic Alien Research Agency: a government agency tasked with proving the existence of alien life-forms on Earth; created six years ago by Karl Bruner; not affiliated with the Limestone Deposit Survey Group and not a member of the Redundancy Class; formally a large, proud agency, but now a dwindled husk of what it once was Bruner’s Pendant: a triangle of two twisted metals not found on Earth; Bruner wears it around his neck constantly, since discovering it at the base of a tree at an investigation site—he feels it has a deeper significance than he can understand Camp Whatever: nickname for the failed summer camp that Jeremy Borden’s father could never quite get off the ground; the camp still remains on Jeremy’s family’s property Canned Vaccines: vaccines offered by governments of Earth to alien visitors; considered by most alien tourists to be inferior to fresh vaccines Chuman: (CHEW-min) an alien language, derived from the Adashi language, native to a series of satellites in the Kalen Range Cold Energy: relating to a spacecraft, any energy expelled from the ship that serves a purpose other than propelling or hovering the vessel, such as the operation of deceleration slopes or abduction tunnels Deceleration Slopes: technology that allows cargo to be dropped from a ship to the ground at 10 percent gravitational force Depth Paint: a paint designed to allow the human eyes to see a full range of distance; reduces the fatigue on eyes from being indoors; found on the hallway walls of Home Dreamers: a prototype nonlethal tranquilizer round designed to be fired from a standard .45 caliber handgun; still in the beta phase and not released for commercial, military, or government use Earth: vacation planet, the general population of which is oblivious to the regular visitation by alien tourists Earthling: a native of the planet Earth Fire: a colloquial term used to indicate the best of a certain category Fire Unit: nickname for Unit 4 of the Royal Expeditionary Armada, headed by Dexim; fire is a colloquial term used to indicate the best of a certain category Flow Box: a device designed to secretly intercept telephone calls and reroute them to a different line Fort Fear: nickname for a fort-style structure in Camp Whatever Heart Signal: a natural pulse emitted by the beating of the human heart, as unique as a fingerprint Heart-Signal Generator: a hypothetical device capable of fooling a heart-signal tracker; thought to be an impossibility; a pet project of Gregory Webster Heart-Signal Tracker: a device designed to recognize a specific heart signal and indicate its location Home: nickname for the underground headquarters of the Limestone Deposit Survey Group; the most technologically advanced base on planet Earth Internal Data Processing Division: agency that manages all the paperwork in the Redundancy Class of the US government, which is the government’s highest level of secrecy; intentionally nondescript for reasons of security Limestone Deposit Survey Group: cover name for the agency in the US government that is tasked with regulating alien activity on planet Earth, primarily by monitoring the optimal cone of entry; headquartered in an underground base known as Home, located under a limestone quarry Luxury Cruiser: an expensive spacecraft designed for intergalactic travel catering to the wealthy Malcor: a corporation that produces transport vessels, specializing in industrial cargo transporter, but also dabbling in high-end luxury cruisers, where it is quickly building a reputation for excellence Melkon Box: a cube designed to teach foreign languages through direct stimulation of the brain, allowing a new language to be mastered in thirty days compl
ete with idiomatic expressions, accents, cadence, and even spelling, depending on the individual’s intelligence and willingness to learn Metraball: see Adari Metraball Nawmas: (NAH-mus) an alien material resembling leather; porous, with almost microscopic dimples across its surface, creating a seemingly wet texture Optimal Cone of Entry: a geographical location on a planet where conditions align for the best possible success for safe transition into the atmosphere; on Earth, the 121-mile radius around Muncie, IN, USA Pepsi Machine: a vending machine in the outer entrance to Home, which, contrary to some assumptions, serves no higher purpose than distributing Pepsi products Plucking: see Abduction Portik: (POR-tik) named for its designer Lance Portik, one of the top three models of luxury cruiser produced by Malcor; known for its top-of-the-line decor and unsurpassed performance Protetic: (pro-TEH-tick) a method of stimulating the subconscious to allow the blocking of memories; less common than Aeosic Quoret: (KWOR-it) a handheld device that channels energy; usually carried in a set, each quoret has a specific function; often in the shape of a cube and made of wood REA: see Royal Expeditionary Armada Redundancy Class: the highest level of secrecy in the US government; all agencies in the Redundancy Class have full cover identities and are secret from Congress, the White House, and the President Resolution 419: considered to be an idle threat, a measure adopted by a multinational alliance of world powers, mandating that in the face of an alien invasion that proved too massive to resist, a strategic network of atomic bombs would be detonated to torch the Earth’s crust and obliterate all life Roosevelt, Montana: home of a restricted storage facility that stored all confiscated alien spaceships, before Stewart Faulkner pioneered the use of vertical landmarks as holding stations Royal Expeditionary Armada: traditional name for the agency in the Adashi government charged with arranging official transportation for dignitaries through the Royal Office of Security; known as the REA Sound-Wave Modifier: a common and inexpensive component found on most intergalactic spaceships, it neutralizes engine noise to allow the vessel to operate in complete silence Stealth Generator: any of the multitude of devices designed to refract, reflect, or transmute light to render a vessel or object invisible or virtually invisible to the naked eye Stellen Agreement: a pact governing the relationship between Earth and its alien visitors and serves to keep the peace; outlines the responsibilities and boundaries of each party Stone Ridge Cabin: a cabin in Indiana acquired as an outpost by the Limestone Deposit Survey Group after a recommendation by Stewart Faulkner, who wanted to hold on to the memories he had created there Telephone Feeler Search: a low-tech method of searching for an individual by calling local businesses and asking for the subject by name; extremely effective technique pioneered by Karl Bruner and used by the Limestone Deposit Survey Group Theramane: a highly effective tranquilizer designed to work directly on the muscles to prevent the body from moving; often used during abductions Transpose Technology: a stealth-generating system for rendering ships invisible, which is incorporated into the structural design of the vessel, as opposed to being an aftermarket feature, as most stealth generators are Trespass: an unauthorized visit to the planet Earth by an alien life-form Trespassers: aliens who are illegally visiting Earth