by Mia Mitns
“They let you go alone?” I said.
“No, but my partner understands,” she said.
“How can we find you?” I said.
“Ask for Detective Shelie Martinez,” she said. “Or have Lalo call me.”
“What do you mean?” Lalo said.
Shelie wrote down some numbers and gave it to Lalo. “When you remember how to call. Oh, and Marli, don’t go anywhere without Lalo.”
“What about work?” I asked.
“She needs to be alone at work,” Kallen said. “They may be able to recognize that she is depending on someone. And if one of them sees Lalo ...”
“Well, don’t go anywhere else without him,” she said. “But that shouldn’t be too hard, considering we have a travelling ban for a few days.”
Shelie reached out her hand to shake mine and Lalo’s. Lalo squinted after he let go of her hand. Then she left.
“Marli,” Kallen said. “I know it is going to take a long time for you to trust me again. I want you to know I will continue to protect you and Lalo from everyone. I only ask that you stop investigating the disappearance. You are going to run into trouble.”
“You knew about us?” I said.
“I have contacts and spies of my own,” Kallen said.
“Give me a reason to stop,” I said. “Are we going to find that you were behind it?”
Kallen held up his finger to say, “Shhh” without saying it.
He waited for about five minutes.
“No,” Kallen whispered.
My phone slithered across the side of my thigh as Lalo took it out of my jeans. Drawing my code, he opened the gallery to a picture of the graffiti we took from the crime scene. He showed it to Kallen. “Does this mean anything to you?”
“I’ve seen that sign,” Kallen said. “It was a while ago. Some Masqysava followed the clues drawn within it. We found the Masqysava later. They couldn’t recall what happened.”
My eyes lit up.
“Please just stop,” Kallen said. “I’m not the only one who knows, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Does Shelie know?” I said. “About us investigating.”
“Yes,” Kallen said. “But she doesn’t care for you as much as I do Marli. I’m confident that she knows Lalo will be alright and you can lead us to the culprits.
“Now, this sign is meant for only a few of us, if not one. The kidnappers want to find the others who believe in whatever they are planning to do. That’s why it is treacherous for all Masqysava. Naya, she could help us, but I want her to become accustomed to Earth right now. I get the impression that they want Lalo the most anyway. With Lalo, they can be unstoppable. Look, I trust you in spite of the probability that you are dangerous Lalo. You and Naya are exactly alike. I see that you and Naya will do what’s right.”
“If Shelie is right,” Lalo said. “If Marli can find the culprits, then wouldn’t we want to know who it is? How can we get rid of them, or disable them, if we don’t know who we are fighting?”
“There are other ways,” Kallen said. “Safer ones.”
“What are they?” Lalo asked.
“We will figure it out in time,” Kallen said. “I’m glad I was able to share our secrets, but I must go too.”
“Isn’t it dangerous to stay by yourself?” I asked.
“It always is,” Kallen said, “if they figure out our plan. They being humans or the rogue Masqysava. But I have some work to do with our new arrivals. I’ll see y’all soon.”
Kallen let himself out of my house, but not before Lalo shook his hand. My mind suggested I was the one being played. What if those three (Lalo, Kallen, and Shelie) needed me to help them find more information?
It was a good plan. Have Kallen get close to me. Make me watch out for their enemies and feel like it was necessary to protect Lalo. Then introduce Shelie, an officer, to help me be comfortable with the situation. Everything was in control. This could have been their plan all along.
Chapter 13
I had a hard time falling asleep that night. I kept tossing and turning, questioning trust and if anyone deserved it. Somewhere in the middle of my rotations my eyes closed.
“Is it really that important to kill him?” the second man asked. This second man was different—more intimidating than before. He wore a mask and gave me the chills. I knew shedding blood made him happy. He most likely licked the blood clean off of all his victims. Physically, he was different too. This man was a few inches shorter than the tall man and had a deeper voice.
“No one kills him,” the tall man said. “Not now. First, we find his connector. He will address the others. Then I will kill him myself.” I embraced the tall man’s energy. He was ruthless. Different from the prior tall man. His long, brown hair covered his face.
“And we will finally stop wasting our time,” the second man said, smiling.
“Yes,” the tall man said. “And no one will know it was us. It was these horrible humans.”
I woke up gasping with labored breaths.
I expected Lalo to jump up and protect me with one swift move. He didn’t. He opened his eyes. Then I noticed his arm was already around me.
“Bad dream?” he asked.
“I saw them again Lalo,” I said. “They were different, but it was still the two men. They want to kill you.”
“I know,” he said.
“How? What?”
“I saw it too,” he said. “Through you. But in my dream one was a woman. Like you said, the features are unreliable. But I know it’s true.”
“How?” I said.
“This evening, when we were talking to Shelie and Kallen, I remembered some things,” Lalo said. “I didn’t want to say anything because I don’t trust them totally. It was funny that Shelie said I was supposed to be a chief.
“Before I left my home, I had an argument with one of our leaders, Marcus. He wanted me to leave early. I told them I was leaving as the Emperor had planned. I would put our whole operation in jeopardy if I left early with them. ‘It’s better to go unnoticed,’ I said. And staying a while longer would allow me to get numerous Masqysava to join our revolution.
“The Emperor would never know,” Lalo continued. “And when he came down to Earth, thinking he was claiming victory, he would find out it was never his to claim. And he would never experience what he spent his whole life preparing for—living on Earth.”
“Revolution? You were planning to overthrow the Emperor?” I said.
“Yes Marli. I was a leader of the revolution and a leader in the Emperor’s army.”
“It makes sense— the dreams,” I said. “This is what the dreams were about.”
“Hard to tell,” Lalo said. “You mentioned that features were blurry. This dream the personalities changed. You could be connecting with different Masqysava and think it is one. It sounds like more than one. The first two groups would be happy to find me. The last wants to kill me.”
“The first two had something to do with the kidnapping,” I said.
“Yes,” Lalo said. “It is likely that this message has served its purpose and now you moved onto another messenger. Good to know, but I think we have everything under control.”
“We do?”
“Yes, I remember a lot more now. There were so many aliens who joined our revolution. They were tired of being the Emperor’s slaves. We knew that if we claimed this earth, the only thing that would change was our location. He would figure out another way to control us.”
“I understand why you want to kill him,” I said, “but if this all was successful—all of us humans dead or slaves; the Emperor is killed. Who takes over? If no one is in power, won’t another emperor take his place?”
“Thus the problem,” Lalo said. “It’s clear now— what happened. I didn’t leave with the main group of our revolution, our power group. There was no problem there. However, after that group left, the Emperor accused me of making up a scheme to overthrow him. Someone, within that revol
utionary group, never intended for me to make it to Earth.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Yes, and that is why I came early,” Lalo said. “The Emperor planned to execute me. It was a good thing my friend, with visionary powers, warned me before, saying I needed to build a way off our planet. One month was all I had. Believing in his gift, I build a spaceship out of the meteor material. I kept it hidden. I waited until everything went wrong.
“I can’t remember who told me that my life was in danger. The Emperor was on his way. I had five minutes. I asked them how they knew. They were too terrified to say. Anyway, my friends distracted the Emperor. I guess they were told what would happen too. I heard them in the lobby. Then I ran. The Emperor didn’t get the chance to jail me because I was gone. And then I found you Marli. That’s all I can recall.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” I said.
“Yeah. Now, there are three sides. One: the invasion. Two: The Revolution. And three: Kallen and Shelie’s idea of freedom. I know what I’m choosing.”
“I hope it’s freedom,” I said.
Lalo yawned. “I would love to be able to lie here and not have to worry about protecting you. That would be nice, but I have to go to sleep. Being invisible is draining.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
“Oh, and Marli.”
“What?”
“When the time comes, I have to make a choice. It may not be clear whose side I’m on. Please know it’s for the best.”
“The best for humans?” I said.
Lalo didn’t answer. He was knocked out. But when I pulled to move his arm off my chest, he tensed up. “It’s for safety,” he mumbled.
Chapter 14
The next morning, I talked to Ren and Ashley on the phone. They made it through the night without hearing any strange things. I was going to tell them that I talked to Kallen, but he already called them the night before. His explanation was that he went to visit one of his cousins in the city. There wasn’t a good phone signal there. He didn’t know about Greele.
We talked a little longer about work. Ashley said she had another premonition. About thirty minutes out of town there would be a meteor shower. These meteorites could be the clue. The contents of the meteorite may reveal what was driving the animals out of their natural habitat. Well, that and aliens.
“What if the meteorites have something to do with aliens?” Ashley said.
By the way Ren was talking he didn’t accept that Ashley had the visions. He treated her as he did with Kallen and his alien ideas. I couldn’t help to think of why Ashley linked the aliens to meteorites and why she kept discussing them. She was getting worse than Kallen was. At least he was an actual alien. So was she one too? Was she attempting to figure out if we knew about her? Did she have something to do with the first disappearance of people in Dallas?
“Hey, do y’all think the Dallas disappearance has something to do with this one in Greele?” I asked.
“I think it’s the same people,” Ren said. “They got more vicious.”
“There has to be a large group of them,” I said. “To take down that many people there had to be. So they kidnapped the people then broke into groups to hide. Don’t you think?”
“Several small groups,” Ashley said. “That would have been easiest way to attack. And then they hid after going back to a major town. They wouldn’t stay here. We would find them.”
“True,” I said.
“You’re so quiet Ren,” Ashley said.
“You two are becoming detectives,” he said.
“Well, who knows,” I said, “we could be next.”
“Thanks for reminding me to be terrified,” Ashley said.
She had to be reminded?
—-
Lalo and I spent the rest of the day watching the news and their ongoing discussion of Greele. We didn’t see any meteorites or clues in the news footage. That crime site was so disturbing that we both agreed to not investigate it.
Inside I had the urge to forget the travel ban. I had to get to the lab to compare the meteorites although I knew it was a bad move. Yes, we knew that Kallen was part responsible for the Greele attack, and he said he wouldn’t hurt me, but there had to be many others. If they found us, we would probably be dead too. It was too much—sitting, watching, and waiting for something bad to happen. Getting to the lab would at least give us some direction.
In the evening, Lalo spent his time writing down notes. He noticed me watching and told me they were plans for each method of attack. He left the notebook on the table to go to another room a few minutes later. I was so curious, I flipped through the pages. Some pages were full of lines; others had drawings of buildings and houses. Nothing else.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that I was stuck in that situation with no human I could trust. Lalo lied about leaving the house when I asked. He admitted to leaving at least twice. I didn’t think he had any reason to be truthful. Perhaps that’s why Ashley was reaching out to me. Did she experience a similar situation and see me in this misery? She could have been extending a hand the best way she could, without being detected, so I could talk to her. But then again she could be in the race to find Lalo.
I could count on trusting myself and no one else. And I wasn’t that extremely skillful or powerful. If only I could strengthen my connector abilities, I would have a hand in that game. Since I had no idea on how to accomplish that, I directed my attention to the TV. I put on a movie, lie back in the couch, and pretended none of it was happening.
—-
The next morning I woke up and found pieces from Lalo’s meteorite sitting on my coffee table. Lalo was still sleeping. I scanned for anything I could use as a weapon. A fork was on the kitchen table, so I grabbed it and slowly walked toward my kitchen. My house was small, so either the perpetrator was hiding behind the bar and was in my kitchen, or they were in the bathroom.
I listened for breathing sounds but heard no one. It must be an alien, I thought. I raised my fork to chest level as I made an effort to wake Lalo up, using my mind. Instead of curling around the bar, I widened my curve, ready to attack when I saw them. There was no one there.
“Marli,” Lalo said.
I screamed and dropped my fork.
“What are you doing?” he said, tousling his hair.
“Shhh, there’s someone here,” I mouthed and pointed to the meteorites. “The rocks.”
“Oh, I put those out there this morning,” he said.
I sighed. “Lalo, you can’t do this to me. I’m human. I get scared, especially with all of this stuff going on.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I took the meteorites out because I thought they could tell me something before you got to go to the lab. They certainly don’t look like they were used to build a ship. They are more like alien cherished mementos.”
“So whoever did this had to be alien?” I said. “Like Kallen told us.”
“Not necessarily,” Lalo said. “Like any other, this rock could have fallen from outer space. The reason why it was so similar to mine is because we use this kind of rock to build part of our meteorite simulating ships. But this rock couldn’t have been used. You’ll be able to see the differences microscopically if you want to know for sure. My ship will have specific patterns. This rock will contain random ones.”
“So this could be work done by humans?” I said. “That widens the list. It could be the government looking for you. The sector who knows about the aliens would be able to replicate it.”
Lalo nodded. “You know, just looking at it without the alien knowledge, the rock also appears to be a human’s token. So, to throw off humans, aliens could have used this rock. If scientists happened to find it, there would be no difference between this meteorite and the others that are found every year. There is no way to have an absolute answer unless we find the kidnapper.
“And those signs,” I said. “They could be from the aliens or humans who knew about them.”
Lal
o nodded.
Frustrated with not being able to find answers, I suggested we go through our list of suspects. The ones we actually knew of. Maybe we could eliminate them or see who had a motive or alien connections.
“It’s basically everyone you know out here,” Lalo said. “Kallen, Ashley, Ren, Marcus, Shelie, Dr. Stevenson, and me.”
“I didn’t say that,” I said. “I didn’t say you.”
“Let’s be honest,” Lalo said. “You met me a few days ago. I’m an alien. The night I come the homeless disappear. Then another attack happens led by aliens of my kind. One of them is your friend. I’m supposed to be their leader. And, I have amnesia. What if I’m like Kallen? What if something causes me to transition while you are sleep and do these things? What if I staged all of this? That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“I don’t think you would,” I said, examining his eyes. I felt bad for him. I was wrong. He had been torturing himself too. “Why don’t we get to work on the other suspects. We can at least try to get their background information to see if there are any abnormalities.”
Lalo joined me as we sat in front of my computer at the kitchen table. In the middle of typing the first name I hesitated.
“What?” Lalo said.
“They could be watching,” I said. “My IP address. Why didn’t I think of this before?” I palmed my face. “We searched for Aquasa. What if we were and are being recorded? Oh no!” I popped up. “They can hear us. I know they can hack into my web camera that’s why the tape is covering it, but what if they could also reverse the auditory device to be a microphone? They already know.”
My mouth was wide open as I twisted to Lalo. “What are we going to do?”
Why are you so calm?
“That’s one of the first things I thought about,” Lalo said. “It was a good thing I didn’t forget about covering tracks. Your computer is, and has been, virtually invisible. I protected it the moment you left for work. It will take them months to untangle that code. That is if they know where to find it.”
“Good,” I said, holding back tears. Lalo rubbed my back and had a slight smirk across his face.