“Before you became involved, I had no idea who you were.” Lindo leans back against a kitchen counter, relaxed and confident that I won’t put a bullet in him. “That first text you received from me, on Marta’s phone. That was genuine. I had just left with her, and—”
“Left with who?” I ask, ready to slug him if he says Isabella.
“Marta.”
I nearly slug him anyway. “You have her?”
“She’s safe,” he says, “and she told me about hiring you. After those texts. But I knew who you were by the time you got in my car. I knew your history, both personal and professional. The people you lost. The people you saved. And the ones you brought to justice. I let you come this far because I thought your determination, experience, and character made you a potential ally, which you proved by saving my life, and the kids, but this…” He motions to the body. “…is too far.”
“Fuck it is,” I say. “The only reason those kids are still down there is because this son-of-a-bitch has a fist-sized hole in his head. And, the damn thing wasn’t even alive.”
He points to the body. “That might not have been, but that—” His index finger shifts to the taped up microwave. “—might have been.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m serious,” he says.
“I can tell.”
“How long do you think it will be before humanity creates a conscious artificial intelligence? Probably within your lifetime. The Others are hundreds of years ahead of us. Life for them might have a very different definition than it does for us.”
“If this were a man, I’d have done the same thing,” I say. “There isn’t a situation in which I would allow any living thing to abduct children under my protection. I couldn’t live with myself, and I don’t know how you do.”
Lindo sighs. “Look, I’m not saying you were morally wrong to kill—or destroy—the Gray. Far from it. And I’m not upset about missing the chance to study the nanite core. The problem is that you have solidified yourself as a threat to them. And probably everyone else in this house. In all my years dealing with the Others, I’ve never presented myself as an overt threat to their existence. That’s why I’m still here, and why Aeron is still operational.
“The Others could have eradicated this house and everyone in it. If they return for the rest of those kids, I’m sure they will. The last people who stood up to them were slaughtered. Your actions might have put a target on your back.” He turns to Wini. “And hers.” He looks to Godin and Young. “And theirs. And after all this time, mine.”
Lindo continues to betray himself. He might know who I am on paper, and what I’ve accomplished, but he doesn’t know how I’ve done those things. Cases aren’t just solved by collecting physical evidence. Every witness questioned, every suspect interrogated, reveals just as much through what they don’t say as what they do. I hear the nuances of people’s speech like complete sentences. Every ‘I,’ ‘We,’ ‘Them,’ and ‘Ours’ tells me a lot, and in Lindo’s case, presents a theory that, at any other time in my life, I would have discounted as impossible.
“You’re afraid of them,” I say.
“Hell yes, I’m afraid of them,” he says, but he doesn’t fully understand.
“Not like I’m afraid of them, or anyone else in this room. Not in a ‘holy shit, monsters are real’ kind of way. Or even an ‘I could have died’ kind of way. You’re afraid of them in your core. Afraid that they’ll see you. Really see you.”
His silence is confirmation.
“I’m not following,” Godin says. He might be a good cop, but he’s no detective.
“He’s one of them,” Wini says, getting a proud smile from me.
Godin looks from Lindo to the dead Gray, confused.
“Not them.” Wini turns to the basement door that leads to the bunker where the children are hidden. “Them.”
A long list of questions scrolls through my mind. I put them in a logical order and start with the first, knowing the answer could affect the second. “When?”
Lindo purses his lips.
“When did they take you?”
He shakes his head. “You won’t believe me.”
“Right now, I’ll believe just about anything.”
Lindo withers. There’s no way out of this for him without full disclosure. “Remember when I told you about Roswell? How the U.S. Government brought in outside experts? That was true, but—”
“It was just Aeron,” I guess. And when Lindo nods, it doesn’t take a big mental leap to figure out the rest. Lindo is Chimera, and is, in some way, like Jacob. “You walked away from the crash.”
“Wait,” Godin says. “What crash?”
“Roswell,” Wini says. “In 1947.”
Young leans on the kitchen counter, looking Lindo over as though seeing him for the first time. “You’re more than seventy years old?”
“More than eighty,” Lindo says. “I’m not really sure. I don’t know how old I was at the time.”
“You’re immortal, then?” Godin asks.
“I can be killed…I think. Mostly, I’m just aging slowly,” Lindo says. “The nanites repair flaws in my DNA and keep my telomeres from growing shorter.”
“Telom-what?” Young says.
“Telomeres. They separate our chromosomes. As people age, they get shorter, and when chromosomes start encountering each other and bonding, the results are cancer, cell death, and a whole bunch of other age-related ailments.”
“Tell me about it,” Wini says, stretching her back.
Some more pieces fall into place.
“You’re not a tech-genius,” I say, “are you?”
Lindo shakes his head. “Slightly above average intelligence, at best.”
“But enhanced,” I say. “Connected to the world. But not because of anything you did. The Others did it to you. Made you like this. And when the UFO crashed in Roswell…”
“I survived,” Lindo says. “Spent ten years homeless, staying off everyone’s radar. It took that long for me to realize no one knew I existed. The Feds had no way to know I was there. I’d fled the scene long before anyone arrived. And the Others…they’d have assumed I died. Over time, as computers became part of everyday life, satellites beamed information around the planet, and cell networks sprang to life, I had access to everything. Getting used to the overload of Wi-Fi and the Internet took time, but it’s now my most useful tool. You’re right about Chimera. It has never been more than me, but I’m able to accomplish more than most companies simply by thinking, and to the powers that be, hundreds of tax paying people work for me, all of them with social security numbers, homes, vehicles, and driver’s licenses. None of them exist. I’ve mostly operated on my own, using what they put in my head to collect information about the Others.”
That’s why he was so interested in the nanites, I realize. It was a chance to study what had been done to him. If the Others’ tech really is hundreds of years beyond our own, their nano-tech probably evolved a lot since Lindo was gifted—or perhaps cursed—with it. “But not anymore,” I say. “Not since the EMP.”
“A temporary setback,” he says. “I feel like I’m missing a limb, but I’ll be online soon enough.”
I don’t ask, but I’m pretty sure that means the nanites protecting me from the Other’s telepathy will also come back online. “You said you’ve been collecting information.”
“To expose them. To prove to the world that they exist. That’s what it will take to beat them. A unified front. Not running to Dulce, guns blazing. They’re too powerful. Even if you manage to kick in the doors, get some video, save the kids, and get people’s attention, they’re masters at misdirection and stealth. They’ll have believers blaming aliens from the stars, and unbelievers more convinced than ever that Grays and the Others are modern fairytales. They’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“Why?” Young asks.
Lindo blinks at the floor, pondering the simple question. “I don’t know.”
/>
“You don’t know?” I find this hard to believe.
“It’s not like I can just ask them,” he says. “Or sneak into Dulce and steal the information. I’m a regular guy, with a few genetic irregularities, and some cryptoterrestrial tech in his head.”
“Well, you’re not alone in this fight anymore,” I say, “and your days of passive evidence collecting are over.”
Lindo slams his fists on the counter, shaking the crystalized jelly inside the Gray’s open skull. “We can’t beat them!”
I ignore the tantrum and turn to Godin. “Are you with me?”
Godin doesn’t look comfortable with his options, but nods. “Evil wins when good men do nothing, right?”
It’s a butchery of the famous quote most commonly attributed to Edmund Burke, but the sentiment is accurate. I don’t care what kind of justification the Others might have for what they’re using humanity for, it’s wrong. And we’re going to put a stop to it. Going to try to. Because it’s the right thing to do.
“I’m coming, too,” Young says, catching me off guard. I wasn’t even sure if I should ask him, but when storming the gates of an inhuman stronghold, a gun-toting, conservative Republican is a good ally to have.
“If you don’t ask me,” Wini says, “I’m going to kick you in the nuts.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you,” I say, fueling her ire, and then extinguishing it with, “You go where I go. We’re a team. Like Michael Knight and that lady from Murder She Wrote.”
Wini raises an eyebrow. “Angela Lansbury?”
“That’s her.”
She smiles. “Pretty sure they were never a team, but it works for me. We’re talking Angela Lansbury circa 1985, right? She’s older than this asshole.” She hitches her thumb at Lindo.
“Of course,” I say, smiling. I’m afraid for Wini and the danger her involvement will put her in, but I’m also not sure I could do this without her.
“So, you want to kick down the front door of an advanced civilization, kick their ass, and just walk out with an untold number of freed prisoners, backed up by a sheriff, a pastor, a secretary—”
Wini flips him off.
“—and me.”
“It could be worse,” I say. “You could be an actual Uber driver.”
Lindo groans.
I lower my aim away from Lindo for the first time, tucking the gun into the small of my back. “And we’re not going to kick down any doors.”
34
“Tell me what you want from me,” Lindo says.
We’re separated from the rest of our group, sitting in a second-floor bedroom, me on the metal-framed bed, its posts scratched by frequent handcuffing, Lindo on a chaise lounge. After explaining the situation to a distraught, but accommodating Sheba—that she’d be babysitting a group of kids who probably weren’t fully human, who were being hunted down by corporate mercenaries and UFO flying aliens—she sent most of her girls away and set about making her guests comfortable. The bunker is far nicer than a horse stable’s stall, but there’re no windows, little décor, and nothing to do. And there’s no way to know how long they’ll have to stay down there.
“I’ll tell you what I want.” I lean forward, elbows on knees, trying to not think about what a black light would reveal in this room. “What I really want.”
“Zigazig ahh?” Lindo says.
“What?”
“Spice Girls? Never mind.”
I get the reference, but don’t give him an inch. He’s trying hard to lighten me up, but Lindo’s on my shit list. He’s proven himself untrustworthy. At the same time, he’s working toward a goal I can get behind, with a shot of nitrous. While he’s got a few lifetime’s worth of time to build his case against the Others and prove to the world that they exist, the people they’ve already taken, and will soon take, have no such luxury. “I want to trust you.”
“You can.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, calling bullshit without uttering a word.
“I’ll earn it,” he says. “But if you go forward with this...right now, halfcocked…”
“We’re all going to die,” I say.
“Or worse.”
I honestly don’t want to know what falls under the purview of what’s worse than death when it comes to the Others, so I move on. “You can start by telling me who you are.”
“I’ve told you,” he says, growing annoyed.
“Peel back another layer. I don’t want to know about anything that happened after 1947. Tell me about your parents. About your family.”
Lindo looks at me like I’ve just asked him to explain the meaning of life to an ant. “I’d rather not.”
“They gave you up,” I guess. “Your last name is Cruz, but your first name… It’s not even Estaban. You’re too smart for that.”
“You give me too much credit,” he says. “Slightly above average intelligence, remember. And I was basically a kid when I started going by Steven.”
“And your family?”
He takes a minute to process emotions and memories I suspect he’s kept buried for decades. Being abducted by non-human entities and being experimented on isn’t something for which you can get therapy without being locked in an institution. “I had three younger brothers. And a younger sister. A mother. My siblings had a father, and he raised me, too, but he wasn’t my biological father. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have one.”
I nod, following the implications. Lindo’s mother had made a deal to bear a child, raise him, and eventually give him up.
“She didn’t cry when they took me.” His eyes tear up, but he blinks the wetness away, trying to control these ancient emotions. It’s enough to convince me he’s being honest. Lindo’s a good actor, but I saw through some of it, even before I knew he wasn’t who he claimed to be…twice. This doesn’t feel like an act. “Didn’t care at all. She just let me go. I think she was relieved. Maybe because the waiting was finally over, or because she knew I wasn’t…like her.”
“Like her?”
“Human. Not fully, anyway.”
I nearly point out that there really isn’t any way to tell his genetics aren’t 100% human, but I hold my tongue when I remember his mother had likely been impregnated by the Others.
How had that happened? Some kind of immaculate conception? Was she taken on a UFO and implanted with a fetus? Did she share any DNA with Lindo, or was she just an incubator and a babysitter until he was old enough to suit their purposes?
“Did Marta make the same deal?”
He nods, trying to hide anger. “She’s safe, by the way.”
“Where?”
“A safehouse in Santa Cruz.”
“You’re not her friend, though, are you?”
“She didn’t agree to set Isabella free until I confronted her. Told her I knew about what she’d done. Unlike many others, she felt guilty and agreed to defy the Others if I could keep her safe.”
I note Marta’s concern was just for herself and not for Isabella, but I decide not to address it. “Can you? Keep her safe?”
“I can create new identities for people. Give them new lives. New homes. Anywhere in the world, really just by thinking about it.”
“How many times have you done that? Given people new lives?”
He ponders the question for a moment, and says, “Five hundred thirty-two, including Marta, but not Isabella, and not the kids in the bunker. Not yet. I mostly help the children, but sometimes the parents if they cooperate. A few, who actually managed to love their children, stay with them. But most just want whatever the Others have offered them, or are too afraid to defy them.”
“So you take the kids?”
“Yeah,” he says, not a trace of guilt in his eyes.
“How do you find them?”
“I run illegals across the border.” He smiles at my stunned expression. “The Others prefer to make their pick-ups as close to the 37th parallel as possible. The kids come north, probably destined for ranches like the one we found
, and they’re collected en masse. Anyone traveling with a child gets my undivided attention. It’s usually not hard to pick out which parents keep a distance from their kids. Obviously, there are other ways they collect people, but I’m just one man. I do what I can.”
If he’s telling the truth, my assessment of Lindo has been ill-informed. While I chalked up his unwillingness to confront the Others to cowardice, he’s been intercepting trafficked people for decades, setting them free before the Others can alter them further. Of course, that also means those freed people are having normal lives, falling in love, getting married, having children. How many generations will it be before the whole human gene-pool contains cryptoterrestrial DNA?
But the oddly precise number of people he’s helped has raised a new question, which I imply with a statement. “You’re back online.”
“Just a minute ago,” he says, looking relieved. “You are, too, by the way.”
I don’t feel any different than I did a moment ago, but how does one determine whether the nanobots in their head are functioning? Beats the hell out of me. I take a little comfort in knowing the tech will bar the Others from entering my mind again, but I also know I can beat them if the tech fails. “Are we in the clear?”
He closes his eyes for a moment, his mind reaching out through Wi-Fi, cell signals, and satellite data. Then he nods. “No one’s talking about us.”
“Not even Aeron?”
“They’re definitely talking about us,” he says. “But nowhere I can listen in. And they don’t know where we are.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they’d be here already.” He glances toward the open window and the full moon beyond. “And I’d see them coming.”
“What about the Others?” I ask. “Will they come back?”
“Eventually,” he says. “Sure. But not now. Not when the chance of exposure is high. For all they know, we’ve got cameras set up and live feeds blasting to the Net.”
“Should we?” I ask. “Do we?”
Lindo taps the side of his head, by his eye. “Can if we need to, but I’d rather not advertise our location to Aeron.”
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