Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers

by Rusty Williamson

  Thinking it was some kind of joke, a very tired laugh burst from Adamarus. “Well,” he whispered, “I sure don’t feel like it,” and his eye closed.

  The group left Adamarus sleeping in his room and emerged into the hallway with questions, questions that suddenly seemed anticipated as a doctor approached them. “Mrs. Maximus?” She nodded. “I’m Doctor Kallen, your husband’s primary physician.” Grace held out her hand and he took it and shook it once. “May I… ah… verify something with you?” Grace released his hand and stared at him. “How old is your husband?”

  ---

  The door was closed, blinds were shut and they sat around a large mahogany table. It was just Dr. Kallen, Leewood and Harrington. All of them were looking down at various test results spread out on the table.

  Dr. Kallen was saying, “… so after you classified the test results, I had Adamarus’ name removed and replaced by a number,” he pointed this out on several of the forms, “so the people conducting the tests would not know who was being tested.”

  “Excellent,” Leewood said. “What have you found?”

  “Most results were normal or expected given the patient’s condition. But what is extraordinary is, by our best estimate, the patient is twenty-two years younger than he was just a week ago.” Both Leewood and Harrington looked up at Kallen speechless. Kallen ruffled through the stack of reports and pulled out several. “However,” Dr. Kallen shook his head as he shuffled through the sheets reviewing the data again, “what’s even more astounding is this.” He laid the test results on the table before Leewood and Harrington. Both glanced at them, but since neither could understand what they were looking at, they looked back at Kallen.

  “First, Adamarus’ immune system has been boosted – actually super charged is a better description. I doubt he’ll ever get sick again. I wish we knew how to do this.” He let that settle in then continued, “However, the most astounding part was the report from the Molecular Biology Clinic – it seems that Adamarus is no longer aging!”

  ---

  As the sun set on the third day since the alien ship had landed, Adamarus woke up starving. The alien green gel-pack covering half his head had turned gray around the edges. Seeing this, the nurse called Dr. Kallen immediately.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Very hungry. Other than that, I actually feel great.”

  “Well,” Dr. Kallen said, “For a fifty-two year old man who’s been through what you have, you’re looking pretty good.”

  Adamarus detected something in the doctor’s tone but ignored it as his wife came in behind the doctor and smiled at him. But he saw something in her eyes he could not ignore. He looked back at the doctor, “Okay, what’s going on that I don’t know.”

  In reply, the doctor went to the metal end table beside the bed, opened a drawer, took out a large round mirror and handed it to Adamarus. Adamarus took this the wrong way and didn’t immediately look in it. First he looked at his wife – she looked nervous – then back at the doctor, “So that bit about me looking good was… what? A joke?” The doctor just gestured toward the mirror. Adamarus steeled himself and looked. He had expected anything but what he saw. He actually jumped and fumbled the mirror. In it, it seemed to Adamarus that a teenager looked back at him. “What the hell? What have you done to me?”

  “Not us, the aliens. Frankly, we don’t know how you can be alive, let alone…” he motioned towards Adamarus’ face. “Actually we were hoping you might know something. Do you remember anything?”

  Adamarus had a blurred memory of hills… one seemed to be moving towards him and then there was a terrible noise, so loud, impossibly loud. He looked up at the doctor, “I had a strange dream, but no, it’s all a blank. Is this…” Adamarus pointed at his face, “permanent?”

  “Do you mean are you going to look your age again? Adamarus, we don’t know anything for sure. Hopefully, we can ask them and get some answers. However, from everything we can see, it looks like the answer is that it’s permanent. In every way we can tell, except for your memories, you’re a young man of about thirty again.”

  Adamarus stared off into the distance. “Thirty,” he whispered.

  The nurse wheeled a tray in with Adamarus’ dinner. As she positioned the tray and raised the bed, the doctor said they’d talk later and left Adamarus staring numbly off into the distance. After a minute he looked at Grace and slowly shook his head.

  Grace said, “Eat your dinner, honey.”

  Adamarus, remembering his hunger, dug into his dinner with a passion. As he stuffed the first large fork full into this mouth, he noticed his son standing beside his wife. “Nero!” he shouted, food almost falling out of his mouth. Nero ran to him and got a messy hug and kiss.

  Grace followed behind, “Adamarus! That’s disgusting!” Both father and son looked guilty for a second, then Adamarus shoved more food in his mouth and they all started laughing.

  But then Nero said, “Daddy, you look different.”

  The laughter died briefly before the parents picked it back up for the child’s benefit. Grace said, “Daddy has gotten a lot of rest in here, that’s all it is.”

  “And good food” said Adamarus raising his fork.

  Nero looked back and forth between his dad and his mom then said, “Can mommy come here and get some rest too?”

  ---

  By the end of the fourth day, the special team had set up a temporary base of operations just outside the force field using three high tech vans that had arrived at the airport earlier that day. These had all the latest gear, computers and communications equipment. This had been De Bella’s doing and it had scored points with everyone. This had been sorely needed for none of the team had been happy with the announcement that they’d be reporting to the congressman. The state of the art vans had served to boost the spirits of the team.

  All of their ear drums had been perforated by the blaring message from the ship and all six members still wore white bandages around their heads. They were half deaf, had to holler at each other to be heard and felt foolish as hell. On top of all this, their two half-hour talks with Captain Maximus had only revealed that he knew next to nothing about the aliens.

  The team had split up, Harrington and one of the agents had gone back to the hospital to talk to Adamarus again while Leewood and the other three agents had stayed with the vans to watch the ship and allow Leewood to update De Bella.

  They had not told Adamarus that the aliens were insisting on talking only to him as De Bella had decided that this was absolutely unacceptable. He was determined to cut Adamarus out of the picture.

  Later the team had regrouped and for several hours inspected the blockades around the city that the police and the national guard had set up to keep out the thousands of people intelligence reported were on the way there ”to greet the aliens.” Thereafter, they returned to the ship and, on orders from De Bella, had used a bull horn and tried unsuccessfully for over an hour to start up some kind of dialog with the ship.

  Now they sat around drinking coffee and eating donuts under a large canopy that had been erected. They had been going all day and all night and it was cold and threatening to snow. The police securing the immediate area had settled into patrols and the special team was left by themselves. They all needed showers and sleep but were just too tired to deal with it.

  They decided each would keep watch for two-hour shifts while the others got some sleep. The vans had heaters and cots that were actually quite comfortable. Harrington volunteered for the first watch; Leewood took the second.

  The five men taking the first four-hour sleep period moved to the vans. Leewood had just laid down when the side door slid open. It was Harrington. “Something’s going on.” All five piled back out of the vans.

  “This had better be good,” one of agents said with a yawn.

  The ship had landed backed up against a steep hill. In front there was about 500 feet of flat ground between the ship and the force field. Before t
his area had been nothing but dirt and weeds. Now a large circle, perhaps 300 feet in diameter, had appeared on the ground. Using binoculars they determined that the circle was formed by a flat area with no weeds that rose up about four inches from the surrounding dirt and weeds.

  ---

  “Good morning Adamarus. How are we feeling today?” Dr. Kallen said as he briskly walked into the room. It was the next day. He went to the window and opened the blinds, letting in the bland light of the cold and cloudy day.

  Adamarus had a scowl on his face, “’We’ are feeling great. Like a kid.”

  Dr. Kallen sat on the edge of the bed, “But not in a very good mood.” The doctor reached over and inspected Adamarus’ ears – each had a small hearing aid inserted. He removed the right one and inspected the inner ear.

  “I’m fifty-two years old, not… not this.”

  Kallen paused and sighed, “Most people would be ecstatic over finding themselves twenty years younger.”

  “I’ve got a fifty year old wife whom I love very much. We’re supposed to be growing old together. Does that make sense?”

  Dr. Kallen removed the other hearing aid, inspected that ear, then replaced one of the hearing aids and smiled. “Well, she might like the, ah… extra energy you’ll have now?”

  Adamarus forced a smile, “You think?”

  “Your ears were badly damaged and I’m afraid they are not healing as well as expected with these hearing aids in them. I want to remove them, at least for a few days, and see if that helps. We’ll pack your ears with a gel and we’ll have to bandage them. You won’t be hearing very well for a few days.”

  Adamarus just nodded then said, “I need to talk to my saviors about my age.”

  ---

  By noon snow had started falling. The special team had all gone to the hotel in shifts to shower and change clothes. Leewood and Harrington had taken the first watch on site. Sitting in patio chairs under the tarp, they sipped coffee and watched as the 300-foot circle continued to rise up from the ground. Infrared images had confirmed that the structure had a higher temperature than the ground around it. Now, it was obvious. The snow was not collecting on the raised area, it was melting and forming puddles. Steam rose up, making the circle easier to see. The growth moved so slowly that you couldn’t really see it rising, but they estimated that it was coming up about two inches an hour. It was just growing out of the ground. It was very spooky. They had concluded that some sort of nanotechnology was being used. Now instead of a completely flat circle, its center had stopped rising and only about two feet on the circumference continued to rise up: walls, someone had guessed correctly. The aliens were definitely building something.

  They sat huddled in their wet gear with their thoughts, neither one speaking—both just waiting for the shift to change so they could go to their rooms, call room service, shower, change the bandages on their ears, get some sleep and change clothes.

  ---

  It happened at the end of the fourth day. In the middle of the night, a reporter dressed like a doctor managed to slip past security and sneak into Adamarus’ room. Adamarus stared at him as he took out a small video recorder and, pointing it at him asked, “Hey, what can you tell us about the aliens?”

  Adamarus couldn’t hear a word but got the gist reading the reporters lips. He pointed at the bandages wrapped around his head and shrugged, “I hear they’re loud.”

  Suddenly the door burst open and the reporter was grabbed from behind by several security officers. They grabbed his video recorder and wrestled him out of the room. The security officer who seemed to have the highest rank lingered behind and apologized to Adamarus, but Adamarus just waved it off indicating that it was not a problem.

  The next morning the five-inch headlines read, “The Loud Have Landed!”

  ---

  The arrival of the aliens caused a worldwide uproar the likes of which the planet had never seen. There were riots, marches, rallies, demonstrations, strikes and many suicides. Across the planet crowds filled the streets singing songs, waving banners, making speeches and chanting prayers. It seemed like every point of view was suddenly dialed all the way up on the intensity level. Even those who would normally have stayed home—the silent majority and those who had no point of view one way or the other on the aliens—came out of their homes in a fury to protest the way the rest of the world was reacting.

  The news coverage was continual which only fanned the fires. Books were in the making, interviews aired and several movies were in the works. Around the world all manner of hype, craziness and mayhem exploded over the weeks that followed the alien landing and it all surged in one direction: towards the alien ship in the city of Hillcrest.

  Law enforcement, civil defense and the government moved just in time. Spearheaded by the team the President had assembled, the town was sealed off within a week of the landing. A trench was actually dug partially around town to help hold off the surge of people wanting to see the ship.

  Chapter Five – Best Laid Plans

  “If you believe that doing nothing is a valid course of action, then and only then is it possible to say that there is always an answer.”

  Dimerities (ancient Amular philosopher 924-1008)

  Source: The Archive

  Two and a half months later…

  Youth and immortality! De Bella thought. He was in the capital alone in his office. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. So far only ten people knew about the miracle the Loud had performed on Adamarus. If the news got out the masses would go crazy. He had to contain it, control it. “Youth and immortality,” he said softly into the empty office. More than anything else, he wanted it… wanted it for himself.

  His com unit buzzed and he looked at it. He knew who it was and he knew what he was going to be told. For almost three months he had had Leewood try everything to open a dialog with the Loud with zero success. The damn ship just sat there completely unresponsive. He looked at the com unit with a resigned expression as it buzzed again. They were going to be forced into letting Adamarus open talks with the Loud and then later they’d somehow replace him. Again his com buzzed. Finally he answered it, “De Bella here.”

  On the other end Leewood said, “No response, sir.”

  “I see.” The congressman’s eyes drifted to the window. It looked across a park to the capital building. Three days of snow had created a winter wonderland but De Bella took no notice.

  “What do you want to try next?” Leewood asked.

  De Bella sighed, “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Leewood asked.

  “I can’t think of anything else to try, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Well…we’ll need to go ahead and let Adamarus communicate with them…at first anyway. You’re authorized to tell Adamarus about all the messages we’ve received from them.” Leewood said, “Okay,” and the congressman hung up.

  ---

  Many had heard Adamarus recount his strange dream which he only partially remembered: his wife and son, his friend Radin, and also many nurses and doctors. All this had filtered up to others who had come and questioned him about it. Eventually, someone decided that this might be much more than a dream and so Dr. Kallen came to him one day with many different experts: a hypnotist, interrogators, sketch artists and a computer graphics expert—all with security clearance to know about Adamarus. They told Adamarus that they wanted to place him under deep hypnosis in order to get all the details his mind retained of this dream. And they told him what they thought the dream might really be.

  Upon hearing their suspicions, Adamarus realized that he too had suspected the same so he agreed, but with one condition—that they bring those memories back to his conscious mind. The doctors countered with a compromise: they would allow him to access all that they learned from him under hypnosis, and then, if they thought it would be wise to give him back those memories, they would put him under again and it would be done. He agreed and they went to work at
once.

  He went under easily and they took him to the deepest levels. Slowly they took him back in time. And when they reached it, they knew at once that they had been right. From his subconscious mind, Adamarus recounted everything in great detail. They got it all—from exactly what the Loud looked like, to how they moved and sounded. They got details about the inside of the ship and what various machines had looked like. Even if Adamarus had consciously remembered everything with complete clarity, they got details he didn’t realize he had.

  “Adamarus, what was behind the moving hills?”

  “Dark arches that stretched up as far as you could see.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Think of those arches, Adamarus. Think about how they looked at the lowest level you see.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Dark arches.”

  “Good. And what do you see inside those arches, Adamarus?”

  “Another large room…one that lies beyond the arches.”

  “Good. And what do you see in that room beyond the arches?”

  “Video screens. Lots of video screens. They’re mounted on the ceiling, facing downward.”

  “Focus on the televisions. What do you see?”

  “I see two…no…three…all three of the news stations. A Talk show— the one called AM/PM.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Can’t quite see the other screens. They are angled away from me.”

  “What do you see under the televisions?”

  “Darkness.”

  “And what is below the darkness?”

  “Hills. Vast numbers of hills – the moving hills. They are watching.”

  “You mean hills like the ones around you, in the room that you are in?”

  “Yes, the same.”

  “These hills, they aren’t really hills, are they?”

  “No. That’s what I thought they were at first.”

  “What are they?”

  “The hills are the aliens. The aliens are nothing like us. Nothing like us.”