by Gayle Keo
Everything around her was white, and even under the layers of winter clothes she could still feel the cold air biting at her. It was a drastic change from the constant heat she was used to. There was still about 75 miles to the town of Luckey, and she was hungry to get her hands on her own set of wheels.
If she remembered correctly, there was a used auto shop a few miles down the road. She walked south down Highway 15 For an hour, embracing the numbness as the cold set over her, first her legs and then her face. Hiking had always been a passion of hers, even though she normally hiked in the Santa Monica Mountains. Though there were no rattlesnakes out here, the icy road proved to be just as risky as any trail.
Finally, she saw the sign for Viking Auto Sales in the distance, the junker dealership she and her father always passed when he dropped her off at the airport. Aileen walked to the small red building within the circle of used vehicles. A bell rang as she opened the door. The musty room seemed empty, except for a short bald man asleep behind the counter, the low sound of his daytime television show rambling on.
“Hello, sir,” Aileen said, quiet enough as to not wake him.
His eyelids drifted open, and once he caught sight of her he sat upright. “Sorry to wake you,” she said, peeking through the window to catch another glimpse of the vehicles outside. “I’m looking to walk out with something right now. Do you take cash?”
The old man cleared his throat and smoothed out his clothes. “Well, yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. Aileen could tell that he found her attractive by his flush cheeks and averted gaze. Scrolling through his computer, the man coughed again and said, “Trouble is there’s no ATM or bank for another ten miles or so up the road.”
Aileen smiled, removed her thick gloves and reached into her navy blue pea jacket. She withdrew a wad of cash and said, “I’ve got about six thousand, here. Five thousand for something I can drive off the lot, and one thousand for the trouble.”
Money wasn’t something Aileen was low on, the government had assured that. After graduating at the top of her class, they had given her the Baroness Aviation Fellowship for Most Innovative Aircraft Design. If anyone asked why she didn’t work, she would vaguely reply, I’m taken care of, trying to brush the subject off.
At the sight of the enormous wad, the man’s eyebrows shot up, not expecting her to pull it all out on the spot. “Are you…” he eyed her up and down, cautiously, “…looking for anything in particular?”
“Something big,” she said with a grin, “and something manual.”
He laughed at her excited face, understanding the innuendo. “Well, Miss, you sure do have a face I can trust. I think I have just the thing for you. It ain’t first class, but it’ll get you where you need to go.”
“I’d love to see it,” Aileen replied, following the old man out the side door. He led her a few rows over to a white ’98 Dodge Dakota. “Extended cab, v-6 stick,” she said, running her hands along the scratched exterior. “I’ll take it.”
***
Aileen felt the vibration of the engine through the steering wheel, and the heat didn’t work, but at least the lighter was intact, allowing her to chain-smoke for miles thanks to the pack of Marlboros the old man had given her. She kept the window down as she drove east, enjoying the brisk wind against her face. The dirty smell of cigarettes made her think of her father, and that was the thought that kept her foot steadfast on the gas pedal.
Instead of taking the faster route, Route 6, which would be a straightaway until I-75, Aileen decided to follow the State Route 65 along River Road and across Grand Rapids. When she was a little girl, Aileen would go sledding with her mother and father at Fort Meigs where there was a giant slope that faced the enormous river. Aileen continued to visit their sledding spot at least once every year after her mother passed away.
There was more than one ghost Aileen prepared to face as she drove through Perrysburg, around the pewter colonnade. Her first priority was to catch up with her father, as she’d promised all throughout school, because she had simply been too busy at CIT. Although her father didn’t study astrophysics, he was a well-known mechanic, and taught her everything she knew about handling vehicles.
The other ghost that Aileen had in mind was Darren, her ex-fiancé. Darren had proposed to Aileen right out of high school and, although she said yes, Darren had different feelings about her moving to California. He was tall, handsome, clean-cut with a bright smile, and one of the brightest, wittiest men she had ever met. They were high school sweethearts, and it was true that she missed him from time to time. Living in Pasadena, however, she was never far from the nightlife of Hollywood, where she had more than her share of vain men trying to make it in the film industry. Her only other options were the guys in the astrophysics program, and they were a little too scrawny for her taste.
Who knew how long catching up with her father could take? She didn’t intend to rush anything with him. Darren could wait, and the truth was that he was married with children, anyway. That didn’t stop him from emailing her from a private account, though.
Aileen wanted to spend time in the house where she grew up, watching the old movies that her and her father watched thousands of times over, laughing over the good times. For once it started to feel good being home again.
The rest of the drive went by in a daze, and Aileen’s thoughts were lost admiring how good of a deal she got with the Dodge. Sure, she had a rattle to her, but the transmission was fluid with every jerk of the stick shift Aileen made. Her house was far out into the country, the only house for miles, acres all around it. Aileen had always thought it strange that when they went to the grocery store, they always had to buy enough supplies for the whole month, because the closest store was an hour away. In LA, Aileen had little to no reason to leave her apartment other than class.
The fields in Luckey were barren in the wintertime, and as Aileen looked ahead to her house, she could see blinking lights blurred in the distance. Flashes of red came from the duo of vehicles parked outside the house. Is my father okay? Aileen thought. She kept her foot steady on the pedal until she realized that the vehicles were both paramedics.
*****
The truck increased speed, and when Aileen finally reached the house, she left the vehicle running in the yard, hopped out, and ran for the front door. There were no paramedics outside, and as she entered the house, there was one woman about her age standing at the foot of the wood-paneled stairwell.
“Are you Mr. Miroki’s daughter?” the paramedic asked.
“Yes, I am,” Aileen answered. “Where is he?” She looked around frantically, not letting herself think the worst of the worst quite yet.
“I’m sorry, Miss Miroki, but your father is gone,” she said, her face tightening inward. “I’m afraid he suffered a heart attack about an hour ago. He called 911, but when the operator answered, there was no response.”
This can’t be happening, Aileen thought. I was finally finished with school, finally ready to be his daughter again. She closed her eyes, her face hot with the need to create tears. The paramedic reached out and put her hand on Aileen’s shoulder.
“We’ve already taken him into the ambulance,” the paramedic said. “They were just upstairs making sure there was no other possible cause of death.”
“What do you mean, ‘other cause of death’?” Aileen asked. “Like drugs, or something?”
“No, Miss Miroki,” the paramedic responded, “Your father had something that a lot of people want. He was building something, and as soon as the public found out, strange things started happening around here.”
Aileen had no clue what the woman was talking about. The garage? Aileen brushed past the woman and headed through the kitchen, past the laundry, and into the giant garage. The walls were stacked, top to bottom, with various metal and mechanical gadgets and equipment. There were shelves upon shelves of spare parts, specialty tools, and instruments. In the center of the room there was an enormous blue mass covered up with a ratt
y tarp.
“Miss Miroki?” the paramedic called from the garage doorway. “We’re about to take the body—I mean, your father, away now. I just thought you would like to know.”
Aileen’s head was spinning, and her heart beat furiously in her chest. Everything was happening so fast. She had never known that her body was capable of becoming so numb so quickly.
“That’s fine, thank you,” Aileen, said, unable to turn around and face the paramedic. “Is there anything you need from me?”
“Well,” the woman said awkwardly. “We need you to identify the body.”
Aileen’s eyes closed hard and she exhaled. Of course I do, she thought, turning away from the blue tarp to face the inevitable.
***
After the paramedics pulled away from the house, Aileen stood there for a moment gazing into the endless whiteness of the fields. Somehow the loss of her father felt expected, like her life had led up to such an obvious trial of pain. If she had learned anything studying astrophysics, it was that the Law of Derivation of Tidal Force did not buy into the notion of a soul ascending to heaven. Aileen glanced up to the sky as it faded to pink, said a silent goodbye to her father, and went inside the house.
The door closed behind her and at last everything felt final. Tears streamed down Aileen’s face and she threw her weight against the door, her fingernails scraping at the wood. She couldn’t escape the thoughts of guilt. What if she had driven faster? Would he have still had a heart attack if he had seen her? The questions were unanswerable, and Aileen’s obsessive need to answer them festered within her.
She stood up and made a beeline for the garage, knocking over a vase in her wake. The cool air hit her face as the door swung open, and she jumped back at the sight of a man standing on the far side of the mass under the tarp.
“Hello, Aileen,” the man said, stepping toward her, his hands clasped behind his back. He was a mid-sized man with short brown hair, wearing a black suit and glasses that reflected Aileen’s image back at her.
“Who the hell are you?” Aileen pressed, “and how did you get in here?”
“Please, calm down,” said the man in the suit. “I understand you’re one of the brightest minds in the country, if not the world. My name is Agent Roger Hendricks, and I am with the EIT. I entered this garage through the back door, and there are two more of my men waiting outside.”
The information put Aileen into a defensive shock, but the man’s slow, steady breathing kept her from acting on instinct. “Do not be alarmed, Aileen,” Agent Hendricks continued. “I’m here because my organization and Earth are in need of your help.”
Aileen laughed, nearly outraged at his joke. “I don’t appreciate your sense of humor,” she said. “You’re trespassing on my father’s property, Mr. whoever-you-are, and I’d like you to leave. Don’t make me call the police.”
“You’re wrong about one thing,” Agent Hendricks said. “I’m not trespassing on your father’s property. I’m trespassing on your property, technically. All of this belongs to you now, which is partially what I’m here to discuss.” He smiled, walked closer to her, and then examined all of the odd machinery around the garage.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aileen said. “Sure, maybe my father left everything to me, but that doesn’t explain why you’re here. I’ve never heard of the EIT.” She inched slowly back toward the door, not fully trusting the man.
“I understand your fear, Aileen,” Agent Hendricks said. “Please, do not be afraid of me or the organization. The EIT is the Exchange of Intergalactic Technology. We develop and produce the most powerful technologies across the galaxy, and since you are the heir to Lieutenant Miroki, I need to speak with you about one of his projects in particular.”
Aileen stood with her eyes wide. She ran her fingers through her hair. This guy is a hired actor, right? she thought. I’ve got to be on some kind of hidden camera show.
“No, you’re not on a hidden camera show, Aileen,” Agent Hendricks said.
Aileen felt a claustrophobic panic encompass her. She must have been trapped in some kind of comatose dream. She was convinced of it. There was no way in the real world a mysterious man in a suit would be able to read her mind.
“The processing time varies for every person,” Agent Hendricks went on, circling the mass under the tarp. “I heard you were gifted, I expected you to comprehend all this a little quicker. I believe that under this tarp is a very important machine. Your father developed it years ago and has been keeping it safe. He was a brilliant man, well respected, and it is a shame to see him go. This machine, however,” he reached out and put his fingers to the crinkled tarp, “this machine is what will determine the future of mankind.”
*****
Agent Hendricks explained in detail the logistics of the machine, the operation, and the machine itself. Aileen wished she could forget all the information that had just been force-fed to her but, as it turned out, even though intergalactic travel was possible, time travel was still not. After all the tension had built up, the only thing left to do was uncloak the machine beneath the tarp.
With a slow, rustling pull, Agent Hendricks revealed the nose of the gigantic machine—a chrome, protruding arrowhead of a cockpit. The more he pulled the tarp, the more it became apparent that hidden beneath it lie some kind of ship. It was enormous, the size of a naval vessel, maybe larger. The sleek design bore the signature of her father’s delicate craftsmanship, two turbines on either side and one fin on the back. Simple, yet effective.
“He called it the Tower Cadet,” Agent Hendricks said. “It was his life’s work, and if this ship runs, then our people will survive.” He told her about the need to flee Earth to find an alternate home planet, and that her dedicated father planned to test the ship himself. “The coordinates in the ship’s navigational system are already set for the desert planet Woes Ëan. All it needs is a pilot.”
Aileen took a seat on a nearby crate and dropped her head into her hands. All these years she had been studying astrophysics, and while her father pretended to be a run-of-the-mill mechanic, he was actually developing the world’s first interplanetary transport. While the world seemed bent on destroying her, Aileen also believed that this was her calling all along.
“If my dad designed it,” she said, drying her eyes. “I can fly it.”
Agent Hendricks smiled, and pressed his fingers to his temples. “And that, Aileen, is why my crew is here to help you.” The back of the garage door opened, revealing two figures bathed in shadow. On the right, Aileen noticed the figure’s eyes glowing blue in the darkness. The figure on the left’s eyes did not emit any glow, though it stood four feet taller than its counterpart. When they stepped into the light of the garage, what Aileen saw would weigh on her mind for the 90 billion kilometers in front of her. She couldn’t decide what troubled her more—that she was attracted to the two figures in front of her, or that they weren’t human.
*****
Aileen, Bearyan, and Raegnor were set to land on Woes Ëan in less than 48 hours. The first 72 hours with extraterrestrials went a lot differently than Aileen imagined. Bearyan was nine feet tall with pale white skin and a long, lion-like mane. Aileen couldn’t tell if it was a long hair and beard combo, or actually a mane—because Bearyan also had slightly pointed teeth and nails. His white hair was thick, and the few times she caught him sleeping in the cockpit it took everything for her not to reach out and pet him.
Raegnor was the one with crazy blue glowing eyes. He looked like an ordinary man, save the neon-bright eyes, foot-long tongue, and tail. At first glance Aileen thought he was a Caucasian man—but up close she could see that his skin was actually a series of miniscule, stone-hard scales. His tongue wasn’t always hanging out—it only stretched to a foot long when he wanted it to, which was mainly during meals. As for the tail, Aileen thought it was kind of like hanging out with someone who had a third arm. To her surprise, the tail was not lizard-like, but more feline in nature.
She had never seen anything that had scales, fur, and hair.
The first hours in the ship were the most awkward, simply because the two extraterrestrials refused to stop poking fun at Aileen’s intergalactic naiveté. Around Bearyan and Raegnor, Aileen felt more like a little sister than their pilot. After the twelfth or so ‘take me to your leader’ joke, she set the Tower Cadet on autopilot and locked herself in her bunk and counted the minutes until their arrival upon the desert sands of Woes Ëan.
It wasn’t Aileen’s fault that the people of Earth were severely undereducated in terms of extraterrestrial forms of life. For having learned all this new information in less than a day, she considered it a miracle her head hadn’t explode. The way Agent Hendricks explained the true nature of the universe just made sense. He had said that the human race wasn’t ready for the information, that it would create fear, which would lead to a world war. Aileen learned that for centuries, men like her father and other hard working citizens were secretly assisting in outer space missions by designing machines with alien technology.
Minutes after the Tower Cadet hovered over the Earth, Bearyan and Raegnor popped open bottles of a purple liquid they called fizzure, which sounded to Aileen a lot like whiskey. While sweat dripped off her brow from the pressure of the initial launch, her crew treated the occasion like it was New Year’s Eve 1999.
From her bunk, Aileen could not drown out the ruckus of Bearyan and Raegnor yammering. With Raegnor on his second bottle of fizzure and Bearyan on his ninth, the two friends grew louder with every mile of space they traveled. They had prepared only thirty bottles for the entire trip. Were they planning on making a pit stop at some point?
Their voices bellowed with laughter over a strange continuous plethora of sounds that Aileen couldn’t make out. It sounded like radio static and beeps but with dubstep bass, and she thought she heard animal noises being played backwards. She unlocked her bunk, climbed down, and walked briskly to the cockpit. Aileen was going to show these guys that she was commandeering this ship and this mission, and that no tomfoolery would be accepted. There hadn’t even been a free moment for her to properly mourn her father. It was her ship now, and they would travel by her rules.