by Stan Schatt
Cassandra’s words came softly from the pulsating light. “No, this is not your place. We have different fates. You probably will go somewhere similar but a place reserved for your kind.”
“Who makes the rules? Is there anyone I can talk to?”
Cassandra’s voice was much weaker now and barely audible. “Humans have so little patience with rules. My people say this dimension has always existed. We are far more advanced in science, but even we cannot create life although I wish we could. Whoever made the rules must have a strange sense of humor because the rules for Androvia are very unfair.”
Jack stared at the figure and felt himself moving backward toward the tunnel. He tried to resist. They had not even had time to say goodbye. The tunnel seemed to suck him in and propel him at such speed that he felt dizzy.
Jack seemed to exist in the darkness forever, but slowly he felt himself climbing out of the tunnel. He heard a loud whining sound and recognized something green. He realized it was the sofa on which he lay. He tentatively raised an arm and stared at it as if he belonged to someone else. His strength was gradually returning. He became aware of the alien studying him dispassionately.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I’ll…be okay. Is it possible to go back and maybe repeat the process? I didn’t really have enough time with Cassandra.”
“No. The drug is much too strong to take more than once. Some of my people have tried to do so, and we really could not pull them back. Are you satisfied now that Cassandra is okay and not in any pain?”
“She’s going to be born again on Androvia?”
The alien hesitated. “I…hope so. She has a very strong spirit. You must go now. I have much work to do.”
Jack knew the old runaround when he heard it. He didn’t trust this alien. Maybe he just wasn’t as good a liar as Cassandra.
“Cassandra wanted my sperm and my DNA. What have you done with it?”
The alien didn’t answer. He started to reach in his pocket, but Jack was too fast for him. He grabbed his thin arm and pulled out a weapon similar to the one the Draconians had used.
“So, you would kill me rather than answer my questions?”
“Please, you don’t understand how important our work is. I know you will not understand what we are doing.”
Jack pulled out his own weapon and led the alien back toward the closet where the whining sound was even louder. He pointed his weapon at the closet door.
“I think you have an inter-dimensional transporter in there, just like the Draconian one we destroyed. I’m going to destroy this and leave you stranded here unless I get some answers.”
The alien made some squeaking noises and then switched to English. “I…will show you. Please, you will doom our entire race if you destroy the transformer. We do not have the resources to build another before…”
“Before what?”
“Before we die out as a race. I will show you what we are doing, but you will not like it or understand how necessary it is.”
“Let’s take a look at the research you’re doing.” Jack began walking down the hall.
He passed a bathroom and saw a bedroom. On the other side of the hall was a room that had been set up as a lab. He strode purposely toward a bench where he saw several clear plastic rectangular boxes.
“Stop! You will destroy our work. Your bacteria will contaminate our prototypes.”
Jack leaned over for a closer look. It looked like a human-looking fetus. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, although part of him already suspected the answer.
The alien reached over to try to restrain Jack, but he pushed him back against the wall. He felt a surge of adrenalin and then red-hot anger. “You’re no better than the Draconians. You’re experimenting on us. I bet if I have this fetus examined, I’ll find that it’s half human and half Androvian.”
“We are not the same as the Draconians. You don’t understand!”
“You don’t have much time. Do some explaining or I’ll destroy everything here.”
The alien was visibly shaking now. He gathered himself and began. “What you see is almost all Androvian. We’ve only added a very small portion of human DNA. You have something we lack.”
“What’s that?”
“Look at yourself in the mirror and then look at me. All the biological weapons the Draconians have used on us over time have made us almost infertile. We have few female genotypes that are still viable and are able to reproduce and even fewer men with viable sperm. I’m one of the few male genotypes that have survived, and I lack vitality. Almost all our births are in vitro, but each generation is weaker. It is like a copy of a copy. Soon we no longer will be able to make copies. If we don’t introduce a new strain, we will become extinct.”
“But you need human DNA to do your experiments, right?”
“Yes…but we do not need to damage humans. We can use small samples from skin, hair, almost any part of a human.”
Jack had a horrible thought. “My sperm is part of these specimens, isn’t it?”
“We did you no harm,” the alien said defensively.
“If you don’t want me to destroy these specimens, I expect an honest answer to my next question. I’ve seen another woman who looked like Cassandra. Do you transport other Androvians here?”
“Our gateway is here. The answer is yes.”
“Could a human impregnate one of your women?”
“Not here. We can only do a full in vitro procedure back on Androvia. Here we only can carry a fetus so far and no farther.”
Jack thought about the cages where the Draconians held their human experiments and shuddered. He looked more closely at the see-through cubes and saw one contained what looked like a human embryo. He stared at the small face and felt such strong feelings that he had to brace himself against a wall. Talk about being used, the entire human race and me in particular are being used without our permission, he thought.
“What does all of this mean? You’re using my sperm to try to meld our two races’ DNA, aren’t you? That’s what the Draconians are doing. You’re no better than them.”
Jack stared at the alien who called himself Mark. These aliens were no better than the Draconians. Maybe they were more desperate, but Earth needed to develop without outside interference. Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He headed back toward the living room with the alien close behind him. He reached into his pocket for the alien weapon he had taken from Scarpo, the one he knew was set to kill. He flung open the closet door and saw that most of the space consisted of a large panel with flashing lights and buttons. One corner, though, was bare except for lines that formed a large square. Jack realized that was probably where Androvians stood when coming or going.
“How many of your kind are here right now?”
The alien was shaking even worse now. “You can’t do anything to damage this. We cannot establish a new connection from our end. We had to use an abandoned Draconian station the first time, and now it’s destroyed.”
“How many of your kind are here right now? I don’t want to have to ask you again?”
“Just a few. We lost one the other day and we lost Cassandra, so now we are down to myself and two others.”
“Why did Cassandra call me Gliese?”
The alien hesitated as he stared at the weapon. “You obviously have a Gliesian parent. Their genome is very strong with almost all dominant genetic features.”
“Tell me more about the Gliesians!”
“We know very little except that they are a very ancient race that apparently has seeded much of the universe. They appear and disappear; their technology is far advanced from ours. They appear to want to shape the direction different civilizations take.”
“Are they allies of the Draconians?”
“No. They are no one’s allies.”
“How do I contact them?”
“You can’t. If they learn about you, I think they will contact you.”
�
��So, I’m a hybrid?”
“You have Gliesian markers in your DNA. You are not completely human, so you already are a hybrid. Look how it has made you stronger and better than most humans. How can you criticize us? You demonstrate that the Gliesians are far ahead of us with their technology. Their genome is much closer to humans and Androvians than to the Draconians as you can tell by how the three races look.”
“You never asked any of us for help. You simply took what you needed much like the Draconians. At least they negotiated a treaty with our government, for what that’s worth.” Jack felt his blood rising.
“You must understand. You prove that humans might help us to survive.”
“I don’t know what I am or what I prove, but I’ve sworn allegiance to the human race.” Jack headed back toward the living room where the closet door lay closed. The alien tried to grab his arm, but Jack shook him off. He pulled out his weapon and moved the dial all the way to the left the way he had seen Cassandra do.
The alien screamed as the equipment turned to rubble. The whining sound stopped. In the background, Jack heard a dog barking and realized the high frequency weapon probably drove that dog crazy. The alien stared at the rubble in disbelief.
“You’ve ruined everything. Now we will not survive.”
“I’ve already made sure the Draconians can’t return. We humans should determine our own destiny without alien interference.”
The alien looked even paler than usual. “You were our last chance, he said.
“Maybe the Gliesians can help you. They seeded your race as well as ours. I’m going to go looking for them now.”
“There is little time.”
“Then there’s even more reason for you to help me contact them. Now here’s what I want you to do…” Jack made sure the alien understood the plan and went over some details several times. Finally, the alien nodded that he would cooperate even though he seemed resigned to his race’s fate. Jack turned and walked out of the apartment.
Chapter 25
HAWK LISTENED without interrupting while Jack described how he had lost Cassandra. The ex-SEAL tried to control his emotions but soon broke into sobs. He never had allowed himself to show that much emotion when he had been with his team. Now he didn’t care about putting on a macho front. Finally he cried himself out and just sat there so exhausted he could barely move, but he knew that he would not be able to sleep.
“You actually saw her? She said that stuff about a different dimension?”
“Yeah, but fat good it does me now. I can’t go back and see her even if I die.”
Hawk nodded in sympathy but he bubbled with excitement. “I’d love to know what was in that drink the alien gave you.”
“It tasted like he wrung out his socks and jock strap. I could barely get it down. Listen, I know how interested you are in all this stuff about different dimensions, but I’m tired of talking about it. All it means to me right now is that I’ve lost Cassandra forever.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“I don’t know. I’ll probably use the credit card she gave me to pay for a few months in advance and rent a place under my new name. What do you think Scarpo meant when he said I’d never know what Cassandra really was?”
“I don’t know. You said she was very human. She bled, so we know she wasn’t a robot. You also said you saw someone who looked like her. I don’t know if that makes her an android or not. You’d probably have to question that other alien.”
“Android? You’re much more into the sci-fi stuff than I am. You mean like Commander Data?”
“Kind of except a true android would be built with biological material instead of silicon.”
Jack was silent for a few minutes and then shook his head. “She was flesh and blood like us; besides, Mark won’t be talking to me anytime soon. I blew up his inter-dimensional transformer. No more trips back and forth to Androvia.”
“You blew it up? How could you do that?”
“I took an oath to defend our country, and I’m damned sick of aliens using us like breeding stock. We’re entitled to our own destiny without aliens deciding it for us.”
“Okay, I’m not the one you should be mad at. I was just thinking we could have learned so much from that machine.”
“We’ll get there on our own good time schedule, assuming we don’t blow ourselves up first. Can I crash at your place tonight?”
“Sure.”
Jack reached in his pocket and then reached into a second pants pocket.
“You’re probably better off without your cell phone. You know the NSA can track your phone even when it’s turned off.”
“Great. Any ideas on how I can call home without being tracked? I remember something my father said that was pretty disturbing, and I’m worried about him.”
Hawk smiled and motioned for Jack to follow him into his study. He then opened a closet and began digging through piles of electronic equipment. Finally he seemed to find what he was looking for and began connecting several devices together. He then plugged a handset into the pile of electronic junk.
“Use this to call. It bounces your signal all over the place. As far as the NSA can see, this call might just as well be coming from Mars.”
Jack thanked him and dialed home since it was past the family’s normal dinner hour. The phone rang a few times and then his mother answered.
“Mom?”
“Jack? Where are you? We’ve had all kinds of people here looking for you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m safe now. Is Dad there?”
“I hoped somehow he was with you.” Jack heard his mother’s voice break.
“How long has he been missing?”
“He disappeared yesterday, right after coming home from his conference. I heard him arguing with someone over the phone. I usually leave for work before him. When I returned, he was gone. The university said he never showed up for his classes. I don’t know what to do!”
“I have an idea. I’ll call you when I learn something. He’ll be okay. Whoever has him, needs him, so they won’t hurt him.”
“Jack, be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if something happens to both of you. Should I call the police?”
“I don’t think they can help; they’ll be a lot more interested in finding me than finding Dad. Let me work on it for a couple of days. If I don’t find out anything, then you can go to them.”
“I love you. Please bring your father home safe to me.”
“I will.”
Jack hung up and looked at Hawk. “Someone has kidnapped my father.”
“The government?”
“No, I think it has something to do with a crackpot billionaire. Dad gave me a name to call if anything happened to him. I think he realized Anderson might turn violent.”
“Can I help?”
“Yeah, I think you can. No one would look for me in the hearse. I’ll call this guy, and then we’ll pay him a visit.”
Jack dialed the number. It rang several times and then a man answered. He spoke in a quivering high-pitched tone.
“Speak!”
“I’m Aaron Starling’s son. He gave me this number to call if anything happened to him. I’m supposed to ask for Gerald.”
“Are you the SEAL?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we can help. I’ll give you directions. Come right away. I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. You should know enough about the government to know they can scan for key words.”
Gerald gave Jack directions that would require him to drive south and east into a very rural area known as Bonsal. Hawk called the number of an employee who promised he would come and babysit the place in case any bodies arrived. They both got into the front seats of the massive black vehicle and drove toward interstate 5’s connection with state route 78.
Before very long they were traveling on an empty two-lane highway. The navigation system warned them just in time to make a turn onto a dirt road. Finally they c
ame to a house that was set so far away from the highway that it could not be seen. A dusty jeep was parked in front.
Jack knocked and felt someone watching him although he didn’t see a camera.
“Who is that with you?”
“He’s my friend. I’ll vouch for him.”
The door opened and revealed a man with long dark hair with strands of gray fashioned into a ponytail. Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, he wore thick black-framed glasses that made his eyes seem even larger as they studied Jack and Hawk.
“Come in. Be quick. I don’t want any satellites recording us.” The man spoke rapidly and seemed out of breath. His eyes flickered left and right and then repeated the motion.
Gerald led them into a living room filled with books and bookcases. An iMac with a 27-inch screen lay on a desk with a screen saver that displayed the Milky Way. He sat down in a faded green Lazy Boy lounger that had seen better days and motioned for Jack and Hawk to sit across from him.
“Aaron described you to a T.”
“How do you know my father? He’s never mentioned you.”
“Rightly so. He and I went to graduate school together and we’ve worked on some projects for NASA. Let’s say that I’m persona non grata with the agency right now. I’ve dropped off the grid. Lately Aaron and I both feared something like this would happen.”
“Why would someone kidnap my father?”
“What has he told you?”
“You want me to go first? Okay, I witnessed an argument he had with John Anderson. Mom told me that they argued over the phone just before Dad disappeared. He told me that Anderson’s some kind of evangelical crackpot who’s liable to do something that could bring the Apocalypse a lot faster. That’s all I know.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police or the government?”
“Let’s just say we’re not on the best of terms.”
Gerald smiled. “Well, then we’re all in the same boat. Your father’s right about the Apocalypse project, though, and it scares the shit out of me.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“What do you know about extraterrestrials?”