Jason started to pick one of the images up when he realized they had fallen in such away as to spell out a word. Each of the overlapping images formed part of a single word, a word that would only be visible if they fell in this exact manner.
fe ED b A ck
Ordinarily, Jason wouldn't have thought of this as anything other than an unusual coincidence. He was well aware of the human tendency to read more into shapes and figures than was there. The overactive imagination of Homo sapiens has given us the Virgin Mary on a slice of toast, he thought, along with Elvis on a burnt cheese sandwich.
Jason wasn't one to fall for such mental tricks, except that another bunch of pages had fallen to form another word.
d E st R oY
What were the odds?
He wondered just how much of a freak chance it was to see two English words being spelled out from a scattering of loose papers.
It was nothing, he reassured himself. This was no omen.
Jason never allowed his mind to run to such nonsense.
The term feedback did get his attention, though, and he picked up a couple of the photos, looking at the calculations on them, thinking about their relationship to the concept of time travel.
“Like a message in a bottle,” Lily said, picking up the photos that had comprised the word “destroy.” Jason noticed how the simple act of moving the photos snapped the illusion, allowing any meaning to dissolve back into random, chaotic letters.
“What's the significance?” Jason asked absentmindedly looking at one of the photos.
A formula had been carved into the surface of the UFO like love letters might be carved into the trunk of an oak tree. But in addition to the formula, a trail of d's ran in an arc, leading to the corner of the photo where the d had been in d E st R oY.
Jason counted the d's. There were five of them. They caught his eye because they clearly held some meaning, but whatever their significance was wasn't apparent. As unusual as it was to see scientific formulas scratched into a leathery hide, at least they had a purpose. However the curved row of d's looked meaningless. Why would anyone bother?
Lily didn't reply to his question. She seemed as lost in thought as he was. She flipped through a few photos, pointing at a similar pattern with several other letter combinations that had gone into making up that cryptic phrase: feedback destroy.
“It's nothing,” she finally said. “It is the equations that are important.”
Lachlan poked his head back in the door of the RV. Water dripped from his face.
“We've blown two tires,” he said. “It's going to take us a while to change these.”
Jason yawned.
“Listen,” Lachlan added, pointing toward the bedroom at the back of the RV. “It's going to be a long drive. Why don't you get some shuteye?”
With that, Lachlan was gone, disappearing back into the darkness and the drizzling rain.
Lily gathered the photos, stacking them neatly on a bench beside the kitchen.
Lachlan was right. Jason had had no idea how exhausted he was until they'd stopped. The shift of attention had allowed fatigue to catch up with him. He left Lily in the main cabin and slipped into the darkened bedroom.
Jason decided he'd rest for a moment, perhaps just close his eyes for a few minutes before they got underway again. He kicked off his shoes and flopped facedown on the bed with his feet dangling over the edge. Burying his face in a pillow, Jason was asleep in seconds.
He woke to the sound of birds outside. For an instant, he thought he was lying in bed in his apartment, but those weren't pigeons cooing. He could hear half a dozen different birds calling, and as he opened his eyes, at first he thought he was in a darkened forest. How could he be in a forest?
A hand slid around his waist. As he moved, the soft, gentle arm pulled him tighter, snuggling against him beneath a warm blanket.
Jason turned slightly and saw Lily lying on the pillow next to him. She let go, allowing him to turn and face her.
“Good morning,” she said, brushing her hair from her eyes.
The RV rocked gently as someone climbed back into the vehicle. The engine started and Jason felt the vehicle pull back out onto the freeway.
Light filtered in through gaps in the blinds.
Jason lay on his back with his hands behind his head. Lily rested her hand on his chest, sliding her fingers up under his shirt. He sighed, wishing life could be as simple as it seemed right then, but he knew the nightmare would continue today.
“Sleep well?”
“Like a rock,” Jason replied as Lily ran her nails across his chest. Damn, that felt good, he thought. He rolled sideways, resting his head on his elbow as he faced her.
“I don't understand,” he confided, speaking in soft tones. “Up until yesterday, I was just an ordinary guy going to college. What changed?”
“You were never ordinary,” Lily said. She pulled her hand back. Her fingers rested on his forearm. “They needed you to think you were just like everyone else because it's only when you're relaxed that you doodle.”
Jason was silent.
“You've been doing them for years. Every time you scribble something on a scrap of paper and throw it in the garbage, someone hunts through the trash and matches the sketch with one of the formulas on the UFO. For you, it's nothing. For them, it's like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slowly coming together.”
Jason looked deep into her dark brown eyes. Her voice was soft. There was compassion in her tone. Perhaps he was reading too much into her manner, but he felt like she cared deeply about him. The connection between them seemed like one forged over years, or perhaps decades, and not just a few days.
“They learned a long time ago that under stress you stop drawing, so they left you in the community.”
“What about Mitch and Helena?” he asked.
“I know they're your friends,” Lily replied, squeezing his arm gently. “But they aren't, not really. They're NSA agents. They're on a long term assignment.”
Jason was stunned. His mind was spinning with disbelief, but then he realized Mitchell was one of the people that had run down the street toward him when he jumped on the bike with Lily. So somehow, Mitch was mixed up in this, too. As much as Jason didn't want to believe Lily, there was a nagging persistence to that statement in his mind. It was the little things. Mitch was always there. Whether it was calling him when he was doodling or catching up with him on the steps of the university after the meeting with Lachlan. Mitchell was always a little too close.
“And you?” he asked, stiffening unconsciously .
“Me?” Lily replied, touching her hand to her throat and gesturing at herself. It seemed to be a question she hadn't considered before then. “I'm no actor. I didn't come because I had to or because I was ordered to. I came because I wanted to be with you. My father has told me so much about you, about how he rescued you, but it wasn't just you he saved from North Korea. He rescued my great grandfather, my uncle and my mother. He saved all of us.”
Jason watched as Lily swallowed a lump in her throat. She struggled to keep eye contact with him as she spoke.
“He told me that what they were doing to you was cruel. He told the NSA team they should be honest with you. They said they were making progress, but DARPA wanted more. My father tried to get permission to try another angle, to get you to relive that moment in the sea so many years ago. They told us this was the final attempt, that after this they would institutionalize you.”
She sighed, adding, “They wanted to treat you like a lab rat. That's when my father knew it was time to make a move.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. Lily tried to hide the tears, turning away and bringing her hand to her face.
“Hey, it's OK,” Jason said, pulling her hand back.
Lily sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
“My father has spent two decades trying to unravel the mystery of the young boy from the sea. Some have said you're not human. Others say you're a
n alien experiment.”
“What do you think?” Jason asked.
“I think you are human. I don't know how or why, but somehow you're mixed up in something none of us fully understand.”
“And your dad,” Jason said, slowly getting used to referring to Professor Lachlan in that manner. “He thinks if I see this craft I'll somehow remember?”
“When the UFO first came to America, they brought you to it. You touched the skin and the craft glowed as if it was radiating energy. It scared them. There was no explanation as to why the UFO should react like that, so they made a decision to separate you from the craft.”
“And the pictures?” Jason asked.
“My father has worked hard to get them. I don't think he's seen the craft, but he's talked to people who have.”
The door to the bedroom opened and Professor Lachlan poked his head through.
“Good to see you kids are awake. Are you hungry?”
“Sure,” Jason replied, feeling awkward lying there with the professor's daughter. He sat up on the bed. Lily sat up beside him, still wrapped in a blanket.
“Well, get dressed and come on out. Bellum's rustled up some bacon and eggs.”
The latch clicked as the door was pulled shut again, leaving Jason and Lily lying there in the double bed.
“I'm going back to sleep,” Lily announced, flopping on the pillow.
“Oh, you are, are you?” Jason retorted. He reached beneath the covers and grabbed at her waist, tickling her.
“Ah, no! Stop!”
Lily writhed beneath the blanket, kicking feebly with her legs and pushing at him with her hands.
“Drag me into a conspiracy, will you?” Jason cried as he continued to tickle her. “Stand out in the rain like a lost puppy, will you?”
“Not fair,” Lily cried, laughing helplessly. She was trying to fight back, trying to tickle him, but she was far more ticklish than he was.
“OK, OK,” she called out. “Truce!”
Jason paused, his hands still resting on her hips as she lay there facing him with the blankets and sheets scrunched up around her. She had tears of laughter in her eyes as she added, “I promise, no more standing in the rain!”
“No more puppy dog eyes?” he cried, giving her a little tickle.
“I promise, I promise,” she replied, struggling to breathe, no longer trying to defend herself. She had her hands up in surrender. “Please, no more.”
Jason sat back on the bed and took a good look at her. Lily was beautiful. Maybe not by the standards of Vogue magazine or Sports Illustrated, but to him she was radiant.
“You did look rather stunning out there on the street corner,” Jason said.
“Standing there in the rain?” Lily asked in surprise. “I'm not sure I'd win a wet t-shirt contest.”
“Oh, no,” Jason replied, wondering how he'd ended up on the defensive. “I didn't mean it like that. I meant, you looked pretty throughout the day.”
“Sweating in a hundred and five degrees? Standing there under the blazing sun without any shade?”
Jason was digging a hole for himself. “Ah, I meant—“
“I know what you meant,” she said, leaning forward briskly and kissing him on the cheek. “God, I thought you were never going to come down.”
“I, ah,” Jason spluttered.
“Dad said you would. He said you were a gentleman. But I thought you were going to leave me out there all night.”
Jason laughed.
A smile lit up Lily's face as she laughed as well. Even with her tousled hair, she looked like something from his dreams. Strands of black hair fell across her face as she slumped back on her pillow.
“No sleeping in,” he said playfully.
Actually, he didn't mind if she went back to sleep, he was just feeling mischievous. She had come to him in the night, and he felt he had to reciprocate in some way, to show her in a playful manner that he was taken by her presence.
“Well,” she said, leaning over and resting her hand on his thigh. “Then I get the first shower.”
Lily jumped out of bed with a zest for life he found intoxicating. The shower was located with the toilet in a small cubicle to one side at the back of the RV. Lily grabbed a change of clothes out of the built in dresser and slipped into the cubicle. As she slid the door closed behind her, she added, “No peeking.”
Jason held up three fingers saying, “Scout's honor,” with mock solemnity.
The shower started and it reminded Jason of the rain last night. It wasn't raining outside anymore. He peeked out from behind the blinds at the farmland rushing by. They were on an interstate. The occasional red barn was visible from the road, nestled in with clumps of trees and seemingly endless rows of corn whipping past the window. The Sun was well up. It must have been nine or ten in the morning, he thought. He pulled the blinds up and leaned there gazing out at the world rushing by.
Lily was singing in the shower. Jason smiled. He couldn't have asked for a more perfect distraction after everything he'd been through. Although he couldn't make out the words, he could tell she could carry a tune. The shower stopped after a few minutes, but it was the fact that Lily had stopped singing that got his attention. He could hear her getting dressed, bumping against the closed confines of the tiny room. She stepped out of the shower cubicle still wringing out her hair with a towel.
“There's some spare clothes in the top drawer,” she said, squeezing past him. As she brushed against him, he could smell the scent of jasmine in her hair. Lily walked out into the main cabin as Jason hopped in the shower. The cubicle was cramped, and the pressure coming from the shower head was weak, but the water was warm. It felt good to run some shampoo through his hair and rinse off the dust and grime of the city.
Jason dried off and grabbed some clothes from the drawer. There were boxer shorts, cargo pants and an old concert T shirt from some band he'd never heard of before.
As he stepped out into the main cabin, he smelled eggs cooking and heard the crackle of bacon sizzling in a pan.
Lily was already eating.
Lachlan handed him a plate of bacon and eggs and he squeezed in next to Lily at the cramped dining table.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Ohio,” came the reply from the front. “On the outskirts of Columbus.”
The RV slowed, turning off the highway and onto a side road. Jason could see a small, rural airport. Several hangars lined one end of a maze of concrete runways. A red crop duster sat to one side, rusting in a field while a white Learjet took center stage.
“So what's the plan?” Jason asked.
“We're going to fly that Learjet into the side of a nuclear power plant,” Stegmeyer replied, and with that pronouncement, a perfect morning was ruined.
Chapter 13: Dead End
Lee took the child by the hand, saying, “Come.”
The boy’s eyes looked down as the two of them walked out the door of the administration building. The night air was brisk, much cooler than just minutes before. The temperature was dropping. The rain had stopped. The night was quiet. Lee ushered the young child down the creaking, wooden steps to where Sun-Hee's brother paced nervously on the gravel.
“This is bad,” the brother mumbled under his breath. “We should be gone by now. The guard will change soon. We should have left him and run while we could.”
The boy looked up at the North Korean soldier, but not with fear. He appeared to be curious, perhaps amused.
The soldier was smoking a cigarette, his rifle slung over his shoulder. Sucking in hard, the hand-rolled paper of the cigarette flared slightly. Bits of smoldering tobacco fell from the tip, drifting lazily to the muddy gravel.
“It's going to be OK,” the boy said in English, reaching out and taking the soldier's hand.
Sun-Hee's brother jumped, jerking away from the child as though he'd received a jolt of electricity. Lee doubted he understood English. Was it that those words sounded so strange in another lan
guage that alarmed him? Or did he fear the boy? The man looked panicked, like a wild animal caught in a snare. His hands were shaking, his eyes wide with terror.
“Come,” the soldier said with a tremor in his voice, marching off on the gravel. With his good hand, Lee took the child's tiny one and followed after the jittery soldier.
They crept along the side of the wooden administration building, staying in the shadows. As they approached the motor pool at the back of the camp, Sun-Hee's brother held up his hand, signaling for them to stop.
He peered around the corner.
Through the quiet of the night, Lee could hear the soft crunch of boots on gravel.
Another guard was approaching from the far side of the hut.
Sun-Hee's brother waved, batting at the air behind him with his hand, signaling for them to slip beneath the crawlspace below the admin building.
He was still wearing the general's coat and Lee thought about trying to bluff his way past the guard, but the child would raise too many questions. This wasn't some soldier half-asleep on a chair. If the guard looked too closely at him, they were finished.
Lee crouched and began to crawl under the wooden floor, but with his injured hand he was moving too slowly. He'd barely clear the edge of the building before the guard was on them, and the boy would still be in the open.
Sun-Hee's brother straightened. Out of the corner of his eye, Lee could see he was trying to look natural. He tossed his cigarette on the ground, crushing it beneath his boot.
There was nothing else Lee could do. He had to drop and roll regardless of his injured hand.
“Quick,” he whispered, tucking his right hand up against his chest as he fell on his shoulder and rolled into the mud and dirt. Being smaller, the boy was able to scoot in beside him.
Pain flared through his hand.
Lee crawled forward on his elbows, moving between the concrete support pillars keeping the raised building off the ground. The boy stayed beside him. Lee's eyes never strayed from the legs of the guard walking up to Sun-Hee's brother.
“Where have you been?” the guard barked.
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