by R. D. Brady
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
DURANGO, COLORADO
Norah slept for most of the drive. The car had glided off the highway to a charging station. Guardian hadn’t sent a message, so Norah thought perhaps the stop was pre-planned, which meant Guardian might not be watching right now. Norah had contemplated making a run for it, but honestly, where was she going to go with Iggy? She had no allies. Leander was probably her only hope.
And now I’m Princess Leia looking for Obi-Wan, she realized. So instead of running when they stopped, she had gone to use the facilities and get some food for her and Iggy. There’d been money in the car. She felt a little bad about taking it, but being she already had their car, she figured the forty bucks wasn’t going to make the owners hate her any more.
As soon as they finished the charge, they got back on the road. She had picked up a disposal phone and she’d scrolled through different news sites to see if there were any reports on the attack at the travel stop. There was one small article which mentioned a drunk driver.
She shook her head. Well, that was covered up quickly. The rest of the trip she simply stared out the window, watching the scenery fly by. She wanted to call her mom and just tell her she loved her. But she knew they’d be watching her mom and monitoring her calls, and she could not risk putting her in danger.
She took in a stuttering breath, realizing she was probably never going to see her again. That these right now were probably her last few hours alive. She might be able to hide out from Bob, but the entire United States government? She knew she would not be able to hide from them.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she wiped them away. She knew she was doing the right thing, but it didn’t make it any less crushingly despairing that this was what doing the right thing had come to.
Iggy made a small, mewling noise, and Norah looked over at him, giving him a small smile. “Hey, buddy. Just feeling a little sad.”
Iggy crawled into her lap with a deep sigh. “Ig.”
Norah hugged him to her, resting her head on the top of his as the world continued to fly by through the window. She let her tears fall as she said goodbye to it.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
WALSENBURG, COLORADO
The triplets went down relatively easily. But once Maeve had them all tucked in, they’d looked up at her and an image of Alvie appeared in her mind along with a sense of uncertainty. Maeve’s breath caught at the triplets’ silent question, and all the fears she had for him rushed to the surface.
Chris sat down on the other side of the bed and spoke quietly. “Alvie is in trouble. But we will get him back. That’s why we’re here. So you three get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow we all have work to do, okay?”
They nodded back at him. Maeve leaned down and kissed each of them, rubbing a hand through Hope’s fur as she dozed at the end of the bed. Hope gave her a lazy tail wag in response.
Maeve paused in the doorway, watching them. Picturing Alvie, tears pressed against the back of her eyelids. How am I going to save you? How am I going to keep them safe?
Chris wrapped an arm around her waist, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “We will get him back. You need to focus on that.”
Leaning back against him, she nodded, knowing he was right. But it was hard to keep the fears at bay when the world was quiet. It was easier to shove her concerns and fears away when they were moving and dodging. But now? Now she couldn’t get Alvie out of her mind. He’d never been alone. Not once in his whole life. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Her heart ached imagining his fear and loneliness.
Chris pulled her gently from the doorway. “Come on. Let’s let them sleep. You said we needed to speak with Tilda.”
Maeve took a shaky breath, trying to calm the fears building up internally. Focus on the now. “She knows about the big Gray from 51. She says his name is Agaren. Penny seems to know him, too.”
Chris’s eyebrows rose. “How is that possible?”
“I have no idea.”
Chris kissed her gently before taking her hand. “Well, let’s go find out.”
Greg and Tilda were speaking quietly at the kitchen table when Maeve and Chris walked in.
Greg stood up. “Hey, I made some coffee—decaf. You guys want some?”
“That would be great. Thanks,” Maeve said as she took a seat.
“Me, too,” Chris said, sitting next to Maeve and looking around. “Where’s Adam?”
“He’s outside. He likes to make sure everything’s buttoned down for the night before he turns in,” Tilda said, her hands cupping her own mug.
“Where’d he serve?” Chris asked as Greg placed mugs in front of him and Maeve.
Maeve nodded her thanks, noticing the slightest of tension in Tilda’s eyes and hands.
“The army. Now, you wanted to know about Agaren.” Tilda took a deep breath. “Agaren is a Gray alien in U.S. captivity.”
“Wait, how does then Penny know him? Does he get some sort of weekend pass from captivity?” Greg asked.
“If only. I’ve been thinking about that since Penny mentioned him. I can guarantee she has not physically met him. But Agaren … he has a number of abilities. I think Penny may have stumbled upon him and figured out a way to communicate with him. As to exactly how she does it, I don’t know.”
“You speak of him like you know him,” Maeve said.
“Gray aliens have been part of the lore about visitors from space almost since the very beginning. But most people don’t realize that there is no single Gray race. There are four. Agaren is part of what is considered a ruling caste in the universe.”
“A ruling caste?” Chris asked.
“This world’s history is not what your books have told you. It’s much longer than most of us realize.” She took a breath. “But if I tell you, you cannot unlearn it. You cannot unhear it. Once your eyes have been opened, it will all change. You have to be sure it is what you want.”
Maeve met Chris’s gaze. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She turned back to Tilda. “Tell us.”
“There is order in the universe. We humans are bumbling through it as if it is this big empty space—it’s not. Battles have been fought and lost time and again. We know of seventy-two different species that exist out there. They are much more evolved spiritually, physically, and technologically than humans. We are not even close.”
Maeve swallowed, imagining that. She knew Earth was four and half billion years old. The universe, though, was almost three times that age. There could be civilizations out there that were billions of years more evolved than humans. It was a terrifying thought. And within the last few years, more and more planets had been discovered that exist in a Goldilocks zone—places in space that are not too hot and not too cold. In fact, in 2017 alone, seven Earth-like planets were found in orbit around a single star forty light-years away. Scientists believed any of those planets could be life-sustaining.
But now there was even evidence that extraterrestrial life may have existed a lot closer to home. It’s known that billions of years ago, Mars was covered in oceans and that it had an atmosphere similar to Earth. And water vapor plumes have also been spotted on one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, and Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, calling into question our depiction of moons as desolate, cold celestial bodies.
Even our own planet had confounded well-established perceptions. For example, fossilized evidence of life on Earth had been found dating back to 3.7 billion years ago. The discovery had pushed back the start date for life on Earth by 220 million years, which meant there was life on Earth at around the time there was the same potential for life on Mars, before its environment degraded. Many were surprised by the evidence, but what most people didn’t realize was that many of the ideas of what the solar system look like were developed before we were capable of sending probes out into the universe to actually see it. Now that those probes are reaching farther into our own solar system, the more we were beginning to realize that it is not q
uite as dead as we had imagined.
And the truth was, earlier in America’s history, there was strong support for the plurality of worlds—the idea that planets across the galaxy and our own solar system contained life. In fact, up until the latter half of the twentieth century, that was as an accepted belief. It seemed odd that as soon as what many considered evidence of extraterrestrial life became documented, the belief in extraterrestrial life began to reduce. Was that fear or the result of a well-aimed disinformation campaign?
“What does this ruling caste of Grays want?” Chris asked.
“Nothing at the moment. We are young. They are waiting to see which way we break—aggression or peace.”
Maeve thought about the state of the world and she had a feeling she knew which way the human race was leaning. “Why are they waiting?”
“The Grays—they are hoping we choose peace. They are”—Tilda paused—”not allies, because that would assume an equality we have not earned. They are more like mentors, guides, hoping we choose the right path.”
“If there are so many more advanced races out there, why haven’t we seen them? Why haven’t they taken us over?” Greg asked.
“Oh, they’ve been here. The governments of the world have tied themselves in knots trying to explain away their existence. But as we evolved, as our technology evolved, they’ve visited less. The Grays are almost like an intergalactic police force. They have kept the Earth from being dominated by any one species. Because they’ve seen the destruction that can be wrought when the wrong species takes over a planet.”
Greg swallowed. “In the sciences, there are arguments that our development was guided. That it was not merely a matter of survival of the fittest.”
Tilda nodded. “Before the Grays arrived, our genetic code was indeed manipulated.”
“So we’re an alien experiment?” Chris asked.
“Yes. But I think that’s a longer conversation for another time,” Tilda said.
Maeve was intrigued by the idea, but she knew Tilda was right. That was a conversation for another day. “So Agaren is also a prisoner?”
Tilda’s voice turned hard. “Until Alvie, he was Drummond’s prime acquisition.”
“In the files, they don’t indicate which crash site he was taken from,” Greg said. “He was only called Orion1.”
Tilda looked at each of them in turn, as if weighing the impact her next words would have. “That’s because he didn’t crash here. He landed at Holloman Air Force Base in 1965.”
“Wait, landed? Intentionally?” Chris asked.
Greg looked stunned. “I can’t believe that story’s true.”
Chris looked around the table. “What story? What happened at Holloman?”
“In 1965, at Holloman Air Force Base, the United States government made official contact with a UFO,” said Tilda. “And President Eisenhower was there for its arrival. In fact, Air Force One was on the same runway. After the UFO landed, a man exited Air Force One, walked over, and entered the alien craft. The man was inside for forty-five minutes. Some say it was even Eisenhower himself.”
“That can’t be true,” Chris said.
“The landing was recording. Nixon was going to release the tape. In fact, he wanted to be the President that told the world that aliens were real. He wanted to cement his place in history. He contacted two documentary filmmakers to create UFOs: It Has Begun, narrated by Rod Sterling. Nixon gave the filmmakers access to the Air Force and Department of Defense personnel. At the end of the documentary, the recording of the landing at Holloman was going to be revealed. But by the time the documentary was completed, Nixon’s fortunes had changed and the recording was not released. Instead of being a groundbreaking documentary, it was just another UFO documentary with lots of theories and little proof.”
No one said anything as Tilda finished. Finally, Chris broke the stunned silence. “But why? Why meet with them at all? Why take the chance?”
“At time, the United States government believed the choice was work with them or be taken over.”
“Why would they think that?” Chris asked.
“You have to understand that prior to the creation of NASA, many people in government thought it was only a matter of time before we were invaded by outer space. There had been troubling incidents beginning in the forties with the crashes in Roswell, and the reported air raid of Los Angeles in 1942. But even more recently there were troubling incidents like the blackout of 1965. The whole of the Northeast and up to Canada went completely dark, and no explanation was ever provided. But there were multiple reports of UFOs seen up and down the coast right before the power went down. When the atomic bomb was being created, UFO sightings were so commonplace that people stopped reporting them. And the incident at Malstrom Air Force Base in 1967 just reinforced that view and the President’s decision.”
“What happened at Malstrom?” Maeve asked.
“Eighteen of our nuclear weapons were taken offline, rendered completely unresponsive to all commands. UFOs had been reported in the area. But we believe it was a warning to not use weapons. For some in government, they took that as an indication that aliens didn’t want us to use such destructive weapons. For others, they interpreted it as a threat.”
“How did you interpret it?”
Tilda smiled. “Well, I had a little inside knowledge, so I knew they were trying to discourage us from going down the nuclear weapons path.”
“Inside knowledge? What does that mean?” Chris asked.
Tilda hesitated, and Maeve had the sense she was trying to figure out how exactly to answer that question. “Aliens have been visiting Earth long before history was written.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “The Ancient Alien stories are true?”
Tilda gave a small laugh. “Some of their interpretations are a bit of a stretch, but they are not all wrong. But those visits, those interactions, continued into the modern day. And they have been working with the United States governments since Holloman.”
Greg glared. “So let me get this straight. We worked with aliens—peaceful, altruistic aliens—and then a few years later, we captured a bunch and recreated them? How the hell did that happen?”
“There was an incident,” said Tilda. “We made an attempt to incorporate the larger government into our work. We thought it would be a chance to move forward. We had a president in office who believed in UFOs, who we thought would be receptive to the program and the progress we’d made.”
“Reagan,” Maeve said.
“Yes,” Tilda replied.
Maeve knew Reagan had mentioned UFOs and aliens more than once in public speeches. There were even reports that he had seen UFOs personally on two separate occasions, one landing on the road in front of him as he and his wife Nancy were on their way to a party at Lucille Ball’s house.
“So what went wrong?” Chris asked.
“In a word, Drummond.” Tilda practically spit out the name. “Somehow he got himself on the team that was brought over from the State Department. I’m not sure how he did it, but while he was there a firefight ensued between the humans and the aliens we had been working with peacefully for thirty years. At the end, a dozen humans and six Grays were dead. Three Grays escaped and one was taken into custody.”
“You were there?” Chris asked.
Tilda nodded. “I was wounded. I was later reported dead, and I went to ground. Drummond and his boss, Robert Buckley, made sure all resources were cut from our group. And the people known to be associated with our group seemed to keep running into accidents. So we moved deep into the shadows.”
“Your group? Who’s your group?” Greg asked.
“We are a government watchdog, I suppose you could say. We didn’t want to let anyone know we were still operational. Luckily, we had not told the government the extent of our activities, so most of what we did, and continued to do, they were unaware of.”
“So why are you so interested the big Gray?” Chris asked.
; “Because he saved my life. He saved a lot of people’s lives. And I owe him for that,” Tilda said. “Agaren is a good man. He was a leader of his people. He sacrificed himself so that the remainder of his people could escape. And he’s been in captivity ever since.”
Greg’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “We’ve held him for close to forty years?”
Tilda nodded. “I’ve been trying to find him since then. So have his people. None of us have been successful. It wasn’t until Area 51 that we caught sight of him again. And I will get him out of there. I owe him that.”
Maeve remembered the connection Alvie seemed to have with the Gray. And what had seemed like approval directed at Maeve. “He saved us at 51. We were nearly caught. He distracted the guards, pulled the attention back to himself.”
Tilda gave a small smile. “That sounds like Agaren.”
“I had a sense that he approved of us helping Alvie and the triplets, even though it meant leaving him behind. Do you know why that would be?” Maeve asked.
A crease appeared between Tilda’s eyes. “He has a large heart. But I think there may be more there. Alvie, after all, in many ways, is a thousand years old. Agaren did not tell us everything, but I think there may have been something in play for Alvie, in his first existence.”
Maeve did not like the sound of that. “What did they want with him?”
“I don’t know. And it was really more of a feeling I had than anything Agaren specifically conveyed. He is very reserved in what he reveals. It makes him an excellent poker player.”
“You played poker with him?” Greg asked.
Tilda nodded. “Yes. I even managed to win a few hands.”
Chris put his hands on the table. “Okay, so, fascinating as all this is, I think we’re getting off track. Agaren was seen at 51. I take it you believe he and Alvie are being held at the same location?”
There was no hesitation in Tilda’s reply. “Yes.”