“We need to go,” I said to Victoria. “Are you ready?”
She gave a hard, resolute nod. “I’m ready.”
CHAPTER 23 -
BRIAN
Even after General Ash’s warnings, I continued to plead Gaige’s case. “He shouldn’t be caged like a criminal. He’s done nothing wrong.”
When we reached the secondary office the general kept in our building, he slammed his planner down on the desk. “What do you want me to do?” He ran his hands through what little hair he had left. “Let him walk out the front door? Maybe even give him a change of clothes and fifty bucks?”
Before I could respond, General Ash received a call. The convoy was at the back of the building, ready to load the cargo. I was out of time. If I couldn’t get through to the general, I’d have to try someone above him, whoever that might be.
On the way to the lab, I walked silently alongside General Ash, resigned to the fact that nothing was going to change his mind. I spun the lab’s combination dial slowly, stalling for more time to think about how I’d plead my case to whoever else had authority over the situation. Once in the main bay of the lab, I dragged my feet, still trying to buy some time, and was promptly left behind.
The general rounded the corner into the area where the craft sat. “What the hell!” he screamed.
I ran to see what had happened.
General Ash stood, sweaty and red-faced, over an inky black puddle on the floor where the craft had been. “Guards! What the hell is going on?”
I followed him into the side room where they kept Gaige. The door of the empty cage hung open and the guards lay unconscious—or worse—on the floor. While the general raged, I ran over to the men to check for pulses, surprised that Gaige would have hurt anyone. To my relief, both men were alive. The general couldn’t have cared less.
“I want to see the footage of this place immediately! Open that back wall up! Get the team in here now! We need to see what we can salvage of this!”
Though I hated the loss of the craft, I was glad Gaige had escaped. But heaven help him if General Ash got hold of him now.
CHAPTER 24 -
VICTORIA
The road stretched out before us like it had no end. The car’s headlights illuminated the only remnants of snow left—black sludge along the edges of the highway. I didn’t care to see the snow’s beauty deteriorate once it became intermingled with dirt and exhaust smoke. It was a harsh contrast to the brilliant, sparkling white of a few days before, when the majesty of it actually made the cold tolerable.
I turned my attention from the road back to Gaige and watched him drive while endless questions ran through my mind. Steering with his left hand, his right elbow rested on the middle console. He didn’t fidget or act restless. He seemed comfortable on this planet. Was that his nature or did he come here often? He drove a car like he’d done it many times. He could pilot a spacecraft. So maybe a car was no challenge, even for a first-time alien driver.
The flight suit covered most of his body, except the hands, and when his long sleeves pulled up a bit, what I could see of his arms was taut with muscle. So was his neck. By his mature physique and the hint of stubble covering his firm jawline, I thought he might be a little older than me. But not much. He looked fit and strong. So did many men on Earth. I didn’t see them ripping open locked cages with their bare hands, though.
“How did you break out of the cage so easily?” I said.
“Our planet’s gravity is much stronger. It causes our muscles to develop a more dense structure. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“No. You didn’t.” He had, actually, scared the hell out of me when I saw him tear metal from metal like tissue paper. But only for that brief second. “If you could break free on your own, why hadn’t you?”
“It was a matter of timing.”
“So I messed up your plans?”
“No. Things worked out as they should have. When you came into the lab, I knew you weren’t safe. It’s good you’re away from there.”
It seemed to me that being inside a secure government building was about the safest place I could be. “Why wouldn’t I be safe?”
“My people have a sense about things. I can’t really give you any better explanation than that right now. Give me a little time to understand what I’m feeling. Please? I wouldn’t have taken you with me if I didn’t think it was the best thing for you.”
“A sense, huh? All right. You figure it out.” He looked so much like us, that I had a hard time remembering he really was an alien. But, he was. I’d seen firsthand proof. How many more ways were we different? How many ways were we alike? I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything.
“Victoria, I’m going to talk to my team for a minute, okay?”
“Team? There are more of you here?” How many aliens were running around on our planet? Did I shop at the same stores with them? Work with them?
“Yes, there’s a team here for backup. They’re going to help us.” He glanced over at me again, never taking his eyes off the road for too long.
“So, you all aren’t everywhere, then, mixed in with us?” I asked.
“No, not in years, and never everywhere. We used to have a few here and there. We have a peaceful energy. We thought we could spread that energy around and help the people of Earth. It didn’t work out very well. At this moment, only my team is here—four people, plus me.”
He’d left the lab with only the clothes on his back, nothing like a phone, walkie-talkie, or any alien version of those things, as far as I could tell. “Okay. How are you going to talk with them?”
“My suit is equipped with a communication device.”
“Really?” I remembered him poking at his sleeve before his spaceship’s door flew open. “You dial them up on some secret control panel?”
“No, it’s done by voice command. Components within the suit respond and connect me to whomever I’m trying to reach.”
“Cool!” This I had to hear.
“Go ahead, Conner,” he said.
I waited and listened for this Conner person to answer.
“Got it,” Gaige said, after a minute or so. “Okay, Victoria. I now have coordinates of a place we can go.”
“But, I didn’t hear him say anything.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Communications from the ship resonate directly to my eardrum through a special device in my flight suit.”
I slumped back in my seat, disappointed not to have heard a real-life alien conversation. “Well, I guess if you can zoom in on a spaceship, you would also be a little more advanced than us with your communications.” I straightened myself in my seat. “So you have a location, but how will you know if it’s okay for me to go back?”
“Our ship is nearby, hidden by Earth’s moon. The crew is watching every move at that building.”
“Really? You can watch us?” The fact that we could be observed, presumably without our knowledge, was a little disconcerting.
He laughed. “Don’t worry. We’re not voyeurs. Not in a bad way, anyhow.”
“Then in what way?”
“Scientific observations, mostly. Our ship is a science vessel. Your planet is very similar to ours. We can learn a great deal from your planet and people. And the way they all interact.” He looked at me then back to the road. “You’re uncomfortable with that?”
“Well, it’s a little creepy that you can watch us.”
“I can understand why you would feel that way. But believe me, we’re never intrusive.” A mischievous grin exposed dimples I hadn’t noticed before. “But I do like that pink nightgown you have.”
“What?” My stomach dropped.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He laughed, slapping his free hand against his thigh. “We only observe people in public places. I’m sorry, but I had to break all the seriousness hovering over you.”
I sighed. “Good guess. I do like pink, but you must have taken ten years off my life.”
&nbs
p; “Nah.” He flipped my visor down. “I put a smile on your face.”
He was right. Staring back at me from the mirror was a smile, and a spark in my eyes I’d never seen before.
“And it’s a beautiful smile,” he added.
CHAPTER 25 -
BRIAN
The team flowed into the lab like an army of ants, surrounding the blob that used to be the spacecraft and attending to the guards, who appeared to be recovering. Meters clicked and people scurried around, scooping samples from the puddle and calling off readings from their instruments like they’d never seen such numbers before. I had to admit, I hadn’t either. Who knew what secrets the craft had held or how its destruction may have altered its properties. We could analyze it for years and still not know everything that had just been lost to us.
The general had stormed off with a group of other high-ranking officers to view the security footage. Would that help them catch Gaige? Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe Gaige was in another world by now. I had a bad feeling I’d soon wish I was, too. As worried as the general had been about the transfer going well, I expected him to try and pass the blame to save his own butt. At my count, he had three good candidates—the two guards and me.
Deep in thought, I continued to watch the team fuss over the mess Gaige had left behind. If he wanted to destroy his own craft, that was his prerogative. He didn’t trust us with the technology and was probably right not to.
Gaige was free of the general’s wrath, but what about me? Would my career be in jeopardy now, even with my credentials? Top scientist in my field—irreplaceable, people said. I suppose if my career with the government was over, I’d find another job. With no wife or family, I could easily relocate if I had to. Plenty of money in the bank meant I didn’t have to be in any hurry. But General Ash’s words haunted me. You can’t even imagine how badly this could turn out for us. If you could, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
What did he mean? Was there more on the line than our careers?
CHAPTER 26 -
VICTORIA
Well off the highway now, we’d seen nothing for miles except hills and trees and darkness. Then, a little place appeared somewhere outside of civilization. It seemed the entire world had slipped away, leaving only this patch of existence behind—a grocery store, hardware store, bank, pizza joint, and a few miles beyond that, an old motel. Though it wasn’t quite eight o’clock, the early winter sunset and the emotionally draining day made it feel much later.
With only two cars in its parking lot, I wasn’t sure how the place stayed in business in such an out-of-the-way location. Gaige and I almost had our own private motel. That could be a good thing if it kept us off the radar of anyone who might be after us. Or a bad thing if I’d been riding for miles and miles in a car with the most patient serial killer in history. I laughed under my breath at the thought.
We pulled into the lot and parked directly in front of the office. A small neon sign in the window announced they were “Open 24 hours.”
Gaige shut off the engine. “This is it. Nothing fancy, but secluded.”
“Very secluded,” I said. Beyond the parking lot, only blackness existed. It seemed absurd to me, but what if Gaige was the most patient serial killer in history? “Gaige, what if I told you I didn’t like being out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Then I’d take you somewhere else.” He shrugged. “But I don’t get the sense you mind it here.”
“No, maybe not. But what if I told you I wanted to go back?”
“I’d advise against it.”
“And if I rejected your advice?”
He twisted in his seat, toward me. “Victoria, I would never force anything on you. Whatever you want to do is your choice. I would advise against you going back, though.”
I believed wholeheartedly that he’d respect my decision, whatever it might be. “Okay. Your advice is duly noted. We’ll wait this out here.”
He exhaled and I knew I’d made him a little nervous. “Good. You really don’t have to worry.”
“Good,” I said right back. “Neither do you.”
He shook his head and smiled. “I’ll try to remember that.”
So we would stay in a motel room together, the alien and the criminal who’d broken security protocols. But in that flashy flight suit of his, he looked about as out of place as he could possibly look in the woods. I knew I couldn’t let him walk in there. “You’re staying put.”
“What?”
“You look like an alien.”
He leaned toward me and whispered. “I am an alien.”
“Yes, well you look like one in that fancy flight suit. I’m going in. You wait here.” I grabbed the door handle then remembered that back at the lab, I’d abandoned my purse and everything in it, including cash and credit cards. I let go of the handle and looked at him, figuring he had no way to pay for the room either.
Gaige leaned back against the seat and crossed his arms, grinning. “Change your mind, bossy?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Hmm.” Gaige cocked his head and looked me up and down. “How much do you think they’d give you for the parka you have on?”
I grunted. “Not enough. So now what?”
He reached into the sleeve pocket of his flight suit and pulled out several bills. “I guess I’ll have to give you some money.”
“You have money?”
He held the bills out to me with a handcuff dangling around his wrist. “It’s never a bad idea to have some of the local currency.” The dimples. “Just in case I want to kidnap an Earthling and take her to a motel.”
“Oh, that’s always a contingency for you, huh?”
“No, but with you, I made an exception.”
I rolled my eyes and took the bills. “You’re incorrigible. And you might want to get rid of the bracelets.”
I got out of the car and slammed the door behind me. I wasn’t mad, but I couldn’t let his dimples make me stupid.
Though it was cold, no snow covered the ground and the pathway leading to the motel office was clear of ice. A few little dried up flowers, remnants of summer—so dead and brown it was impossible to know what they used to be—remained along the edges of the concrete walk.
I pulled open the door to the clang of a small cowbell that hung on the inside of the doorknob. Cheap wood paneling covered the walls and the décor hadn’t been updated since the 1970s. The mustard-colored laminate countertop curled up at the edges, and the vinyl flooring was so faded and yellowed the original color had been lost to the years. The place desperately needed an update, but it appeared to be clean. I was thankful for that.
Light from a small relic of a TV flickered on the face of the elderly gentleman sitting behind the counter. The table next to him on which the TV sat looked more like a plant stand than a table, but it did a fine job holding the weight of the little TV.
The man turned the volume knob down to silence the black and white horror flick and stood up. “Lookin’ for a room?”
“Yes. Do you have something available in the back?” I asked.
“Sure, we have plenty of vacancies, all with two double beds, satellite TVs, and hair dryers.” He pulled a numbered key off the pegboard behind him. “Can I see some I.D.?”
“I.D.?”
“Yes, you have to be twenty-one to rent a room.”
“I do? I mean, yes, I know I do, but my I.D., I’ve lost it. On vacation. I’m on the way home now. Plan to get a new one first thing Monday.”
We both stood facing each other, him looking at me and me looking at him. Waiting. He held the key in a closed fist like he might not be inclined to let go. I gave him the most tired, pathetic face I could manage, hoping he’d take pity on a young, weary traveler.
Please, please, rent me a room. Please, please, please. I wished it, willed it. Pleeeeease!
He loosened his grip on the key and handed it to me. “Room eighteen. Circle around to the back and it’ll be tow
ard the center.”
I paid him, thanking him profusely, and turned on my heels to get out of there before he changed his mind. As my hand reached for the door, it occurred to me this man might be my last opportunity to take another course. I pulled the door open, cowbell clanging. I trusted Gaige.
When I got back into the car, the handcuffs were gone from Gaige’s wrists.
“Everything go okay?” he asked.
“Not really. You have to be twenty-one to rent a room.”
“Ah. But you have a key.”
“Yes.” I held the key up and gave it a jiggle. “I used my immense charms on him.”
Gaige raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”
CHAPTER 27 -
VICTORIA
Just as the clerk said, number eighteen was near the middle of the building. No other cars sat at the back of the motel, so we were able to park directly in front of our room.
With its wood-paneled walls and harvest gold sink, the décor was similar to the office. But also like the office, it was clean. I could stay in any decade as long as it was clean.
“Which bed do you want?” I asked Gaige.
“I’ll take the one by the door.”
I had the feeling he wanted that bed so he would be the first line of defense should anybody, government or otherwise, break in. A gentlemanly act.
A small breakfast table with two chairs sat in front of the window. I tossed my coat onto the closest chair and climbed on top of my bed. Settling myself in a seated, cross-legged position, facing Gaige’s side of the room, I watched him spread out on his back on his own bed. He placed his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Other than his slow, steady breathing, he remained completely still. I lost myself watching him doing nothing at all. But somehow he fascinated me.
The Anuan Legacy: Book 1 of The Anuan Legacy Series Page 6