by Lesley Davis
I’m guessing that’s not a place to stick your sandwiches, Emory thought as she saw something large and green growing up the side of one tube. She had to step back as someone nearly knocked into her as they came out of the door at speed. Emory decided it was time to move.
“Dink, I hope you can see this.”
The reply was faint and intermittent in her ear. Emory figured it was because she was so deep underground. The fact she didn’t have him so readily available in her head frightened her. She decided not to linger and go elsewhere before she was found out. She walked back toward the swipe machine and ran her card through it. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when it opened the door without a problem. Emory slipped through quickly and tried not to run down the stair well while under the watchful eye of the camera poised above the door.
*
Level 38 of Euphoria base was a hive of activity with people working with lasers and large, noisy weapons. The steady thumping rhythm of gunfire made Emory realize how soundproof the underground facility was. She also got why everyone wore ear protectors and grabbed the first pair she could get her hands on. She really wanted to spend more time looking around the laser weapons being demonstrated. They were like something from a science fiction film and were shooting through solid walls and metal like it wasn’t even there.
The appearance of a high ranking official flanked by his minions made Emory turn and get out of there. She could see an officer systematically checking peoples IDs and she didn’t know if Jessica Sanders would have had clearance to be around all this firepower. She’d seen enough. These weren’t bullets and guns being tested. These were weapons of the future already designed, created, and in action. She couldn’t help but wonder what else the military had hidden away.
She followed the steps down to Level 39 and found nothing more than a storage area. Endless packing crates lined the large room, packed one on top of the other, from floor to ceiling.
I wonder if the Ark of the Covenant is in here.
Emory walked around and inspected the markings on the crates. She picked up a clipboard and scanned the pages attached. “How very old school,” she muttered, flipping through the sheets that seemed to do nothing more than list the crates. It gave no clue to the inventory inside. She looked around in case anyone was patrolling the room. She couldn’t see or hear anyone else in the area so she tried to pry the lid off one of the crates. It wouldn’t budge. Emory grunted and tried again, bruising her fingertips trying to lift the crate’s heavy wooden lid. Nothing would move it. She shook her hands out to try to ease the ache.
“Guess I won’t be finding anything worth exposing here.” She doubled back to go back to the stairwell. Level Forty lay just a staircase below. Emory made sure not to turn around and have her face visible on the camera behind her. She’d paid particular attention to only presenting her back to the all-seeing eyes. She paused listening for footsteps. Hearing none, she set off down the steps. She’d never gotten the chance to see what Area 51’s levels held, maybe this time she’d find something to satisfy her curiosity.
Chapter Fourteen
A simple swipe of Jessica Sanders’s card and Emory heard the most gratifying sound ever.
I’m in. Oh my freaking God, I’m in!
She looked around, greedily taking in everything as fast as she could. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and she didn’t intend to miss a thing.
Please don’t let it be a storage level for food supplies. I’ll be so gutted.
The room was one huge refrigerator. Everything was bathed in a soft blue light. And it was cold. Bitterly cold. So cold Emory could see her breath form a mist in front of her with every exhalation. That went a long way to explaining why there was no one guarding the door here, or inside. There weren’t any cameras either, which Emory found odd. She padded around, realizing that these weren’t regular refrigeration units all lined up like soldiers. Row upon row of domed, ice covered appliances were laid out before her. They looked almost like pods, but the thick layer of ice on them distorted the actual shape. She could tell there was a glass front, but the ice was too thick for her to see inside. The machines hummed as the electricity was fed to them to keep them frozen. Emory picked her way over the wiring to get a little closer to try to see what was inside one of the pods.
“God, it’s freezing in here.” Her teeth began chattering as the temperature seeped through her clothing and chilled her to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself to try to keep warm but continued forward. She had come too far to stop now.
She stopped in front of one pod and began scratching away at the frozen ice clinging to its glass. She didn’t get very far. Frustrated, she looked for something tougher to use. She didn’t want to use Jessica Sanders’s card that was proving to be way too precious to let out of her sight, so she riffled through her wallet and pulled out a store card.
“I doubt this store is still in one piece thanks to the invasion.” She dragged the plastic card across the glass and was heartened to see the ice flake off, albeit slowly. She didn’t stop until she could see enough to peer inside. She jumped back with fright and then looked around her, embarrassed in case anyone had seen her display of fear. She shook her head at herself; she was alone in the room.
Or, apparently, wasn’t.
The face of a little gray alien stared back at her. Judging by the mottled appearance of its skin, it had been a long time dead and was now in storage.
“You’re not a recent addition here,” Emory said as she looked about her and tried to count how many more of this sized pod there were in the room. There were too many for her to fully see. “Aliens on ice, conspiracy theory 101.” She spotted a much bigger pod and hurried toward it to see what the difference was. She began digging away at the ice covering the glass, but all she could see was that something was in there. She just couldn’t tell what. The refrigerated pod was too tall, well over Emory’s reach, so she searched for something to stand on. There was a lone chair that she had to kick at to break it free of the ice welding it to the floor. She carried it back to the pod and stood on it to clear more of the glass. She went through two store cards and three chipped nails before she finally cleared a big enough patch off the top of the pod to look inside. She brushed her hand over the glass to clean away the residue of frost.
“Fuck me!” Emory jumped so much she fell off the chair and landed awkwardly against another pod. She quickly righted herself and stared up in horror at the cleaned off space in the glass and at what stared back out at her.
This wasn’t a small gray alien with big black eyes and spindly legs. This was much bigger. Emory estimated at least seven foot tall bigger. The skin of the creature inside was more a navy blue in color. Its eyes were lidless, and even frozen in death, the black eyes were unnerving. Its head was squarer in contrast to the grays’ teardrop shape. But it was the mouth that caused Emory to gape. It was wide open and fearsome. This monster hadn’t died peacefully; its final moment of rage had been captured in death and frozen in place. In silence it was sending out a terrible roar. Emory stepped back up onto the chair cautiously, afraid even though the beast inside the pod was undoubtedly dead. It was still the most frightening thing she had seen. Its mouth displayed a savage array of teeth. There were two rows of them, each tooth needle sharp and lethal. The torso that Emory had revealed earlier was heavily muscled and covered in what looked like scales. The huge clawed hands only served to make Emory even more nervous.
“How many aliens are we fighting here?” She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the monster in front of her. Was this what her family was up against? Taken by the grays but brought before the blues?
She stepped back down to the ground and stared at the pod, her mind filling with terrible scenarios of what her family was facing.
She was brought back to the present abruptly by the sound of the hammer being pulled back on the gun that was pressed to the back of her head. Only then did Emory realize she was no longer alone
. She closed her eyes and waited for the shot.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just shoot you now and shove your body into one of these tubes? You’d fit right in with all these other intruders who ventured where they had no right to.”
Sofia. Emory was never more grateful that’s who’d found her. The gun, however, was a problem. Emory truthfully had no escape now. She was as trapped as the countless dead aliens that resided on Euphoria’s Level 40. Dead aliens, different types of dead aliens, all hidden away in an undisclosed base. Emory came to a realization fast.
How ironic the one time I get caught where I shouldn’t be is in a room of honest to goodness aliens that I never damn well believed in in the first place.
*
Sofia snapped the lanyard free from Emory’s neck and held it up to see where she’d stolen it from.
“This isn’t like your false CIA credentials,” she said, flipping the card back and forth and recognizing its authenticity. “Where did you get it from?”
“I found it,” Emory said.
“Who is Jessica Sanders?”
“Someone who was abducted at Area 51 the same night I saved you from probably the same fate.”
Sofia stifled the urge to roll her eyes.
“You worked there. Did you ever meet her?” Emory asked.
“There were a lot of people in and out of that base, Hawkes. Including a thieving investigative journalist chasing conspiracies under the guise of being a government agent.”
“There’s a fine line between coincidence and conspiracy, Major.” Emory emphasized the rank to deliberately annoy Sofia. Sofia tried her best not to bite. “Such as the coincidence of flying saucers being seen in the sky above Area 51 and my finding out that actual saucers existed there. Not only were they there, they were built there. Yet there was a conspiracy to keep that fact hidden from the world. I’m seeing a conspiracy of silence there, Captain Martinez. What do you see?”
Sofia stuffed the swipe card and lanyard into her pocket. She ignored Emory’s comment. It was true. That didn’t mean Sofia had to acknowledge she was right. “You can’t possibly understand what we did there.”
Emory had the gall to laugh at her. Sofia spun her around, her gun still trained on Emory.
“Oh, please! Do not Jack Nicholson me!”
Sofia stared at her. “What?”
“You can’t handle the truth!” Emory said stridently.
Sofia holstered her gun and grabbed Emory by the lapels of her jacket. She tugged her forward to snarl in her face. “I don’t care what mission you see yourself on. I’m having you thrown into the brig once we get to the next base. You’re a liability and I’m done covering your ass.”
“I’m dangerous? We’re being attacked by aliens.” Emory waved her hands to gesture around the room. “And look what you guys just happen to have on ice like popsicles. Tell me, Captain, the big guy here? He’s not like the little gray you shot the guts out of. What the hell is he? What else haven’t you told us that we’re going to have to face?”
Sofia pulled Emory roughly out of the room. She made sure to lock it securely with her own card. Once in the stairwell, she put Emory in front of her but kept a firm grip on Emory’s jacket from the back. She needed the camera operators to see them just leaving, not that she was forcibly removing Emory from somewhere she should never have been at all. She marched Emory up the levels toward the elevator.
“They have cool laser weapons in there,” Emory said as they passed a floor. “Does the NRA know you guys have those kind of kickass weapons to add to their constitutional right to bear arms?”
“You were supposed to stay put.” Sofia pushed Emory up the next set of stairs.
“I got restless. And I’m inquisitive. You know that about me. It’s one of my most endearing qualities.” Emory turned to flash a toothy grin at Sofia. “It’s also my job.”
“Your job was promising a jail sentence in your future for threatening to leak details of a fictitious agency some idiot had conjured up. You’re just chasing shadows in the dark. And why do you do it? Are you trying so hard to uncover something secret to gain approval from your mother because nothing you ever do is good enough for her? She’s got her golden boy with his picture-perfect family and there you are, chasing secret plans and no doubt fantasizing about plots of a one-world government.” Sofia ran into her as Emory stopped dead in her tracks. The crushed look on Emory’s face made Sofia regret her cruel choice of words.
“Wow, that was mean,” Emory said. “And, unfortunately, probably justified. My mother barely tolerates me. She didn’t have time for a daughter because she was too busy grooming Brad to be the best at whatever he achieved. So while he followed a strict and rigid pathway to success, I got to roam free and see the world outside of its narrow minded viewpoint.”
“Emory—”
“Don’t apologize, Captain. I’m aware you’re going to have to account for me for trespassing on yet another base that you brought me onto and for me poking my nose into secrets that no one outside the military is supposed to be privy to. I get that.” Emory looked behind her to where the elevator doors lay then looked down at Sofia. “I promise you this though, I’ll be more use to you by your side than stuck in a cell waiting to be bombed by aliens.”
“And what talents could you possibly bring to me except for your amazing talent for sticking your nose where you shouldn’t?”
“I have a Dink.”
Seeing Emory’s bright smile and earnest look almost made Sofia smile back. She sighed instead. “Another subversive meddling in the military’s private dealings. Don’t think he isn’t on my list once I have dealt with you.”
“What happened to the woman who was going to help me get my nieces back?” Emory started to walk backward up the steps toward the elevator. “My sister-in-law is okay too, so I’d like her back. I suppose if I rescued Brad, Mother would have to say thank you. It would be so satisfying to see her trying to spit those words out from behind her expensive dental work.”
“Where is your mother?” Sofia punched the button to take them back up top.
“Probably still in her California home. She’s a spiteful old bitch. If the aliens abducted her they’d soon take her back.”
Sofia chuckled softly. “You’re a piece of work, Emory.”
“You said I was a scoundrel. I liked that. I liked the captain who said she’d help me get my family back. What brought the major pain in my ass back in play?”
Sofia shook her head. “Moments of weakness like that won’t happen again.” She suddenly had a thought. “Is that why you kissed me? To curry favor with me so you could continue spying on the military up close and personal?”
“No. I did it because it felt good.” Emory’s look was all self-satisfied smugness. It made Sofia long to wipe it off her face because the kiss had felt good to her too.
“Yeah, well you’re not that great a kisser.” She was pleased at the affronted look Emory gave her.
“I am too a good kisser! I’ve never had any complaints.”
“I’m sure the information you’ve gleaned from your many lovers is as reliable as your penchant for chasing after nonexistent secret agencies.” Sofia couldn’t help the superior air in her voice, but she was enjoying watching the multitude of expressions running over Emory’s face.
“That’s a lot of fancy words for insinuating that the women I’ve fucked have probably lied to me about how good my lips are on them.” Emory’s sulky tone made Sofia laugh all the more.
“Potato, potahto.” Sofia stuck her hands in her pockets to try to ease the chill in them from her exposure to the cold storage level. Her fingers inadvertently found the lanyard. “I can’t believe you’d steal a dead woman’s swipe card.” The second the words left her mouth, she regretted it.
“Dead? She was abducted. How do you know she’s dead?”
“I misspoke.”
“What the hell else do you know about that you haven’t told me?
I can’t deal with them being dead, Sofia. The abductees have to be alive somewhere. I need to find my nieces out there. Don’t tell me they’re dead already.”
Sofia gripped Emory’s shoulders and held on to stop Emory’s frantic pacing in the confined space.
“I misspoke. I don’t know what happens with the abductees because until I saw it happen I didn’t even know it did.”
Emory stared at her incredulously. “How could you not know? You knew about the saucers, and you obviously knew about the aliens, seeing as you never even flinched when you shot that one in Brad’s backyard. Don’t expect me to believe you don’t know the alien agenda here.”
“That’s just it, Emory. I don’t,” Sofia said. She knew enough, though, that she couldn’t even begin to trust Emory with.
“Then it’s a good thing my ace in the hole is there for both of us, isn’t it?”
“Ace?”
“I told you. I have a Dink, and there’s nothing buried deep enough that he can’t bring to the surface.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. Sofia had so many secrets of her own that needed to stay well hidden from Emory’s investigations. In some ways, the aliens were the least of their problems.
*
“Tell me you can hear me now? Oh God, tell me you can hear me now?”
Emory was relieved to hear Dink’s voice in her ear once she was back inside the hangar. She was following Sofia but wasn’t sure whether she should try to make a break for the van and drive out of there. She was uncertain what Sofia had in store for her. Emory let her gaze linger on Sofia’s ramrod straight back as she marched ahead.
“Yeah.” Emory tried very hard to keep her voice low, but Sofia spun around.
“Are you still in contact with Dink here?” She pulled on Emory’s arm and tugged her down to see the small earpiece firmly lodged in her ear where it always was, hidden behind her hair. “For fuck’s sake! You’re on an undisclosed military base and you’re still playing spies?” She flung her hands into the air in annoyance. “It’s bad enough I’m so used to seeing you in those damn glasses that I forget you don’t need them to see. But Dink does.” She reached out to snatch them from Emory’s face. Emory swiftly slapped her hands away.