Alien Storm

by Don Viecelli

  The man listened to the answer trying to decide what to do next. It was obvious they were just visitors, but something was going on around here this morning and he wasn’t taking any chances. “Turn around and follow us to our headquarters. It’s up ahead about a mile. Our commander will decide what to do with you.” The tone of his voice didn’t leave any options. The boys decided to follow their lead and do what they said. Ryan was quietly trying to decide how they were going to get out of this situation without giving anything away. The man let them lower their hands as they walked through the woods.

  Soon they came to a clearing with a white farmhouse, large barn and several smaller buildings that looked like some kind of military compound with a wooden fence surrounding the place. There were parked vehicles everywhere and more men walking around in the compound. They all stopped what they were doing to watch the small group of men with the captives approach the farmhouse. It looked to Ryan that these men were preparing for some sort of military exercise, but he didn’t know what type. As they approached the front porch, the man in charge told them to stop and take off their backpacks. Two of the men began to search the boys’ clothes and backpacks. That’s when one of the men found the strange looking disk in Ryan’s backpack. As soon as he pulled it out, the disk started to glow with a bluish light that surrounded the entire disk about an inch in circumference around the object, including the man’s hand. The man was startled. He let out a shriek “Christ” and dropped the disk. Ryan grabbed the disk before it hit the ground and they all stared in disbelieve. This certainly was not going to help their situation much thought Ryan.

  “What’s going on here?” someone yelled from the front porch of the house. All the men nearby immediately stood at attention and saluted the man on the porch. Obviously, this was their leader.

  “We found these guys on our property by the North line, Sir,” Whitey Hall said, First Lieutenant and leader of the group who brought the captives in. “They said they were hikers from Porcupine Park and were crossing our property looking for M-64.”

  “What is this thing?” The man asked pointing to the glowing disk.

  “I don’t know, Colonel,” the lieutenant answered. “We just found it.”

  Colonel Ted Nass, Commander of this small, heavily armed paramilitary group called the Freedom Liberation Movement, was visibly angry. He was a heavyset man in his late fifties with a dark beard, graying hair cut short, round face with a small nose, tight mouth and wearing dark glasses over his eyes. He didn’t look too pleased with the Lieutenant. “I’m Colonel Ted Nass, Commander in charge of this unit. Who are you?” he asked looking directly at Ryan who was still holding the disk and wondering what it was doing.

  “My name is Ryan Weston and these are my two friends, Jason and Tom. We were hiking in the park and decided to leave. We didn’t mean to cause any trouble. We’re just looking for the main road to get out of here.”

  “And what is that thing in your hands?” the colonel asked.

  “It’s something we found in the park. We’re not sure what it is yet,” Ryan answered. He didn’t offer the whole truth and the Colonel wasn’t about to let it end there.

  “Lieutenant Hall, show these men to the holding room. Take that thing and their possessions in the house. Son, we need to talk some more. Please do as we say and no one will be hurt.” One of the men stepped forward and took the disk from Ryan. He put it in his pocket and picked up the backpacks. During the body searches they had found the three two-way radios on the young men’s belts, but in all the excitement over seeing the glowing disk, one of the men missed the small cell phone in Ryan’s shirt pocket. Ryan quietly hoped it wouldn’t ring or make any noises they could hear until he found a way to turn it off without anyone seeing. Ryan and his friends were then escorted to one of the smaller buildings to the right of the farmhouse. When they entered the building, they were put into a small room with a table and six chairs. It looked like a meeting room of some sort. There were no windows, no pictures and no telephones. Ryan and his friends found a chair and sat down. The men left the room and closed the door. They heard them lock the door.

  “Now what?” Tom said to no one in particular.

  “What should we tell them, Ry?” Jason whispered in a low voice.

  “I don’t know. If we don’t say anything, they might let us go. If we tell them about the alien, they might not believe it. I don’t know what they’ll do.”

  “These guys look like they’re planning something,” Tom added. “Just our luck we would run into a bunch of military kooks.”

  “They won’t want us hanging around, guys,” Ryan said. “Maybe we can convince them to let us go and we can keep our stuff. Why would they want it anyway?”

  “Because of the money, Ry,” Jason said in reply. He knew what this could mean to them. “The disk and other pieces from the wreckage will probably be worth millions to someone. It’s going to be very valuable.”

  That had not occurred to Ryan. “It really belongs to the government, Jason. I don’t think the government is going to let us keep it or sell it.”

  “Maybe not, but these guys don’t look like the government loving type. They’ll put it on the black market. Somebody out there will pay for it.” Jason wasn’t giving up on this.

  “Hey, guys, I still want to know how we’re going to get out of here.” Tom looked worried.

  “We’re not helpless, Tom,” Ryan said, raising his finger to his mouth and whispering to both friends to be quiet while he pulled out his cell phone. He checked the signal strength to see if he had a channel. It was pretty weak. He needed to find a better spot with a stronger signal. He turned off the phone to save battery life and put the phone inside of his right boot. Jason and Tom both looked relieved. They continued to talk in low tones to make sure they weren’t being overheard by one of the guards outside of the building.

  About 30 minutes passed before they heard voices approaching. Then someone unlocked the door and opened it. Colonel Nass, Lieutenant Hall and another man entered the room carrying a small notebook, the disk and the pieces of metal they had found in the boy’s backpacks. The door was closed behind them with a bang.

  “What are these things, young man?” Colonel Nass said looking at Ryan and laying the items on the table. The disk was still glowing faintly.

  “I told you. We found them in the park. We don’t know what they are,” Ryan lied again.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, son,” the colonel said loudly. “What are you doing with this thing? Spying on us?” The Colonel appeared very angry.

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” Ryan said back to the colonel. Surprisingly, he was not afraid of the men. He was getting mad. “These are our things and you should let us go before you get into trouble for kidnapping us.”

  The colonel looked at the other two men and decided to ease off a little. This wasn’t going to work as easily as he thought. He would try another tactic. “Lieutenant Grady, show these men what you found.” The third man approached the table, set his notebook down near the disk, opened the top, turned on the power and stepped back. The notebook quickly powered up and the liquid panel display turned on. All of a sudden the display began to run a program that only two men in the room completely understood, the lieutenant and Jason.

  “Do you know what’s happening here, boys?” the colonel asked in an accusing tone.

  “It’s running a data transfer program. The data in the notebook is being transmitted to the disk, but I don’t know how,” Jason said.

  The lieutenant then picked up the disk and walked to the other side of the room, about twenty feet away. The notebook seemed to lose the connection and the transfer program stopped. When the Lieutenant walked back to the table, the program automatically turned back on. It became obvious to everyone in the room what was happening.

  “This disk is using one of the wireless access chips to communicate with our notebook,” Lieutenant Grady said. “It’s downloadin
g every piece of information in the hard drive. It only takes a few minutes to complete the transfer. Afterwards, there is no trace of the transfer and it’s only one way, to the disk.”

  The boys were stunned. They didn’t know what else to say at the moment. We’re in deep shit, Ryan thought, and he wasn’t sure what would happen next.

  “This is a big problem for us, boys,” the colonel said. “No one just walks in on us and steals our information without permission. Understand?”

  “We didn’t walk in on you, sir. You brought us here, remember?” Ryan interrupted.

  “Don’t get smart with me, son. You don’t know who you’re dealing with here. Now, are you going to tell me what the hell is going on? There are army helicopters flying overhead all over the place, state troopers on the roads and National Guard troops by the truckload. Do these things have something to do with the plane crash in the park? We’re not letting you go until you tell us. And you certainly are not leaving with this thing,” he said, pointing to the disk.

  Ryan looked at his friends and they all agreed by their facial expressions that they would have to tell these jerks what they found in the park. Maybe the truth would help, who knows. Besides, he had already sent the pictures to his sister and she was probably on her way up here now to break this whole story on national television. These military wannabes certainly weren’t going to stop what was about to unfold. He looked back at the colonel and said, “Get me my camera.”

  Chapter 11

  Chicago, IL:

  Kaye Weston and Kurt Flannigan made it back to their apartments in Lincoln Park soon after Kaye received Ryan’s call. Kurt agreed to pick her up in half an hour after he had time to pack some things. In the meantime, Kaye packed her bags, opened her notebook and turned it on using the wireless Internet connection she had in her apartment. She quickly found the file her brother had sent to her mailbox and opened it. The picture quality was much better than what she could see on her cell phone. She sat down at the table and watched the whole video file in amazement. She could kiss her brother for this if he were only here. There was no denying what he saw. The pictures were worth more than words could say. It would play great on TV. She could already visualize which scenes would lead the stories that were running through her head. There would be no end to this, unless someone else got there first. Now that was a depressing thought. She quickly dismissed it.

  Her cell phone rang. It was her ride. “Hello, Kurt. I’ll be right down. Wait till you see the pictures Ryan took. You’re not going to believe this.” She hung up, packed the notebook, picked up her bags and left the apartment. The sun was just starting to come up over Lake Michigan. They would be at the office in thirty minutes. The morning news crew would be there and she needed some time to prepare for her meeting with Dick Hughes. She would call him on their way in. He would be surprised to see them, but then this was going to be a really big surprise of a different sort. She would have to convince him to let her and Kurt handle this assignment. She had already made up her mind that this was his only option and she was prepared to take her story to another TV station if he balked. This was her big chance to make it to the anchor seat and she was prepared to do whatever it took to cover this story and get national TV exposure.

  Kurt was waiting in his car by the front door. Kaye threw her bags in the back seat and hopped in the front. He said hello and they were off. Kaye pulled out her phone and called Dick. He was away from his desk, so she left a message that she needed to see him right away, that there has been a change in plans and he needed to find someone else to cover the NASA press conference in Houston this morning. She didn’t spend any time trying to explain why there were still in Chicago and not on their way to Houston. Dick could call her on her phone if he wanted an explanation she figured.

  They were making good time. Traffic was moving right along on Lake Shore Drive and the water was sparkling from the morning sun. They had the windows down and Kaye could smell the cool Lake Michigan breeze and feel the wind blowing her hair. It was going to be glorious day in Chicago from the looks of it. Too bad they were going to have to leave the Windy City as soon as they could and fly to the furthest reaches of the U.S. northern border where she didn’t know a soul, except for her brother and his friends. She wondered how they were doing. They should be far away from the park by now. She hoped they wouldn’t run into any trouble up there before she had a chance to see them.

  The Channel Two News building was located in the heart of downtown Chicago in the Loop, which was near the lake. Kurt pulled his car into the private parking lot outside the building and they got out. They both rode up the elevators to the tenth floor where they separated and went to their desks. Kaye had a small office near one of the large open areas in the middle of the floor where all the administrative functions were done. She didn’t have a window, but she could see outside toward the lake from the open windows on the east side of the building. The sun was shining through broken clouds into the room. Soon, they would have to partially close the blinds to block some of the light and heat from the rising sun. It was a sure sign that summer was just around the corner. Kaye could see sailboats on the lake and wished she knew someone who owned one so she could get sailing lessons. Her family spent summer vacations on North Carolina’s coast every year, but her parents never owned a sailboat and that was one of her dreams when she had enough money and time to pursue the sport.

  Kaye’s main goal right now was to progress in her career and find a news anchor spot on a nationally owned TV station. She wasn’t so naïve to think that she could win a spot here in Chicago with only a few years experience as a local TV special news reporter, but she was covering bigger and more important news events in Chicago, and even made the national TV news with a story on local political corruption in the last mayoral campaign which gave her good visibility among her peers. She was a bright, competent, rising star in her industry and she felt she had a good shot at making her goal within two years.

  Now, this UFO incident was dropped into her lap from, of all people, her little brother. Not in a thousand years could she have anticipated such a thing. They were as close as a brother and sister could be, but she didn’t think Ryan would know how much this means to her. She owed a great debt to Ryan now and she would make it a point to pay him back, whatever it took. That’s a promise I will keep, she thought to herself as she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer. She needed to make some phone calls and check the news wires to see what the world knew about a plane crash in the UP.

  It didn’t take long. The explosion and plane crash were reported by several people in the area to local public safety emergency centers who had received 911 calls and passed them on to the proper authorities to check out. The state authorities had passed the calls up the federal government channels until it reached the FAA and the Pentagon. The Pentagon had issued a press release that a crash had indeed occurred and two pilots were killed, but that it was a military test plane and all information was confidential and covered under the veil of national security. There was a number to call for the Pentagon PR department to answer any questions. The local radio, newspaper and TV stations had been alerted to the 911 calls and were preparing to treat it like any other military plane crash with whatever details the government wished to give out. The biggest news item so far was the park had to be closed down for a while until the government cleaned up the site and removed the dead pilots. There was no information about any contamination issues or that the Army National Guard troops had been called in to close off the park. Everything was being treated as a routine incident and no cause for alarm.

  How comforting, Kaye thought. She decided to call the local affiliate radio station in Houghton, Michigan and see what they knew. The station manager got on the line and told her they didn’t even bother to send someone over to the park to check the story out. They had called the police station and received the same PR statement that Kaye had received from the Pentagon’s PR web site. He was
willing to help her out if she wanted someone to follow up on the story for her. Kaye politely said that would not be necessary and that she was just checking to see how the crash had impacted the park’s business up there. The manager didn’t think it would present much of a problem since the park was so big and it was early in the tourist season. The government would clean up the site in no time he figured. Kaye thanked the manager for his help and hung up.

  While Kaye was trying to decide whom she should call at the Pentagon, her phone rang. It was her boss, Dick Hughes. He asked her to come to his office and explain why they were here instead of on a plane. She said she was on her way and wanted Kurt to join them. She hung up the phone, called Kurt to tell him to meet them in Dick’s office and picked up her notebook to bring with her. Dick Hughes’ office was on another floor so she walked to the elevator and got on. In a matter of minutes she was knocking on his door and walking in prepared to tell him the story of the century, hell, for all time, if it pans out.

  “Hello, Dick. Good morning,” Kaye said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster.

  “Good morning, Kaye. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be covering the NASA press conference this morning.” Dick seemed irritated.

  “I know, Dick, but something else popped up. Something much bigger I need your help with,” Kaye said and then there was another knock on the door and Kurt came in to join them. He said good morning to everyone.

  Dick Hughes was Channel Two News’s TV executive producer. It was his call who sat at the anchor desk and what news stories hit the air waves every day in Chicago. He was fifty years old and had spent his whole career in the TV media business working his way up the executive ladder. He had worked in the Chicago affiliate station for the last ten years. He was well respected in the business and at the station. Usually, he was easy to work for and everyone knew what was expected of him or her. If someone couldn’t do the job, Dick was the first to tell that person and then do what few executives ever did, help him or her find out what he or she did do well and go do it instead. He helped select the news teams that went out on the streets every day and found the news stories that went on the air at the right time. They had plenty of awards to prove it. The only thing that really bothered Dick Hughes was when you were supposed to be doing one thing and you were doing something else, you better have a damn good reason for it. He was waiting for that reason.