by Darien Cox
“Yes,” Ogden said. “But let me slow down the playback for you. And watch closely. Ready?”
“Yeah,” Nolan said, intrigued now.
The recording from the woods reappeared on screen. When the white thing entered the shot, it was moving in slow motion, and though there was still a vague blur about it, they could make out details of the figure. The face was visible as it ran past the camera. Huge eyes, big head, long white hair, long, narrow jawline. At first it appeared to be naked, but it was actually wearing some type of white jumpsuit that blended with its papery white skin. Though the recording was slowed down, the figure was obviously moving at high speed, the stream of long white hair flying straight out behind it like a flag.
The figure stumbled, fell to the ground, then immediately got up and kept running, disappearing from the frame. Ogden’s face appeared in a split screen, a still shot of the figure on the other side. “Okay, Elliot,” Ogden said. “Now you tell me, so what?”
“It’s a White,” Elliot said. “Not a hybrid. Eyes are the right size. Head and body proportions. But something’s sure different about it.”
Ogden nodded. “So what’s different about it?”
Nolan scratched his chin, staring at the image on screen. “Either my eyes aren’t adjusting to the scale of the trees, or that thing is only about…three feet tall.”
“Bingo,” Ogden said.
JT shook his head. “The Whites are typically eight feet. Is this some sort of dwarf?”
“I’d say more likely a child,” Ogden said. “My baby granddaughter’s just learned to walk. Tries to run too fast everywhere and falls down. The way this thing stumbled and fell in mid-run reminded me of that.”
“A baby White?” Nolan said. “What would a baby fucking White be doing running around the woods all alone at night? Why isn’t anyone watching it?”
“What, you want to call alien social services?” Elliot said.
Nolan grinned at Elliot’s snarky comment. For what felt like a few seconds too long, their gazes locked, until finally Elliot turned away. “Okay Ogden,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know for certain,” Ogden said. “But I will say there are several things that when looked at in combination have me and some of my colleagues concerned. We monitor the airspace over the mountains, but though we know ships come and go from that base, we’ve never heard a peep. Two weeks ago we got some indecipherable static on the channel. It lasted about three hours, then all went silent again. Last night we heard it again. Two hours of static coming from orbit in the direction of the base, but we can’t pinpoint the source.”
“Maybe the angry nasties?” JT said.
“I don’t think so,” Christian said. “Last I spoke with Baz this summer he said the Whites had a handle on them. Baz said they’d never let the angry nasties get close to our planet again, even if they had to blow them to bits.”
The angry nasties—as dubbed by Baz, who’d helped raise them from infancy—were a race of hybrids, similar to Baz, created by the Greys’ genetic meddling. But the angry nasties had more human blood than White—and looked more human. Two of them had crashed a small craft in the lake over the summer with the hopes of being brought into the Whites’ base, for sabotage or theft. Baz told the team the Whites wanted the craft destroyed, but Ogden wanted it brought to headquarters to be studied. Ultimately the craft opened before they could move it. One of the hybrids was killed when Baz destroyed the craft himself after the creature within had paralyzed half Ogden’s soldiers. The other escaped, and after terrorizing Christian and Myles, was captured and taken away by the Whites.
“If the Whites aren’t worried about the angry nasties then neither am I,” Nolan said. “So what do you think is really going on, Ogden?”
Ogden shook his head. “Hikers have been invading the Whites’ space on the mountain with increasing frequency, yet there’s been no contact or even mild retaliation. Everything’s so…quiet.”
“Exactly,” JT said. “It’s not like the Whites not to let us know directly if something’s pissing them off. We’ve heard nothing.”
“And no one can get hold of Baz, apparently,” Ogden said. “Silence from the Whites. Baz won’t return our calls. Strange noises from on high above the base. And now we’ve got what appears to be a baby White running alone in the woods, unsupervised. None of the other cameras showed any figures, no adult Whites in the area, nothing. So what the hell is going on up there?”
“Or rather down there,” Christian said. “You think something’s up in their underground base? Like…I don’t know. Is there something amiss in…White-land?”
“If they’d been attacked in traditional terms I’m sure we’d have seen evidence of it,” Ogden said. “Baz said the base is huge and occupies the space under several mountains. That means hundreds, probably thousands of Whites occupy the base at all times, coming and going. They wouldn’t go down without a fight. But of course there are many ways to attack someone without explosions or fanfare. Particularly if we’re talking about advanced races.”
“Attacked?” Christian looked at Nolan, his eyes wide. “Shit, I hope Baz is okay.”
“Baz?” Elliot said. “What about us? If something’s powerful enough to disrupt or disable things with the Whites, then we’d better hope they don’t come after us.”
“It was only a suggestion, it’s highly unlikely they’ve been attacked,” Ogden said. “Now, I know the Whites never said they’d keep in touch with us, but I don’t think I’m alone in finding it strange that Baz isn’t responding.”
“Oh yes,” Elliot said. “Why ever would Baz not want to talk to us? We only ignored his advice about the craft we found this summer, leading to events that made him kill a hybrid alien he’d helped raise from infanthood. Can’t imagine why he hasn’t stopped by for tea.”
“Look, can I jump in with some logic here?” Nolan asked.
“Go ahead,” Ogden said.
“We’ve only had those cameras up a week. Before that, we had no idea what happened up on that mountain when we weren’t there.”
Ogden nodded. “We get satellite shots of the area but we mainly look for space craft and it’s hard to see what’s going on down in the trees.”
“Right,” Nolan said. “So here’s the thing. The Whites always know if someone is in the area, they monitor the place. So they likely know when no one is around, too. Maybe they’ve always let their kids run around in the forest at night. Maybe this isn’t unusual at all. We have no way of knowing. I’m not ready to jump on this ‘something’s wrong with the Whites’ bandwagon just yet, it’s all speculation.”
“Agreed,” Ogden said. “All good points. But I want confirmation before I can relax on this. Find a way to speak with Baz. That’s your priority. I want someone to take a chopper up there and park it on the field. Ask Baz directly if everything’s okay.”
Christian chuckled. “And hopefully he’ll say ‘Okay. Yes. Okay. Yes.’ God, I really miss that freaky bastard.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Elliot said. “Are you serious, Ogden? Park the chopper right on the field? That’s what made the Whites freak out to begin with.”
“I know,” Ogden said. “So if they want you gone, they’ll send Baz to speak with you. Take the chopper up and park your asses right smack in the middle of their precious entrance-point until Baz makes an appearance. Then report back to me. If Baz says everything’s fine, then great. But either way, I want to know, and I want to know now.”
“How long should we wait for him?” JT said.
“As long as it takes.”
“And what if Baz doesn’t show?” Nolan said. “What if we just sit there and no one comes?”
Ogden made a steeple of his fingers and rested his chin on them, thinking. “Give it twenty-four hours.”
“That long?” Elliot said. “Like…overnight and shit?”
“Aw, you scared?” JT said.
“I don’t have to be scared to logically s
ense danger,” Elliot said. “Besides, I need to look deeper into that teacher guy.”
“Ogden can do it,” Nolan said.
Ogden frowned. “What am I paying you guys for? I’m not doing your research for you, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Let Christian look deeper into whoever this teacher is,” Ogden said. “He has the necessary skills. And JT, I want you monitoring the sky over the mountains tonight, and report back anything, and I mean anything unusual you see to me immediately. Nolan and Elliot, you two can take the chopper up.”
Elliot glanced at Nolan, then scowled up at Ogden’s image onscreen. “Are you sure we should do this? If something is wrong with the Whites we could be walking into a volatile situation.”
Ogden cocked an eyebrow. “You were just bitching to me last month that you missed doing missions on the mountain. Said you were bored. I figured you’d be pleased to take this on. You suddenly afraid of the dark?”
“I just think it’s a bad idea,” Elliot said. “I have a bad feeling about it. Do we have to take it to such extremes? Maybe we can try to contact Baz again from down here. Shoot some fireworks at the base or something, that’s worked before.”
Nolan frowned. He tried not to take it personally, but couldn’t help pondering that Elliot hadn’t wanted to ride in the truck with him this morning. Now he was protesting having to do a stakeout mission alone with him. Ogden was right, this type of mission was usually right up Elliot’s alley. And Elliot wasn’t afraid of the dark. Elliot wasn’t afraid of much. Unless maybe he was afraid to be alone with Nolan now? Christ. Maybe I did fuck things up between us.
“I can go if Elliot doesn’t want to,” Christian said. “The chopper has a signal booster, I can just as easily do research up there.”
“No,” Ogden said. “You and JT didn’t get a response from Baz up there this morning. So we’ll try Elliot and Nolan, switch it up. Maybe they’ll have better luck. And I want them right on the field because I want answers, now. I’m done screwing around, if something is off up there it potentially affects everyone’s safety. You’ve all grown desensitized to the fact that an alien presence is still a possible global threat, never mind a threat to the village.”
“Ogden,” JT said. “Seriously, what if Nolan and Elliot block the entrance to their base with the chopper for a whole fucking day and they don’t get warned off? What then?”
Ogden frowned. “Then we can likely assume that something is very, very wrong up there. But we need to send a team up to investigate. You’ll be able to contact me and give reports.”
Elliot looked across the table at Nolan, a nervous edge to his expression. Nolan could see he was chewing the inside of his cheek. “Well, buddy,” Elliot said with a grin. “Guess we’re going camping.”
Nolan smiled. “Guess so. I’ll bring the s’mores, but let’s go easy on the ghost stories.”
Elliot huffed. “Copy that.”
“Oh man,” Christian said. “I want to do a stakeout on the mountain. No fair.”
“Hey ah, this might be weird timing, but everything’s weird timing with us,” JT said. “You’re all coming to the Halloween party at the pub, right? Nolan and I put a lot of work into it, it’s gonna be great.”
“If you let me make the playlist for the music,” Elliot said.
JT pointed at him. “Fine but you have to dress up. You can’t just come in regular clothes and claim to be the village idiot, like you did last year. Full costumes, on everyone. Deal?”
“We’ll be there,” Nolan said. “In full costume. I’m bartending, right?”
“I was planning to give you the night off so you could party, since you helped me plan the thing,” JT said. “Tammy and Elijah can bartend.”
Nolan nodded. “Cool.” Talking about something simple and normal like the Halloween party was helping to calm his nerves. He was ready to take on the mission of contacting Baz, whatever it took. And he wasn’t afraid to spend the night on the field, if that’s how long it took.
It was spending the night with Elliot acting all twitchy and weird that had him nervous.
Seeming to read Nolan’s mind, Elliot said, “Maybe he’ll show up right away so we won’t have to spend the night.” He grinned at Nolan. “Maybe Baz just decided he doesn’t like Christian now that Christian spurned him for Myles.”
“I said stop talking like that!” Christian said. “Baz is a friend, it’s not like that.”
“Baz is an asset and a liaison between us and the Whites,” Ogden said. “I’d advise against thinking of him as a friend, no matter how cute you all think he is. He’s still an alien, he works for the Whites, and none of us really know him.”
Nolan snorted. “Captain Buzz-kill to the rescue. Thanks, Ogden.”
“I’ll leave you to it then,” Ogden said, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve been up for twenty-four hours and I need sleep. Contact me when there’s some news.”
Ogden blinked off before any of them could respond.
“Nolan,” Christian said, “do you have a better photo of that teacher than this one you took in the woods? I can run it through some facial recognition software. See if there are any surprises.”
“There are better pictures of him online,” Elliot said. “One from the school’s faculty page. He used to live in Florida, so not sure why he moved to the mountains of upstate New York, it must be cold to him.”
“People move,” JT said. “Could be nothing. But if Elliot’s Spidey Sense is tingling over this guy, we should take it seriously. Elliot’s rarely wrong when he has a bad feeling about something.”
“Ha, exactly my point,” Elliot said. “And I have a bad feeling about squatting our asses on that field.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Nolan said, getting irritated with Elliot’s protests. “It’s our job. Ogden gave us an order.”
Elliot raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands. “Okay soldier boy, settle down.”
“Okay.” Christian stood. “I’m on research. Yay. Are we done?”
“Get Rudy to help if you want,” JT said. “He’s a good investigator.”
Christian rolled his eyes. “I think I can handle it on my own. Rudy talks too much shit, it’ll take twice as long if I work with him.”
“Nice.” JT smirked. “Real nice, Christian.”
“What? He does talk too much.”
“I can hear you!” Rudy’s voice called down from somewhere upstairs. “You left the door to the house open.”
Christian flushed. “You didn’t tell me he was here!”
JT laughed. “Okay, let’s get out of here, it’s stuffy. Nolan and Elliot, will you let us know too if you find anything on the mountain? I’ll just be hanging out monitoring tonight and it’ll be boring.”
“Sure,” Elliot said. “If we’re up there that long. Best case scenario is Baz showing up as soon as we land the bird.”
“Good luck,” JT said. “And be careful. Bring bear spray and a weapon just in case.”
Elliot scooted out of the room without waiting for Nolan. JT and Christian’s eyes followed, then turned to Nolan. “Something up with him?” JT asked.
Nolan shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What is it now?” Christian said. “More midlife crisis shit?”
“It’s not a midlife crisis, lay off Elliot,” JT said. “He’s just getting tired of this life.”
Something cold blew through Nolan’s heart. “He said that?”
JT shrugged. “In so many words. That was last summer though. He’s seemed happier since then, figured maybe it was just a phase.”
Nolan glanced at the door, then stepped closer to JT. “You don’t think Elliot’s considering leaving, do you? Like…quitting?”
“He can’t!” Christian said. “What the hell would he do instead? Go back to litigating boring defense contracts?”
JT lowered his voice. “I didn’t say Elliot was leaving. Just that he said something about it last summer. I just know he’s tired of living a double life.
I think he’s tired of having to break up with guys after two dates because he doesn’t think it’s fair to let someone fall for him. The loneliness might be getting to him.”
“He has us,” Christian said, chewing on a jelly donut. He spread his arms wide and grinned. “How could he possibly want to leave all this glamor behind?”
“Right,” JT said. “He has us. But how long will that be enough for him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Christian said. “Nolan’s in the same boat, and he’s good with it. Right, Nolan?”
“Right,” Nolan said. “I’d better get going, we’ve got a lot of prep to do.” Grabbing a donut from the box on the table, Nolan took a bite.
“I’ll get your shifts covered at the pub. See you later,” JT said.
“Mmm,” he mumbled through a mouthful of Boston Cream. “Later.”
Outside he found Elliot leaning against the front of the truck, arms crossed over his chest, staring down at the beach. Fucking gloomy bastard. Nolan decided he wasn’t having it. Just because Elliot was acting abnormal, didn’t mean Nolan had to change his own behavior. He chucked the remainder of his donut at Elliot, and it bounced off the side of his face before dropping to the ground.
Elliot pushed off from the truck and spun around, wiping his face. “Did you just throw a fucking donut at me?”
Nolan grinned. “I did.”
“Christian’s right,” Elliot said, chuckling. “You’re an infant.”
“Just trying to force you out of your funk.”
“I’m not in a funk,” Elliot said. He walked toward Nolan and gazed up at him. “You are, though. Tell me why.”
Nolan shook his head. “Why would you think I’m in a funk?”
“Because, asshole, you never allow sugar into that temple of a body unless something’s upset you. When Michelle dumped you, you ate a whole box of Oreos.”
Nolan smirked and rolled his eyes. “We know each other too well.”
“Yeah,” Elliot said. “We know each other way too well.”