When her laughter subsided, she turned to Vega and tried to look optimistic, without success. “Look on the bright side, Tom,” she said, hoping to cheer at least one of them up, “you wanted a test of my intuition. Well it looks like you got it. Marshall and Frey are no doubt still trying to kill me. Whatever was back there is trying to kill you. And very shortly, every cop in America will be hunting me down, convinced that I’m a dirty cop and a mass murderer.”
“We’ll find a way to get through this,” said Vega. “We have to.”
“Because I can see the future?” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Among other things, yes,” he replied.
“Well, Tom, I’ve got bad news for you. The only future I foresaw after I left the restaurant tonight was a bath and a good night’s sleep. So you’re betting on the wrong pony.”
“It isn’t just me who’ll be betting on you, Anna. You just might be the most important person who ever lived.”
Anna couldn’t help but laugh once again. This was the most ludicrous statement she had ever heard. The most important person who ever lived? Had he really said that? “Yeah, I get that a lot,” she said wryly. “But usually not until I’ve slept with a guy.”
She shook her head and sighed. “You are completely, totally, out of your mind, do you know that?”
“Maybe,” said Vega softly. “But I have a feeling that we’re going to find out.”
PART 2
“Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.”
—Alexis Carrell (Nobel Laureate, Physiology and Medicine)
17
Colonel Stephen Leroy Redford threw up an image on the large plasma screen affixed to his office wall and couldn’t help but feel like a little kid again.
He still couldn’t believe he was looking at an alien being.
An honest-to-goodness, unmistakable, no way he was born on this planet, alien.
UFO sightings had been increasing dramatically in recent years, and many were convinced that a shadow government was hiding extraterrestrials from the public, and even the president and US government. But as far as Redford knew, this wasn’t the case. As far as he knew, he had just obtained the first definitive proof in human history that extraterrestrials actually existed, and he was in charge of the team responsible for investigating this visitation. An investigation sure to be as extensive as any ever conducted.
Redford was living proof that childhood dreams really could come true. Even impossible dreams of landing the best government job in the world. One giving him absolute responsibility for finding and studying alien life on Earth, and even representing humanity during any first contact situations that took place in America.
And this was a first contact situation. True, technically, first contact required both sides to be alive when it happened, and the lone representative of this unearthly new species, whose image now appeared on Redford’s monitor, was decidedly deceased. But why split hairs?
A living alien would have been better, but nothing could dampen the colonel’s excitement. This was an event so extraordinary, so consequential, that Redford felt like he was floating in midair.
The colonel had been enamored by the concept of alien beings since before he could remember, and as a kid had sucked up superhero comic books, science fiction novels, and science fiction movies like a blue whale eating krill. Most kids loved the idea of aliens, but Redford had taken this to the next level, vowing to someday join a Men-in-Black-like governmental agency, or to start one if one didn’t exist.
And he had methodically set out to do just this. He had earned two masters, one in space science and one in the biology of adaptive natural selection, all before the age of twenty-two. He had joined the military as an officer and worked his way up the ranks. Along the way he had penned dozens of white papers focused on extraterrestrials, including first contact scenarios and strategies to fend off possible alien attack. Most importantly, he had been instrumental in the launch of a military version of SETI, which he had long insisted was of paramount importance.
Finally, Redford had landed in the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, which had long been responsible for monitoring the solar system, overseeing and guarding critical communications, spy, and GPS satellites, and any number of other undisclosed functions.
Redford had been at Peterson for three years, and had pushed hard for the formation of a hypervigilant new Black Ops group that would monitor America for any possible alien visitations. A group that would combine leading edge science, sensor technology, and investigative techniques to carry out this mission in ways that Project Blue Book and others of old couldn’t even begin to imagine.
And then, four years earlier, he had been given the green light to proceed. He became the commander of this new Black Ops unit that didn’t officially exist, one designated EVI, for Extraterrestrial Visitor Investigations, pronounced like the girl’s name, Evie, and soon spelled this way also.
Just like that, what he had strived for all his life was suddenly a reality. At the tender age of thirty-one his meteoric rise was complete. He was the founding member and commander of what was basically his very own Men in Black organization.
The only problem was that Evie was Men in Black without the aliens. The equivalent of a BLT sandwich without the bacon. Still, he was determined to turn over every last stone to find the missing ingredient. If extraterrestrials ever did visit Earth, Redford vowed he would find them.
He had set up shop in a secret underground facility five miles from Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. Aboveground it was made to look like a nuclear waste processing plant, and it had its own large helipad, although this was positioned a mile away so the helipad and facility wouldn’t seem connected to each other.
Underground, the facility was remarkably spacious, with living quarters, quarantine capabilities, advanced computer and communication systems, medical and surgical suites, state-of-the-art laboratories, and even inescapable interrogation rooms and holding cells—just in case.
He had filled the facility with the best men and women he could find, scientists and soldiers alike. Each was put through an examination of their past so thorough it would make the most seasoned proctologist blush. In addition, each had undergone a large battery of psychological testing, ensuring Redford’s largely unaccountable department was a megalomania-free zone.
And then the colonel had gotten down to the business of finding aliens. First he had tied Evie into the most advanced supercomputer ever developed, at the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. This supercomputer also housed the most advanced AI ever developed, nicknamed Nessie, which could be used like a Siri or Alexa—times a thousand. Nessie also had access to nearly every past and present computer record, phone conversation, email, text, and internet posting, making it seem practically omniscient.
And while Nessie churned away, monitoring nearly all telephone and electronic communications, Redford’s department had programmed in an algorithm of its own, ensuring the system was forever checking for key words and concepts of possible interest. If it caught the faintest whiff of anything that might possibly be otherworldly, this would be communicated to low-level people in Redford’s group, and would be investigated further.
In this way, Extraterrestrial Visitor Investigations was like Project Blue Book, but with a much vaster array of potential inputs, and not limited to the investigation of UFO sightings. Redford worried that none of these tenuous possibilities would ever bear fruit, but he followed up on them anyway. He reasoned that if an advanced alien didn’t want to be discovered, it wouldn’t leave a single clue. And if it did, it wouldn’t be coy about it. It would just announce itself, or ask to see a leader, or maybe even introduce itself with a killer Instagram post.
What he never would have guessed is that it might get hit and killed by a car in Manhattan while crossing the street. Which is exactly what had happened, about two weeks earlier.
Exactly on his thirty-fifth birthday. A present from the universe.
The accident victim’s body had been abnormal enough to end up with a forensic pathologist, Dr. Lanny Neff, in New York-Presbyterian hospital. Nessie had alerted the colonel to a call Dr. Neff had made to a colleague, asking her to come by immediately to help examine a corpse that couldn’t possibly be human. Neff claimed that the body he was examining contained viscous black blood, and had organs of all the wrong kind, in all the wrong places. Not to mention a distinctive odor that Neff had never experienced before.
Redford was sure this was a hoax or a practical joke, but had his men intervene immediately, anyway.
And it had turned out to be anything but a joke. His people had clamped down hard on the pathologists who were on the call, and the cops who had discovered the body, making sure they kept what they had seen to themselves. They then found and deleted all related photos, so that if the witnesses did breach confidentiality, no one would believe them. Finally, the corpse was brought back to Evie’s home base under the Arizona desert, where it was put in a refrigerated room and studied more extensively than any corpse in history.
Finally, indisputable proof of life on other planets. And not just life, but intelligence.
This was arguably the most momentous event in human history. And Colonel Stephen Leroy Redford was at the very epicenter of it all.
Evie’s charter could not have been more lopsided. Until overwhelming evidence of a current alien visitation to Earth was revealed, Redford had access to any computer, black site laboratory, or classified military equipment he wanted. But other than this he wielded less military power than the crossing guard at his niece’s elementary school.
But if overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence did present itself, the entire military was his oyster, and he suddenly had more power than God.
And that switch had just been flipped. He now had access to an unlimited black budget and command codes that enabled him to control billions of dollars of military equipment and deploy veritable armies at his command.
But Redford couldn’t care any less about his newfound powers, which he prayed would never need to be used.
This wasn’t about power. It was about discovery. And history. And the future of humanity.
He was now giving the president daily updates, and key divisions of the military, focused on space, had been brought to full alert. Space-based and terrestrial telescopes had been diverted from their missions to scour space within a few light-weeks of home, looking for anything unusual. And a discussion had already begun among a very select group of military and government officials about the advisability of disclosing this event to the world.
Redford was dying to do just that, but even he knew that now was not the time. To paraphrase an old saying, a bird in the bush usually had a friend in there with him. This would be true for an alien in the bush as well.
The colonel couldn’t imagine that a lone alien had arrived on Earth just to sightsee in the Big Apple. There had to be others. Before the world was told about this alien species, he needed to find a representative with a pulse—assuming they had pulses. He had to learn why they were here, how they had managed the journey, and their future intentions. And he was even curious if they smelled bad while alive, or if this odor only came to the fore after death.
Redford sighed. He needed to push these musings from his mind and get down to the task at hand. He needed to read the latest update from his medical and scientific staff, which was almost seventy pages long. The report detailed the latest analysis of the alien’s DNA—similar but not identical to terrestrial DNA—along with its cell structure, physiology, the likely conditions on its home planet, and so on.
It was getting very late, but he was determined to work deep into the night, until he passed out at his desk. If this case didn’t warrant round-the-clock attention, nothing ever would.
But before he began reading, the colonel couldn’t help but stare at the image on his monitor one last time. The alien could pass for a man, but his size and features would give most humans the creeps. Redford had named this new species “the Travelers,” which had already been abbreviated to Travs.
“Colonel Redford,” said the pleasant female voice of the NSA’s supercomputer, interrupting his reverie, “Nessie here. I have a priority one alpha alert. Do I have your permission to deliver it verbally?”
“Granted,” said the colonel.
“I just intercepted a call to the police from a Nia Curtis, manager of the Camden International Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. She spoke with a Sergeant Darnell Rice to report a double homicide. Miss Curtis had received complaints from guests about a potential disturbance in room 925, and when she checked up on it, she found two dead bodies inside. Both appeared to have been gunned down. Both were described as having thick black blood.”
Redford gasped. This was astonishing. Two additional Travs discovered on Earth, and so quickly. How many Travs were there? And why did they seem to have so much trouble staying alive?
“From Nia Curtis’s physical description of the bodies,” continued Nessie, “they both fall well within the parameters of what might be expected for a Trav, based on the appearance of Trav One. Both sets of their eyes were glowing, almost as if on fire, until they died out a few minutes after Miss Curtis arrived at the scene. This red luminescence is consistent with what your scientists identified when they activated the dormant implants found within Trav One’s eyes.”
There was a brief pause. “Shall I continue?”
“Immediately,” snapped Redford impatiently.
“After ending the call with Miss Curtis seconds ago, Sergeant Rice just called his captain, Donovan Perez, and is speaking with him now. I’m monitoring the call, and expect that Captain Perez will be sending his people to the crime scene momentarily.”
“Break into their call,” snapped the colonel. “Now!”
Nothing said creepy power and Big Brother more profoundly than when a third party suddenly materialized into the middle of a private phone conversation.
“Impersonate Perez’s direct superior,” said Redford, knowing that Nessie could access and analyze recorded calls made by the captain’s boss in an instant. “Using his voice, tell the captain that he’s off this case. Impress upon him that no one on the force is to go near that hotel, or discuss what the manager reported in any way. Ground him and don’t answer any of his questions, including how you broke in on the call. Threaten his job if he pushes back too hard. Then kill any calls he tries to make.
“Assuming DHS agent Ed Rosiland is still in LA,” continued Redford, “use my command codes to order him to call Captain Perez, followed by an emergency visit. Instruct Rosiland to tell Perez that the scene at the hotel involves soldiers with classified enhancements, which include synthetic black blood with higher oxygen-carrying capacity. Then, have him force the captain to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the name of national security. Got it?”
“Carrying out your orders now,” said Nessie.
“Good. Now contact the hotel manager,” he added, knowing that Nessie could comfortably hold many thousands of conversations at once. “Use Captain Perez’s voice and title. Instruct her to close off room 925 and let no one in, under any circumstances, until the authorities arrive. Then have him introduce me as a consulting detective who will be in charge of the case. And tell her to keep everything she’s seen confidential until I’ve had the chance to speak with her.”
“Calling now,” announced Nessie.
“Scramble our fastest jet to get me and Agent Royce Milne to Los Angeles Air Force Base at best possible speed.”
“Are you aware that no military aircraft are stationed at this base?”
“Of course,” said Redford. “It houses Space and Missile Systems.” Nessie was amazing in many ways, but she had real trouble thinking outside the box. “But they put in a single runway last year, which should be just long enough for us to land on.”
“It is,” said Nessie.
“Good,” said the colonel. “So contact Milne now and tell him wheels up in ten minutes. Have an exfil team meet us in room 925 as soon as possible with two refrigeration units to transport the bodies. Milne will be in charge of overseeing the transport back to Evie headquarters for further study.”
“Implementing your orders now,” said Nessie.
“One last thing. Have two of our pilots each fly an NG 225 helicopter to LA Air Force Base as well, and have these aircraft gassed up and ready to go in case I need them.”
“I’ll see to it,” said the AI. “Would you also like me to contact and brief the president on your behalf?”
“No. I’ll do that from the air. But I would like you in on the call.”
Redford ended the conversation and rushed out of his office to prepare for his imminent flight.
The colonel was tall, solid, and had a rugged, outdoorsy appearance. But while he may not have looked like a stereotypical geek on the outside, he remained a geek through and through. Even so, while the hardcore geek inside of him still believed that any species capable of visiting Earth would be peaceful, these Travs hadn’t exactly died while releasing doves or planting daffodils.
Alien beings gunned down in a hotel room was troubling, to say the least.
Steve Redford wasn’t the type to jump to conclusions, but his enthusiasm was beginning to morph into trepidation.
What, exactly, was going on here?
18
Detective Anna Abbott kept a heavy foot on the gas pedal and the blue Honda hurtled up the I-15, piercing the night sky. It had only been thirty minutes, but she had already put almost fifty miles behind them, weaving through the light traffic whenever she had to.
They drove in silence for several minutes, each alone with their thoughts. Anna struggled to digest just how much had changed, and how quickly. She had gone from a star in her department to its most-wanted fugitive in hours.
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