CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
“Alone Together”
Wednesday evening and night.
Lon Barnett had set up HQ in the lobby, a map of the area spread out on a broad table the men had moved in from the conference room. He had chairs brought up for Stella, Alvarez and Otto who were only permitted to make a lavatory stop.
Otto looked at Alvarez and Stella. Both were covered with dust and scuffed. He imagined how he must look with Steve’s blood on his pants and jacket. The ice chest rested on the table holding down one end of the map.
Barnett stood, opened the ice chest, looked, closed it and sat down.
Otto told Barnett everything that happened since he and Alvarez had gone up the mountain that morning. He turned over the slip of paper bearing the numbers. Barnett asked a few questions and took notes.
“What’s next?” Barnett said.
“Get the head to Cheyenne and hope that we’ve preserved the projectile.”
“Why didn’t Witherspoon combust completely like the others?”
Otto shrugged. “Sir, we don’t know. We’re operating completely in the dark here. We won’t know why they’re here until and unless we establish contact with someone. Or something.”
“There was mention of SETI’s involvement,” Alvarez said.
Barnett sat back, his bald dome reflecting afternoon light.
“Let me get this straight. Is this a first contact situation?”
“Yes sir,” Otto replied. “I believe it is.”
Barnett rubbed his bristly jaw. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “All right. I’ll notify Cheyenne that you’re coming.” Barnett looked around. “Sawaya!” he called.
A man in SWAT togs including a fiberglass helmet with infra-red glasses trotted over. “Sir?”
“I need guards at the bottom and top of the cave systems. Nobody gets in there without my permission. We’re going to retrieve two bodies. You’ve had crime scene training, right?”
“Yes sir!” The young agent was gung ho. He had freckles.
“Very good. Meet me at the bottom entrance in twenty minutes.” Barnett stood and headed toward the front door. “Let’s go, folks.”
Otto and Alvarez hoisted the ice chest and followed. Barnett held the door for them.
“Did you have to shoot Hornbuckle?” he said quietly as Otto passed.
“Yes sir I did,” Otto said looking straight ahead.
They got into a black GMC Yukon. The driver introduced herself as Yolanda Pike and was in her mid-thirties. Alvarez took shotgun with Otto and Stella in the back seat.
“What about your rental?” Otto asked Stella.
“I’ll send someone for it.”
She took his hand in the dark and didn’t let go. Pike put the lights on as they went through Estes, kept them on all the way to Cheyenne Mountain. It was eight-thirty p.m. when they arrived and the entrance lurked in shadow. The guards waved them through after face recognition.
One cave to another
, Otto thought.
The van took them directly to the lab. Two armed MPs arrived to escort the ice chest into the lab. Alvarez looked at Otto and Stella.
“You two look exhausted. Why don’t you catch some kip and I’ll inform you if anything happens.”
“What about you, Gus?” Otto said.
“I’m way too keyed up to sleep. I want to be there when we establish contact. By the way--ix-nay on the brain surgeon. Witherspoon is dead. We don’t need a surgeon. Plus I have to check all the equipment I ordered. I pray to God we’re prepared for what we find.”
“Me too,” Otto said, signaling to a soldier at the wheel of a golf cart. The golf cart took them back to the same unit in which Otto had spent the previous night. He thanked the soldier and they got out. Hand in hand, he and Stella faced the unit. Stella noticed the giant springs.
“What are those for?”
“To withstand nuclear shock,” Otto said opening the door to the unit. The interior smelled faintly of Lysol floral spray. A fat old color television confronted the threadbare sofa. Someone had come in and made up his bed. There were two bedrooms.
“I have to shower,” Otto said heading for the bath and stripping off his clothes. “You take whichever room you like.”
Otto reveled in the high-pressure hot water. He toweled himself off, put on his jockey shorts and jeans and stepped out of the bath. The door to the room Stella had chosen was closed. Otto felt as if he’d been put through a meat grinder. His neck and arms were stiff in ways he’d never experienced.
He went into the other bedroom, collapsed on the king-sized bed, reached over and switched off the lamp. The room felt incomplete. Steve had always slept on the bed at Otto’s feet. How he missed that lump of fur. God he hated to lose a dog. Despite gospel, he knew dogs had souls and that Steve was up there somewhere in doggie heaven looking down on him. At least he hoped so.
He was almost asleep when his door opened silently and Stella padded in, sliding onto the bed and reaching for him.
“I don’t think either of us should be alone tonight,” she whispered as he turned toward her.
***
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
“Down to the Nitty Gritty”
Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Otto lay awake with Stella’s arm splayed across his chest, her finger unconsciously tracing the tattoo she’d noticed at Otto’s hogan. “Stella” intertwined with a heart. A ten centimeter furrow creased the top of her head near the hairline leaving a line of dried blood.
The aliens couldn’t penetrate women. Not in their little spacecraft.
Never in his wildest imaginings did he think Stella would return to him. It was a miracle. His prayer of gratitude shamed him, so unworthy was he of the blessings bestowed upon him.
Not even the prospect of being charged with Hornbuckle’s death could dim the gratitude in his heart. If he died then he would die fulfilled because Stella had come back to him. Nothing else mattered. Not Steve’s loss nor the imminent collapse of civilization.
Duty crawled out of his guts like a sewer rat displacing the afterglow of love with grim reality. What the Japanese called
giri
. Obligation. He’d sworn an oath. So much remained to be done.
They may have discovered the cause of the self-immolations but they were completely in the dark as to the purpose, or the technical knowledge of how they were achieved.
What if the mastermind remained hidden in the mountains or worse, someplace they would never think to look? A place they could not go? What if Americans had discovered a portal to another universe? Would they boil through and exploit that land in the name of eminent domain? Might not these
aliens
do the same thing?
Were the immolations the result of a plan or was their purpose so far beyond human understanding that the truth would drive men mad?
What significance did the numbers hold? Were they even related to the case?
Karma was a motherfucker.
As a kid, Otto had devoured
Watchmen
. In
Watchmen
, the smartest superheroes contrived to present a false alien threat as a means of uniting the world and ending war.
This wasn’t like that. The killings were obviously designed to hide their actual cause by destroying any trace of the visitors once their host bodies--for whatever reason--ceased to function. Like an army using slash and burn to destroy occupied land. The killings could hardly be more terrifying. They struck at one of man’s greatest fears--fear of burning alive.
Why were all the victims men? Was it simply because only men could attend Pawnee Grove? Or were women for some reason impervious? Otto recognized the gash in Stella’s scalp as the result of one of the tiny darts trying to penetrate her skull. Did it fail because it struck the hard skull instead of soft tissue in the nose, mouth, ears or eye? Or was there something in female DNA that formed an impenetrable force field, or killed the aliens on contact?
What lay beneath the other two peaks? Would he have the opportunity to investigate or would they slap the cuffs on as soon as he’d outlived his usefulness?
Why had the entity chosen Winner? What did it hope to gain? Was each victim an outpost unto himself or were they somehow all linked to a central intelligence?
No one knew how many existed. Grove visitors interacted with thousands of others and those people in turn interacted with more thousands. If the plague jumped from person to person like the flu, there could be many thousands of these zombies. If they were somehow all interconnected, they could summon quite a mob.
As CEOs, senators, stars and athletes, they would be more difficult for authorities to control. No matter how you worked it, it was a brilliant plan.
There remained only one question.
What did they want
?
Before she fell asleep, Stella had told him about Durant seeing “spiders.” Three of the sniper victims were among the expanded list of people who had contact with persons who had visited the Grove. Two of the sniper victims’ cars had “burst into flame.”
Was Durant able to ‘see’ the aliens?
Otto finally drifted into a shallow sleep in the early hours of the morning and dreamt a kaleidoscope version of his descent through the mountain. At first Alvarez was with him, but then it was Gabe. Flashing a million dollar smile Gabe tried to kill Otto with a rock. Otto struck Gabe in the head with a big copper soup tureen that made a satisfying bong. Gabe’s eyes began to glow.
Otto tried to run but he couldn’t get any traction. It was like running on a treadmill through Jell-O. Five numbers circled his head like tiny moons. He felt exhausted and could hardly move his legs. Gabe blew up and the cavern cracked and shuddered, stalactites striking the ground like cannon fire.
He was wakened by persistent knocking on the front door. He glanced at the bedside clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. Otto swung his legs out, padded through the living room to the front door and opened it. Alvarez stood outside with an MP in a golf cart behind him. Alvarez’ thick lenses were covered with grease and his shirt was hopelessly rumpled. His tie trailed carelessly from a hip pocket. What little hair he had stood out above his ears like clown wings.
Alvarez looked drained of blood.
“We’ve established contact,” he croaked.
Stella appeared behind Otto in a robe. She took his arm. “Give me a minute to throw on some clothes.”
Otto went inside and put on a shirt and an Air Force Academy sweatshirt he found in a drawer. He was out front first. Alvarez remained mute, his mouth a horizontal line. He got in the front seat next to the driver. Otto and Stella got in the back. The golf cart whizzed down the center-line toward the lab, faint thrum felt rather than heard through the frame. The loudest sound in the cave was the steady whoosh of the air circulation system shunting warm air outside.
Alvarez twisted in his seat. “The head somehow maintains vital activity. We placed it in a saline solution in a sealed tank and fitted it with a direct feed into Lovins, which is air-gapped. All the computers are. We used that lead he already had in his head.
“Two hours ago it began transmitting signals. Nearly crashed the system but I was able to shut the feed down and reboot. It was trying different frequencies, possibly some type transmission of which we’re ignorant. They started making sense…”
Alvarez barked ruefully. “They started making ‘sense…’ He added quote marks with his fingers. “about an hour ago.”
Otto leaned forward and put a hand on Alvarez’ shoulder. “Who are they? What did they say?”
“Massive feedback--babies screaming, nails on a chalkboard, hands to ears and then quite distinctly, ‘six two four’ in a normal voice. Then back to screaming and we had to shut down the audio. Fed everything into the database waiting for results.”
“Six two four,” Otto said, taking out his spiral pad in which he’d copied Hornbuckle’s numbers. “That’s one of the numbers Hornbuckle had.”
“Don’t know. Don’t know shit. Twenty minutes ago, we made visual contact. I must warn you it’s disturbing.”
The golf cart stopped in front of the lab door. The armed guard stepped aside as Alvarez led Otto and Stella into the brightly-lit lab. It was still freezing inside. Stella zipped up her windbreaker. An armed guard stepped out and closed the door behind him. A large cylindrical Plexiglas aquarium rested on a stack of wood pallets that brought it to eye level. The cylinder’s bullet-proof wall was five centimeters thick. Within the cylinder Witherspoon’s ghastly head tilted toward the ceiling, a minute lead running from his forehead to a transceiver attached to the Plexiglas wall. His eyes bulged like thousand-year-old eggs. No longer red, they were now nicotine-stained yellow. The cylinder was completely encircled by curving, overlapping seven-foot Plexiglas screens, some bearing extensive scratch marks.
Otto spotted three cameras in the ceiling.
A computer station had been set up facing the cylinder, a bean-shaped desk with several monitors. Alvarez slid in. Otto and Stella stood behind him, his arm around her shoulder. Alvarez tapped the computer. The screen turned gray and showed a bewildering scroll of numbers. He tapped some more and abruptly the image changed.
Stella clutched Otto’s arm so hard she left indentations with her nails. “
The spiders
,” she hissed.
***
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
“Contact”
Thursday morning.
The image had a disturbing grainy quality like WW II footage except for the coloring, a wet gutter reflecting lurid yellow. Neon lights reflecting off alley ponds. In contrast, the three creatures were so black they seemed to be a glimpse into the screaming void. So black they sucked the light in around them.
Each had three bulging red eyes forming a triangle: two on top, one on the bottom. The stark contrast between the red eyes and black background caused them to pop like a 3-D effect. It was difficult to tell exactly how many limbs they had since they appeared to be equal parts chitin, tentacles, and fur. The triangular heads bobbed on top of long, beetle-like bodies. The bulging spherical eyes splashed and flowed a disturbingly blood-like fluid. Everything about them was alien. Otto’s first instinct was to turn and run.
Get away from them
.
“They’re watching us too,” Alvarez said softly. “I’ve sent them greetings in English, a Mozart concerto, and using the SETI manual--a series of geometric designs intended to establish a base line.”
“Have they responded?” Otto said.
Alvarez reached out and twisted a dial on a free-standing Bose speaker. An electrical crackle issued. “The radio lines are open. Operators are standing by to take their calls.”
“Have you notified National Security?” Otto said softly.
“No. I figure that’s your job.”
They stared in silence.
“Why do they twitch like that?” Otto said.
“I know. At first I thought there was a glitch in the digital feed before I realized that’s their natural motion.”
Otto looked at the wall clock. It would be eight o’clock in the nation’s capital. His instructions called for him to notify the Director if there were any significant breaks in the case, but at the same time he was reluctant to tear himself away from the lab for fear of missing an historic moment.
The aliens’ herky-jerk motion was mesmerizing, like that of a mustelid. Perhaps it was meant to be. Otto yanked himself out of a near-trance. “Is there a secure line?”
Alvarez pushed himself back from the computer in his wheeled chair and pointed to a black wall unit near the door. “Hooked up an hour ago. It’s encoded, encrypted and air-gapped. Only feeds the comsat.”
Otto crossed the linoleum floor and reached for the phone.
“GREETINGS!”
The word crackled thickly from numerous speakers trailing weird harmonic undertones that scraped the inside of the skull like a rasp.
An atavistic chill shook Otto’s spine like a flag in a tornado. His forearms prickled as he returned to the screen. Stella dug her nails into his arm and clung. The three aliens twitched like bobbleheads.
They waited for something to happen.
“Maybe we should answer them,” Alvarez suggested.
“Yes,” Otto said.
Alvarez spoke into a little desk mike. “Greetings. Welcome to Earth. Who are you?”
Bob, twitch.
“
WE ARE THE SKORZH
.”
Alvarez winced and adjusted the modulator.
“Sounded like ‘Scourge,’“ Otto said.
Stella put her lips to Otto’s ear. “There’s a protocol for first contact. Shouldn’t you notify National Security?”
“Not yet.”
Otto reached over and picked up the mike. “Why are you here?”
The aliens flickered like bad reception. It was impossible to read their body language. Nothing changed. The silence stretched until Otto thought they had lost communication.
“
We were able to affect a transfer from our universe to yours
.” The volume was lower but the voice still sounded like demonic possession--wheezy with disturbing sonics at both ends of the spectrum, as if several people were speaking at once.
Perhaps they didn’t understand the question. “But why have you come?”
“
First we transferred the stones. We followed and brought more stones
.”
“The red spheres,” Otto whispered.
“They’re not answering your question, Alvarez said.
Again, Otto spoke into the mike. “Why have you come?”
Crackles and hiss.
“
It is our destiny
.”
An industrial sewing machine worked its way down Otto’s spine. He looked at Stella with alarm. It was like looking into a mirror--the same heart-sick expression.
Manifest destiny.
The statement left no room for humanity.
“You’re killing our people. Is it your intention to anger us?”
Snaps, hisses and pops. A faint babble of voices veered in and out of the loop like a passing comet. A stream of bubbles trickled up from the corner of Witherspoon’s mouth like a string of pearls.
“
First we transferred the stones. We followed and brought more stones
.”
“Oh great,” Alvarez muttered.
“You’ve committed acts of war,” Otto said. “Do you understand that?”
Stella put a hand on his arm but said nothing. He knew he was exceeding his authority but hell, somebody had to represent the human race.
More hissing and pops. That strange loop of multiple voices curved through the room. Otto heard it moving from speaker to speaker like Dolby sound, something Frank Zappa might have cooked up.
“Who’s in charge?” he said.
Hissing, crackling, giggling.
“What is six-two-four?”
Hiss crack pop.
“Where are you from?”
“
From the land of sky blue waters
” sang the speakers like a long lost radio commercial coming home at last, which is exactly what it was. Otto only recognized the ancient jingle because his grandmother used to croon that, and other old commercials to him when he slept over at her house, a welcome respite from his grimly instructive father. “See the USA in your Chevrolet.” “Brylcreem, a little dabble’do ya.”
If they’d intercepted a radio signal from the fifties it meant they were in the same universe. The earth had been polluting the universe with signals since the invention of the wireless. A century and a half of screaming detritus.
It was a big universe. The earliest signals, traveling at the speed of light, formed a sphere of ever expanding radio noise. After 150 years, it was a big sphere.
After five minutes of silence, Otto went to the phone on the wall and entered his fourteen digit code. He would have preferred the Ocelot but it couldn’t transmit through a mile of rock. Last night, after they’d made love, Stella’s hand came out from under the pillow with the Ocelot in her hands.
“What’s this?” she’d asked.
Now the Ocelot was in his pocket, inert.
He listened to the pings and whirrs as his connection bounced off the comsat and around the world. He looked around. The lab had a sickly cast with a yellowing linoleum floor and flickering fluorescents in aluminum shrouds.
Six minutes later the National Security Director picked up the phone. “Hang on,” she said. The phone went silent.
Thirty seconds later she was back on. “What’s happening?”
“Madame Director you may want to be alone before I speak.”
“That bad, eh? Just a minute.”
Another thirty seconds passed. She came back on the line. “What?”
“We have a Close Encounters scenario.”
This time the silence was different, like waiting for a stone to hit water.
***