1
Cherko stared at Eurphraeus—who remained at his crazy position on the bulkhead.
December. 1985. Colorado.
Curtis Road.
* * *
Cherko sat there furious. He turned around and looked behind him.
Nothing but darkness. Out in the middle of fricking nowhere.
“Now, what the hell am I supposed to do?”
He had that van to catch in just about two hours.
Cherko exited his vehicle.
“Wonderful. Juuust wonderful....”
A light appeared down the road.
Could be a sheriff or deputy, highway patrol cruiser, or maybe even someone from the site.
The twin headlights slowed down. Cherko heard the tires crunch roadside debris as the vehicle rolled up alongside.
“What seems to be the matter, Lieutenant?”
It was that sergeant from his interrogation. Fuckin A.
Cherko cleared his throat. “Car trouble.”
The sergeant held his gaze.
“Having a rough time of it tonight.”
Cherko briefly looked back to his car.
“Get in.”
Cherko nodded and went back to his car, retrieving his bag. He turned on his hazards and locked his vehicle, then got into the sergeant’s car. As they left the shoulder, he looked into the rear-view and watched his car recede away into the darkness.
He felt an odd, incomprehensible sense of longing....
But that hadn’t been what had happened, had it?
Not at all.
A new memory—the real one—surfaced like a re-claimed sunken treasure.
A light had appeared down the road and from the direction of Falcon.
Cherko had gotten out of the road and gone back to his car.
But neither a sheriff nor deputy, nor Air Force sergeant, had it been.
The light hadn’t slowed down... nor pulled up alongside him. No... the light had drifted smoothly off the road and out into the fields to the east, then quietly and smoothly raced across the open, dark fields.
Changed direction.
Vectored toward him.
Paused.
Hovered out in the field just beyond him and his dead car.
Cherko then tracked it as it—
Was directly overhead.
He couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t move.
What was the temperature outside?
Did crickets chirp loudly out here during the summer?
He stared into the underhull of the craft and was immediately brought back to that destroyed blockhouse foundation in Lake Clear.
He felt all tingly. Drowsy. The craft, grayish silver, was also weirdly translucent. It looked as if he could put his hand through—into—the hull.
But he didn’t really want to.
He also felt an envelope of coldness surrounding the craft. And an electrostatic-like sensation.
He just wanted to stand there... stare up into the night sky. Enjoy the beautiful night air and silence. The waning moon.
It was probably in the mid-thirties.
Cherko went to zip up his jacket, but instead found himself on a table. On a slab of some kind. He wasn’t strapped into anything, but couldn’t move just the same. Looking off to his right, he saw someone.
Mom?
His mother smiled.
What are you doing here? Cherko mentally asked.
Same as you, it would appear.
Which is?
Don’t know. They don’t let me know. But I’m used to it by now.
Is that Dad over there?
Hello, Son.
What’s going on here?
We don’t know.
Cherko looked to his other side.
A short, dark, wiry figure stood directly beside him. She, that was what he could call her, that was what he picked up from this one. She was no more than four feet tall.
How long had—it?—she been there?
Her large head, with large, dark-and-deep-as-night eyes looked rather unwieldy upon her nearly nonexistent neck and shoulders.
His first thought was, well, I guess that’s why we have clichés.
He felt an amused—though patient—curiosity emanate from the being beside him.
Behind She were several others of similar build and appearance, and behind them were taller beings that looked exactly like humans. Two of them.
And way back, in the deeper, darker shadowy recesses of whatever this chamber was, was... some other form... one he couldn’t so much as see, as... feel. And this form repelled all attempts at communication and identification.
We mean you no harm, She sent.
Cherko returned his attention to She.
Then why all this? Why can’t you tell my mother why you’ve hunted her her entire life? And my Dad? What’s he doing here?
We do not hunt you.
You are no better than our own scientists and explorers... those—under the guise of science—who snatch and grab animals from their own habitat, drug them, tag them, manipulate them, then release them. We’re nothing more than catch-and-release fish to you.
But are your scientists not doing this toward a greater purpose?
Are you?
We did not do that to which you attribute us having done.
She turned. Cherko followed her direction to the two figures way in the back of the chamber.
The two figures.
They did everything? Cherko asked.
She turned back to Cherko.
We have no need to poke and prod in so primitive a manner. But we cannot control them. Cannot stop all their actions.
Who are they?
They are from your world. Your government.
I don’t understand.
You will. Soon you will discover who they are, and what they have been doing. We will make information available to you.
What is going on here?
Keeping secrets secret. Fear and misinformation. You call it psychological warfare.
Psychological warfare? We’re doing this to ourselves?
We have no need to terrorize your race. There are those, however, who do to keep their developments secret... to perpetuate fear among those who’ve discovered their secrets... misplace the blame.
What are you going to do with them?
Remove them.
What do you mean?
It is not your concern.
I don’t understand—my parents—what has this to do with them—me?
You have been engineered. Tracked.
Engineered?
Your lives have never been your own.
* * *
“I was abducted?”
Eurphraeus nodded.
“Both of us—my mom and my dad—me? By you?”
“That was not me.”
“Then—”
“There are others. Others of your own kind who perform abductions. Experimentation. They have been abducting your mother... we removed her from them many times. Have kept them from you. It is you they want.”
“Me?”
“Genetic manipulation. Social engineering. We only periodically assess and communicate with you.”
“Why? Why all this?”
“Your government has developed its own advanced technology without also developing the necessary advanced principles—you call them ‘ethics’—that must also accompany and govern such development. Power. There are reasons.”
“Why can’t you tell me more?”
“You must remember. What else do you remember?”
“I’m not really sure any more, but—”
“Be sure. Remember how you arrived here.”
“On this space station? In this... thing?”
“What is the first thing that comes to mind after hearing my words...
“Now.”
“This... this is crazy,” Cherko said, staring out the window at Alda’s office. It was snowing.
Cherko looked back Alda.
“So, I’m to believe I’ve been abducted throughout my life?”
Cherko reached up behind his neck.
“My God—there is a bump there!”
Cherko rushed to Alda’s desk. Stood before it rubbing the back of his neck.
“Cut this out!”
“Don’t be silly, Jimmy. Sit back down, please.”
“I’m not being silly. There really is a bump back there—feel it!”
Cherko leaned over Alda’s desk, insistent.
“Feel it!”
Alda touched it.
“Well?”
“I do not perform surgery.”
“What is it?”
“It could be whatever you believe it to be.”
“None of this makes sense,” Cherko said, backing away while rubbing his neck. “Are you saying... that everything I told you... all my stories... are real? That I’m not hallucinating? I really was a lieutenant, a captain—the UFOs? Cause that’s what I believe.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Why am I paying you, for Chrissakes? Can’t you come up with anything better than that? Anything at all?”
“It is not about me telling you what is or is not going on with you... it is about me helping you better understand yourself... your situation.”
“And what is my ‘situation,’ Herr Doktor?”
“That is for you to define.”
“Dammit!”
Cherko returned to the windows.
It continued to snow.
Cherko had left Alda’s office and sat at the stop light on Austin Bluffs Boulevard, waiting to make a left turn. The snow was coming down pretty hard.
He had to have made it all up. He was a writer, had an active (if unmarketable) imagination. How far of a leap was it to say that he’d just made everything up? He was stuck in a dead-end tech writer’s job. Was bored with his life. He had plenty of motive to try to find something “special” about himself. Anything... even if fabricated.
It’s all about what you believe, right?
The light turned green and Cherko inserted himself into
A small chamber.
Cherko stood in a small chamber.
What is so hard to believe? came the thought from behind.
Cherko turned.
She stood alone.
You’re real.
As much as you.
How do you do this? How do you remove me from my car in the middle of traffic, and what is it—
Unimportant. We need to clarify events.
To me? Why am I so important?
The future of your race depends upon itself. Without it, there is no future.
That doesn’t even make—
The “sense” is in the meaning. We have made concessions in coming to your race. We do not agree with all your race is doing. We have tried to redirect efforts, but your government, though many within its ranks feel they mean well, is blind. There is so much more at stake than mere power and technology. So, we take our message to individuals.
What message?
Survival. Redirection. Expansion of consciousness through confirmation of our presence. Your race is focusing far too much on violence and power. Materialism. Immediate gratification. There are those who see the need for redirection, but are... eliminated. Discredited. Interfered with. Simply, those in power want to remain in power. Corruption is taking far too deep a hold. There are so many other paths to take, but those in power are blinded by their own ambition... their own corruption.
Why do you stay?
A greater good. If we can reach some of your race, we can better inform from within the masses, show hope exists.
Individuals.
Yes.
Unfortunately, much has been learned by those in power, and they no longer feel they require our assistance. Those of strong religious beliefs believe us evil. Literature and media have taken hold of and exacerbated fear. Fear is taking hold of minds. This is not by accident.
We are many millennia in advance of your race, and have seen the effects of too much science without conscience. Your technology outpaces your ability to deal with it. Wars do not just start... they are cultivated. Greed... cultivated. Fear... cultivated. A long time ago and once a part of your distant timelines, we behaved not unlike your scientists and explorers... we examined and categorized. But we learned from our mistakes. We attempted to guide your race away from these same mistakes, but they are not open to us.
So, it is not you who are mutilating cattle and snatching and grabbing us?
We have no need for such prosaic behavior.
You brought me here just to explain yourselves?
She studied Cherko, and slightly cocked her bulbous head. We’ve brought you nowhere.
Cherko flew through the green light at Nevada and Austin Bluffs, startled so violently he nearly sideswiped the car next to him.
Cherko spastically merged into the far right lane, then pulled off into a parking lot. He yanked on the brake and gripped the steering wheel.
And once again sweat like Niagara Falls.