BRINSMADE, NORTH DAKOTA
Mary flashed her most winning smile at the approaching soldier.
“How are you?” she asked brightly.
The soldier smiled. “I’m all right, ma’am.”
She indicated the Humvee that blocked the road, the soldiers gathered around it, arms at the ready. “So, what do we have here?”
“Some sort of toxic spill, ma’am,” the soldier answered.
“I’m here to see General Beers,” Mary told him.
“Do you have a clearance?”
“No, I don’t,” Mary said. “But what I do have is information that General Beers needs. It could save thousands of lives.”
The soldier wavered for a moment before responding. “Sorry, ma’am. Not without a clearance.”
Mary looked at him coolly. “I was going to try to run the roadblock. But why don’t you just arrest me?”
“What?”
“Arrest me and have me taken to General Beers.”
The man shook his head. “No one goes in. We detain people here.”
“Then detain me,” Mary said without hesitation. “Detain me and get someone on the phone to General Beers and tell him that Mary Crawford is at the roadblock with some important new information about the project.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that without provocation,” the soldier replied.
Mary smiled girlishly, and with a lightning fast movement grabbed his crotch.
The man’s eyes bulged. “Jesus,” he groaned.
Minutes later she stood before General Beers, Wake-man beside him, clearly both pleased and astonished to see her.
“You just don’t know when to quit, do you, Mary?” the general asked.
Mary laughed coldly. “You son of a bitch,” she sneered. “What did you think, that you’d just take the project away from me?” She wheeled furiously toward Wakeman. “And you sold me out,” she cried as she lunged forward and slapped his face. “You worthless bastard!” She slipped the artifact into Wakeman’s hand.
“Take her away,” the general said.
Mary looked at him angrily as two soldiers stepped forward and grabbed her arms.
A few minutes later, just as she’d known he would, Wakeman came out of the building and walked to where she stood, under guard, behind a Humvee.
“I need to talk to Ms. Crawford,” Wakeman told the soldiers.
He waited until they’d left, then said, “It must be their transmitter.” He opened his hand and looked at the artifact. “This is how they send the implant signals up.”
“It’s a lot more than a transmitter,” Mary told him. “I’ve looked at it several times, and it’s changed, Chet. Some of the markings were there in 1947, but some of them are new.”
“New?” Wakeman said, astonished.
“Yes. I think it gathers information. And the way it’s glowing, they must have left it behind for a reason.”
“How long ago did you take the shield off?” Mary asked.
“A day and a half.”
“Nothing’s happened?”
Wakeman shook his head.
“We have this,” Mary said, referring to the artifact. “And we’ve got the little girl. In a way, it’s as if they left both of them.”
“It would be interesting to see what would happen if the two were brought together,” Wakeman said.
Mary smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Moments later Mary knocked at the door of the farmhouse.
Pierce opened it.
“I’m Dr. Crawford,” Mary told him. “The general asked me to take a look at Allie.”
“I wasn’t told anything about it,” Pierce said.
“No, you weren’t,” Mary said authoritatively. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside.”
“But…”
A child’s voice called from inside the farmhouse. “It’s all right.”
Pierce looked into the room’s dark interior. “You sure?”
“She’s not going to hurt me.”
Pierce motioned Mary inside the room, then stepped outside.
Allie sat on the bed, her hair falling freely to her shoulders. So small, Mary thought, and yet so powerful.
“It must be strange for you,” she said. “Finding out how strong you are. All the things you can do.”
“It is a little,” Allie said softly.
“I’ve frightened you a lot,” Mary said. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you.”
“You don’t care if you do,” Allie said.
“That’s not really true,” Mary told her. “I’m not the kind of person who takes any pleasure in frightening people. In hurting them.”
“But you do all those things.”
Mary saw it in her eyes and in the serenity of her posture, an eternal solitude. “They’re not coming, are they?”
“I don’t know,” Allie answered.
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
“Maybe.”
“Would you like to go home?”
“Yes.”
Mary drew the artifact from her pocket. “This is something that belonged to my grandfather,” she said. She held it out to Allie. “Tell me what it says.”
Allie stared at the softly glowing piece of metal.
“You can read it, can’t you?” Mary asked. “Tell me what it says.”
Allie’s gaze lifted from the artifact. “What do you want it to say?”
Mary’s mouth twitched into a snarl. “Pick it up and read it!” she snapped.
“I can’t,” Allie said. “Not yet.”
Mary stared at the glowing metal. The letters were moving now, some information fading from it as other information formed, new symbols rising to its glowing surface as others vanished.
Mary wheeled around and strode out of the farmhouse and back through the woods, where she found General Beers and Wakeman standing by a Humvee, a group of MPs just behind them. The general pushed Wakeman over to Mary’s side.
“If either one of them tries to leave the area,” he said to the soldiers, “shoot them, is that clear?” When he received no response, the general turned. “What…?”
The MPs were standing motionlessly staring up at the sky, watching as balls of blue light descended toward them.
The general grabbed the field telephone. “We have the enemy in sight,” he shouted, his eyes riveted on the sky, where the lights now came together to form a single, brightly glowing spaceship.
For a moment, the general stared at the ship, transfixed.
Pierce rushed forward urgently. “Sir, we’ve got to get the little girl out of here.”
“Get back with the other men,” the general commanded.
“But… sir.”
“Do it now!” the general shouted. He brought the field telephone to his lips. “Fire!” he shouted.
On the hill above the farmhouse, Charlie and Lisa watched in stunned silence as the missiles rose into the dark air. They rose toward the craft in wide arcs, then disappeared into its bright light.
The explosion seemed to come from the depths of the universe, huge and deafening, filling the air with sparkling light that glittered briefly then dissolved to reveal the craft again, its smooth exterior now rippling wildly with wave after wave of oddly shivering light.
“Allie!” Lisa cried.
She glanced, terrified, at Charlie, then raced down the hill toward the farmhouse.
Charlie bolted forward and followed behind her, his eyes still skyward as the craft shook and tottered, as if on the edge of some impossible precipice, then nosed downward in a sharp decline, light spewing in a gleaming mist from its wounded side as it fell and fell, and finally crashed to earth, burying itself in the ground beneath the farmhouse.
“My God,” Lisa said as she stopped dead. “Allie.”
Charlie came to her side, and drew her into his arms. “We can’t go down there”
“But we have to,” Lisa cried.
Charlie held her tightly. “We can’t, Lisa. Wait!”
“But Allie’s in that farmhouse,” Lisa said desperately. “I know she is.”
He watched the soldiers that had begun to move in toward the farmhouse. There were far too many of them. And they were well armed. It was impossible.
“What are we going to do, Charlie?” Lisa whimpered.
“I don’t know,” Charlie answered.
Down the hill, he could see Mary Crawford, staring at the craft, transfixed as it began to glow, slowly at first, then with increasing brightness, until the light was almost blinding. Squinting into the light, Charlie could just make out the figure of Mary Crawford. For a moment, she stood utterly motionless, frozen in awe at the sight before her. Then, suddenly, she bolted toward the craft, running wildly toward the light, her figure growing faint as she approached its most far-flung rays, but running still, moving deeper and deeper into the ever brightening light until she vanished into its blinding shield.