…When I awoke, I was unable to move. She was at the foot of the bed, next to an alien. He had black eyes and a big bald head, and six long fingers.
She looked like she always does.
from “Annie Collins Abducted Me”, letter sent to Collinsworthy.com
If someone asked Ed to organize a list of the people he knew, in an order based on who was least likely to shoot an unarmed man in the head, Sam Corning would be pretty close to the top of that list. He might even beat out Annie, who on a couple of occasions managed to convince Ed she was entirely capable of obliterating the Pentagon if she didn’t get her way. (Oona, for the record, would be at the bottom of that list.)
Even when there was a very good reason not to go shooting people in the head—for instance when a lot of people under the control of a hostile alien force are storming fixed battlements you happen to be on the other side of—he didn’t expect Sam to go for the kill shot. He probably had, but Ed couldn’t remember witnessing such a thing.
“Why did you do that?” Ed shouted, right after checking himself for bullet wounds and blood spatter, and before his ears stopped ringing.
“They’re going to be breaching this place pretty soon, do you still have the keys?”
“Sam!”
Sam was at the door to the hallway already, listening.
“Nobody out there yet. You don’t happen to know where the other exits are to this place, do you?”
“He said we were alone.”
“I know, I don’t believe him.”
“I need you to explain yourself so I can decide what to do next, here,” Ed said.
Ed was running through all the diplomatic problems that can come with murdering a member of another country’s officer corps, which was the sort of thing he never expected to have to worry about. It almost made him wish he actually was in the CIA, like so many people seemed to assume. The Agency knew how to deal with this sort of crap.
“You heard him, right?” Sam said. “He was expecting to hold us and he wants Annie. I don’t know why, but that was enough information for me. How about you?”
For a second, Ed thought maybe he should be afraid of Sam. The feeling passed.
“I didn’t see him as an immediate threat to Annie. She’s got more protection than just about any living person, so when somebody an ocean away threatens her, I don’t jump straight to murder.”
“He thought you were on his side. That’s what I heard.”
“I heard that too. I’m not, if you’re concerned.”
Sam stared at him for a couple of uncomfortable beats.
“No,” he said. “Vibe’s gone.”
“Vibe?”
“Yeah. Look, we have to find a way out of this country,” Sam said. “Probably not through the airport. To be honest, I looked at a map of Latvia for the first time last week, so you should probably handle the logistics.”
“While you do what? Shoot more people?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“Sam, this is a really bad time to develop a dissociative disorder.”
“You think so?”
Sam listened to the door again.
“Gunshot was loud, but nobody’s coming,” he said. “Maybe he was telling the truth. That’ll make this easier.”
“We aren’t going to shoot our way out of a foreign country.”
“Not all the way out.”
“Sam…”
“All right, look, you brought me along to keep my eyes open and pay attention, and I did, and now I think maybe you asked because you weren’t planning on paying any attention. Either that or he was right and they got in your head already.”
“What do you mean, got in my head?”
“I mean they’re trying to get into mine, and I can feel it, and I’m a little worried if you can’t. It either means they already have or they aren’t bothering.”
“Well for god’s sake, don’t go shooting me because you can’t decide.”
It didn’t look like Sam was ruling that out entirely.
“What am I not noticing?” Ed asked.
“Start with, how did that guy get here?”
“The general arrived ahead of us. He told me to expect that.”
“That’s not what I asked. How did he get here? Nobody lives here, right? Just a lot of forest all the way up, too, I was looking. No villages for miles except for that ghost town. But when we got here, what was the first thing he did?”
“He took the car,” Ed said. “I see what you’re saying: where’s his car?”
“Right. I don’t think he met you here, I think this is where he lives. And I think a lot of other people might be living here too. I saw movement, in windows. I thought it was just my mind playing tricks, because it’s been a long day, but I don’t think so now.”
“None of this says, let’s go shoot people in the head, to me.”
“Did the same thing that happened at Algernon happen here?”
“I think maybe. The graffiti in that room is the same.”
“The whole team disappears, and all that.”
“I’m less sure about that part, because the Latvian government hasn’t been forthcoming, but like I told you, they’ve added some key people to international watch lists, so I think it might have happened the same.”
“All right. What if we just met one of them?”
“Well, he’s dead now. That seems like a poor way to solve this riddle.”
“What does General Jansons actually look like? Do you know?”
Ed didn’t, because it never occurred to him to check pictures ahead of time. Getting handed over to him by members of the local military seemed like adequate ID.
“No, but I don’t imagine impersonating a general is a healthy way to make a living. Plus, how would they have known to intercept me? I didn’t start by talking to the general, I went through the UN.”
“Didn’t you say this station used to intercept UN communications?”
Ed laughed.
“That was a long time ago.”
“They have the equipment to do it is my point. Whoever that was, he couldn’t salute worth a damn. Same with those guys who drove us here. And I don’t care how much of a surprise it was, I shouldn’t have been able to get the jump on him so easily. I wasn’t sure the gun was going to end up being loaded, even.”
“You’re suggesting we’ve found the missing astronomers, and they’re living here, and they’re armed.”
“And we’re probably surrounded. You better hope I’m right, because these guys not being military is about the only way we’re getting out of here.”
“This is a pretty big leap,” Ed said.
It was actually a decent series of deductions on Sam’s part, doubly so for having made them before Ed had a chance to. But Ed would have appreciated them a whole lot more if it didn’t end with their escort getting shot.
He decided he was probably going to be preoccupied with that particular act for a little while. It wasn’t productive, but for all he’d been through, being in the presence of bloodshed wasn’t a regular part of his existence.
“That isn’t all I have,” Sam said, “but if you couldn’t feel them in your head I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“You can tell me what that felt like.”
Sam sighed. He had his hand on the doorknob and looked like he was ready to charge out, gun at the ready, to take on whoever came. It also looked like he was more comfortable charging toward a hail of bullets than continuing the conversation.
“It’s like an itch inside your brain, and it’s not the first time I’ve felt it.”
“When was the first time?”
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”
“Sam, you’re either going to have to get me to where you are or I’m calling the soldiers outside and throwing us at the mercy of whatever international court deals with this sort of thing.”
“Or I shoot you and try and get out on my own.”
“I don’t think you’ll do that.”
“No, of course I won’t. I felt it before in Sorrow Falls. On that night. But you probably don’t remember, and I’m going to sound crazy to you if I explain it further.”
“Sam…”
He sighed.
“There was someone else there, Ed. I know you don’t know about her, because until about fifteen minutes ago when the dead guy over there started poking around in my head I didn’t know about her. She erased herself from our memories.”
Ed got very cold all of a sudden.
“Tell me her name,” he said, levelly.
“Violet,” Sam said.
“And you remember her?”
“I remember that she’s an alien. Do you remember her?”
“I never forgot her. But if you have an idea of Violet Jones in your head now, it means I believe you: Someone was poking around in your head, and we’re in a ton of trouble.”
“Great. Are you okay with my shooting the general now?”
“We’ll work through that decision later. Let’s find a way out of here.”
The corridor was empty. This was about what Ed expected given there hadn’t been anybody in the building with them, but Sam seemed surprised.
“I don’t know why,” he said, slipping the gun into a pocket, “but I thought they would know it if one of them got shot.”
“Zombie logic,” Ed said.
“Yeah, basically.”
Then they did hear movement, but it came from over their heads.
“Is there a third floor?” Sam asked.
“My familiarity with the layout of this place is exactly the same as yours,” Ed said. “I’ve never been here before.”
“I figured you had access to blueprints, or satellite images or some other secret government way of finding things out.”
Ed actually had examined a satellite image of the station, but it was remarkably difficult to tell the difference between a two-story building and a three-story building when looking directly down upon it from space.
“Want to see what’s up there?” Sam asked. “Looks like we have a little time before they show up with rifles.”
“I’d rather not be here when they show up with rifles.”
“Same, but if it helps, those soldiers down the hill didn’t look like they knew how to use them.”
“They had Kalashnikovs,” Ed said. “Is there a steep learning curve with those?”
“That’s something you shouldn’t have to ask, Ed. We going up? Staircase is behind us.”
“All right. But if there’s someone up there, try not to shoot them right away.”
“No guarantees.”
The third floor was another office space, or, it used to be. It had been converted into something like a living area, for at least five people. It was all bed rolls, blankets, and body odor.
This was the component missing from the scene in the office downstairs: evidence of long-term residency.
“Looks like they never left,” Sam said. “Your missing astronomers, I mean.”
“No, I think they left. And then they came back when it was safe.”
Sam held up a finger to his lips. He’d heard something.
The floor was an open bullpen space a lot like the one on the second floor, with adjunct offices on the sides.
What he heard had come from one of the offices. There were five of them, and three of the doors were ajar. Sam crept over to the second door, kicked it open, and jumped inside. Ed stayed where he was and held his breath, a perhaps irrational thing to do when anticipating a gunshot, but this was not a moment to be rational.
Sam came out a second later with a skinny man in dire need of a bath and a shave. The man looked frightened and confused. Sam stuck him in the nearest chair, and stepped back.
“He’s nothing but bones,” Sam said.
Ed knelt down in front of the man in order to initiate some eye contact. Sam was right; it looked as if he’d forgotten to eat for a long time.
“Do you speak English?” Ed asked.
It didn’t look like he was very good at keeping his head still, like his neck muscles weren’t fully up to the task. He also didn’t seem aware enough of where he was to answer questions.
Ed took out his cell phone and took a photo of the man, then stood.
“I don’t think he’s going to be of much help to us,” Ed said.
“What do you think he was doing up here?”
“Sleeping, maybe. I wonder why they came back.”
“How do you mean?” Sam asked.
“If they decided to come back here again, in secret, it was to do something. But I don’t know what.”
“You know her,” the man whispered.
“What did he say?” Sam asked.
The skeletal man in the chair had quite suddenly come to his senses. His head wasn’t bouncing anymore and his eyes were focused… on Sam.
“The girl,” he said. “You know her.”
Sam treated Ed to a look that was something between panic and resolve. Ed was pretty sure Sam was about to shoot this guy too.
“What do you want with Annie Collins?” Ed asked, but the man appeared to be completely unaware that Ed was in the room.
“Yeah, what’s Annie to you, buddy?” Sam asked.
“We only want her to listen,” he said. “Tell her to listen.”
Sam winced.
“Get out of my head.”
“Sam,” Ed said, “We’ll tie him up; we don’t have to kill him.”
It didn’t appear as if Sam was willing to listen to Ed, which was a little annoying. He wasn’t used to being the one person in a room nobody was paying attention to. Especially for an exchange like this, which seemed like it was leaving some important questions and answers on the floor.
Sam pressed the barrel of the gun into the man’s temple. It was subtle, but Ed thought the guy leaned into it a little. Like there was something inside of him that kind of wanted Sam to pull that trigger.
He didn’t. Instead, he raised the gun and in a swift motion clubbed the Latvian over the head. He collapsed to the floor.
“There,” Sam said, “that’s better. Should we tie him up now?”
They went up again, instead of down. The next level was the roof.
Sam looked surprised to find it unoccupied.
“No shooters up here,” he said.
“You were expecting shooters?”
“I was expecting some resistance, yeah. I know I said it didn’t look like those guys knew how to use the guns they were carrying, but I didn’t think they’d be completely inept about basic containment.”
“Not everyone can think like a soldier.”
Ed pulled out his satellite phone. A bulky piece of black plastic with a thick antenna, it looked like a mobile phone from the late 1980’s. But this phone contained technology that could call anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world. It had been tested on caves two miles below the surface. It was thus unnecessary to get to the roof to use it. Despite that, he felt more comfortable up there. He liked the idea that he could wave to the orbiting satellite the Pentagon had tasked to this facility. No reason to think the satellite was overhead at that moment, but if it was, the pictures it took might end up being useful, if they had to piece together whatever became of Edgar Somerville and Sam Corning after the fact.
He typed in a number and waited. This phone didn’t ring on his end like most did. What he got instead was a rhythmic clicking.
“Hey, you can see the Baltic from here,” Sam said. He was at the edge of the building, apparently being one of those people who didn’t have vertigo issues on cliff edges. “There’s a road down there too. With the car, maybe we can make it to the shore.”
“You want to swim to Sweden?”
“What if there’s a convenient sailboat just waiting for us to borrow it?”
“I don’t know how to sail, do you?”
“Nah, but it can’t be that hard, right?”
The line picked up.
“Hi Mel, it’s Ed.”
Melissa grunted on her end of the line. He assumed he was hearing her check the time: it was the middle of the night in Washington.
“Aren’t you sightseeing in Eastern Europe right now, Eddie?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’re in a bit of a pickle. Can you tell me who’s in the area for a retrieval?”
“You want me to call you a cab?”
“Something like that.”
“Can you explain the size and nature of this pickle? I don’t get out of bed for anything less than a major international incident.”
“Sam shot General Jansons in the head.”
“Yep. Yep, that’d do it. Hang on.”
“Hey,” Sam said. He was looking up. The sun was starting to set on this part of the world. “We know someone with her own spaceship. Maybe she can swing it by and pick us up.”
“Landing the ship here would definitely make this diplomatic crisis we’re already in a whole lot worse. Plus, I think she’s got finals.”
“Oh, then we shouldn’t bother her.”
Mel hopped back on the line.
“Where are you, exactly?” she asked.
Ed read her the satellite coordinates, and she put him back on hold.
Sam moved to the other side of the rooftop, but he wasn’t going to find a lot from that angle. The drive up the hill was winding, and well-covered by jungle overgrowth. An army could be coming up the hill and they wouldn’t know it until it rounded the last bend. That this hadn’t already happened was good, but it was also a little odd. Not that they hadn’t had their fill of odd already.
“Can you get to the shore?” Mel asked.
“Do we have a choice?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll get to the shore.”
“All right. I’ll send coordinates. Try not to kill any more locals on the way.”
The fact that their position wasn’t immediately overrun by a horde of rifle-toting soldiers was the first thing to go right that afternoon. The second was that they drove on the right side of the road in Latvia, so the SUV that was still parked out front had a driver’s seat on the left. Sam could drive it without immediately plunging them into a ravine.
The third was that the general left the keys in the ignition.
“All right, I have the destination coordinates, and I have our current coordinates,” Ed said. “What we could really use now is a maps program to get us from here to there.”
“You have a cell phone, don’t you? Just plug them in.”
Sam took the car past the front gates at a speed in which he felt comfortable. That it was also a speed which made Ed extremely nervous was of lesser concern.
“The cell can’t pick up a tower out here, I’ve tried already. Where did you see that road?”
“Along the back, skirting the hillside. We don’t have a direct route, unless you want to take this off a cliff. Have to go down here and around.”
“And you know where to turn.”
“I have no clue where to turn, that was why I was hoping for some step-by-step directions. Keep your eyes open for either an access road branching off of this one, or a convenient helicopter.”
They continued toward the town, which was maybe bad, since that was the one place they last saw people with guns, but it couldn’t be helped. They were flanked on both sides by forest; sometimes Ed couldn’t even see the road.
“I wish I’d paid more attention,” Ed said. “It’s hard to believe this is the only path up and down.”
“Yeah, me too. I think the town is around the next bend, are you ready?”
“I don’t know, what should I be ready for?”
“Beats me. Werewolves? More zombies? What’s on the list?”
They emerged at the edge of the ghost town. The two soldiers they’d dropped off were straight ahead, a hundred yards away, at the same crossroad in which they’d been left. It was as if they hadn’t moved since then. This was perhaps exactly right.
Sam came to a stop.
“Well? There’s our right turn. We catch that, I think it has to go down toward the water. If might even be the right road, if we’re really lucky.”
“Sounds great,” Ed said. “Except for those guys in the way.”
“Yep, all except for those guys.”
Sam put the car in drive and started rolling.
“You think this glass is bulletproof?” Sam asked.
“No, probably not.”
“I don’t think so either. When do you figure they’ll realize something’s wrong and the guy driving isn’t the guy they’re expecting?”
“Maybe they never will and we can just keep going.”
“They’re still in our way.”
“People get out of the way of moving cars, don’t they?” Ed asked. “I mean when they aren’t zombies.”
“Whoops.”
The two solders looked at one another, and wordlessly came to the same conclusion at the same time. Then they were taking their guns off their shoulders.
Sam’s reaction was to speed up.
“I did say this probably isn’t bulletproof, right?” Ed asked.
“I told you, they don’t know what they’re doing with those rifles.”
He nudged the speed up a little more, as one of the soldiers managed to get the Kalashnikov leveled and pointed in the right direction.
As far as Ed could tell, he and Sam were about to die in a hail of bullets. The guy with the gun sure looked like he knew exactly how to use the weapon in his hands.
Then he started firing, and it was like watching someone trying to hold an active firehose.
“Told’ja,” Sam said.
“I think he hit everything except us.”
“It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies. Are you belted in?”
Ed was. He’d double-checked three times since they started moving.
“You think the belt will help stop a bullet?”
“No, but it’ll help for this.”
Sam popped the emergency brake and turned the wheel hard to the right. The effect was to skid the driver’s side of the car into the soldiers, the second of whom still hadn’t figured out how to make his gun go boom.
The soldiers were knocked backwards a few feet.
“Did we just kill more Latvians?” Ed asked. He couldn’t see them; they were on Sam’s side.
“Probably not, but they’re not getting up. You think we need one of those guns?”
“Just keep driving.”
“Roger that.”
Sam released the brake and headed down the road, which took them past more boarded up and half-shattered windows. As they picked up speed, Ed could have sworn he saw movement on the other side of one of the un-boarded-up windows.
“I see them too,” Ed said.
“See what?”
“The ghosts. Someone’s definitely living here.”
“You should learn to trust me more, Ed,” Sam said.
The only resistance they encountered after that came from whoever designed the road they were navigating. In several places it was purely hypothetical, for while it was paved, it was also in the middle of a healthy forest region. The road that led from the ghost town to the telescope was a three-lane highway by comparison.
It was slow going. They had to stop a few times to get debris out of the way before continuing, and there was the problem of not being fully certain the path they were on was even going to where they needed to be. On top of that, the sun set.
They ended up abandoning the car a quarter of a mile from the evacuation point. The road didn’t appear to be getting them any closer, especially since aside from being a relatively flat shoreline area fronting the Baltic, there wasn’t anything there for a road to visit. There were docks farther south along the coast, but the whole point of a secret naval evacuation was that it took place where there wasn’t anybody else.
After a short, steep downhill walk that took a lot longer for the lack of proper illumination, they reached the rocky shore.
“Is there a boat waiting for us out there?” Sam asked.
“Kind of,” Ed said.
He dialed a number on his satellite phone, waited through the clicks, and then heard the line open.
“We’re in position,” he said, and then hung up.
“Now what?” Sam asked.
“Now we wait. Oh, hey, this is a bad time to ask, but do you get claustrophobic?”
Sam laughed.
“A submarine, then.”
“Yeah, but it’s a secret. We’re not supposed to have one in the Baltic.”
“Got it. I’ll try not to tell anyone while we’re waiting.”
Ed found a decent rock to sit on and settled his gaze on the water. He wasn’t sure what sort of conveyance to expect, but it probably wasn’t going to be a sub. The water was too shallow near the shore for one.
“So, what do you think, Sam?” he asked. “What do you think they want?”
“Something to do with Annie, that’s all I got from it.”
“Yeah. But what about Annie? They want her to listen, but what does that mean? Are they trying to communicate with her?”
Sam took a seat of his own. The rocky shoreline wasn’t really made for sitting, so neither of them were likely to be getting comfortable.
“I think you’re asking the wrong questions,” Sam said. “Not what they want but who in the hell are they?”
“You’re right, that’s a better question.”
“I’m thinking something alien. Like this Violet person. Or, whatever she is. Maybe they’re like her.”
“Could be.”
“They were poking around the same space in my head, right?”
“Yeah. Not sure it works exactly like that, but yeah.”
“Exactly like what?”
“I’m just not sure. I don’t like to speculate with this little information. We didn’t find out there was a they until a few hours ago, it’s a little early to come up with a clear definition of their nature and motivation. Let’s collect more data.”
“Like those books you found.”
“Hopefully.”
Sam nodded, and fell silent for a few more seconds. Ed thought he could see something heading toward them from the water.
“Maybe we can get word to her,” Sam said.
“I don’t know what we could say. Let’s figure out what we’re dealing with first. Besides, like I said, between the Secret Service and the spaceship, she’s one of the most secure people on the planet.”
“Plus, she has finals.”
“Right. Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”
Sam didn’t look like he was planning to stop worrying until he was in the same room as Annie again. Ed couldn’t really blame him. He sort of felt the same. But he didn’t have a way to contact her directly, and wouldn’t until he was back on US soil.
“Something’s coming,” Sam said.
“That’d be our ride.”
“You sure? I hear music.”
Music was not the sort of thing one expected from a naval vessel operating in secret on the Baltic, but this wasn’t a naval vessel; it was a fisherman’s schooner.
“It’s fine,” Ed said. “Local resources. Hopefully he speaks English.”
“English or not, I was hoping for better taste in music.”