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JAMIE GETTNER STEPS down from her SUV and looks around the surrounding area. Walls that are at least twenty feet high and made from everything imaginable, from car hoods to sheet metal, run along the perimeter of the Astara camp near Elk Ridge, Montana. A small shack sits beside the only door visible in the wall. A single guard stands beside the shack with an automatic rifle in his hands. Jamie notes that he is wearing a gasmask. She can’t believe that people still think that the Astara will somehow infect them. Her supervisor from the Gazette, Larry Davis, walks around the back of the car and stops beside her. He lets her take the camp in before he lays a hand on her arm.
“Are you sure that you want to go through with this Jamie? I’ve heard that the Astara can be very aggressive toward outsiders. Especially if you belong to the race that has kept them in these camps for nearly twenty years.”
“I know that Larry, but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.” She pats her purse and the small revolver inside. “I just want to get a perspective on how they go about their daily lives. Maybe if we show the world that they are not dangerous...” She lets the sentence go unfinished.
“You know that the likelihood of the government ever letting these things out is a shot in the dark, don’t you?”
“They’re not things, Larry. They are Astara. I hate when people say ‘things’. It’s like they’re saying that these beings don’t have souls.”
“Do you believe they do?” Larry asks.
“Look around you. They’ve built a society inside the confines of their walls. To build a society implies that they want to make something for themselves and their children. That is the very basic proof that they have souls. Wanting something better for yourself and those that you care for.”
“You can get as philosophical as you want. I still think that this is a really bad idea.”
Jamie opens the back door of the SUV and grabs up her backpack. Inside are a few notepads, some pens, a laptop with charger, and a digital camera that she hopes to use to take a picture of all the Astara in the settlement. She also grabs a handheld digital camcorder to record footage. She pushes the ‘on’ button to make sure the digital camcorder is charged up. It comes on with a couple of beeps. She pans around the inside of the SUV to make sure that the picture is good and everything is still working properly. With a flick of her wrist she closes the camcorder. Turning around, she gives Larry a smile and places the strap of the camcorder around her neck.
“Your opinion is duly noted Larry, but I’m still going in. You’re not changing my mind on this one.”
“Fine.” He throws up his hands in defeat and walks with her to the small door set into the side of the wall. “But promise me you’ll be careful.”
A guard opens the door for Jamie and she steps inside. Before the guard closes the door she turns around and waves to Larry.
“I’ll be careful. Like I always am.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Larry calls to her as the door swings shut.
The door closes with a resounding thud, and for a split second Jamie wonders if she has made a terrible mistake. Nonsense, she tells herself, you can always knock on the door, show your ID to the guard, and he’ll let you out. Now calm down and think about the reason you are here. You’re a reporter, so start acting like one.
Taking a step forward, she lets her eyes drift around the camp. Near the walls, the houses are stacked one atop another making them more like apartment building and less like shacks, but she can’t help but notice the material that the shacks are made out of. It all seems to be junk. Here and there a fresher piece of steel or tin shines like a diamond among the horde of rusted and junked metals. Clicking on her camcorder, she pans it around and gets a panorama of the surrounding area.
Young Astara run in all directions as they play some type of game that she can only guess is much the same as tag. The only difference between the small Astara children and human children is the hair and eye color. No human on Earth has ever had yellow or orange eyes without contact lenses, and no human has ever had blue or green hair without some kind of dye. A few older adult Astara are milling around near a small well. They look much the same as the children, only each adult Astara has an identifying mark that runs horizontally across the bridge of their nose. It seems to be some kind of birthmark or something.
Jamie pans the camcorder over to film the adults standing around the well. As she does she notices that a few of them have small tattoos on their necks. The four Astara with tattooed necks step away from the well and start toward her at a quick walk.
She raises her hand in a wave and offers a friendly smile to them, but they don’t acknowledge either. Taking an involuntary step backward, she almost bolts for the door, but she steels herself and lowers the camcorder.
“Hello. I’m Jamie Gettner. I’m a reporter with the Gazette. I was wondering if you would like to have your picture taken for my article on this camp.”
“Human.” The Astara in the lead, a tall, whip-thin alien with long orange hair pulled back in a ponytail, almost spits the word.
“Yes, I’m a human, but I just want to observe your lives for a month or so, and find out how it is that you live. I don’t mean you any harm. In fact I’m trying to help you because if you ask me these camps you live in are not justifiable at all.” She waves a hand around at the walls for effect. “I think that keeping you and your families locked up behind walls is wrong and something should be done about it.”
“Sure you do. Human.” Once again the leader spits the word ‘human’. His voice is filled with rage as he continues to speak. “Do you know how many of my kind you killed when you shot us out of the skies? Do you?”
“I didn’t shoot anything. I was a very young child when that happened.”
“Sure. All you humans are the same. You all want the same thing. Now I think it is our turn to give you back a little bit of what you’ve given us.”
The man darts forward with eerie speed and grabs Jamie by the arms with hands that clamp down like vices. She struggles against him, but his hold is like iron. Leaning down so that his lips are touching her ear, he whispers to her.
“You should have stayed in your fancy high-rise, human. Now you’re gonna pay for what your kind has done.”
The other three Astara advance toward her with grins on their faces. One of them pulls out a piece of metal that is about a foot long with a large chunk of leather attached to it. Jamie has seen enough television shows to know that the weapon is called a blackjack. The leather is usually wrapped around something hard and sewn together. She knows that it is an effective weapon for causing lots of damage.
“I promise you that I had nothing to do with what happened twenty years ago!” Jamie says, as she begins to panic. She struggles fiercely against the Astara’s grip, but gains nothing.
The alien with the blackjack raises it in the air and steps forward with a smirk. The blackjack whistles through the air. I should never have come here. Now I’m probably going to die in this camp. Just before the blackjack makes contact with her skull something blurs in front of her eyes.
The sound of the blackjack smacking against flesh and bone is loud in the small courtyard. Jamie opens her eyes and sees another male Astara standing in front of her. He is unlike the others. His shoulders are broad and heavy with muscle. The hair on his head is shaved into a mohawk and is black instead of blue, green, or orange. Even his eyes are a different color. Most of them are yellow or orange, but the newcomer’s eyes are gold in color. The alien that was holding the blackjack is now lying on the ground with blue blood oozing from a wound on the side of his head. At first Jamie is sure that the Astara is dead, but he groans and rolls over. She isn’t sure what happened until the golden-eyed Astara speaks.
“Let her go Grum. Let her go now.”
“I won’t do it Bol.” The alien holding her pulls her backward a step and tightens his grip. “It’s time that their kind pay for what they have done.”
“She had nothing to do with it Grum.” One of the other Astara steps forward with his fist raised, but Bol turns to him and shakes his head. “Don’t do it Fi. I’ll cave your head in and you know it.”
The remaining two Astara trade a glance and nod to each other. They back slowly away from Bol and the blackjack in his hand until they reach the well. When the reach the well they turn around and make a run for it down a street. Bol turns to Grum with a stern look.
“Let her go! I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
“Take one step toward me, Bol, and I’ll knock her in the head. You’re fast, but you’ll never be able to get to me before I smash her head in with my fist.”
“You intend to hurt her no matter what I do,” says Bol. He looks at Jamie. “I promise you that won’t happen, but you’ll have to trust me.”
Jamie tries to say something, but her throat is so dry from fear that all she manages to get out is a small croak. Grum hears it and laughs. As he begins to laugh Bol leaps forward with a speed that Jamie can’t believe is possible. The hand holding the blackjack flashes forward, but before it can impact, something hits her on the back of the head. As blackness overtakes her vision she feels the iron-like grips of Grum loosen. I’m gonna hit the ground face first. The thought is her last one as her vision darkens and she goes limp.