Rumors can take on a life of their own. Sometimes, they spread like a virus.
The latest bit of hearsay?
Some of the Math Club geeks have got their hands on a real live alien!
They’re keeping it hidden in a basement rec room, no less.
Mark had listened to some wild tales while growing up, wherever Dad happened to be stationed at the time. Just as soon as he could pick up some local dialect, Mark would foray to the nearest village or town and tap the gossip mill, fascinated by the bottomless human appetite for preposterous lies. From conspiracy theories murmured in a Lebanese bazaar to scandals about local pop stars, circulating through Manila alleys — the things people believed!
Still, it wasn’t till Dad got transferred back to Southern California that Mark realized — there’s no place better to breed wild stories than an American high school.
Especially Twenty-Nine Palms High, where the football team mascot, Spookie, wore a huge trench-coat, a floppy hat and big black eye-mask. Beyond all the nasty stories that kids typically spread about each other, and hearsay concerning the dating habits of certain teachers, there were always colorful rumors about what went on at the nearby airbase. Or within the top-secret, opaque walls of Cirocco Labs.
But this one — about the Math Club guys having an extraterrestrial of their very own?
Well, it beat all.
* * *
Not that Mark believed a word of it.
California homes don’t have basements, for one thing.
Besides. A captive alien?
Such a cliché. A stupid movie rip-off. Couldn’t the nerds come up with a better hoax? Crap, some of their parents worked at Cirocco. What good are brains if you can’t be original?
When some of his classmates said they were going over to see for themselves after school, Mark begged off. He had other things in mind. Especially an hour later, staring down at the varsity soccer team —
— girls varsity, in blue shorts and yellow tops. They charged across the athletic field in formations as intricate as Dad’s squadron during inspection week … but a whole lot more alluring. The star forward, her tawny legs pumping, somehow made sweat and cutthroat ferocity seem, well —
“Bam?” A voice called to him from above. “Bamford, what are you doing?”
The words made him twitch, almost losing his precarious perch upon a stub of concrete, jutting from the wall. Mark dug in with three fingertips of his left hand while probing desperately for a ledge to set his right foot. His heartbeat jolted and spots danced before his eyes like flashing balls.
“Are you all right? Bam?”
“Ye — yeah,” he grunted, short of breath.
“Well stop staring at Helene Shockley and focus!”
“Not … staring …” he grunted, both irritated and embarrassed. “Slack … Gimme a lot.”
Some tension left the rope, easing pressure from the climbing harness on his thighs and groin, freeing him to lean and traverse, seeking a higher footing. This part of the wall was tricky, designed for competitions in a brand-new league. He would have to master it in order to make the team.
“More slack!” The rope still wasn’t loose enough for this reach.
“But …”
“Come on, Alex … I’m fighting the clock here. Slack!”
There was time to make up — precious seconds stupidly wasted during that blank stare at the soccer players. Damn hormones.
“Well, fine.” She sounded dubious. “But concentrate!”
The rope loosened still more. He bore down, focusing on the task at hand.
Relax, you’re in a California desert suburb. No lives are at stake … this time.
Unlike that cliff in Morocco, when his father had to stay with a critically injured aid worker, sending Mark cross-country for help. One steep shortcut shaved an hour off the round trip … and Dad later blistered his ears over taking the risk.
The lip of Mark’s left shoe found a crevice. Hardly more than a ripple in the wall. He tested it …
“That one’s iffy,” commented the voice overhead.
Be quiet. But he didn’t have breath to say it. Shifting his weight to the narrow ledge and feeling a sudden burn in his calf, he launched himself upward, reaching ambitiously past a safe hand-hold, grabbing at the last one before the top. For an instant he glimpsed Alex, scowling with concern, her cropped brown hair framed by blue desert sky.
This’ll show her I know what I’m —
His hand brushed the knob — the same instant that his shoe slipped. Mark clutched frantically, two fingers bearing all his weight as both legs dangled, desperately seeking a purchase, anything at all. Specks of rough concrete crumbled under the pressure. Pain lanced down his wrist and arm.
“Mark!”
He saw Alex try to reach for him, and suddenly remembered. I asked for slack. I hope not too much —
The knob seemed to tear away with deliberate malice — and the ground swung up. Mark glimpsed shouting figures below, scattering out of the way.
Almost too late, the autotensioner kicked in, yanking the safety line hard enough to empty his lungs, stopping his plummet just short of impact. Splayed with arms and legs flung apart, facing the sky like a crushed flower. Like roadkill.
For some unmeasurable time he hung there, tasting acid, blinking away pain-dazzles and struggling to catch his breath till Alex popped the release, easing him down the rest of the way.
Those scattered figures returned, crowding around as Mark’s vision cleared — youths who were bigger, stronger and sweatier than most. Well, everyone agreed that the Climbing Wall stood too close to the Free Weights area.
The tallest body-builder leaned over, expressing false concern. “You okay there, Bamford? Want a pillow?”
Jeez. All I need right now is Scott Tepper, Mark thought.
And yet — there was no choice but to clasp the blond senior’s offered hand. Better to stand quickly, ignore the pain and try not to groan, even if that meant swaying for several heartbeats.
“You’re lucky Coach wasn’t here,” Scott continued, still looking down at Mark from half a head taller. “He’s already ticked off that they put this stupid climbing wall here.”
“Yeah,” growled Colin Gornet, nearly as towering as Scott but much heavier, pushing close and poking with a finger. But that wasn’t what made Mark recoil. The big lineman packed aroma.
“You could’ve killed somebody, Bamford! When Coach finds out, your ‘ascent team’ will be history.”
Brushing Gornet’s jabbing finger aside, Mark glanced at the nearest weight station. It lay at least three meters from the base of the wall. Plenty of room! He was about to argue the point when Scott Tepper raised a palm.
“No need for Coach to find out.” He interposed, keeping Colin’s persistent arm from poking again. A good thing, since Mark had had enough.
“But Scott, next time this moron falls …”
“There won’t be a next time. Will there, Bamford?”
Mark couldn’t think of anything to say. Though fuming inside, he knew it was a losing proposition to argue, or compete in any way with Scott Tepper, whose charm seemed to rise out of some infallible instinct. Coupled with good looks and serene confidence, it let Scott manipulate any teacher, win any school office, smooth-talk any girl.
So much confidence that he could offer generosity — at a price. You owe me, Bamford, said the look in Scott’s eyes.
Others were joining the crowd of onlookers, including members of the girls’ soccer team. Helene Shockley, tawny and gorgeous, slid up next to Tepper with a questioning smile.
Mark shook his head, eager to get out of there.
“No, Scott. It won’t happen again.”
* * *
Alexandra Behr wasn’t as easy to deal with.
“Do you have any idea how hard we lobbied Principal Jeffers to get that wall? It’s our shot at getting some X-Sports accepted inside! You better not blow it for us, Bam.”
Mark shot her a glare as they walked toward the bike racks. He’d never liked the nickname — Bam-Bam … later shortened to Bam — though its macho quality beat most alternatives. High school could be a social nightmare for any transfer student, especially if you got off on the wrong foot. Anyway, the Extreme Sports bunch had been first to accept him. Mark couldn’t skateboard worth a damn, but none of them had ever gone trekking in the Atlas Mountains, so it all evened out. Why not help pioneer a new sport at TNPHS?
“It won’t happen again,” he told Alex.
This time the promise felt sincere. He had let her down, foolishly losing focus. In the real world, a slip like that could be fatal. Besides, he needed the ascent team, to boost upcoming college applications. Lacking Alex’s grade point average, and a bit short for his age, this might be his one chance to varsity at anything.
“Well, okay then.” Alex nodded, accepting Mark’s word. She punched his shoulder, knowing uncannily how to strike a nerve. He quashed a reflex to rub the spot.
Dang girls who take karate. Mark had grown up with the type, on a dozen military outposts around the world. Oh, they could be great pals. But a more feminine style also had appeal. Anyway, Alex was only a sophomore — not even sixteen and still gawky. Mark inclined toward ‘older women’ like Helene.
Unfortunately, they went for older guys.
Barry Tang awaited them at the bike racks, his Techno already unfolded with gleaming, composite wheels — hand-made for last year’s Science Fair. With unkempt, glossy black hair and a misbuttoned shirt, anyone could tell how he interfaced with Alex — on her non-athletic side. They were both Junior Engineers.
“What kept you two?” Barry asked, a little breathlessly. “I want to show you something!”
Mark groaned.
“Gimme a break, will you? My carcass is still practically twisted in half and covered with bruises. And I gotta be at work by four.” Not that he relished bagging groceries. But Dad said any kind of job built character. In lieu of allowance, he pitched in a buck for every one Mark earned himself — mostly for the college fund.
“So? You’ve got twenty-three minutes, and Food King is right over there.” Barry pointed to the supermarket, beyond Jonathan’s Shell Station and across the street from Twenty-Nine Palms High.
“Well —”
“Come on, Bam.” Alex took the back of Mark’s neck with one slim, strong hand and started kneading. “I’ll work these knots, if you like.”
He suppressed an impulse to brush her away. Alex was a pal, after all. Though every now and then …
Barry Tang glanced over at the two of them with a grimace of feigned jealousy that was maybe partly real. “Are you rewarding this guy for messing up, at practice? Maybe I should get some bruises too. Somebody’d rub my — hey! Stop that!”
Mark had grabbed Barry in a headlock and was knuckle-digging his temple, not very hard. Just enough to be true noogies. When he protested again, Mark let go.
“Why’d you do that!”
“You were asking for bruises. What’re friends for?”
“Well,” Barry ran his fingers through his mussed hair. “You know what I meant! Anyway …” His eyes suddenly widened. “There!”
“Huh?”
“Over there, beyond Olympic!” Barry shouted. “I see one!”
“See what?” Alex asked, releasing Mark’s neck just when he was closing his eyes, ready to admit it felt good. By the time he looked up, both of his friends were pedaling ahead, past the alley where denim-clad bikers always hung out after tearing around on the dunes. Mark had to chase after, swerving to avoid a muttering bag lady’s junk-laden shopping cart, barely catching his friends near the minimart on Main. Barry jabbed a finger north along Bing Crosby Boulevard, toward the Marine Corps base and a vast expanse of desert beyond.
“I don’t see —”
“The van!”
Mark blinked. Indeed, there was a van — dark blue, with windows tinted opaque gray. An oval area along one side had been painted over raggedly, without much effort to match shades. A tarp covered some kind of bulge on top.
“So? I don’t see —”
“That color and model, I recognize it from the fleet at Cirocco Labs! There’s at least a dozen — maybe more — cruising all over the place. Must’ve been in a real hurry. See how they just slapped some paint on the company logo? And I’ll bet you that blanket’s hiding sensors. Maybe some kind of a search radar!”
Barry looked so excited — and happy — that Mark hesitated to doubt him aloud. Especially when Alex cast a warning glance, shaking her head.
Is this going to be like a few months ago, when Barry kept yattering about giant Russian transport planes, landing in the middle of the night?
“Haven’t either of you heard all the helicopters cruising overhead the last few days? I can spot two of em right now, from where we’re standing! See that glint near the horizon?” He swiveled. “And there beyond the RV park, over Joshua Tree. They must be looking for something!”
Mark and Alex shared another glance. Neither of them had to say it. In Twenty-Nine Palms, the sight of copters flitting about was as surprising as spotting your own shadow. “An exercise,” Mark ventured. “Hotshots from Pendleton —”
“My parents have been nervous about something, the last few days,” Alex murmured. “When I asked about it, they went all weird on me and clammed up.”
Mark shot her an accusing look. You too?
Then something occurred to him.
I haven’t seen Dad in two days.
Oh, that alone wasn’t troubling. It happened several times a year. A note on the fridge, plus an envelope with some cash. No instructions. Just implicit confidence that Mark could be trusted to take care of himself for a while.
Only now he found himself worrying. Could it be an alert?
With so many hot spots in the world, units were always being called up and sent to far places that he never heard of, fighting in little scraps that never got called ‘wars.’
He didn’t recall anything in the news that seemed threatening. No looming crisis. But folks at the nearby base — and at Cirocco Labs — might be involved with something on the horizon, acting long before the media or public got wind of it.
“I joined the Math Club for a while, when I was a freshman,” Barry said, his voice cracking slightly. “I still know a couple guys. We play chess now and then.”
“So?” Mark just knew he was going to regret asking. Then the connection dawned on him …
… those silly rumors. Oh, no.
“So,” Barry finished. “You guys want to find out what’s going on?”
* * *
It turned into one hell of a Thursday night.
When Mark got off work around seven, he went home hoping to find his dad there, smelly and unshaven from a three-day field trial, but happy to tell his son the unclassified parts over coffee and an omelet. Something that would explain eerie vans and nervous helicopters, even the bizarre rumors sputtering around town, putting it all down to scuttlebutt and normal Defense Department weirdness.
But no. Dad wasn’t home.
Instead, Mark found Alex and Barry waiting for him by the battered old Cherokee. Barry held a steaming bucket of drumsticks from Chick-tish-n-Protie. Alex must have already let herself in the house, to fetch keys to the jeep. She tossed them at Mark, as soon as he parked his bike.
“You don’t waste time,” he commented.
“Life’s short.” It pretty much summed up her philosophy.
What could he do but shrug and climb into the driver’s seat? These two had been his best friends since moving to this desert oasis. They had nursed him through those grueling Chemistry and Trigonometry midterms, making it hard to refuse, even though his body ached and there was school tomorrow.
“Here, swallow this,” Alex ordered, handing him a pill – a Motrin, he saw – and a water bottle. Heck, did the girl think she was his mother? But Mark tossed back the muscle relaxer, which seemed a good idea. He shrugged off the bottle.
There’s a quiz tomorrow in pre-calc, but Alex drilled me on that chapter during lunch and I ought to get my usual B. Mr. Castro will be holding a discussion on the Thirty Years War, though I guess I know the subject well enough to say something in class, after watching that Tim Burton film about it. Though if I studied a bit more …
He pictured Helene Shockley, occupying the seat behind him in World History, always wearing some pheromonic scent that would fill his nostrils and send his head spinning. At times, Mark fantasized winning her over with some clever quip or insight in Castro’s class. If there were even a chance of impressing her —
Forget about it. She’s with Scott.
In fact, Mark had to admit, school was under control. He could afford a little week-night adventure.
“Where to?” He asked, starting up the engine.
Barry pointed east. “The dunes. Near Skull Rock. That’s where Chloe said they found something, before she clammed up tighter than a trillionaire’s wallet.”
* * *
Cruising in that direction down Highway 62, they swiftly left behind both the town and the sprawling Marine Corps base to the north that hosted Cirocco Labs. To their right, Joshua Tree National Park rolled by, with its namesake plants resembling spiky warriors by the light of a waxing gibbous moon. A scattered army of those shadowy figures stretched across the plain toward dun-colored hills.
The dry air was cooling down quickly from today’s oppressive heat. Mark always liked this part of the evening, here in the high desert. That is, he would have enjoyed the drive if Barry weren’t constantly reaching forward from the back seat, tapping Mark on the shoulder and shouting.
“There! Another helicopter …” he pointed urgently, “and one more off by the mesa!”
Mark overcame his irritation to glance that way. And yes, there were aircraft out there, crisscrossing above the sand and scrub. So? Helicopters and drones and such … next to Twenty-Nine Palms Air Station? Ooooh.
Though … yes … they were aiming searchlights downward, moving at low altitude, in what did kind of look like a search pattern.
Alex reminded him – twice – about the turnoff to Skull Rock. I would-of remembered, he growled inside while turning off the main highway onto a barely-graded dirt road, easy enough for the Cherokee to handle.
We seem to be headed right for one of the helicopter search grids.
“Suppose they really are searching for something. Do you think it’s wise for us to be –”
Alex shouted and Mark yanked the wheel hard, briefly blinded by headlights ahead, looming suddenly around a sharp bend. A pickup truck veered by, much too close, while five or so rowdies hollered and screamed from the back. Something hurtled toward Mark and he slammed the brake just in time for a beer bottle to shatter on the hood of the jeep, instead of his face.
“Jerks,” Alex muttered, with endearing understatement. “I guess this means we’re not the only ones chasing rumors. The only civilians, I mean,” she added, glancing toward one of the throbbing helicopters.
Mark pushed the clutch and re-engaged the transmission in low, taking the curve slowly… and pulled aside again for yet another pair of headlights. This time it turned out to be a little Geo Metro – one of the solar-charged conversions that really shouldn’t be out after dark; they’d be lucky to make it back to town. Whining and complaining in the grit and dust, it pulled up alongside the Cherokee and the window came down, with an unhealthy, grinding sound. The driver leaned out – a girl Mark had seen around TNPHS, with stringy, braided hair, glasses, a great figure – Isabel something…
“There’s a roadblock ahead,” she said in all-business tones, though with a nervous edge. Mark couldn’t make out her companions, cramped together in the dim cab. “They’re turning kids back and taking down names.”
“Thanks. Though can you tell us what you think is going —” Mark started asking, but the Geo was already speeding off, spewing grit in its wake. He turned to look at Alex and Barry. “Maybe we better think about —”
Alex agreed by both nodding and pointing ahead of them, where a trio of vehicle lights could be seen heading their way, weaving along the road’s sinuous path. From the pattern of head-lamps and spot beams, he could tell they were Newts – New Utility Vehicles, capable of switching from wheeled travel to charging cross-country on a cushion of air. You didn’t want to argue with guys driving stuff like that.
His passengers made no complaint about the failure of the mission as Mark turned around and headed back to the highway.
Only when they were approaching Twenty-Nine Palms again did Barry finally speak up, apparently back in chipper, hyper-curiosity mode once again.
“All right, then. That pretty much confirms that something big is afoot! Now let’s go to our natural habitat and hunt for the truth. I know just where to start. Rimpau Avenue.”
* * *
Piloting the Cherokee’s stiff old suspension toward the west end of town — where the supposed visitor from space was rumored to be hidden — Mark thought. If there’s any truth to this, it’s the worst-kept secret since the Vice Principal got a hairpiece.
He kept passing cars full of teens — some from TNPHS and others from Mojave College. It felt more like Saturday than a school night.
Alex waved at some guys wearing helmets and pads, who zipped along on gleaming pairs of powered sneaker skates — the latest fad — slower than cars, but a lot more fun and great for shortcuts whenever traffic got dense.
“Hey ’Cardo. Sup!” Alex shouted as one of them came swooping by to slap a friendly palm on the Jeep’s hood.
“Hey girl,” the wiry boy answered as he spun around once then gave her fist a friendly punch. “Seen it yet?”
“It?”
“You know… it! Some of us are high on the waiting list. We’re all taking bets whether it’s real.”
“No way, man!” said another skater, barely missing a minivan that swerved into the left turn lane. Mark liked these guys, but they were crazier than kava-chewers.
“I bet it’s a rubber puppet,” the second one sneered. “Like that robotic thing, last Halloween.”
“Yeah? Well Benito Gomez got close last night and he says —”
“Benny’s mind is torqued from too much gaming, man. Can’t tell what’s real anymore. Come on, what’re the odds?”
“Yeah but whatif? Hella sick. Deathbed sick! They’re only letting a few visitors at a time and you gotta have cash. But I’ll put in a good word for you, Alex. Maybe get your friends in —”
A warning bloop from a police car interrupted the skater, who shrugged with a blithe grin. Spinning 360, he did a Parcour tracer’s vault over the boulevard’s center divider and was gone in a flash of turbo-luminescent rims.
“Get us in where?” Alex shouted after him, in vain. Cops didn’t even bother chasing the X-guys anymore. They could dart through an intersection and vanish like smoke.
Something’s up, all right, Mark thought as he followed Barry’s hushed directions along one dismally similar suburban side street after another. The whole town feels it.
Or at least the part that was tuned into coolstuf — the mesh of interests approved by those between fifteen and twenty. You didn’t have to log into Bellybook or some avachat room to get a ruling on what’s hot or not. It splattered like rain across percept-space, a spray of half-sentence twops scrolling down specs and wrist-pads. It murmured into earpieces and pen-cells and swarmed over the foldscreens or pullscreens of pocketphones.
Okay, this is way, way cut, Mark admitted, grudgingly. Whatever it turned out to be — probably a hoax — somebody deserved cred for the town’s best mobilization since he came to TNP. Even better, the world of adults appeared clueless. So far – at least here in town — this whole thing seemed limited to the young.
I take that back, Mark thought suddenly, pulling the jeep over to one side. Just ahead, a police car had parked along the very block where Barry said the vice-president of the Math Club lived. Two officers were just getting out, slamming doors.
With a hiss, the black-haired boy pointed.
“Look. There’s two of those disguised Cirocco vans, just pulling up!”
“This is creepy,” Alex said. A crowd was gathering, mostly teens, milling about and peering at the house in question.
“What do we do? Take a look? Join the crowd? Someone outside may know —”
A fist rapped hard on the right-rear door. Barry yelped as a face suddenly pressed against the glass, fogging it with hasty breath.
“Tang! Thank god ’n dog it’s you. Open up!”
“What in —” Mark didn’t have time to object as Barry let in the figure, swaddled under a cowled windbreaker.
“Drive!” the boy croaked, his visage pale and twitchy.
“But —”
“Get out of here! Then I’ll explain.”
Against his better judgment, Mark put the car in gear, turning carefully so as not to attract attention. His uninvited passenger sighed, quivering as he looked back at the commotion.
“Alex and Mark, this is Tom,” said Barry. “Tom Spencer. That was his house with the police car in front.”
Alex reached around, offering her hand to the nervous sophomore. “What’s up? Want something to drink? We have Pepsi. Or a drumstick?”
Good move, Mark approved, offering a frightened person something as commonplace as food. Though he kept blinking rapidly, the Spencer kid seemed to calm a bit as he slurped a can of soda.
“They… came less than an hour ago. Just busted right in and took him!”
“Who came? The police? Didn’t they just arrive?” Alex kept her voice scrupulously calm as the boy shook his head.
“Jocks! It was Colin Gornet and some of his football pals!” In the rear-view, Mark saw Tom take another long slurp, before resuming his rapid babble. “They came by for the first time last night, polite as could be. Paid me fifty dollars to let them in. Just wanted to have a look, they said. I should’ve listened to Jamul. He told me not to! But fifty will help buy that new hacking algorithm I wanted all year. So I let ’em in. Idiot!” He kicked the door next to him, reverberating the Jeep’s rickety cab.
“Chill, Tom. You say they paid you to let them look at something. What did they pay to see?”
But he was chattering now, telling it his own way.
“By this morning, it seemed like every kid in town knew! People kept sneaking up to my back door after school, offering more cash for a look at Xeno. It felt cool for a while, till Gornet and his bunch came back. They crashed right in and grabbed him!”
“Who did they grab?”
Tom Spencer shook his head.
“Then it got worse! My parents heard us yelling as Gornet left. They saw Gavin’s black eye and found the mess downstairs… so they called the cops. I couldn’t stop them!”
Mark shook his head. Clearly this dude had a hierarchy of fears. Invasion by thieving athletes was intolerable — but not half as bad as alerting the world of adults.
“All right,” Alex asked, her voice glassy-smooth, to keep the frantic boy calm enough to communicate. “You’re saying Gornet and his pals came barging in and grabbed someone. But who, Tom? Who did they take?”
Mark found himself fervently hoping that Tom would just shut up.
It’s just a hoax that got out of hand, he hoped. It’s got to be.
Tom swallowed hard before answering.
“They took our xenoanthropoid.”
“Your —?”
Barry Tang translated. “It’s Greek, meaning something like ‘a manlike being from beyond.’ Pretty awful Greek, actually. I guess they wanted something less cliched than alien or extraterrestrial.”
Tom sniffed.
“We spent days coming up with that! Anyway, it’s a damn good thing we were the ones who found him. Well, Chloe Mendel did, while she was performing one of her routine comet-searches. The IR scanner on her 22-inch wide-field telescope spotted something coming in fast.”
“Nobody at the base saw it?”
“Her correlator noticed something all those Cirocco brainiacs missed!” Tom snorted, both proud and contemptuous. “I guess because it had all the color values of a falling meteorite. Anyway, a fresh carbonaceous chondrite is worth heaps, so Chloe called me and Jamul and Jorge and Lauren to check the fall site, out in the south-eastern drifts. Only when we got there, we found…” The boy’s hands shook as he gestured, shaping something rounded, almost as if he could still see it, right in front of his face.
“… we found a space capsule of some kind, half embedded in one of the dunes! Debris nearby. A panel, like some kind of escape door had popped off…”
“No way!” Barry sighed, in a tone that was almost reverent and hushed. He prompted. “Then —”
“Then we found him… wandering around on the sands.”
* * *
Mark shook his head as he drove, silently wishing.
Please make it stop.
Oh, part of him shared the excitement, a natural yearning for something exceptional to happen. Anything more interesting than the ennui of semi-rural American teenage life, warehoused in a high school routine that often seemed meant just to use up time, keeping youths occupied at an age when biology made them want to move! To experience and have adventures. In other eras, frontiers and unknown lands used to beckon. Today?
Small wonder that first contact with some kind of alien race was the stuff of so many vids and modern legends, occupying a place in modern hearts that used to be devoted to mythological beasts and exotic foreign princesses.
But really, how likely was it for some star-visitor to show up right now? Science had never found a single trace of intelligent life. No radio messages from the stars, nor any verifiable evidence of visits to Earth, not even in the planet’s deep past.
None of this made sense.
Why here? Why now?
“So you took this… entity to your basement,” Alex summarized, her voice low and disbelieving.
“After burying the capsule and covering our tracks.” Tom Spencer nodded. “My rec room seemed best, since my parents never come down there. Boy, was that an all-nighter! But by morning Chloe had our xeno guest surrounded with a kick-ass audio-visual translation system. We tried every language you can download from the Web.”
“How’d that go?” Barry asked eagerly.
“Not so good. So we backtracked and started over with permutation math. You know, universal stuff that any technological species oughta know. There are even some programmed scenarios, pre-worked out by amateur SETI clubs —”
SETI, Mark translated. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Yeah, it fit.
“And?” Barry was barely touching his seat, bouncing from excitement.
“And? Well, things got pretty frustrating! None of the stuff we downloaded seemed to work. None of the math or geometry or symbol stuff. Or web picture shows. For one thing, we had trouble getting Xeno’s attention. He wasn’t in great shape. Jorge offered all kinds of food. Thank God n’ dog he took a sudden liking to marrow.”
“Marrow?”
“The stuff inside bones, that makes red blood cells and —”
“We know what marrow is,” Mark snapped. He was starting to get angry. And he realized something else.
I’ve been driving without thinking …
… toward Colin Gornet’s house.
It was in the best neighborhood of Twenty-Nine Palms — sometimes called “New Palm Springs” — where spacious homes sprawled amid heaps of non-native greenery … lush plants and trees that drank water by the acre-foot. Mark knew the place with a nagging sense of personal hurt. Shortly after he transferred to TNPHS, someone ambiguously invited him to drop by one of Gornet’s parties, where kids at the top rung would be hanging out. Swallowing the bait, he showed up only to be turned away at the door amid raucous laughter from those inside.
Sure, he should have seen the sucker-draw miles away. My own damn fault if it hurt.
Anyway, never mind all that. What bothered Mark right now was a sense of consistency to this story. If Gornet and his pals really had taken something — or somebody — from the math nerds, it would be completely in character. Still, Mark felt little sympathy for Tom Spencer.
“Why?” he asked. “Why keep a space alien in your basement?”
Tom answered with a tone of stretched patience, as if Mark’s question were completely moronic.
“Because I’m the only one who has a basement. It’s roomier than Gavin’s shed and warmer at night. Didn’t I just say that my folks never go down there —”
A frustrated gurgle filled Mark’s throat. With a glance his way, Alex took over.
“No, Tom. The question is — why didn’t you call somebody? NASA. The Air Force. State Department. The press?”
Tom blinked, as if unsure he could be hearing her right. As if the question made no sense at all.
“But … but … he’s ours!”
For a slender youth, Tom’s jaw set with grim determination.
“He’s ours, and we’re gonna keep him.”
* * *
Once Tom got started, there were plenty of rationalizations.
“We hid Xeno in order to save his life! Those government guys would only dissect him the minute they got their hands on him.”
Sure, Mark thought sarcastically as he swung into Bryer Estates. Cut up a star-alien. You’ll learn lots that way. More than, say, by asking questions. But Tom wasn’t finished.
“Those guys would just take him to some secret underground lab and hide him forever!”
Again, Mark shook his head silently.
Maybe. But to study an alien technology you’d need hundreds of skilled people — maybe thousands — the very best, with open minds. The kind of top professionals who question assumptions and resent needless secrecy.
What’s to stop any of them from leaking proof of a coverup? Fear? When they’d become big whistle-blower media stars?
It was always the same with all UFO or “Roswell” type cult stories. They invariably assumed that the very brightest members of a free society were all drones or fools or tools.
Mark envisioned someone trying to cram Dad into a category like that. Yeah, right. He always told me that the most effective, best-disciplined soldiers are those who understand the reasons. Blind obedience is for machines.
“The government would have to keep this kind of thing hidden from the public,” went Tom’s next rationalization, one he must have rehearsed among his friends. “The potential for mass hysteria is unimaginable!”
Now he’s quoting from some movie, Mark thought.
Funny how everybody is always sure that their own in-group can handle disturbing news, but that people in general would riot or go mad.
Sure, I’m kind of shocked — but I also feel … focused. Either this is a great big hoax, designed to make the whole town look stupid, or —
— or else our entire world may be changing.
Either way, it kind of gets your attention.
* * *
At last, the long chain of clichéd excuses started fizzling out. By the time they parked, a few dozen yards downhill from the stately Gornet home, Tom Spencer was fizzing with schemes to win back what had been taken from him. For starters, he wanted Alex and Barry to contact the other Junior Engineers.
“We mathists should’ve included you guys from the start,” he confessed. “With all those gladiator robots you techies keep building, it should be a cinch to break into Gornet’s place. Then pow!” He punched the air. “But first we gotta reconnoiter.”
“Gotta what?”
“Check the grounds, figure a way in. Chloe has some great night vision equipment. Let’s head over to her place and … hey! Where are you going?”
Mark stepped out of the Jeep, closing his door softly behind him.
“We’re going to reconnoiter, like you said,” Alex replied with a wry smile, following Mark’s example as Tom sputtered and started to protest. Barry grabbed the Spencer boy’s shoulder and he lapsed into silence, trailing nervously a few paces behind.
The pavement felt strangely gritty under Mark’s feet. Pebbles scraped louder, more vividly than normal, like the hissing sprinklers on a nearby lawn. Mark recognized the sensation. Adrenaline rush. The senses can heighten astoundingly when your comfortable routine has been shattered, replaced by daunting flickers of a new — and possibly hazardous — unknown.
He wondered. Did people feel this way all the time in olden-tribal days, back when the surrounding night held fearsome mysteries, anything from hungry tigers to angry gods? This level of heightened awareness could be dreadful … or exhilarating, an ultimate high. No wonder so many kids were drawn to taking risks. A more natural and thrilling high than any drug.
And yet, most of these high schoolers don’t know a thing about real danger, he thought as he led their foursome along the shadowed rim of a long, sweeping driveway. Most people learn about trouble from movies.
Mark had some first-hand experience with the real thing. Like that time in Bolivia, when his father’s training unit wasn’t supposed to bring dependents into a territory known for kidnappings and militia-style killings. But Mom had just passed away and Dad didn’t want to leave a grieving boy behind with aunts and uncles. So he swung a student exchange program for Mark in La Paz. Safe enough, it seemed. That is, till Mark and a local kid took that impulsive drive into the mountains, and everything suddenly got intense ….
The Gornet house was a rambling thing built during the recent land boom, when Cirocco Labs set up shop nearby, transforming Twenty-Nine Palms from a sleepy little garrison village into an ultra-tech center for national defense research. The house was made up of several structures linked by fancy, glassed-in walkways — great for formal entertaining. And for keeping bothersome teenagers out of the way around back, where a large guest cabaña stood next to the blue ripple of a huge swimming pool. Mark quickly spotted other kids from TNPHS hanging about, small clusters of seniors and juniors mostly, talking in hushed, excited tones. Cigarette embers flared, here and there, like rebellious fireflies.
Mark recalled the last time he came to this place. There had been loud music and a lot less tension in the air. Still, he felt wary. Could this be another trap? A hoax, designed to draw in whole groups of suckers at a time, like an assembly line? An impressive stunt could make your senior class a legend, recalled with envy by generation after generation of students at Twenty-Nine Palms High.
He glanced suspiciously at Tom Spencer, who might be playing a pivotal role, lending credibility to the spoof. The fifteen-year old honors student licked his lips nervously. His earlier look of combative determination was giving way to anxiety.
Could he be acting?
Maybe. If it was Drama Club instead of Math Club. But I’d bet my chances of ever getting a sports car that he’s genuinely scared right now. And pissed-off over losing something precious.
An honest-to-gosh alien? Maybe not. Probably not. But something.
Mark and Alex led the two younger boys past several of the small groups. Eyes flitted and scanned, some of them wearing the new overlay goggles – the kind that could scan your face and seek info about you from the web, supplying your name to the wearer, plus anything else he wanted to know about you. Some of the most recent models could even detect chemicals – like what you had eaten – or read your pulse and blood pressure…
… but no one spoke or stepped in front of the four of them, offering a challenge. Not so far.
They approached within spitting distance of the cabaña before two large figures emerged from a heavily curtained doorway. One of them thrust out a burly arm.
“Close enough. You brats got cash? There’s a cover.”
“A c-cover?” Barry asked. “How much?”
“A hundred just to go in. Twenty a minute for a closer look.”
Ouch! Mark thought. He had just the price of one admission in the envelope Dad left behind. So it is a scam, after all. Whether the story’s true or not.
“What?” Tom Spencer stepped forward angrily, briefly forgetting his fear. “I let five of you in at once, for just fifty!”
The taller figure — Mark recognized one of the school running backs — shrugged with indifference. “We’ve got expenses. It costs a lot to keep a specimen like this. Call it a contribution for upkeep.”
“Specimen?” Tom squeaked. “He’s an intelligent life form! You’re not only thieves. You’ll be murderers if you keep this up. You don’t have any idea what you’re doing!”
Another form stepped out of the dimly-lit guest house. This time, Mark recognized Colin Gornet, dressed in khakis and a black turtleneck. He felt Tom Spencer go suddenly iron-tense … only to jolt back in surprise at Gornet’s mild, offhand tone.
“Hey Spencer. I’m glad you came. Sorry things got a little rough at your house. But you were being stupid and we had to act fast. Anyway, we need to talk, you and me. Right now.”
Gornet barely glanced at Mark, Alex and Barry. “Your friends can go right in, to make sure the xeno-thing is all right.”
He assumes we’re members of Tom’s bunch, Mark realized, unsure whether to feel glad … or insulted over being mistaken for one of the Math Club domes.
Stunned by Gornet’s sudden cordiality, Tom stared up blankly as a beefy hand took his arm, leading him over to the pool. Soon he was nodding as the big senior spoke, motioning repeatedly toward the guest house.
“Come on.” Barry tugged at Mark and Alex. “Before they change their minds!”
The door guardians scowled at the idea of giving out freebies. “Don’t throw anything or raise your voices,” one of them warned, holding back a thick curtain for Mark and the others to enter. “And the next guy who pokes it with a stick is gonna be sorry.”
* * *
Mark’s eyes took some time adjusting to the dim light inside, made even more difficult by a single pinpoint, glaring from one corner of the room. The source, a small but intense spotlight, shone outward from a large cage — the sort made for big dogs in a kennel.
Moving closer, he sniffed fresh redwood shavings … then a musty, wet smell of uncooked meat … and finally something else. An aroma unlike anything he ever encountered in his travels.
The cage had some furnishings. Two television sets flickered with the sound turned down low, one of them showing a children’s cartoon program while the other featured some kind of stock car demolition derby. Paper and crayons lay untouched on a low table. Mark noticed what looked like the remains of an old-fashioned tablet computer, ripped into several pieces.
Alex nudged him toward the opposite end of the enclosure. Mark had to force his reluctant body, head and gaze to turn.
A shape stirred there, about the size of a ten year-old child — or maybe a chimpanzee. There was something hunched-over about its posture. Clutching a shrouding blanket like a monk’s hood, it moved from the far corner as Mark squinted. The figure slowly reached out to take something from a greasy platter. Droplets of dark, dense moisture fell audibly.
Till that moment, part of Mark had nursed the fading hope that it would all turn out to be a hoax after all, a truly first-rate gotcha, so clever that you’d tell your kids about it someday, proud even to be one of the dumb suckers who fell for it.
Meanwhile, another part yearned for everything to be true! Something both dazzling and different to shake up this dreary suburban life. A thrill of recognition and affinity with the strange. He had felt it before, in other lands, finding things in common with people who spoke exotic tongues in far corners of the globe.
One or the other. A grand hoax or a startling new connection. Either would be fine.
But then Mark watched that limb extend, grabbing a hunk of raw meat, and he knew.
It’s got two elbows on each arm. Just one joint on each finger.
And that’s not like any skin I ever saw.
And there’s nobody this side of Hollywood who could fake moves like that.
A big, dripping rib-eye steak lifted from the platter and vanished under the blanket. There were crunching sounds …
… then a gobbet of chewed-up meat and bone hurtled toward a nearby bucket, already brimming with bloody detritus.
“Yikes,” Alex said.
“It — it can’t be real,” Barry stammered, though he had been the most enthusiastic up till that very moment. Instead of standing in front, he slipped back, a little behind Mark and Alex.
Then the makeshift hood slipped back. From under the blanket emerged a tapered snout, tinged red. It moved in a side-to-side chewing motion that Mark could not remember ever seeing on Animal Planet. The skull was very wide and flat on top. Two forward-facing eyes bulged from either side of the extended jaw. They glittered in the spotlight, with a golden quality that Mark didn’t find either warm or cheering.
A faint chuttering sound emerged. Strange and unhappy. Or at least, that was how it felt. Then a greasy hand stretched toward them. A multi-digited hand extended, pointing.
It could be asking for help, Mark speculated. Or saying ‘I’ll remember your faces.’
Or that could be a polite gesture where he comes from, meaning ‘thanks for all the yummy steaks.’
Or else, he thought, watching the finger twitch at each of them in turn, maybe that sound is its way of saying ‘Bang, bang!’
Mark tried to quash feelings of revulsion that welled from the pit of his stomach. According to the movies, aliens came in five varieties, monstrous, sexy, silly, god-like or adorable … or some combination of those clearcut traits. They were supposed to rouse simple emotions — attraction, pity, giggles, awe or dread.
Off-hand, he couldn’t recall portrayals of anything like this — so ambiguously weird, so pathetic, yet intimidating at the same time …
… but also kind of gross.
That was what finally convinced him it couldn’t be a ruse. Nobody would try so hard to fake a creature that filled you with confusion. The old clichés — even terror — were more comforting and credible.
Everybody has a coping mechanism. Alex seemed to take refuge in dispassionate scrutiny.
“Binocular vision,” she mused. “Very widely spaced hunters’ eyes. I’d guess nocturnal predator ancestors … those jaws …”
It was the sort of thing Mark might have expected Barry Tang to say. But under stress, it was all Barry could manage just to stammer.
“I can’t decide … w-whether to laugh or hurl.”
Mark nodded, agreeing.
Just don’t do both at the same time.
* * *
“All right, that’s enough,” growled a voice behind them. “You can see he’s doing just fine. Now you nerds get out.”
Mark and Alex had to drag at Barry till his gaze broke from the creature in the cage. “Wait,” he babbled. “There’s got to be … some kind of explanation ….”
And he was right. An explanation of a sort awaited them outside, where a suddenly eager Tom Spencer could be seen shaking Colin Gornet’s hand. As Gornet turned to stride toward the big house, Tom actually beamed.
“It’s all settled!” he told Barry, nodding also to Alex and Mark. “It turns out this was all for the best.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“I mean we should have listened to Colin in the first place! This town is getting way too hot, with all those Cirocco guys prowling around suspicious. We’ve got to move Xeno, quick! Anyway this is going to require a lot more resources than Chloe and Jorge and I could manage by ourselves. Colin’s got contacts in Los Angeles, where you can hide anything! He knows one of the actors on Rock n’ Troll who has his own place in Bel Air, without interfering parents —”
“But —”
“Colin says we can stay in charge of the scientific side, figuring out Xeno’s needs and working on a translation program. Gornet and Tepper and their friends will take care of logistics and finance.”
Like charging big-time admission to some highly selected urban elite, Mark thought, picturing how this could vault them into partying with Hollywood’s bad-boy aristocracy. What better ticket than offering jaded stars something secret and new? Something truly out-of-this-world.
Plus maybe the lion’s share of any fantastic reward that may come from assisting a stranded alien to find its way back home. Isn’t that the classic scenario? Help it escape the vile grownups who run government and civilization and you’ll get a magic ring or sword or something.
The payoff could be limitless.
“But first, we’ve got to get him out of town!” Tom babbled. “Colin’s arranging transportation to a better hiding place —”
Alex blurted, “You’ve got to be —” but stopped short when Mark grabbed her elbow. It was time to listen.
“We’ve got to work on erasing the trail!” Tom continued. “That means coming up with a believable cover story. So we’ve decided to pretend it was all a prank all along!”
“Um … how do you plan to do that?” Mark asked.
“Oh, it shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll set up something here in the cabaña … some kind of fake alien that moves a bit and makes some noise … anything to explain the rumors and folks who’ve already seen it. Convince eyewitnesses they were fooled in the dark. That’s where your Engineer Club pals come in, Barry. Can you get a team together and come up with something by morning? Colin promised to cover your expenses!”
Barry blinked a few times, warming to the notion.
“We-e-ll … I think so. Nothing fancy, of course. But now that I think about it, we got a bunch of actuators and stuff left over from Halloween … and I know where to get some of that Plastic Flesh goo they use on those mobile, talking store mannequins. In fact, if we started with one of those mannequins … Britney Chang should be able to swipe one of those from … You do realize, of course, that it won’t match the real thing? A lot of guys will remember the difference.”
“Let em. That’s the beauty of it! Wild stories are just fine. Let people yell coverup all they want. The whole thing could even wind up on some UFO show, like Mysteries of the Weird! That won’t matter a bit, so long as we make the hoax explanation seem equally plausible. It’ll be enough to throw off the scent!”
While Tom and Barry babbled more about how to build a fake alien in just a few hours, Mark glanced toward the big house. Through a downstairs window, he saw Colin Gornet in a room plastered with music and sports posters, talking urgently on his pen-cell. Others paced and smoked j-stiks, making calls of their own. A lot of organizing seemed to be going on. No surprise there. American teens who couldn’t manage simple algebra were capable of highly sophisticated planning, when it came to stuff they cared about — from elaborate parties or trips to student elections. Or else pulling something over on clueless parents. No scholastic test could appraise such skills. They formed out of life experience, the way young cavemen would have learned about prey animals or the lay of the land.
Mark glimpsed Scott Tepper and Helene Shockley, using their own phones on a sofa. So, the very top layer of TNPHS society was involved. In fact, Tepper had probably been using Gornet as a front man, pulling strings all along.
And now, by pure chance, Alex and I are being invited to participate, Mark realized. Maybe two dozen would finally wind up inside. Too many to keep a secret, normally. But with the tribal gulf between generations — helped by a sense of drama and Tepper’s charismatic leadership — the conspiracy might hold together. For a while. Long enough to get something going in L.A.
Maybe.
Well, you wanted something special in your life. Something exciting.
He had yearned to be accepted. Nothing was more likely to guarantee it than helping Tepper and Gornet spirit away a creature from the stars, stashing the thing – safe from prying authorities — in some urban hideaway, then assisting Barry and his friends as they focused their considerable talents on talking to the alien-guest. While a vast majority at TNPHS scratched their heads in wonder at tonight’s ‘hoax’, Mark would be part of the core group, right there with Tepper and beautiful Helene, doing something sensational, amazing, important ….
That final word made him blink.
Important …
… important to who?
While Barry and Tom argued about which supplies might be needed, and whose talents were absolutely essential to the conspiracy, Mark couldn’t help remembering that ugly thing under the blanket, at once both pathetic and chilling. Intelligent. And definitely alive.
He thought again about his own excitement over being part of something dramatic, secretive and bold. It was alluring — almost too good to be true.
Question the very thing you want most to believe.
He had once seen that motto in a most unlikely place, carved on the lintel over a modest doorway in a small Mauritanian curio shop. The Arabic expression had taken root somewhere in his brain, now rising up to haunt him.
We’re thinking about what’s important to us.
To us.
But we don’t really matter right now.
In fact, what I want is just about the least important thing in the world.
Mark turned and took Alex’s arm, retreating a few steps toward the shadowed drive.
“We’ve got to talk.”
She met his gaze straight-on. And though her face didn’t mesmerize him the way Helene Shockley’s did, he found something much more helpful right now in her eyes — common sense.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.
He couldn’t bring himself to come right out and say it. The plan forming in his mind right now would finish him, socially, at Twenty-Nine Palms High School. Worse, it would follow him wherever he went, branding him from tonight onward.
Still, he kept picturing the creature in the cabaña, pointing that crooked finger and chuttering strange, alien phrases.
And Mark recalled something else … something that Clint Eastwood had said, in one of those timeless Dirty Harry movies.
“A man’s got to know his limitations,” he murmured out loud.
Alex shot him a questioning look. And Mark shook himself.
“Let’s go. We have work to do.”