9
Dispersion
I greeted Rigel at my locker before school the next morning with a kiss and a grin.
“What?” he asked suspiciously. “You seem pretty pleased with yourself. I tried to ask on the way to school—”
“Sorry, I wanted to actually show you what I came up with rather than try to tell you long-distance. Here.” I dug a sheet of paper out of my backpack and handed it to him to read.
“It was me blurting out that the Council would send the statement that gave me the idea,” I explained as he scanned it. “They asked me to write it, but they didn’t say it had to come from me, even if that’s what they had in mind. What do you think?”
Slowly, he nodded. “This just might work. I hadn’t thought about doing it like this.”
It’s just a draft, I thought to him as we headed to class, but if we can polish it up by the end of the day, I’ll send it to Kyna. She seemed pretty ticked about how the Council handled the first statement, so with any luck she won’t feel like she has to run this past them before sending it out over MARSTAR.
At lunch, we both grabbed sandwiches and went to the courtyard again. Getting this statement out was my top priority now, and the new Echtran students could always catch me between classes or at tonight’s football game if they had questions.
“Hope the new kids will be okay with those interviews now,” Rigel murmured as he and I walked hand in hand to the buses after Publications, where Angela had been urging everyone to get cracking.
“They’ve been well coached, so I doubt there’ll be any slip-ups. To be honest, I’m more worried about my Uncle Louie. He’s obviously dying to tell his buddies about his niece the Martian Princess.”
Rigel’s brows drew down. “He wouldn’t, would he?”
“Not after the lecture he got last night from Aunt Theresa. I just hope he didn’t say anything dumb while he was at Green’s last night—with my omni in his pocket.”
“He took your omni?” Rigel’s concern spiked to alarm. “What if he—”
“Don’t worry. Its security settings are so high nobody but me can make it work. If he did show it to his friends, they probably thought it was just a futuristic-looking flash drive. Judging by his mood when he got home last night, the worst that happened was he got laughed at.”
Rigel squeezed my hand. “I hope you’re right. The last thing we need is—” He broke off as we moved into the crowd around the buses and finished silently, townspeople worrying about some alien invasion, with you at the head of it!
And you accuse me of borrowing trouble?
You’re right. Smiling, he leaned in for a quick kiss. “See you at the game tonight?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I returned his kiss as wholeheartedly as I dared, with so many people around. Still smiling, I boarded my bus.
As usual for a Friday during football season, most of the conversation was about tonight’s game—and Rigel. Bri was already mapping out the plays she thought our guys should run. Deb, Molly and I indulged her, exchanging occasional amused glances at her obsessiveness.
“I’m giving you a ride again, right?” Deb asked when she and Bri were about to get off at their stop.
“Yep, unless I call and say otherwise. I forgot to ask if Rigel’s folks are driving me home after, but I can let you know once we’re there.”
Bri turned quickly. “You guys should both come to the after-party tonight. I’m sure there’ll be one.”
Before I could argue, someone complained that she was holding things up so she hurried off the bus with a wave.
“She never gives up, does she?” Molly murmured as the bus started moving again. “Think your aunt might actually let you go, now that she knows?”
I shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t use it for that kind of leverage, but…maybe I’ll ask.”
Once I got home, I dictated the final version of my statement into my omni, then sent it to Kyna with a request that it go out as soon as possible. I half expected to hear back from her right away, like the last two times, but she still hadn’t responded when Aunt Theresa got home an hour later.
“Is something wrong, Aunt Theresa?” She looked even more worried than she had the past two afternoons.
This time, she nodded. “I’m afraid so. After you left for school this morning, Louie admitted he’d told a few of his friends about you last night—about the whole, ah, Martian situation. He claims nobody believed him, that they just laughed when he couldn’t get that gadget of yours to do anything, but what if he’s wrong?”
Obviously my instincts had been spot-on. Unfortunately. “They probably did just laugh. Without any proof, it had to sound like a totally crazy story.” I tried hard to convince myself along with her. Because if just one person had taken him seriously…
The phone rang, making both of us jump before Aunt Theresa moved to answer it. “Hello?”
Still edgy, I shamelessly eavesdropped.
“Mrs. Truitt?” came a male voice from the other end. “This is Ted from Bulls-Eye Whitetail Ranch and Specialty Meats. Like some of the other local merchants, we’d like to honor this year’s Jewel High Homecoming Court. Your niece was this year’s Junior Princess, right?”
Aunt Theresa glanced at me, relaxed and smiling now. I tried to look clueless, since I hadn’t told her about my super-sensitive Martian hearing. “Yes. Yes, she was.”
“Great! We’re giving each member of the Court five pounds of venison steaks and sausage, with our compliments. If she can arrange to come out here around six o’clock, we’d also like to get a promotional photo.”
“Oh. Certainly. Thank you very much.” Still smiling, she hung up the phone, then repeated everything she’d just been told.
I felt strangely reluctant, even though I’d been doing this sort of thing all week.
“Six o’clock? That’s right when Deb was supposed to be picking me up for the game. And there’s no way Rigel or the cheerleaders on the Court can be there, since they have to get there early.”
“I imagine they’re taking individual pictures, like the antique store. In any event, I said you’d be there—and venison isn’t easy to come by these days. You know how your Uncle Louie loves it.”
“But—”
Now she frowned. “Marsha, I realize Junior Class Homecoming Princess doesn’t compare to…all those other important things you’ve been doing, but it is the only honor I’m allowed to tell my friends about.”
Remembering her near-slip during the electronics store photo shoot, I realized it must be nearly as hard for her to resist boasting about her niece, the Martian ruler who’d saved the world, as it was for Uncle Louie. She just had more self-control.
“Okay. Do you know where this place is?”
Her smile broadened. “Of course. I’ll drive you, then take you on to the game afterward, as the ranch is along the way. I don’t particularly like you riding with one of your young friends who’s had her license for such a short time, anyway. I’d think your, ah, people wouldn’t care for that, either.”
“Yeah, probably not. I’ll let Deb know.”
Though the timing still seemed weird to me, I phoned Deb, then went upstairs to change into something picture-worthy. For Aunt Theresa’s sake I’d play along—though I hoped it wouldn’t make me late to the game.
The deer hunting ranch was about three miles northeast of Jewel High, where corn and soybean fields gave way to several hundred acres of woods. At the Bulls-Eye sign, Aunt Theresa turned up a long, winding drive that gradually changed from pavement to gravel to dirt.
At two minutes till six, we pulled up in front of a building marked “Specialty Meats and Hunting Supplies.” There was a battered pickup truck off to one side, but no other cars were in the front lot. In fact, the store looked like it was already closed.
“Are we too late?” I asked, secretly relieved.
Aunt Theresa got out and walked to the door to peer through the glass top. “He said six o’clock—and I see someone moving around.” She pushed on the door and it opened. “Hello?”
As I joined her, a burly man emerged from behind a counter at the back of the store. Though I’d definitely never been here before, he looked vaguely familiar. Maybe I’d seen him in town.
“Miz Truitt,” he exclaimed, looking surprised but not particularly pleased. “I…didn’t know you planned to come out as well.”
“I’m afraid Marsha doesn’t drive yet,” my aunt explained, moving forward. “I’ll be dropping her off at the football game as soon as we finish here.”
Still reluctant, I followed more slowly, gazing around in distaste at the mounted antlers, deer heads and pelts adorning the walls between racks of rifles and archery equipment. Except for the three of us, the store was empty.
“Have the other members of the Homecoming Court already been and gone?” I asked the man.
“Er…”
His hesitation reminded me to focus my emotion-sensing power on him. The second I did, I grabbed my aunt’s arm.
“Let’s go, Aunt Theresa,” I said urgently. “This isn’t—”
Moving with surprising quickness for a man his size, he stepped between us and the outer door. “No. I’m afraid I can’t let you leave just yet…alien.”
Aunt Theresa flinched. I tightened my grip on her arm before she could blurt out anything incriminating.
“What do you mean we can’t leave?” I demanded, careful to sound both outraged and confused. “And what did you just call me?”
“You heard me. Alien.” He turned the lock on the door, never taking his eyes off us. “Maybe you can hide it from everyone else, but not me. I shoulda guessed way back last year there was something inhuman about you—and especially Stuart, that boyfriend of yours.”
I kept my confused look in place, fighting back the growing panic that threatened to cloud my thinking. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr…”
“Farmer. Ted Farmer”
That must be why he looked familiar. “Bryce’s father?”
“That’s right. The one your alien boyfriend cheated out of a college scholarship, stealing his quarterback spot last season. I shoulda believed Bryce when he said there was something odd about the Stuart kid. No human sophomore could’ve played like that. Plus he told me how Stuart knocked him out after a practice last fall…without leaving a mark on him. What did he use, some alien weapon?”
I snorted with all the derision I could muster. “Look, I’m sure Bryce was embarrassed about Rigel knocking him down, what with Bryce being both bigger and older than him. Did Bryce happen to tell you he was bullying me at the time? Rigel blocked him from grabbing me and he slipped on the bleachers, that’s all. There was nothing alien about it, just Bryce being a jerk and Rigel catching him off-guard.”
As I spoke, I moved slowly to one side, pulling Aunt Theresa along with me. I should be a lot faster and maybe even stronger than Mr. Farmer. If we could just get a little closer to the door…
“You can just stop right there, Miss Truitt—or whatever your real name is. I’d rather not have to use this.” Reaching behind him as he spoke, he suddenly produced a wicked-looking handgun that must have been stuck in his back waistband.
“Maybe you’ve got some alien power to stop bullets but I don’t expect your aunt does.” He pointed the gun at her. “Unless you’re one, too, Miz Truitt?”
Aunt Theresa gasped, her terror palpable. “Ted, think about what you’re doing, what you’re saying. You know perfectly well I’ve lived in Jewel all my life. I was born here. So were my parents.” Though I could feel her trembling, she spoke calmly, reasonably.
Eyes narrowing, he huffed out a breath. “But this niece of yours, she’s adopted, right? Nobody knows who her real parents are, that’s what Bryce told me.”
“What, and that makes me an alien?” I tried hard to sound more outraged than scared. “Lots of kids are adopted. Do you think we’re all aliens? That’s just crazy!”
“Don’t call me crazy,” he snapped, his face reddening. “Now, move away from the door, both of you. Go on. That’s right, all the way to the back of the store.”
Keeping hold of Aunt Theresa’s arm, I backed up, not taking my eyes off him—or the gun that was still pointed at my aunt. The burst of frustrated, self-righteous fury I sensed from Mr. Farmer implied he’d been called crazy before—maybe lots of times. I didn’t dare provoke him any further since he was clearly capable of violence. No wonder Bryce had been such a bully. He must have learned it at home.
“I, um, do need to get to the football game, Mr. Farmer.” I tried to speak as reasonably, as calmly, as Aunt Theresa had a moment ago. “My friends will notice if I don’t show up. They knew I was coming here first, so this will be the first place they’ll look.”
That wasn’t true, unfortunately. I hadn’t told Deb why my aunt was driving me because I didn’t want her or Bri to think I was bragging.
“They won’t find you—or hear you yell—even if they do come out here. In there, both of you.” He gestured with the gun toward an enormous steel door behind the back counter.
“Wait, you’re planning to lock us in the freezer?” I let some of my fear show in my voice now, since any normal person would be scared. “Why not just shoot us, if you’re going to kill us anyway?”
“Marsha!” Aunt Theresa hissed warningly.
Mr. Farmer laughed—a really unpleasant laugh. “It’s a cooler, not a freezer. And I don’t plan to kill you. Not before I get my proof, anyways. Once I have that, nobody will care what I do to you. Hell, they’ll probably help.”
“Proof? What proof?” I was genuinely mystified now.
“Tonight’s game. I heard your uncle talking to his buddies at Green’s last night. He said you and Stuart are both aliens and have some kind of weird alien link that gives…superpowers or something. Makes him stronger and faster, anyway.
“I called Bryce when I got home and sure enough, he said Stuart’s worst games last year were when you weren’t there—when you two were broke up. Bryce’s friends at Jewel High say it’s the same this year—Stuart’s playing got a whole lot better after you two got back together. So I decided to conduct a little experiment.”
Aunt Theresa and I exchanged glances. She was close to panic, making me wish I had Dr. Stuart’s power to calm people with my touch. I was afraid any second she might blurt out something he’d really consider proof. So far, it sounded like all he had to go on was what he’d overheard from Uncle Louie. I needed to keep it that way.
“What kind of experiment?” If I kept talking, kept Mr. Farmer talking, maybe my aunt would just listen and not say anything. Besides, the more I knew, the better my chances were of figuring a way out of this.
“You stay here till the game is over. Bryce will let me know if your boy Stuart has an off game. If he does, I got some buddies who’ll help me get the whole truth outta you. Then we’ll have enough to take to the sheriff, the papers, everybody.”
He reached past me to open the meat locker, keeping the gun trained on Aunt Theresa—which kept me from trying anything. My reflexes might be superhuman, but all he had to do was pull that trigger. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really stop bullets.
“Now give me your purses, cell phones and whatever you have in your pockets—‘specially you, missie. Can’t have you calling anybody or using some alien teleportation device to escape.”
Since he had a gun, we didn’t argue, though I really hated giving up my omni. Not only could I have used it to contact someone on the Council to come get us, it would have kept us warm in the meat locker. He took it gingerly, then turned it over in his hand, examining it.
“Truitt’s friends didn’t believe him last night when he claimed this was from Mars—just laughed at him. Lucky for them he didn’t know how to make it zap them, or whatever it does.” He looked questioningly at me.
I shrugged, trying to look amused. “I never heard of anybody getting zapped by a flash drive. That’s all it is. I bought it in Kokomo a couple months ago—I still have the receipt. If you let us go, I can show it to you tomorrow.”
Scowling, he set it on the counter next to our purses, then reached past us to open the steel door. The blast of cold air made my aunt and me both shiver. Desperately, I tried one last time to talk him out of forcing us in there.
“You can’t seriously think anyone will consider a football player having a bad game as evidence of something as bizarre as aliens? That’s just—” I bit back the word “crazy” before it could slip out again.
Even so, his eyes blazed. “I ain’t the only one been worried ’bout an alien invasion, not by a long shot. Everybody knows the government’s been covering alien stuff up since the fifties, probably longer—Area 51 and those FEMA camps and whatnot. We just never had a chance to prove it. You’re going to be my proof, Miss Martian Queen. Inside. Now.”
He stepped back from the open cooler door and motioned again with the gun.
“Ted, please,” Aunt Theresa pleaded. “You can’t possibly—”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” he shouted, practically shoving the gun in her face. “I know what everybody—including you—says about me in town, that I’m nothing but a drunk and a redneck. I can’t wait till the fine people of Jewel find out oh-so-upstanding Theresa Truitt’s been harboring an alien all these years.”
I gently tugged on her arm. “Come on, Aunt Theresa. Maybe he’ll let us go when he doesn’t get that proof he’s hoping for.” At least he wouldn’t be able to shoot us once we were behind the heavy steel door—and I’d have a chance to reach out to Rigel.
“That’s right,” he sneered. “Be a good little Martian and maybe they won’t do anything worse than experiments on you.” His laugh now held a distinctly maniacal edge. “See you after the game.”
He slammed the door shut, plunging us into darkness. A click told me he’d locked it from the outside.
“Oh, Marsha, I’m so sorry I insisted we—” Aunt Theresa began, almost whimpering, but I hushed her.
“Let me listen for a minute, okay?” I heard heavy footfalls retreating, then a cell phone being dialed.
“Hey, Bryce? You at the high school yet? Okay, let me know when you get there. Once the game starts, you can call or text me updates on how it’s going. Yeah, I got her right here. She won’t be able to give Stuart any extra alien powers or whatever tonight. Right. Oh, hey, keep an eye on her friends, too, and let me know if they leave the game early, okay? Yeah.”
There was a beep as he hung up, then the footsteps came closer again. “Hey, you ladies just chill for the next two-three hours, okay?” he called through the door. “Maybe take a nap.” With another insane-sounding laugh he stomped away again and the outer door opened and closed.
We were trapped.