Backyard Aliens Read online

  “And keep it all secret.”

  “Absolutely. For now, anyway. There may be a time down the road when they pretend to find a new species in Africa and let the public find out that way.”

  “A lie,” she said.

  Neil opened the door to the outside world. “I’m guessing. We can go down any path when we don’t know for sure. Truth is, I don’t know what they’ll do. Probably run x-rays, blood tests, you name it.”

  “Experiments?”

  “I hope not, but yeah, they might.” Neil took the lead on the way to the car.

  “We’re just going to leave?” Mavra said.

  “Our job is over,” he said.

  “I get a sense that it’s not. Why do you suppose that is?”

  ***

  The support shell peeled off like skin once the two were fully formed. Noise filled the area around them, stumbling, metal banging against metal, Chit-Chit-ta grasped a section of shell to use as a weapon if he needed to. He uncurled, pushed the shell away from him and rolled to an unthreatening position while he glanced around the room. In their language, he said, “We’re caged. Emerge as though you are innocent, as though you are unsure of your surroundings, until I have time to assess the situation.”

  “I will take my time,” Kek-ta said.

  “Intelligent. Seven. Upright.” Chit-Chit-ta chattered in his own language, offering stats for Kek-ta to assimilate while pretending to be a juvenile.

  “I’ll crawl to the corner,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Chit-Chit-ta held to the piece of shell as he sneaked next to her. “You are beautiful,” he said.

  “You are strong and handsome, as well. But there will be time for exploration of each other once we escape. This chamber is guarded well, and exits are difficult to notice.” Kek-ta felt proud to be with Chit-Chit-ta, and found that she admired both their bodies, even though they appeared to be in a strenuous situation. So far, though, none of the aliens had approached them. They only stood back and watched as they emerged.

  “There,” Chit-Chit-ta said.

  She watched his eyes, which lead her to an opening. Two more beings stepped inside.

  “Simple mechanics will allow us to leave this chamber,” he said. “And this cage isn’t even secured. We wait.”

  “Hold my hand,” Kek-ta said.

  As the other humans approached, Kek-ta observed their movements, the tone of their communications and deduced that they meant no harm. “These two appear different,” she said.

  “Trust none of them,” Chit-Chit-ta said.

  CHAPTER 5

  NEIL DIDN’T HAVE TO ANSWER her question. Her precognitive senses were strong, but her hopefulness could easily have clouded her judgment. If the government made a second call to them, this time for a different reason, he was up for it. But he’d wait until the call came. For Neil, predictions were fine, but he still had to wait for them to come true. Whether or not he knew about something hardly mattered; things either happened or didn’t happen. He reached over and patted Mavra’s thigh. “We’ve got the hotel until later. We could stay another day or two if we wanted. You up for some touristing?”

  “Sure, we can stay for a while. At least until they transport those things out of here. Then it’ll be too late to be involved any longer. I do feel bad for them.”

  “I feel bad for those zoologists, too,” he said with a sly smirk on his face. “They’re dealing with something greater than they can imagine.

  Mavra cocked her head and leaned against the door. “You know something that I don’t?”

  “I’d bet my career that our aliens are much more intelligent than those goons back there think they are. Dr. Bender will be out of his element in no time if he’s expecting those things to act like animals.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Psychologists would be more helpful.”

  “You’re still being vague.”

  Neil looked into his rearview mirror as Jake’s truck pulled from a patch of trees onto the road behind him. “We’re being followed.”

  Mavra turned around in her seat and looked behind them. “What do you suppose they want?”

  Neil shrugged. “We’ll find out.” He gunned the Spree to about seventy and held it there. He took the curves pretty well like that, but Jake’s truck had a harder time with it.

  “You haven’t answered me about those aliens,” Mavra said.

  Neil let his right eye take in her expression of curiosity. “No one appeared to notice how their ears moved, or their eyes.”

  “They twitched. I saw that.”

  “Not quite. They shifted to whoever talked.”

  “Isn’t that normal for any animal?”

  “Not before the person spoke. They appeared to notice who was about to speak next based on who was involved in the conversation. If they were only reacting, they’d have waited until a sound came before turning or looking toward it. Intelligent beings recognize a conversation. I’d like to listen to the word that came from the egg yesterday.” He jerked the car to the left into the hotel parking lot, decelerated quickly, and pulled into an open space.

  Jake pulled in behind him.

  “Let’s see what this is about,” Neil said.

  “Be careful.” She stayed in the car.

  Neil patted his jacket, under which the Glock remained holstered. “I seldom have to use it.”

  Neil noticed right off that Dr. Lesser sat in the back seat of the truck. It had a crew cab. Two of Jakes other friends were with them. All four got out of the truck and walked toward Neil. “They knocked you off the case, too?” Dr. Lesser said.

  “We did our part.” Neil reached toward the doctor in a peaceful gesture.

  “They don’t know what they have there,” Dr. Lesser said as he shook hands with Neil.

  “Do you know?”

  Dr. Lesser’s desperate eyes stayed on Neil as he talked. “We need to study them. They’re old. The egg wasn’t planted here last week. You can’t just take them away once they hatch, even if they are alien life forms. We need to test the shell, too. They’re taking everything. They’re mishandling all this.”

  “They hatched out. They’re not from here,” Neil said. “It’s now in their hands. That’s how the government works.”

  “We don’t know they’re aliens yet. We can’t know anything for sure until all tests are completed,” Lesser said.

  Neil shook his head. “Fine. What do you propose?”

  “We steal it.”

  Jake and the others stood firm. They had already decided. They’d already made their plan, and Dr. Lesser had their full approval.

  “You could get killed,” Neil said.

  “We have to do it.” Lesser nodded and looked around at the others who all nodded with him.

  Neil noticed a slight odor of beer when a breezed blew by. Were they even thinking straight? “What do you want from me?”

  Lesser motioned his jaw toward the car.

  “You want Mavra?” Neil said.

  “I saw what she did. She could get more information out of these aliens than any number of zoologists,” Lesser said.

  “She runs at nearly eighty percent sometimes, but there are no guarantees,” Neil explained. “Plus, we are actually being paid by the people you’ll be stealing these beings from. You’ve got to know we can’t help you do that?”

  “You don’t have to. Just come over and let her help us figure this out. We want to know what she senses. We’ll take it from there.” He shook his head and shuffled his feet as though nervous. “I need a starting point. Can you do that? Will she?”

  “She gave her statement, and it was transcribed. Remember? And still, you stand here and tell me that we don’t know everything we need to know for now? If you didn’t believe her the first time, what’s to say you’ll believe her a second time?”

  “We can plan some tests.”

  Neil scratched his head and glanced at the ground. He got another whiff of beer. “You k
now, I won’t stop you from doing whatever it is you’re about to do. I should, but I won’t. If, and only if, it works out the way you plan, then give us a call. We may be able to meet you. Or, maybe not. Let us think it over.”

  Lesser appeared to relax. “It’s a deal. I know where you’re staying.” He pointed at the hotel sign. “We’ll be in touch.”

  They piled back into the truck and drove out of the lot.

  “You heard that?” Neil said.

  Mavra got out of the car. “Why do you always have to tell people my hit rate?”

  “It’s the truth. I don’t want them believing everything without exploring it first.”

  “You’re as bad as them. Can’t you believe in me?” she said.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Yeah, eighty percent of the time.” Mavra shook her head at him, then turned and lead the way. “What do you think about their plan?”

  “If they get away with it, why not go over? You’d like to know more, wouldn’t you?”

  “What if they’re followed, or surrounded? We could go to jail.” Mavra glanced over her shoulder and scanned the area.

  “As far as the investigation knows, we can tell them that we didn’t know what we were meeting about. Lesser called us and asked to meet up and we said yes. That’s it. Can’t be arrested for that. If they’re followed, they’ll know that we had nothing to do with the robbery.”

  “That’ll be enough?”

  “For Harkins. Look, I’ve worked for these government types for a long time. They don’t need me out of their way. They need me to help them.” He grabbed her hand. “And you. They couldn’t have done what you did.” He winked at her. “Let’s see if they’ve made the room yet.”

  No sooner did they get into the room and Mavra turned into Neil to kiss him, the phone rang.

  “Couldn’t have stolen those things already,” Neil said as he took a few long strides and reached for the phone. “Yeah?”

  One of General Harkin’s men introduced himself and rattled off that the things had escaped. “We need you back here to help find them and capture them. Immediately.” He hung up.

  Mavra waited for Neil to set down the phone. “What now?”

  “Those little monkeys escaped. They were a lot smarter than I thought. Sgt. whoever-it-was didn’t say how they escaped, but they’re gone and we need to help find them.”

  Mavra perked up and hugged Neil in excitement. “Back on the case,” she said. “This I can handle. I know how to find missing people.”

  “Yeah, but usually they’re in one place. Dead. These guys are alive and on the move.”

  She straightened her clothes and pushed her hair back. “I can do it.”

  Neil cocked his head. “You’re the only chance they have short of calling in bloodhounds.”

  “We can’t let them do that.”

  Neil followed Mavra back out the door, down the steps, and out to the car. “Where to? Do you want to go back to the campus or do you have a better place to go?”

  “Back to the campus,” she said. “I need to be in that room again. They have a plan, I just know it.”

  “I’m with you, sweetheart.”

  At the archaeology building, General Harkins appeared calm. “You’d think someone on campus might notice strange little creatures rushing out of the building, but no one—not my men or any of the students—appear to have seen anything unusual.”

  “The kids know?” Neil said.

  “No. We told them a couple of monkeys escaped.” Harkins was serious.

  “Nobody questioned why you had monkeys here? You’ve had military on campus all week and there isn’t a little bit of questioning about what’s going on? You’ve got to be shitting me.” Neil paced around behind Mavra. The whole thing seemed outrageous. The whole town probably knew what was going on, and the military, or at least General Harkins, was oblivious. So where were all the reporters?

  Harkins ignored Neil and focused on Mavra. “We’ve told them about the prehistoric findings and that they are special, but that they are top secret for now. Every paper has already run some small piece about the hammer that was found. There is speculation all over the internet about why it was so large, and if primitive humans were bigger than we may have thought—a small band of giants that died out quickly—that sort of thing. The photos we released were from when we first got hold of the specimen. The monkeys escaping we attributed to some student’s illegal pets. From what I understand, they have all sorts of crazy pets around here, from boas to tarantulas, fish and lizards of all kinds. No one appeared to be overly alarmed.”

  “Unbelievable,” Neil said.

  “Apparently not.” Harkins took Mavra’s hand and led her through the lab and into the storage area. “We have video of them reaching around and unhooking the door as though they knew how it worked. By the time we realized what they were up to, they were out of the cage.” He pointed at an open window.

  The room was filled with men and women dressed in either fatigues or lab coats. There was very little discussion. One young woman held a camera and took several photos. Neil didn’t know what she thought she was photographing, but stepped out of her way when she pointed her camera in his direction.

  Mavra walked over and kneeled near the entrance of the cage.

  “They’re alien to this planet,” Dr. Bender said from a chair in the corner of the room. “We don’t know what diseases they might attract or carry, we don’t know how smart they are, and we don’t know where they might hide: in a tree, a chimney, under a car, or in a car’s engine compartment.” He shook his head.

  Neil jotted down what the man said. All those places were potential hiding places and should be pursued. “Do you need us to leave,” Neil asked his wife.

  She shook her head. “Just some quiet. Please.”

  The room fell silent.

  Mavra reached to touch the cage where the aliens had been held for only a few hours.

  Dr. Bender began to stand. He lifted a pair of rubber gloves from his lap and held them toward her.

  General Harkins waved Bender away. The doctor sat back down, defeated in his attempt to maintain some sense of scientific research in the room. Neil imagined that Lesser wouldn’t have been so passive, and understood now why he wasn’t present.

  Mavra closed her eyes and placed her palm against the cage door over the locking mechanism.

  Neil removed his phone and kneeled next to her. He set it on record.

  “They’re on a mission,” was how she started.

  “To destroy us…” Bender said from his chair.

  Harkins reached toward Bender and snapped his fingers for the man to shut up. Then he pointed at one of the soldiers and indicated with a jerk of his head for the soldier to remove Bender from the room.

  As they shuffled about, Mavra remained quiet for a while. When the room fell silent again, she said, “It’s not just instinct. They may have something implanted that pushes them toward their purpose.”

  Neil wanted to ask what it was? Was it a chip? A biological implant? Something in their brains? But he held the phone and stayed silent.

  “I see houses and apartments together for some reason, and hear the sound of wind. I’m not sure why. It’s not wind like you’d hear it going through trees, but there are trees. I don’t know. Not literally, perhaps.” She fell quiet again. “Those kids. What could those kids offer these aliens? But they’re there. They’ve come to me more than once, the kids. And now traffic signals.” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “You get that?”

  “Yep,” Neil said. He stood up and helped Mavra to her feet. She looked tired. Normal for what she’d done so far in one day. He dropped the phone into his pocket and turned around.

  Harkins had his hand out.

  Neil reached into his shirt pocket and removed the phone. “Can you do this now, so I can have my phone back right away? We’ll need it if we’re going to find these things.”

  “Patches of woods,” Harkin
s said. He turned to a Tech Sergeant next to him. “Get looking for these things. Trees that are near housing developments. There must be groves of them all around.”

  “Yes, sir,” the soldier said before leaving the room.

  He handed Neil’s phone to one of the techs. “Get this back to him pronto.”

  Another “yes, sir,” and that man left the room, too.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Harkins said to Mavra.

  “You might want to search where Bender suggested, just to cover your bases,” Neil said. “Check inside chimneys, under cars…in trees, of course.”

  Mavra smiled at him and then said, “We’ll look for them, too. I sometimes get a sense while I’m in a certain location.”

  “Three men will go with you.” Harkins didn’t have to assign them or give the order, it just happened.

  In the classroom, the tech handed Neil’s phone back to him, and Neil slipped it into his pocket. “Anyone know the area very well?”

  The soldiers shook their heads, but one of the women, a small blonde woman, stepped forward. “I used to live around here when I was in college.”

  “You’re coming with us, then.” Neil glanced at Harkins, who gave his approval before the six of them stepped out of the room and headed down the hall. The three soldiers assigned to Neil and Mavra led the way. Neil suspected they were going to drive separately. But when they got outside, two of the soldiers got into an Army Jeep while the other one waited next to Neil’s car. “Guess I’m driving,” Neil said.

  All three of the soldiers held M-16s, old, but useful semi-automatics.

  Mavra whispered to Neil, “I don’t like the guns.”

  “I’ll deal with it,” he said before they all climbed into the car.

  “I’m Bonnie, by the way.” The young woman sat in the back seat behind Neil and reached to shake hands with Mavra, who turned and welcomed the girl politely.

  “Sgt. Mick James,” the young man in fatigues said. He nodded but didn’t reach to shake hands. He held his machine gun upright with the butt on the floor between his boots and the barrel pointing straight up.