Charged - Book One Page 7

  “Put the gun away,” Aaron said. I looked at him in disbelief that he was so calm. No one could be calm in this situation. I lowered my arm, because there was nothing to aim at for the moment, but I didn’t put the Magnum back in the holster. I was going to chastise Aaron for his foolish idea that we were okay, but a series of doors banged again somewhere in the distance. Then the creature reappeared, moving slower and more gracefully towards the center of the large dome, stopping ten feet from us.

  “Thank you. Please follow me. You look tired and we have living quarters here for your size,” it said.

  The creature walked a few feet and then stopped. No, we weren’t moving. We weren’t following anyone or anything.

  “I don’t know how to make you feel more comfortable.”

  I still wasn’t moving. My feet had grown roots and I wasn’t about to dig them up. I looked at Aaron and he shrugged his shoulders at me and walked toward the creature.

  “Damn,” I said, forcing my feet and legs to move. It wasn’t like I could leave Aaron alone.

  I followed Aaron, finding it impossible not to limp, never taking my eyes off of the creature. He walked ahead of us slowly. I gripped my gun tightly and nothing was going to take it out of my hand.

  First, we passed through a smaller garden with several fountains. The walls were all encased in what appeared to be a dark, shiny metal with overhead lighting. The low blue light was identical to the light in the elevator and in the first large garden. We followed him down three long hallways before he finally stopped. He opened a door and led us into a room that reminded me of a three-room hotel suite that I once stayed in.

  “Lighting for humans,” he said, as he covered his eyes.

  But there wasn’t an actual light that turned on. It was more like the entire ceiling emitted a bright yellow light. Seeing him more clearly just made all of the muscles in my body contract and I could feel the adrenaline pumping through me.

  Behind the skin of his face and hands I could see the spiral veins moving slowly. The circular things were moving in various directions. It was almost as if its skin was only a thick plastic mold holding a jelly-like being into a humanoid form. If it weren’t for the eyes that were clearly attached to the skin, I would have believed this to be true.

  “You can get some rest here. It has everything you need for the night,” it said, closing its eyes for a moment. “A covert will get you in the morning. If you need anything, just press the ‘call’ option on this screen and someone will come to your suite and get you what you need,” he finished, pointing to the wall next to the door.

  I could’ve blown it away. I could’ve simply put the revolver right up to its head and pulled the trigger, even though I wasn’t sure if my gun would injure it. The only thing stopping me… was that I couldn’t kill something that wasn’t trying to kill me.

  Then the creature started to slouch, as if the light in the room was affecting him.

  “This is a liquid anesthetic,” it said, retrieving a small glass bottle out of its suit pocket. It wasn’t that the bottle was small; it’s just that its hands were enormous and would’ve miniaturized anything they touched. Its five fingers and two thumbs gripped the bottle lightly.

  “Apply it to your knee with a towel,” it said, handing me the bottle with the clear liquid in it, “and it will keep the pain away until Jessica can fix it in the morning.”

  Not really caring who or what Jessica was, with a trembling hand I reached for the bottle. As I grabbed the base of it, trying not to touch the creature, I noticed five of its fingers had one more joint than the human hand. It then turned and left the room. And the feeling of being miniaturized, dwarfed and insignificant lingered.

  After he left, Aaron and I just stood there for a moment. Slowly, I limped over to a chair next to a table and started to wonder if I was actually here, or if I was in some mental hospital and it was just my brain creating some delusional world from some traumatic injury.

  Aaron paced a little in front of me, “denial, fear, acceptance… where you at?”

  “Denial.”

  CHAPTER 19

  THIS WASN’T HAPPENING. This couldn’t be happening. I placed the gun on the table next to me and wiped my sweaty palm on my jeans.

  “I knew it,” Aaron said, confidently.

  “You knew what?” My tone indicated I wasn’t fully present. All I could see in my head was that thing, that monstrous thing with giant hands. There was no way that was an experiment and I almost couldn’t say the word in my head. Its slit-like eyes resembled every sci-fi book cover I read as a kid. Just say it! I thought. I closed my eyes for a moment. Alien. My breathing was shallow and I started to feel nauseous.

  “I knew it was something else, something unusual and I knew it was here. See, I had a theory about the box. How does something glow without power? Well, it has to be alive. That was the only logical explanation.”

  Of course, he did not share this theory with me until now.

  “I hate to bust your balls, Aaron, but we’re dead men.”

  He totally ignored my comment and he actually looked excited.

  “This is too good to be true!” he said, snatching the bottle from my hand and now I was disturbed by his excitement. This wasn’t the Aaron I knew. Aaron was analytical. He wasn’t processing the situation. It was almost like he was basking in it. I let a scowl slide over my face. But then I realized this was what he was expecting. This was what he was hoping to find.

  “Are you kidding me!” I said, rubbing my forehead. “There are only a few reasons why they would even be here! And they are hiding underground from us. I don’t think they’re friendly, or they wouldn’t be hiding from us! Why don’t they make themselves known to the human race? They are sitting down here, watching us, waiting for the right time. And in case you had forgotten, Richie still has his head sliced open. Who do you think did that?” I was shocked at Aaron, glaring at him as he paced back and forth.

  “You’re a cop. It’s in your nature to be suspicious of everything and go ahead and do that, but it’s not changing how I feel about it.”

  Now he was just pissing me off, but I was in too much pain to argue. I needed him to be rational now, methodical. I wasn’t anticipating this. I had no plan and it just made it worse that Aaron was oblivious to our capture. I would have to be on guard for the both of us for now. What was I thinking bringing a kid down here with me? But it only took a second for me to remember — he dragged me down here.

  “Lew, think of it this way. Everything we saw in that garden, if you want to call it a garden, is bioluminescent.”

  I shook my head lightly while closing my eyes, thinking I could just shake the image of the creature right out of my head. To Aaron, this meant I didn’t understand and he continued.

  “It’s cold light. Everything in that garden creates its own light. Just like the wires in the box, like the eyes of that creature we just saw. Most of the species we have on Earth that are like this are aquatic and live so deep in the ocean that they had to create their own light via millions of years of evolution. Like jellyfish, squids, certain clams, krill… but on land, there’s fireflies, mushrooms, fungi and that’s about it. Nothing like what we just saw, nothing like a whole garden of bioluminescent plant life. Don’t have tunnel vision right now; open your mind. Imagine the possibilities of new chemicals, new elements and a non-carbon-based entity. There are ninety-eight chemical elements that occur naturally on Earth; the rest are synthetic. So the only thing that’s going to make that list expand is us bashing them together in a particle accelerator praying they stick or finding extraterrestrial life.”

  Okay, now I wasn’t following him. I partially heard what Aaron was saying, but I couldn’t think beyond our own confinement. Even if this thing didn’t kill us, it wasn’t going to let us leave. So apparently we were trapped and Aaron couldn’t be happier. And I knew that nothing I said would change his mind. I was exhausted and finally looked at Aaron.

  “You�
�re enjoying this a little too much.”

  “It’s a mere difference of stress management. Why don’t you use this? You look like you’re in a lot of pain,” he said, handing me the glass bottle.

  “Are you nuts? God only knows what that is!”

  He grabbed the bottle and a towel from the tiny bathroom, poured some of the liquid on it and then applied it to his wrist.

  “You are a moron,” I said, truly believing his hand would shrivel up and fall off.

  “If they wanted us dead, we would be,” he said.

  “I’m not so worried about a quick death. I think I’m more worried about mind control, probing and just basically being dissected.”

  “That’s not logical. If they wanted to dissect us, they probably already did that thousands of years ago. The ancient Pueblo people that lived in this canyon said they saw monstrous spirits with glowing eyes that came up from out of nowhere in the canyon.”

  I was trying to listen to him, but the pain in my knee shuddered through my body and I let out a low groan as I rubbed my forehead.

  “Just use this,” he said, handing me the towel after he poured more of the liquid on it. “I hurt my wrist when we hit the ground, trying not to land on you and now it doesn’t hurt at all.”

  All of my instincts said not to use it, but my leg felt like it was partially blown off for the second time. They could’ve taken the box from us any time if they really wanted. Something told me that they, or it was trying to be civilized. So anything was possible at this juncture and I wouldn’t let my fear control my actions.

  I rolled up my left pant leg and put the towel on my swollen, purple knee. The knee looked bad, like something had shifted out of place under the muscles.

  “Damn! Why didn’t you say something earlier? That looks pretty bad.”

  “I did, but you were too excited about blowing up Mars,” I grunted back at him.

  It wasn’t more than a few seconds before the pain had completely stopped. This was unbelievable. All of my contracted muscles started to relax and I could feel my blood pressure slowly dropping.

  As I sat back, I started to take in my surroundings. The room just looked wrong. It was a sad attempt really. The steel walls and floors just didn’t blend with the furniture. It felt like we were inside a tin can. The back wall was curved and there was a blue beam of light that ran down it slowly from top to bottom. It almost looked electrified and I could only guess at its purpose.

  But the small kitchen area did have a full-size fridge and Aaron grabbed some ice cubes from the freezer section and put a handful of cubes in a kitchen towel hanging from the sink. After wetting it down a little, he handed it to me. Carefully, I propped up my leg on the chair across from me and balanced the towel on it.

  “You will let Jessica treat you in the morning!”

  For a moment, he almost seemed enraged at my actions. This was a crazy thought. There was no way I was going to let some alien mess with my knee, but what were my choices really? I could always go back to Seattle and deal with the FBI and some felony charges. Nope, not a lot of choices. I was too drained to argue about it. He seemed too relaxed a little and that look of amazement reappeared on his face.

  “Did you see the way the light in this room affected him?”

  “Yeah, do you think this room is bugged?”

  “Most definitely,” he said.

  Aaron then checked the door. “It’s locked.”

  “Of course, it’s locked. Like they’re just going to let you roam around the place, take a few pictures, upload them on YouTube.” My sarcasm was evident to him now. He checked his phone and I could tell he was not getting any signal down here and then he checked mine; same thing. This didn’t seem to alarm him.

  “Lew, you didn’t really think we were the only ones in the universe did you? Out of all the galaxies, star systems, it’s really just us? This is a chance of a lifetime,” he said, looking at me like he expected more of me.

  That last time he said this, he shoved me out of a plane. So calmly, I responded, “then why does it feel like it’s the last opportunity of my lifetime?”

  “Like most, you fear the unknown,” he responded.

  “And what happens when we find out that humans are their food?” I put this question out there because it was a possibility.

  “Some of the bioluminescent creatures we have on Earth don’t eat meat.”

  It was kind of eerie the way he used the word, “some,” instead of most.

  CHAPTER 20

  “GOOD MORNING, MR. KEGAN,” said a soft, young voice.

  In less than half a second, I shifted from a semi-unconscious state to a fully alert physical state. My body was in full motion as I aimed the revolver at the woman sitting at the little table in the tiny kitchen area. I was in one of the queen beds in the suite, but I didn’t remember climbing into one. The clarity of my mind rushed slightly behind my own movements. Nothing was a dream; it was all real, including the thing that we gave the box to. We’d fallen asleep. I don’t know how, but we did. I blamed the small glass bottle that the creature had given us; there had to be something in it.

  Before my eyes could focus, I recognized her voice. It was Kye. Something inside of me told me to put the revolver down. And even though it was against my untrusting nature, I listened to it. I lowered my gun and put it back in my shoulder holster, which I was still wearing. Slowly, I limped toward the coffee she’d brought in on a tray. I wasn’t expecting Kye to be here, not down here with these things.

  “Not a morning person?”

  “So this is who you work for?” I said, ignoring her previous question. “Why didn’t you meet me at the café?”

  “I ran into Marie Stakes and some of her guy friends. Sorry. I thought if they caught up to me, they had already caught up to you, but I’m glad to see that wasn’t the case. Thank you for returning the box and I’m sorry about Danel. He’s not exactly fond of humans.”

  I sat there rubbing my eyes for a moment, then I sat down next to her at the little table.

  “You know, you didn’t have to skydive out here. We have other means of transportation,” she said, smiling.

  I closed my eyes and then opened them again, trying to clear my vision, but there was nothing wrong with my vision; something was wrong with Kye.

  Without thinking, I grabbed her hand off the small table, put it in mine and looked at her skin. She wasn’t alarmed by my actions and just let her thin hand sit in mine. Her skin was also slightly transparent and grayish and her eyes were glowing gold like the creature I saw last night. Besides those things, she appeared human. I let a sigh escape me and the disappointment was obvious.

  “Did they do this to you?”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer. I became angry at the thought of something so beautiful being tested on, like a guinea pig. I stroked the back of her hand once with my thumb.

  “No, no one did this to me. I was born this way.”

  “You’re one of them,” I said, knowing that she had some kind of makeup on and probably contacts when we first met in Richie’s place.

  “I’m one of their children,” she answered.

  “And I thought you were one of us.”

  “Genetically, we have a lot of similarities. I just look a little different. Do I look so different?” she said, trying to reassure me.

  “Honey, I can see right through your skin.”

  “Well, there’s not much I can do about that,” she said, pulling her hand away from mine.

  “How’s the knee?”

  I realized I’d approached the subject in the wrong way. I still thought she was beautiful; why didn’t I just tell her that? This initial thought of mine startled me. I frowned at myself. She wasn’t even human. Immediately, I threw my wall back up. I didn’t even know what they intended to do with us. But she seemed sad and it pulled at me. I wanted to help her. She looked at me for a while and I could see tenderness in her eyes.

  “Starting to
hurt again. And you didn’t have to drug us.” I was slightly angered by the deception.

  “That bottle was meant just for you. Aaron wasn’t in any pain. Well, none that he couldn’t tolerate. Get a shower and I’ll be back in twenty minutes to take you to Jessica.”

  “Jessica…she’s your physician?” I said.

  “She’s better than any doctor you’ve ever seen.”

  “That means she’s not human, doesn’t it?”

  Without answering, which meant “yes,” she got up to leave.

  I hung my head, slightly shaking it. Somehow things were more real when she was present. Why did it make me feel more comfortable that she was here? And she didn’t look like she was one of their children, not at all. I could only imagine what they did to her. Maybe she couldn’t remember. I tried to reassure myself that everything would be okay.

  Aaron was still sleeping in the bed next to mine. After a moment, I tried to wake him, but he was really out and I couldn’t wake him up. This concerned me a little, but he had all the normal signs of life. I bolted the suite door from the inside and hobbled to the shower. The pain in my knee was slowly creeping in again and I was hoping the heat would soothe the pain.

  The shower took me a few minutes to figure out. When I walked into the small bathroom, there was just a toilet and nothing else. To the right side of the room was an empty square section. I assumed it was the shower stall but there wasn’t a faucet just multiple holes in the ceiling. There was a basket of toiletries and three black buttons on the wall. I pushed the first one and some kind of fan turned on but I couldn’t see it, I only heard it. Then I pushed the next button. The floor next to the toilet lowered about four inches and the lined seams pulled back making the floor look grated. The last button activated the holes in the ceiling and water streamed out of them. I put my hand in the water because there was no way to adjust the temperature, but it felt perfectly warm. It didn’t occur to me that there weren’t any towels until I was done showering. When I hit the button to turn off the water, the water stopped and huge gusts of warm air blew in from the holes in the ceiling and the grate below me. It blow dried my entire body in one minute flat.