Incursion Read online

  Incursion

  The Supernova Cycle Book 1

  Elizabeth McLaughlin

  Kevin McLaughlin

  Copyright © 2020 by Kevin McLaughlin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  To Dad. Thanks for believing in me.

  Elizabeth

  Contents

  1. Alexandra

  2. Alexandra

  3. Alexandra

  4. Alexandra

  5. David

  6. Alexandra

  7. David

  8. David

  9. Alexandra

  10. David

  11. Alexandra

  12. David

  13. Alexandra

  14. David

  15. Alexandra

  16. David

  17. David

  18. Alexandra

  19. Alexandra

  20. David

  21. Alexandra

  22. David

  23. Alexandra

  24. David

  25. Alexandra

  26. David

  27. Alexandra

  28. David

  29. Alexandra

  30. David

  31. David

  32. Alexandra

  33. Alexandra

  34. David

  Elizabeth’s Author Notes

  Kevin’s Author Notes

  Other Books by Kevin McLaughlin

  Introduction

  About the Author

  About the Author

  1

  Alexandra

  Ah, social workers. Geeks to the very last. Dangle a new treatment or diagnosis in front of us and we’re like starving dogs after a steak. Even after getting my doctorate I was still hungry for the new and strange. Leave the mundane cases to other social workers who struggle with learning how to use their iPhones, never mind being up on bleeding edge psychology. My proudest ‘weird’ accomplishment was when I successfully defended a doctoral thesis on clinical lycanthropy and its implications in cultural attitudes and xenophobia. Soon after, I managed to land a professorship in one of the country’s oldest universities where I enjoyed the privilege of making my fellow teachers believe that I was insane.

  The rest of the staff might think I was nuts, and I ate alone in the faculty lounge more often than not. But my classes were always full. I consistently turned out high-performing students and provided clinical supervision for students working in psychopathology internships.

  Despite my fondness for tales best left to Weekly World News, I worked hard to provide the support necessary for properly treating and navigating care for patients with the most complex disorders. The sort of people the medical world had abandoned. The werewolf stuff provided an outlet and an opportunity for inventive therapies, and together my colleagues and I had great success in giving patients peace of mind.

  I had just finished wrapping up a lecture on schizophrenic hallucinations and turned around to see my fan club. They were an ever-changing group of four or five students who stayed after to ask questions. I tried to make my lectures as interesting as possible, and if I ever needed validation that I wasn’t boring my students to sleep in their chairs, this was it. Today’s crop peppered me with questions about the frequent tie-in of biblical and religious figures in hallucinations and the fact that these deities and devils seemed to be a common theme worldwide, regardless of the patient’s country or background. I would have spent another hour with them if I could have, but after fifteen minutes or so I shooed them out the door with promises to e-mail them links to the relevant literature.

  When the last one left, I waited a moment for the click of the door. I loved my job but teaching a few classes a day really took it out of me. My family made good-natured jokes when I first announced my intention to study social work, saying that I was finally taking the initiative to conquer my life-long dislike of other people. They weren’t entirely wrong. I love people, but they exhausted me. I made a habit of keeping that little slice of time between classes sacred for myself. They keep me sane and help me to decompress before the next lecture. I used to smoke between classes but since the campus instituted a no-smoking ban on campus it was too much work to trod outside the grounds and make it back in time, especially during the New England winters.

  Before the door could shut, a large hand stopped it from closing. I rolled my eyes at the intrusion and prepared myself for the worst. If the dean was there to lecture me about how I needed to remain clinically relevant in my coursework again I thought I might experience a little demonic possession of my own.

  The heads of my department kept a sharp eye on me, most of them favoring a more traditional approach. A few colleagues over the years had called for my firing. The rest simply avoided me as much as possible. One or two are friendly, though, and I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible to keep them from catching flak-by-association. The dean usually avoided me, but he seemed to take special pleasure in finding little ways to keep me on my toes.

  Instead of the pudgy middle-aged man I expected, a refrigerator sized monster of a man clad in a black suit and a military buzz cut stepped inside. Rigid. Military, or ex-military. Fucking huge. No gun. Not threatened. I mean, why would he be? There wasn’t a human alive who could even touch this guy without a lot of bullets at their disposal.

  “Are you Ms. King?” the mountain of a man asked.

  Ms? “It’s Dr. King, actually.” I earned that title, he’d better use it. But I feel less confident with each footstep he took toward me. If he looked huge when he stepped into the room, he seemed gargantuan as he got closer. By the time he was within arm’s reach of me I realized that I had to look up to talk to him. I was over six feet tall myself. This guy was a hulk!

  I steeled myself to speak with the Mountain. “And you are?”

  “Are you the woman who published the essay titled Xenopsychological Perspectives on Theoretical First Contact?” The refrigerator had a tired voice, not in a weary way but as if this task was beneath him.

  “Yes,” I say. I felt in my pocket for my phone and contemplated placing a call to security. If there wasn’t a very good reason for this guy being there, I wanted him gone. Even I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could get out of the room with him standing between me and the door.

  The man smiled. Oh good. Mountain man was either a conspiracy nut or the dean had finally called in someone to drag me out of the university and deposit me into a nice padded room for my ‘quirks.’ I enjoyed that putting together that paper, even though it probably did more to hurt my career than help. I was damned proud of it. The paper was an odd one: a study on something that hadn’t happened yet. Despite our looking, we hadn’t yet run into intelligent life on planets other than Earth.

  At the rate humanity was going, I figured the paper might come in handy sooner rather than later. We had found bacteria on Mars over a decade ago and several prominent agencies had claimed to receive radio signals from places too far away to be related to our spacecraft. No little green men had appeared yet, but my paper went over some solid possibilities.

  “Who are you?” I asked. He still hadn’t answered me. “Actually, I have a class to get ready for. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to leave.”

  “No such agency,” came a voice from the back of the room. A woman walked down the aisle toward me. When she reached me she held her hand out to shake mine. I star
ed. She stood a good six inches shorter than me, her hair in a chestnut brown bob. She wore a flawless white blouse and a pencil skirt. Heels, but sensible ones. Unremarkable, cookie cutter department store outfit. No jewelry. I was fully expecting her to introduce herself as the mountain’s secretary or something. This mousy little woman couldn’t possibly be important as the massive jarhead standing behind her.

  She met with my eyes with a little smile, as if expecting me to laugh at the overused joke. I didn’t. Her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Dr. King, I need you to come with us. Please.”

  Fuck no, I thought. “Could I see some ID? Yours. Not his. He stays back there.” I glanced toward the man who was now behind his colleague, silent and still as a statue.

  The woman took out her badge and flashed it at me. I didn’t catch her name, but the badge looked legitimate enough. Agent Something-or-Other with the National Security Agency. Fantastic.

  “Why do you need me to come with you?” I knew that my computer’s search history probably had raised a few eyebrows with the government but it’s not like I’d done anything illegal. Well, not in a few years, but the statute of limitations was up on those. Maybe one of my papers had been misconstrued. Maybe I had pissed someone off, someone high up. We were suffering from an outbreak of ignorance and racism that seemed to get worse every year. Some people didn’t like that I made a point of encouraging my students to get involved with LGBTQ rights and serving people of color. This was one social worker stereotype that held true for me. One of my former students was even elected to Congress and was battling for a change to Title IX that would cover minority groups the initial law didn’t protect. Throughout my years in practice and in academia I had been confronted with everything from accusations of being an instrument of Satan to death threats. After a particularly nasty brush with a stalker, I decided I wouldn’t allow myself to be scared out of the field. Mental health professionals filled the gaps where physicians and nurses couldn’t. It was our responsibility to lift up the people the system ignored and our personal beliefs did not matter. It was the job.

  “Please,” the woman said. “Time is of the essence.” She tapped her foot insistently on the floor, nervousness creeping through her otherwise professional demeanor.

  “And if I don't want to go with you?”

  The woman jerked her thumb at her hulking colleague. “I’m afraid that is what he’s here for. I’d rather not take that route if it can be helped, but I won’t ask again.”

  I looked from her to him and to the door. The woman caught the flickering of my eyes and sighed. “I promise you, that really won’t work. We have agents surrounding the building. Let’s go.”

  I cursed mentally, starting to feel a little panicked. “Let me at least gather my things,” I said.

  “That really won’t be necessary. John,” the woman nodded toward her giant associate, “will gather them for you.” She stepped toward me. “I need to pat you down.”

  “Look, I’m all for a bit of friendliness but surely you don’t think I’m packing heat in a classroom?” I wasn’t keen on her taking my phone, which I had a feeling she’d do. I remembered what my Dad said when I was just a teenager. “Never fuck with the government, Alex. They’re bigger, they’re stronger, and they sure as shit don’t care about what you think.”

  Back then the government had just instituted the first sweeping violations of the Constitution, passing legislation that permitted agencies like the National Security Agency to tap phone lines, review e-mails, keep records of internet use, and build profiles on every American citizen. We were indoctrinated into believing that losing some freedoms was better than dying in a terrorist attack.

  Dad knew all about how the government operated. He’d spent six years in the Marine Corps, narrowly avoiding being shipped off to war by a sympathetic drill instructor.

  Keep your head down.

  Yes sir, yes ma’am.

  Then you get the hell out of there, first chance you can.

  “I’m afraid it’s my job, Doctor. Do you have anything on you that might be sharp or poke a hole in me?” The woman snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves.

  I shook my head, not appreciate the sarcasm in her tone. Who did these people think I was, a social worker turned spy? Secret drug runner for the rich and privileged? I rolled my eyes and spread my arms and legs, TSA style.

  The woman started with my arms, patting along the sleeves. She made me unbutton the cuffs of my shirt and brushed her fingers under my wrists. Looking under my collar, she paused at my necklace, a jade carving I had received as a gift from a mentor while studying in New Zealand for my Master’s. She handled it delicately, turning it over to ensure what, that I wasn’t hiding anthrax under it? These government types were so overcautious. I suppose it came with the territory.

  Next came the chest, waistline, and the legs of my jeans. She told me to lift my cuffs while she searched. Then my mid-calf leather boots had to come off as well. I’d discovered that most men – and a fair number of women – paid more attention in class whenever I wore them, so they were my go-to footwear. She turned them over, then swiped her fingers underneath the tongues. She handed them back and I pulled them back on, doing my best with the laces while standing.

  The woman nodded to John. He seemed to relax a fraction of an inch. I tried to reassure myself the government goons if they wanted me dead or in a straight-jacket, I would be already. Seeing as I had no choice, I might as well go quietly. I had no idea what the hell the government wanted with a social worker, especially one who spent her career dedicated to the stranger parts of psychology. What could they possibly be after? Maybe they wanted me to look into the motivations of suicide bombers, or to pull a Minority Report on suspicious foreign agents. Just so long as I didn’t end up trapped in a room and being fed terrorist profiles in hopes of predicting their next move. My patience only went so far.

  John shoveled my things into my briefcase. I winced as my brand new laptop clunked against the chair as he shoved it in. I didn’t think that the government would shell out for any repairs.

  I turned toward the female agent and cocked my head toward the door. “Let’s go already.”

  She smirked, then motioned for John to lead the way. He took my briefcase and set out through the door. We were off – to where, I still didn’t know.

  2

  Alexandra

  I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked through the building. It was study period. Most of the students would be lounging around in the library or sipping overpriced coffee in the campus cafe. I really didn’t want to feature on anyone’s Snapchat or Instagram story. If photos or video surfaced of me being led outside by government agents, I could kiss my professorship goodbye, never mind getting tenure.

  As we neared the outer doors of the building I felt a change in the air pressure. The woman pushed the door open and my hair was blown back by a sudden wind. A helicopter sat a short walk from the academic building, big rotors whirling. I froze in place, stunned by the deafening noise. The woman took my arm and gently tugged me toward the aircraft. I was going in there? Shit!

  A large Humvee was parked a little ways behind it, no doubt housing more agents to “help me along” if I balked at taking a ride with them. The grass around the chopper was blown flat as the blades blasted air downwards. Men in dark suits surrounded the open doors and a young soldier carrying a rifle stood speaking to one of Big Brother’s men. He seemed new to me, but trying to look like he wasn’t. He fidgeted with the gun and flicked his gaze about the area. Scanning for trouble? He sure was nervous. Whatever was going on was a big deal. At the sight of us, the soldier straightened and headed around the other side of the helicopter.

  I looked at the agents. “Seriously?” I had to shout to be heard.

  The woman didn’t burn out her voice trying to respond. She just jerked her head toward the helicopter. Thank god I didn’t believe in heels. I stepped on the helicopter’s landing skids and took th
e hand of the sympathetic looking young soldier who’d climbed in before us. As I was about to step in, my vision was struck by a strange glint on the metal of the helicopter. Looking up, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Where there should have been only the afternoon sun getting ready to slide down behind the hills, I saw two stars. I took off my glasses and blinked. Two suns. One was a different color than the other, the second a tinge of bright blue that stood out from the rest of the sky because of its sheer luminosity.

  That can’t be good, I thought. When did this happen? People weren’t panicking, so it was unlikely that this was the end of the world. But a glance back at Mr. Mountain and his female associate from the NSA told me that this was new to them, too. Had this new light just appeared in the sky while they were in collecting me? How was it connected to their arrival? I didn’t believe in coincidences.

  It made me uneasy to see something so strange up in the sky. Our DNA has been used to the same thing for millennia and when you change it even a little bit, the primal urge to run back to our caves and hope we don’t die creeps in.

  Before I could examine the suns further, the soldier pulled insistently on my arm and guided me into a helicopter seat. He grasped the straps of the safety harness and started to pull them down to buckle me in but stopped at my look.