Trespassers: a science-fiction novel Read online

  Recruiting the bounty hunters was a hard sell at first, but Bruner laid out a convincing case. He explained to the bounty hunters, quite logically, that they often had little to go on when tracking a bail jumper, and most of the time it was either the testimony of people who came into contact with the subject or the predicted habits of the subject that led to a capture. In the search for an alien life-form on Earth, these same two factors existed.

  If this logic didn’t sway a prospective bounty hunter, Bruner could always get their attention by sweetening the pitch (i.e., revealing the government-allocated pay rate). The day rate was $125, plus health insurance, life insurance, and dental. That usually didn’t muster even as much as a raised eyebrow. However, Bruner wasn’t done. Far from it. Thanks to the bureaucrats of the US government, agency payrolls were never what they appeared. Each agent of Bruner’s team received hazard pay for each day in the field. This doubled the rate to $250 per day, since every day was considered in the field. Yet, there was still more. For every day outside Washington, DC, operatives received time and a half, on top of the hazard pay. This brought the $250 to $375. This, however, was just the beginning. Any professional operative who served in a part-time capacity was entitled to receive compensation for any work that would be missed as a result of serving.

  At this point in the sales pitch, Bruner certainly had the full attention of the potential operative, and the beginnings of a dry smile usually formed on his face as he explained that the government had chosen not to burden the operatives with calculating how much potential income would be lost. The government just assumed that, since it was willing to pay $375, anyone else would be willing to pay the same. So, the $375 was doubled to $750. That was typically enough to satisfy the average bounty hunter, but they were required to take even more: $95 per day for meals and $90 per day for travel expenses. The travel pay was doubled for any day outside Washington, DC. That’s $935. With this pay package, Bruner could coax almost anyone he wanted onto the team.

  When Bruner targeted a town, quiet waves of specialists would roll in, analyzing everything. Streams of data would begin to pour into the makeshift operations center, which was usually located in hotel rooms or a rented building.

  If there was a single clue out there in the small towns of America, Bruner was going to find it. He took every call and followed every lead. The idea was to pinpoint anomalies and identify trends. To him, it was just as important to debunk the false reports as it was to follow the more genuine leads.

  In his six years in the field, Bruner had investigated over five hundred sites, but all he had to show for his efforts was an artifact that he wore around his neck. He told people it was an arrowhead, but he knew it was something very different. It was made of two metals that had been twisted together. He had performed dozens of tests on the pendant, but he could not match it to any known material on Earth.

  Bruner had trouble admitting it—even to himself—but that pendant was very special to him. He found it at an investigation site, at the base of a thick tree. It captivated him. He spent a moment on his knee, gazing at it, while other researchers scoured the field. For some reason, he felt an overwhelming impulse to conceal this piece from the others. Sensing prying eyes, he slid the artifact into his pocket. Since its discovery, it was never out of his grasp. It took several days before he actually attached a cord to it and put it around his neck.

  Normally, each item that Bruner uncovered found its way into the twenty-by-thirty storage room across from his office. And from time to time, usually when he’s feeling down—or more commonly these days, when he’s feeling down and had a few too many—he would sift nostalgically through its shelves. That pendant, however, never joined the other artifacts. It was something that he just wasn’t going to part with.

  For all his precision and planning, Bruner couldn’t take credit for building the team up to its former robust size. Bruner’s agency owed its success to another man: Harold Stanton. Harold was long gone from the picture now, but he did for Bruner’s agency what he had done for many agencies. He wrangled the funding. Directing the flow of funds that poured out of Washington, DC, was a vocation all to itself. It involved the same old song and dance that had been practiced in every town in the world since shortly after the beginning of time. This should not be confused with the actual noble and forthright rules of the nation, as are found in the US Constitution, nor should it be confused with the honorable principles of the country, as are found in the Declaration of Independence. No, this was something altogether different. It was the professional manipulation of those rules and principles.

  One of the foremost masters of this was the aforementioned Harold Stanton. He was a purist. He wasn’t using his position as a stepping-stone. He shifted the flow of money in Washington because he loved it. The excitement and nonstop action of inside politics was necessary for his mind and body. He shaped beltway politics and made an indelible mark on the granite pillars of Washington. He was directly responsible for allocating the bulk of spending for the United States of America, and he never once appeared on television or in a newspaper—a testament to how he executed his job.

  Before Harold Stanton made his quiet exit from the grand arena, he incorporated Bruner’s pet project into his song-and-dance routine, diverting every penny Bruner dreamed of through an incomprehensible maze of paperwork that could only be kept straight in the mind of someone like Harold Stanton . . . and, truth be told, there was no one else like Harold Stanton.

  Bruner first met Stanton at a Washington bar, not the kind where a person goes to get drunk or throw a line in the water hoping to snag a shag for the evening. It was the kind of bar where one goes to get government funding for a project, because in the nation’s capital, you need a friend on the inside, and that’s exactly where Stanton was. Bruner, however, was not there to get any funding for anything. He wandered into the bar for the wrong reason: to get drunk and throw a line in the water, hoping to snag a shag for the evening. He was struggling with three life-altering events. These events should have been separated by a decade or two, just to allow the appropriate recovery time. Instead, they all hit him at once.

  Those three life-altering events were the following: His wife was on the verge of leaving him. He was teetering on the brink of losing his job. And he was one clumsy step away from bankruptcy. He was in the Bermuda Triangle of life.

  In his stupor, he formulated what seemed like a perfect plan. He would take a few deep breaths, stagger to the nearest bar, and proceed to drink his problems away. Phase two of this plan involved removing his wedding ring and letting be what would be . . . a sort of casual-sex Russian roulette. His wife had two feet out the door, and he couldn’t bear another second of standing on the porch, calling her back. He would have enough dignity to let fate decide.

  Bruner’s meeting with Stanton was purely chance. Had he sat down on a different bar stool that evening, he very probably would have awoken on the floor, next to a hungover, twenty-something Washington intern, surrounded by discarded undergarments. Instead, he awoke with full funding for a project that had been, to that point, simply a good idea that he poked at people from time to time. This time, it turns out, he poked it at the right person. Stanton fell for the idea. It was probably just the challenge of it, but he listened to Bruner’s ranting about the way things should be done, and he turned the concept into a whole new agency, headed by Bruner.

  5

  The Ones Who Got Away

  New Guy pulled the black SUV off the road and parked in a grassy field behind a small wooden building that bore a faded sign reading WAFL 1260 - WAFFLE RADIO. In the passenger’s seat of the SUV, Mindy looked up through the windshield, using Web’s binoculars to admire the alien ship hovering above. She pulled the binoculars down to compare this image with the empty sky she saw with her naked eye. When she lifted the binoculars again, the spaceship was gone.

  “Two five five one,” Web said, in case she had forgotten.

  “I hav
e to put it in again?”

  “Every time you take it away from your face.”

  Mindy pressed in the code with her thumb and returned the binoculars to her eyes. There was the ship again, pushing slowly through the air, settling into its parking spot.

  “Before Stewart joined the Limestone Group,” Web explained, “all the trespass ships used to be taken to a restricted storage facility in Roosevelt, Montana. But Stewart pioneered the concept of using vertical landmarks as holding stations. That saved a whole lot of time and resources.”

  Stewart carefully eased the massive alien ship forward. Out a side window, he watched the red-and-white poles of the broadcast antenna get closer and closer. He pulled the controls into a locked position, and the ship settled into place, next to the tall metal structure. It was one of those skeletal antennas that jabbed at the sky. This particular antenna was attached to a small two-bedroom house that had been converted into an AM radio station, mostly broadcasting syndicated talk shows.

  The ship hung invisibly in the air, halfway up the antenna. It would stay parked there until someone from the agency returned to move it. Antennas and water towers were now the preferred parking spots for quarantined spaceships. These ships weren’t being permanently confiscated. They were just impounded until their owners completed the proper paperwork to reclaim them.

  Stewart checked over the gauges to make sure everything was in order. Five blinking lights in the bottom right corner of the console had been bugging him. They could have been a dozen different things, but he had an uncomfortable suspicion about what they were.

  “Web, did you get any cold energy from the ship on the way over?” he asked.

  Web opened his laptop and began the search. “Give me a second—I’m checking . . . Yeah, four pulses—maybe five.”

  Stewart grimaced. This could be bad. His suspicions were telling him something was dropped from the ship, but he would have to worry about that later. “I’m sending him down.”

  Web grabbed a blanket from the back seat and stepped out of the vehicle. New Guy stepped from the driver’s door and walked around to the passenger’s side, where Web was unfurling the blanket. Mindy watched them stretch the blanket between themselves and stare into the sky, trying to line themselves up with some unseen object. They held the blanket tight, like firemen preparing to catch someone jumping from a burning building . . . only there was no building or person to be seen. Mindy’s curiosity was too great. She stepped out to join them without even considering whether she should stay put.

  “Okay, we’re ready,” Web reported over the radio.

  Mindy was ready, too. She was ready to see this. And she was ready to jump out of the way, if necessary.

  “He’s on his way,” she heard Stewart say over the radio.

  Mindy waited. Then all at once, there it was, falling toward her. She flinched and took a step back before realizing she wasn’t in its path. It was the unconscious trespasser, and he was already falling when he appeared. In her peripheral, she saw Web and New Guy shuffling to get into position. Then she noticed something unexpected—not that anything she had seen so far could have been expected. The body was falling at a slower rate than normal, though it was still too fast to hit the ground without a cushion. She was hit by an overwhelming urge to check for prying eyes. As much as she wanted to watch, she knew others shouldn’t be, so she scanned the area. There was not a spectator in sight. By the time she turned back, he was right overhead. As he struck the blanket, Web groaned, almost collapsing. New Guy picked up the slack and kept Web and their alien from hitting the ground.

  Web chuckled as he righted himself. “We got him.” He turned to Mindy. “Can you get the back door?”

  “Sure.” She moved to the rear of the vehicle, opening the hatch. The back—like any other SUV—was mostly open space with a few supply boxes lining the edges. There was also an overnight bag of Mindy’s that Stewart had recommended she pack. She did another check for prying eyes as New Guy and Web carried the unconscious man and loaded him into the cargo area. He was big, but with some careful folding, he fit. This was Mindy’s first look at an alien. He looked like a man—in every way. She studied the few features that she could see: mostly the side of his face. It was familiar. It was all human. Curled up asleep on the carpet, he looked peaceful, like a friend who had too much to drink. Web stretched the blanket over him and the picture was complete.

  “So, is he okay?” Mindy asked.

  “Yeah.” Web nodded. “He’ll be out for a few hours, but he’s fine.”

  “And he’s human?”

  “Absolutely. Just like you and me,” Web said. “Well, not just like you and me. There are differences—small differences.”

  Mindy noticed a shiny circle that had slipped out of the alien’s pocket. She picked it up and saw that it was a cheap, metal souvenir button with a pin on the back for attaching to clothing. On the front, the words “I VISITED EARTH” were stamped around a rather cartoonish picture of the planet.

  “Is this for real?”

  Web laughed. “He probably gets them from the gift shop just outside the Earth’s atmosphere and sells them to the tourists.”

  Mindy was about to ask Web whether he was serious, when—

  “Are we ready yet?” Stewart’s voice arrived in their ears.

  “Oh, yeah.” Web had somehow forgotten. “Just a minute.” He grabbed the blanket off the sleeping man and scurried back to the landing zone, where New Guy was already waiting.

  “Okay, we’re good,” Web said, as he handed New Guy his half of the blanket. “Go ahe—” Before Web could even get all the words out, Stewart was headed face first toward the Earth. He could see for miles in every direction.

  Centered below him were Web, New Guy, and a blanket. But Stewart didn’t concern himself with the landing, yet. He wanted to soak up the ride for a few moments more. No roller coaster could compare. The aliens certainly perfected the art of ship-to-planet transport, and it was exhilarating. Suddenly, the ride came to an end as Stewart plowed into the blanket and rolled gracefully to his feet—he prided himself on his dismount.

  Six miles away stood a farmhouse, nestled among thick fields of corn and wheat. Stewart and the spaceship had passed over this house en route to the broadcast antenna. If everything had gone perfectly, the farmhouse would have no indication whatsoever of the ship’s presence. However, things did not go perfectly. Stewart’s suspicions were right. Something was dropped from the ship . . . five somethings to be exact: four trespassers and a supply bag. Their names were Dexim, Lyntic, Tobi, and Jin.

  Stewart was to blame for this. He had given the ship a quick looking over, strolling down the halls and poking his head in the rooms, but with Bruner right on their heels, he was distracted. He didn’t give his search enough attention. A sly crew could have hidden from him and secretly deployed as he drove the ship to its parking spot . . . and that’s just what they did.

  Dexim stood from a bed of crumpled cornstalks. The weight of his harsh landing left a trail of bent stalks. He brushed his pants and took a quick assessment. He looked fine. He would pass for an earthling. Every part of his wardrobe was from Earth. Blending in was the first and most important rule in visiting an inhabited planet. You had to blend in.

  Dexim was a natural-born leader, which was obvious to anyone who ever followed him. He had the ability to inspire confidence, and he had the good sense to preserve that confidence. He was also blessed with a full measure of courage, which allowed him a clear mind to focus on solving problems. He was a solid and rugged five foot eight, with black hair and a faint shadow of a beard forming on his jaw. His pale blue eyes were piercing, but thoughtful.

  Dexim took a careful look around the cornfield. It was a good landing site: isolated and blocked from view, but easily passable on foot. He knew that no matter which way they walked, they were bound to encounter a road, or maybe even a house. Dexim’s team had been forced to dash from the ship without time to plan, but they
had gotten lucky. They couldn’t have picked a better spot if they had all day to research it. From behind the shield of the tall cornstalks, they could surveil the area and plan their next move.

  Lyntic and Tobi stood from their own beds of crushed cornstalks. They appeared to be in perfect condition, but Dexim knew that appearances were deceiving, especially in Tobi’s case. Tobi was tall and solid as a rock, with broad shoulders. He, however, was the immediate problem, and it was a big problem. He should be on the ship at this very moment, letting the vaccine course through his body, but he never got that vaccine. This was Tobi’s first time on the blue planet, and it was going to be an interesting introduction. The others knew the clock was ticking. Without the vaccination to give his body a fighting chance, his system would quickly succumb to the onslaught of microscopic organisms.

  Lyntic weaved her way through the cornstalks toward Tobi’s clearing in the field. She was a tall, slender, athletically toned beauty with light-brown hair in a ponytail that swished back and forth across her shoulder blades as she moved. As she reached Tobi, she pulled her shirt off over her head, revealing smooth, delicate skin over perfectly sculpted shoulders and arms, lightly moistened by perspiration. She wore a black bra, the edges tinged with sweat, riding on two perfectly placed breasts, which didn’t need any help to look their best. On this planet, she would easily be mistaken for a European tennis player or a lingerie model . . . or both. Her back arched and her ribcage expanded as she stretched to throw her shirt over Tobi’s head. The sunlight caught the tiny hairs that led down her spine and into her pants.

  The image was striking. It struck Dexim in a completely different way, though, since Lyntic was his sister. She had only been a year and a half older, but she matured much faster, and those taut muscles and broad shoulders had been used countless times to pin him to the floor and make him gasp for mercy while her powerful thighs squeezed the air from his ribs. Now that she was a fully mature woman, half the human population would certainly pass out from delight should they fall victim to her in such a way. Dexim was relieved when he was finally able to match strength with her and turn the tables, pinning her down and tickling her so hard that tears ran down her cheek . . . which was probably another fantasy of half the human population.