Trespassers: a science-fiction novel Read online

  Reality washed back into Jin’s consciousness. Reality was a duffle bag filled with supplies. He could picture it resting in an open field somewhere, waiting to be picked up. He could also picture the worst-case scenario: that it landed in the back of a truck that was now transporting it across the country, the driver mistaking the jolt of the hard landing for a pothole in the road. There were plenty of other bad possibilities, but Jin quickly tired of pondering them. He just needed to start looking.

  Jin had a good sense of direction. He started walking, remembering to blend in. He knew the bag was released before him, traveling along the same path. The bag was lighter, so he figured it probably landed about the same time he did. He nodded to himself, agreeing with his assessment. He now had an image of where the bag should be.

  As Jin turned off Main Street and walked one block to the east, the vibrant shops were replaced by old, mostly abandoned buildings, with a few ground-level businesses. Jin stood on the sidewalk, about where he expected the bag to be. Glass crunched under his feet. Looking up, he saw a broken second-story window, with a hole about the size of a duffle bag.

  Inside a bistro that inhabited the building’s front corner, a tall, thin hostess leaned against her oversized stand. Her long, brown hair collected on the pages of a magazine that soaked up her boredom, as her fingers flirted with turning the page. The restaurant was about half full, and apparently none of the guests needed her attention.

  Jin walked through the front door, which announced him with a metallic jingle. The hostess’s head slowly lifted. Mustering all the composure he could, Jin delivered an over rehearsed line. “I’m . . . meeting . . . someone,” he softly announced, with all the grace of a person who just landed in the country twenty-seven minutes ago.

  Even though he tested very high in English communication and could speak fluently with his colleagues, the prospect of speaking to an actual earthling was a bit much. He was certain that each word would give him away.

  The hostess waved him in and returned to her magazine. Jin walked by her without a bit of suspicion. As he made his way to the back of the room, he scanned over the patrons. None of them pointed in amazement at the alien.

  He made a quick assessment of the building’s layout and headed for a small door near the back, which led to a stairwell. Ascending the bare wooden staircase, he navigated around a young couple who sat on the third step, too engaged in an adolescent lip-lock to notice him. The boy was on a break from washing dishes. The girl, who had his break times memorized, was visiting from her post at the nearby laundromat. She held the loose apron that hung from his waist as they kissed. As Jin hugged the wall to climb past them, he realized that human apathy would go a long way to help him blend in.

  On the second floor, Jin made his way down the dusty hallway. He stopped at what felt like the right door and tried the badly worn knob. It didn’t turn, but the door itself felt loose in the frame, so he gave it a push. It gave way and crashed to the ground before Jin could stop it. It landed hard, kicking up a cloud of dust. As the dust settled, Jin saw what he was looking for: the supply bag, sitting on the floor in a bed of broken glass. Any earthling would guess that the light-brown bag was made of a high-quality leather, but it was actually a material called nawmas (pronounced NAH-mus). It was porous, with microscopic dimples across its surface, and it was so slick that it almost felt wet. Running your fingers across the fabric could be quite addictive, but Jin was not here for such tactile pleasures. He lifted the bag from its landing zone and headed back through the doorway.

  In Jin’s careful grip the bag glided over the young couple, who were in the same position as before, eyes closed, lips locked, but a bit sweatier this time. The girl’s hands were now locked around the boy’s apron, which she had subconsciously rolled into a phallic shape—no need to consult Freud on this one.

  Back in the restaurant, Jin made his way to the front entrance, where the doors opened for him as he arrived, courtesy of two patrons entering at that very moment.

  The supply bag was a major breach of protocol. To the casual observer, it would look like any other top-of-the-line bag, but to the trained eye, it was a blazing four-alarm fire of conspicuousness. Under ordinary circumstances, such a breach of protocol would never be allowed. Tobi should have switched the contents to the proper bag . . . or maybe that was Lyntic’s job. Either way, a perfectly suitable Samsonite duffle was left behind on the ship, waiting to be filled with the mission’s supplies. Thanks to Stewart’s unannounced hostile takeover, there was only time to grab the nawmas bag and dive head first to the planet below.

  Jin set the bag down beside a Post Office drop box. Hunching over the bag to conceal it, he inspected the contents. The second-most-important thing inside that bag at this moment was a white hand-held box about the size of an iPhone. It appeared to be undamaged. He hit a button, and the display screen came to life. It was a tracking device that would lead him to the others.

  He dropped it back in the bag and felt around for the most important item, which was roughly the size of a first-aid kit. Lifting it from the bag, he saw that it was unharmed. There was no surprise that it made it through the rough landing. Like most of the items in the bag, it was made for work in the field. This was good news for Tobi, because this was an emergency field-immunization kit, and it was going to save Tobi’s life.

  Suddenly a shadow appeared over Jin’s shoulder, and a voice came with it. “Is there a problem?” Jin shoved the kit back into the bag and turned to see the silhouette of a man in uniform standing over him. Jin rose to face the man, his mind racing. He recognized the blue uniform. This was a cop. And he was asking questions. Jin wondered whether he had given himself away. He wondered whether he looked suspicious. Jin’s eyes glanced just above the cop’s head to see the broken window. Now, the cop pointed at the duffle. “Your bag sir.”

  This was it. A plan sprang into Jin’s mind: grab his throat; sweep his legs; force him down to the pavement; jam a knee in his diaphragm. At the last second, Jin forced this horrible plan out of his mind. He would have to come up with something better. He tried hard to recall the training. Suddenly it came to him.

  “What seems to be the problem, officer?” Jin delivered the line just the way he had practiced in orientation.

  The cop pointed again. “Can you move your bag, so I can get in there?”

  Jin looked to the bag. Now the logo on the side of the drop box was painfully obvious: a blue-and-white eagle’s head above the words UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE. Jin didn’t know why he hadn’t put it together before. The man’s uniform had the same eagle’s head embroidered above the pocket. This wasn’t a cop. This was a mail carrier. With a sigh of relief, Jin grabbed the bag.

  “Sure,” Jin said.

  7

  Pioneer Post

  On the outskirts of town, a small bar was just opening for early-afternoon business. A large, faded wooden sign on the roof read, Pioneer Post. The evening rush had not yet begun; only three cars sat in the worn parking lot.

  Inside the bar, Bruner sat at the counter, a chilled glass of Dewar’s Scotch Whiskey in front of him. He slowly twisted the glass around on the bar, watching the condensation stretch out into long curved lines on the hardwood, trying to decide whether he would drink it.

  Actually, he had already decided not to drink it. He made that decision long ago, this morning sometime. Yet, he still drove to this bar.

  His hand continued to ratchet the glass around in a slow circle. He stared down into the faint-brown liquid. If he stared at it long enough, he could make the color disappear completely. But it wasn’t the color of the whiskey that he was trying to make disappear.

  Bruner felt he was steadily drifting away from his life. As days and months went by, it got farther away. To him, it felt like driving down a long off-ramp, watching the main road of his life getting farther and farther away. He wanted to stay on that main road. Instead, he was fading off and slowing to an inevitable stop.

  H
e should be thrilled now. But for some reason he wasn’t. He had stumbled across a breakthrough, today—the kind that only comes along every few years. A license plate from the park this morning brought back matches from two previous sites. It had been standard practice to collect information from each investigation site, including vehicle tag numbers. The plate traced back to Stewart Faulkner, an agent for the Limestone Deposit Survey Group—a federal agency.

  What do aliens have to do with limestone deposits? Are aliens attracted to limestone? Do they use limestone for some purpose? Bruner had never seen a limestone connection before, but he was never looking for it. He mulled this over as he pushed his glass around on the bar. He would love to interview this Agent Stewart Faulkner. Perhaps Stewart had seen something that could shed some light on the matter.

  Bruner cast a hard stare down at the drink. He could see both possible outcomes. He visualized himself walking away from the full glass, and of course he pictured himself emptying it in one shot. What was it going to be? Bruner had made the hard decision: he would track down Stewart and follow up this lead. Stewart had managed to stumble into three sites of suspected alien activity, so there was a good chance his work with limestone deposits would lead him to a fourth, and Bruner wanted to be there.

  Now, Bruner moved to the easy decision: he would put the drink to its proper use. There was no hesitation or remorse. He had been here thousands of times, and he had never left a drink behind.

  8

  Tracking the

  Weather Balloon

  A 1984 Chevy C-10 pickup rattled down a long county road that cut straight as an arrow through endless fields of corn. It was the kind of vehicle that a collector would dedicate years to restoring and admiring. Ken Thompson, the driver and holder of the title, was not such a person. To him, this was just a work truck that he bought off a neighbor, way back when people used to write letters with pen and paper and when telephones were attached to walls, instead of being carried in the pockets of all his grandkids.

  Jin bounced around in the passenger’s seat, his forearm crutched against the door with his elbow sticking out the window. The screen of the tracking device was a blur in his right hand from the bouncing of the truck, but he could see they were on the right course.

  “It dudn’t matter who you vote for, the same egghead’s gonna be in office. They’ve already determined who it’s gonna be,” Ken called to him, over the wind that washed back and forth through the two open windows. Jin knew he would never see this man again, so it didn’t matter how he responded. It only mattered that he not say anything suspicious or give the man cause to call the authorities.

  After careful thought, Jin turned to the man and delivered his answer, “Ye—”

  “They act like you can vote,” Ken cut him off, “but you can’t. They only count electoral votes, so they don’t even count your vote.”

  Jin quickly realized that this man wasn’t interested in hearing from him. He was more of a talker than a listener. So, as long as Jin didn’t try to vote right there in the cab of the truck, he wasn’t going to rouse any suspicion.

  A crow bar, a dented paper cup, and an empty bag of chips bounced around on the floorboard, taking turns jumping on Jin’s shoes.

  “Global warming’s another thing they use to make money,” Ken prattled on.

  The display screen showed Jin that his colleagues were just around the corner. He pointed to a patch of grass up ahead. “This is good enough. You can just pull off here,” Jin said. He had been practicing that line in his head for a few miles. He was bouncing between good enough and enough good. He wasn’t sure which was correct, and he hadn’t made up his mind until one version just came out. In any case, he was fairly confident that it wouldn’t make a difference to Ken, one way or the other.

  The truck eased to a stop in the thick grass, and Ken shoved it into park. “That thing says your weather balloon’s here?” Ken asked. That was the story Jin had given him: that he was from the weather service, tracking a fallen weather balloon. Jin would love to take credit for the cover story, but it was actually one of the first templates he learned in basic training. When properly used, the details are changed to fit the surroundings and the situation. Jin figured he couldn’t be the first person to just rip off the template completely, without inserting any creative changes. Anyway, it worked.

  “You got your work cut out for ya’,” Ken said, looking into the dense cornfield.

  Jin pulled a small, black cylinder from the bag and held it out to Ken.

  “Does this smell funny?” Jin asked.

  Ken gave him a strange look, then leaned over and took a whiff of the cartridge. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell limp against the seat. Jin pressed a clear tube against the man’s arm and hit a button on its base. A sample of Ken’s blood was quickly drawn. Once the tube was full, Jin tossed it in the bag and placed the black cylinder back under Ken’s nose. This time he twisted the dial the other way, and invisible gas floated into the sleeping man’s nostrils.

  When the gas took hold, Ken’s eyes popped open and he sat straight up. Jin was already halfway out the door, and he fed Ken a line to defuse any suspicion.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Jin said. “I’ll make sure I do that.”

  Ken threw up a wave and nodded. “Okay, be safe.” He looked forward and stared out the windshield. It felt as if his mind was struggling to remember something, but he couldn’t pin it down. Jin disappeared into the cornfield with the supply bag on his back and the tracking device in hand.

  As Jin pushed his way through the cornstalks, the display screen zeroed in a little closer with each step. He was expecting to hear one of them call to him. But as he reached the edge of a clearing, he saw something he didn’t expect: a farmhouse, sitting on an island of clear ground.

  According to the tracking device, his team was just ahead, probably in the house. Suddenly, Jin felt silly for having thought they would be waiting for him before taking any action. From the looks of it, they may very well have commandeered a house.

  Knock! Knock! Knock! Jin’s fist tapped against the wooden door as he stood on the porch. “I’m tracking a weather balloon,” he whispered to himself in an awkward rehearsal, in case it was a stranger who answered.

  He felt footsteps approaching from inside. He heard the knob turn and watched the door begin to open. He had decided he wasn’t going to panic, and he didn’t. But when the door swung open to reveal Lyntic, he felt his tense frame relax. Lyntic was all business as she waved him inside. He didn’t even notice she was dressed in a bra.

  “Did you get a blood sample?” Lyntic asked, as she shut the door behind them. Jin could hear the skepticism in her voice. He tired of her always doubting him, but at least this time he could harpoon those doubts. He lifted his hand from his pocket and presented the vial of blood.

  “Oh, good,” she said, with genuine surprise. He wanted to craft some great response that would highlight how capable he was, while pointing out how unreasonable she had been for doubting him. Luckily, before he could embarrass himself with any such attempt, Dexim entered the room and cut him off.

  “Are you all right?” Dexim asked, not as a polite gesture, but as an official inquiry.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Jin reported. No, I’m not, he wanted to say, I landed on a freaking pile of beer bottles. I can only imagine how bruised and sore I’m going to be in the morning. Instead of this, he simply repeated himself, “I’m fine.” After all, having something to complain about is not a valid reason to complain. Jin lived by these words, but they were not his: he had taken them from an inspirational poster he had seen as a kid.

  “Let’s get started,” Dexim said, reaching for the bag on Jin’s shoulder. Jin nodded and handed it over, as they followed Dexim to the kitchen.

  “What happened to your shirt?” Jin asked, having finally noticed.

  “I had to use it to cover Tobi’s face,” Lyntic said, in a way that made it seem as though Jin should hav
e already deduced that.

  “Right,” he nodded, knowing full well that he never would have deduced such a thing. Lyntic was very difficult to impress, perhaps because of her own extreme competence.

  Dexim set the vaccination kit on the counter—a box packed with medical supplies. Lyntic reached across him and pulled out the instruction booklet from the inside of the lid.

  “Field Vaccination Procedures Guide,” she read, then flipped a few pages. “The subject must be sterilized by washing all skin surfaces, hair, and orifices with any of the following agents: Vinegar, Tea Tree Oil, Concentrated Lemon Juice, Hydrogen Peroxide, da, da, da.” She skipped to the bottom of the page. “Bleach should be used only as a last resort, because of the dangers and negative effects on the subject.”

  She looked to Dexim for a response.

  “It works,” he said. “That’s the important thing.”

  “You used bleach?” Jin asked.

  “Just on his face,” Dexim said. “He’ll be fine.”

  Dexim noticed that something was weighing on Jin’s mind.

  “What is it?” Dexim asked.

  “The ship being captured . . . does that mean they know why we’re here?” Jin asked.

  “No,” Dexim shook this off. “It was just a coincidence that the ship was confiscated.”

  “How do you know?” Jin asked. Lyntic was curious to hear Dexim’s answer as well.

  “Because they thought the ship was empty,” Dexim explained. “They didn’t even know we were on board.”

  This response comforted Jin and Lyntic. It even comforted Dexim to say it.

  “So, you think she’s actually here?” Jin asked.

  Dexim looked up stoically. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “But what if she’s—”

  “If she’s here, we’ll find her,” Dexim said. “And if we don’t find her, we’ll keep looking until they tell us to stop.”