The Bodyguard: an alien romance

by Tina Proffitt

  I look up. “So this is where you grew up,” I say in wonder. The ceilings are at least fifty feet high and full of light. There are plants and trees and water flowing over rocks into small pools that flow into larger ones. There are gardens full of vegetables and even vineyards. I don't know what I expected to see down here, but this is not it.

  We take an elevator down and emerge into the huge open area where we just were, only a few floors down. I look up at the room I woke up in. It is set into the side of the mountain face. It looks just like the Anasazi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in New Mexico, only these are under ground.

  I shiver at the thought that I could've missed out on all of this had I not trusted Van. But despite all its wonder, my mind is set on finally seeing my mother.

  Van holds out his arm for me to hold. “Let's go find her.”

  “I thought you said you couldn't read my mind.”

  A devilish smile lights up his blue eyes. He winks. And I know that he knows. There's been more to this man than he has let on, and now I want to know everything else there is to know about him.

  Van leads us to another elevator door. The major general is waiting at this one. A terse nod is all I get by way of greeting this time, much more like the major general. He and Van do not speak. He escorts us both to a room even further below, where I'm told my mother is working.

  As we follow him off the elevator and down a long hallway, doubt creeps into my mind that this might not be the real major general after all. The last one I spoke to knew a lot about my mother, stuff that only the real major general should know.

  As we walk, I nudge Van in the ribcage.

  “What?” he mouths.

  “Is that him?”

  Van nods.

  “How can you tell?” I whisper.

  “I can smell his blood.”

  Then as if the major general heard every word we whispered, he turns to me. “You've had a rough couple of days, Lil. I’m glad you're back with your family.”

  My shoulders relax. That's a name only my mother uses for me. And only the real major general would consider himself family, which he is. Now I’m sure it's him.

  Before we reach a door marked laboratory, the major general says, “You've learned who you are, where your father came from, and now it's time you know who I am.”

  I suck in a breath. My heart nearly stops. If he pulls his skin away to reveal the head of a lizard, I’m going to scream. Or maybe I’ve watched too many science fiction movies.

  As soon as the major general's hand closes over the door knob, even though I can't see my mother yet, I can feel her. It's as though the two of us are attached in a psychic way, that distance can't undo. I can see that crease between her eyebrows because she's working too hard. And even though I don't know yet what problem she's working on, I think I can help her.

  Inside the lab, we turn a corner into another hallway. The door at the end is flanked by two Marine Corps guards on either side of it. They salute the major general, and one opens the door for us.

  I can see my mother now, or at least her back, through the glass doors before they slide open. She sits at a desk, wearing a white lab coat. Her dark hair is pulled back into a long ponytail.

  As we get closer, I can see that she's facing a wall of screens that change like liquid. One screen's images I recognize right away. They're every crop circle ever recorded. Another screen is obviously watching other galaxies. Another is scrolling through words that look like telegraph transmissions. The words scroll like an old typewriter. As I get closer, I can decipher some of them. They read just like the message I got back home on my laptop. That means I wasn't the first. The military already knows about that too. But that's okay. I know.

  My mother hasn't stirred. I know that when she's working, she loses all track of time.

  “I see you like the crop circles,” the major general says. “We're especially proud of them.”

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  “We got so many of them, that we eventually turned our attention to how they were made, blasting the stems with microwaves to tip them over.”

  “You mean that you take credit for the crop circle phenomenon?”

  “No, just deciphering their meaning. They're mathematical codes, another way for messages to be received in the universal language.”

  My mother turns in her swivel chair, and the major general clears his throat.

  I realize I’ve been holding my breath as she turns her attention to me. She's more beautiful than I remember. She smiles and holds out her arms to me. I let out the breath and rush to her. But just as I hug her, fear stabs me in the chest.

  What if this isn't her? What if, just like Anna and the major general, the Numen have taken her over too?

  I know in my heart that if this isn't her, my heart will break in two. Then I remember what the major general said, that the Numen were only replacing the ones with the protein in their blood. And I know for a fact that my mother and I share the same blood Rh factor. We're both negative. I don't have the protein and neither does she.

  She lets go of me long enough to look at me, as if she's reassuring herself of the same thing, then she pulls me back to her.

  “I'm so sorry we've been apart all this time,” she says, “but we don't ever have to be again.”

  “You mean you're coming home?”

  “Lil, we are home.”

  “There's nothing of the outside left for us to return to,” the major general says.

  I turn to Van, who nods almost imperceptibly to let me know that I can trust them.

  I hug my mother again, this time just to assure myself once and for all that it's her. I smell gardenia blossoms. Her perfume is not a part of her DNA. This is her.

  “What are you doing down here, mom?”

  “Working with DNA. Non-coding DNA to be precise.” She sighs and hugs me one more time. “Last one, I promise. I'm just so relieved to see you, even though I know Van has been keeping you safe.”

  “I'm not going anywhere.” I smile and she smiles back.

  I follow her to her computer terminal.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” I say, “I found a cat. I named him George. You're going to love him.”

  “I know I will.” She smiles.

  “I had to leave him back in the lab at home. It's so nice, he may not want to ever leave. I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time about it.”

  My mother's laugh is soft. “You were just a kid then.”

  “Yeah, but I'm old enough now to know what you were doing down there.”

  “You're right. You are.” She takes a deep breath. “I'll explain. Then you'll understand what I’ve been doing down here.” She opens up another screen on the computer in front of her. “Up to now, science has not known what non coding DNA does. While dissecting mouse embryos the size of pinto beans, I discovered that if you take away just one of the so-called junk DNA molecules, the mouse dies. The ninety-eight point eight percent of our non-coding DNA is not only vital to us, it comes from our past. Meaning that it is code for our past. I’m not talking ancestors here, I’m talking individual past lives.”

  “Van said the Bastet know that reincarnation is real. Is this how?”

  “I think so.” She nods to a graphic on the screen, displaying a strand of DNA in its double helix design. “Each life lived by an individual leaves behind a blueprint for the next body to reincarnate from and so on. By mapping the DNA of mice offspring, I found that DNA, what constitutes the soul, can replicate itself inside of new bodies. Meaning that, when one mouse dies and a new mouse is born, the same DNA from the old mouse shows up in the newborn mouse. The only trick is finding which one. It's not necessarily in their own descendants. Sometimes it shows up in another mouse in another part of the lab. But it does so consistently enough that I’ve been able to observe the same DNA in at least two different mice before it disappears, presumably to become a part of another species.”

  “What happens to it then?
”

  “It becomes the code for a new species, like human, for example. We don't know yet how the self-replicating DNA can jump from life to life, only that it does. If I could peer inside the DNA of all living beings, I could discover that they have all lived before in many forms.”

  “That's how we can carry the same eye color from life to life,” Van says, “even similar physical traits like the shape of a nose, or even scars.”

  My mother nods in agreement. “Each new life we live contains our previous lives, not just in our subconscious mind, but on a cellular level. We never leave anything behind. Inside each chromosome are the instructions that make us unique, so that even on a molecular level we remain the same soul. Our DNA holds the keys to all of our previous lives. The so called junk DNA is there to remind us of who we were, the script for lifetimes already lived and lifetimes to come.”

  “That's amazing,” I say. “You've not only proved the existence of past lives, you've discovered the reason for consciousness.”

  My mother's cheeks blush pink. “We'll see what my colleagues think.”

  “You see now the reason your mother had to be kept safe here,” the major general says.

  After hearing the news of my mother's scientific discovery, possibly the greatest of our time, I should be looking at the happiest biologist on Earth, or inside it. But she's not happy. There's still that crease between her eyebrows.

  “What's wrong?” I ask.

  “What's wrong is what's happening up there,” she says. “We can't sit back and let the Numen continue what they're doing to us.”

  “Because the Numen regard life so callously,” the major general says, “they use their abilities to replicate as a means to control.”

  “The Numen don't see what they're doing as wrong or harmful,” my mother says. “They see it as creating a new man, a stronger man, one who can survive. It's no different than what human researchers do to wild animals—especially those in danger of extinction. Yes, it terrorizes the individual humans, and yes it terrorizes the individual animals, but they're looking at what must be done for the long term. Because they know the consequences of the loss of a whole species would be devastating.”

  “What can be done?”

  “We've been trying with no luck to access the satellite feed they're using.” My mother lets go one of her patented sighs. The crease between her eyebrows is deeper. I can tell that this is bad. “They've been jamming cell phone towers. If we can disrupt their communications from Antlia Two, we can prevent further mass abductions.”

  “Fortunately, they haven’t reached the West yet,” the major general says. “So far, they’ve been confined to the East coast.”

  “But in order to stop them,” my mother finishes, “we have to prevent the Numen from hijacking our satellites to communicate.”

  “You mean this one,” I say, pointing at the screen with the messages of peace scrolling by.

  “The Numen send their messages,” Van says, inclining his head towards the message screen, “with the hope that Earth will believe their real purpose to be peaceful relations. The ones who can decipher the messages are quickly convinced that it is a hoax to prevent the spread of misplaced trust.”

  “I know the coordinates for the satellite you're looking for,” I say.

  “How do you know that?” my mother says.

  “It's what I did in my spare time at school. Hawthorne Academy's dark net is used by some programmers to change their grades, but I found it useful for other things, like setting up links to low earth orbit constellation satellites.”

  “That's one smart young woman you've got there,” the major general says to my mother.

  “But mom just figured out the meaning of life,” I say.

  My mother takes my hand. “I just figured out the purpose of our non-coding DNA. The meaning of life is up to the individual to decide.” She holds the back of my hand against her cheek. “All I ever wanted for you was a life free from fear.” With her free hand, my mother wipes a tear from her cheek. “Now, show me what you can do with this thing.”

  We both turn to the keyboard. “I picked up one of their transmissions on my laptop just yesterday.” I take a seat next to my mother at her desk. “All satellites put into orbit are created with a built-in self-destruct option for the time when it will inevitably start to malfunction. It's the way the creators can assure no space debris will damage other neighboring satellites.” I type in the coordinates of the satellite I’ve been listening to. The equipment my mother uses is way faster than my laptop. It's up in a matter of seconds. “I'm setting it to listen to frequencies above what the human ear can hear.”

  The major general watches me choose the frequency. “How did you know they speak at eleven kilohertz?” He sounds surprised.

  “My mother taught me.” I smile. “With this we can not only hear what's coming from the satellite, we can see it too, thanks to its neighboring satellite. I'm going to make the satellite think it's been compromised. Then it should take care of itself.” When I’m finished typing, I sit back in my chair and cross my fingers that it works.

  Van is watching me with a funny look in his eye. I’m not sure how to interpret it, but I have a bad feeling that now that the threat from the Numen is about to end, our time together is about to come to an end as well.

  “How will we know when it works?” my mother says.

  “When Antlia Two Galaxy sends their next transmission,” I say, “the satellite should self-destruct.”

  The Numen must have been sending persistent messages because it doesn't take long. By the time the computer decodes the next message and it pops up on screen, the satellite feed goes dead.

  “It worked,” I say.

  We all watch the screen as a small tremor shakes the satellite. There are no fireworks or a dramatic explosion, just the quiet death of a satellite, the end to one means for man to talk to the stars. The creator did their job well.

  “To prevent this from happening again with another satellite,” the major general says, “the SAP has decided to take the creators of the satellites into their confidence and assist them to manufacture satellites with a warning system in the event of hijack.” He turns to Van and sticks out a hand. “You've done your job well, soldier. You've fulfilled your duty. Her mother and I will take it from here.”

  Where my grandmother sees judgment and punishment for disobedience as the reason for being on Earth, my mother sees another chance to get it right. In Van's world, there is no such thing as punishment because there are only natural consequences.

  As if he can hear what I’m thinking about, Van comes to stand by my side. “Will you take a walk with me?”

  My parents are busy taking care of the world, so they won't miss me.

  I nod. Words are hard to come by right now.

  We walk to the edge of a pond surrounded by trees and tall grass. A frog jumps, breaking through the clear blue water. It's almost as if this world is a utopia and can only exist like this, small and isolated. There's the sense that if others were to find out about it and come here, it would become spoiled by all the things that touch the outside world, greed, hypocrisy, want.

  I sit down and touch the water's surface, hoping now that I never have to go back to the old world. Ripples form around my finger and spread out in circles, getting larger and larger until they seem to disappear. “I guess you don't have to be my bodyguard anymore now,” I say, thinking that less than a week ago, I was trying to rid myself of my bodyguard.

  Van's head rears back. “Yes, I do.” He settles his long frame on a flat stone beside me.

  I close my eyes as his hand moves to my forehead. I feel the warmth spread through my entire body, just like the times before. But this time, I see myself standing in front of Hawthorne Academy, the large, imposing stone building towering over me. I'm ten years old again. I’m afraid. I look down at what I’m wearing. It's the first day of school. The pleated plaid skirt in blue, green, and white barely r
eaches my knees. The white oxford shirt bears the school's emblem on my chest. I can see the beats of my heart vibrating the crest.

  I feel the sunshine on my cheeks as I look up. The sun is bright, and I have to shield my eyes.

  I turn back to see my mother and my father are there, waving from their car. Behind them stands my grandfather, who died of cancer when I was a baby. Behind him stand his parents and their parents behind them. A long line of people are all watching me. They are all alive, or seem to be. Time is somehow irrelevant. The fact that they all exist in the same time and the same space makes perfect sense.

  Then a slight movement in a clump of trees catches my eye. A young man stands there. He's the same age I am, ten years old. He looks at me with recognition in his eyes, though I’ve never met him before. Mike Donovan pushes off from the tree he leans against and takes a step toward me, just close enough that I can see that it is him. He looks the same, just a younger version of himself. He pushes his hood away from his face and now I can see into those brilliant blue eyes. For a moment, they flash green, and he disappears. But I know in my heart that he'll be back for me one day—my bodyguard.

  My eyes drift open, and for a second, I think I'm still at school, expecting to see Anna and Porter. But Van is here, watching me with soft green eyes.

  “You were there the day my parents dropped me off at school,” I say, recalling the vision. “This is the secret of time and space you said you would to show me.”

  “All points in space and time are connected.” He inclines his tawny head in a deep gesture. “I have always been with you. You just did not always see me.”

  “Until now, I thought that was the worst day of my life.”

  “Everyone has happy memories,” Van says softly. “But the painful ones are unfortunately the easiest to remember. When I thought your stepfather had fired me, and I thought I would have to leave you after all these years, I realized that I could not. Protecting you is all I want to do. I care for you, rasa, maybe too much, which clouded my judgment at times. But I have never experienced these tender feelings for anyone before, so I was not even aware of what was happening to me.”