by Susan Grant
“No one told us about a Handyman,” Cavin said.
He shrugged. “Isn’t much to tell. The Gatekeeper is who you need to see. She’s waiting for you.”
So the Gatekeeper was a woman. A female guarding the grand prize in a male-dominated world of secrecy. There was a sort of poetic justice in that.
Cavin made it with some help into the roomy cab of the truck. He pulled his seat belt around Jana first and then himself. It was a typically protective Cavin gesture, and the best sign yet that he was returning to normal.
She took his hand in hers, holding it on her lap as the truck bumped along the pitted road. “They don’t keep up with the maintenance around here, do they?” she remarked.
“No one’s complained in forty years. But then no one’s been up this road in forty years, either.”
“How do you get your food and supplies? What do you eat?”
He made that lipless grin again. “Can’t give away all the secrets, Senator.”
“No.” Jana guessed he couldn’t.
A farm appeared. There was a tumbledown barn and a small house. It was probably once white but harsh weather had turned it gray. No crops, no animals, only sand. It put the D in desolation. “Do you live here year round?”
Another grin. Sans lips. “Sorry, can’t give away all—”
“—the secrets,” Jana finished for him. Somewhere, General Mahoney smiled. The Handyman and the Gatekeeper must be on the government payroll. She hoped they got a generous salary, vacation and benefits too, because no one should have to live like this.
At the farmhouse there was nothing that indicated that the original, recovered crashed spacecraft from Roswell, New Mexico was hidden here. And why here?
The screen door opened with a squeak of old hinges. A short woman with a shining smile greeted them. “It’s about time. I baked cookies.” Improbably, she wore an apron. Crinkly, graying orange hair was pulled back from her face in a bun. Freckles speckled her pale skin, and her brown eyes shone. She looked to be in her fifties—too young to have been alive for the original crash landing, but maybe her age was as much a ruse as the rest of this place. “I’m the Gatekeeper.”
“Hello, ma’am. I’m Jana Jasper.”
“I am Cavin Caydinn.”
The Gatekeeper smiled at them both then gave Cavin a long, admiring stare. “So, here you are at last. He who can unlock the gate. I hope you like chocolate chip cookies.”
“We have little time,” he said, also apparently feeling the need, as Jana did, to coax her into action. Everyone on this farm seemed to move in slow motion.
The woman squinted at the sky. “I know. They’re coming, aren’t they? Follow me now.” She chattered as she walked. “Laurel keeps asking after you. I can’t take her calls. I can’t take any of their calls. Never could. She knows that.”
“Laurel.” Jana stared. “You mean President Ramos?”
The Gatekeeper smiled, and Jana exchanged a glance with Cavin. It was a good thing chance led them here and they hadn’t pursued trying to enlist the White House’s help after all. It would have been a dead end.
Around the side of the house, an ancient-looking pair of doors led to a root cellar. The Handyman hoisted them open. The doors fell to the ground and dust poofed up in a cloud. The Handyman shone a flashlight into the darkness. Dust motes swirled, and spiderwebs laced across the opening. Whatever was down here had not been looked at in a very long time.
Cavin supported his weight on the handrails. They creaked under the strain. Beneath the house it smelled musty and like dirt. Jana peered inside, looking around for a large lump covered by a dusty old tarp like you’d find over a treasured antique car in someone’s garage.
“It’s downstairs,” the Gatekeeper said. “Step here, next to me. Now, hold on tight.” She pulled on a thick rope dangling from the low ceiling, and the floor fell away.
Jana yelped as they plummeted down with it, feeling suddenly light on their feet. The sensation was unnerving. The walls raced past and then the walls were gone. They were in near total darkness.
The square piece of floor on which they stood was an elevator. The Gatekeeper was with them. The Handyman was not. “He has to look after things on top,” the woman called out above the noise of wind. “In case someone comes calling.”
If the road hadn’t been used in forty years, it wasn’t likely too many people came calling. Maybe the real story was that the Handyman didn’t have the security clearance the angelic redheaded Gatekeeper did.
The president didn’t even know where this place was, according to General Mahoney. Neither did the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Only a select few, slightly crazy people. Fanatics, perhaps, were the best keepers of secrets.
Jana’s stomach and the wind whipping her hair told her they were still falling, but the area was so vast it was easy to lose the sensation of speed. Her ears popped. There was an impression of deepness. At last, the elevator slowed, stopping smoothly.
“Turn around,” the Gatekeeper said.
And there it was. The famous spaceship. The Roswell saucer. The shape was oval and the wings were so stubby that she could understand how the flying saucer legend had started. Only it wasn’t a legend.
The dark, smooth metal hull gleamed dully as they stepped closer. It was a smaller, sleeker version of Cavin’s ship. There were no lights, no sounds. No signs that it worked, or that it ever had worked, flown here from another world.
Jana hoped it was dormant and not dead.
A row of blocky symbols decorated one side—the now-familiar Queen’s tongue. “Shakree,” Cavin murmured. The little ship’s name. A film of some kind coated the windows, preventing her from seeing inside.
He approached the ship, limping only a little now, and climbed up a metal ramp. The trim around the hatch was mangled, bearing the scars of tools. Earth tools. It had been pried open.
The cockpit was small and dark. Cavin slid into the pilot seat. As Jana waited with the Gatekeeper in the hatchway, he uttered a sound that sounded suspiciously like a growl. “Freep me,” he snapped.
The Gatekeeper’s eyebrows lifted. “Freep?”
“It translates roughly to ‘fuck,’” Jana said.
Cavin slapped his hands down on the armrests and turned around. His eyes blazed with anger at the Gatekeeper. “It’s damaged. Badly. Panels are missing. Vital panels! Your tinkering has destroyed this craft.”
Jana had never seen Cavin lose his temper like that. Everything he’d risked, the fate of the world, it was all in jeopardy because of Earth’s clumsy curiosity and years of tampering.
If this doesn’t work, The Coalition will come. The population of planet Earth would then be forced to start new lives somewhere in the galaxy, and at the mercy of a terrifying enemy. And Cavin would likely be caught and sentenced to death for his role in helping Earth.
The Gatekeeper scurried to an ancient-looking cardboard carton with Orange Crush Soda printed on the side. “They saved all the parts—right here. We never threw anything away.” She delivered the box to the cockpit. The contents rattled as she set it on the floor. While Jana held her breath, Cavin rooted through the contents and pulled something cylindrical and crystalline from the box. When he fitted it to the instrument panel, soft chimes heralded the awakening of long-slumbering equipment.
Illumination came on in the cockpit, spilling light onto the smooth concrete floor below where Jana and the Gatekeeper waited.
Jana pumped her fist. “Yes!”
Eyes moist, the Gatekeeper showed her first true signs of emotion as she wrung her hands in her apron. “I lived to see the day. I lived to see it.”
More lights came on up and down and all around the sides of the ship. Then the windshield erupted in a swirl of colors that faded into a serene backdrop of stars.
Jana took a closer look. “How come some stars are moving?”
“They are not stars,” Cavin said. “They are ships.”
Jana’s heart dropped. “The invasi
on fleet.”
“Yes,” he said, continuing to work. “They are a week away, more or less.” He squinted at scrolling, three-dimensional text in his native language. “I’ll get an exact reading in a moment. Hold on—”
There was a loud snap. Jana smelled something burning. Then all the lights in the ship went out.
Looking weak, the Gatekeeper took a seat.
Cavin spun around in the chair and went in search for more parts in the Orange Crush carton. Every once in a while, he’d attach something. But the ship remained dead.
Cavin held the handle of a screwdriver clamped in his mouth while he fiddled with another crystalline object that stubbornly wouldn’t go where it was supposed to fit. Somewhere out there an invasion force approached, while Cavin played mechanic, fighting to get their best defense up and running…with run-of-the-mill Earth tools. Talk about working against the clock.
“I will either melt what is left of the systems, or we will get this crate powered up.” He fell to his knees and fiddled with the underside of the pilot station. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
Jana could almost taste the bitter disappointment in the air as Cavin labored. For the first time, Jana acknowledged the possibility that he might not be able to accomplish what he’d set out to do. That it meant the destruction of all that she knew and loved.
Then something within the little ship clicked and whirred to life. “We’re back—we’re back. Cavin, send out the signal!”
But he was already in action, his hands flying over the panels as he hacked into the system. “I’ve got to do this fast. If it dies again, we may not have a second chance.”
Each second that ticked by was tenser than the last. Jana tried to remember to breathe.
“Here we go,” Cavin said. There was a flicker, and nothing more.
“What happened?” Jana blurted out.
“Wait.” Cavin held up his hand. “Watch.”
Then, like fireflies fanning out over a starry sky, dozens and dozens of tiny lights appeared on the lower portion of the screen and rose toward the fleet.
The phantom fleet.
Cavin sat back in the pilot chair. Folding his arms over his chest, he looked a lot like his old smug self.
“But did it work? Did they see it?”
He shrugged and turned around in the chair. “Probably.”
“Probably?” the two women chorused.
A familiar telltale glimmer of mischief appeared in his eyes. Jana gaped at him in disbelief. “Tell me you didn’t just make one of your kidding jokes.”
“Something tells me this is a damned if you do, damned if you do situation,” he said.
“I’m going to kill you,” Jana hissed.
Cavin pulled her onto his lap and kissed her soundly. “Yes, it worked. It worked. I had hoped for hundreds, but we multiplied the Shakree by the thousands. To the Coalition, it looks like Earth has advanced tech and a massive space-faring fleet. Operation Phantom is complete.”
The Gatekeeper peered at the other lights—each one representing a huge spaceship. “They’re still coming in our direction.”
“The Coalition fleet is like an enormous lumbering beast. It will take some time to turn it around. I assure you, they will. They didn’t expect to be surprised like this. They’ll leave Earth alone for now.”
“Until they figure out we don’t have a space fleet,” the Gatekeeper said.
“It’s not a permanent fix,” Cavin said. “But we bought ourselves some time.”
Jana nodded. “Precious time. Time to prepare.” To prepare for what exactly, none of them really knew, but her home planet was depending on her to guide them out of this mess.
“Well, then.” The Gatekeeper wiped her hands on her apron. “It’s time to go upstairs for milk and cookies. And then I would like for you to tell the president everything you have just told me.”
The handyman dropped Jana and Cavin off at the highway. “See you next time,” he called from the truck before driving away to retrieve the REEF’s body.
“That’s just weird,” she said. “The whole thing was weird. The farm, the vast underground basement. The ship that doesn’t exist.”
“People will know it exists now.”
“But not where it is.” She doubted that would ever be discovered.
The helicopter sent to pick them up descended. The rotor blades kicked up a tornado of dust and pebbles. She and Cavin ran to it and boarded. “Home, James,” Jana quipped, still giddy from their hard-won victory.
The pilot turned around. It was Connick. He tipped his sunglasses up. “I can’t take you home yet.”
Her blood turned cold. “Why not?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your grandfather had a stroke.”
As the helicopter took off for Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, Cavin drew her close. “We’re in this together. From now on, we’re together.” Under the smells of sweat and dust, he smelled like Cavin. She breathed in, holding his essence deep inside her, feeling her blood carry it throughout her body until he was in every pore. And even then, she didn’t let go.
Chapter Sixteen
Jana and Cavin ran down the hospital corridor toward Grandpa’s private room. A pair of nurses flashed them disapproving looks, saw who they were and nodded sympathetically. An honor of state troopers stood guard at the hospital room door. Grandpa had been much-loved by California’s law enforcement back in the day when he’d served as governor. To have the officers volunteer to be here when he was at his most vulnerable was touching, and fitting.
From inside the room, a heart monitor beeped, slowly. The murmur of hushed voices filtered out, but no boisterous laughter, no growled swearwords. Inside that room, Grandpa was dying.
She couldn’t imagine losing him. He had a full life, the most amazing life. He lived hard and long, and now it was time for him to go. Logically she knew it was true, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept.
Jana stopped in the hallway, unable to go any farther. The tears she’d tried holding back spilled over. “He wanted to see me elected president of the United States. The latter is so crazy, Cavin, a long shot. But he never relented. He always believed.”
“He will see you as president,” Cavin interrupted. He dabbed at her tears, ignoring her confusion. “Now dry your eyes and let’s go see him.”
Her father and mother sat by the bed. Her father’s eyes were moist. Mama and Evie were openly crying. The children had been there earlier, but had been taken home. Jared sat hunched in the corner, smiling briefly as they walked in. He looked exhausted.
“He’s slipping away,” Dad informed them. He’d learned only a few hours earlier that the accusations against him had been dropped—a small ray of light on a dark day. He and Mama mother gave up their chairs so Jana and Cavin could move closer.
Grandpa was very white and still. His eyes were closed. The lids were bluish, almost transparent. His white hair seemed wispier, more inconsequential. It was as if he’d become as ghostly as his hold on life. The monitors displaying his vital signs seemed to make a lot of noise.
Jana crouched by the bed and took his cold hand. If hers were ice, his must be…She tried not to think about it. “Hi Grandpa, it’s Jana.”
Maybe it was her imagination, but she could swear the beeping of the heart monitor increased in frequency. Maybe it was her imagination too, that his hand seemed to tighten over hers. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here. All that goddamn saving the world paperwork, you know.”
She imagined she felt him smile. She wanted to say so many things, but how did you encapsulate a lifetime’s worth of gratitude into a few words? “I love you, Grandpa. I love you for so many reasons. You taught me to dream big, and that it was okay to be quiet sometimes. I will always be grateful for that. You taught me kindness and acceptance, and showed it to Cavin.” She smiled. “Mama told me you said I should have brought home an alien a long time ago. You taught Dad never to be afraid of going for it, even
when someone tells you your chances of succeeding are one in a million. He passed that philosophy on to me, and I remind myself of it constantly. I want you to know, I won’t give up on the presidency.”
There was another hiccup on the heart monitor.
Cavin crouched next to her. Quietly, he said, “Jana is going to be elected overwhelmingly to a third term serving on the state level.”
Jana gave him a startled look. But his nod willed her into silence. “She will continue her political ascent, first as the head of Earth System Security, an organization she’ll help create from the ground up, and one that brings Earth into the future with a bright hope for peace. But politics is her first love, as we know, and after serving five years in this capacity, she will run for California’s U.S. senate seat, winning handily.
“Still, Jana resists calls to run for president until the end of her second term. We Jaspers finish what we start, she tells them. And so she does. Eight years later, when she has accumulated the experience to match her desire, she finally enters the presidential race.”
The heart monitor stumbled, and so did Jana’s heart. Could Grandpa hear Cavin? If so, was it too much?
“Jana Jasper wins in a landslide, riding an overwhelming wave of support that began when she saved the world. All because she believed that with heart and a little bit of magic, anything was possible—something she learned from her grandfather. A few months later, on the clearest, sunniest winter day in memory, Jana Jasper is inaugurated as president of the United States of America. She takes the oath with her family surrounding her—her brother, her sister, and their families, and her proud parents. Holding the family Bible is her husband, Cavin Caydinn.”
She jerked her eyes to him. Was he asking her to marry him?
She squeezed his hand. Was she accepting?
“And gazing up with smiles of pride at their mother are their five children,” Cavin continued.
Five? Jana mouthed in terror.
“The Jasper’s go home that day to celebrate as they always do over a delicious meal, only this time, for the first time, dinner is eaten in the White House. And so begins a new era in the Jasper political dynasty.”
