Followed East

by Andre Gonzalez

  Griffins laughed. “You could, but we must be moving on – that’s why we stopped for the burgers in the car. They’re open until ten, so if you really want to come back later you can.” He turned and led them back into the hallway. “The next three doors across the hall are all part of our gym. Door one is our swimming pool and sauna, door two an indoor track with a weight room in the middle, and door three is the combat area where much of your training will take place, fully equipped with punching bags, a shooting range, a boxing ring, and all sorts of fun.”

  Kyle had never been in a fight, and the thought of training to be an alien-killing machine both excited and stressed him out.

  “You’ll see those in time, but let me show you the outdoor room.” Griffins charged down the hallway, clearly excited to see it for himself. They reached a door labeled as “Outside” and Griffins pushed it open.

  They stepped in—or out, it seemed—to a park. A pond sat still in the distance, birds flocking around a fountain in the middle. Grass rustled beneath their feet as an orange glow filled the ceiling above them. Kyle looked up and around, unable to see walls or lights of any sort for at least 100 yards.

  “Welcome to Outside,” Griffins said. “We’ve used some of our most advanced technology to create this room. Special lighting you can’t see will reflect the current time of day. If you come back in a couple hours, this room will be dark, lit up only by the moon and the lamp posts in this park.”

  “Is this all real?” Kyle asked, taking a deep breath of what felt like natural air.

  “Aside from the lighting, yes. The grass is real, the trees are real, even the birds are real. The vents suck in the air from outside the Pentagon and blow it into this room. There are about 100 different vents hidden in the ceiling, each performing a different function to mimic the exact temperature, humidity, and precipitation as outside. So if it starts snowing outside, it will snow in here, and you’ll even feel the temperature drop.”

  “This is insane,” Kyle said. “But why would anyone want to sit in here in the cold? Why not just make it like being at the beach all day?”

  “We have members from all around the country, and visitors from around the world. Not everyone cares for the beach and sunshine, just like everyone doesn’t want to live in a snow globe every day of their life. Washington gets enough of the different seasons that we decided it was best to give the authentic experience of walking around outside the building.”

  “Does this mean I’m not allowed to go outside?”

  “Of course not. You can go outside whenever you please, but it is a bit of a hassle. Leaving by car is the only way to get out, even if you just wanted to go for a walk around the building. We made this room to make it easier for people. You’ll see them in here all the time, jogging, reading on the bench, taking a nap under a tree. It’s peaceful on a nice spring day. The only time you’ll see the weather change is if we are training our soldiers to prepare for combat in drastic conditions. It’s rare, but we’ve had to prepare for war in Antarctica and the middle of the Sahara Desert. We created those climates in this very room to get them ready.”

  “Very cool.”

  “Now, let’s finish up on this floor so you can get settled in. Your bags should be arriving any minute now.”

  Griffins led them out and continued down the hall.

  “The rest of these rooms are different classrooms and a movie theater. We have all the same movies that are showing in theaters across town, and can accommodate most requests if there is a particular one you want to watch. Our classrooms, though, are named after important figures we’ve had in The Crew.” He walked faster to the end of the hallway and stopped in front of the last door. “This one is my favorite.”

  Kyle caught up and felt goosebumps spread across his body. His hands trembled as one reached up to touch the silver plaque that read SUSAN WELLS TRAINING ROOM.

  “We had this put up a week after she passed,” Griffins explained. “Wasn’t sure if anyone in her family would ever get to see it, but here you are.” He placed an arm around Kyle’s shoulder, who was still staring at it like a rare bird.

  “I always knew she was important, but I’ve never grasped just how important.” Kyle said through his swelling throat.

  “She was a pioneer. The first woman to join The Crew – did you know that?”

  “No, she never mentioned that in her journals. But it wasn’t like her to brag about anything.”

  “I know it. She didn’t lay the groundwork for just women, either. She still remains the highest scoring individual to complete our test at the end of the training program. She set the bar for everyone who comes through here. That’s why we wanted to bring you here, because anything she said was as good as gold. And she told us we needed you on to the team.”

  “I don’t understand, Colonel. I don’t feel special.”

  “Sometimes you just have to roll with the flow, son. Your grandmother believed that, and she ended up having dinner with every president since Nixon, always personally invited. During her prime in the 80’s, she was the most valuable person perhaps in the entire government, but no one could know about her.”

  “She never said a thing to us, and we’d never have known, either. . .”

  “Welcome home, Kyle,” Griffins said. “This is exactly where she’d want you to be.”

  9

  Chapter 9

  Colonel Griffins returned to his office after showing Kyle to his new dorm. They had his bags delivered, and Kyle hung back to relax and get his things set up.

  Grady waited outside of Griffins’s office, pacing frantic circles.

  “Colonel!” he shouted when he saw him emerge from the stairwell. “Colonel, I have some news.”

  “Let’s go in my office.” Griffins kicked open his door and slammed it as soon as Grady trailed in behind. “What’s going on?”

  “Sir, we found the hideout for the two Exalls who went missing four years ago in Colorado.”

  “The doctor and the boy?”

  “Yes, and we think they were the ones responsible for the attack at the bar. They had a tent thirty miles north of the scene, in the middle of nowhere. Our team located the campsite from a helicopter, but there was no one there when we touched down.”

  “How do you know it was them?”

  “We’re assuming one of them is the doctor, but we know it’s the boy. We found his old student ID inside of his abandoned backpack. But there were definitely belongings for two people. Who else would the boy be traveling with? The doctor turned him into an Exall; it only makes sense.”

  Griffins sat behind a cluttered desk. He hadn’t spent much time in his office the last few days, yet the work continued to pile up.

  “Is there any update on the ETD situation?”

  “Not yet, but sir, we might have a bigger problem.”

  “What?!” Griffins barked. Why the hell does everyone seem so content on beating around the bush lately?

  “We think they’re coming for the Wells boy.”

  “What the hell makes you say that?”

  “We went through their tent and found some things. They had pictures of Wells, and maps of his parents’ houses. They even had a copy of his class schedule. It looked as if they were planning to make a move on him soon.”

  “Jesus Christ. How would they even have gotten that sort of information?”

  “That’s what we’re still looking into, but it would seem they both have the capability to shift their bodies to appear like regular humans.”

  “Both of them, huh? Well, fuck.”

  The ability to transform wasn’t universal across all Exalls. They all had different abilities, no different than humans. Some humans can jump over a moving a car, some can’t. For the Exalls, their abilities went way beyond that sort of nonsense. If one couldn’t transform their body, they could probably read your mind, or force you to jump off a bridge by hijacking your brain.

  “We examined the bar, as well. We did find two dro
ps of Exall blood on the ground to confirm it was an Exall attack.”

  “What else did you find?”

  “Not much. We were able to piece together some of what had happened, and have matched up the different blood samples with their victims. It appears the owner of the bar, John Chambers, had his head slammed into a jukebox; his blood was all over the records. A woman named Rebecca Burns lost a ton of blood by the bar. We found a pistol registered to her name under one of the booths. We presume she pulled it out to shoot at the attackers, but never did. There were no rounds found besides two from a shotgun that was registered to the bar owner. We assume he was either attacked after firing off the rounds, or someone else who worked there may have tried. We pulled samples off the spent rounds and it matches the same black blood of the Exall.”

  “These attacks are going to continue, aren’t they?”

  “We don’t know for certain, but these two are definitely not sticking to the thirty-year trend. And we still don’t know where all of these people are. My team believes they are all traveling together. We found tire tracks leaving the tent site, would be the size of a decent pickup truck. None of the cars from the diner are missing, at least from those we have confirmed were there that night.”

  “I need to tell the president. He needs to know that attacks might be coming.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. In Stratton, the people are saying it was a random attack on the bar. Everyone there knew each other, so they claim it was an outsider driving through to have a little fun.”

  “But a random attack like this would leave bodies behind. No one is going to haul out ten corpses in the middle of the night. To do what with? Dump them all in a lake?”

  “I know that, but they don’t know what to think. They’re just a small community trying to make sense of it. The sheriff down there even said there could have been a fight that broke out, someone accidentally got killed, and they all fled the scene. Where to, I have no idea. It’s nothing but small farm towns two hours in any direction.”

  “I wish that were the case, but the goddamn black blood.” Griffins shook his head. “Your team did quick work finding all of this out. I’m going to hold off on alerting the president and give you one more day to see what you can find. If we find nothing, I’m still going to let him know that we have evidence the attack was done by the Exalls.”

  “I doubt another day will turn anything up; we got very lucky with this find today, but we won’t stop.”

  “Thank you. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I have to get back to this pile of paperwork.”

  Grady nodded and saw himself out of the office.

  Griffins leaned back in his squeaky chair and pulled open his bottom desk drawer, retrieving a flask of whiskey and an envelope. He took a quick swig of the booze, his racing mind welcoming the tingle of relaxation, and opened the envelope, unfolding a hand-written letter across his desk. It was from Susan Wells, given to him a year before her death:

  Colonel,

  I don’t know how much time I have left. I sense that my end is near, but I don’t know when or how it all ends for me. Sometimes I feel like they’re standing in my backyard watching me, but every time I check, nothing is there. I think one of these nights I’m going to turn on the outside lights and see a dozen of them coming for me, and that will be how it ends. I don’t know – maybe enough years in this work is making me lose my mind. Maybe nothing will ever be there, but my instincts have never been wrong.

  My grandson is in danger. They promised to make my family pay for what I did, but I know my sons will be fine. Kyle is still too young to know any better, but you need to believe me when I tell you he has my gift. I’ve seen him shoot a gun, and he can shoot with his mind, not his eyes. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has all the signs of a future Crew member, and a key one at that. I’ve already told this to Travis, and let him know you’ll be in touch. Don’t waste a day – they’ll be coming for him. We’ve traded lots of favors over the years (don’t forget that time I saved your life in Tallahassee), but I have one final favor to ask.

  Protect Kyle. Train him, challenge him, and you won’t be disappointed. Don’t hold back on anything, give him the full training and see how he responds. He’s ready.

  With love,

  Susan

  Griffins folded up the note and put it back in the envelope. Susan had never been wrong – even when her foresight wasn’t perfectly clear, she still had a sense for what would happen. He had come this far, managing to get Kyle into the Pentagon, and did so without having to scare his parents by letting them know this little tidbit of information that Susan had left behind.

  Kyle was already bait, whether The Crew planned to use him as such or not. The Exalls clearly knew something about Kyle that not even the government did, and this made Griffins queasy. Building security had gone under a complete revamp after the Jonathon Browne incident, but these bastards had already shown the ability to bypass their radar.

  “This is a mess,” he grunted to himself. The Exalls could transform their bodies to look like whoever they wanted, alter their body temperature to bypass the Crew’s thermal surveillance systems, and also no longer fit into their trends of attacking humans once every thirty years. “I just might have to fight this to my death.”

  He had always imagined his golden years spent at a beach-side cabana. The money was already set aside to purchase a residence somewhere on the Mexican Riviera. A life free of gray aliens and full of fruity cocktails would have to wait. He couldn’t back out of his promise to protect Kyle Wells.

  10

  Chapter 10

  Kyle woke on Wednesday morning to a blaring alarm. The training program had a strict schedule and set its own alarms that required Kyle to get out of bed to turn off on the mounted tablet near the bathroom door. They gave him an hour to get dressed, eat breakfast, and head down to the Floor Five classroom named after his grandmother.

  The day’s schedule was indeed slipped under his door, like a hotel leaving the folio before checkout, and he studied June 17th to see a packed day. Eight to ten was a “brief” history of The Crew. Ten to noon was more history, this time on the Exalls. Lunch ran from noon to one, and the rest of the afternoon looked like more studying, with Exall Technology, Tracking Devices, and Psychological Warfare filling his afternoon until his day ended at six.

  He had spent yesterday wandering around Washington like a tourist, even taking his professional-grade camera to snap photos of all the historic monuments. He called his parents who were together awaiting his call, both excited to hear from him and wanting to know about his stay so far. He told them about his dorm and how everyone around the building had been so welcoming, but didn’t go into any further detail, not wanting to get in trouble for saying anything against the rules. To anyone passing by, they would have thought Kyle was just a college student calling home to check in with his parents, not an undercover alien hunter.

  Tuesday was long gone by the time he woke on Wednesday, and he rushed down to the cafeteria to enjoy a plate of eggs, bacon, and potatoes. The cafeteria was crowded with dozens of Crew members, but he returned to his room with the food. Colonel Griffins had told him to avoid any conversations with other members until his training was complete, so he made sure to honor this request.

  His new training uniform had been delivered to his bedroom while he went down for food. Solid black pants and shirts of stretchy, athletic fabric stood in piles of five each on the foot of his bed. A note left on top requested he put any dirty laundry in the hamper in his closet to be washed over the weekend.

  This isn’t real life, he thought, but every day he learned of some new accommodation that The Crew simply “took care of.” He’d never have to cook, clean, drive, or do his own laundry. He wouldn’t receive a salary until he passed the test at the end of the training, but was told if he needed anything within reason, to let the concierge team know. But he couldn’t imagine what he’d possibly need, considering the all-inclusive
amenities already offered everything. When he wandered the halls Tuesday evening, he had discovered a gaming room complete with a bowling alley, billiards, darts, video games, and a ping pong table. He wondered why the colonel would have not shown him that room.

  He passed it en route to his very first training session and promised to stop in there that evening to enjoy some PlayStation before heading back to his room for the night. His only complaint about his new digs would be that there was no TV in his room.

  He reached the training room, brushed his grandmother’s name on the silver plaque and pulled open the door to an empty classroom, minus a short bald man sitting behind the desk in the front of the room.

  “You must be Kyle,” he said in a squeaky voice, standing to cross the room and shake Kyle’s hand.

  “Am I in the right place?” Kyle asked, looking at the thirty empty seats facing the front of the room.

  “You sure are. My name is Gerard Palmer, and I’m the head of our training and education department. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Gerard had broad shoulders and beefy arms protruding from his uniform. Kyle shook his hands that felt like rocks.

  “Nice to meet you. Is there anyone else training with me?”

  “I’m afraid not. We brought you on outside of our normal recruitment schedule, so you’ll be going through the training program all on your own. But don’t worry. Even though it’s not ideal to not have others around, this means we can move through the program as quickly or slowly as suits you.”

  “How long is the program supposed to take? No one has given me an idea.”

  “The average trainee takes six months from start to finish. We have three months of full on training. After that, you’ll have two weeks to prepare for the test. From there, it’s just a matter of how many times you have to take the test to pass. It can take some people months to pass it, others a couple of weeks. Once you do, you’ll meet with the president for final approval.”