An Extra-Ordinary Beginning (The Adventures of Eric and Ursula Book 1)

by A. D. Winch

  The children stayed fast asleep for the entire flight to France. When they hit a storm over Switzerland, strong winds rocked the plane and threw it around but the children did not wake. Even when they landed in Paris, they did not stir. The plane bumped along the runway and then came to an abrupt standstill inside a cavernous hangar.

  The two sleeping children, plus Andrea and Alexander, stayed inside the plane after landing, while Captain Hudson fetched his car. He drove his metallic pink people carrier right up to the plane’s door, and Alexander carried Ursula off while Andrea brought Eric. The two children were placed onto the back seats, but they remained fast asleep and did not even murmur. Once Alexander and Andrea were in the car, Captain Hudson drove away.

  It was warm in Paris; the sun was shining, trees were full of blossom and the roads were reasonably quiet. After less than an hour of driving, and following Andrea’s directions, they arrived back at Saint-Denis.

  The children were finally woken by Andrea forcefully shaking them. The white hair around their ears had spread further and the crow’s feet around their eyes were more noticeable.

  Mémé took a last bite of her lunch and stood up from the table. She was wearing a yellow apron over a brightly coloured frock and her hair was in curlers. Her husband was still eating; scattering baguette crumbs over his ‘Allez Les Bleus’ T-shirt and black trousers. Mémé took his plate into the kitchen before he had finished eating and began to wash up. When the knocks on the front door came her hands were covered in soap suds, and she instructed her husband to go and answer it.

  On seeing Ursula at the door, Granddad Benjamin had to stop himself from crying. His eyes went red and he fought to hold back the tears as he held his Granddaughter tight. Ursula then hopped off to surprise Mémé. Granddad Benjamin gave Eric a welcome hug before politely kissing Andrea on the cheeks and then shaking hands with the two strangers - Alexander and Captain Hudson.

  Like her husband, Mémé was over the moon to see Ursula again and was also delighted to see Eric and Andrea too. She politely welcomed Captain Hudson and Alexander, whom she was sure she had seen somewhere in the past. Within an hour, she had warmed to both men and her suspicions had been confirmed - she had indeed seen Alexander before.

  During this time, Ursula and Eric told Mémé and Granddad Benjamin all that had happened to them since Christmas. In places, Andrea and Alexander joined in, either adding bits to the narrative or correcting a number of exaggerations. Captain Hudson listened to the story, as absorbed by it as the Benjamins. He found it curious how his own fate seemed to be linked in some way to the Meyer’s.

  The living room was cramped with seven people but they all had a seat. The children, plus the Benjamins, squashed up on the itchy sofa and the three other adults sat at the table. Mémé had provided them all with tea and homemade biscuits, and there was a warm, safe feeling in the room.

  When they got to the part of the story involving Ursula arriving to Earth in the pod and her grandmother finding her, the three Benjamins were left alone in the living room. The other four stood on the balcony, amongst the plants, and gazed out across the block.

  It was not long before they were beckoned back into the room. All three Benjamins had shed a tear, but they were tears of relief and gratitude rather than of sadness. Their heart-to-heart and the truth behind Ursula’s past did not divide them but brought them even closer together.

  When the children had finished telling their stories, Captain Hudson wiggled his moustache and said, “The last two days have been most illuminating. When I saw grainy images of men land on the moon, it changed my world forever. I did not think that would happen to me again, but I was wrong. My life changed beyond measure when I met Martin Meyer many years ago and has changed again now I have met his descendants. The information you possess is valuable and so are the four of you.”

  He pointed to Eric, Ursula, Alexander and Andrea.

  “Use the information wisely and plan your futures with great care and precision. If you need me at any point I will always be at your service,” he stood up, bid everyone farewell and Mémé saw him to the door.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you Madame Benjamin. I apologize for my departure but if I do not go soon Cécile will be thinking I have a girlfriend,” he said, slowly winked at her and then left.

  Mémé returned to the living room and refilled all their teas, except Andrea’s which was untouched. She sat back down between the children and put her arm around both of them. Ursula knew that Eric was happy for the first time in several months, and she felt the same.

  “I believe this is where we add our piece of the story,” began Granddad Benjamin. “We always wanted a child but for reasons only God knows it never happened. We hoped and prayed but as the years passed, and we aged, we came to accept our childless fate.”

  “Then one night,” continued Mémé, “I was walking home down a poorly lit underpass with an old, shopping trolley in it. It was cold, and it had been raining. There was nobody out, but there was a man lurking near the entrance to the underpass who was watching me. I tried to go as quickly as I could because he put me on edge.”

  “Sorry,” apologized Alexander, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think you had seen me.”

  Mémé gestured with her hand that it was nothing and went on, “As I got near to the trolley I heard crying. I was worried about the man,” she corrected herself, “Alexander, watching me but I stopped anyway. Laying in the beaten up trolley, wrapped in thick blankets, her little nose poking through a gap, was the most beautiful baby. The moment I picked her up she stopped crying. A voice echoed down the underpass, ‘She’s yours, take her.’ When I turned to speak the man had gone. So I did as he said and took Ursula home. After peeling the blankets away, I removed her strange, silver baby clothes and found a compact disc lying against her chest.”

  “We didn’t know what it was,” said Granddad Benjamin standing up. “We have never been very good with technology but we kept it anyway. As it was with the baby, we thought it might be important.”

  He approached the glass cabinet and opened the doors. Near the back, behind Kinder toys, glass animals, china ornaments and underneath a wind-up clock was a CD. Carefully he removed it and handed it to Ursula. She turned it over in her hands trying to find a number. Next to the hole in the centre, faded by sunlight and Mémé’s cleaning, was a very faint number five.

  “It is number five,” she said excitedly and passed it to Andrea.

  “Do you have the laptop I gave you?” Andrea asked the Benjamins.

  They both looked suddenly very guilty.

  “It was very kind of you to give it to us,” answered Granddad Benjamin, “but technology is a young person’s game, and we’re a bit too long in the tooth for something new. To be honest, we’ve been too scared to turn it on. Will it still work?”

  Andrea shrugged, “It is not a problem, but do you still have it?”

  “Oh yes,” replied Mémé, “I put it in Ursula’s bedroom. It is on her desk.”

  “Alexander and I will go and watch the CD. The rest of you will stay here.”

  The three Benjamins were happy for this to happen, but Eric argued until Granddad Benjamin said that he wanted to talk to him. Andrea and Alexander left the living room with the disc and went into Ursula’s bedroom.

  When they had left, Granddad Benjamin pulled up a Formica chair and sat in front of the sofa.

  “Ursula and Eric, I would like to tell you something and then I would like to ask you something. My grandfather was the chief of his village on the plains of the great continent of Africa. One day he told my father that he was special that he could change the world, and asked him what he would do? My father thought carefully about these things and after careful deliberation decided to leave the village of mud huts and start a new life in the town. Many years ago my father told me that I was special that I could change the world, and he asked me what would I do? I puzzled over this problem for weeks and then final
ly decided to leave hot and dusty Africa and start a new life in France. I now turn to the two of you and say that you are special, you could change the world, and I ask you a very important question, what will you do?”

  Eric and Ursula were lost for words.

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  ***

  Chapter 31 – Disc Five

  Apart from a clean set of yellow sheets on the bed, Ursula’s room had not changed since Christmas. Every week Mémé would go in to wipe the dust away, but she did not touch or move or take away anything. It was Ursula’s room, and she was not going to change that. Occasionally, when Granddad Benjamin really missed Ursula, he would enter, sit on the bed and recall fond memories. Like Mémé, he would not touch anything and would only leave his imprint where he had sat on the bed.

  The door creaked open and Alexander and Andrea entered. Straightaway they noticed the perfectly made bed with the ruffled end where Granddad Benjamin chose to sit. On the glass-topped, school desk they saw the laptop. It still looked brand new and had obviously not been touched. Alexander flipped open the screen, pressed the on button and the slim computer whirred into life. Andrea inserted disc five and they both sat down on the bed to watch.

  Professor Larsen appeared on the screen but she looked different from the other CDs. Her composure had gone and she looked frantic. Her grey hair had not been brushed and untidy strands fell over her face. There were bags below her bloodshot eyes and the white gown which she wore had been buttoned wrongly.

  In her arms, she held Eric and Ursula, who were dressed in silver baby grows and looked fast asleep. Professor Larsen talked rapidly, gently rocking the babies as she did so. It was difficult to make out her garbled words at times but Alexander and Andrea still understood what she was saying.

  “This is Professor Larsen and this is an additional compact disc to my original four. I do not think I have long and therefore I must be quick. They have found me, and because they have found me, I must pass on my fears. These are fears that have come from my observations and inferences. Some people will dismiss them as the mad ramblings of a space sick, old lady. I assure you that they are not, and despite my current appearance my thinking behind these is clear and logical. My three fears are these...

  “Number One. In the fall of nineteen forty seven, I accompanied Professor Schwarzkopf and Major Marshall into a secret laboratory far below ground at Roswell Airforce base in New Mexico. We were taken down white-washed corridors to a sterile white tiled room. Inside it, on two metal tables, were two child-sized bodies covered in white sheets. They were extra-terrestrial beings or aliens, from the dart-shaped craft which had crashed. Other scientists believed that they were both dead. I do not believe this was true. I am certain that at least one, maybe both, was still alive. Its body may have seemed dead, but its mind was not. The moment I pushed the heavy doors open and entered, I felt as if my own mind had been seized. It was as if someone was hypnotizing and analyzing me at the same time. It tried to take control of my mind and read my thoughts. I fled before it achieved its aim.

  “Over the following years I have come to some conclusions regarding our alien visitors. None of these are based on fact, only observations, and I hope that they are simply the result of my over-active imagination.

  “The crash between our Foo Fighter and the alien craft in nineteen forty-seven was a tragic accident. However, I do not believe the alien’s location was an accident. New Mexico is a hot, dry, barren and ragged area of the world. In many respects, it resembles other, non-gas planets, more closely than anywhere else on planet Earth.

  “Many scientists are now beginning to believe that originally there was no life on Earth, and you cannot create life from nothing. Therefore, life had to be introduced to our planet. A theory has been proposed that a meteor storm crashed into the Earth bringing life in the shape of single-cell organisms and maggot-like creatures. From this ‘accident’ we all evolved. On Mars, rocks have been recently discovered that contain tiny tunnels as if made by a tiny, maggot-like creature. It is my assumption that the same meteor storm which hit the Earth also hit Mars and other planets. It is possible, though not probable, that life evolved on other planets too. In an infinite universe, it is hard to believe we are on the only planet capable of supporting life. But different worlds have different environmental conditions and therefore life could evolve differently and at different rates. On some worlds, this could be slower than on Earth but on others it could be faster. Likewise, some alien races, if there are others, may be technologically behind us while others may be light years ahead of us.

  “I have said before that the role of science is not to speculate, and I will try to avoid this. I shall, therefore, report the facts. In the last sixty years especially we have witnessed huge technological advances and with them our lifestyles have changed. All these advances require energy. We are using more and more fuels and also wasting more and more. The energy we use has come from rapidly vanishing natural resources underground as well as massive deforestation. The results of this have been increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, global warming and an increased temperature on average of between one and half and two degrees. This does not seem like much, but it has meant increases in storms and their power, loss of biospheres and species, an increase in lands that we can no longer use and a loss of coastal areas. In short we are becoming a more extreme planet and in this respects much more similar to other planets in the universe.

  “The questions I want to ask are: what if another race has advanced quicker than us? What if they destroyed their world the way we are destroying ours? What if they are looking for another one? And what if a hotter, more extreme world, is their idea of home?

  “My second fear also goes back to Roswell. In nineteen sixty-six, after discovering Operation Mulatto and the plan to create Identical Hybrid Beings or Hybrids, I fled New Mexico and America. However, before doing so I returned to the underground labs for only the second, and last, time.

  “I stole more alien samples and other items I thought may be useful to me. As I mentioned on another compact disc, I also destroyed everything else.

  “My fear is that my efforts were in vain. Agent Angel does not give up easily, and he will not be beaten. He has set a goal and will not stop until it is achieved. He will still want to create his Identical Hybrid Beings, his cloned army, and have a ‘super army for a super power.’ I may have delayed him, but I have not stopped him, of this I am certain. If I can achieve his goal, albeit on a smaller scale and on my terms, then so can he.”

  Professor Larsen stopped and looked down at Eric and Ursula like a mother with her newborn infant.

  “My last fear concerns my Adam and my Eve. Before beginning my research on humans, I conducted preliminary studies on rats. For a number of years, I achieved nothing with these studies but then slowly, painfully slowly, I made breakthroughs. Two years ago my research on rats was successful and I managed to create a ‘test tube’ rat.”

  Suddenly a loud beeping noise drowned out Professor Larsen and her face filled with panic. She left the camera for a short while and the beeping stopped. When she returned she was crying.

  “I must be quick. I do not have much more time. The average life span for a rat is three years or thirty-six months and is equivalent to the average life span for a human of seventy-two years. I noted that, for the first three months of my rats' lives, they were normal. At around three and a half months they started to develop, what I can best describe as abilities beyond that of an average rat. However, each time this happened they visibly aged. None of my rats lived beyond six and a half months. In human terms, this means that my Adam and my Eve will not live beyond their thirteenth or fourteenth birthdays.”

  The beeping began again but it was faster and louder. Professor Larsen leant forward, mouthed the word ‘sorry’ and then the screen went blank.

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  ***

  Chapter 32 - Three months later

  Agent Angel
was stood in the observation room next to Agent Hoover. They were looking at thousands of screens that monitored the world. The last twelve years of his life had been devoted to finding those pods. This room had been built to do just that, and now his aim had been achieved.

  In his hand, he held a half-smoked cigarette which was slowly burning down to the butt, sending spirals of smoke around the room. A thin, sinewy figure lurking in the shadows at the back of the room breathed in the smoke through two tiny mouth-like nostrils. At the same time, Agent Hoover tried to blow the smoke away from his face.

  The Italian police’s failure to take hold of two children aged only twelve years old had made Agent Angel furious at first, especially when Kurtz had told him that they had both come from the pods. He arranged for the policemen involved to be discharged but had come to accept it. After all, he reflected, they now had both pods and all four discs. From this point of view the mission had been a success, even if the second pod was still not open.

  An electronic bell rang inside the room, and Agent Hoover looked down at the image on his computer. It was a woman dressed in a white lab coat.

  “It’s Jean Kurtz, Sir, shall I let her in?” he asked.

  Agent Angel nodded, and Agent Hoover pressed the switch to buzz her in. Steady footsteps echoed around the room as she approached Agent Angel.

  “What is it, Kurtz?” he asked.

  She spoke slowly in her confident whiney voice, but Agent Hoover could tell she was worried about what she was saying.

  “We’ve analyzed all the data on the four CDs and put it against our own. I can assure you, Sir, that we’ve checked and rechecked our findings countless times. However, no matter how we look at it we can’t create Identical Hybrid Beings using Professor Larsen’s research alone. I’m sorry.”

  Agent Angel crushed the lit cigarette in his palm and asked, “What are you telling me, Kurtz? That we can’t move on? That it’s the end of the line? That I have to finally abandon my dream after more than forty years? A dream that began before you were even born!”