The third round of tapping echoed through the chamber. Unexplainably, Sonia’s trepidation instantly turned to an annoyance for the intrusion. She walked over to the door and opened it.
“C Twa Fyra Fem—”
“I don’t speak the native language,” she noted.
Standing in the door was an android in the likeness of a female Econian with the typical long white hair and red-green eyes. Only, it was short in comparison to the beings she had encountered that, on average, towered over her by a foot or more. It was easy for her to discern the artificial likeness as it seemed the motivation wasn’t an attempt to create an exact replica of a living being, but only to replicate certain features. The android looked puzzled as Sonia spoke. Its head snapped very sharply to the right and back again to the center facing the door entry. If it had been human, such a move would have broken its neck. It settled back on Sonia as if recovering from a mechanical failure. The pupils in the artificial red-green eyes dilated consuming the iris and most of the white in the eye then returned to their original size. “I do apologize, I was not originally programmed to speak the…English…language. My name is…America…that is a nice Earth name and I should like to be called…America.”
“Umm…that is the name of a country, not a person. Can you try again?”
“Then I should like to be called…Reeeeeeeeeeeba,” she said seeming to get stuck on the ‘e’ as her head turned to the right. The head popped back as if were sprung free at the pronunciation of the ‘ba’ at the end of the name.”
Sonia stared blankly into the red-green eyes of the insane piece of machinery, “Really? I think I will just call you Ann…short for android. What can I do for you?”
“I am to escort you to the hanger for transport.”
“I am not going to any hanger for transport anywhere,” she replied.
Ann’s head snapped to the left this time and then back to Sonia, “I have instructions to take you to Joseph.”
“I don’t know a Joseph. And, where is he?” she replied impatiently.
“I am Joseph,” the voice in her mind replied.
“So, I have a robot…that is a bit off I might say…at my door wanting to take me somewhere in outer space…which has yet to be revealed to me. The voice in my mind has a name. What the heck is wrong with me?” Sonia tossed her hands up in the air and decided to play along as there had to be a limit to her insanity. She would go to the hanger and see if there was a transport intended for her. Without pause, Sonia moved to the bedroom and changed her clothes then grabbed some outfits for the supposed trip. She realized that if it turned out to be true, the possibility of returning was minimal since she had no idea what was going to happen and if she would survive. The boy was more than likely a trap set by Ningal, but if she could get the chance to kill her, then it was possibly worth the sacrifice.
Ann led Sonia out of the unit and down to the hanger. She peered out and sensed a bit of Deja vu. There was a transport with the plank down. Ann proceeded without caution or concern and walked to the ramp of what seemed to be a rather large vessel. The craft had multiple levels and was ten times bigger than her living quarters. Circular rooms with transparent walls hung off on both sides of the vessel. She expected to be stopped and possibly apprehended by Econian guards, but no one was in sight. Her heart sank as it appeared that there was no interference and the possibility of an actual departure became real for the first time. As soon as she entered the ship, Sonia considered running down the ramp and returning to her living quarters abandoning the madness. She turned and before taking a step, the ramp slid into place as if someone was reading her mind.
Ann motioned for Sonia to follow her and they walked up a narrow hall to a small elevator. They went up one floor and stepped out onto the bridge. The large control panel arched behind a wall of what appeared to be glass. Three empty chairs were mounted to the floor with straps hanging to the sides. Each was positioned in front of large screens and hundreds of buttons, knobs and other controls. “I don’t know how to fly one of these things or even where I am going,” she said as the realization of the situation began to intensify.
The circuit board lit up and the ship began to levitate. Sonia considered how she could get back off the craft as there was too much unknown. Things like this had to be planned and prepared for. One didn’t just fly by the seat of their pants when being launched into outer space. Hitting the android over the head was not likely to do much good at that point. A consuming regret of the decision to board the ship welled up the need for more aggressive action. She looked over to demand that Ann put the craft back down and let her off. When she opened her mouth to speak, the craft shot out of the hanger like a rocket pinning her in the seat. In seconds, they were surrounded by the vastness of space.
Chapter 13
“Which one of you did it? Where is the girl? Why did you do it?” the man asked sternly while staring coldly into his eyes.
He fidgeted and could not settle down as any normal twelve-year-old would have under the same conditions locked in a small room with two strangers. He was more nervous than he could ever recall being at any point in his short life. “No! I was sleeping. None of us did anything.” Logan replied to the detective as he sat in a wooden chair fighting off claustrophobia and the need to get out of the room. The two men sat across the metal table in front of him where he could employ intimidation by leaning in with an angry scowled face and accusatory tone. The bald heavyset man was the one yelling and making false accusations trying to trick him. But why? He was just a kid. The second man with thick black hair seemed to be more of an observer and did little more than take notes. Logan was young and had never been through anything like this before. Where were his parents? He desperately wondered. Logan was nervous, intimidated, and was fearful of saying the wrong thing that would be turned into an admission of guilt. He had nothing to do with the incident and could not understand why the men were so desperate to put the fault on him.
“You’re going to jail if you are lying to me. Where is the girl?” he continued to push slamming his hand down on the table.
Logan shot up sending his white chair into the wall while yelling back in frustration defending himself, “I wish that I knew. I have no idea!”
“Stop lying and tell me what happened! You know the truth. If you come clean, things will be better for you,” the burly man continued to use the art of intimidation to get what he wanted.
“I won’t admit to something I had nothing to do with!” Logan yelled.
His eyes popped open. He was staring down toward the surface from over thirty-thousand feet through a thin cloud that had shrouded the plane. He was able to see enough to know that they were still over open water and that there was no sign of a beach or any man-made structures. Despite the numerous times he had flown, Logan was dealing with a growing anxiety to be on the ground and out of the plane. Logan assumed it originated in his sixth sense. He suddenly and unexplainably felt trapped, which was possibly associated with the dream which hadn’t been based on actual events. Rational thoughts began to take hold and root out the concern. Something was wrong and somehow he was the only one that knew it. The passengers were all carrying on and seem to have not a care in the world. The turbines hummed peacefully and the plane had not entered any bad weather or experienced any turbulence. He couldn’t rationalize his instincts.
Logan’s head had been pressed against the window with enough force and for a long enough period of time to leave an ache just above his right temple. It wasn’t exactly clear how he had gotten into that position or how long he was asleep, but his head was paying the price.
“Well, you had a good nap. Bit tired, but no way can I sleep on this airborne hunk of metal. I’m jealous,” Ayla said with the hint of a smile.
Logan turned to face her and asked, “How long was I out?”
“About thirty minutes, I guess. Nice red mark over your eye, mate.”
“We should be close to Miami by now,” h
e said while looking around.
“Yeah nah. Dunno really,” Ayla said.
“Hope so,” he replied to try and further subdue the concerning thoughts. They would be on the ground soon and he would have no reason to worry.
Logan reached out and grabbed a cup on his tray then pulled it to his mouth instinctively. Without thinking, he took a big mouthful before realizing that the coffee had become the same temperature as the cabin. He forced himself to swallow it rather than spit it all over the back of the seat in front of them, “Why does coffee taste so bad when it is cold?”
“Some like it right out of the chilly bin,” Ayla replied.
“There’s something just not right with iced coffee. I just don’t get it,” he looked at her with a slight frown.
“Well, I’m one of them,” Ayla said with a smile.
“I think we can agree to disagree on that one,” he leaned in closer to Ayla. The shocked expression faded and he looked into her eyes, “look, I’m not sure what is going to happen when we meet up with…him,” Logan considered caution in saying his name. “We may both get into real trouble. You have been through enough…I think you need a break. I don’t know what he has, if it is top secret, or what the classification level is. All I know is that he wouldn’t say over the phone.”
Although she had only known him for a few days, there was no way to misinterpret the intent to shield her. She appreciated his concern but was slightly irritated that he was trying to talk her out of participating. Ayla leaned in and whispered to him, “Yeah right! They killed people that I once worked with and then tried to kill me…twice. These monsters have killed and have taken, what more than 100 people on that bloody island? If what we have been told is true, that they have been doing this for centuries, I want to know. Every bit of information helps and I am willing to pay the consequences. Who is to say that will be the last time, or that something far bloody worse is coming? They will keep coming back and we need to find a way to stop them. No bloody way! I won’t act like a coward as if nothing has happened and go home thinking it will all just go away. I’m sure that they will come for me again. Those things are here on our planet. I have to be involved with the solution to the problem of stopping them from killing and taking again. Besides, you’ve been through a lot yourself. Twice attacked and nearly drowned at sea.”
“I just think you have been through too much. You’ve seen things that none of us have. We can possibly get in trouble for this. What if there are serious legal repercussions?” he asked.
Her expression softened, “You heard what he said. What if Honoré isn’t a fraud and what if he really isn’t insane? What if the bloke was telling the truth? Come on, this guy who really doesn’t look like he is from here shows up out of the blue, knows your sister’s name and what happened to her and recognized the telenium. That information can’t be denied. Something big is happening here. This guy, your friend, may help us understand a little more about what is going on. If that is the case, I want to know. What if this helps you to corroborate what this Honoré chap said happened to your sister?” Ayla asked.
“My sister has been gone for twenty years now. I doubt this has anything to do with her. How that guy knew about it, I’m not sure. How he knew her name, I guess he could have looked it up. To just show up out of the blue in that circumstance and tell me that he rescued my sister from some planet and that he has taken her to another planet was hard to believe. Then to expect me to jump on some spaceship with him and fly to wherever she may be, was just too much. The guy is nuts…despite all that we have seen. I should have called his bluff and told him to take me to his ‘ship.’ Besides, I’m not sure how I would do in a ship flying through space. Flying on this plane is enough for me. As it is, I can’t wait to get on the ground. Anyway, it just seemed so silly.” Logan sat back.
Ayla gave him an odd look, “Are you bloody kidding me? Did you already forget the things you just experienced? Are you saying that you don’t believe that something else is out there? You saw and recorded part of an invisible ship under the bloody water. For goodness sake, what about that thing you fought on the beach…which was similar to the thing that attacked and killed the people I was with in Mexico? Then the weaponized creature under the water.”
Logan raised his right hand, “No…you’re right. I don’t have an explanation for any of it, yet. I just didn’t trust the guy.”
“What if it is true and they have found your sister? Wouldn’t you want to know? Isn’t it worth the risk if you learn something about her?” Ayla asked.
Logan paused for a second, “I have dealt with the loss of my sister for a long time. That was twenty years ago. I know what we saw, but how can we believe this guy with no proof? How do we know it was a man at all? He could be like that thing that was following you. I am not sure what his or its true intentions were, but I live with losing her every day. She really is never out of my mind. I want to find her more than anything and punish those who are responsible. But, after twenty years, the reality that may never happen is kind of hard to push aside.”
The Boeing 757 jolted violently as if it had collided with something in the air. Several passengers who had taken their seatbelts off were tossed forward out of their seats. After a few seconds, the plane was stable again. Logan instinctively peered out of the window as he knew it was more than turbulence. By the increase in chatter around the cabin, the other passengers sensed something as well. He had experienced flights where the plane had shaken and lost significant altitude, but this seemed different. The thoughts in his rational mind began to surface justifying his loathing of air travel. It drifted where it should not have gone, wishing he were on the ground in a car or on a boat anywhere other than thirty-thousand feet in the atmosphere. They were one-hundred percent helpless and at the complete mercy of the situation. He tried to angle his vision to the rear of the plane searching for any visible airborne debris from the impact despite knowing full well that due to the plane’s speed it would have passed in the blink of an eye. It would not have been possible to see anything.
The reality was that mid-air collisions happened fairly frequently despite seemingly endless miles of open sky and clear visibility, which always seemed odd. When flying in thick cloud coverage or in thunderstorms, an increased opportunity for such an occurrence made much more sense and he often prayed to pass through without such an incident. On a clear afternoon with beautiful weather, such as the day had offered, it was dumbfounding. How could something like that happen?
The plane jolted a second time, which seemed to be a more extreme form of turbulence than the first. Logan searched once again for a cause and noticed that the other passengers had met the same conclusion. Restlessness spread throughout the cabin. Unlike the first time, this was not a brief jolt immediately followed by a return to normalcy, this was ongoing. As he panned the area around the plane again, he gasped when he noticed the smoke and sparks shooting from the rear of the turbofan mounted on the starboard wing, of which the 757 carried only two.
He turned to see Ayla sitting with her back pressed tight against the seat and looking forward as if trying to convince herself not to panic. White knuckles gripped the armrests and seemed that they would rip them from the chair. Logan did not want to increase her anxiety and considered keeping the new information to himself especially considering that there was nothing either of them could do to put out the fire. While it was not something that he had experienced in all of his years of flying, it was common knowledge, or perhaps a fable for all he really knew, that planes could fly and land with one engine. It seemed certain that there had to be a limitation on the distance. They were still over open water and Miami was miles away. From behind him, passengers began to scream as they noticed the condition of the turbine.
Ayla turned to Logan, “I think we have a problem here,” he said as calmly as possible.
She leaned over and looked out of the window as a piece of metal shot out of the back of the engine. The plane bec
ame instantly more unstable and shook more erratically. The nose of the plane was still up and had yet to dive, but they were undoubtedly losing altitude. Then a long flame shot out of the rear of the turbofan. The cowlings popped open and tore away exposing the ball of fire that used to be the engine. Ayla and Logan watched helplessly as bits and parts of the engine appeared to be ripped off and tossed away by an invisible adversary.
Panic and chaos quickly spread throughout the plane as passengers began to fear that a crash was inevitable. Logan leapt from his seat and looked to the other wing in hope of finding the turbofan intact. To his horror, it had fared no better than the engine on the starboard side. The 757 had been reduced to an overloaded glider and there was no land in sight as far as they could see. Logan decided to remain optimistic as long as the plane remained nose-up. He believed that there was a chance for survival if the pilots could retain some control of the craft. Just as he was considering this, the nose of the plane pointed downward toward the sea, which for the second time in three days, seemed as if it was going to turn into a graveyard. They were falling out of the sky.
His life flashed before him. The reality of any chance of survival had completely dissipated and it appeared that they were on the cusp of a catastrophic crash. If Sonia truly was no longer among the living, he would soon be reunited with her in eternity. Logan considered Heaven and prayed for forgiveness and mercy just as he had done while being swept out to open water. It was interesting how the majority of people would call out to God when they sensed death. Perhaps it was an indication of the human connection with God, of whom Logan was a believer.
Universal Code Page 23
