by Magan Vernon
DEFY THE STARS
MAGAN VERNON
Copyright © 2015 by Magan Vernon
Http://www.maganvernon.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form by or any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
Third Edition: August 2015
Second Edition edited by Dani Crabtree
http://www.Hedanicreations.net
For Tim,
For helping to make all of my dreams come true.
Chapter 1
If someone told me at the beginning of that summer that I would come face-to-face with death because of a Romeo and Juliet romance, I would never have believed it. But it wasn't like that summer went at all like I had planned in the first place.
The Columbia recruiter sat across from me, her dark bushy eyebrows rising as high as they could go while she stared down at my application. "So, Alex, I see that you don't have any extracurricular activities."
I shrugged. I was sitting in one of those uncomfortable orange plastic chairs in the guidance counselor's office, wishing I could just disappear. I was the first student in all of Winnebago High School's history to have a recruiter from an Ivy League school visit. By the way she looked at our tiny school with its ancient, chipped walls and rusted lockers, I could see why nobody had wanted to visit in the past.
I hoped she couldn't tell how nervous I was, so I tried everything that I could to avoid her glazed-over eyes. Instead, I looked at one of those stupid motivational posters framed on the wall behind her—something about success being measured by the failures in life and a man standing on top of a cliff. Yeah, I'm sure that guy had a lot of successes; he ended up on a poster in some small town guidance counselor's office.
"I figured my grades were more important than being on the track team or something like that."
"I see…" she said, pressing her lips together and scribbling something on the yellow notepad on the desk in front of her.
This was my shot to get into my dream college; I had to think fast. I blurted the only thing I could think of. "But I'm doing an internship with Circe Operations Center this summer!"
"Really?" The recruiter put her pen down and leaned in, focusing her stare in my direction.
“Yeah, it’s something pretty classified, you know with all of the government work they do, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of information to include on my admissions essay.”
Great, I hadn’t even been to Circe, and I had barely spoken to my Circe-employed military dad since he and my mom got divorced.
“Well, I look forward to reading it." She smiled for the first time since she entered the building and I was finally able to breathe again.
****
That was how I ended up sitting next to my dad in his Air Force-issued Jeep as we took the long drive through the Arizona desert. I had no idea how he pulled the strings to get me into Circe, but being a colonel did have its benefits.
"Thanks again, Dad. I really appreciate that you were able to help me get this internship." I tried to glance at him from the corner of my eye, but the only part of my mom's gene pool she graced me with was her terrible eyesight, so the peripheral vision out of the side of my glasses didn't work very well.
He smiled, patting my knee like it hadn't been seven years since I'd last seen him and that everything was perfectly normal between us. I didn't know many girls that were really close with their dads, but I’m sure they at least saw theirs on a regular basis. I barely even recognized mine when he picked me up from the airport. It was like the years had somehow drastically aged the face that my mom always said looked like Marlon Brando when he was a bad boy in A Streetcar Named Desire. But from what I saw, he looked more like Brando in The Godfather these days, with his receding hairline and crow's feet encasing his brown eyes.
"You're in for a real treat. Once the Columbia admissions people see this internship on your application you'll be first in line to pick out your dorm room." He grinned.
"I hope so. It's not like I really have much experience doing anything besides babysitting Elijah and blogging. I don't think those count as extracurriculars."
I saw my dad wince slightly at the sound of Elijah's name–the son of my mother and her new husband, Brian. My dad didn't harbor any ill feelings toward my mom or her new marriage, but nobody was ever really happy to hear about their ex in a new relationship, especially when it was with a guy like Brian. Brian made model airplanes in his spare time and always called me kiddo. He was the reason my mom moved us out to Winnebago in the first place. To have a "normal" upbringing that wasn't on a military base or living in her parents' basement. Or so she said, until I realized we were moving in with Brian and his cats.
The perk of living in a small Illinois farm town was that you knew everyone around you, and the bad part about living in a small Illinois farm town was that you knew everyone. So when I was the only girl who didn't fit into the WASP stereotype with my dad's olive skin and my mom's poor eyesight, it was pretty easy to get labeled as the weird girl fairly quickly. I got used to being picked on, and after awhile I realized that if I focused enough on my grades I could get the attention of all my top choice Ivy League schools. The only problem was they were looking for more than just a straight-A student.
"So this isn't like Circe from the Odyssey is it? We aren't going to be stuck here with some seductress for years on end are we?"
It was too late to take back the words, but I knew that was how my mom always felt about Circe. It was the seductress that took her husband away from his family.
My dad just laughed, shaking his head. "Well, at least I know you still have your sense of humor."
After driving for miles with nothing but cacti and desert, a giant steel fence appeared out of nowhere and stretched so far I couldn’t see the end. The wall dwarfed my dad’s Jeep, making it look like we were approaching an iron giant. A pair of guards stared down from watchtowers that stood on each side of the large metal gate.
“Why all the big hoopla? It was never like this when you were stationed at Randolph.”
My eyes widened as my dad flashed his badge against a small computer screen on the tower, letting the doors creak open. I expected to be greeted by a giant fortress, but all that I could see was more desert and a large mountain range in the distance.
“Well, you know this isn’t like the other bases I’ve been stationed at. This one is a bit more classified." He squinted, not taking his eyes off the rocky path lying in front of us as the gate slammed shut.
“Where is this place anyway? All I see is more freaking sand and mountains. Don’t tell me I’m going to be camping." I scanned outside my window and saw nothing. Absolutely nothing but barren desert.
My dad sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Alex, you will not be camping. Circe is actually in the mountain range, so we have a bit more privacy when we’re testing equipment and don’t have to worry about all the air space.”
“Why would you need more privacy? Is this legal? Am I going to be smuggling something illegal for the government?”
Before my dad could answer any questions, the Jeep came to a screeching halt in front of the mountain. He came so close I thought we had hit it.
"It looks like we're here," my dad said, shooting me a sideways smile as he unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of the Jeep.
“Uh, Dad, you know this is just a big rock, right?" I questioned as he grabbed my suitcase out of the back.
“I know.
" He had that stupid smile still plastered on his face like it wasn’t crazy that we were standing in front of a mountain in the middle of the desert.
He reached out and pushed against a big boulder. The whole mountain shook and suddenly two of the boulders slid apart. I jumped back as I peered into a small, windowless room covered floor to ceiling in mirrors.
“Going up,” a monotone voice droned.
“Shall we?" My dad extended his hand toward the opening.
My mouth gaped as I stared from him to the elevator.
“What the…?"
My dad laughed, sliding his arm around my shoulders. “If you want to spend the summer here, you’re definitely going to have to get used to things like this." He led me toward the elevator, pulling me inside just as the big boulders slammed shut behind us.
“It was a mountain and then…" My mind was racing as I paced back and forth from wall to wall. I couldn’t tell if we were moving or still on the ground. I didn’t feel any sort of jolt and nothing seemed to vibrate around me.
My dad just laughed. “Oh, Alex.”
I stopped pacing and narrowed my eyes. “Do you think this is funny?”
"You have reached your destination. Welcome to Circe, Miss Bianchi." the same monotone voice hummed over the loudspeaker.
I slowly turned toward the elevator doors as they boomed open. Greeting me was a blinding white light, reflecting off even whiter floors and walls that seemed to stretch forever ahead of me. People in silver jumpsuits walked around like nothing had interrupted them as they chatted to the person next to them or read from electronic devices.
“Yes, Alex. Welcome to Circe." My dad smiled down at me as we got off the elevator.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. I had been to other military bases that my dad had worked on, but none of them compared to this. With the high-arched ceiling and glowing lights, I felt like I was going through an airport boarding tunnel and not at a military base.
“Vince, my boy, you made it." A man with a salt and pepper crew cut approached my dad.
“Walter, old man." My dad briskly shook the man’s hand and they started going on about some Air Force thing or another. "Hey, Alex, give me a minute, will you?"
My dad glanced in my direction before diving back into his conversation. I rolled my eyes and gave him a thumbs up. Not that I was expecting an introduction, but it would have been nice to know what was going on.
As I got lost in my own world, staring at all the white walls, I felt something crawl onto my arm. I tried to flick off whatever was there, but a cold, slimy hand gripped my arm, whirling me in the direction of a short, wrinkled woman who reminded me of some sort of wicked witch from a cartoon.
“Um, can I help you?" I tried to pull my arm away from the woman’s grasp, but despite her small stature, she had the strength of someone five times her size.
She tilted her head up, and I could see that she was missing an eye, the empty socket oozing with a black liquid that glittered against her wrinkled face. The one eye she did have was the size of a large egg and was focused right on me.
"You," she said in a voice that sounded like a hawk's cry as she pointed a long, curled fingernail at me, "are a traitor!"
“Uh, Dad?" My body trembled from her words. I thought she was probably just some crazy prisoner of war or a refugee from some third world country, but I didn’t want her touching me or talking to me like I was the dangerous one.
My dad finally stopped his conversation as both men rushed toward the woman.
Her slimy hands reached for my neck, those long fingernails scraping against my throat.
“Must destroy the traitor,” she screeched. Her fingers swirled like tentacles around my neck and suctioned onto it like a vacuum.
I wanted to tell her that she must have made a mistake. I was just Alex, not some traitor. I gasped for air, but the more I struggled or tried to explain, the tighter her grip became and I started to lose consciousness.
At least eight men ran in and tried to pull her vice-like grip away from me, but they couldn’t move her while she mumbled in some cryptic language. I thought I was going to die right there. My life flashed before my eyes—my parents' divorce, the birth of my half-brother, and even the Columbia recruiter looking at me with those caterpillar eyebrows. I didn’t want to die like this.
Then the woman's grip loosened and the air whooshed back into my lungs. I gasped, relieved that I might actually survive. I tried to focus on what was in front of me, but all I could see was the outline of a very tall man in a silver jumpsuit.
“No!" she screeched. “You, of all of us, should know what she is capable of!”
I looked up to see a pair of coal-black eyes staring at me as the man heaved the shaking woman away from my neck. The last thing I felt was the warm touch of his hand on my cheek before everything went dark.
Chapter 2
My eyes snapped open, only to awaken to the smell of rotten eggs and a pair of beady bug eyes that stared right back at me. I bent my head back.
"Holy—!" Only then did I realize that I was lying on a small white hospital bed and my arms were covered in large purple welts.
"It looks like she's coming to." A tiny orange fist poked my forehead.
I tried to swat the little orange bug away, but when my hand reached its arm all I ended up with was a palm full of clear goop.
"What the…?"
I tried to sit up, but my head spun. The last thing I remembered before blacking out was a pair of coal-black eyes. But now I was in a large, white room filled with hospital beds and blinking machines like I was in some sort of a spaceship hospital.
"Are you doing okay, honey?" I looked over to see my dad sitting at the edge of the bed, his eyes locked on me.
"Magpie did a pretty good number on her neck and arms, but the bruises will wear off soon and she'll be just fine." The bug paced on the bed toward my dad. It couldn't have been more than a foot tall with orange scaly skin and a body like Mr. Potato Head.
I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. Nope, definitely wasn't dreaming and it just made the marks on my arm sting.
"Uh, Dad?" I slowly looked around the room. I wasn't in a normal hospital ward, but more like something you'd see out of a science fiction movie. Creatures of all shapes and colors lay on different cots, with nurses taking their blood pressure and speaking in languages I had never heard. Where the hell was I?
"I think that's my cue to leave you two alone." The bug patted my dad's arm before fixating those round little eyes on me. "You'll be fine in no time. Have fun at orientation and welcome to Circe!" The bug flashed a big gummy smile before pouncing off the bed and waddling toward another cot.
"I'm glad you're doing okay, Alex," dad said as he scooted closer to me. "That was quite a scare."
"Dad, what the hell is this place?" I sat up, my eyes darting all around. I was sure there had to be some sort of an explanation. Maybe I was just hallucinating or something.
"I didn't know the best way to tell you this, but remember when I said that I wasn't exactly doing Air Force duties anymore? That I was doing more government work?" His eyes shifted nervously. "Well, Circe is actually an alien operations center." His eyes stopped and met mine, the wrinkles on his wide forehead creased as he waited for a response.
"You're joking, right?" I leaned in closer. "I mean, aliens don't exist. That's a myth, like the tooth fairy."
"As you can see, Alex." He stood up, reaching his arm out to me. "I'm definitely not joking and you are definitely late for orientation."
I let him help me out of bed. I was too stunned to protest. All those years I had sat in science class listening to my teachers trying to debunk myths about life existing on other planets, and now my dad was telling me it was real. More importantly, I was going to spend my summer working at an alien operations center. I felt like I was going to faint again.
We walked out of the hospital room and into a large hallway. I trie
d not to stare, but it was hard to keep my eyes off all the things going on around me. There were small, spiderlike creatures crawling on the walls and yelling gibberish to the people walking by. In the real world there was some sort of professional etiquette about saying 'hi' to the people that one passed in the hallway, but when the person that I passed had three eyes, it was hard to say anything at all. Of course my dad acted like nothing was wrong, even high-fiving the spiders as we walked by.
"Alex?" I hadn't even realized that he was talking to me. It was as if I was walking in a daze, one of those hazy dreamlike states were I wondered if I would ever wake up.
"Uh, what?" I blinked hard, looking up at him and realizing that he stopped in front of a bulky metal door.
"I just asked if you wanted me to walk you in." He leaned an arm against the door. "I don't have to if you don't want me to. I can understand if you're embarrassed."
"Uh, no that would actually be great if you walked me in." I smiled weakly, but I was actually happy, for once, to have my dad there. With everything that was going on I figured I needed someone there if I were to faint again, or if some lady tried to kill me…again.
He pushed open the door and led me into a room that was so dark my eyes had to rapidly adjust before I could see anything. I squinted as my dad put his hand on my back, guiding me into the room.
"Vince, what a surprise to see you here!" a lumberjack-looking guy with a beard like a schnauzer called from the front of the room.
After a few blinks I noticed that there were five people, maybe a few years older than me, sitting in a small circle in front of the lumberjack. All their eyes were locked on me as I entered the room and it wasn't a good stare, more like the kind you give to someone that interrupted you in the middle of a speech and made you lose your place.
"Well, after Alex had her little scare I felt that I should walk her in." My dad patted my back, beaming from ear to ear. My little scare? A woman or alien or whatever she was tried to kill me and he calls it a little scare!
