Misplaced Trilogy

by Brian Bennett

  If he had control of his hand, he would have cupped it over his mouth in shock. The voice that had spewed from his lips was that of a woman.

  Beside him, Livy also spoke. “Maybe you should stay here.”

  Her voice puzzled him like everything else about the vision. He turned to see her half-naked figure pulling on a long silky robe. It was definitely not Livy’s body, twenty years from now, perhaps, but the tall rack of loose skin and bones was not the body of a girl about to turn eighteen.

  Trey felt himself slip on his own soft robe and defiantly tighten it around his waist. The alien in the room stared at him briefly, but didn’t protest.

  Livy marched ahead and pushed through the cloth door. Trey followed her, and a sick feeling soon took hold. He recognized the long dark hallway just outside.

  At a much faster pace than his first vision, he shuffled along the corridor on Livy’s heels, her loosely tied robe fluttering into his knees.

  Livy stormed around a corner into a recess, and as expected, a cold-eyed alien stood stiffly in the shadows. Livy skirted past the alien and pushed through a set of stainless steel double doors.

  Inside, Trey pulled up beside her and gazed over a massive laboratory. Scores of blonde-haired, blue-eyed women carried about their work at high tables riddled by lab equipment. Others scuttled about carrying test tubes and syringes.

  “What’s this about?” Livy said in her foreign voice.

  A buck-naked alien stepped toward them. Deep wrinkles covered its otherwise featureless body and dry chafed skin took the place of the usual pasty appearance. The creature’s mouth parted slightly to a small lipless slit. From the opening, a raspy noise escaped, fluctuating like a dog being strangled.

  The alien had spoken, and to Trey’s amazement he understood the meaning. Rather than a sequence of words, the noises invoked a string of images like pictographs that when melded together conveyed a message that clearly demanded information concerning the misplaced embryos.

  “I’ve told you,” said the woman decidedly not Livy. “I don’t know anything about missing embryos.”

  The being gurgled out a dire warning, challenging her claim. An instant later, Trey’s very own twin stood before his eyes in blue-jeans and an untucked t-shirt. The alien was projecting his likeness.

  In Trey’s identical voice, the alien spoke. “How do you explain me?”

  Trey felt his host’s knees weaken, nearly collapsing to the floor.

  The woman who resembled Livy stood firm and defiant. “You fabricate lies to keep us under your control. This image you show me means nothing.”

  The projection of Trey wriggled from existence, replaced by Livy, unmistakably dressed as she had been in the evidence chamber at FBI headquarters.

  The woman looked away, unable to face the girl. Trey understood perfectly. Livy wasn’t just any girl; she was a young version of the woman in front of him. She was her daughter.

  Trey’s heart leapt with anxiety as he clung to the vision, not about to be sucked away by fear. If what he saw were real, it could only mean an entire generation of women had not been exterminated as Arken had feared.

  Questions flooded his mind. Where were these women and how was he able to project to them? No, he thought, correcting himself. He wasn’t projecting. He was receiving.

  “Can you hear me?” he cried, using only his mind.

  The body he occupied offered no response.

  The ancient-looking alien reshaped and summoned its lieutenants with a loud series of croaks. Behind Trey’s vision, the double doors clattered. Two much younger aliens appeared at his side dragging a large white object. Arken’s limp body dropped to the floor as the guards let go of his arms.

  Livy’s mother collapsed to the floor and pressed her ear to her husband’s life-drained chest.

  Words flew from Trey’s lips without his command. “Oh, Ona. I’m so sorry.”

  Livy’s mother shook with intense sobs. “You killed him,” she cried, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

  Trey’s womanly body lowered to Ona’s side in a fetal attempt to comfort her companion.

  The older alien stepped to the center of the room and directed his wretched voice for all to hear. “Let this be a warning. We will not stop until every one of those abominations has been eradicated.”

  Part 3 - Feared

  Transmitter

  THE BLAZING ARIZONA sun seared Trey’s t-shirt against his back as the pointed tip of his folding camp-shovel plunged into sandy ground.

  The first scoop of dry dirt flew from the shovel and tumbled in a cloud of dust against his father’s designer hiking boots.

  “Sorry,” Trey said, half sincerely. If every nerve in his body weren’t tweaked at the moment, he might have done it again intentionally, all in good fun. His father stepped closer to Livy’s side, out of dirt range.

  Trey gazed warily into the cloudless blue sky, certain a storm of alien aircraft would soon engulf them without warning.

  Livy scanned the landscape methodically, backlit by the scorching round inferno that hung high above the distant mesa.

  Her blue eyes fell to Trey’s. “Keep digging. I got this. There’s nothing. Nothing.”

  Trey turned to his work and buried the shovel into the sand. Loose grit clung to his sweaty forearms as he muscled a heavy scoop out of the ground, bringing him closer to the black stone transmitter that lay several feet below the surface.

  Two shadows stretched alongside his own, making him pause once again to ponder their significance. His father’s tall, lean figure topped off by the floppy fishing cap was no surprise, but Livy’s petite shadow with arms crossed was a mystery. Her artificial projection stood behind him keeping dutiful watch, while her physical body waited fifty miles away in supposed safety.

  He lifted his hand from the metal handle and stretched it into the dim light of his father’s shadow, clearly noticing the small change in temperature. Likewise, he swung his hand into Livy’s shadow, but the scorching rays continued to heat his skin.

  “What?” Livy asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, returning to his task, awed, once again, by capabilities he couldn’t fully comprehend.

  His father’s shadow moved closer. “Hey, are you overheating? I can take over.”

  “No,” Trey insisted, digging deeper. “I’m fine.”

  The dark outline offered a water bottle over Trey’s hunched shadow, but he shook it off. “I’m good.”

  The hike from the road to this spot where Livy had led them was much farther than the aerial maps implied. His scratchy tongue was as parched as the desert floor, but he stubbornly held off his next drink for the moment of celebration at finding the stone.

  Trey forced his eyes from the shadow as his father tipped back the bottle, but he couldn’t block out the sound of water gurgling down the man’s throat.

  Several hefty digs later, a metallic scrape accompanied the whoosh of dirt flying off the shovel.

  “There it is,” shouted Livy.

  Trey’s eyes shot to a flat chunk of sandstone resting on the pile of excavated dirt.

  He shook his head. “Not It.”

  “No,” Livy cried. “Over there.”

  In a direct line with her pointing shadow, a small trail etched through the soft sand, leading to a perfectly smooth, black stone that had rolled several yards away at Trey’s toss.

  Trey withheld his excitement long enough to scan the empty sky one last time, then raised his fist with a joyful hoot.

  “Easier than I expected,” Trey said, scurrying on all fours to reach the transmitter.

  “Yeah,” his dad agreed, an edge of unease in his voice. “Too easy.”

  Livy stepped closer. “Grab it. Let’s get out of here.”

  Trey hesitated to touch the stone. “Mind turning this thing off first?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, disappearing an instant later.

  Drawing from his back pocket, Trey retrieved the clear plastic FBI evidence
bag that had once held the transmitter’s counterpart, the one Livy held miles away alongside his mother. He plucked the black stone from the sand and dropped it inside the zip-lock bag.

  When he pinched the seal closed, Livy reappeared directly in front of him wearing a wide smile. He shook the pouch, gloating at the small victory over the black-eyed creatures.

  He turned back to his father, who surprised him again with the scruffy month-old beard. The wanna-be mountain man folded the camping shovel, kicking dirt into the shallow hole.

  “We did it,” Trey said, showing off his prize.

  His father offered a congratulatory smile, but Trey knew the man well enough to see that under the surface his father thought little had changed.

  “Here,” his dad said, pushing forward the bottle of lukewarm water.

  “Thanks,” said Trey. “For everything.”

  * * *

  Trey pulled open the passenger door of the rusty four-door pickup and climbed into the front seat. The patchwork of various colored fenders gave the old beater a look of despair, but the old farmer who sold the truck swore it had never let him down. And, in the blazing afternoon heat, Trey could only hope the old man wasn’t a hustler.

  Livy gazed in through the open window. “As much as I’d enjoy riding along, I’m gonna leave you two to enjoy your man-time.” She squinted into the sky. “If they know we’re here, they’d be on top of us already.”

  Trey nodded grimly. “But we’ll make sure we aren’t followed anyway.”

  Livy leaned forward to speak across the cab to Trey’s father behind the wheel. “See ya, Mister C.”

  With a nod and a polite smile, his dad shoved the key into the ignition. “Tell Ellen not to wait up. I’m not sure how long we’ll be driving around to cover or trail.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The old truck fired up with no trouble.

  Trey sighed with relief and patted the dash in a show of appreciation. He turned to Livy, wishing he could give her a quick send-off kiss. “See ya.”

  She smiled cheerfully. “I’ll check back a little later and do a full sweep.”

  “Good idea,” Trey said.

  “Call me if there’s trouble, okay?”

  He questioned her with a look, his brow furrowed. They hadn’t touched a cell phone in over a month.

  She showed off the black stone in her fingertips, a reminder of the transmitter tucked inside his pocket.

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “If there’s trouble.”

  Livy kissed the air between them, then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  Trey’s father shoved the column-shifter into reverse and turned back over his shoulder. “You know.” he said grimly, the truck barreling into the sandy underbrush. “You need to be careful with those things. There’s a reason we ditched our cell phones.”

  “I know,” said Trey.

  The rear tires stirred up a cloud of dust as the truck spun its way onto the heat-shimmered pavement.

  His overprotective father softened his stern tone. “I’m just saying; they aren’t toys.”

  “I get it, Dad,” grumbled Trey, keeping to himself the deadly and unimaginable destructive capacity of the tiny stones.

  The knobby tires whined against the blacktop as the truck finally reached road speed. The hot, dry air blew in through the four open windows, stirring up dust and soothing Trey’s sweat-logged flesh.

  Keeping the subject alive, Trey’s father elevated his voice above the wind-noise. “Your mother says you can communicate with your home planet using those.”

  Trey snickered as he fought back a smile. “Home planet? I thought my home planet was Earth.”

  His father laughed. “Yeah. You know what I mean.”

  Trey stared at the science-fiction author, feeling uncomfortably like a character in one of his stories.

  “The transmitters have to be together,” Trey said loudly. “Touching, I think.”

  After a lengthy pause, his father prodded for more. “Can they work in reverse? To find you?”

  When Trey didn’t answer, his father turned from the wheel to stare him down.

  “Yes,” Trey said. “That’s why I’ll be careful when I use them . . . And alone.”

  His father looked ahead, nodding. “We’ll see.”

  Camp

  TRUCK HEADLIGHTS BLAZED a path over the rocky terrain, lighting up the sparse dried brush. A small pair of glowing eyes, likely a coyote, froze in the distance, glued to the newcomers as the pickup slowed to a stop.

  Trey’s father cut the switch and the scene quickly faded to black. Beside the pickup, a small pull-behind camper sat barely visible as a dark silhouette against the starry sky.

  Trey cranked up the window, cutting off the cool evening air that drifted through it.

  The small camper windows illuminated with sudden yellow glow.

  “We woke them,” Trey said softly.

  His father’s door clattered open and let out a metallic screech. “Yep, no need to be quiet now.”

  Trey pushed open his own door with similar ruckus and slammed it behind him.

  He lifted a handful of plastic grocery bags from the truck bed and turned in time to see the camper door swing wide open. His mother stood in the doorway wearing her baggy sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt. “Did you remember the milk?”

  Trey’s dad lifted a gallon jug from the opposite side. The dark figure circled the rear of the pickup and held the milk toward Trey as his mother stepped down onto the gravel in her flip-flops.

  When Trey passed his mother with the armload of necessities, she gave him a soft peck on the cheek. “I’m glad it went well.”

  “Me too,” he said, stepping up into the camper.

  He dropped the bags onto the convertible tabletop and turned to Livy’s bunk in the upper cove. Resting on her elbows, she smiled back with tired eyes. “Hey.”

  He pulled open the mini-fridge and slid in the milk. “Sorry to wake you in the middle of the night.”

  She yawned without bothering to cover her gaping mouth. “We weren’t asleep.”

  Trey stepped closer and lifted onto his toes to greet her with a kiss. “You weren’t worried were you?”

  She relaxed onto her pillow. “Sure, a little, but we were just talking.”

  Noticing his parents hadn’t followed him inside, Trey pulled the door closed, but not before catching a glimpse of them face-to-face beside the truck, closer than he was comfortable seeing.

  “Talking about what?” he said, burying the image.

  “Oh, you know; girl stuff.”

  Trey shook his head. “I hate to break it to you, but she’s not a girl. She’s a mom.”

  Livy didn’t respond, so Trey proceeded to unbag the groceries and shove them into the small cabinets.

  Before he finished, he paused to slip the baggy out of his pocket. He held it up by the corner, showing off the jet black transmitter inside.

  “How close together do you think these transmitters have to be to phone home? ‘Cause I don’t want those creeps popping in on us uninvited.”

  “Touching, I’d guess,” she said, lacking concern.

  “Where’s the other?”

  She lifted the corner of her thin mattress, alluding that it rested somewhere beneath it.

  “All right.” He lifted the corner of the seat-cushion that would become his mattress once he broke down the tabletop into a bed. “Mine will be over here.”

  “Got it,” Livy said with another yawn.

  “Over here,” he repeated, adding a suggestive tone. “Away from each other . . . where they can’t touch.”

  “Yep, got it,” she agreed, failing to catch on to his coy dual meaning.

  He dropped the plastic encased stone back into his pocket and finished putting away the groceries.

  A snicker finally erupted from Livy’s bunk. “Got it.”

  * * *

  Trey woke to the muffled clatter of rattling chains.

  The morni
ng sun glared into his eyes, reflected off the camper windows on the opposite wall.

  He stretched as best he could on the vinyl cushions, his feet pressed against the hard seatback.

  A ball of sheets lay in the corner of his bed where he’d wrestled them from the cushions during his short sleep. Like every other night for weeks, Trey hadn’t dreamed. He had feared that finding the second transmitter would somehow trigger his reception of messages from afar, but thankfully it had not.

  The top of Livy’s perfectly white hair was visible as she snoozed in her bunk. Down the narrow pathway, the fanfold door hung wide open, revealing his mother sleeping alone in the tiny bedroom.

  In gym shorts and t-shirt, Trey rolled out of bed and shoved on his sneakers.

  Outside, in the golden glow of morning, his father’s rear-end saluted the sky as the early riser knelt to pull a jack stand from beneath the camper.

  “You should’a woke me,” Trey said.

  His father rose to his knees, dusting off his hands. “I shook you hard enough. You didn’t budge.”

  Trey opened the small compartment in the side of the camper for his dad to shove the metal jack inside.

  “Here,” his dad said, handing over the keys. “Back up the truck and I’ll hitch.”

  “Sure,” Trey said, heading off to the old beater.

  As he pulled himself into the driver’s seat, the open glove compartment caught his eye. He leaned over and pushed it shut, assuming his father had left it open. He fired up the rumbling engine and revved it for a wakeup call to the women.

  The pickup bounded across the sandy terrain and whirled into position ahead of the camper. As the truck backed slowly toward the hitch, Trey’s father stood at the corner of the camper, holding the other jack limp at his side, staring at his feet.

  “A little help would be nice,” Trey grumbled.

  He backed up several more feet, but when his father continued to gaze at the ground, Trey blew the horn to get the slackers attention.

  His father raised his hand in a stop motion, then frantically waved Trey out of the truck.

  “Great, a rattlesnake,” Trey muttered beneath his breath; the only person to despise snakes as much as his father was Trey himself.