by Ken Warner
© 2020 by Kenneth H Warner, II
All rights reserved.
Prologue
Chapter One: Interrogation
Chapter Two: Stranger in the Night
Chapter Three: The Phone Call
Chapter Four: Investigation
Chapter Five: San Juan
Chapter Six: The Boss
Chapter Seven: Ransacked
Chapter Eight: Safehouse
Chapter Nine: Alien Alley
Chapter Ten: The Real San Juan
Chapter Eleven: The Camp
Chapter Twelve: Fireworks
Chapter Thirteen: Recurrence
Chapter Fourteen: Route 23
Chapter Fifteen: Missing Time
Chapter Sixteen: Total Recall
Chapter Seventeen: Caught in the Act
Chapter Eighteen: Mystery Meeting
Chapter Nineteen: Plan B
Chapter Twenty: Abducted
Chapter Twenty-one: The Bunker
ABDUCTED
By Ken Warner
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Prologue
Thirty-five years ago
Martha McClure got in her car and started the engine. She waved to her friends through the window and drove down the street.
She’d been best friends with Tiffany and Abigail through most of their college years. But after graduation, she’d moved back home to live with her parents. Tiffany and Melissa had stayed in Topeka and rented an apartment together. Martha had wanted to join them, but her parents were old-fashioned and insisted she live at home until she got married.
This was the first time she’d been back to Topeka to visit them. She lived over four hours away, so she knew it would be tough to get back here again anytime soon. They were doing well—they’d both secured decent jobs, and they each had a boyfriend. Martha had had the time of her life catching up with them all weekend. She was determined to convince her parents to let her move to the city.
She took the on-ramp and merged onto Interstate 70. As she traveled west, the traffic thinned out. It was already very late, and the sky grew darker as the bright city lights grew dimmer in her rearview mirror.
For the next few hours, she was lost in thought, trying to figure out the best way to talk her parents into letting her move out. She was an adult now, so she could just get up and go. They had no legal right to stop her. But she knew that her father, at least, would never speak to her again if she did that. She wasn’t ready to risk that.
Finally, she reached her exit. She turned onto the state route that would take her home. It was a clear night, and there were no other cars on the road. She could see the Milky Way clear as day.
Suddenly, she noticed clouds forming out in front of her, directly above the road. They came out of nowhere, gathering quickly, as in a time-lapse video. She saw lights flashing in the clouds, almost like lightning, but there was no thunder.
The clouds were moving toward her. As they got closer, she could see there was a bright ring of lights inside of them.
Martha panicked. When the lights were almost directly above her, she turned down a side road and accelerated. Looking in her rearview mirror, she could see that the lights were following her—and gaining fast.
Suddenly, her car died, and her headlights turned off. Martha screamed in alarm. She managed to get the car to the side of the road.
Getting out of the car, she looked to the sky and saw that the ring of lights was now directly overhead. Martha said a prayer, crying freely now—she was scared for her life. But the next moment, everything went black.
Chapter One: Interrogation
Present day
Sydney Hastings walked into the lobby of the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA. She checked in at the front desk, and the receptionist instructed her to have a seat in the waiting area. She took a seat in the empty room, nervously eyeing the armed guard stationed near the entrance.
Agent Babcock had invited her here—no, “invited” was not the right word; it was more of a summons. Brian Kwan had confirmed that refusing the invitation would be futile because then Babcock would have them arrested.
And so here she was. Brian was late, of course.
Sydney had made sure to arrive only minutes ahead of their scheduled appointment. Brian had predicted that Babcock would keep them waiting—a power play intended to make them nervous. This was already going to be a huge waste of time, so she didn’t want to let it last any longer than absolutely necessary.
The compound was not open to the public, but they had been expecting her. She had only had to provide her ID for the guard at the gate, and that was that.
Getting here hadn’t been difficult. The Malor had obliterated Washington, D.C. itself, but the damage did not extend beyond the beltway, which would have been her route here anyway. Driving directly across the city had always been slower when that was still possible.
It was surreal, though, driving near Ground Zero. Only a week had gone by; the idea of the city being gone was still impossible to process. It was the nation’s capital, for God’s sake—how were they supposed to get past this?
There had been nearly a half-million confirmed deaths between the attacks on Miami and D.C., but the number kept increasing every day. Sydney found it difficult to comprehend—so many lives lost in a matter of seconds.
She had nightmares almost every night, reliving the attacks; she’d been present on the Othali ship for both, utterly helpless to do anything to save all those people. Although she’d begged them to do something, the Othali could not interfere. Doing so would have exposed them to the Malor, who were vastly more powerful; they would have destroyed the Othali ship.
Sydney lived outside the city, as did her mom. But several friends and colleagues from the hospital where she’d worked had lived inside the destruction zone and were presumed dead. Thousands of people were still listed as “missing,” but they had found a handful of survivors in the wreckage—one hiding in a bank vault, of all places. Apparently, those things could withstand a nuclear blast.
But she knew the nature of the Malor weapon meant that they would never find any remains for most of the victims. The discharge would have vaporized them.
“Ms. Hastings?”
She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the man approaching. He was wearing a gray suit; she thought he looked like an agent.
“Yes?” she asked.
“If you’ll accompany me..?”
She followed him through a maze of corridors. He finally opened the door to what was clearly an interrogation room. She moved inside, and he left her there, closing the door.
There was a table in the middle, a chair at each end; mirrors lined one wall. Sydney took a seat.
It was quiet here, the hum of the air conditioning the only noise. She stared at the mirror for a minute and thought she could make out a shadow moving beyond it a couple of times—a one-way mirror, she assumed. She fought the urge to give the middle finger to whoever was watching from beyond.
Minutes passed, and there she sat, alone with her thoughts.
Finally, the door opened. Agent Babcock walked into the room and took the seat across from Sydney. He placed a stack of manila folders on the table.
“So, Miss Hastings,” he said. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“Like I had a choice.”
“Miss Hastings—Sydney, is it? Do you mind if I call you ‘Sydney?’”
“Sure. Do you mind if I call you shithead?”
Babcock let out a long sigh.
&nbs
p; “Miss Hastings. Do you know the present whereabouts of Jaden and Malia Kwan?”
“Not a clue,” she said. “Well, I’d imagine they’re somewhere in interstellar space by now.”
“So, they left the planet on the alien ship.”
Sydney said nothing. She had no reason to believe he wouldn’t already know this.
“Is it true, to the best of your knowledge, that the DNA fragments found beneath the Great Pyramid—the ones from which the twins were created—were left there by those same aliens, thousands of years ago?”
“So I’ve been told,” she said. “But you’d know more about that than I would, right? You were the one in charge of that project, weren’t you? That’s all they were to you—a project. As opposed to living, breathing human beings.”
“Half-human,” he replied. “And a project that cost the American taxpayer an enormous amount of money.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Miss Hastings, you knowingly transported minors across state lines, without their parents’ consent—”
“Yeah, because you shot their parents!”
“—and you harbored known fugitives,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You’re facing at least a handful of federal felonies. I would consider your situation carefully if I were you.”
Sydney glared at him but said nothing further.
“That’s better,” Babcock said with a smirk. “Now. What is it the aliens—the Othali, is it? What is it they wanted with Jaden and Malia?”
“What is that supposed to mean? Their mother is an Othali—she went with her people, so of course, she took her children with her!”
“Hmm. And there was another Othali here, on Earth, for all those millennia, was there not?”
“Bomani, yes.”
“And where was he all these years?”
“I have no idea,” said Sydney. “He was captured by the Germans in World War II, along with Melissa. But then she thought he’d died when she escaped. At some point, he moved to Bermuda to be near the power station there. But I don’t know how long ago that was, or where he might have been before that.”
“Was Melissa Kwan in touch with this Bomani prior to the invasion?”
“No. I just told you, she thought he was dead.”
“I see. So, you never witnessed any interaction between Bomani and Ms. Kwan?”
“Am I speaking English?”
“And Bomani departed the planet with the rest of the Othali?”
“Yes.”
“You saw him go?”
“Well… no, I guess I didn’t. But he was on the Othali ship the last I saw him, and only Brian and I came back to earth on the shuttle. I assume he left with the Othali.”
“Is it possible he left on a different shuttle?”
“Sure, anyone could have left; they had several shuttles. What are you getting at?”
“Is it true that the Othali craft is a warship?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“They crossed half the galaxy to come to Earth in a warship. That would seem to imply aggressive intent, would it not?”
“Are you insane? The Malor destroyed their planet. They were lucky to escape!”
“You believe they are a peaceful people.”
“There’s no evidence to the contrary.”
“They had a warship.”
“Yes, because they’d explored other worlds and found planets the Malor had destroyed. They were able to figure out what had happened and feared it would only be a matter of time before the Malor found their planet. So, they prepared.”
“Yet they arrived here at the same time as the Malor. That’s quite a coincidence.”
“It was no coincidence at all! That signal from the Miami power station drew them both here—the Othali and the Malor—but separately.”
“As they say. But how do we know that? Perhaps the Othali were working with the Malor to destroy this planet.”
Sydney found it difficult to refrain from screaming at this man.
“That’s just absurd. The Othali fought the Malor. They led the operation to take out their engines. They did everything they could to help save us.”
“Is it true that the Malor have been sending scout ships here, to Earth, for many years—centuries, perhaps—prior to the invasion?”
“That’s my understanding, yes.”
“And at least two Othali remained here, on this planet throughout that entire time, is that correct?”
“Yes, Melissa and Bomani. They were the only Othali left.”
“Is it possible that one or both of them contacted the Malor scouts? Or, perhaps one of them used one of the power stations to send a signal to the Malor centuries ago, prompting them to send the scouts in the first place?”
“Bomani did say that he’d heard about the crash in Roswell and paid attention to the reports of other alien visits,” Sydney told him. “But he’d never heard of the Malor—the Othali hadn’t yet discovered them when he came here with the other colonists. So, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know anything about the scouts—only that they weren’t Othali.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You really think Bomani had some involvement with the Malor invasion?”
“Either he or Melissa Kwan.”
Sydney shook her head.
“Look, I don’t know anything about Bomani. I met him for the first time when we found him in Bermuda. I spent only a matter of minutes with him. But I know Melissa Kwan very well. She would never have plotted with an alien species intent on destroying our planet.”
“You say you knew her well, yet you never realized she wasn’t human?”
Sydney didn’t know what to say to that.
“It was Melissa Kwan who left the DNA fragments beneath the Great Pyramid, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“And then she waited thousands of years for mankind to develop the technology necessary to bring those fragments to life, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And for all those centuries, she masqueraded as a human being, living in various societies, fooling everyone with whom she came into contact into believing she was one of us? Including you?”
Sydney only nodded.
“Is it not possible, at least, that a woman with that kind of patience, not to mention tenacity, could have been harboring other secrets as well?”
Sydney made no reply.
“And not to mention this Bomani character, about whom you admit to knowing next to nothing.”
“I just don’t see how it makes any sense,” Sydney said, feeling a little like she was trying to convince herself now, too. “Jaden set off that signal, and that’s what attracted the Malor. They already knew of our existence from the scout ships they’d sent. The signal seemed to announce that we’d achieved some level of technological advancement, meaning that we’d be ripe for them to plunder. That’s what they did, right? They’d used up all the resources on their planet, so they traveled the galaxy going from one world to the next, exploiting them for their own survival?
“The Malor didn’t need Melissa or Bomani or anyone else to do that. They could have—and would have done the same thing even if the Othali had never existed.”
“Yet it was the Othali who created that power station. We do not possess the technology to send such a powerful signal so far into space so quickly. And it was an Othali who triggered the signal. Is it possible Jaden Kwan did that at his mother’s behest?”
“No—it was an accident! He just touched the thing, and it went haywire! I was there—Jaden didn’t know what he was doing!”
“Hmm.”
“No, you listen to me—I’ll admit, you’ve got me second-guessing what Melissa’s role might have been. But there is no way Jaden—or Malia—had anything to do with the invasion. The night you shot their parents, they left their house believing they were normal human teenagers. That much I know for sure.”
“But they knew Malia possessed seemingly supernatural abilities, and Brian Kwan had just revealed to them that they were the product of the DNA found in the Giza complex.”
“Sure, but—”
“Brian Kwan may have been in on the plot,” said Babcock, excitement in his voice now. And Sydney finally realized where he was going with this whole charade. “He could have relayed Melissa’s instructions to Jaden—her instructions to activate the pyramid and send the signal.”
“No. Not possible. I was with them—both of them—Jaden and Brian—the entire time. From the moment we met Brian, until the instant we took off in my truck, and your helicopter took Brian away.”
“Every moment, you say,” said Babcock. “It would have taken only seconds for Brian to pass instructions to Jaden. It may not have been verbal—he could have handed him written instructions when you weren’t looking.”
“But Brian didn’t know about the Malor then! He didn’t know Melissa wasn’t human or that she had anything to do with leaving the DNA under the pyramid! He believed the DNA came from ancient Atlantis!”
“Perhaps,” Babcock conceded. “Yet he still could have been an unwitting accomplice. Melissa Kwan could have left him specific instructions to give to Jaden when he came into contact with the power station.”
“You’re just looking for an excuse to arrest Brian,” said Sydney. “That’s what this all comes down to.”
“I don’t need an excuse,” he retorted. “Brian Kwan committed more felonies than you did—in addition to transporting minors across state lines and harboring fugitives, he broke into a top-secret government facility and stole highly sensitive government assets!”
“He rescued his niece and nephew from your torture chamber! That’s hardly criminal!”
Babcock stared at her for a moment.
“We’re done here,” he said, rising to his feet and collecting his unused manila folders. “You’re free to go.”
“Wait, what?” she said as he opened the door. “You’re letting me go?”
“It’s certainly not my choice,” he said to her over his shoulder. “But you’ve got friends in high places, it seems. You’ve been granted a full pardon.”
