by Ken Warner
Martha nodded in agreement, and they set out at a run.
But by the time they’d moved a couple of blocks, Sydney heard footsteps approaching at a run. They froze—the footsteps were coming from out in front of them.
“What the hell?!” Sydney yelled.
They turned down an alley and headed back toward the river again. But after rounding a corner, they found they’d reached a dead end.
“Crap!” said Sydney.
Martha was breathing hard. She seemed woozy and had to lean against a building to steady herself. Footsteps echoed ominously off the façade.
“Are you alright?” asked Sydney. “We have to keep going!”
“I’ll make it,” Martha told her. “Just winded.”
The door to the building was locked, but there was a window nearby. It slid open easily, and they climbed through. This was another warehouse building. They ran across the floor to the opposite side, opened a door, and emerged in another alley.
Sydney has lost her sense of direction. She led them along a route that she thought would take them back to the river, but she wasn’t sure anymore.
But moments later, she saw a sight that sent a chill down her spine. The man in black was climbing down the face of a building on the next corner. There was no fire escape; he was moving down the brick wall like a spider.
“Oh, my god,” she uttered, her eyes wide.
They turned to run the other way. But within moments, the man in black dropped out of the sky, landing in the road in front of them.
“Ladies,” he said with a grin.
Chapter Four: Investigation
Sydney froze, staring at this man in shock.
“What are you?” she asked, using her own body as a shield to protect Martha from him.
The man in black only smiled in response.
Suddenly Sydney heard a buzzing sound. She felt herself growing woozy—her head was swimming, as if she’d had too much to drink.
Pinpricks of light started flashing around the man in black—she couldn’t tell if she was imagining it or not. But the next moment, her vision went black, and she lost consciousness.
Sydney woke up. She was lying on the ground. It took her a few moments to remember where she was and what she was doing here.
But then she jumped to her feet, looking around frantically.
“Martha?!” she yelled.
She felt a sudden head rush—she’d risen too quickly. She had to drop to one knee for a minute.
Martha was nowhere to be seen or heard—and neither was the man in black. Sydney was alone.
She took a moment to get her bearings, then headed back toward her truck. As she was approaching the park, she heard a whimpering sound coming from one of the docks.
Running to the source of the sound, she found Martha, lying flat on her back on the boardwalk.
“Martha!” she yelled, dropping to her knees beside the woman.
She seemed to be only semi-conscious, muttering to herself, her words unintelligible. Sydney took in her appearance—she had cuts on her face and arms. Something had cut through her blouse and pants and opened numerous gashes on her torso and legs. She was bleeding everywhere, but not nearly as much as Sydney would have expected.
Her lips looked faintly blue, and her skin was cold to the touch. The blood loss didn’t seem severe, but Sydney was worried.
“Martha, can you hear me?” she pleaded. “What happened to you? Where is the man in black?”
Martha’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were dilated.
“Sydney…”
“I’m going to call 911,” Sydney told her. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No! Please, don’t call them… useless, won’t help.” Her breathing was fast and shallow.
“I think you’ve gone into shock,” said Sydney. “We need to get you to a doctor.”
Martha didn’t seem to hear her.
“You have to find… go there,” she said. “San Juan… find him…”
“Find who?” asked Sydney. “Martha?”
But Martha had faded out of consciousness again.
Sydney pulled out her phone and dialed 911. She explained the situation and gave them her location.
“Hold tight, ma’am,” said the person on the phone. “Help is on the way.”
Sydney held Martha’s hand. She was breathing, but erratically. Sydney felt her pulse—it was fast. She became more confident by the minute that it was shock.
Only a few minutes later, she heard a siren approaching. A police car pulled up, and the officer got out and approached her.
Sydney explained what had happened. She told him about the man in black chasing them, and her blacking out, omitting only the part about his ability to climb walls; she thought she’d sound crazy if she told him that.
“Alright,” he said when she was done. “The ambulance is on its way.”
“Hey, do you have a blanket?” she asked. “I think she’s gone into shock. It would be best to try to warm her up. I’m a nurse,” she added when he gave her a dubious look.
“Yeah, I’ve got one in the cruiser,” he said. “Hang on.”
He returned a minute later with a blanket. They covered Martha with it and waited for the ambulance.
It took only minutes. When the paramedics arrived, Sydney explained what had happened. They examined her and then moved her into the ambulance. Once they had her strapped in, Sydney climbed in the back with Martha, and they sped off.
When they arrived at the hospital, they brought her straight into the emergency room. Sydney spoke to the woman at the front desk. She explained that she’d only met Martha recently and didn’t have any information about her.
“I don’t even know her last name,” Sydney said apologetically. “Her first name is Martha, and I have her phone number. That’s all I know.”
Now, there was nothing to do but wait. Sydney took a seat in the waiting area and texted Brian to tell him what had happened.
“Which hospital?” he asked.
“Mount Vernon. It was the closest one not destroyed in the attack.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Brian arrived twenty minutes later. Sydney gave him a rundown of the night in greater detail.
“Brian, this man in black, I don’t think he’s a normal man.”
“But he’s not Malor,” he pointed out.
“No, definitely not, that’s not what I meant. But how was he able to climb that wall? Jaden and Malia have telepathy and telekinesis—is it possible this man has similar powers?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve seen the white paper about a device the military has experimented with that would give a soldier the ability to climb a wall in the way you described,” he explained. “It’s a kind of glove that uses thousands of hair-like filaments that exert an attractive force to the molecules in the brick wall. A soldier using these gloves can climb a wall—like a gecko.”
“He wasn’t wearing any gloves,” said Sydney.
“Perhaps not by the time he got to you,” Brian observed. “But my point is, there is tech that can give someone the ability to do the things you saw.”
Sydney wasn’t so sure. There was something about the man that seemed almost supernatural.
“What’s his involvement?” asked Sydney. “Martha said he shows up when someone starts poking around these alien abductions. Intimidates them to try and stop them from investigating.”
“Could be a government agent of some kind,” Brian suggested.
“Working for the Malor?”
“With them, perhaps,” he said. “Or it could be that the government is simply trying to keep people away from the Malor.”
“But we didn’t know about the Malor until very recently,” she replied, “and stories about the man in black go back to the 1950s.”
Brian nodded. “My guess is that some covert government agency has known about the Malor scouts at least since the Roswell crash. There have been stories
about the government covering up evidence of UFOs. They certainly did that with the Roswell incident. This man in black could well be a government agent, aiding that cover-up. I’m sure it hasn’t been the same man since the 1950s, of course. And despite the UFO lore, there are probably many of them.”
The doctor came out then.
“Ms. Hastings?”
“Yes,” she said, getting to her feet.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “We weren’t able to save her.”
“Wait—what? You mean… she’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Her wounds were too severe. The attack was remarkably precise—small puncture wounds in numerous areas, placed perfectly to damage internal organs.”
“But there wasn’t much blood,” Sydney said in disbelief. “I thought the wounds were superficial.”
“The attacker didn’t hit any major veins or arteries,” the doctor said with a shrug. “But the injuries were extensive.”
Sydney turned to Brian and felt tears welling up in her eyes. She hadn’t realized how badly Martha was hurt. Although she barely knew her, this loss felt devastating. She’d wanted to help, but in the end, had failed.
Brian saw the look in her eyes and pulled her into a hug.
They went to the front desk on their way out.
“She had no identification on her,” the woman there told them. “Only her phone. But that’s locked, and she didn’t have any emergency contacts set up.”
Brian handed her his card.
“I’ll take care of the bill,” he told her. “You can send me the invoice. And we’ll find out who she was and notify her next of kin.”
The woman thanked them, and they headed out of the hospital.
Brian offered to give Sydney a ride back to her truck.
“Oh, yeah, that would be great,” she said.
“This man she wanted you to find—you don’t know who he is?” he asked her as they pulled out of the parking lot. “The one in San Juan?”
“No idea. She hadn’t mentioned him before.”
“Alright,” he said. “We’ve got some investigating to do. Why don’t you meet me at my office in the morning, and we’ll get to work.”
“Your office?” she chided him. “You mean that empty box?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said with a grin.
He dropped her off at her truck, and Sydney drove home.
Once inside her house, she took extra care to make sure the doors were securely locked. She worried the man in black might show up here. Once she’d fed her cat, she went upstairs, stripped out of her clothes, and collapsed in her bed. It was already 3 a.m.—she wouldn’t be getting much sleep this night.
Worse, she couldn’t stop replaying the events of the night in her mind. She’d wanted so desperately to help Martha. It felt like the attacks on Miami and D.C. all over again—that feeling of powerlessness to stop people from dying.
It took a while, but Sydney did finally drift off to sleep. She woke up at dawn. Once she’d had some coffee and showered, she drove to Brian’s office.
“Hey,” he said by way of greeting as he opened his door. But then he added, with a look of concern, “you look awful.”
“Aw, you sure do know how to charm a girl,” she replied, taking a seat at his table.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked, sitting across from her.
“A bit. I’ll be alright.”
“Okay,” he said, opening his laptop. “I’ve found Martha. Her last name is McClure, and she lived in a house in the suburbs of Alexandria.”
“You’ve got the address?”
He nodded.
“But before we proceed… we need to talk.”
“About what?” she asked, her confusion showing on her face.
“I have felt terrible for putting you in so much danger to rescue Jaden and Malia,” he began. “With the events of last night, it has become clear that I would be putting you in harm’s way again if I were to ask you to pursue this. I have other people who can do the heavy lifting for us on this project.”
“Not a chance,” she said. “This is what you hired me for!”
“Yes, but I can’t ask you to risk your life—”
“Listen. First of all, you didn’t ask me to risk my life for the twins. I did that myself. I’m the one who thought to bring them to your ranch in the first place. Nobody held a gun to my head, and I did everything I did of my own free will. Those kids were family to me—even though I’d had a falling out with Melissa, they were still family.
“And now this, with Martha—I have to do this. I felt so helpless on that Othali ship, standing by and watching while the Malor killed hundreds of thousands of people. This is different—I can do something. Martha’s gone, but I can make sure she didn’t die in vain. Something’s going on here; somebody’s abducting people against their will, for who knows what reason. And I can act to help stop it. This is what I signed up for—you’re not putting me in any danger against my will; I’m taking this on freely.”
Brian took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped.
“Okay,” is all he said.
“Good,” she replied. “Now that that’s settled… what do we do?”
“Ultimately, I believe our objective should be to determine who is abducting these people, and why. And to ascertain who the man in black might be and the nature of his role.
“It seems likely to me that the Malor are behind this. Reports from the abductees with some degree of recall seem to indicate this, and we know from our previous activities that the Malor have been visiting this planet for a very long time.
“It seems unlikely, however, that the Malor from the invasion are the ones behind the abductions. But I’ve begun to suspect that perhaps some of their scouts have been here all along, stationed here, maybe, on an ongoing basis, to monitor our progress, and do whatever it is they’re doing with these abductions.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” said Sydney. “That would explain a lot!”
“Indeed,” he agreed. “The trouble is that we have nothing to go on if we want to confirm this hypothesis. We have no information whatsoever.
“But Martha collected a wealth of information regarding the victims. And she wanted you to find someone in San Juan. There must be some significance to that—whom did she want you to find, and why? I am guessing that she interviewed an abductee from that city who provided some new and vital information.
“Therefore, I think the most logical starting point would be her house. Based on the files she gave you, it would seem she kept meticulous records. I’d like to get a look at whatever else she might have collected.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Sydney, jumping up from her chair. “Let’s go!”
Brian followed her out of the office with a chuckle.
“I was thinking we could have some breakfast first,” he said.
“We can stop somewhere. You driving?”
They took Brian’s Mercedes. After stopping at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through for some food and coffee, they proceeded to Martha’s house in Alexandria.
Brian parked on the street, and they walked up to the front door.
“Locked. Do we kick it in?” she asked uncertainly. Unlike when she’d done this in the warehouse district, it was a bright, sunny morning in a busy, residential neighborhood. Breaking and entering didn’t seem like a great idea.
“No worries,” Brian replied, pulling a key and a small mallet out of his pocket. He inserted the key in the lock, tapped it a few times with the mallet, and then unlocked the door.
“Uh… how in the hell did you do that?”
“Lock bumping,” he said with a grin. “Ninety-five percent of all deadbolts in this country are susceptible to it. Let’s go.”
“Good to know,” she murmured, thinking she’d be changing her locks as soon as possible. She followed him into the house.
“Someone beat us to it,” Brian commented upon movin
g into the living room.
“Oh, my God,” said Sydney, looking around the room.
Someone had ransacked the place. Dozens of cardboard boxes were lying around the area, their contents—hundreds of files—strewn about everywhere.
“What… a… disaster…” Sydney said, taking it all in.
They moved through the house and found more of the same throughout the first floor—in the dining room, the kitchen, and the hallway. Upstairs, they found a room Martha seemed to have been using as an office, and more files scattered about there.
Sydney picked up a file.
“Rachel from Sydney, Australia,” she said, looking through the documents. “This was two years ago.”
She picked up another.
“Anatoly from Moscow,” she read. “Six months ago. Every one of these files represents an alien abductee she found and interviewed. There must be thousands here.”
“I wonder if she had any of this stored electronically,” said Brian. “Let’s see if we can find a computer somewhere.”
They searched the entire house but came up empty.
“Given the sheer volume of physical files we’re looking at, I get the impression Martha was old-school when it comes to technology,” Sydney suggested.
“Unfortunately, I would have to agree. And if she did have a computer, whoever got here before us has already taken it.”
“Now what?”
“I’ll have my people collect everything and compile it all in a database,” he said. “That’ll take a few weeks, I’m guessing, but it’ll only need to be done once. Once it’s stored electronically, we can sort through it much more easily.”
“And in the meantime...?”
“Have you ever been to Puerto Rico?” he said with a grin.
“No, but I’ve always wanted to go!”
“Good. I’ll make arrangements for you to fly there on my private jet.”
“The only trouble is, what am I looking for? Where do I start?”
“Yes, we don’t exactly have much to go on,” Brian confirmed. “We could try to look through some of this, but finding a file for someone from San Juan is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And there may very well be dozens of them from San Juan—were we lucky enough to find one, we’d have no idea if it were the right one.”
