by James Ponti
“Laying low,” Jack said with a nervous shrug. “How hard can that be?”
Alex rushed off to her room, and Jack turned to face the two kids, who were both smiling. He eyed them suspiciously.
“She thinks you are very handsome,” Sara told him. “And potentially much smarter than you act.”
“Really?” Jack said, suddenly smiling, too. After all, Sara wasn’t just a gossip.“She was thinking about me?”
Jack wouldn’t have been smiling if he knew that Burke and his team had arrived and were entering the main lobby, greeted by a friendly concierge. “Welcome to Planet Hollywood. Are you gentlemen here for the UFO Space Expo?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” hissed Burke as his eyes started searching the crowd for aliens far more authentic than any of the convention-goers could ever have imagined in their wildest dreams.
Meanwhile, Jack’s smile had faded when he noticed Seth and Sara had disappeared into the crowd. Frantically, he began searching the exhibit hall and found them watching a play. “Is this a reenactment of a piece of Earth’s important history?” Sara asked, motioning to the play in progress.
Jack looked up and saw the poor quality sets and the bad alien costumes and just shook his head. “No. This is nerdy.”
Seth gave him a look.“What is nerdy?”
“You know nerdy,” Jack said trying to think of a good description. “Like people who believe in all this alien stuff.”
Seth smiled. “Like you?”
Before he could answer, something caught Sara’s eye.
“Jack Bruno,” she said pointing to the other side of the stage.
It was the Siphon. He was stalking his way through the crowd, his robotlike armor blending in perfectly with the costumed characters.
“Impossible,” Jack said, shocked. How had that thing survived the explosion?
The Siphon climbed up on the stage to get a better look at the faces in the crowd. Everybody assumed he was just part of the play.
“Oh, no!” said one of the actors doing a bad job ad-libbing a script change on the spot.“It is the arrival of the space creature from planet Gitoffthestage! Thankfully my weapon can destroy him.”
The actor pulled out a phony light saber and posed like he was going to engage the Siphon in battle. The Siphon had no idea what was going on. He used one of his real lasers to slice the toy in half.
The actor was furious. “Dude, that’s not in the script. You are so fired.”
Just then, the Siphon spotted what he was looking for. He locked his deadly stare on Sara, Seth, and Jack and started shooting at them.
“Look out!” Jack screamed, diving for cover.
Sara used her telekinesis to move props from the play into the path of the oncoming blasts. Assuming this was all part of the show, the crowd cheered wildly as each prop exploded in midair.
Sara looked above the stage and spied a very large, very heavy-looking lighting grid hanging from the ceiling. Refocusing her energy, she broke some of the cables free, and the entire metal structure swung down and slammed into the Siphon.
When the metal in his armor came into contact with the wires in the grid, countless volts of electricity started coursing through the Siphon’s body. He was knocked off the stage and into a giant glass Planet Hollywood globe. Everything exploded in an amazing display of colored glass and sparking electricity.
“Best convention ever,” one of the observers shouted to his friend.
Meanwhile, Jack hurried Seth and Sara down the escalator and into the casino, where he noticed a group of black-suited government agents ahead of him. He turned the kids in a different direction and started snaking through a maze of slot machines. But there were agents in every direction! In the middle of the group was Burke, smiling triumphantly as he moved toward them.
Jack frantically looked for an escape route. Suddenly an idea came to him.
He turned to Sara. “You listening to what I’m thinking?”
Sara smiled and nodded, message received. She focused her concentration, and after a moment, all the slot machines in the huge casino hit the jackpot. Hundreds of bells and sirens went off. Lights flashed wildly. Money started pouring out of the machines.
A riot erupted as gamblers deliriously scooped up piles of money. In the pandemonium, Burke lost sight of Jack and the siblings.
In the lobby, Alex stepped off the elevator, totally unaware of what had been happening. She heard all the noise and turned to see the casino in chaos. From the middle of it all, Jack and the kids came sprinting toward her at full speed. Grabbing Alex by the arm, he pulled her along with them.
“What happened to laying low?” she asked, running to keep up with them.
“Who lays low in Vegas?” Jack asked rhetorically. “Let’s go!”
They hurried out of the casino.
By the time Burke and his men made it to the parking lot, they had no idea which way Jack and the others had headed. Burke was fuming.
As they raced to their SUVs, Burke saw something that changed his mood. It was Jack’s cab swerving through the traffic, chased by the Las Vegas police.
Within seconds, Burke’s SUV joined the pursuit and was quickly followed by the other SUVs.
The taxi jumped a curb and raced down an alley. As it hurtled toward the other end, the cab ricocheted off garbage cans and Dumpsters, tossing trash everywhere.
Just as the cab was about to make it out of the alley, another pair of SUVs arrived and blocked their escape. The taxi slammed on the brakes and came to a screeching halt.
Once the cars had all stopped, police officers leaped out, weapons drawn.
“We got them!” Burke announced, taking charge of the situation. He held up his arms and waved off the police as he approached the back of the taxi.
“Our suspects!” he ordered.
The door to the taxi opened, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, three figures slowly stepped out into the alleyway.
Now Burke was raging mad.
There was no Jack, Seth, or Sara. It was Dr. Harlan and his two assistants.
Harlan smiled at the assembled group and gave Burke a wink.
“Greetings, Earthlings!”
CHAPTER 15
While Burke was busy with Harlan, Jack was driving Harlan’s Winnebago toward California.
From the passenger seat, Alex looked over her shoulder at Seth and Sara sleeping in the back, totally exhausted by their adventure. Even in his sleep, Seth clutched the experiment tightly. Sara was snuggled up with Junkyard. “They survived a crash, are chased by our military, hunted by an assassin, and have the weight of two planets’ survival on their shoulders,” Alex said. “Unbelievable.”
Jack took a glance at them in the rearview mirror and smiled.“They’re lucky you joined us,” he said. “We’re lucky.”
Alex laughed. “Luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure science,” she claimed. “Chaos theory. The underlying order in apparently random data.”
“So, more like . . . fate?” Jack observed.
“Science,” she corrected. “Think about it. What are the odds that they would crash near Vegas during a UFO convention? I got in your cab. They got in your cab. And, now we’re all in Harlan’s mobile home loaded with his intel on where their ship is. That’s not luck. That’s a predetermined order of how things work in the universe.”
Jack laughed. “So I was always going to meet you?”
“In theory,” she said, a teasing note in her voice.
“And we were always going to help the kids get their spaceship out of the fortress?” he continued.
Alex nodded. “Science supports that logic.”
For a moment they shared a look that was sweet and a bit awkward. They came from very different worlds, but an amazing chain of events—whether luck or chaos theory—had brought them together.
Hours later, they were within a few miles of Witch Mountain. Jack pulled the Winnebago off onto the side of the road.
“This is how
it’s going to go down,” he explained. “You three will stay here. I go check out the mountain. If I can find a way in, I take it and look for your ship. If I can’t, I come back and we take off. Understand?”
“Negative,” Seth protested. “Sara and I will be going with you. It is our mission. It is our ship.”
“Hold on,” Alex interrupted. “I’m the one with all the maps. So, I’m not staying back here alone.”
Sara looked Jack in the eye, once again reading his mind. She smiled. “It’s okay, Jack Bruno,” Sara said. “I know you are worried for our safety.”
“If you can read my mind, then you already know—we can’t win,” he said.
Sara nodded. “But we can try. If not, our parents will be dead.”
Jack took a deep breath. This was news to him.
“Without proof of their results,” Sara explained, “they were sentenced to death.”
“We have very little time left to get back home before our parents are executed,” Seth added.
Jack and Alex exchanged looks.
“The fate of our parents and our two worlds are locked away inside Witch Mountain. Please, Jack Bruno, help us,” Sara pleaded.
Jack looked at Alex. “Chaos theory, huh?”
CHAPTER 16
The terrain surrounding Witch Mountain made it difficult enough to reach, and the security made it practically impossible to enter.
They had to climb over rocky crags and through a fast-moving stream while evading surveillance cameras and a high-voltage fence.
Much to Jack’s amazement, they made it all the way to a bluff overlooking the entrance—a giant archway carved right into a granite cliff. Military vehicles passed in and out through the heavily guarded entrance. It looked like there was no way the four of them could go through it.
“That’s depressing,” Alex said, looking over the situation. “Now what?”
Jack tried to think of something. “I was hoping chaos theory would deliver us a big tank or a battleship,” he said.“Okay, new plan. We abandon the old plan.”
Sara looked at him glumly. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”
“I thought you could read minds,” Jack said.
“I can,” Sara said with a shrug. “I was just hoping I was wrong.”
Alex pulled out one of the schematics from her backpack.“According to Harlan’s intel there are several service tunnels spreading outward. Might be worth looking for.”
Jack considered this for a moment. It was certainly better than trying to bust through the heavily guarded entrance. “That’s what we call Plan B,” he said. “Let’s go.”
But just as they started off, Sara began to wobble.
“Jack,” she called out to him.
He rushed forward to keep her from falling. Her eyes were rolling backward and her eyelids were fluttering.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, coming up beside Jack.
Jack grabbed hold of Sara, and when he did, she turned to the side, revealing the plastic tip of a dart sticking out of her neck.
Alarmed, Jack spun around.“Seth!” he called out. But it was too late.
Seth grabbed at his neck as he, too, started to stagger. Jack laid Sara down and rushed over to catch Seth before he fell.
Suddenly, twenty special operations soldiers emerged from the surrounding woods, as if by magic. Their camouflage had been perfect. Seconds earlier, they had blended in perfectly with the foliage. Burke led the team, a triumphant smile on his face. His mission had finally been accomplished.
“What did you do to them?” Alex demanded, her face ashen.
Burke gave her a disdainful look. “Consider yourself lucky. I could have you both shot on sight for trespassing and violation of U.S. government property.”
Several soldiers approached carrying stretchers to take Seth and Sara away. Jack lunged to protect them, but another soldier took him out with two quick blows from the butt of his rifle. He fell to the ground. Jack tried to get up, but he was quickly knocked down again.
“Mr. Bruno,” Burke said unsympathetically. “I have to believe that you’re smart enough to know you can’t win.”
Jack looked over and watched as Seth and Sara were carried away. Even though they weren’t fully conscious, their eyes pleaded with him to help.
There was nothing Jack could do but watch as the two were loaded into a Humvee.
“You have to listen to me,” Alex pleaded. “It’s absolutely vital that they get home!”
“They are home, Dr. Friedman,” Burke said smugly. “They’re now in my custody.”
“You can’t silence the truth,” she warned him. “The world has a right to know of their existence.”
“You’re going to be the one to blow the whistle?” Burke asked with a laugh. “A failed astrophysicist, fired by three universities for obsessing over UFOs, teams up with a lifelong ex-con in declaring that the government has captured two normal-looking kids and is holding them hostage inside a mountain that doesn’t exist? It’s so much easier to let you speak than to deal with all the paperwork involved with killing you,” Burke finished.
“Someone will believe us,” Jack said.
“From behind bars?” Burke asked. “Let me remind you, Mr. Bruno, as a convicted felon, you’re looking at twenty years just for standing on this mountain. Shall I go on?”
Jack turned to look at Alex, totally ashamed of what Burke had revealed—and what he was about to say.
“No,” Jack assured him.“I get the message.”
Burke eyed him for a moment, content that he had solved this problem for good. “Smart man,” he said.“We’ll give you a lift down. So much easier than walking up.”
Alex turned to give Jack a searching look. “Wait,” she pleaded. “That’s it. It’s over?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, watching as disappointment flooded Alex’s face.
They were quietly loaded into a Humvee and escorted back down the mountain with a driver and armed guard.
“Thankfully, Sara and Seth didn’t have to witness how quickly you gave up,” Alex fumed, her arms crossed in front of her. “They trusted you. I trusted you.”
Jack had done what he could. Hadn’t he told them he wasn’t up for the job? “Well, join the club of everyone else in my life I’ve disappointed,” he snapped.
The driver and guard shared a look as they listened in on the growing argument. The two in the back sounded like an old married couple.
“He’ll dissect them like frogs in a high school biology class,” she told him. “You know that.”
“Whatever,” Jack answered. “Not my problem.”
That was it. Alex reached over and slapped Jack across the face.
The guard turned around to look. As he did, Jack timed a perfect punch to the jaw, knocking him out cold.
Before the driver could figure out what was happening, Jack lunged toward the front seat and forced the man’s head into the window, shattering the glass in the process.
The driver lost consciousness, and the Humvee careened out of control. Jack quickly yanked the unconscious driver over the seat into the back, while Alex dived into the front and quickly grabbed the steering wheel. She managed to get control of the vehicle right before they would have slammed into a tree.
Once they came to a rest, Jack and Alex took deep breaths. Both driver and guard were out cold.
“When did you know?” Jack asked her, wondering how long it had taken her to figure out that he never intended to just give up.
“The minute they took your kids from you,” she said with a knowing smile.
“The slap,” he said as he rubbed his sore cheek. “Very realistic by the way.”
“I’m very detail-oriented,” Alex said with a laugh.
CHAPTER 17
Using one of Harlan’s old maps, Jack and Alex were able to find the entrance to an abandoned service tunnel hidden beneath some scrub brush. They moved forward on their hands and knees until their way was blocked by a g
rate. Jack grunted and strained trying to push it open, but he couldn’t budge it.
“For the record,” Alex said, “I get very claustrophobic in tight places.”
“Perfect,” Jack thought as he maneuvered his body around so that he could give the grate a couple of quick kicks. On the third try it finally popped off and fell down and out of sight. Jack kept waiting for the sound of the metal clanging against something, but there was no sound at all. The grate just kept falling. Jack took a deep breath before he looked over the edge and down into what appeared to be a bottomless pit.
“How are you with heights?” he asked, trying to force a smile.
The drop was at least two thousand feet. Jack was able to dangle over the edge and get his feet onto the rungs of a service ladder that was attached to the wall.
He signaled for Alex to follow. Slowly and very carefully she inched her way onto the ladder. Everything was okay until she looked down. Then she froze, too scared to speak or move.
“It’s okay,” Jack told her.“I am right below you.”
“I . . . can’t . . .” she stuttered. “You have to go without me.”
“No way,” Jack insisted. “I’m on this ladder. You’re on this ladder. This ladder leads us to Sara and Seth. Chaos theory, right?”
Alex gulped. “No theory,” she said. “Just a lot of chaos.” Still, his tone reassured her. Feeling a bit safer, she began to move.
As they climbed down, they discovered service tunnels every hundred feet or so. Jack wasn’t sure which one he was looking for, but he hoped he would know it when he saw it.
Just then there was a loud and ominous grumble from deep below them.
“Earthquake?” Jack asked.
“Doubt it,” said Alex.“The mountain was picked for its lack of seismic activity.”At least, that was what Harlan’s documents had said.
There was another, larger rumble that made the ladder shake. They had to hang on for dear life until Alex suddenly remembered something from one of the schematics.
“Oh, no, Jack,” she yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
