The Enigmatologist

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by Ben Adams


  “I was penetrated by a gang of Elvises? That’s what I want to hear after nearly blacking out.”

  The Elvis impersonators surrounded the park, keeping a respectful distance. A few wore their jumpsuits, but most wore ratted t-shirts and faded jeans. The only thing they looked like they were capable of doing was failing to pay child support.

  “In the desert, when I read Hollister’s mind? or at the hotel?” He inspected his hand, running his thumb over his knuckles.

  “You were able to access a few of your abilities, what you’d read about in the journal, but you have been building a mental obstacle for twenty years. Breaking it down is not something you would have been able to do alone.”

  “That’s why I couldn’t use my pheromones in the desert. I get the whole ‘mental obstacle’ thing, but why did the transformation have to hurt so much?” John rubbed his stomach.

  “Your body broke its genetic code. It ripped every double helix you have and then reassembled them, connecting them to your dormant Sagittarian genes. You were rewriting your DNA. Something like that is bound to sting. Don’t feel bad. All our children go through this. Think of it as a right of passage, an initiation.”

  “When do I get my secret decoder ring?” John asked, thinking of American Cipher Discs as Jewelry 104.

  “You alright?” Leadbelly asked, walking over from the statue. He sat by John on the bench. “You had me worried there for a second, man.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” John said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  The others that had come from their trailers stood at the edge of the park. They were out of earshot, but John heard their conversations. They formed a cushion of voices lining his head.

  “I can hear them, up here,” John said, tapping his head. He said to Leadbelly, “Like I heard you in the trailer.”

  “You don’t seem overwhelmed,” Louisa said.

  “They just sound like background noise.” John breathed, turning down the volume even further. “It’s kind of comforting, actually, to not be alone.”

  “You catch on quick, man,” Leadbelly said.

  “When I was on the ground, I felt different types of Sagittarians, like subcultures. I felt more Elvises, like Leadbelly and Handjive. I could also feel the original Sagittarians, like you, Louisa. And I felt another group. They were like…”

  Rustling leaves of the oak tree behind them. It was an old wind that had blown through the desert for centuries. John bent over, ripped up a single blade of grass. He let it fall, be carried on the gentle wind. It drifted into the park and landed in a green expanse.

  “They’re Hybrids, aren’t they?”

  “Did you think you were the only one, man?”

  “We have almost six hundred thousand Hybrids in communities all over New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado,” Louisa said.

  “Not Arizona?”

  “You think we’re crazy?” Leadbelly said.

  “This is part of the colonization?” John asked, pointing to the journal on Louisa’s lap. “What Jonathon Deerfoot talked about?”

  “It’s the beginning of the second phase,” Louisa said. “We’re gradually moving Hybrids into positions of power, local politics, attorneys, business owners.”

  “Like Rosa?” John smiled, thinking of her flowing between her tables.

  “Civil servants, leaders in their communities. Eventually we’ll move them on to national politics, replacing them at the local level with more Hybrids.”

  “You want a Hybrid president,” John said, realizing the extent of their ambitions.

  “We want all the world leaders to be Hybrids. They can create public policies and opinions that will make what’s left of the human population welcome the next wave of Sagittarian colonists. This is where you come in. You’ll live long enough to greet the next wave and watch this planet evolve into something it never could have expected.”

  “You want me to run for president? I’m not even registered to vote.”

  “I wouldn’t ask that of you,” Louisa said, “but you are an Abernathy and as such you do have responsibilities. You will lead us after I’m gone, guide us through the next phase of colonization.”

  “What about Leadbelly? He’s your son.”

  “You think anyone’d take me seriously, man?” Leadbelly said, resting his thumbs on his oversized belt.

  “Or your daughters?”

  “They have other tasks,” Louisa said, looking toward the Elvis statue. “But you, John, you will prepare the world, positioning Hybrids in areas where they can impact change, and help with the coming transition.”

  And all John’s questions were answered, why they brought him there, why Rosa slept with him, why Leadbelly let himself be photographed, all so they could reshape him into their vision of the future, give him a new purpose, helping them bring about their new world. But the subtle manipulation made him uneasy. He didn’t think he could function like Louisa and Leadbelly, sitting in the desert, moving pieces around, trying to make them fit. He knew he couldn’t go back to Denver, be a private investigator with dreams of puzzle stardom. He accepted that. It made him happy knowing he’d never have to sneak around, photographing a client’s husband naked on a tarp while insurance appraisers dumped buckets of lime green Jell-O on him. Still, he wasn’t sure if he wanted this, being a Hybrid. He didn’t know what he wanted. This was his private doubt, something he didn’t want Louisa to know. He placed a wall around his mind, like the one he hit in the Winnebago, and hid his reluctance in a tiny box, tossing it into the same crevice where he buried his uncertainties about his puzzles. John folded his arms and looked away.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Louisa said, detecting his doubt. “I’ll be around for a long time.”

  The Elvises started walking into the park. John didn’t look. He didn’t need to. He sensed them getting closer, like he was inside their bodies, experiencing every footstep and breath and heartbeat required for several hundred Elvis impersonators to move.

  He felt the human emptiness denoting where Sheriff Masters was making his way through the crowd. Professor Gentry followed, holding a woman’s hand. John initially disregarded their conversation in Professor Gentry’s home, but now, in a trailer park full of Elvises, it took on a new meaning.

  “They sent you the Wow! Signal, didn’t they? back in ’77,” John said. “It was some kind of message from colonist central or whatever, telling you they’re coming.”

  “They gave us the date and time when the next wave will arrive. They’ll be here in two-hundred years. We don’t have much time. We have to start preparing.”

  “I have a question,” Professor Gentry said, now standing at the front of the crowd. “The day after the Wow! Signal was intercepted, Elvis died.”

  “That was just a heart attack,” Leadbelly said. “Not everything’s a conspiracy, man.”

  “Even if it was a heart attack,” John said to Louisa, “you still have a big problem. Hollister knows you’ve been watching him. He found Leadbelly’s photos. I’m sure he’s figured out the whole body-doubles-are-aliens thing by now. He probably thinks you actually killed Elvis. I made a deal with him. I’m not sure if he’ll stick to it. But it should buy us some time.”

  “We’re safe out here,” Louisa said. “We’ve adjusted the atmosphere, obscuring us from the Air Force’s satellites.”

  “It’s not just that. He’s got my dad.”

  Louisa turned, startled.

  “You didn’t know, did you?” John asked.

  “When we lost contact with him, we assumed…” Weeds grew between the cracks in the sidewalk. They had been trampled by foot traffic, but still endured. Louisa brushed them with her Birkenstock.

  “He walled his mind off, probably before they cryonically froze him.”

  “That would keep a mental barrier in place.”

  “Like what you did to me in the Winnebago,” John said to Leadbelly.

  “He should have told us, man. We would a gone out there and got hi
m.” Leadbelly’s lip curled, jaw tightened.

  “He was protecting me. If you rescued him, Hollister would have gone after me and my mom.”

  “So, he disconnected himself from us,” Louisa said, folding her arms. “That poor man, alone and isolated. It’s a hard and painful thing.”

  “But my dad wasn’t alone,” John said, remembering a lifetime of conversations with this father. “He’s been talking to me my whole life. In dreams.”

  “He must have built a mental bond with you, tethered his subconscious to yours. He probably started when you were a baby, while your mind was still forming. It’s the only way he could talk to you while his mind and body were cryonically frozen.”

  “Then he knew Hollister, or someone, was coming for him?”

  “Or maybe he just wanted to be close to you,” Louisa said, patting his knee.

  “I have to get him,” John said, feeling the need to atone for eighteen years of hostility.

  “Now that we know where he is, we’ll send a team to do some reconnaissance. Don’t worry, we’ll get him back.”

  “My family, my mom, Rooftop,” John said, jumping up from the bench. “Hollister will use them to get to me. I need to go back to Denver, make sure they’re alright, get them out of there if possible.”

  “Your family will have a home here.” Louisa nodded.

  “And Rosa?” John asked.

  “She’s been asking about you, too. She’s with her family…” Louisa rubbed the spine of the journal with her thumb, searching for the right words. “Taking care of some things, but you’ll see each other again, soon.”

  John looked down and smiled. His cheeks flushed. When he drove into the desert with Leadbelly, he wasn’t sure he’d ever see Rosa again, or if she even wanted to see him. But she’d asked about him, and that felt better than solving The New York Times Sunday crossword with a pen.

  “Al, you and Ricky take John, Sheriff Masters, and Professor Gentry back to Las Vegas.”

  “I’d like to stay here, if that’s alright?” Professor Gentry asked, his arm around an older, Mexican woman, one of the original colonists.

  “You move quick,” John said. “What would Mrs. Morris say?”

  “Elizabeth and I have an open relationship.”

  “Very well. You may stay with us,” Louisa said in her gentle way. “In the meantime, we’ll contact the other Sagittarian communities and inform them about the recent developments.”

  Leadbelly and Louisa rose from the bench. Louisa hugged John. She put her hands on his face. “Hurry back to us.”

  “I’ll get back as quickly as I can.”

  As the four men walked to Handjive’s Winnebago, the sheriff turned to John, grinning like his mind was full of trouble.

  “John, when we get back, let’s drive around town. You can tell me who’s human and who’s not.”

  “You wanna kick the Sagittarians out of Las Vegas?”

  “Shoot, if they’re anything like Leadbelly and Handjive here, I just might kick all the humans outta town.”

  Handjive turned the key.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  “So much for good-old Sagittarian know-how,” John said.

  Handjive smiled, a blend of comfort and seduction. He leaned over the dash, whispered into the air vents, then started singing to the Winnebago, “…and I can’t help, falling in love with you.”

  Handjive turned the key again. This time the engine turned over, humming its own song. The metal spikes holding them to the earth detached and clamped to the side of the Winnebago, and they lifted into the early dawn.

  “You gotta know how to talk to them, man, just like a woman.” He continued romancing the mobile home, caressing the dashboard with his right hand.

  They floated over the trailer park, the light of sunrise spreading across the desert floor. John propped his hands on the bed above the cab and surveyed the park out the front window. It grew the higher they rose above it and John saw just how sprawling and expansive it really was.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered.

  When they landed, the park appeared to be smaller. Only a few trailers were lit, those necessary for landing, but against the morning light, he saw its immensity. Thousands of trailers covered several square miles of lifeless soil. A town established in nowhere. Empty spaces were spread throughout the park, awaiting absent trailers. And standing in the middle of it all was the Elvis statue.

  “Check it out, man,” Handjive said, pointing to the ground. Other Winnebagos dislodged from the surface, heading west and north. “They’re gonna go have a chat with the rest of us, man. All the Sagittarians out there.”

  “You can’t just talk to them telepathically?” John asked.

  “Naw, man,” Leadbelly said, sitting at the table, drinking a can of lite beer. “It’s a distance thing. We gotta be within a certain radius or the whole dang thing won’t work.”

  “What about dreams?” John asked. “I thought you could talk to them that way.”

  “Dreams are different, man. Your subconscious is more open, more receptive to telepathy. It’s sunrise. No one’s sleeping now. Besides, man, this is too important for dreams. Someone might misinterpret the message.”

  “I can see how a dream where a paranoid Elvis tells you to hide from the government can be confusing,” John said.

  “It’s serious business, man,” Handjive said. “We’re gonna have to lock down the park for a while. Till we can figure this whole mess out. It’s gonna be hard, man. No women.”

  “I saw women all over that camp,” Sheriff Masters said. “Hell, Gentry found himself one.”

  “Man, we’re either related to them or they’re too old,” Leadbelly said.

  “Since when do you care about age?” John asked.

  “When the women around here started turning four hundred, man.”

  “Hey, Leadbelly,” Handjive said. “What do you say, man, after we drop these two off we make one last trip to Vegas. Do it up, Elvis style.”

  “I only got one thing to say to that, man, Viva Las Vegas.” Leadbelly smiled, content and excited, like getting kicked out of Circus Circus and arrested for public drunkenness at the Fremont Street Experience was how he wanted to spend his last hours before being sequestered. Leadbelly and Handjive talked about all the off-strip casinos they wanted to visit, recalling previous booze-induced escapades. Listening to their stories, John chuckled and wondered if Vegas had a law against ‘drinking while Elvis’.

  Handjive piloted the Winnebago away from the park. As they flew away, John experimented with his new ability. He extended his consciousness as far as possible, testing its limits. He sensed the Sagittarians, the Hybrids, the Elvises fade like stars disappearing at sunrise, all except the two in the cabin with him.

  As they got closer to the mountains, roads started cutting across the ground. John recognized I-25, the road they took to Professor Gentry’s compound. They descended and, just for fun, Handjive flew over the plot of desert where the Air Force had ambushed them. John put his hands and face against the window, looking for his wrecked car, but it wasn’t there. The area was totally clean. A sanitized desert.

  Handjive hovered a few inches over an empty stretch of highway outside of town. Metal grinded, hiding the frame and the Sagittarian engine underneath the mobile home. Four tires moved into the wheel wells. Handjive smiled at his passengers and flipped the switch that lowered the RV onto the road. Caught by gravity, the Winnebago dropped to the ground, bouncing as it hit. The inside of the cab shook and John gripped the table, bracing himself.

  Handjive turned the ignition key to the combustion engine, and where they expected to hear a motor turning over, they heard only a slight breeze blowing eroding sands. The Winnebago didn’t start. He tried it again and again with the same results.

  “Sorry, man,” Handjive said. “I’d fly you into town, but, man, we’d probably cause a riot.”

  “And Mrs.
Morris would be leading the pack,” John said, “swinging vibrators like nunchucks.”

  “Looks like we’re walking,” the sheriff said, rising from the passenger seat.

  Stepping from the Winnebago into the culvert, brown grass tried to crawl up their pant legs. They said their goodbyes, and watched the RV convert back to flying mode. The metal frame grew from underneath, enveloping the tires, pulling them under the vehicle. The Winnebago floated for a minute then lifted skyward. They waved to their friends until the Winnebago disappeared, blending with the endless blue sky.

  John held onto them with his consciousness as long as possible, seeing, feeling them disappear simultaneously. He searched the desert for alien life, but didn’t feel any. They were out there somewhere. Just not near him.

  “Hey, John. Check it out.” The sheriff pointed up, smirked. “Elvis has left the building.”

  * * * *

  The sun rose as they walked, reflecting off the road ahead of them. John squinted and a thin membrane, like a second eyelid, grew over eyes. A product of his Sagittarian heritage, it diffused the morning light.

  Being in the trailer park, meeting the other Sagittarians changed John, showed him he was part of something bigger, older, part of a species that spread across the galaxy, reshaping the worlds they inhabited. John knew they had plans for him, beyond what Louisa told him, but he didn’t care about their internal invasion, or the impending second wave, he just wanted to find Rosa and live a quiet life with her. He didn’t think he was alone in his desire for solitude. When he was in the park, he’d heard everyone’s thoughts, experienced their emotions. It was incredible, being connected to the Sagittarians, peaceful. His uncertainty, isolation, loneliness had vanished because he finally knew what it was like not to be alone. But he had felt something else, like the peace they shared was a thick crust covering another, equally prevalent emotion. They craved the unity that came with being connected to other Sagittarians, but they also coveted that human fragment that demanded reckless individuality, like Leadbelly and Handjive going to Las Vegas, trying to have as much fun as possible before the next wave of Sagittarians arrived. John thought these two desires would conflict, but he felt their symmetry and the contentment of everyone in the park, like they had learned what it really meant to be part Sagittarian and part human, something he was just starting to discover.

 

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