The doctor never really knew for sure who the residents of Caldiron Ranch were or exactly where they were from. The one thing the good doctor knew for sure was that this was a race of humans unlike any he had ever treated before.
It had been ten years now since the twins were born. Already, the ranch had many children from its 24 couples and their homes needed to be expanded to accommodate them. James’ ranch was already too large for him as it was, so he would put his energy into helping his residents.
When James and Syra met with the residents on their next seven-day meeting, everyone was thrilled to hear James suggested that they expand their homes and land around them to allow for more space and privacy. Not that any one of them would have ever asked for it.
The idea was to divide the land into sections, this way each family could settle a minimum of 10 acres each. This was much more room than they had ever expected. and they were thrilled to do all the work to get settled into their new areas.
As soon as the meeting was over, everyone got busy making all the arrangements to have their cabins moved to their new locations and additions built to them. Never in all Zhianites history had anyone ever lived further than a pod away from each other. But here on Earth, the space they now had allowed for the growth of their families, room for gardens, outdoor recreation and anything else their hearts desired.
Some of their children had already become teenagers and their parents were never in their lives so confused. The only teenager they had ever known were themselves with no births in their lifetimes.
None had ever known a little grownup. That is all they could think of to call them. Too young to be treated as adults and too old to be treated like babies, they sought the help of James many times on the subject.
Over the next several months it had become chaos on the ranch as each family moved to their new sites. These were the times that Ohtron wished he could be replicated. It was difficult to maintain the perimeter’s safety and assist the residents.
But no one was ready for the children on James’ ranch who now wanted to drive vehicles and to leave the ranch on their own. They were wanting exciting adventures and it was a desire that sometimes controlled them. James explained that his theory was that they had become the typical restless teenagers he had once been himself.
It was decided that James needed a large van so that he could start taking the teens on outings for a week or two at a time, not as before when they visited theme parks or big cities and returned in only a few days. A pod was designated to imitate a van
This time it would be to places they could spend longer at and so a trip was set up to take them to Washington, D.C.
James was not at all concerned because they were all born on American soil, knew nothing but life on Earth and when they were told where their parents were from, they simply laughed it off.
In just a few short years, some of them would be off to college. Since all the children were now teens other than James twins, the ranch would be empty of children in only a few years and everyone was excited and sad at the same time.
And so preparations were being made for the big road trip they would be taking real soon.
Oftentimes, James missed old Dr. Ferguson’s visits to the ranch. He had passed a few years back and was sorely missed.
It was his son Dr. Ferguson Jr. that took over his father’s business and he had his father’s tactfulness not to ask questions and to care for his patients.
Most of the time, Dr. Ferguson Jr was referred to as just Junior and most of the time he preferred it.
That had been a few more births that year and the doctor had been busy at the Caldiron Ranch taking care of the typical teen scrapes and caring for the younger children.
The one thing that surprised the doctor more than anything was if there was some sort of accident, someone else had already prepped things before he had even gotten there. His father had mentioned that to his son a few times and it was time to at least ask straight up.
When the young doctor asked James about some of the anomalies his father had noted, and he himself was also curious about, James knew it was time to tell him something.
A day was set aside to give the doctor a tour of the ranch and to give him only the information he needed. Nothing about the Zhians Sphere, bots, crystals or anything else but enough information that would satisfy the doctor.
He explained that it was a group of people he met once that needed a home. They were descendants of a family nudist colony somewhere in Florida and had been mostly off the grid all their lives, it was their parents that had joined the colony back in the mid-1940s and they had no idea where their own parents were from or anything else about them. These teenagers are the second generation now.
James explained that the colonist never used surnames and their children were homeschooled. When the colony went out of business, it was because the last of their elders had died and left no will. That land was split up and they had built condos for retired folks and golf courses out of it.
The poor doctor had no idea such a thing could happen in America but as unbelievable as this story was, it made him even prouder to care for these people.
James explained that to expose the parents of the teenagers to other people would be psychologically devasting, and the young doctor agreed!
“So, let me get this straight, you are protecting an innocent group of folks raised in an environment, not of their choosing,” the doctor said, and then added, “I will help you too!”
That was the end of that conversation and when the young doctor left, Syra was completely baffled, to say the least.
It wasn’t until then that Syra learned what a lie truly was and how it can get totally out of control. But James explained, “Well, it is sort of a white lie meaning I bent the truth to fit my story!” James said.
“Well I don’t think I’ll ever use this white lie method of yours, seems far too complicated to me!” Syra replied and added, “However, the truth would seem, stranger than fiction would it?”
James knew his so-called white lie was really the biggest lie he had ever told in his entire life.
He knew it had morphed into a crazy story. But it would be difficult to prove it a lie since there was a nudist colony that did go out of business and not much was known about its inhabitants.
book one
chapter eight
James was up that morning bright and early with many things to oversee on his ranch before taking a much-anticipated trip. It was good to see his ranch with horses and cattle again. It had taken the last five years to establish himself and to have a fine stock of horses and cattle and he had a lot to be proud of.
The residents on the ranch had worked hard to help James reclaim what his ranch once was. With the ranch all taken care of and his resident teens all fired up for a trip to Washington, D.C., he locked up the ranch house before leaving.
James, Syra, their twins and twelve teenagers boarded his van for the trip with luggage in tow. Their parents stayed behind and were looking forward to the time spent with a quieter ranch.
Each of their children carried smartphones and loved all the typical things Earthling teenagers did.
The one thing James spelled out immediately once everyone boarded the van, was no music! They would need to use their headphones and that was a rule established anytime he was behind a wheel.
Once they headed out on the highway, everyone was excited about the trip. The pod taking on a shape of a large passenger van was perfect, and it would fit in anywhere. Those teenagers would probably keep most folks at bay.
As they stopped in at several places, older folks seem to avoid James and his crowd like the plaque. But most of the time the teens were well behaved. One thing for certain, they were raised properly and only got out of hand when they were around other teenagers they would interact with.
The teens had never flown in an airplane and were not about to now. But they were extremely excited to use the speed the travel
pod had if it needed to fly. It’s all they could talk about whenever they were not listening to music on their headsets.
All the teens understood the dangers of using any Zhian technology and would have never pestered James. But those kids would ask every once-in-a-while, “Are we there yet?”
That night on a long stretch of highway with no sign of anyone or anything, so dark with overcast you could not see your hand in front of your face, James blinked out and re-appeared 5 states later and the kids were thrilled!
The kids loved to ask Syra questions about her homeworld, the one that could have been theirs too had they been born on it. They got the exact same answers they always got, and she referred them back to their parents. They also got a very stern warning that that was a subject they should never ever carry with another living soul, ever!
They finally arrived in Washington, D.C. and hid their van from sight. They caught the Metrorail to take them to their connecting hotel rooms to get settled in. Tomorrow and all week would be very busy days with all the tours James had scheduled for everyone.
Once settled in, everyone studied the Metro Etiquette at James insistence. With their SmarTrip Cards fully loaded they would be able to move about Washington and truly have the time of their lives and James was going to make sure those kids did exactly that.
James felt a lot better knowing those bitrons of Ohtron’s were with the vehicle and could handle pretty much anything. He was in constant contact with them and Ohtron was glad his bitrons had gone with James.
However, having his storage compartment completely empty inside his mid-section was a little odd, to say the least. Ohtron had never gone this long without the little pests, but they were truly useful around the ranch and he realized just how much now that they were gone with James.
The next day everyone was up and dressed and ready to head out. James was familiar with large crowds but Syra, her twins and the teens were not. They were a bit stand-offish, and that was a good thing, James thought to himself.
Their tours were as follows:
The United States Capitol and Capitol Hill
The White House
The Lincoln Memorial
The National Monument
The National Air and Space Museum
The National Museum of American History
National Museum of Natural History
National Mall and Veterans Memorials
Georgetown Historic District
It would be a busy week and one of those days they would visit two of those places and the rest was one stop per day. James kept those teens so busy you could hear a pin drop each night they got back to their hotel rooms.
Everyone had had such a good time but standing in line for a shower for half the night was something James would not miss when they got back to the ranch. James would have to put his off until morning most days and even then, Syra was one of the worst one of all of them because she was hooked on soaking in the tub!
Syra, her twins and the teens had learned a lot about the government and how it operates. They had collected a ton of literature and some of the teens said they wanted to grow up to be the president, congressman, senator and many other careers they were throwing at James.
But young Zachary was the one most fascinated with it and proclaimed himself President of the United States at only ten years old. Well, according to Zach he was 10 years, 10 months and 28 days old to be exact.
With their whole lives ahead of them, he enjoyed listening to them second guess their futures. He had done the same thing at their age.
What mattered most here was the fact that they all were born in America and could run for any office of their choosing!
With no way for anyone to prove who their parents were or where they were from other than that nudist colony in Florida, these future officials were smart enough to pull it off.
James knew Earth and the United States would be the better for it if that is how it all turns out. He was not about to play God here and decide what was best for his country. But these kids were as human and anyone else and they had a desire and pride about them as any of the citizens of the United States, he thought to himself.
James had a lot to think about all night as he tossed and turned in the bed. All of them would be leaving Washington in the morning with their heads full of information.
All night James laid there in bed, he had a million things on his mind. This trip was good for all of them, but mostly for those teens. The motivation to become someone important was incredible James thought and he tossed and turned.
And then that is when it hit him! The irony of it all thought James. He was nothing more than a rancher from Nevada, yet he was an ambassador who represented the Zhianites from the planet Zhian.
With his alien friends help he had accomplished a flourishing garden and sent out seeds across the land freely. Seeds that resisted disease and could grow in any environment and no one could trace them back to him.
But there was no stopping the spread of them. They were free to the citizens of the United States and they could share them with whomever across the globe if they chose too.
Then it also hit James again, he had been harboring aliens for over 13 Earth years now! He had taught them everything he knew and had given them the tools to learn even more.
In all his life, James had watched science fiction movies and saw how different plots directors had of how Aliens would one day overtake Washington, and all of them had missed it.
None could have seen or imagined that Syra or someone like her and her people may very well be one of many to do this and perhaps fit in perfectly.
For a whole week, Washington, D.C. was invaded by aliens from Zhian and no one was the wiser. Those teens were born here in America and it did not matter where their parents came from, any one of them could one day run Washington alongside other humans. They could marry humans and have children by them. After all, the humans were their people too!
James began to mumble in his sleep with half recognizable sentences he tossed and turned.
“Wake up James!” Syra went on to say, “You are talking in your sleep and saying really strange stuff!”
“Sorry Syra,” James replied, he also said, “It has been a rough week keeping up with those kids. I’m ready to call this trip done and head back to the ranch!
It was in the evening and everyone was missing the ranch. Once packed up they took the metro back to the parking garage and did not have far to walk.
There it was, still hidden and disguised as a church bus. After a week in Washington, everyone boarded and drove away. The bitrons worked tirelessly making sure there were no prying eyes or camera’s focused on it. It was a practical place to leave it thought James, who would ever have wanted to peek inside an old rusty beat up church bus at the top floor of a parking garage?
One of the bitrons jobs was to monitor the monitoring systems for the parking garage and he could easily cause static in the camera momentarily or anything else needed to keep security looking the other way. Another one was to switch the image of the bus to several already programmed in him, but all went so well, none were used.
James drove out of the building and out of Washington and the vehicle stayed as a church bus until that night when again, it was okay to get back to the ranch the quickest way and they did.
Once they got back to the ranch, all the teens went back to their cabins too tired to move. They were not the only ones tired, James, Syra, and her twins Zachary and Zoey were just too tired to even complain or move.
Zee10 and Ohtron made good partners and James was ecstatic at how well they ran the ranch while he was away.
James went to bed and he and his wife and kids slept well into the next day and then some.
A few weeks later, someone reported an unidentified flying object about 100 miles north of the Caldiron Ranch and it was all over the news and could not be avoided.
It was not any of Syra’s bots or transportation vehicles in shrou
d mode. It was baffling, to say the least.
Back at the Zhian Sphere, the council was right on it. Searching for the core database for any information. None was found.
Syra and her people were terrified. They knew of no other occupied worlds with the capability to travel all the way to Earth. Every day, day in and day out they were outside on the ranch visually searching the skies for anything that remotely looked unearthly in nature.
The object kept bopping in and out and making sharp turns impossible to do at its speeds if compared to any machine known to man. It was as if it were searching for something which had everyone curious. No vehicle on Earth could perform maneuvers such as this phenomenon.
It seemed to never be visible long enough to get a clear photograph of it, but many were trying to guess its origins.
The CNN channel was the only single channel that did report exactly word for word what AP had determined per a government official and it was on the record.
However, Syra was completely off guard as to the sheer depth of conversation that sighting had caused CNN’s anchors. It had reminded her of the recent presidential election which during that time, she rediscovered how much she enjoyed movies!
This was the only sighting James could ever remember in recent times that had caused such a stir. Because of all the attention that thing whatever it was, was getting it was time to pull all his resources together. If this thing was from an alien world, they needed to know about it, and know about it now!
But, searching the skies with Ohtron or his bitrons was not an option. With all eyes from all around the world, just 100 miles from the ranch made it to risky and James knew he would have to have the council’s input and Syra wholeheartedly agreed.
With each meeting James and Syra had with Council and Zee10, no one had any idea what was causing these sightings. But having the Zhian Sphere resting at the South Pole, that was a relief with all the news directed over the skies of the ranch in that large radius being searched.
The Chronicles of Syra Omnibus Page 11
