Boy Gone

by Mark Wayne McGinnis

  “This is Houston Mission Control. Commander … we do not have tracking telemetry, or visuals of any kind, that confirm the presence of said object. Apparently, the three of you, stationed within the ISS, have a unique perspective. We’ll need a detailed verbal description of what you are viewing.”

  Landon liked her. Margaret Haskell was their most frequent conduit down to Earth below—the friendly voice now speaking to them from Mission Control’s CapCom. But right then he wanted to scream at her—to all of them below—to just look at what should be visible right before their fucking eyes. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Greg Fischer weightlessly swoop into the Galaxy-1 module.

  “I think it’s best if I take a look out from in here—see if we’re both seeing the same thing.” Greg extended his hands out just in time as his body made contact with the module’s nearby bulkhead. Sliding in closer to Landon, he peered through the porthole window. “Yep, pretty much the same object I viewed from the other end of the station.”

  Landon and Greg stared solemnly at each other, both wearing the same bewildered expression. “I guess we’re on our own with this,” Greg said.

  Landon nodded. He heard Margaret Haskell’s intense, growing ever more exasperated, voice in the background requesting further information. A much more detailed description of the alien vessel. But Greg was right. They were on their own in dealing with this UFO outside.

  “Should we try to … I don’t know … contact them?” Greg asked.

  Landon looked out through the porthole. “I don’t know. Damn. We make the wrong move, who knows how it will be interpreted.”

  “Or misinterpreted,” Greg added, with brows raised.

  Chapter 9

  Scotty Sullivan, awake for a while now, realized he was in a hospital. A window on his right showed the sun was up. Although his head still pounded from being beaten repeatedly with a heavy flashlight, it hurt slightly less than before. He reached up and touched a bandage secured to the left side of his face. Bringing his hand back down, he stared at it as if it belonged to someone else. Rubbing his fingers together, he felt the soft texture of flesh moving against flesh. The sensation still seemed unfamiliar. He felt strangely disconnected—to everything.

  Only when he heard the sound of metal scraping against metal did he realize his right wrist was handcuffed to the hospital bed, an IV drip line attached to the same arm.

  A man in a white coat, holding an electronic tablet, came around the suspended privacy curtain. Of medium height, he appeared to be of foreign descent. In accented English, he said, “Good morning, sir, I am Dr. Patel. Do you know where you are?”

  “I am in a hospital.”

  “Correct. You were brought here, to Nantucket Cottage Hospital, very early in the morning … a day and a half ago.”

  “A day and a half?” Scotty asked, his voice filled with incredulity. He slowly nodded his head but immediately wished he hadn’t.

  “The pain will subside over time,” Dr. Patel said, looking down at his tablet. “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Scotty.”

  “And what is your last name, Scotty?”

  Scotty searched through his memories, hoping some clue would be available. “I don’t know. Guess that’s kind of weird, huh?”

  “No … not at all. Your body has withstood serious trauma. Above and beyond having a concussion, you have a hairline fracture of your left cheek. Above your lip, several sutures were necessary. Do you remember how you acquired these injuries?”

  “Sure I do. A cop hit me with his flashlight.”

  Dr. Patel stared back at him. “Did you provoke him … perhaps?”

  “I don’t think so. Can’t really remember ever provoking anyone.”

  The doctor looked momentarily baffled; unsure how to continue questioning. “There’s also this,” the doctor said, gesturing to the half-dollar-sized protrusion on Scotty’s inside forearm. “Seems to be … maybe a growth of some kind. Let’s not get overly concerned about it at this juncture, but it will need to be biopsied as soon as—”

  Just then a woman peered around the curtain. “Excuse me, Dr. Patel?”

  The doctor spun around to face her. “Yes, I am Dr. Patel. Can I help you?”

  “Sorry to interrupt … I’m FBI Special Agent Alison McGuire. May I have a few words with you?” She was holding a leather satchel in one hand and an envelope in the other. He saw the words DNA / Sullivan, handwritten across the top.

  Scotty watched her glance his way.

  “In private, please.” Her shoulder length hair was dark brown, and she wore an off-white buttoned blouse beneath a navy blue jacket with matching pants. All business, she appeared to be about his same age—mid-twenties—and pretty, with a strong air of confidence. Scotty watched as both the woman and the doctor disappeared behind the curtain, leaving him alone.

  His mind was still a-jumble, but not like it was earlier, when he was on the beach. He glanced around at what he could see of the room. Geez—why was everything so alien to him? Not just being in a strange hospital room, but being here—among these people. As if he were a visitor: one who hadn’t been present for a very long time.

  He heard murmurs, probably coming from out in the hallway. He looked at the closed curtain as the woman and doctor continued to speak in low tones.

  He thought hard; desperate to arrange the puzzle pieces in his disjointed mind into some semblance of order. Who am I? And where was I … before three days ago? He turned his attention to the window. The sky was an intense blue, and the sun—high in the sky and out of sight—filled the room with both light and warmth. He scratched at the annoying tingle on his forearm. Then, studying the area, he noticed he’d pretty much scratched himself raw there.

  And then he remembered. First, it came back in visual bits and pieces; then, like scenes taken from a movie, memories began unspooling into his consciousness—scenes unveiling a life in space, on another planet. He then remembered it all. Remembered he was both: Human and Vallic. And he remembered what he was here to accomplish. Something impossible. He couldn’t wait to get started.

  Scotty used his index finger to make two counter-clockwise circles within the round confines of the spherical protrusion on his right forearm. He then tapped at its center four times. He felt the small organism within do its excited, almost undetectable, little dance. “I’m glad too, my little Orand-Pall friend, Scotty conveyed back mentally. And thank you for being so patient. Please relay to them that I am fine now; fully capable of completing the mission. Scotty waited for the Orand-Pall, the intermediary, which had taken up residence within his arm so many years ago, to complete the other side of the conversation.

  They are glad you are well … but you need to be conscious of the schedule, Scotty.

  Scotty nodded. Orand-Pall, ask her … how is she?” He waited a full minute before receiving an answer back.

  You need to hurry, Scotty. She will try to hold on.

  Scotty felt the Orand-Pall relax, settle down within his arm, returning to a kind of slumber-like mode. The conversation was over.

  Chapter 10

  Dr. Patel, with the trim, brown-haired woman close on his heels, appeared around the curtain. The doctor, in his pleasant, singsong-accented voice, said, “Scotty, this is—”

  Scotty cut in, “Sullivan. My name is Scotty Sullivan. I remember. I remember everything.”

  Momentarily mystified, the doctor glanced toward the woman, then back at Scotty. “Excellent! Very nice progress, young man.” He began tapping something on to his tablet.

  Scotty was excited, actually jubilant. He had much to do, starting with getting out of this bed—this hospital.

  “So, he does remember,” she said, looking and sounding skeptical.

  “As I told you, Ms. McGuire, with serious head traumas such as his, a condition called retrograde amnesia, it would be impossible to predict either how or when a patient’s memory would return.”

  “Hi there, I am FBI Special Agent
Alison McGuire,” she said, thrusting out a hand. “May I call you Scotty?”

  Scotty, intending to shake her hand, the way he recalled doing it so many years ago, first felt, then heard, the handcuff jangle on his right wrist. Awkwardly, taking her right hand in his left instead, he fumbled, giving her an overly enthusiastic handshake—not accustomed yet on how to shake hands properly. “Yes, call me Scotty.”

  The corner of one side of her mouth crept up, as if pulled by an invisible thread.

  “I would like to ask you a few questions, Scotty. Your doctor is concerned that it may be too soon. Are you feeling up to it?”

  Glancing up, irritation flashed across the doctor’s face. He, apparently, felt it should be him initiating any conversation regarding his patient’s wellbeing.

  “Um … I’m okay, I guess. But I need to leave,” Scotty said. “I … I remember I have to be somewhere else.”

  Dr. Patel said, “You’ll be here another twenty-four hours minimum, Scotty. We can’t underestimate the seriousness of those blows to your head. As for being questioned right now, it might be best if you take another day.”

  “No, it’s okay, Dr. Patel. I’ll talk to her,” Scotty replied, but concerned with the prospect of having to be hospitalized another day.

  The doctor stood silently a moment before saying, “If you need anything, your call button is right here.” He repositioned the cord on Scotty’s bed, near his free left hand. Smiling, he nodded, then left without acknowledging the FBI woman further.

  Alison, looking about the curtained room, spotted a lone chair in the far corner. Scotty watched as she retrieved it—pulled it around—shoving it in close to the left side of the bed. Sitting down, she refocused her attention fully on to him. She took in a controlled breath, as if quelling some growing inner excitement. Eyes sparkling, she smiled for the first time.

  Scotty quickly turned his eyes away and cleared his throat. At that moment, changes were rapidly occurring within his body. Physiological deviations, he knew, that weren’t the norm. His body’s temperature had risen noticeably; his hands felt clammy and he had to fight against a strong physical urge to wipe them on the bed sheet. Moisture too was forming on his upper lip. What the hell is happening to me? He swallowed hard and, with reluctance, stared back into her sparkling brown eyes. God, she’s really lovely.

  “Scotty, there’s quite a bit we need to go over. Do you mind if I show you something?” Alison looked around the floor, spotting the leather satchel she’d dropped when she went to fetch the chair. Pulling it now up onto her lap, she opened it and extracted several sheets of white paper. “Three days ago, all kinds of alarms went off at the FBI headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Apparently, you were taken into custody and booked at the local Nantucket police station here … do you remember that?”

  Scotty, unconsciously reaching up a hand to touch the bandage still covering a portion of his face, nodded back.

  “Like I said, all kinds of alarms went off. Folks have been searching for you,” she glanced down at the papers in her hand, “ … for over sixteen years.” She looked back up. “This is a printout of fingerprints, taken when Scotty Sullivan was a child. It was a fairly common practice, even back then, for parents to have their kids fingerprinted, most often done at school. These sixteen-year-old prints are a match to your booking prints.” Alison held up a page, featuring a series of oblong smudges—fingerprints—along with a number of circles and handwritten notes scribbled all over the sheet. “There are some … discrepancies, that I’ve already discussed with your doctor, concerning your DNA test results.”

  Scotty nodded, his attention drawn to her lips as she spoke. He took in the tilt of her head, the way she used her slender fingers to secure back an errant lock of hair behind one ear. How long had it been, he wondered, since anyone had this kind of effect on him? A long time, he knew. His mind then flashed to another time—another planet. He thought of Tori and was immediately filled with sadness. Placing his hand on his heart, he tried not to remember.

  Alison continued, “I’ve enlisted the doctor’s help and he’s checking with the hospital lab folks now. But getting back to these fingerprints, they’re fairly definitive.” She looked up, “Are you … okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Scotty lied. “And yes, that’s me. I am the same Scotty Sullivan. And you want to know where I’ve been all these years.”

  Alison shrugged in assent. “There was a massive ground search for you. Lives were torn apart—your parents, your siblings. In time, you were decreed dead. It was determined you’d been swept out to sea when at your vacation home while playing on the beach. Not everyone believed that … ”

  But Scotty had ceased listening, her comments still repeating—an endless loop inside his head. Lives were torn apart … your parents … your siblings. For many years he’d missed them terribly. Had to mentally train himself—force himself—not to think about them at all. But now those same mental safeguards, one after another, were slowly falling away. His mother’s face, out of focus, undefined, came into view. Then, as if adjusting a camera lens, her features sharpened and he saw the way she used to look at him: with patience, amusement, and love. He remembered his father too—sitting on his knee as Scotty showed him something imprisoned in a capped jar, a bug of some sort. And then he thought of his baby sister and older brother. Questioning himself why, after three plus days back, he’d only then thought of them.

  “Your mother. She never believed you were dead. Never stopped looking for you. Spent every cent she had on private detectives.”

  “Wait … where are they? Where’s my family?”

  “Your father works and lives in Boston. Your brother is married and lives in Los Angeles. Your sister is finishing up college in Boulder, Colorado.”

  “And my mother? Is she still … ”

  “She’s here. Never left Nantucket. As I said before, she never stopped looking for you. I’m sorry to say, but your mother and father split up ten years back.”

  Scotty took it all in. The lives of his family members had, of course, moved on without him. Except for his mother, apparently. He felt sad and a bit guilty too—although he’d had no say in the matter, of course, all those years back.

  “So now it’s your turn, Scotty. Where were you all these years? What happened to you?” Alison asked.

  “I was abducted … ”

  Alison nodded, lifting one brow. Her expression read Okay, I already figured that much out.”

  “ … by aliens.” He stared back at her expressionless.

  Chapter 11

  US astronauts Commander Jack Landon and Lt. Greg Fischer, and Russian cosmonaut Peter Mirkin, were assembled within the ISS’s dome-shaped observation cupola, with its seven individual windows.

  “They’re going to kill us, or, at the very least, take us prisoner. Do their experiments on us … ”

  Landon glared at Fischer, who was starting to get on his nerves. “Okay— enough of that kind of talk,” Landon said. “So, you’ve checked the parabolics?” he asked, referring to the US Orbital Segment that utilizes two separate bowl-shaped radio antennas mounted to the Z1 truss structure.

  Landon continued, “Doesn’t take much to get either one of them pointed in the wrong direction. One unintended nudge, and there you have it—our coms are cut off.”

  Fischer said shaking his head, “But both antennas, at virtually the same time? Come on, how the hell does something like that happen?”

  “I think we three know what really happened,” Peter Mirkin said, “It was no nudge. The signals are purposely being blocked.” The Russian’s attention was focused on the alien craft, still positioned off the portside of the ISS. He turned away from watching the alien ship centered in the grouping of portholes. “What do we do now? I don’t like just sitting here … being at their mercy, so to speak.”

  Greg Fischer shook his head. “What do you suggest? That maybe we should fire up the phasers, or the pulse cannons? Or maybe shift into warp drive,
jump to light speed?”

  Showing annoyance, Peter said, “First of all, you’re intermixing your stupid American science fiction. Second, I’m simply saying we should be proactive, that’s all.”

  “He’s right,” Landon said. “At the very least we must attempt to communicate with them.”

  “The parabolics are down. We just discussed that,” Greg said.

  “Let’s try one of the Ericsson MP-X handhelds,” Landon said, referring to the small commercial radios that were sometimes used to communicate with amateur radio enthusiasts around the world.

  Peter shook his head. “If the aliens were clever enough to block the parabolics … ”

  “Come on, can’t we give it a try before we start overthinking things?” Landon asked, ready to throttle Greg.

  At that precise moment everything within the observation module went dark. The constant hum of onboard computer server hard drives became silent. Equally important, if not more so, the station’s environmental air circulation system ceased flowing. Almost immediately, the temperature within the compartment began to drop.

  Nearly pitch-black, even with a minimal amount of light shining in through the cupola windows, for a moment no one moved or spoke.

  “It was a dark and stormy night … ”

  “Hush, Greg!” Landon barked. “Let’s get into our EMUs. We’ll at least be prepared if … ”

  “They start firing on the ISS, blowing these tin cans apart, one by one,” Greg added.

  They had actually trained for just such a scenario. Not for the arrival of an alien vessel, but for the catastrophic failure of one, or more, internal ISS systems. Landon knew that getting into the EMUs—each a virtual, one person spacecraft unto itself—would give them time to think. Action instead of prolonged fruitless discussions dwelling on their worry of running out of air or being frozen by the ever-decreasing internal station temperatures.