D.N.A.

by Jami Lynn Saunders

  “I’m counting on you,” David yelled as she was whisked through the doors.

  “Calm down, girl, you’re being set free,” the guard said as he took her away.

  Maybe so, but I’ll be back, she thought.

  David heard her thoughts and smiled.

  Preparations to transfer the human, alien, and inorganic cargo were stalled until the following night because of a bizarre twist of events. Power shut down across the underground facility repeatedly, equipment and vehicles stalled, and computers froze up before rebooting. The scientists scratched their heads. David laughed once under his breath, which was a big mistake. An agent who’d been watching him throughout the events put two and two together. Minutes later, both David and the alien were heavily sedated with morphine.

  Jameson’s convoy of military vehicles from Fort Tucker, which included Jeeps and armored cars, rolled into the back parking lot of the Allianz Insurance building. His men set to work immediately. Three armored vehicles were loaded with the cargo. An escape route over back roads had been chosen to avoid alarming the citizens. Once clear of prying eyes, the convoy would split into three groups, one heading to Ohio, one to Mexico, and one to the Arizona desert.

  Miles away, Atlantic Bay High School was alive with the first pep rally of the year. Blaring lights lit up the football field as the pep band played. Fans and supporters quickly filled the bleachers. David’s mind remotely wandered the area, utilizing one of his new-found talents, until he found his friends. His plan was under way.

  “Do you really think this will work?” Mikey asked Tara. “If our parents know we’ve slipped out, we’re grounded for life.”

  “Being grounded is the least of our worries,” Tara said. “I’m telling you, David did something to me. It’s like I was him for a split instant. Now I can see his whole plan to get them back, like it’s my plan. It’s up to the four of us to pull it together. We don’t have any time to waste. That convoy is coming through the backside of town along Dogwood Ridge tonight. If they cross Suttles Bridge over the gully and make it out onto the highway, we’ll have lost our chance to save them. We only have a couple of hours left to pull this off.”

  “How do we convince a football stadium of kids and parents to believe this crazy story?”

  “We don’t have to, David will do it. Just get me to the podium.”

  Mikey nodded. As planned, the three brothers made their way to the doors of the field house that opened onto the field. Then they began stripping. In the absence of Coach Butler, who was still protesting the FBI’s decision to hold his infected stepson hostage, Assistant Coach Crawford took the podium and began a long, drawn-out speech about how this was the year to make it to the state championship. The crowd roared.

  It was obvious that Coach Crawford enjoyed the attention as he continued his spiel. But the crowd’s attention was drawn from the coach to the three streakers dashing across the field. People pointed and laughed. Coach Crawford turned red and began to scream profanities. He jumped down from the podium and began chasing the streakers, his substantial belly jiggling with the effort.

  Tara made her move. She ran to the center of the field and took the podium. “Hey, everybody,” she nervously said into the microphone. As the Fannins disappeared over a fence and the crowd settled down, all eyes turned to Tara. She felt the stares of thousands of people, and it made her realize how much she hated public speaking. But she soldiered on.

  “The government has lied to us,” Tara said. “There is no terrorist. David Noble is in trouble.” She paused as people in the crowd began laughing and shaking their heads. She closed her eyes. Come on, David, I’m losing them, she thought. Help me. Suddenly, Tara felt a spirit pressing against her body like a breath of wind falling down upon her head. David’s ethereal form settled down into her until he was one with Tara. Staring out at the crowd in the stands, Tara’s eyes lit up with bright light. The air filled with strands of gold and silver, which settled down upon everyone in the stadium. In unison, the crowd stood up and began pouring out of the bleachers. Within minutes, cars were roaring out of the parking lot, all heading toward the same destination—Suttles Bridge.

  Thirty minutes later, hundreds of angry teens and parents stood blocking the bridge across the gully. The lead Jeeps in the convoy heading south slowed at the sight of a crowd of people blocking their path. Seconds later, the rear of the convoy was blocked as well, as people poured out of the trees to cut off any potential escape route. Soldiers jumped out of the vehicles and raised their rifles, but the protesters stood their ground, almost as if they were in a trance. The crowd surged forward. More soldiers exited the vehicles to confront the mob. The troops spread out and raised their weapons. They glanced around at one another. No one fired. A gray-haired woman in a flowered dress stepped up to a soldier standing at the front of the formation and placed a flower, stem first, into the barrel of his rifle. The soldier stood down and nodded at the woman. The other soldiers stood down as well. Agent Jameson vowed to have them all court-martialed.

  “David,” Tara whispered. She had found him as if she’d been led to him by psychic GPS. David settled back down into his body. But as his spirit reattached to his physical form, the morphine drip took over. “David, wake up,” Tara whispered again as she yanked the needle from his arm.

  David struggled to speak, his voice groggy. He pointed to a small suitcase and gestured for Tara to open it. Inside lay what looked like an oversized Taser gun. “Shoot me with it,” he said, his voice barely audible. Tara looked doubtful. “I need a high-voltage shock,” he said. “Do it now or we’re done for.”

  Tara took the Taser, turned it up to full power, and shot David point blank. Voltage coursed through his body, and he shook convulsively. She began to cry and started to take her hand off the trigger.

  “Don’t, Tara, don’t stop,” he uttered through chattering teeth. David soaked up every ounce of electricity the Taser could release until he had completely drained it. He was alert and alive again. Energy coursed through him, building inside as if he were a human transformer. In the next instant, he snapped his restraints. He got up, took Tara in his arms, and kissed her.

  “Quick, we’ve got to find the alien,” David said. He took Tara’s hand, and they exited the rear of the vehicle. Pandemonium threatened as friends and parents David had known his whole life argued with the military men. The confrontation provided a diversion and allowed them to slip unnoticed from one vehicle to the next, where they found the alien. The being was still sedated, but it was struggling to wake up. David realized it had felt the surge of electricity David had received. To see the being restrained made David’s heart heavy. He knew he was part of this being from another world. Pushing his emotions aside, he pulled tubes from the alien’s body and sent a surge of electricity into its chest with the touch of his palms.

  The alien snapped its restraints, sat up, and embraced David. “We’ve chosen right, brother.”

  Tara stared in disbelief at the short, gray creature on the gurney.

  “Come on, we’ve got to go,” David said. He took Tara by the hand, and with the alien beside him, they rushed to find the starfire cube. The moment they stepped from the armored vehicle, dozens of eyes fell on the bizarre creature, including the eyes of Agent Jameson. Gunfire erupted as Jameson screamed, “Stop them!”

  The creature waved its hands across the air, creating an invisible force that blasted Jameson and his men back twenty feet. David, Tara, and the alien ran to the third armored vehicle and hopped in. David started the engine and turned off the path into the grassy field beside the gully. Other vehicles gave chase, guns firing at the vehicle, as townspeople tackled soldiers. Suddenly, Jameson appeared, veering beside them in a Jeep, then swerving directly in front to cut off David’s path.

  David slammed on the brakes. The vehicle slid sideways and flipped, rolling twice before crashing into a tree. David opened his eyes, barely in time to catch the view in the smashed rearview mirror. The star
fire cube had rolled out from the back of the vehicle and was rolling toward the gully. It slipped down the hillside into the trees and disappeared.

  “Are you all right?” David asked Tara.

  “I’m okay,” Tara said. The alien slid out of the vehicle through the broken window and ripped the door off its hinges. He pulled David and Tara from the wreckage. The three bolted away from the armored vehicle as Agent Jameson struggled to pull free from his own Jeep. As David, Tara, and the alien fled into the trees, Jameson and a dozen men gave chase. Within a hundred yards, the three reached the edge of a drop-off. Fifty feet below floated the starfire cube, lighting up the slow-moving stream.

  The alien came up beside Tara and took her hand. “It’s all right,” it projected. Tara heard its thoughts and didn’t resist its touch. The alien took David’s hand and projected a single thought into their minds. “Jump,” was all she heard before her feet left the ground.

  Tara was pulled up from the depths of the water, her hands still held by David and the small gray creature. She broke the surface and stared at their surroundings. She looked up and saw dozens of men making their way down the side of the hill. A dozen yards from her floated the starfire cube. As they swam toward the glowing object, it began to pulsate. The sound of low humming grew to a skull-shattering blare. The starfire cube rose up out of the stream, water dripping from it as it hovered a foot above the surface. The closer they got to it, the brighter it glowed, until the gold and silver markings came alive, shooting pulsating sparks into the night.

  “Can you swim?” David asked Tara. She nodded, her face bright under the brilliance of the starfire cube. “Good,” he replied. “Stay here.” David continued on, swimming with the alien toward the blazing object. They reached the starfire cube, and David stared up at it, admiring its brilliance.

  “We are one,” the alien thought. “Thank you, David. Your world is now in your hands.”

  David embraced the creature as dozens of armed men reached the shoreline, shouting as they entered the water. Agent Jameson fired his gun, a warning shot. “Go,” David screamed. The starfire cube rose another yard above the surface as the alien swam under it. As the being looked up at the dodecahedron, an intense beam of light shot down, engulfing him. Billions of brilliant particles vibrated through the alien’s body, lifting the creature up into the starfire cube. Agent Jameson’s men stared in awe, frozen in place. Jameson let off three rounds at the starfire cube, but the bullets bounced off. As the alien floated in the center of the object, looking out at David, it projected a final thought. “Come home when you are ready. Remember, we are now one.”

  In the next instant, the starfire cube grew so bright that no one but David could look at it. He stared at the object he’d created as if looking directly into the sun without hurting his eyes. He watched as the starfire cube folded in on itself like a dying star collapsing. The light shattered into a million pieces, rattling the air and shaking the water. The next moment, it was gone.

  Under the faint light of the moon, David felt hands grabbing him, pulling him back to shore. He didn’t resist.

  Back at the Allianz building, David was peppered with questions. “Where did it go?” “How did you do it?” “Are we being invaded?”

  “You want answers,” he said. “Give me a computer and I’ll give you answers.”

  “Do you think I’m nuts?” Jameson shouted. “There’s no way I’d put a computer into your hands. Who knows what you’d do to our mainframe now that you’re infected with alien DNA. You’re its puppet!”

  “Fine, give me a pen and paper and I’ll write down everything I know about why the alien was here.”

  After an hour, David had filled a hundred pages with notes. His hand was moving so fast the naked eye couldn’t see it.

  “This would go a lot faster if I had a computer,” he said.

  The agent stared at his copious notes in disbelief. “Get him a secured laptop,” he shouted to an aide. “Make sure there’s no way it can connect to our intranet or the Internet.”

  David took the laptop and began hitting the keys. He typed so fast that he was paragraphs ahead of what the computer could write. The process lasted until dawn. “I’m finished,” he announced. Dr. Conley was speechless when he checked the word count. David’s writing totaled more than 800,000 words.

  “He only came to prevent us from destroying our planet,” David said. He pointed at the laptop’s screen. “Now you have the means to prevent that from happening.”

  Dr. Conley scrolled through the file as several other scientists continued to flip through David’s handwritten pages, their minds reeling.

  “I’m stunned,” Dr. Conley said. “There are formulas for free energy, methods of restoring depleted soil, ways to expand production of natural food—techniques and equations like I’ve never seen.” Dr. Conley’s eyes eventually caught something else, and it nearly took his breath away. He turned to Agent Jameson. “We need to let this boy go.”

  “Not possible,” Jameson said. “He’s not only a threat to the government, he’s now a threat to the world. So is his girlfriend. We’ll tell their parents she had a relapse and they both died in the process.”

  Dr. Conley slowly rose from his chair and approached Jameson until they were practically nose to nose. Before Jameson knew what was happening, Dr. Conley had slapped him across the face, and slapped him again with the back of his hand. Then he grabbed the stunned FBI agent’s sleeve and dragged him to his computer.

  “Look at that, you malignant cretin,” Dr. Conley spat.

  Jameson, who was too astonished by the scientist’s sudden fury to retaliate, looked at the screen, and his eyes went wide with fear.

  “Do you see?” Dr. Conley asked. “Agent Jameson, are you listening to me? If that boy decides we’re not doing what we should to save our planet, we’ll be invaded. That boy is our protection against an alien invasion.”

  Jameson swallowed and then gazed at David, who was standing there smiling.

  “You better do as the doctor ordered,” David said. “Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re trying to figure out how to cover it all up, like you’ve covered up everything else for twenty years.”

  Jameson blinked but said nothing. The faintest tinge of pink rose to his sallow cheeks.

  David turned and headed for the door. “I’m done here,” he said to the two men blocking his way.

  “Come back here, boy,” Jameson yelled.

  David kept walking, though both guards refused to move from his path. He waved his hand, and the guards left their feet and sprawled to the floor.

  Jameson unholstered his revolver.

  “Let him go, Agent Jameson,” Dr. Conley said. “He’ll have their entire race upon us with one thought.”

  “Not if he can’t think anymore.” Jameson aimed and fired three shots at the back of David’s head. The bullets dropped to the ground inches from his skull. David turned to face Jameson. He put his hand on his temple and focused on him. Jameson crumpled to his knees and howled in pain.

  “You just felt the pain you would have inflicted on me. If you ever try to stop me again or try to hurt me or my friends or my family or anyone else for that matter, I’ll make that pain a permanent part of your worthless existence, and I’ll make sure you stay alive for a very long time to experience it.”

  “Let him go,” Jameson whispered from the ground. “Let his girlfriend go, too.”

  David left the room to find Tara.

  David struck a bargain with the FBI. If they would leave him alone, he’d wipe any incriminating data from the minds of all who had seen and heard anything to do with the alien incident. They agreed, yet David knew he’d always be on their radar. Despite the memory wipes, rumors spread through Atlantic Bay. The terrorist story stuck, but the townsfolk were led to believe they had all been infected with a hallucinogen. It solved the mystery of why more than a thousand people had stood in the way of a routine military convoy from Fort Tucker, which, apparently, was
nothing more than men following orders to move some equipment to another facility. After a week, the scare was old news, nearly forgotten. The “terrorist” was safely behind bars and the threat was over. His picture was even posted on national news.

  The Fannins had no memory of what had happened, but they refused to believe it was all hallucinations. They questioned David about it when he befriended them yet again. He denied their conspiracy theories. They settled for being happy to have their friend back in the fold. David had done his job well. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to erase Tara’s memory. He wanted her to remember. He wanted her to share in his thoughts.

  David strode into school one morning with his stepbrother. They’d buried the hatchet after David’s near death from the supposed neurotoxin. David had even made peace with his stepfather, but he declined the invitation to join the football team. He preferred to watch the game from the sidelines with his new girlfriend.

  “You want anything?” David asked Tara as he stood in line at the concession stand. “Popcorn? A soda?”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” she replied.

  “You seem distant,” he said.

  “It’s just … I feel so strange now that I know what I know.”

  The marching band played in the background, almost loud enough to drown out David’s thoughts.

  “That’s why I didn’t erase your memory,” he whispered into her ear.

  “It just seems like we’re a bunch of insignificant ants on a tiny little planet far away from true intelligence,” she said with a sigh.

  “We’re closer than you think,” he replied.

  “I wish I could have seen the beauty that you saw. I bet the planet is breathtaking.”