by D F Capps
The captain of his yacht leaned down into the cabin. “Sir?”
Kaplan stared back at him.
“We’re being hailed by a U.S. Navy destroyer, sir. They have ordered us to stop and prepare to be boarded. They said they have an international warrant for your arrest.”
Kaplan threw his phone across the room. It had to be someone at the missile demonstration, he thought. One of his own customers betrayed him. As soon as he could get to a place where he could make a phone call, all of this nonsense would go away.
Chapter 50
Sean Wells’s taxi swung to a stop in front of Peggy Sue Behnke’s house on a cul-de-sac in northwest Sheridan, Wyoming. The tri-level home seemed normal enough. He stood and stretched, feeling a little unsteady from the sedative the doctor had prescribed. At least he was functioning again. That was a relief.
The world around him took on a surreal feel to it, something that was unnatural for him. Colors seemed muted and the sidewalk in front of him looked like it ran down at an angle. As he stepped forward it felt like he was walking slightly uphill.
Normal wasn’t what it used to be, he thought. Normal was crooked politicians and greedy Wall Street manipulators breaking the law and cheating thousands of people out of their hard-earned money. But now normal was Zeta Grey aliens, flying saucers, abductions, a secret war for the survival of planet Earth, and now the destruction of New York City by a nuclear weapon.
He shook his head, walked up the short walkway, and knocked on the door. The curtains on the bay window parted. A woman’s face peered out at him. She scanned the street. He held out his New York Times identification so she could see it. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to refocus his mind on the interview.
The inside of her house was clean, but dated. The furniture and décor hadn’t been changed in close to twenty years. Sean chuckled softly to himself. Her place wasn’t that different from his apartment in New York City in that respect, or what used to be his apartment. That was gone now along with everything he owned, not to mention all of his friends at the Times.
“You want some coffee? Tea?”
He looked at her, thought for a moment, and shook his head. He looked at her again. She had green eyes. What’s with women with green eyes and the Zeta Greys? he wondered.
The interview, he reminded himself.
“How did you come to remember everything about the abductions?”
She held her arm out, offering him a chair. “At first the abductions were like bad dreams. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, had happened. Then at some point they stopped blocking my memory.”
Sean raised his eyebrows as he sat down. “They can do that? They can decide what you remember and what you don’t?” He wondered if he might want to not remember his life in New York.
She nodded. “Essentially, yes, they can. I think they decided they could use me for different work. They brought me into a room in the saucer where I could see everything inside my body on a screen. They pointed out the implant in the middle of my brain and told me that I would die if I tried to have it removed.”
Sean pulled out his notebook and started to write. “Did you get an X-ray to verify it was there?”
She shook her head. “That was the last thing I needed; a doctor trying to figure out what I had in my head.”
He wrote some more then looked over at her again. “So you don’t know for sure it’s actually there?”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. “They demonstrated right there on the saucer what it could do. The pain it induced knocked me flat on the floor, screaming and holding my head. It was an intense fiery pain that shot all the way down my body to my toes. They can control the amount of pain I experience. Sometimes they’ll make it hurt just a little as a warning to me when I do something they don’t like.”
Sean cocked his head slightly. “Like what?”
The edges of her lips turned down. “If I resist doing what they want me to do, they hurt me.”
Sean had a bad feeling about where this conversation was going. “What do they want you to do?”
Her face flushed and she stared at the floor.
“Personal things?” he asked.
She nodded again. “Very personal things, especially when I was younger. Now, not so much. Now they want me to train the children.”
Sean stopped writing and looked at her. “What kind of children?”
She looked him directly in the eyes. “Children they made from people like me. Children that look exactly like us, but think and behave like them.”
A cold fear was growing in his chest. “The children are telepathic?”
She nodded slowly. “They are determined to blend in with the rest of us. They make me help them so as they grow up they can become an invisible part of our society.”
Sean squirmed in his chair. “Have you ever seen any of the children you trained as grown adults?”
She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. “Yes. Out of more than sixty children I’ve trained over the years, I know where four of them are now.”
Sean scribbled in his notebook again. “And where are they?”
She glanced out the window. “The first one I saw in a photo and article in the library at school. He became the youngest vice-president at a large bank in Seattle. Another manages a major news station in Los Angeles. The third one is lieutenant governor of California.”
“And the fourth one?”
She paused and looked around the room. “Look, this is very dangerous for me. If they find out, I’ll die in unimaginable pain and agony. You have to help me. You have to protect me. I can’t tell you this without real assurances. I can’t.”
Sean leaned back in his chair. In criminal cases he could work a deal with the feds and get an informant into witness protection. But how was he going to protect her from the Zeta Greys?
“Can you give me some idea of who we’re talking about?”
She started trembling and a tear ran down her cheek. “He’s a politician.”
Sean nodded. “State or federal?”
She broke down crying. “He’s in the U.S. Congress.”
“What’s his name?”
She covered her face with her hands. He stood up and cautiously approached her. He touched her arm and then put his hand on her shoulder. She moved close to him and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing on his chest.
“What’s his name?” Sean whispered softly.
“Abbott,” she whispered. “Leland Abbott.”
Sean felt as if his heart had stopped. He forced himself to breathe. He hugged her firmly for a minute and then gently released her a bit. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Charlie.
Chapter 51
Russian president Yuri Pasternov was in the Kremlin trying to wrap his mind around the incineration of St. Petersburg when his security team pulled him out of the meeting. He grabbed his heavy coat on the way out. He felt irritated at the action of his personal guards until he heard the sound of not so distant gunfire.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re not sure, but it looks like a revolution,” Andrei Sarinov, his chief of security, said. “The new American president has ordered the destruction of all weapons and machines of war. Now we have a crowd of close to two million people flooding central Moscow, demanding we do the same thing.”
“And the gunfire?”
Sarinov’s expression was grim. “Part of our military has joined them and is supplying the crowd with weapons.”
Pasternov shook his head. “Which part of the military?”
Sarinov paused. “The First Guards Tank Army and the Twentieth Guards Tank Army.”
Pasternov grimaced. Those were the same units he sent to the border of Poland to prevent a coup by his military generals a few months ago. The old leadership had been purged. Now the new leaders were turning against him.
“Any tanks?”
Sarinov glanced at him. “We estimate more than four hundred tanks
are entering the outskirts of Moscow. The Kremlin will fall in the next ten to fifteen minutes. You need to hurry, sir.” He stopped at the security office and handed out flashlights.
Pasternov held his hand out. “Cell phones.”
His security detail grudgingly gave him their phones. He took the batteries out and stuffed them in his coat pocket. He also removed the battery from his own phone.
Pasternov and his four guards rapidly descended the stairs to the sub-basement level and entered the private train station.
“Where is the train?”
Sarinov shook his head. “Sabotaged. We need to move quickly.”
They jogged east, staying between the rails where the gravel was packed in between the wooden ties. After a half mile they slowed and walked for the next several hundred yards to catch their breath.
Sarinov checked his watch. “We have to hurry.” They picked up the pace again.
At the two mile mark Sarinov led the group to the left side of the underground train tunnel and opened a maintenance door leading to a stairway to the surface.
“Wait here. I’ll see if it’s clear,” Sarinov said.
Two minutes later he returned. “The sun is coming up. Pull your coat collar up high so people don’t recognize you.”
Pasternov flipped the wide collar up to protect his face. He emerged through a doorway into a narrow paved strip between buildings. People streamed by in the streets on both ends of the short alley.
“They’re all headed to the Kremlin,” Sarinov said. “We’re going to have to walk all the way out into the countryside. The new military will control all of the roads and they’ll all be looking for you.”
Chapter 52
Charlie’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen: Sean Wells. He closed his eyes and tuned into Sean’s mind. He was shocked at the information Sean shared with him. He quickly answered the phone.
“She has an implant?” Charlie asked.
“Yes,” Sean said, “she has an implant in her brain. I need to get her out of here and someplace safe.”
Charlie cringed. He didn’t have anyone who could go and get her at the moment. “It’s going to have to wait for a while.”
He could sense Sean shaking his head. “She has an implant. They’re going to know. We have to protect her now!”
“Listen to me,” Charlie said firmly. “I didn’t let you down, and I’m not going to let her down. The implant can’t read her thoughts. The Zetas have to be within a mile or two before they can connect telepathically. As long as she stays put, she’ll be okay. The Zetas will be tracking where the implant is, so she needs to follow her normal nighttime routine. Do you understand?”
Sean didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Charlie read his thoughts. Look, I can’t get a fighter craft in there until it’s completely dark, Charlie sent to him. I’m not going to let you down.
They’re going to come for her, he got from Sean. If you can’t be here, they’ll have to go through me to get to her.
I understand, Charlie replied. I’ll work it out. Trust me. I’ll find a way. He hung up the phone and shook his head. Brave words, Charlie thought. When they come for her, Sean will be sound asleep from the delta wave generator.
* * *
Rosaq watched the events unfold with intense interest. The orchestrated coups against the world leaders were progressing perfectly. In all, seventeen world leaders had been replaced with hubrids including the Unites States, Russia, China, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Brazil. These were also the countries critical to the operation and coverage of the planetary shield that kept his saucers from entering or leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.
He was very satisfied with the progression of events. Even the Insectoid above him had to see that the losses could be recouped and more, as control of the planet was firmly in the hands of the hubrids he had created and trained. He was back in control. His plan had worked. Never take by force that which can be taken by deception, Rosaq reminded himself. There was great wisdom in the saying, even if it did come from an Earth human.
Chapter 53
The Tau Cetian doctor stood at the top of the ramp as two Earth doctors and Charlie wheeled Andrews’s gurney up the ramp and into the Tau Cetian ship. Together they lifted Andrews onto the examination platform. A holographic display of Andrews’s body appeared above the platform indicating all of the stats on every body system.
Physiology is a close match, he thought. Earth humans and Tau Ceti humans are almost identical.
Yes, Charlie replied. Very close.
Primitive surgery and a dependence on drugs, he thought. It’s like going through history records from five hundred years ago. He sighed and shook his head. Why didn’t they ask for help sooner?
My fault, Charlie replied. I should have suggested this earlier. The two doctors with me are curious. Can we verbally discuss what you’re doing so they can learn?
The Tau Cetian doctor smiled. Of course.
They use names here, so you’ll have to make one up.
“I am Dr. Schna,” the Tau Cetian doctor said.
Dr. Cowen and Dr. Lundgren introduced themselves.
“Please do not be alarmed by what I am about to do. Our medical science is sufficiently advanced that your president is in no real danger.”
Dr. Lundgren shook his head. “He’s in a coma and his vitals are weakening. If he doesn’t recover soon, the Zeta Greys will finish taking over control of the world.”
Dr. Schna pointed to the holographic display. “This is his consciousness level. He’s struggling to wake up, but the severe damage and energy drain on his body are blocking his awareness. I have to go in and redo the surgery.”
Dr. Lundgren shook his head again. “He’s too weak for surgery. He’ll die on the table.”
Dr. Schna turned to Dr. Lundgren. “Would you like to see what the future of your medicine looks like?”
Dr. Lundgren breathed out slowly, closed his eyes, and nodded.
He’s frightened, Dr. Schna realized. “It’s going to be okay. Step closer so you can see. You, too, Dr. Cowen.” Dr. Schna read Dr. Lundgren’s thoughts and felt his concern about a sterile operating room. “Please close your eyes, we are going to sterilize the inside of the ship with strong ultraviolet light.”
He checked to see that everyone complied, then activated the intense light.
According to the display, Andrews was strong willed, but relatively open-minded, a combination that was common in the Tau Ceti system, but rare here on Earth. Dr. Lundgren had left the lobes of Andrews’s right lung in place, injured as they were, probably in the hope they would heal without too much scar tissue. That hope was fading fast. Even with the oxygen flow as high as it was, his lung tissue was still failing. Dark areas in the holographic lung around the site of the surgery indicated cell death was spreading rapidly as more and more capillaries collapsed.
Well, it could have been worse, Dr. Schna rationalized. They could have removed the lobe of the lung, or the lung itself. Regenerating those body parts would have taken several days, if not longer. This was still simple enough. Once the sterilization was complete Dr. Schna continued.
“We don’t use drugs for pain control,” Dr. Schna said. “We use the body’s own meridian system. It’s completely safe.” He carefully located the proper points on Andrews and attached the thin wires that would block all sensations of pain from Andrews’s body. “We apply a gentle electrical current to keep the patient pain free and unconscious during the surgery.” He adjusted the controls as he watched Andrews’s level of consciousness settle down.
“We don’t cut with a blade. It causes too much damage that the body has to repair. This is a cell partitioning beam. The pulsed, intense, blue light vibrates and separates cells between the cell walls so the cellular structure remains intact. It reduces bleeding and allows each cell to bind with the cell next to it when we put the tissue back together again.” He turned on a bright white light. “This frequency of lig
ht temporarily stops blood flow through the small arteries, veins, and capillaries. Unless we encounter a larger vein or artery, there shouldn’t be any bleeding.”
He used the cell partitioning beam to open the skin where the old surgery took place, then removed the healing skin with the narrow beam device.
“You’re removing the skin that’s healing?” Dr. Lundgren asked.
Dr. Schna nodded. “With cell partitioning, nothing needs to heal. We put the tissue back together and apply a chemical stimulator that allows the cells to reconnect. But first we have to remove any damaged tissue.”
Dr. Schna opened the wound layer after layer and pulled the ribs apart. The hole from the bullet provided plenty of room to work. He used a micro suction tube to remove damaged tissue as he worked his way down into Andrews’s chest. Checking the three-dimensional display for dark areas, he methodically removed all of the damaged cells.
“Okay,” Dr. Schna said. “The damaged tissue has been removed. Now we have to regrow the damaged parts.”
“Regrow?” Dr. Lundgren asked. “How long is that going to take?”
Dr. Schna reached into a small drawer under the platform and picked up a glass tube filled with a yellow fluid. “These are proto-stem cells in an activating fluid. They have no DNA of their own, but with the concentrated hormone activator, they bond with any cell they touch and duplicate the DNA creating new tissue. You can watch on the screen.”
Dr. Schna enlarged the image on the screen to focus on only the damaged area of Andrews’s chest. He snapped the glass tube into a thin device with a needle the size of a thick hair and probed into the wound. At each injured place he dispensed a tiny amount of the yellow fluid. The proto-stem cell fluid mixed quickly with the injured tissue and rapidly produced new healthy cells and membranes. He worked from the bottom of the wound out, leaving only healthy tissue and structures behind him. Every time the tissue changed from lung to artery or vein, he paused to let the regeneration of cells finish. Then he continued with the fluid touching the new tissue. Fluid applied to a damaged and closed off artery made a new artery. The same was true with veins, muscle, and lymph systems. The wound track for each fragment of bone that had penetrated the lung was healed and filled in from the bottom up with new healthy cells. When he got to the damaged sternum and rib connection, he paused again for the cell regeneration to become complete.
