Or maybe that was his reply when I asked why the Center doesn’t have a website or a phone. In fact, I’d bet they don’t appear on the lease or a utility bill.
Wanda introduced me to Zed at a cookout when I first moved in to my apartment. He made an impression on me when he ate a hot dog in two bites. That’s something that’ll stick with a person.
When I shared the whole sad story about my dad, I think he took pity on me. Or he genuinely likes me. Although I’m not sure Zed likes anyone, genuine or not.
After climbing the narrow staircase from the alley to the office, I exhale a wobbly breath. I’m not panting, but I’m more winded than I should be after a flight of stairs.
Without looking up from the desk top computer, he tells me, “You need to exercise more. Take up Jazzercise or whatever the ladies are doing these days.”
“Zumba,” I say.
“Don’t know her.”
Rolling my eyes, I sigh with exasperation. “First, that’s a type of exercise. Second, you sound sexist when you talk about ‘you ladies’ like all women are the same. And third, speak for yourself. The only workout you get is climbing these stairs once a day and maybe lifting a file box once in a while.”
“Someone’s sensitive today.” He taps away on his keyboard.
“Not just today. We’ve talked about this before. It’s the twenty-first century. Times are changing.” I repeat the same thing I always tell him when he slips into chauvinism.
“I’m too old to unlearn set patterns. Told you this before.” Leaning back in his office chair, he rests his hands on the bald spot on top of his head. Today’s T-shirt features a rainbow of aliens marching across Abbey Road over Zed’s broad chest.
His long salt and pepper hair is pulled into a ponytail. I’ve never seen it down and wonder why he doesn’t cut it if he’s always wearing it up. I could ask, but I don’t really want to know. Some questions don’t need answers.
I set the plastic bag containing his lunch from the diner on his desk. “Turkey club, chips, and an extra dill pickle spear.”
He pulls the bag closer. “You’re the best intern we’ve ever had in the history of the Center.”
“I think you mean I’m the only intern you’ve ever had.” I smile down at him.
“Same, same.” He greedily eyes the sandwich.
“Did you see the news about the secret government organization studying UFOs and alien life?” I ask, excited to discuss the mainstream news I discovered over the weekend. “I don’t know if you follow the New York Times or where you can get a copy around here, so I printed out the article for you.”
When I hold out the papers to him, he waves them off. “I heard something about this through my channels. Set it on the desk and I’ll get to it later.”
His disinterest seems odd. Maybe he didn’t understand me. “Don’t you want to discuss this revelation? Isn’t the Department of Defense having a UFO division huge news?”
“Old news is more like it. You think those Hollywood creators of the X-Files came up with the idea out of thin air? We’ve all known the government is behind the cover-ups, so that puts them smack in the crosshairs of all things extraterrestrial, including identifying and suppressing information about UFOs. If they have a budget of millions, you better believe that money is a hush fund to prevent the truth from getting out.”
My eyelids peel back farther and farther as he speaks until I can feel my eyeballs bugging out. “Hush money?”
“To keep people quiet.”
I almost say my family didn’t get any hush money, but I can’t be sure. My grandparents were the kind who kept bundles of cash in their mattress.
Taking a bite of his sandwich, Zed chews and swallows. “Listen, I have clippings and photos for you to scan. Brought a couple of boxes over from the warehouse.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to work out at the warehouse than you hauling boxes here?” I steal one of his chips.
He sits up abruptly. “You don’t have the security clearance for the archives.”
Meaning I haven’t earned his full trust yet. “Suit yourself.”
Truth is, my internal doubter suspects the so-called warehouse is his garage. Or his parents’ garage.
“Hand over your cell phone.” He wiggles his fingers. “Can’t be too careful.”
“Afraid I’m going to take pictures of sensitive materials?” If they pertained to my father, I would totally be tempted.
“No. Big Brother is always listening on those things. Tracking everywhere you go, everything you click, and each boring conversation you have.”
“Paranoid much?” I open my phone’s home screen and switch it to airplane mode to show him.
“Not good enough. Power off. In fact, next time, leave it at home. They can track your GPS if you have location settings turned on, which I’m guessing you do.”
“It’s better than getting lost all the time. Maps are helpful.” My tone is defensive, but I turn the phone off. I can live without being connected for an hour or two.
“Buy a paper map. This town isn’t that big. If you head in any direction for longer than ten minutes, you’ll be out of town and can turn around to find your way back. Main Street runs north and south. Here’s a hint, pay attention to the sun’s movements across the sky. It’s always going to set in the west.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I exhale more than speak the words. Raising my voice so he can hear me, I chastise him. “You’ve already given me this lecture. I get it. Secret organization. Be careful. Tell no one. Deny all knowledge.”
“At least you’ve paid attention to my words. I couldn’t tell since you can’t seem to remember something as simple as not bringing your cell phone with you.” He’s tone is flat and full of sarcasm.
“How about I leave it in the car? I parked a couple of blocks away, as instructed,” I add sarcastically.
“Sounds good. You should still turn it off.”
“You must have a computer and internet at home, right? How else do you keep up with mainstream news and discoveries?”
He stares at me over his big glasses like I’m crazy for asking such a question.
“I use the computer at the public library and delete the browsing history every two minutes. That way if someone is tapped in and tracking me—”
“Okay, stop. I get it.” I hold up my hands in surrender.
“Do you?” he mocks me.
“Assume someone is always watching,” I repeat his warning in the same flat voice he uses.
“You think you’re anonymous because you don’t use your daddy’s last name, but the people who keep track aren’t easily fooled.” He shoves his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.
“Somedays I regret telling you about my dad.” I keep my focus on the top of the file box.
“You wouldn’t be here now, with the access you have if you hadn’t. You may call me paranoid, but I’m one of the good guys in all this. My only mission is to find and protect the truth. Whether you like it or not, or help or not, my life’s work doesn’t change.”
I exhale out all the defensive energy squeezing my chest.
“Thanks, Zed. It’s a new world to me and I’m still processing this reality.” I find my car keys in my bag. “I’ll be right back.”
With a nod, he pulls the bag open and reaches for the plastic container inside. “You’re not alone anymore. There’s a whole community of people who know what you’ve been through because they’ve also experienced it too.”
I will not cry in front of Zed. I mumble thanks, then dash back down the stairs with my phone and keys. Yes, I think he’s paranoid but I don’t want to piss him off before I find answers.
Returning a few minutes later, I hold up my hand as I pant, “Don’t say anything. I jogged to the car and up the stairs.”
He nods and thankfully remains silent.
“Enjoy your lunch.” I pick up the file box and carry it through a door to another small room not much larger than a
walk-in closet in a mansion. Overhead fluorescent lights flicker to life, revealing the long work table, a couple of ancient microfiches machines, and a scanner on a counter along one wall. Newspaper clippings and tabloid articles spill out of overstuffed binders. A large white board occupies the short wall opposite the door and a bookshelf fills the other.
Part of my “internship” at the Center is to organize and digitize all the paper. Zed’s worried about a fire, arson in particular if “they” find out what he has. Of course when I ask him who “they” are, he won’t say. Too worried about being overheard.
Nor can I upload anything online. I thought Zed’s head was going to explode when I suggested cloud storage on my first day.
Digitizing to a thumb drive is about as far as Zed will go. Even then he’s super paranoid about copies getting made or distributed.
My job is to scan the files into folders on an ancient Dell desktop. He handles the transfer to thumb drive. For all I know the drives end up buried in coffee cans in his mother’s garden. Isn’t that where serial killers and conspiracy nuts always hide the evidence?
Before moving to Roswell, I exhausted normal channels for locating a missing person. I conducted online searches on my own and eventually I hired a private investigator to try to find my father. I was in high school and saved up all my money from babysitting and allowance to hire a guy I found online.
I checked references, got referrals, read reviews, and even asked the local police station for recommendations. And after paying the sum of my entire life’s savings, I still don’t have answers.
My first investigator found out nothing we didn’t already know. Name, birthdate, social security number, marriage license, my birth certificate, the limited financial records of the joint bank account with my mother and a shared credit card.
No student loans or secret credit lines.
School records corroborate the stories my mom knew about him moving around a lot as a kid before going to university in Albuquerque where he met my mom.
That’s it. All information ceased after July third nineteen ninety-eight. The private investigator found no paper trail or evidence of dear old Dad after that date.
Poof. Disappeared into thin air. He left his wallet, car, and all of his clothes behind.
If all these other people were returned after their abductions, why wasn’t my father? Why did he disappear forever?
As a cynical teenager, I fully believed he’d run off and dumped his wife and kid for a new life. Maybe he was the kind of man who couldn’t be domesticated and found a woman who didn’t have a kid to tie him down.
I knew other kids whose parents got divorced and the dad left town for a new life. They maybe got to see him on weekends or during summer break. Birthday and Christmas presents showed up in the mail. Or they received an apologetic phone call with a half-hearted excuse when they didn’t get anything.
I was jealous of those kids. Even as they complained about how much their dads sucked, at least they had some contact.
Flipping through a new pile of tabloid articles, I read more stories about abductions. A woman in Iowa recalls waking up as she levitated above her bed in a glow of green light. A man in Tennessee says he heard the little green men speaking in a strange language but wasn’t afraid. The guy who woke up with his pajamas inside out told the reporter from the International News Gazette he found strange marks on the back of his neck, but the chronic asthma he’d had since childhood disappeared for good.
“Maybe because he came back as a clone of himself.” I flip the page. “That would make sense.”
Beside the file box, the scanner hums as it waits for a new page to scan. I remove the article about the mysteriously absent asthma and replace it with a wrinkled piece of paper about crop circles.
When I lay it down, a pattern on the back of the page catches my attention. Hand drawn in the margins of the article is a vaguely familiar design.
Without thinking, I hit scan and the bright light flashes in my eyes.
“Damnit,” I swear and put my hand over my face before closing the top and pressing scan again.
Bright orange dots fill my vision when I blink, mirroring the pattern on the page. It’s familiar but not a symbol I know the meaning of.
When the scan finishes, I flip over the page and read about the sudden appearance of strange crop circles. This is a whole other level of conspiracy theories I try not to get sucked into. Seems entirely random and yet plausible that farmers or bored teenagers could be behind the appearance of patterns in fields.
The question is why bother?
Fame? Notoriety? A desperate plea for attention? All makes sense. Living in the middle of nowhere can be pretty boring.
Once I finish scanning the articles in the box, I reorganize the clippings into a binder so they’re not shoved together and wrinkled. My attention catches again on the symbol in the margin and I decide to copy it. The copier sits behind his desk and I have to ask his permission to use it. So that option is out.
Of course I could steal the clipping itself, but Zed would probably split a blood vessel in his eye if he found out.
I need to stay on Zed’s good side. He’s my last hope of finding out more about my father’s disappearance. After years and thousands of dollars on private investigators and psychics, pulling declassified documents, researching John Does in hospitals, culling through criminal records and mug shots, and the sleepless nights reading and listening to ufologist accounts, I need to get answers or walk away. Either be convinced aliens are real or give into my inner cynic who doubts everything.
Zed’s the closest thing I’ve come to a true believer. Who knows who else he works with or the extent of what he knows. I believe he’s capable of helping me find the truth while not exposing me to more public scrutiny. If he’s paranoid enough about secret government agencies and shadow international cabals, I doubt he operates as a lone wolf. I’d bet he has people willing to do whatever it takes to protect the Center, including making a single woman with no family disappear without a trace. Poof.
Feeling uncomfortable enough with the thought of Zed’s legions, I decide to draw the symbol on my skin. First I think forearm, but I’m wearing short sleeves. Instead, I decide to copy it on my chest. Given my complete lack of social life and the zero possibility of anyone seeing my naked boob in the near future, it’s probably the safest place.
Using the sharpie I typically label files with, I carefully copy the symbol’s outline onto the top of my left breast. It’s simple enough. A circle inside a larger circle, with intersecting lines that form a cross and then a diagonal line that rises from left to right through the cross. Each of the straight lines extend past the outer circle.
It’s not complex and I could probably recall it without seeing it again, but something urges me to draw it.
After I finish, I cap the marker and readjust my shirt.
“Almost done in here for the day?” Zed’s voice from the doorway makes me jump. “Didn’t scare you, did I?”
I press my right hand over my heart, feeling the quick thump of panic under my ribcage.
“Not at all.” I have to clear my throat to continue. “I was in the zone of scanning and organizing. Finished the whole box.”
He opens a binder and flips through the clear plastic sleeves. I swear he pauses for a second longer on the one article about the crop circles.
“Do you believe those are made by UFOs?” I ask, keeping my voice casual.
“Until I have proof otherwise, no reason to assume they weren’t made by alien craft. Of course, some of these have been proven to be hoaxes made by a bunch of meddling kids.”
His serious tone in contrast to his almost exact quote of every villain on Scooby Doo cracks me up. “If it weren’t for those meddling kids.”
He misses my joke. Or chooses to ignore it. “The vast majority of these circles and geoglyphs, including the ancient Nazca earth drawings in Peru, do not have simple explanations. Their pattern
s can only be seen from the high above, yet the Nazca lines predate human air travel by thousands of years.”
Despite really not wanting to be drawn into this particular pool of conspiracy theories, I’m curious about his take. “What made them?”
“The circles could be from a small craft landing or hovering over the area. Could be vibrational coming from underground as a signal or marker. A simple science experiment shows how sound frequencies and vibrations can move dirt. Why not larger matter? As for as the Peruvian geoglyphs, rocks were intentionally placed in the pattern. Why?”
Sure. Why not? I have to give Zed credit for his ability to be open to all possibilities for the weird in the world.
He continues speaking, “Decades ago, a sinkhole opened up north of Roswell. One minute it was flat desert, the next there was a big circular hole. No big deal, right? Sinkholes happen all over the world on a daily basis.”
I nod enthusiastically to encourage him.
“Thing is, most of them aren’t a geometrically perfect circle. And this one intersected a bunch of dirt roads.” He flips the page in the binder and lands on the article with the hand drawn symbol in the margin. “Kind of looked like this, but without the inner circle.”
He pauses and releases a small, humorless chuckle. “Almost like a lopsided drawing of the sun done by a little kid.”
At his overly casual laugh, a shiver of cold draws out goose bumps on my skin.
Shrugging, he pushes his glasses back into position on the bridge of his nose. “Probably a weird coincidence. Especially given this article is from the 1950s. You could easily dismiss it as random correlation. Most people would.”
“But not you.” I stare at the symbol again as I itch to get out of here to look up the sinkhole pictures online to confirm his story.
“Not me.” He steps over to the shelves. “Let me find another picture, since I bet you’re dying to doubt me.”
While he has his back turned, I press my hand over my heart again. Even knowing he can’t see through the cotton of my shirt, I feel like somehow he knows. I’ll wash it off as soon as I get home.
Tinfoil Heart Page 5
