The platoon of soldiers first on the scene were the only witnesses to the truth, and their exceptionally generous pension packets, coupled with some not-so-thinly-veiled threats, ensured they would never break their silence. But not a man among them would ever forget what they had seen. Colonel Harkett's statement from that night was still on file at the Shit Station and every scientist who had subsequently spent any time with Billy Joe had read and reread it so many times, they could have quoted it verbatim in their sleep.
"The alien stood in the middle of the wreckage, looking around itself. And glowing. It didn't seem to see us, or, if it did, it sure as hell didn't care. The wreckage spread out a fair distance, around 500 feet in diameter. You could feel the heat, but there was no fire. You ever seen a plane crash? Looked like that in some ways, the way the wreckage was dispersed, the gouge in the ground made by the impact. But I couldn't stop thinking, where are the seats? This guy's come from another planet, right? You telling me it stood up for the whole trip? Couldn't see any controls, neither. Every bit of wreckage looked the same, like it was the hull or something. Just plain metal. After a while, the alien closed its eyes and knelt down, putting its hands flat on the ground. That's when it happened, and Christ, I don't mind telling you I'm just glad you got other witnesses, 'cause I wouldn't believe it otherwise, in your shoes. Its whole body was glowing - did I mention that? It seemed to get brighter and for a second I just looked at it. Not an everyday sight, right? Then one of my men shouted and I looked back at the nearest piece of wreckage to me. It was getting smaller. I could see it happening. Now I've heard a couple of the guys say it sank into the ground but that isn't right. I know exactly what it reminded me of. You ever poured hot water on an ice cube? That's exactly how this looked. Like someone was picking it apart in tiny pieces. Then it was gone. All of it. And your gray fella was stretched out on the ground. Not glowing any more. We all figured it was dead."
To all but the educated observer, the alien was dead. No discernible breathing, no pulse. But even the relatively unsophisticated diagnostic equipment available to medical professionals in the 1940s detected enough signs of life to make it worth transferring Billy Joe to the Shit Station, the best hidden secret facility on US soil.
Billy Joe's arrival at the Station was followed by months of study by the cream of the American scientific community. Their initial euphoria was matched by the excitement and fearfulness throughout the select few in government who shared in the knowledge of what had really happened at Roswell. However, the reports emerging from the secret facility; daily at first, then weekly, monthly and finally six-monthly, contained many words, some of them extremely long, but just one message: we've got nothing. No news, no reports, no details of the alien's physical makeup, no change in his condition. Zilch.
The best scientific minds literally grew old and died trying to solve the enigma of the creature. The problem was they couldn't get a single sample to work on. Asked by an irate White House advisor to sum up his report in language they could actually understand, one esteemed professor simply scrawled across his original words,
"Doesn't eat. Doesn't shit. Skin like a tank. Questions?"
The strange thing was, if you touched the alien's skin, it felt warm, pliable, soft. But if you tried pushing a needle into it, the area where the needle touched the flesh suddenly became totally unyielding. Scientists noted it was almost as if the skin immediately pushed back at them, became rock hard. And throughout it all, the alien lay as if dead, stretched out on the slab, monitored by cameras and recording equipment.
There had been one near-disaster in 1982, where no less than a Nobel-winning professor of physics succumbed to a moment of madness resulting from years of fruitless, frustrating observation. Snatching a gun from the holster of a guard, he fired three rounds into the alien's body before a second guard shot and killed him. As the professor's body was dragged away, the medical team rushed into the room in a blur of professionalism. Within seconds they had stopped short, staring. There were no wounds on the alien's body. No bullet holes. No blood. No change in his condition. If it hadn't been for the fact they'd witnessed the professor's murderous attack, and later had seen the three empty chambers in the guard's gun, they would have doubted the evidence of their own senses. The bullets themselves had undoubtedly entered Billy Joe's body as there was no sign of them elsewhere.
The occupant of the Shit Station became the eighth wonder of the world. It was just a shame this was the only one no one could talk about. As successive governments came and went and presidents retired, died, or got caught screwing the American people metaphorically, or - in at least one memorable case - literally, Billy Joe lay on a slab in a secret facility just outside Los Angeles. Once every six or seven years, a vigilant Chief Of Staff with a desire to actually know where many of the larger drains on the national budget ended up would trace a chunk of change to the Station and demand some answers. He or she would subsequently be given the tour, allowed to poke the star attraction, given a strong drink and asked how exactly they might better spend the tax dollars. Given that the alien's body itself was no nearer to giving any answers and the craft that had apparently whisked him from God-knows-where to New Mexico had vanished without trace a few hours after crashing, successive Chiefs Of Staff reluctantly came to the same conclusion. They had to wait until human technology caught up with the alien. Or until the alien did something: spoke, moved, yawned, broke wind. Anything would do. Until then, they just had to sit on their hands and throw money at it. And stop anyone finding out. On that they all agreed.
So when, at 5am one Sunday, Billy Joe swung his legs off the slab, stood up and walked through a solid wall 150 feet underground, no one was quite prepared for it.
There were two guards on duty, both three years into a 10-year assignment at the Shit Station. Each displayed the kind of vigilance that might be expected from well-trained soldiers asked to babysit someone who hadn't moved a inch in over half a century. They were playing poker. Chad may have missed the alien's initial movements, but he was chasing an unlikely flush that would bring him a ten-buck pot if the final diamond hit. As it happened, the river card was the Queen of Diamonds, but Chad never saw it, his eyes having finally flicked to the monitor. Carl was staring at the cards disgustedly, having suspected the flush all along, but when he glanced up and saw the expression on his partner's face, he swung around and checked the monitor before assuming an identical expression, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging.
"What the f-," managed Carl before Chad stood, knocking the cards flying. He unholstered his gun, punched a combination into the airlock and was in the room just in time to see Billy Joe's heel disappearing into a solid steel wall, a faint glow lingering in the spot for half a second before fading.
"What the hell do we do now?" said Chad, his gun pointing at the empty slab. Carl managed to gain a little equilibrium, swallowing hard.
"We get topside," he said. "You make the call."
As the elevator doors opened at ground level, Chad hit send on his cell phone, calling the number he had been trained to call should the alien's condition ever change, however minor that change might be. Chad guessed this probably qualified. It was picked up immediately.
"Tell me exactly what's happened, soldier," came the calm voice at the other end of the line. Chad swallowed. He'd never met the owner of the voice, but had been briefed by phone when he was first assigned to the Station. It was the voice of someone who demanded unquestioning obedience, someone who could bypass the usual channels, someone who got the job done, whatever the job might be. You either did what you were told or you got yourself suddenly disappeared. Permanently.
"It's Billy Joe, sir," said Chad. "He's gone." There was a fraction of a second's pause before the voice continued as calmly as it had before.
"Describe precisely what you saw." Chad did as he was told, including the impossible exit through a solid wall. Carl listened to his partner's account while checking his ammunition. He handed Chad
some night-vision goggles.
"Which direction was he heading in when he exited the facility?" said the voice. Chad hesitated, licking his lips nervously.
"Wake up, soldier and answer my question; and I need you to be precise. Which wall did he walk through?" Chad thought for a second, sweating more.
"At the foot of his bed, sir." Another brief pause.
"Then he's heading west. Get out there. Do a five-mile sweep. If any civilian has made contact, bring them in. Report every ten minutes. I'll be there within the hour."
***
In a wood-paneled home office in a gated Los Angeles suburb, a man in a dressing gown looked at his cell phone and frowned, thinking, before making another call. He spoke as soon as it was answered.
"It's Westlake," he said. "I want a five-man team and a chopper immediately."
He nodded at the answer and went to the closet to get dressed. He picked out a snub-nosed Glock to tuck into the holster under his armpit. As he laced his shoes, he could already hear the rhythmic throb of the approaching helicopter. He smiled grimly and went out to the helipad at the back of his lodge.
Chapter 3
As the tall glowing alien stretched out a hand with impossibly long fingers, Seb felt no fear at all. Part of him coolly noted that this was probably not a normal reaction. He put it down to the fact there was more of his own blood currently enriching the dry soil of the trail than still weakly pumping through his veins. He wondered why an extraterrestrial should want to make contact with a dying man. Well, it made as much sense as plucking Mid-West farm boys from their solitary late night hooch-consuming sessions, giving them a quick tour of the old spaceship before sticking high-tech probes up their anuses. What was it with aliens and anuses anyway?
Seb blinked and looked into the huge dark eyes of the creature. He was about to die, and didn't want his last thoughts to involve anuses. He tried to reach up to grasp the alien's hand. What am I going to do? Introduce myself and offer him a shot of the Scotch? He half-laughed, half-coughed and a mixture of dark, thick blood and spit flopped onto his chin and ran onto his shirt. His hand twitched slightly in response to his brain's command to move, then lay still. Too much blood loss. He felt his vision suddenly beginning to narrow and heard his pulse slow to a funereal pace. Ah, the famous tunnel. The glowing figure in front of him seemed to dim as did everything he could see and hear around him. It was as if reality had no more significance than a TV playing quietly in another room. Seb knew it was there, but it held no interest for him. The tunnel was real. Will I get to see a light? Meet Mom and Dad? Do orphans get to meet the parents they've never met? Could be awkward. Still, might get to meet Jesus if the TV evangelists are on the money. Not much chance of that. Oblivion it is, then. He sighed, feeling the last shred of life slipping away, and closed his eyes.
The alien grasped both his hands. The huge black eyes closed. The touch was icy. Dimly, Seb wondered how he could feel anything at all in fingers no longer connected to his bloodstream. Then, suddenly, the sensation changed to one of warmth, then heat, then a rush of pain as if red-hot lava was sliding up his arms. Not just on the surface - inside, as if the spilled blood was being replaced with boiling, spitting oil. He took in a huge, ragged breath, oxygen hitting his dulled senses in a rush of color, humming, blurring, his whole body vibrating with a massive surge of adrenaline.
The alien suddenly pulled Seb to his feet, the light emitting from his glowing gray body seeming to pulse in time with the beating of Seb's heart, which was accelerating every second, back from the brink of stopping altogether. Seb's breathing got faster and drops of sweat appeared on his forehead. He felt no fear, caught entirely in the moment, a man who had chosen to die feeling more alive than he ever had before.
All sense of time passing slowed, then stopped.
Seb had been to summer camp when he was twelve and had learned to dive from a board. The swallow dive was his favorite. There was always a moment in the dive where he'd reached the top of the arc, the moment between rising and falling, the best feeling, weightless, when anything seemed possible. It felt like that moment now - poised in time, just before the fall began. But Seb knew there was a choice here. He didn't have to fall. He could fly.
He just had to say yes.
But yes to what, exactly? Life...and something more. Something other. Something that would change him forever. Seb realized that were he to accept this invitation, he would be opening a door through which no human being had ever stepped. He would be alive, alone...and yet...he wouldn't be alone, quite. Somehow, he could feel others, tendrils of awareness brushing his consciousness.
He hesitated, his mind settling like a pond after the last ripple from a thrown pebble has washed gently against the reeds.
He felt the tug of time, of expectation, but also the lure of death, which he had faced and accepted. In the last months he had learned to truly let go; of possessions, of friends, of the future and the past. And death was just the last step of letting go. He had made his decision with no expectation of an alternative. And yet...
Time unfroze. The Bach prelude started again and Seb heard it as if for the first time, as if each note was unfolding in every moment.
Bach. How could he leave life when it had Bach? And The Beatles. And Frank Zappa. And Randy Newman. And Thrash Metal.
Seb smiled. He said yes.
***
The two soldiers were nearing the limit of their five-mile search when Chad saw a glow from the trees ahead. He spoke softly into the mic on his lapel. "600 feet northwest of my position. That glow. It's got to be him."
The voice in his ear sounded calm but he had known Carl long enough to hear the tension.
"Stay where you are."
As Carl came alongside him, Chad pointed ahead to where the trees thinned revealing a clearing near a path favored by joggers and dog-walkers. The two men parted without speaking, heading toward the target in a pincer movement, weapons drawn and ready. Chad reached the edge of the clearing, looking to his right, his night-vision goggles revealing Carl moving silently into position and nodding. He nodded back and turned toward the glow.
Billy Joe stood in the clearing, his back to Chad. The soldier narrowed his eyes, trying to see what was happening. He wondered how he was supposed to persuade the alien to play nice and come back to his comfortable cell.
"Can you see what he's doing?" he whispered.
"There's someone with him," said Carl. "He's - Jesus!" Chad gasped and both men ripped the goggles from their faces as the glow suddenly brightened.
"What the-," Chad pressed the call button on his phone. It was answered immediately.
"Report."
"Sir, we've found him. He's not alone. It's a civilian. They're...um...they're holding hands." The pause on the other end of the line was no more than half a second but Chad had visions of his career being flushed down the toilet.
"I have your position. We're ten minutes out." Another pause. The line went dead. Chad stopped holding his breath.
Seb felt a pain unlike any he could ever have imagined. It lasted no more than a fraction of a second, but it was as if his entire body had exploded, every atom separated from its neighbor then sucked back into place. There was a roaring in his ears, his eyes burned and his skin felt as if it was changing from millisecond to millisecond: now soft, now liquid, now a vapor, now impervious, diamond-like, now fluid again, rising and falling like a tide on the screaming muscles beneath.
The two watching soldiers yelped with pain and covered their eyes as the two figures suddenly flickered, then shone like the midday sun. The glare only lasted an instant, but when they looked back they could see nothing. It took nearly half a minute before their eyes adjusted and when they could see clearly, they doubted their own sight. Billy Joe was only glowing faintly now, but his whole body seemed less substantial. It wavered and rippled, as if being seen through water. He was no longer touching the civilian. His hand came up and made a slow cutting gesture in the air. Then
he turned sideways and slid out of existence.
"Chad?" came Carl's voice in his ear.
"Yeah," said Chad, "I saw it too. What the hell do we do now?"
"We grab that guy. That's what we do." Both soldiers moved cautiously out of the cover of the trees, their weapons raised.
Seb watched the alien disappear. It was as if he had just walked right off the planet. Seb took a couple of deep breaths, tasting the air, the unique mixture of mountain oxygen and LA pollution. He took a small step forward and stumbled slightly. He remembered his wrists, his dead fingers. Looking down, he slowly raised his arms, searching for evidence of the deep cuts he had made only hours before. His skin looked unmarked. He raised his wrists closer to his face, dimly aware of someone shouting.
Chad saw the guy lift his arms. "Weapon!" he shouted. Carl dropped to one knee, bracing the assault rifle against his shoulder, narrowing his eyes, still trying to see clearly through the residual glare. Chad kept his rifle pointing at the man and called out to him.
"Drop your weapon!"
Seb looked at the unmarked skin on his wrists and smiled. The Bach prelude continued evolving in his brain. He heard shouts again but could only truly see and hear what was in front of him. He grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, his thumb exploring the area which should be an open wound.
"DROP YOUR WEAPON NOW!"
Seb was alive and feeling better than he had in years. He threw back his head and laughed.
The soldiers fired at the same moment and eight rounds were emptied into Seb's body, one reducing his heart to a mass of shredded tissue.
"Well, there's an irony," Seb had time to think before pitching face forward into the dirt.
Chapter 4
14 months previously
Berlin, Germany
Despite holding the comparatively junior post of Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Dietricha Strennbourg occupied an office in the Bundeskanzleramt second in size only to the Chancellor's. The German press had christened Dietricha 'Bou-Dietricha', a particularly ineffective pun that had, somehow, stuck. It was supposed to be a reworking of 'Boudicca', Britain's first-century Celtic warrior queen. Dietricha had spent three years studying at Oxford University, and, early on in her political career, a story had surfaced linking her with undergraduate Pagan organizations. The press found a photo of her in a druid-like cloak, holding a carved wooden staff. She had laughed off the speculation, said it was a fancy dress party, and, as no naked photos of her participating in nature rituals at Stonehenge had appeared, the story went away. The name stayed, however. And, secretly, Dietricha liked it. She even had a name plate on her desk, carved with rune-like letters, spelling Bou-Dietricha.
World Walker 1: The World Walker Page 2
