by Peter Telep
“Yeah,” I say, cutting off Meeka. “What’s happening?”
“She’s a runaway,” Steffanie answers. “Sometimes when you’re hurt random thoughts control your persona.”
“Do you think she’s close?” I ask, whipping around.
“She could be,” Steffanie answers.
“Please, help me find her!”
They jump away and reappear farther down the slope.
When I glance back Julie’s changed. She’s Goth Julie from high school.
“Do you remember me now?” I ask.
She squints—
And then she’s heavyset Julie with glasses and wearing the red prom dress bursting at the seams.
“Julie, you need to wake up!”
She looks at me. “Doc?”
And then she’s normal Julie, but her face creases.
She closes her eyes—
And screams in agony.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“Julie, show me where you are!” I’m in my persona now. I grab her hand and wait.
Nothing.
“Come on, you can do it! Jump back!”
Bam, we’re farther up the mountain near some shattered boulders piled in heaps between clumps of grass and dirt.
It’s shielded from the observatory by a broad ridge, and it’s obvious why we’ve missed it.
A long piece of the helicopter’s fuselage lies across the rocks. A foot sticks out near the back.
If could fly over there I would. But I need to run, and I trip twice, a third time before reaching the debris.
It’s Julie, all right, trapped beneath a heavy side panel. I try to lift it, but it barely moves.
I crawl around to the side, shouting her name, and then squint into the gap between the panel and the ground. She’s there, a few feet away, eyelids fluttering like she’s dreaming or hallucinating.
“The covers are really heavy,” comes Julie’s little girl voice from behind me.
“I know. We’ll get them off.”
“Am I going to die?”
“Don’t even say that.”
“But I can’t... I can’t breathe anymore.”
“Yes, you can!” I start shouting for help, but will anyone hear me?
I remember my body down below, standing there, useless. I need to do more than just panic. I need to control my body and my persona. With a chill, I sense the way...
I should imagine directions, pushing left and right at the same time. The right is my body. The left is my persona.
I grind my teeth and do it—
And with a gasp, I realize it works.
Two sets of eyes. Two pairs of hands.
Like a split screen in my head.
I run up the hill, making awesome time, even though rocks give way beneath my feet.
I won’t be much stronger using my body and persona, but I’ll get better leverage, just like we did on the hatches back at the Palladium.
And now Julie’s life depends on me.
I take a deep breath.
I’m going to flip this panel away from her. I don’t care how heavy it is. I’ve seen videos of people lifting cars to save their kids. Adrenaline. Miracles.
I get to work. The panel creaks. Rocks tumble below.
“Keep lifting!” Meeka cries.
“You got it,” Steffanie adds.
They heard me, and they’re crawling beneath the panel.
“Don’t drop it!” Steffanie says.
“Hurry!” I tell them, my voice straining.
As my biceps are about to explode, they drag her free, and the panel smashes down onto the rocks.
I return to my body and kneel down by Julie. Her nose is bleeding, and her eyes slowly open. “Everything hurts.” She rolls onto her side and begins coughing up more blood.
“We’re here now,” I tell her.
She swallows hard, winces, and asks, “What happened? Where’s my father?”
“Forget him. We just need to get you out of here.”
Her tone grows more urgent. “Where is he?”
I look at Meeka and Steffanie. They just shake their heads.
And then voices draw our attention. A group of nomads led by Tommy comes hiking up the slope.
Within five minutes, we have Julie on her feet.
She’s got cuts and scratches all over her body. Her left arm looks badly bruised, and her nose and cheeks are swollen. Tommy thinks she’s broken a few ribs. She tries to walk, but we think she may have sprained or broken her ankle. Two nomads volunteer to carry her.
She won’t look at me. She just demands information about her father. We ignore her.
Back at the observatory, the nomads have tipped the Jeep onto its wheels. It’s smashed up but still drivable.
Seven of us pack into the vehicle. The grren will follow on foot, since these roads should be empty, especially at this hour. Meanwhile, Solomon’s men will bring up more cars for everyone else.
Tommy shares some disturbing news: of the nine nomads he saved from the temple, only six are left, including the lead guy with the blue bandana who calls himself Rific. Three others have run off with Solomon’s people. According to one nomad who’s been with Solomon from the beginning, they’re not the first deserters, meaning there are Florans on Earth. Many more than we know about.
“Son?” Tommy says. “It’s a real mess.”
* * *
The next morning, we’re crowded in my family’s vacation home, waiting for Tommy to return with news of our travel plans. The guards we took out with the stunners have come around, and while it wasn’t easy, the other nomads have convinced them to remain with our group.
Julie sleeps quietly in my old bedroom. She won’t speak to us. Meeka and Steffanie are changing Keane’s bandage.
I’m in the living room with the grren. I explain that they have to stay hidden. They show me their families. They’re already homesick. Brave reveals an image of my father and Solomon working in the lab, stuff my Dad showed him. He understands they were friends. I sense that Florans frustrate him even more now. Just too many lies. Too unpredictable. They’ll tolerate us, but they’re ready to leave.
When I’m finished, I drift over to Meeka, Steffanie, and Keane. “What’s the healing wreath?”
Meeka frowns. “Where’d you hear about it?”
“My mother told me to tell Julie the truth, and then take her there.”
“It started after the bombs,” Keane says. “People asked for donations.”
“For what?” I ask.
“People started giving up pieces of their essence, just like an immortal or breath,” Steffanie says. “I’ve done it.”
“So have I,” Meeka says.
“Not me,” Keane says. “I don’t know if it’s working.”
“What’s it supposed to do?”
He shrugs. “It’s a wreath that forms over the planet. It’s all that collected energy directed back at our world. They think they can somehow heal the planet by linking together.”
“But you don’t believe it?”
“It’s like praying. You think it works or you don’t.”
“So how would this help Julie?”
Meeka’s eyes widen. “That healing energy and sympathy and understanding... it flows through you when you go there. I needed the wreath when Swiff died... I think it gives you, I don’t know... peace.”
“Yeah, well, we’re here now, so I can’t take her there.”
Meeka thinks a moment. “I have an idea.”
* * *
Julie’s eyes open as the door creaks. I ask if I can come in, and she nods. I cross to the edge of the bed and take a seat.
She pulls the covers up to her neck, using them as a shield against me.
“There’s more than one side to every story,” I say.
“I know,” she answers coldly.
“Will you give me a chance?”
“Why?”
“Because even though you hate me, I still think you�
��re, you know...”
“Tell me it in Spanish.”
“Are you serious?”
“After all that tutoring, you can’t remember a few words?”
I stammer and blurt out the first thing that comes into my head: “El queso está viejo y podrido.”
“The cheese is old and moldy? Really? That’s all you got?”
I shrug. “Come on, will you give me a chance?”
She nods and projects her persona to the window. I do the same, and then I grab her hand.
I could take her to Flora.
I could show her the nightmare.
But I don’t.
Oh, she’ll see it, all right, but the sights and sounds won’t come from just me.
They’ll come from all of us.
We hold hands with all the rumms, including Meeka, Steffanie, and Keane. Even my father is here, along with Keane’s dad. There aren’t enough of us to wrap all the way around the Earth. Instead, we’re a small ring gliding over the Atlantic Ocean like a space station constructed of people. I’m unsure how, but Hollis’s immortal and my mother’s have joined us.
We focus our memories and healing energy on Julie.
I tell her this is a chance to show everyone why she was going along with Solomon.
“I don’t have to,” she says in my thoughts. “Because you were right. I thought I needed my father. Maybe I still do. I’m just so confused…”
I’m not sure what to say… and before I can react, balls of lightning appear and flash along the ring. They pass through us, heading toward Julie from both sides.
When they strike, she learns the truth from me, from my father, from Hollis, from my mother, and even from Meeka and Steffanie.
Keane shares his deep pain and insists that Solomon is a liar and that she should believe us...
Julie wails as her father stabs my mother.
I glance around the wreath... and everyone’s crying. We all feel it together. And we let her know that she’s not alone.
We understand that her wounds will never heal.
She’ll learn to live with them, like we all do.
I squeeze her hand as Earth glitters below us.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Tommy uses his contacts at my father’s company to get us a boat ride home.
But trust me, it’s no rusty row boat. It’s a yacht with huge cabins. Super luxury. I tell the rumms this isn’t normal, but for now we’ll live like celebrities.
We hide the grren in a cargo truck. They board under the cover of night. The crew has done secret operations before and can be trusted.
Even so, they’ve been told that Brave and Mama Grren are genetic experiments created here on Earth and not meat eaters from another world. Tommy thinks that story’s a little easier for the crew “to digest.”
I just groan over his bad pun.
The trip will take nearly ten days because we’re crossing the Atlantic Ocean. While travel by boat is much slower than flying, Tommy argues that he can better control the group and keep us safe this way.
In the meantime, he called ahead for a team to secure that rural house in Chuluota, Florida. The engine, Julie’s mother, and possibly Solomon’s nuke might be there, guarded by a squad of nomads.
With lots of time to kill, we slowly introduce the rumms to films and TV shows and some stuff on the Internet, careful to explain things that seem vague or weird to them. We block them from posting anything online because of, well, you know, operational security. They’re fast learners, though, plowing through social media and asking tons of questions. They want to know why there are so many pictures of food on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Julie spends most of her time in her cabin. She says she’s just exhausted and trying to heal up, but I feel like it’s more than that. She’s pretty distant when I visit. One of Tommy’s security people is also a trained medic, so he examined her and thinks her ankle might be fractured, but we can’t tell for sure without an X-ray. She definitely got some “contusions” on her lungs from all the “chest trauma,” which explains her coughing up the blood. Now they have her bandaged up, with the ankle elevated and on ice.
* * *
One night Keane catches me in the hallway and says, “Yo, my brother. ‘Sup dog. Big shout out to all my peeps! Hell, yeah! You my ace.”
I just look at him.
And then he says, “L-O-L. Laugh out loud!”
Argh. Do I strangle him now or later?
Meeka and Steffanie are dying to go shopping for makeup at Ulta, clothes at Forever 21, and heels at Charlotte Russe when we get to Florida. Steffanie wants to get highlights, too.
A few of the other rumms ask to take selfies and set up Facebook accounts, but again Tommy forbids them.
The drugs Solomon gave my father are finally wearing off, and my dad’s out and about from his cabin. He’s showered, combed his hair, and trimmed his beard. He looks like a new man. Or least the old one I remember.
He cracks some bad joke about us being aliens, and I just sigh and tell him it’s too soon.
* * *
During our last night at sea, we stand alone on the upper deck near the stern. He tells me the oceans on Flora are just as beautiful but far more dangerous.
I cut to the chase and tell him why I’ve asked him up here. I remind him that I have Mom’s immortal. “Do you want it back?”
“You know, when she died, I almost didn’t want it. That sounds terrible, but I was thinking for just a second that yeah, she got what she deserved.”
“Are you serious?”
“I knew she cheated on me. She tried to change after that. I tried to forgive her because I had to take responsibility for not being there. But it was never the same. We thought having a baby would bring us together, but it never did.”
“So was I was just a bandage for your marriage?”
“No, you were everything.”
I shrug.
“Doc, can you do something for me? Can you show me her immortal right now?”
“Why?”
“Because I want us to be together as a family, I mean all three of us. It’s not perfect, but maybe we can try again. And then I want to connect with you. I want to show you my life. Everything. Because I’m your father. And I love you.”
Before I react, Tommy calls out from the doorway, “Hey, y’all, sorry to interrupt. Great news from back home. Hell if we didn’t get the engine, the nuke, and Julie’s mom. Three birds with one stone.”
“What about Solomon?” I ask.
My father and Tommy exchange a somber look.
“Well, that’s just great,” I tell them. “Dad, you’re a mad scientist, but he’s even madder. And now we don’t even know where he is…”
“You got that right,” Tommy says.
My father breathes a deep sigh. “Let’s hope and pray we never see him again.”
“But if we do,” Tommy says. “We need to be ready.”
* * *
The pool party’s at Julie’s house.
Her mother Alina picked up six large pepperoni pizzas and a Carvel ice cream cake with those chocolate crunchies that taste so incredible.
We’re celebrating my birthday because we missed it when dad decided to, I mean got kidnapped.
Alina looks thinner, but she seems much better now. She smiles at me, but there’s a strained look in her eyes that’s beyond awkward. I guess it was easier for her when Julie and I didn’t know we came from the most dysfunctional alien families in the universe.
I do know the reunion between her and Julie didn’t go over so well. Some shouting was involved, and crying, and Alina begging for forgiveness. I’m not sure if they’re talking yet, but at least they can be in the same room together. I hope that one day Julie can come to terms with all this. I’m sure it’ll take time. A lot of time.
On a lighter note, the rumms and nomads have been arguing all week for us to take them on a field trip to the Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios. They’re like little kids o
n a sugar high.
Of course, Tommy’s doing his best to limit their travel and exposure to humans to protect them.
For the time being, they’re living in a safe house until he and my father figure out the next steps.
I’ve set up an Xbox One in the living room, and Keane’s turned into a gaming junkie.
Another of my father’s colleagues who escaped from Flora serves as our doctor. He fixed my broken arm when I was a kid. He put a brace on Julie’s ankle and has been treating the rumms’ injuries, getting blood tests, and searching for ways to address their tumors without bringing them to a hospital.
Even if we can save them all, we can’t just toss them into our society. They need IDs. They need to look and act like real citizens instead of space invaders—
Because if they don’t, our entire planet could change, and maybe not for the better.
Speaking of which... news reports of “ghost sightings” are coming in from the Canary Islands, Spain, Morocco, and Central Florida. We gasp over the smart phone video being shown all over social media.
These are not ghosts, of course. They’re personas. Rogue nomads running wild on Earth. Tommy’s worst nightmare.
The videos have already gone viral.
Tommy says we’re in crisis mode. He wonders if he can handle this with his limited resources. He says we may need to go “higher up,” whatever that means—
Because if one of those nomads winds up in a hospital and gets examined or cat scanned or whatever, it’s all over.
But for now, at least, we’ll enjoy a few moments together.
And pizza!
Julie and I watch as Keane takes his first bite.
He closes his eyes. Chews. Swallows. And then looks at us.
“Well?” I ask.
“It’s all right...”
“What do you mean all right?”
“Just kidding. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I wish Papa John was my father.”
“But it’s not Papa John’s,” I tell him.
“I don’t care.” He takes another huge bite and chews like a cow. “Pizza! Pizza!”
“It’s not Little Caesars!” Julie says.
He shrugs. “Then I guess it’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno.”
Oh, man, he’s been watching way too many commercials.
