The Roswell Swatch

by Scott Powers

  The face in the door window wasn’t Jen’s.

  It was some young coed. The girl pushed the unlocked door open. She was wearing a green, tropical, sleeveless, V-neck dress with several sterling necklaces, all dangling crosses about her sternum and cleavage.

  “Dr. Meln?”she called to him.

  Eve kept her hand on her gun. Ian kept his hands on the table. His face sweated.

  “We’re really busy right now, sweetie,”Eve said.“Come back later.”

  The girl looked annoyed.“I just need Dr. Melnto sign my—Dr. Meln, are you all right?”

  “Run, Val!”Ian yelled.“She’s got a gun!”

  Eve looked at the girl. She froze. So Eve showed her the gun.

  “Come in! You can sit down too,”she said.

  The frightened girl had red hair, blue eyes, now wide, and a pale, heart-shaped face, now completely drained of blood. She stood motionless.

  “Come in, I said. Now. Close the door and sit down."

  The girl found the courage to move and obeyed. Eve slid the gun back in her bag.

  “I’m sorry. Val, is it?”

  The girl didn’t answer, looking down, away from Eve. Her lips moved. She was praying.

  “You need to learn to take,‘We’re busy, come back later,’seriously. Seriously, now, just listen; you’ll be fine. And you’ll learn a lot. Dr. Meln’sgoing to lecture us about evil.”

  Then came another knock.

  Jen pushed the door open. Her eyes met Val’s, Dr. Meln’s, and then Eve’s. She looked confused.

  “What the hell?”

  “Complications,”Eve said.“She walked in on us.”

  “We can’t take her!”

  Eve tried the knob on the door behind her to see if it would lock. It wouldn’t.

  “We can’t let her go. She walked in on us. Look. All we need’s a couple of hours, right? Then we let them both go, right?”

  Val looked hopeful, as if none of this was as bad as it seemed. She raised an eyebrow.

  “I need Dr. Melnto sign my waiver. It’s due today.”

  “I’m so sorry, Val,”Ian said.“It’s not a good time.”

  “Shut up, both of you,”Eve said.“Remember who’s got the gun here.”

  “We can’t do it right now,”Jen said.“Ted’s been monitoring the lab schedule. It’s in use. But there’s nobody scheduled to be in there late morning. He’s setting some things up with colleagues. Sowe’re going to have to wait. But we have toleave. Ted’s parked outside, illegally. He’s got the motor running. We have to get out of here before someone wants him to move.”

  “What do we do in the meantime?”Eve asked.

  “Ted wants to just drive around, I guess.”

  Eve thought for a moment.“Okay, Jen, you go first. Then you, sweetie. Don’t do anything stupid. Just follow Jen and get into the van. I’ll have Dr. Melnhere real close. If you want him to sign your form, you'll have to let him live long enough.”

  Ted looked pissed when he saw the quartet approach, but he unlocked the doors and everyone got in dutifully. Ted pulled the van into traffic. Jen rode shotgun. The hostages sat on the bench behind them. Eve was in the third row, holding the gun.

  Eve made Ian call in sick. He was divorced, living alone, so there would be little risk of anyone wondering about his whereabouts. The girl was not so easy. They decided to just let her disappear for now. Her moment of confidence and hope over, she was crying and praying.

  Ted left campus, turning south on High Street. On 5th Avenue, he turned east.

  The accidental hostage spoke first.

  “You promised if I listened, I’d learn,”she said.“Okay?”

  “Did you ever watch the“X-Files?”Ted asked from the driver’s seat.“You’re probably too young.”

  “I am not,”she protested. Then, with a little humility, she added,“I’ve seen the movies.”

  “Truth,”Ted said.“It’s out there. We want it.”

  “UFOs?”Val asked with a little girl's wonder in her voice.“You mean, you guys are into UFOs?"

  Nobody answered.

  "There’s only one Truth,” Val said.

  “What’s that? God?”Ted sneered.

  Val let the sarcasm settle for a moment, but she couldn’t resist replying.

  “Yes. Whatever you seek, you’re wasting your time. Only God.”

  “You can have extraterrestrials and still have God,”Eve said, though she’d never given it a moment's thought until now.

  “No you can’t!”Ted and Val yelled in harmony.

  They shouted over each other.

  “God made us in His image. We’re His children.”

  “Why should we be unique?”Ted shouted.“Give me tens of billions of galaxies, each with tens of billions of planets, and billions of years of evolution, you get thousands with life!”

  “You’re full of pseudo-science crap!”Val yelled.

  “You’re ignorant!”

  Melnyelled,“The lady with the gun is right!”

  “Me?”Eve said above the din. The last thing she wanted or expected was Melnagreeing with her. Hell, she didn’t even know if she agreed with what she'd said.

  “Yes, science and science fiction and religion are not so incompatible. All God asks of you is faith. You can hold onto faith against all,”Melnsaid.“Even if science says things you don’t want to know. You can believe in the big bang and evolution, even UFOs, and still have faith. Just hold onto your faith. It’s simple.”

  “So now you’re acknowledging UFOs?” Ted said.“What about all that crap you wrote about my dissertation. Wait a minute:‘…based on a premise that leaps from science to fiction without connecting a single dot…’Isn’t that what you wrote?”

  “You didn’t connect the dots!”Melnshouted back.“That was a commentary on your sloppiness, not your beliefs.”

  “And now you’re telling me you, a so-called scientist, believe in God?”

  “Why not?”

  “Idiot! There’s no need for God,”Ted barked.“From everything I’ve seen in my life, there may be someone pulling strings, directing traffic, so to speak. They ain’t benign. They ain’tloving. They don’t even care about us. "

  “You’re talking about blind faith, sir," Val finally shouted into the mix. "God asks more from us!”

  Ted turned his van north onto a busy one-way thoroughfare lined with ancient brownstone apartments and graffiti-scarred, boarded-up businesses.

  "There's even reason to believe that UFOs played a role in the Biblical world," Meln said.

  "Chariots of the Gods? Now that’s a load of crap, and you know it,” Ted said.“Talk about sloppy, those books were so bad I think they were IBTT plants.”

  "Do you know the story of Ezekiel?”Melnsaid.“He gave the first detailed eyewitness account of a flying saucer. 'Then Ezekiel went to Heaven in a whirlwind.' Ezekiel 1."

  "That was a host of angels bringing the Lord," Val said.

  "Maybe," Meln said.

  "Or utter nonsense," Ted screamed. "The ancient equivalent of urban legends that someone finally wrote down and someone else turned into gospel."

  "There are dozens of references in the Bible that could easily be interpreted as UFO appearances," Meln said. "From the fire and brimstone raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis to the description of the Rapture in Revelation."

  "Again, legends," Ted spit.“Stuff written and edited by man, in a time of ignorance.”

  “Yes, by man!”Melnreplied.“But perhaps inspired.”

  The blighted housing and businesses changed in appearance. Still the same age, still in a moderate state of shambles. But the neighborhood became livelier, younger, and alive, and the street was lined with newer model cars. They had entered the student district. Ted drove slowly, and seemingly randomly, turning down one street, turning again, and again up another. The streets were tight, the houses, wooden Craftsman homes and Victorians, crammed close. The van with two hostages moved through unnoticed. In the bac
k, Eve held her gun.

  And Meln was turning to more spiritual matters.

  “The universe, we can touch, see, hear, smell, contemplate, and predict,”Melnsaid.“But what makes us see and smell and contemplate? Physics can’t explain our psyche; theology can’t explain Europa.”

  “Thanks for the lecture, Ian, youuseless scientific fraud. If you had any credibility as a scientist, you might have some credibility as a human being. But you don’t," Ted offered. "You’re like a thousand others I've met or heard or read. You’re involved in too much that has nothing to do with your research. And it runs your whole damned life.”

  “I’m a fraud? How the hell do you stay employed, publishing in what, DC Comics?”

  “Shoot him now, Eve!”

  “Dr. Meln, you can’t seriously believe that the Lord our Creator would mislead us about us being His children.” Val said.

  A full-fledged, three-way shouting match had broken out in Ted’s van, between captors and hostages, over science and religion.

  “If you trust science and have faith in God, I’d argue your trust and faith are stronger as a result,”Meln declared.

  “How can you say that, Dr. Meln? Faith based on what? What you want? You can’t mix and match beliefs. You want the truth? It’s already been revealed to us.”

  “You trashed my science,”Ted said to Meln, changing the subject.

  “Science? It was gibberish. I wouldn’t have accepted that paper from an undergrad.”

  “You’re a stooge!”Ted screamed.“Paid to hide truth! Do you have any idea how far science would have advanced if it wasn’t full of pieces of crap like you whose duty is to stop evidence, not find it?”

  In the front seat, Jen was laughing. In the back, Eve was annoyed.

  “Whether you believe in UFOs or God or both,”Eve shouted over all of them,“or neither. The fact is, there are people dying over this.”

  The van went quiet.

  “What are you talking about?”Val said at last.

  “Yes. Seriously. My grandmother was murdered. My grandpa’s friends were murdered.”

  "What? When?" Val exclaimed.

  "Sixty-some years ago."

  This time Meln chuckled.

  Eve shoved Meln’sshoulder.“You tried to kill me and my friend last week!"

  “I did not!”

  Eve shoved him again. Then she stuck her gun into his ribs.

  “You set Ted’s lab on fire with us inside!”

  “The fire was supposed to be small. I didn’t know it would spread like that!”

  “You set his lab on fire, Dr. Meln?”Val asked.

  “Then why the fuck,”Eve said angrily,“was the fire alarm off? Why the fuck were the doors locked from the outside? Why the fuck didn’t the fire extinguisher work? Why the fuck did you run?”

  “It was supposed to be a small fire, just a delay, a distraction, to give me time to get away with the material.”

  “Ha! You admit it,”Eve said.“You stole my swatch. And I don’t believe you. Those other bottles were placed on that counter so they’d explode. I don’t know what was in them, but that was no accident.”

  “There was nothing in that lab that was that combustible that wasn’t safely stored in fireproof cabinets,”Ted said.“Someone took them out and put them on the counter. Don’t deny it. Your people came and got me. Got my keys. Got my codes. Then you all set the whole thing up.”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t set up the lab. They did. I had no idea.”

  “It was exactly like that. I was there, remember? Anyway, this shit ends,”Eve said,“today.”

  Ted, Jen, and Eve all were being careful not to tip off their plans too much to Meln, their main hostage. But it was time.

  “Ian, here’s the plan,”Ted called out from the driver’s seat.“We’re going back to your lab when no one’s scheduled to be there.”

  “What on Earth for?”Meln asked.

  Eve spoke next.“So you can run those tests again. Only this time you’ll run them for real.”

  “You know I don’t have the material anymore. And you sure as shit don’t have it."

  Eve slipped the sample from her bra and waved it where he could see it, and said,“You forgot this.”

  Meln’s eyes widened.

  After a sobering moment, Val asked,“Then what are you going to do with us?”

  “That depends on you and Ian,”Eve replied.

  “Don’t worry, Val,”Melnsaid.“They won’t hurt us. They won’t cross that line.”

  “We won’t cross that line? My grandmother’s dead because of this. My grandfather drank himself to death over it. You tried to kill my friend and me. You stole my swatch. These burns are because of you. My friend is missing because of you. Sohelp me, I’ll show you what kind of line we’ll cross!”

  Eve reached from the van’s back seat to his arm. She bent it backward. He struggled. He couldn’t break her grip, but she couldn’t pull his arm all the way back.

  “Let me see your hand,”she said.

  Melndidn’t move.

  “Give me your hand.”

  At last, he raised his left hand and reached it back, above his seat.

  Eve twisted it back behind the seat, held it a moment, and fired her gun.

  “Fuck! Holy God! She shot me!”Meln screamed. He pulled his hand back.

  “That’s what kind of line we’re crossing."

  Ted checked windows and mirrors. Eve’s shot drew no attention.

  “Damn it, Eve!”he said.“Quit shooting people in my van!”

  “You told me to shoot him!”

  Meln cradled his bleeding hand in his lap, swearing. Jen turned back from the front seat.

  “Let me see it,”she said.“I’m a nurse.”

  Eve had fired to graze Meln's hand, and he had a bleeding, burned gash along his right palm. Jen fished a first-aid kit from the glove box. She put ointment on his hand. She handed him a small stack of gauze pads and he pressed one to his palm. It bled right through and he replaced it with two more. He went through that soon, and she handed him a stack of napkins. Eve held up her arm, which revealed still not fully healed burns.

  “I owed you that one just for my burns."

  They drove in silence for a moment, except for Meln’s moans.

  Eve returned to her sweet Texas drawl.“Now that I have your attention, y’allwill do as we say. No more doubts. No more dumb-ass guesses about what I’m capable of. Okay, Ian darling?”

  CHAPTER 13

  GUERRILLA RADIO

  Meln’s lab was in the basement of the building where Eve had taken him at gunpoint that morning. The five of them stepped in unnoticed and took the elevator.

  No one saw Meln drop a napkin in the elevator. They got out without event, and a few feet down the corridor, Meln unlocked the lab.

  The lab was full of machines on desktops, like Ted’s lab before Melntorched it. Unlike Ted’s, it was crammed into an odd, U-shaped room. No one else was inside. Ted scouted around and liked what he found.

  “Showtime,”he said.

  Ted plugged a laptop computer into one of the machines in Meln’s lab and began typing and surfing. When he had that fully set up, he produced a tablet computer from the bag hanging from his chair and set it up on a mount on the arm of his chair. Eve handed him the sample.

  “Just remember: I shot the last guy who tried to take that from me,” she said.

  Eve's job was to keep the hostages, Meln and Val, out of the way and quiet. Jen operated a video camera.

  “This time,”Ted said,“we’re going to have witnesses. Not just witnesses, but some of the top scientists in America overseeing what we have here. And I’ve opened it to others who are interested in this sort of thing.”

  After a few minutes, the screen on the laptop had three windows showing video links to two men and a woman, a fourth with Jen’s feed of her brother, plus a dialogue box.

  “Welcome, Dr. Yen from MIT, Dr. Bollinger from the University of
Akron, and Mr. Freidrich from Materials Journal,”Ted said.“Thanks for joining our analysis seminar. Welcome to all others watching on our open invitation. You will be able to observe, but only Drs. Yen, Freidrich, Bollinger, and myself will be able to participate.”

  Jen brought the camera around so her brother could see the faces on the screen and talk to the camera. He turned away from the laptop and kept an eye on the tablet in his lap.

  “If these tests go as I hope, the data feeds you’ll get may appear dubious,”Ted said.“All I can say is, we’ll show you in due time.”

  “Just get on with it Ted,”said one face on the screen, Sue Bollinger at the University of Akron Polymer Institute. She was a thin, hard-looking woman in her fifties with dark hair streaked with grey.“I’m sure we’re all very busy.”

  “What should we expect?”asked Ron Freidrich, the journal editor. He was in his thirties, with a thin face and John Lennon glasses.

  Ted leaned in, smiling.“I hope a carbonic crystal like nothing we’ve seen on Earth. I promise you, you’ll be very interested in what we’re about to examine.”

  As Ted and Jen progressed into their show with the three online scientists, Eve, Meln, and Val watched like the unknown multitude of digital witnesses.

  “My compliments to Ted,”Melnsaid.“I had no idea he had enough credibility to draw these three in. Yen’s one of the best young crystalline chemists in the country. Sue Bollinger’s work on hardened polymers is drawing a lot of attention. And Freidrich’sgot real influence. The one he’s going to have trouble with is Bollinger,”Melnobserved.“They’re all very skeptical scientists. She can be a real bitch about it.”

  “You sound as if you’re rooting for Ted to do well,”she said.

  “I am, actually. You forget I’ve already tested it. It’s amazing. Like Ted said: Like nothing on Earth. Freidrich’sgoing to go crazy. He’ll smell the significance right away.”

  For the first time, Melnacknowledged that the swatch he’d tested in Ted’s lab was in fact what he had claimed. Eve pressed him.

  “So you didn’t fake those tests? It really was some kind of diamond crystal?”

  Melnshook his head.“Not diamond. But yes, those tests I ran were real. It is a carbon crystal structure that hasn’t been defined. And it’s clearly manufactured."