The Alien Element

by M. G. Herron

  She had been nothing but encouraging, even when The Auriga Project had been plagued by a grim outlook and everyone thought it would fail. She had been nothing but supportive, even as her career began to burn like a rancid dumpster fire. And she had asked for nothing in return. She had not made demands on him, she had not complained when he worked late night after night after night.

  And when she asks him for one thing, what does he do?

  He forbids her from doing it.

  That arrogant bastard.

  But the guilt came anyway, creeping in under her anger like a slinky dog with its ears tucked back. To hell with the guilt, she thought as she passed through the security checkpoint on the highway. I can live with it and he can stew for a while. I might even forget about it if my team located another carving while I was gone.

  Two hours and a vehicle swap later she was drinking warm wine and sharing stories over the campfire with her team. And she had been right. She forgot all about her disagreement with Amon when Lakshmi, Tanner, Ross, and Talia told her what they’d accomplished since she left.

  “We found several other monoliths in the area,” Talia said. “They seem to be in a square arrangement, almost like they were the stone pillars of a building or something. The walls between the monoliths, made of smaller stones, have rotted away or crumbled, but the larger stones held up.”

  “Have you found any other petroglyphs?” Eliana asked.

  “Not yet. The moss has grown so thick and the foliage is so dense that other carvings could be right under our nose and we wouldn’t be able to tell they were there until after we clear the plant matter away. Tanner and Ross spent the last two days just cutting back the jungle. It’s thick.”

  “Okay,” Eliana said. “Sounds like there’s still a lot to do. We should move camp so that we’re closer to the work, now that we know it’s there.”

  “You want to lug all this stuff up that hill?” Tanner asked.

  “Better than having to wake up even earlier every morning to hike up there. The day will last longer, too, since we won’t have to walk as long to get back to camp at night.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” said Lakshmi. “Okay then. We’ll break camp in the morning and spend tomorrow moving and setting back up. Then we can get to work again.”

  Eliana was up first, her eagerness to get started pulling her out of bed well before dawn. She made breakfast and disassembled her tent while the others woke. Eliana did more than her fair share in breaking down and hauling supplies, but it was Lakshmi who naturally took charge of the operation. The long-legged, dark-skinned woman was the most organized person Eliana had ever met, and it was thanks to her foresight that they had enough supplies to last for two more weeks—if they were careful—before they would be forced to send someone back to town to restock on food and water.

  Lakshmi and Eliana agreed on a new campsite, on an outcropping of limestone about halfway up the steep incline to where the monolith was located. It was well shaded, with a magnificent view of the bowl of dense forest that curved down beneath them. The jungle extended in all directions. The mosquitoes here were thick as clouds, except out on the edge of the rock, in the hot sun, where they were only as thick as a wispy cloud.

  “This will do,” Eliana said.

  Over the next two weeks, they worked from sun up till sundown cutting back the thick foliage of the jungle, trimming vines, and carefully cutting moss off the monoliths with exacto knives, horse-hair brushes, and delicate wire bristles that wouldn’t damage the ancient limestone which lay beneath. After two more days spent excavating the cornerstones—for that’s how she came to think of the four stones arranged in a clearly defined square exactly twenty feet apart—there was no doubt in her mind that the stones had been placed deliberately. They may once have formed the base of a temple or business, or perhaps a functional government outpost. The walls between them had either crumbled or never been completed. Was it a new project, abandoned before it really got underway? Or perhaps it marked consecrated ground. Was this a burial site? If so, who was buried here?

  She didn’t have any of those answers.

  After a week, the faces of all four cornerstones had been cleared. None of their keen eyes spotted any carvings except the original.

  “I don’t understand it,” Eliana finally said after they stashed their gear for the night. They sat around the fire, each of them sweaty, miserable, and huddling under the dubious shield of mosquito netting. “Why only one carving?”

  “It’s clearly incomplete,” Tanner said. “Maybe they didn’t get a chance to finish the job.”

  “But why carve something so detailed as that petroglyph before the rest of the walls were laid in?”

  “It doesn’t make much sense, I’ll admit,” Talia said, shaking her head under her mosquito netting. “Not to mention that, as far as we can tell, this is the only structure nearby.”

  Ross bobbed his head wearily. While Tanner, Lakshmi, and Eliana had been clearing plants and scrubbing clean the sides of the monoliths, Ross and Talia had been tromping through the jungle in every direction, searching for other signs of civilization.

  “Nothing that we’ve found yet,” Ross said.

  “Ever the optimist.”

  Eliana took a deep breath, stood, and turned her back to the fire. She still hadn’t spoken with Amon. It was easy as long as she kept busy, and she had been quite busy. Memories of their last conversation came back to her early in the mornings and late at night, though. This deep in the jungle, only the single satellite phone they kept in case of emergencies got service, so she hadn’t been distracted by further missed calls or text messages.

  The flames of the bonfire lit the treetops below the outcropping with a dancing orange light. Once her eyes adjusted, she could see the starlit bowl of jungle beyond, extending to the horizon. Eventually, the land curved up again.

  It was almost as if a giant scoop had been taken out of this ten mile section of land by the hand of God. Whatever had stood here once, nature had long since reclaimed it.

  15

  Leeches Should Drink Him Dry

  Amon thought about Eliana constantly. Her ignoring him was like a ghost limb that constantly itched. But he was able to forget about his heartache the day Reuben swaggered through the door into the Translocator lab again for the first time since Charlie’s funeral.

  An enthusiastic applause rose from his team of scientists, engineers, and security guards, who had gathered to greet him.

  “Welcome back, my friend,” Amon said, embracing Reuben in a brotherly hug. He was surprised to feel some of the bones in Reuben’s shoulders were more pronounced than he expected, and held him back at arm’s length to get a better look at the man.

  How a couple weeks can change a man.

  Reuben had never been thin, but he had put on weight when Charlie first got sick. It seemed to have come off all at once since the funeral. The lines of his cheeks were sharper and his strong chin more pronounced. The once round bulge of his gut had receded under his shirt. He even had a fresh haircut, and his normally wild, unkempt white hair was slicked back in a way that made him look ten years younger. It would be wild again in an hour, with hair as thick as his, but it looked good on him.

  “You look great,” Jeanine said, taking the thoughts right out of Amon’s head. “How are you holding up?”

  “Better, yeah. Thanks for asking. It’s great to see you guys again. I missed this place.”

  “It’s good to have you back, my friend,” Amon said. “But if you need more time, just say the word.”

  “No,” Reuben said, shaking his head once, emphatically. “Being back at work is exactly what I need right now.”

  Reuben embraced Jeanine warmly, and then the others. Amon shook his head. It was truly remarkable to see Reuben so healthy.

  Selfishly, he was glad to have Reuben back, too. He trusted all of his people—they wouldn’t be in the Translocator lab if he didn’t—but Reuben was his right hand. H
e had put his life in his hands before, and would do it again without hesitation. Reuben once took a bullet for him.

  Jeanine led Reuben to the holodeck. He looked even more like the veteran conductor he was when he raised his arms and the array of hologram controls flickered to life. He grinned from ear to ear as he powered up the Hopper with a practiced motion.

  “It feels good to be back!” he shouted over the keening noise of the Translocator’s boot-up procedure. They all cheered him again, and then they went back to work

  Agent Wiley and Agent Moreno arrived later that day. Amon pulled Reuben into the lounge to talk, and they all caught him up on what they had discovered in his absence. With everything that had happened in his personal life, Reuben had been informed about the break-in and killings in Audrey’s lab, but he had not been filled in on the suspicious activity the FBI was chasing around the country.

  Agent Wiley caught Reuben up to speed in just a few minutes.

  “Another Translocator?” Reuben said. “Damn. That’s not good.”

  “I’m sorry to lay this on you,” Amon said. “I meant what I said earlier. If you need more time, it’s yours. But if you’re back, I think it’s important that you know exactly what’s going on. You saw the additional security measures Jeanine and I installed on the Hopper. This is why.”

  “And you’re sure it’s Lucas?”

  “We always suspected that he stole the blueprints to the Translocator. We just didn’t know what we planned to do with it. I’m still not sure of his endgame, but we can see he’s been running…experiments.”

  “Humph. Trinkn zoln im piavkes,” Reuben mumbled.

  Agent Wiley and Agent Moreno blinked.

  “What’s that, German?” Wiley said.

  Reuben shook his head ruefully. “It’s Yiddish. Something my mother used to say when she was angry at my uncle, who was a real pain in the toches. It means, ‘leeches should drink him dry.’”

  “I concur,” Agent Wiley said.

  Amon laughed. It was good to see the serious agent joking around. Reuben always brought out the humorous side in people. “It’s good to have you back old friend.”

  A companionable silence fell between them for a moment. Amon pursed his lips and met Agent Wiley’s eyes. She raised her eyebrows.

  “What is it?” Reuben said. “There’s something else I need to know on top of maimed bodies, and a faulty Translocator run by our back-stabbing, embezzling, on-the-run former executive?”

  “Well, I never thought about this until Agent Wiley brought it up, but she makes a good case,” Amon said. “Montoya translocated directly into Audrey’s lab, and took down the two guards outside first, right? How did he know to take out the guards, or even that they were there? And how did he know where the carbonado was kept? They didn’t know exactly where in the lab it was located—because no one goes in there except for Audrey. But they certainly knew which lab it was in.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You have a mole somewhere,” Agent Moreno said.

  “That’s why the others have only been told as much as they need to know to do their jobs,” Amon said.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Reuben said. “I appreciate your trust. But why are you telling me this? How do you know I’m not the spy?”

  Agent Wiley’s nostrils flared and she inhaled through her nose, but otherwise she maintained a neutral expression.

  “That’s exactly why we’re telling you,” Amon rushed to say. “I know you’re not the spy. I trust you with my life, Reuben.”

  “And we did a thorough background check,” Agent Moreno said. Agent Wiley nodded reluctantly. Suspicion of everything and everyone was her natural state. Amon couldn’t blame her for that. He would be paranoid, too, if it was his job to fly around the country inspecting dead bodies.

  “There’s another reason we’re telling you,” Amon said. “Now that you’re back, we need your help. We have to get to Switzerland, and we need someone to man the Hopper while we’re gone.”

  “Man the—you don’t mean…”

  Amon shrugged. “That’s right. I’ve sent Wiley and Moreno through a few times already, but I want to go with them this time.”

  “The LTA won’t like this, Amon,” Reuben said.

  “They don’t know. Since we can’t figure out who the mole is, we can’t send any kind of official request to Dr. Badeux. That would leave a paper trail. It’s just a little hop to Switzerland. They’ll never know we were gone.”

  Reuben chewed his lip as he considered this. Then his eyes widened. “You’re going to visit the Large Hadron Collider. But Amon, you’ve said yourself that you don’t fully understand how the machine works with the carbonados.”

  “I don’t, but it seems safe enough. And it’s the fastest way to get there. The longer we wait, the more people get killed.”

  Agent Wiley and Agent Moreno exchanged a thoughtful glance. Amon had already gone through the dangers with them, and they agreed that it was worth the risk. He may have sounded more confident when he explained it to the FBI agents. Reuben, however, knew about the carbonado and the concerns Amon had about how it affected the molecular reassembly…and the dubious margin of error.

  Reuben pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek while he considered. Finally, he nodded.

  Later that night—early morning Switzerland time—after the day’s transport to the lunar base was complete and everyone else had gone home, Amon unlocked the lab and let Reuben, Agent Wiley, and Agent Moreno back in. The guards at the doorway were off duty from midnight to six AM, so only the security cameras saw them enter.

  Amon snapped the carbonado solution into its slot at the base of the holodeck.

  Without preamble, Reuben took his position at the control unit and brought the Translocator to life. The trio of travelers walked into the stabilization sphere on the Translocator platform. The transponder that would bring them home again was on Amon’s wrist—it looked like a watch. Instead of telling the time, the device had a blank face set with two LED bulbs and a single button. If Amon held the button for five seconds, the first light would blink red. When it changed to a blinking green light, the transponder signal had been received, and when both bulbs went blue, the translocation was being initiated. Whoever was being translocated with Amon needed to stand close. The machine took everything within a radius of about five feet around him. He also needed to be careful, because the machine didn’t discriminate between, for instance, a piece of an object, and the object itself, if it was outside of the acceptable range.

  “We’re ready,” Amon said. Reuben nodded, a blue-white flash of light engulfed the three of them, and then they were standing in the middle of an empty field with the Jura mountain range visible in the distance beyond. Amon’s ears popped due to the sudden altitude adjustment.

  “I’ll never get used to that,” Agent Moreno said.

  His pale face told Amon he might be sick. Amon mentally checked his own body and was pleased to detect none of the usual side-effects of the translocation. Taking atoms apart and putting them back together was a complex process, but it seemed that Moreno was ill at the idea of what just happened to him, rather than the actual translocation itself. A positive sign.

  Agent Wiley didn’t seem to be so affected. Her lips set in determination. “This way,” she said in a commanding voice. He and Moreno both hurried to catch up with her short but purposeful stride.

  Not five minutes later, they were in the tiled lobby of the CERN building speaking to a receptionist. She asked them to sit and wait, made a phone call, and soon a half dozen Interpol agents walked in the front door.

  Moreno cursed under his breath.

  “Agent Monica Wiley?” said the nearest agent, a tall Swiss man, in a heavy accent.

  “Yes,” she said, standing and shooting an evil glance at the receptionist. The receptionist shrugged. Agent Wiley’s brow wrinkled.

  “Would you come with us please?”

 
The Interpol agents took them to two unmarked white cars outside, and Agent Wiley and Agent Moreno spent the next hour arguing with them about inter-agency courtesy and jurisdiction. They were clearly upset that the FBI had not gone through proper channels. Agent Wiley told them to contact Dr. Badeux with the LTA, but they were being stubborn and wanted to put them on a flight back home immediately.

  When Amon’s phone buzzed in his pocket, he walked a little ways off and checked it, hoping it was finally some word from Eliana. He didn’t even care if she was mad at him, he just wanted to know she was okay.

  Instead, Reuben was calling.

  “Yeah?” he said, glancing back at the Interpol agents, who were watching him carefully. He turned his body away slightly.

  “Amon,” Reuben said. “I thought you should know…there’s been a power failure on the moon base. Dome 2 has fallen back to life-support systems only.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Some hiccup at the nuclear fission reactor. Power is down in Dome 2 and the rest of the primary structures have fallen back to life support. I heard chatter about buried electric cables being severed. I think they sent men to investigate.”

  “Is this some kind of drill?” Amon said.

  Reuben swallowed. “Not from what I heard.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Amon ended the call and pocketed his phone. Without asking permission, he strode away from the Interpol agents and back inside the CERN building. An agent followed him.

  “Bathroom?” he said. The receptionist pointed, and Amon hurried down the hall.

  He shut himself in the bathroom as he held the button on the transponder. The lights blinked from flashing red to green to solid blue. He looked at himself in the mirror until the brightness grew, then closed his eyes as he was translocated back to the lab.

  16

  Clever Thinking

  When Rakulo woke, his left cheek was wet and swollen. Drool spilled out of his mouth onto a cold, rough floor. Voices rose up and fell outside. They sounded distant, faint.