by R. D. Brady
But it was more than the fact that they had hidden the 51 activities that bothered her. It was what it said about the power of the U.S. government.
They had been secretly experimenting on alien species for nearly two decades. In fact, the disinformation campaign of the government made sure that anyone who claimed a UFO sighting or an alien visitation was viewed as a few cards short of a full deck.
And while the government was intentionally making a mockery of anyone who claimed to have sighted a UFO, they knew aliens existed. That kind of power and influence was terrifying because it demonstrated exactly how powerless Maeve was. And what would happen to Alvie and the triplets if the government decided to remove them from Maeve’s care? How would she protect them if the government decided to make them disappear?
The chopper touched down, jolting Maeve from her thoughts, and the pilot began to shut the engine down. Mike undid his seatbelt. “Dr. Leander?”
She looked out the window at the building where the meeting was being held. She could already pick out the agents surrounding it, trying to blend in as government employees. She turned to Mike as she undid her belt. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
“It’s all right, Dr. Leander. You have the full might of the United States government protecting you.”
She swallowed and glanced back out the window.
Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DULCE, NEW MEXICO
Martin had had Hamish rerun the analysis of the bodies found at Area 51, and he did not like what he was seeing. There were simply too many of them.
Hamish knocked on Martin’s open door and stood shifting from foot to foot. In his late twenties, Hamish was a perfect example of all that was wrong with his generation. Overweight by at least fifty pounds, with zero muscle tone and a style of dress that could only be classified as prepubescent boy, he was not someone who seemed to know how to interact when not attached to his computer. But while it made for an unpleasant visual and olfactory experience when near him, he was good at what he did.
However, today his pasty nerd king looked even paler than usual.
“What is it, Hamish?”
Hamish moved into the room to stand in front of Martin’s desk. “Um, sir, I, uh, took another look at the computer code that I wrote to release the experiments at Area 51.”
Martin waved him along. “And?”
“And it behaved exactly as planned. I went through each line of code and it was exactly as it was supposed to be.”
Martin smiled sitting back in his chair. “Good.”
Hamish didn’t return the smile. He still looked nervous.
“What is it?”
“My code was fine. But it wasn’t the only code that had been added to the system.”
“What?”
“Someone else got into the system.”
Martin narrowed his eyes. “Through the backdoor you created?”
“No, no, sir,” Hamish said quickly. “They hacked their way in.”
“You said that was impossible.”
“It should have been. I’m still not sure how they managed it.”
“So what did their code do?” Martin asked, although he had a sinking feeling he knew.
“They released all of the experiments in the other building.”
Martin sat back, his hand to his mouth, dread forming in the base of his stomach as he pictured the remains of the Blue Boy from the Gillibrand incident. “Did you check the sightings in Greeley County?”
“Yes, and there weren’t any unusual sightings reported in Greeley.”
Martin let out a breath. Okay. It’s fine.
“But there were sightings south of Greeley, in Hamilton County.”
“And what did they report seeing?” Martin asked quietly, although he was pretty sure he already knew.
“A tall, winged creature. Some even described it as a Mothman.”
Martin closed his eyes. No. As soon as he’d read the report on the Gillibrand case, he’d known. He’d known he’d gotten out. But he needed to have it confirmed.
“Sir, is there anything I can do?”
“Find out who this hacker is. I want a name and an address.”
“Yes, yes, sir. Right away.” Hamish practically tripped over his feet in his rush to get out the door.
Martin turned away from the desk. The hacker was a problem. But not the biggest problem. I should have found a way to kill him. Years ago, he had planned to. But he’d been pushed out of the program before he’d had the chance.
But it was too late for that now. It had been years, though. Surely he’d forgotten him. Martin thought of those cold eyes and a chill crawled up his back. No, I am not weak like I was before. He picked up the controller from his desktop. Just holding it made him feel stronger. He had weapons at his fingertips now he couldn’t have even imagined back then. The Angel might have escaped, but he was on his own.
Martin stood up, pushing him from his thoughts. He didn’t matter. He was no more dangerous than a nightmare once you’d woken up. But he was one of the reasons that Martin needed to continue his work. He needed to stop being on the outside of these programs. He needed to be in control of the D.E.A.D.
And he knew just how to make that happen.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE
AURORA, COLORADO
The meeting had started out cordial at first. There’d been an assortment of bagels and pastries, along with coffee on a table at the back of the large conference room. Everyone had a plate and coffee and was standing around chatting when Maeve entered. The two senators and two congresspeople had continued their conversations without pause. But Colonel Jeffries had escorted her over and made introductions. It had been all smiles and small talk.
After five minutes, the last member of their group entered the room.
“Ah, good,” Jeffries said. “Everyone, this is Agent Norah Tidwell of the Department of Extraterrestrial and Alien Defense.”
Norah nodded at each of them before taking a seat.
“All right, then. Dr. Leander, the floor is yours. Try not to be too hard on them,” Jeffries said.
Everyone had chuckled good-naturedly. Jeffries left and Maeve stood up at the front of the room, ready to begin, and thinking this just might not be too bad.
An hour later, though, Maeve was having a difficult time holding onto her temper, which was a new thing for her. Usually, she considered herself pretty even-keeled. But months of government questioning had left her fuse pretty short. And for an issue that everyone kept reminding her over and over again was a top national-security issue, they could have had some people with at least some background in the area. She suspected the four bureaucrats in the room with her now had a pretty difficult time getting through high-school biology, never mind the high-level genetic analysis she was supposed to dumb down for them.
She flicked a quick gaze at the agent who had sat quietly throughout Maeve’s presentation. Maeve had the feeling the agent was the only one who’d understood anything she’d said.
Maeve had not been happy when she’d learned the officials the President considered critical for forward movement were elected representatives on the President’s science committee. She never understood how people who had zero understanding of topics they were supposed to be advising the President on could be placed on a government committee.
Todd Farmington, from the great state of Iowa, shoved the papers in front of him away. “Doctor, you are not telling us anything that will help us.”
The senators had all been briefed on the events of Area 51 and she was being called to explain the behavior of the creatures at the base. Reliving those incidents had not been easy for Maeve and she’d struggled to maintain a professional distance. She’d been allowed to review the files of the creatures they were interested in, although she was not given an explanation about why these particular creatures were chosen.
Maeve counted to ten before
she answered. “How so, Senator?”
“These are supposedly intelligent alien beings,” he said with a sneer. “So how come they acted like a bunch of animals? Killing everything in their path? Doesn’t sound so intelligent to me.”
And neither do you. She took a breath and then pulled out a chair, taking a seat. “Are you familiar with the research on the relationship between early attachment and child development?”
The man looked back at her blankly.
Right, of course not. “How about feral children?”
“You mean those kids that get raised by wolves?”
“Yes. Feral children are children who are isolated from humans during their early life, much like the aliens under observation were isolated from their species during their early life.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“Feral children, if they did not speak before being isolated from humans, will often never be able to develop language. And even a few years, as little as two, can make it so that they are incapable of merging back into human society. They take on the traits of the animals they were raised with. There was a boy in Russia whose mother never spoke to him and left him in a room with birds. He took on all of the birds’ characteristics. He didn’t speak. He cooed and squawked. A boy from South Africa spent his early years with monkeys, and he was never able to reassimilate into human society.”
Senator Farmington sat back, his hands entwined as he gave her a patronizing smile. “But these subjects weren’t raised by animals. They were surrounded by humans, intelligent humans.”
“You mean they were tortured by them.”
Senator Jill Stafford from Delaware raised an eyebrow. “Tortured? That seems a little strong, Maeve.”
The use of her first name rather than her title was not an attempt to befriend Maeve. She knew it was an attempt to deny Maeve her expertise. But Maeve wasn’t having it. She would not bite her tongue and follow some script. But remembering the burns on the triplets when they’d first found them did make it a struggle to keep a hold of her temper. “They were prodded, poked, electrocuted, and isolated. They were never shown kindness. They were never shown compassion. How exactly would you expect them to behave when they were freed?”
Congressman Reed Hemmingway shook his head, his full head of thick white hair did not move, not even slightly. “Even so, humans would never behave in such a way. Humans are much more advanced in our—”
Maeve didn’t let him finish that bit of ridiculousness. “Humans would be even worse. Research on solitary confinement demonstrates that even a few days in solitary alters the psychology of a subject. Longer and you physically change the subject’s brain. The research on the plasticity of the brain is well documented. Our environment isn’t just passively observed by our brain, it creates new pathways in our brain. Or if there are not enough stimuli, weakens pathways. You ask why they were so violent? I’m not sure how they could be anything but.”
The politicians at the table were silent. Finally, Dr. Dean Henderson from Alabama cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, there still doesn’t seem to be any evidence of higher-level intelligence.”
Maeve studied the man for a moment. He had a master’s in fine art, yet insisted on being called doctor. “Again, if we go back to humans—a human that is raised in isolation without any education will not be able to operate a computer or a car. But with the correct environment, they can master both. For these creatures, it is no different. We yanked them back to the Stone Ages, and you’re asking why they can’t build a computer?”
“Dr. Leander, do you believe all of the creatures are highly intelligent?”
Maeve turned to who she considered to be the one person in the room with an open mind—Norah Tidwell. “I think that’s unlikely,” Maeve said.
Surprise flitted across Norah’s face. “Why?”
“I thought they were all intelligent,” Farmington drawled.
Maeve ignored him, made easier by the mental image of her walking across the table and slapping him into silence. Instead of giving in to that oh-so-tempting impulse, she kept her gaze on Norah. “I think some may have been guards, security. Some may have even been pets. Some may have been specimens.”
“What makes you say that?” Norah asked.
“Statistics. On planet Earth, there are varying levels of intelligence across species, but only one, maybe two, that could be considered higher level.”
Dr. Henderson scoffed. “Two? What, you think there’s two groups of humans? Or are you talking about Bigfoot?”
Maeve gritted her teeth. “No. But research once again is clear that dolphins have an intelligence on par with humans.”
“If they’re as smart as we are, why do we keep catching and killing them?” Farmington asked.
Maeve narrowed her eyes. “Violence doesn’t make a species intelligent. It just makes them cruel.”
“You seem to be defending these creatures, Dr. Leander,” Hemmingway said. “They did kill a lot of people, or have you forgotten that?”
Maeve stared right into his eyes. “I was there, Senator. I have forgotten nothing. But you asked for my expert opinion. In that situation, each of the species was under attack.”
“Attack? They—”
“From their perspective, trying to put them back in containment was an attack. They responded defensively.”
“So what, none of them are dangerous?” Stafford asked, her voice laced with disbelief.
“No. But not all of them are dangerous. You need to investigate each one, determine who is dangerous and who is not. Making assumptions will only get people killed.”
“You mean creatures,” Farmington said patronizingly.
Maeve narrowed her eyes. “No, I mean people. You think we know the capabilities of these creatures, but we do not. They were released from containment. Some were still under the effect of drugs, meaning some abilities would have been muted. Some may react unexpectedly to our environment or the food supply. We do not know everything about them. And if we walk in with the arrogance that we know how they’ll respond, all we will do is get people killed. A careful approach is the only way to recapture them.”
“Are you sure your personal feelings for these creatures are not coloring your judgment?” Farmington asked.
Maeve’s mouth fell open as she pictured the President. You bastard. The knowledge of Alvie and the triplets’ existence was carefully controlled. The President had assured her that no one would know about them beyond those that needed to know, for their protection. But as she looked around the table, she realized everyone in this room knew about them.
“My personal experience is not affecting my professional evaluation. In fact, my familiarity with this project enhances that evaluation.”
“Hm, so you say,” Hemmingway replied. “Well, thank you for your time, Dr. Leander.”
Maeve heard the dismissal and once again felt her anger rise. She stood up and walked out of the room. It took everything in her not to slam the door behind her.
She was only a few steps from the door when it opened behind her. She glanced over her shoulder as Norah stepped out. “Dr. Leander, could you hold up a minute?”
Maeve paused, waiting for the agent to catch up.
Norah gave her a small smile. “Thank you. I just wanted to ask if you really think some of these creatures might not be dangerous.”
Maeve didn’t think the agent was trying to trip her up. She really seemed to want to know. Maeve felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. “I think that like humans, they were created with both good and evil tendencies. Some may indeed have more aggressive and instinctual drives. But the law of averages also suggested that there are some who have the opposite. I am not saying anyone should approach one with the belief they will not cause harm. But we should be open to the possibility that some of them may not mean to harm us.”
“Why wouldn’t they, though? From what you’ve said, we treated them horribly.”
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Maeve nodded. “Yeah, we did. But maybe some of them are better ‘people’ than we are.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DULCE, NEW MEXICO
“Sanders, good to hear from you.” Martin sat back in his chair. He’d been expecting this call ever since he’d learned of the new agency created by the President. It had taken a little longer than Martin would have liked to receive the call from the head of the new agency, but Martin had known it would come. He had received a preliminary call from Alec Granger earlier in the day asking about his knowledge on the subject of the creatures from Area 51. Martin had talked circles around the man, making sure he understood just how much Martin knew about the subject and just how little they knew. He’d laid the groundwork for them to understand just how much they needed him.
And just how much it was going to cost them.
“Mr. Drummond, thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I know you’re a busy man.”
“Well, when the President asks for your help, you help.” The President had indeed reached out to Martin. Martin may have left government, but his reputation for accomplishing tasks remained, even if some viewed his methods as too enthusiastic. And as the President’s aides had made clear, no one knew this particular threat more than him.
“As Mr. Granger relayed to you, we would contract you to run down some of the creatures from 51... You will be paid per specimen retrieved.”
Even though the man was trying to sound calm, Martin could hear the stress and tension underlying his words. Sanders was in over his head with this new agency. And he needed help desperately.
“Due to the nature of your last position with the government, your help cannot be publicly acknowledged. You understand.”
“Of course,” Martin said smoothly.
“But you will be well rewarded.”
“Money’s not really the issue. Of course, you will reimburse me for all expenses plus twenty percent, but that’s just money. I want something much more valuable than that.”
