The Dark Above

by Jeremy Finley

  Mexico. My God.

  William’s file was picked over, obviously missing other documentation. “I don’t want some of it,” she’d demanded. “I want it all. On all of them.”

  As she’d awaited what was promised to be the entirety of the SSA’s files into her mother and William, she’d been emailed several documents on a boy named Ryan Hardwood. On the flight back from Memphis, she’d read them in their entirety. Upon landing, she summoned her driver and dialed the number for director Mark Wolve.

  “Where is this boy?” she’d said before he could even say hello.

  The SSA director was somewhere down south, leading the search for her nephew and the girl. But he’d said he’d have someone escort her when she arrived.

  She began to tap her foot, wondering if it sent waves of irritation through the agents. I hope it does. Because I shouldn’t be here. I should be on my way to my mother and Roxy, trying not to trip on the tail between my legs. I should be with Director Wolve, scouring every bit of information trickling in that might lead us to William. I should be with my sister’s family in Nashville, trying to convince them that I am doing everything I can to find William. I should be in my office doing the job Tennesseans voted me in to do.

  She was literally going deeper down the rabbit hole that she’d denied existed all her adult life; the reason why she kept her distance from her mother and her entire family. At her father’s funeral, she could sense her mother wanted make amends. Instead, she’d left the church and taken the next flight home to Washington, repeating to herself that it made no sense to return to the past she wanted desperately to avoid.

  Her mother would never speak of what happened in Argentum, repeatedly stating it was for her family’s safety. All Kate had to go on was the government investigators’ report, which concluded that those damn Researchers had William all along, using her mother’s fears to exploit their beliefs. They just used her, and it cost her father his political future.

  Her kind, sweet mother, duped into something that ruined their family. Kate loved her mother, but could never forgive her for that.

  And because of it, because of that denial, the painful rift between her and her family, she was now one of the most powerful women in Congress. Kate’s responses—now so familiar that they were practically a campaign slogan—to questions about her mother’s belief in extraterrestrial life, became her catch phrase. I’m not here for the sideshow.

  Her conservative constituents had eaten it up. She’d barely won the election, refusing to ask her father to campaign for her. She’d restored the family’s good name. The townhouse in Georgetown, the most influential committees, the praise on feminist blogs and accolades from women’s groups.

  All built on a lie.

  The doors to the elevator finally opened, and she began to step out, when one of the agents stopped her. The panel began to flash a vibrant red, and he swiped his security badge. The light turned green. “Sets off an alarm in the hallway if you don’t,” he said.

  He motioned down a dimly lit corridor.

  “Are y’all opposed to light?” she asked.

  The agents gave no response. She assumed the slip of her accent must have also grated on their nerves. One of her favorite techniques was to come off folksy, and when her opponents thought it equaled a lesser intelligence, she could slide on in with a “bless your heart,” and then promptly dismantle them with fifteen years of debate and forensic training and a Stanford undergrad education.

  Seeing Agent Flynn Hallow standing at the end of the hall, she readied all her sparring skills.

  “A child is down here?” she demanded.

  “A necessary evil, so to speak, Senator.”

  “That’s not acceptable. If you have anything else down here, including a damn spaceship, you need to tell me.”

  “We keep all those in New Mexico.”

  “While I’m not in a joking mood, I see that you do a have a sense of humor.”

  “Do I?” Flynn said.

  Stand back, she wanted to warn her escorts. “Let’s you and I have a talk.”

  Flynn nodded for the agents to step away from the door where he had been waiting. Kate went to stand directly before him.

  “I’ve read the SSA files on my mother. I know much of it is missing, as are portions of my nephew’s file. I know you’re keeping a lot from me. But realize that I’ve been reading legislation all my adult life, so I know to look in the footnotes. And in a small subsection, your name is briefly mentioned as being at the substation in Argentum where my mother and her friend Roxy were held all those years ago.”

  She then cocked her head. “Of the very few things my mother ever told me about that town, she described a man who looked a lot like you, smelled of cigarettes, who ultimately ordered her assassination, which she and her friend were barely able to avoid. That means you tried to have the wife of a then-sitting US senator killed. I wonder what the head of the FBI would think about that.”

  Flynn didn’t flinch. “What makes you think he doesn’t know?”

  He did wince, though, when she leaned in closer. “The only reason I don’t have your ass thrown in a federal prison is that for the moment, I need to know what you’re hiding from me. I am tired of being lied to. I have the ears of the most powerful people in this country. And they will all know what you’ve done. Every single action taken by this agency. If there is indeed a child down here, I am taking him. I will get my mother and bring them both safely to my home—”

  “After you meet the boy behind this door, I think you’ll change your mind about that.”

  “Don’t you dare to suggest what I will and won’t do. I want the entire file on my family. And the fact that all this time, you had one of the abducted here—a child, no less—underground, and neglected to mention it … that was a huge mistake on you and your director’s part.”

  “He isn’t my director. My director left eight months ago, after dedicating his entire life to this work, only to be suddenly replaced by someone unfamiliar—”

  “I’m not interested in your office politics.”

  “You should be. Director Wolve is not who you think—”

  “I don’t care who the hell he is, as long as I am provided what I need. Do we understand each other?”

  “I understand that for longer than you’ve been alive, we’ve been trying to protect the population of this planet from a threat that no one could fathom. So if you’re insulted that you don’t know everything yet—that’s your problem. I have no interest in coddling you. People are dying, Senator.”

  He pulled out his phone, holding up the array of news alerts covering his screen. “It’s increasing by the hour. Hurricanes forming off the coast of Brazil and across the Atlantic, just off Sierra Leone. Miles and miles of grassfires in Lesotho in Southern Africa. In Nadym—Northern Russia—a fourth of the population is sick and dying. On the borders of every major population. And many more will keep dying until the SSA worldwide can contain every single one of the abducted, and they are nearly impossible to find. So when the one behind this door was discovered, we had—and have—no intention of letting him go.”

  Kate held her position. “I think you’re aware that if it weren’t for my involvement, which is why you came to me in the first place, that you wouldn’t have the swell of funding you’re now receiving, nor the increased military moving in on New Orleans, California, and North Dakota. So when I say I need to know everything, what I mean to say is the president needs to know. Are we clear now?”

  “You know the risk you take even going in there?”

  “I do.”

  “I’m not sure of that.” He put his hands on his hips. “He can convince you to strangle your own throat. It’s why we don’t dare to keep anyone down here longer than it takes to bring him meals.”

  “I’ve read his file.”

  “But, as you’ve deduced, the files you’ve received don’t contain all the mountains of information we’ve collected. You’ve just
read the summary.”

  “In two hours, I have to give a full report in the Oval Office. Thus, I need to talk to him. So I can explain to the president why he needs to be worried about the lightning that hit the earth last year and left behind that boy.”

  “For Christ sake, don’t use that terminology,” Flynn scowled. “It’s outdated. See, that’s the problem, why I should have been in charge of all the reports—”

  “If it wasn’t lightning, what was it? And please make it concise, I am running out of time.”

  “It’s some kind of transportation. Our satellites picked up distinct lights coming from storms a year ago. They must have some kind of technology that masks their ships, but the light they use to abduct and transport is visible to us. It’s always been referred to as lightning because it happens so fast. But we were waiting. We’ve been waiting for fifteen years. The first round of light was followed by another about a day later, also during a storm. Once again, four reports of this light at the same time, on the corners of every major population. We knew they’d first been abducted, then returned.”

  “And you got to this boy—Ryan—because he was returned close to DC?”

  “Rural Maryland, actually. Just so happens there’s a government-owned property with a lot of security cameras that recorded the flashes. When the second light came, we were ready and sent out teams into the woods. It didn’t take them long to find the boy, just standing outside in the wet trees.”

  Kate looked to the door behind him.

  “We expected him to be crying, hysterical. Instead, he asked for a Coke, wondered if anyone had Candy Crush on their phone. Turns out, as we’d theorized, he’d been missing for a day or so. Lousy grandmother with sole custody had sent him to live with her cousin for the summer, who we suspect runs a meth trade and hadn’t reported him missing. Real nice family. When we delivered on the Coke, we asked him if he remembered where he’d been. His response: ‘Yeah. With the aliens.’ Since then, he’s been quite cooperative. Even allowing us to do thorough … inspections. We’ve tried to find out what’s been implanted inside him. But no scans, no X-rays, have found anything.”

  Kate nodded once. “I’m going in.”

  “It’s just you, Senator. You understand that. It’s why we have to move him down here. Because of what happens when he gets in those trances. We never know when he’s going to unleash. We have no choice but to limit visitors. And always only one person at a time, never for more than a minute.”

  “Because he can cause people to kill each other. I know that. You can risk one life but not two. I understand.”

  This time it was Flynn who leaned in. “He is a thirteen-year-old responsible for the death of more than seven hundred people in the metro area before we took him underground. I ask you again: are you sure—”

  “Open the door.”

  Flynn reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a badge, swiping it.

  A light flashed beside the door, which responded with a loud release of internal locks.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  Kate opened the door, struggling at first with its weight. As she closed it behind her, she heard the jarring sound of the locks sealing her in.

  The cavernous room reminded her immediately of the arcades from her youth, complete with the sounds of video games. Everything a teenage boy could ever ask for was crammed into the space. Two large-screen TVs were mounted on the wall, one displaying a violent game with people firing guns from tricked-out cars, the other showing The Godfather. Alongside a king-sized bed was a hot tub, against which two guitars leaned. Mounds of books lay everywhere, along with scattered magazines. Posters of naked women hung in glass frames.

  And like a throne in the midst of the debauchery stood a dark blue La-Z-Boy recliner, in which sat a boy with an Xbox controller in his hands.

  The smiled he flashed as she approached confirmed he was no child; she’d seen the same grin on the faces of senators and congressmen who would rather have her in their bed than on their committees. A smattering of pimples lined a face that one day might be considered enticing to women who liked reckless men. Gangly legs, hair in desperate need of a cut.

  He opened to mouth to speak, but Kate beat him to the punch. “Ryan, I am Senator Kate Roseworth—”

  “I know who you are.” He rapidly punched the controller, hissing a “yes!” under his breath as the screen exploded in a torrent of blood and bullets.

  “I’d like to talk—”

  “You took your dad’s senate seat when he retired,” he said, almost slamming the controller with his left thumb. “You’re William Roseworth’s aunt, but you don’t talk to your family because your mom believes in aliens.”

  He paused the game and chuckled. “How are you feelin’ about that now?”

  She’d been warned not to underestimate him. Brilliant, off-the-charts smart. Photographic memory. Spent entire days reading, and remembered every sentence.

  “Ryan, you shouldn’t be down here. I’m going to change that—”

  “No, I really should be down here. No one with my teenage angst should be able to make people kill one another. It’s why they sent you down here instead of Mr. Burns, and without a military escort. Because they know I could flick my middle finger and they’d unload their AK-47s on each other. They think sending a beautiful woman might make me stop. I wish I could. Don’t they know all boys my age can do well is drool and mumble?”

  Kate almost appreciated his bluntness, given that she knew his assessment of her was shared by many of the men who surrounded her in Washington. Instead of responding, she calmly walked over to a stool on which was a plate with a stack of pizza slices. She moved the plate to the floor.

  She knew not to stand above him because that would make it seem like she was lecturing him. And she certainly was not going to kneel. So she scooted the stool directly before him and sat, uncomfortably close and at his eye level.

  You are not my first Napoleon. Boys don’t change, they only grow chest hair.

  He leaned back further into his La-Z-Boy.

  “I need to know what’s about to happen. If you help me understand, I can try to get you out of here.”

  “You assume I want to get out of here. Well, there is one place I’d like to see.”

  “Talk to me and we’ll see what I can do. I won’t leave you down here, Ryan. I know you don’t know me, but I want to earn your trust. I am told you remember everything about your abduction. Adults don’t remember, but children do, am I understanding this correctly?”

  “All I know is what I know. You’re not full of crap? You could get me out of here, even for the weekend?”

  “I will do my very best—”

  “I want to go to Comic-Con. It’s in two weeks.”

  “That might be difficult. Given what you’re capable of doing, a lot of people could get hurt.”

  “Private tour, then. Before it starts. I get to see all the movie trailers and clips and everything before anyone else. Guarantee it, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  She pulled out her phone. Even this deep beneath the earth, they’d made sure there was Wi-Fi and cell service, just to keep him happy. He was blocked from posting anything on social media or contacting anyone, but he insisted on having the access to texts in order to send demands for McDonald’s and to play Minecraft.

  She fired off a series of texts and waited.

  “Done,” she said, after her phone pinged twice.

  “Really? Can you show me?”

  She gave him the phone. “That is Alex Bright, the junior senator from California. Deep support from Hollywood. You can see I asked for a private tour of Comic-Con for a donor’s son, with full access. And, as you can read, she said no problem. Do we have a deal?”

  He read it twice and nodded. “Gotta catch the last one. Can’t miss it.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest grosses of the Avengers movies, but I think Comic-Con’s going to be around for a while.�
�

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He looked down at the controller in his hands, obviously wanting to return to his game.

  “Why, Ryan?”

  He looked up at her, the smirking grin now gone. In those deep brown eyes was real fear. “You don’t have any idea what’s coming.”

  “That’s why I’m here. To find out. I’ve seen interviews conducted with people who were abducted a long time ago. But you’re the only one who still remembers. I have a million questions for you about how you were taken and what happened to you, but I have to focus on how to understand, maybe even stop, what’s happening.”

  He grunted. “You can’t.”

  “I know you told the agents that you communicated with … whatever those things are. I understand this communication was done before, by sharing memories. But I’ve watched your interviews, you said you didn’t share memories, you actually understood them.”

  “Yep. Me and Earl. We shared brains.”

  “Earl?”

  “That’s what I call him. My alien, Earl. Earl’s not the nicest of fellas. Earl doesn’t think much of our race. Earl did some bad stuff to get into my brain. Earl is a real bastard. But when Earl connected to me, I connected to him.”

  “You’ve allowed the sketch artist to draw what happened to you. I’m sorry, Ryan. It sounds awful.”

  “Earl is proof that karma is real for the people of our planet,” he continued quickly, obviously wanting to move on. “What we’ve been doing to monkeys and rats and mice for years is coming back on us.”

  “You mean testing.”

  “They think we’re lower than animals. Nah, insects. If we could test weapons on insects—roaches, ants—that’s what we are to them. Just a place for them to test out ways to kill. So they can use it on other worlds. Turns out there is a whole lot out there that they want to conquer.”

  Kate held her breath. She should have recorded this for the president to hear himself.

  “How is it that you remember? And adults don’t?”

  “Oh, they don’t think we’ll remember. They put our little brains through quite the process to forget what they do to us up there. They think they’re gods compared to us. But that’s the one thing they haven’t quite perfected yet. Kids still remember.”