CHAPTER 8
MAVRA DUCKED BEHIND A TREE the moment the alien surprised Neil. She tried to breathe as shallowly as possible so that she didn’t disturb them. They remained opposite one another, as though each evaluated the situation for an equal amount of time. Sgt. James stood almost directly across from Mavra. He remained quiet. Good, she thought.
She heard Neil say something, but couldn’t make out his exact words. His calm tone struck her as childlike, and she wondered what the alien thought about it. He spoke again but didn’t move.
The alien blurbled out a few syllables and cocked its head. One expression faced Neil, while the other one, possibly the same expression, glanced out into the forest at nothing. Mavra watched the forest-facing expression for signs of change. So far, it looked curious, and nothing more.
She turned her head up and noticed that the other alien remained hard at work, using some of the wire to strap the antenna to the tree, then angle the device toward the sky. She wondered how it could know where to point the thing. Did it already understand location based on the direction of the sun? There were no stars out yet. Could it be that a homing device had been implanted inside the alien? Or was their biology similar to homing pigeons, those long extinct birds? When her attention came back to Neil and the other alien, the facial expression peering into the open forest had not changed.
Neil’s shoulders relaxed as he mumbled a few more words. He reached out with one hand, but the alien stepped backward. Then it did something neither Mavra nor Neil expected. It crouched down and leaped toward Neil, placing both four-toed feet onto his chest while grabbing at his jacket.
Mavra rushed from behind the tree. Sgt. James jumped into action and rushed Neil and the alien.
Neil pushed at the alien with both his hands, but Mavra knew he was trying not to hurt the thing. In an instant, the alien pushed off Neil and landed on its legs several feet away. It chattered and burbled a few sentences, stuffed something into its mouth, and ran toward the tree where the other alien worked.
Mavra glanced up. The antenna had been disconnected. Wires dangled from the device. The other alien threw the backpack over its shoulder and gripped the antenna in one hand, then ran to the end of the branch it stood on and leaped through the air to the next tree. “Oh, no,” Mavra said. She glanced back toward Neil and saw the other monkey leap over some brush and head toward its partner. It held something in its mouth, but she couldn’t tell what it was. She ran to Neil. “Are you all right?”
James stood motionless between Mavra and the escaping aliens as though he didn’t know what to do.
“Follow them,” Mavra yelled as she reached for Neil.
James took off.
Neil patted his body, then stared at Mavra, wide-eyed.
“Your gun?”
“My phone.” He shook his head as though he’d done something to be ashamed of.
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll get it back.”
“Hopefully before they use it.”
Before she could turn and rush after James, the ruckus of a dozen men plowing through the woods assaulted her ears. “Now what?”
Men and women dressed in fatigues halted around Neil and Mavra, then opened to reveal that General Harkins was with them. He bent over and breathed hard, then spit to the side. When he straightened up, he gave Mavra a stern look, one she’d expect from her father when she was a little girl and had done or said something inappropriate.
“Don’t even give me that look,” she said. “You can boss these guys around, but I don’t work for you.”
“Young lady, when you sign up for the job, you work for the government. And I’m in charge.”
Neil stepped between them. “Then do your job. Make up your mind: do you have time to reprimand us, or do you need to get your ass in gear to follow those aliens? ‘Cause they’re getting away.”
“What were you thinking, anyway?”
“We need to know what they’re mission is, why they’re here, and you can’t find that out if you put them in a cage,” Mavra said. “Observation works best in their natural habitat.”
Harkins’ eyes scrunched together. “This is not their natural habitat.”
“We don’t know that,” Mavra said. “They could be from this planet and we’re the aliens.”
“Now you sound like some goddamned television show.” He swung around, “Get after those things. We’ll be along soon.”
The soldiers took off through the woods.
“Don’t shoot them,” Mavra yelled after the soldiers. She turned to look at the sky. “We got less than five minutes of sun left.”
“They have NVDs with them,” Neil said.
Mavra shot him one of her what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about? looks.
“Night vision devices,” he said.
“I didn’t notice.” Mavra stared Harkins down. “When you call in experts, you have to trust them.”
“You were dismissed once,” he said.
“And called back,” she said.
Harkins didn’t appear to let up either. “Then what’s your best guess?”
“Not sure yet. You’ve got to let us go after them. All we know is that they stole Neil’s cell phone—on purpose.”
Harkins broke the stare-down when he lowered his head and swore. “Let’s not have another ET on our hands? Nobody wants those things to fucking phone home.” He stomped past Mavra. “Come on.”
Mavra reached for Neil’s hand ad they followed Harkins. He wore an earpiece and appeared to be in touch with his men at all times. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll be along soon enough.” He glanced over his shoulder to look at Mavra. “Don’t harm them in any way. Just secure a periphery. Set up camp.”
Night fell hard in the woods, but a bright, starry sky allowed them to see well enough to move slowly through the brush and trees. It seemed rather sudden to Mavra that they came upon the soldiers. She’d expected more noise, more warning, but everyone appeared to be hunkered down and busy.
Harkins bent over into a crouch and wandered along the row of soldiers toward a Second Lieutenant. “Carson?”
“Sir?”
“What do we have?”
Mavra let go of Neil’s hand and stepped in close to the men. Several of the soldiers had hefty-looking binoculars, which she figured to be the NVDs. Carson didn’t say anything, but looked at Mavra inquisitively.
Harkins pursed his lips and took a breath, then shifted his attention back to Lieutenant Carson. “She’s been called in to help.”
“She’s the psychic, right?” Carson said, a tone of disbelief in his words. “I thought she was let go.”
“We called her back when they broke loose,” Harkins said as though he didn’t like being questioned. “So,” He motioned to the equipment, “get on with it.”
“We’re setting up a monitor feed that can be remotely switched from the NVDs. The aliens are surrounded. We should be online in a few minutes.”
“Filmless and gated technology,” Neil said, not as a question but as an explanation that Mavra hadn’t asked for.
Lieutenant Carson peered over her shoulder and smiled warmly at Neil. “We don’t use any of the older equipment,” he said proudly. “Used them before?”
“COMSPEC units. I have one at home.”
“You do?” Mavra said.
“Of course,” Neil said.
“Oh, you’re going to love the clarity on these guys,” Carson said. “Come on over and I’ll show you.”
Mavra scooted over so Neil could get in beside her.
“I had an old Generation 1 device when I was a kid,” Neil said.
“Never used one,” Carson said, “but I heard the images are pretty rough.
“Not just that. After replacing a couple tubes, I gave it up. It shut down on cloudy nights anyway, so it wasn’t much good most of the time out here. The Gen 3 worked much better.”
“Could we get on with this?” Mavra said.
Carson looked insulted.
“As soon as we’re hooked up.”
“Good to go, sir,” a young man said.
Carson flicked on the monitor and in a moment a view of the aliens came on. He reached up and turned a knob, each click providing a different angle on the aliens, except for one of them that appeared to be shooting toward the sky. He turned to Mavra and Neil, “Always one of the troops looking around instead of paying attention to the surveillance target.” He laughed.
“They’re not doing much,” Harkins said.
“Hunkered down for the night, perhaps,” Carson said. “They’ve had a hard day.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Neil said. “They have fairly large eyes, which I’d say means that they can see better in the dark than we can. Who knows, they may have a wider visual range than we do, too. Maybe down to three-micron wavelengths.”
“They are staring at us,” Harkins said.
“Hard to tell,” Mavra said, “with their two faces.” She put her arm around Neil’s shoulder. “You can tell, can’t you, honey?”
“It’s not easy. They can turn their heads almost completely around. The way they’re hugging, I couldn’t say for sure.”
“They seem pretty quiet for the night,” Carson said.
“Not now,” Mavra pointed to the screen. The aliens had separated and appeared to be rummaging through their goods. They had also unraveled the braided wire backpack. “They’re amazingly smart,” Mavra said.
“So, what are they doing?” Harkins reached up and turned the knob as though looking for a better angle to see what the aliens were up to. “You know, all they have to do is send out a minor pulse of some kind, if it’s the right frequency it could be detected as a signal. Do we really want to give them the chance to do that?”
Mavra didn’t feel as though his question was aimed at any one of them in particular, but the weight of it struck her unusually hard… much more than she thought it might. She squeezed Neil’s shoulder. What did he think? How would he respond to the question? She noticed her own concern, her own fear, rising inside her. She needed Neil to explain something scientifically, anything. He was the practical one. Could Harkins be correct? Could one small signal change the future of Earth and mankind?
“I can’t tell what some of that equipment is,” Neil said. “But that little bugger stole my cell phone. Couldn’t he run a signal through the phone and push it through several towers?” Before anyone could answer, he said, “Can we jam the signal?”
Carson smiled. “I like this guy. Yeah, we have jammers, too. They won’t be able to get a signal out of the area.”
“Makes me feel better,” Harkins said.
Mavra relaxed and gave Neil a quick squeeze.
“Don’t get comfortable,” he said. “We have to match their signal, and we don’t know what other equipment they have there. We’ve got to assume that they’ve got more knowledge about this stuff than we think.”
Mavra shifted her weight to get comfortable kneeling before the screen. “What worries me is how much more intelligent they might get. Honey, can we port your recording to someone for analysis?”
“Can do, Sweetie. But I’ll need my phone to do it.”
“Synced to your computer. I get it.”
“And now they have it,” he said, not meaning to leave the statement sounding so threatening.
Lieutenant Carson used an outstretched arm to get them to move back from the screen. “I have a communications expert with me.” He touched his earpiece, even though he probably didn’t have to. “Sgt. Fisher? We need you here.” He looked up at the screen. “He’s coming.”
In a moment, a spindly sergeant wearing an unstrapped helmet and carrying a machine gun strolled into the circle of people huddled around the video screen. “Sir?”
“Fisher. Good. Can you tell me what type of equipment these aliens have with them?” Carson pointed at the screen, then reached over and twisted the knob a few times to show several angles.
Sgt. Fisher sat cross-legged on the ground and leaned in. He flicked the switch from screen to screen. Then he reached for another switch and the image zoomed in. “Not sure,” he said.
“We need to know,” Carson said.
“They have my cell phone,” Neil said.
“Oh, then my guess would be an amp of some kind. That thing,” he poked at the screen with a finger, “looks like a car radio.”
“Could they sync the signals somehow and get a pulse of some kind out?” Neil asked.
Fisher turned to look at him, but his eyes weren’t focused on Neil. “Hmm…yeah, maybe. I mean, the cell phone can anyway.” He turned toward Carson. “Sir, I don’t think we want to let them do anything like that. I’m not positive what they can do without a greater power source, but do we really want to find out? I mean, we’ve never run into anything like this before and they appear to know what they’re doing. All I can do is guess from where I’m sitting.”
Harkins broke his silence. “We go in after them. Then there’s no worry over what they can and can’t do.” He shuffled over to Neil. “And you can get your cell phone back, reconnect your relationship to your computer, and we’re all good again.”
Lt. Carson didn’t look as though he even questioned the order. He quickly took it on. Touching his earpiece, he said, “Nets.” He dismissed Fisher and flicked through the screens again. “Gottcha,” he said. Back to Harkins, he said, “We got enough nets to go in and collect these guys. I’ll have someone take the equipment from them the second we have them in custody. Maybe Fisher can get us more intel.”
“Proceed,” Harkins said.
Mavra didn’t make a sound or a move to stop them. There was no stopping them, and she knew it. “Is this the best thing,” she asked Neil in a quiet voice.
He stood up and walked away from the activity. She followed him. “Well?”
“It’s what’s happening. We’ll have to come up with another move.” He looked concerned. “At least I’ll get my phone back. Maybe we can find out what they’re saying to one another.”
“What if Harkins dismisses us again?”
“Got your phone?” He held his hand out. “I’ll make a few calls.”
“That may keep you involved, but—”
“You’re my partner,” he said with a sly smile.
She handed him the phone and he punched in ten numbers.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Harkins yelled from the control area.
Neil swung around. “Sounds like I don’t have to make any calls just yet.” He ended his call before it went through. “Come on.”
“What happened?” Mavra said.
“Climbed a tree and got away,” Carson said. “They are some fast little fucks.” He shot Mavra a look. “Sorry about the language, ma’am.”
She didn’t even acknowledge his apology. “Did they take any of the equipment?”
Carson smiled and shook his head. “Nope. One of the guys knocked the half-opened equipment from their hands using a pole. Even got your cell phone back,” he said to Neil.
“Not good enough,” Harkins said. “They’re still on the loose, and they’ll just find more equipment and do this again. We’ve got to find them and secure them. Now!” His angry face shot from one man to the next until it landed on Mavra. “You. This is your expertise. You find them.”
“They’re not lost.”
“And they’re not dead,” Neil said. “They’re moving targets.”
Harkins approached Mavra slowly, stepping well into her private space. “You are our only hope at the moment. If they stop long enough to rest, they’ll be in one place for a while. They looked tired to me. They can’t go on forever. That’s when you find them.”
Mavra didn’t like being ordered, and Harkins’ proximity made the order more important and more personal. Had it not been this particular situation, she would have walked away and not looked back. But this was serious; it was different. It involved aliens, for Christ’s sake. “I’ll need quiet. I can’t have all these people rushin
g around. Their scattered energies will foul up my reception.”
Harkins gave a little laugh. “Reception?”
Mavra leaned into him almost close enough for them to kiss, pushing the boundary that he had already crossed. “Call it what you like. I need quiet. So get these men and women the fuck out of here.” She shot a look at Carson. “I’m not sorry,” she said in reference to her language.
“I need men who can use the nets, and I need sharpshooters in case the nets don’t work. Got that, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it.”
“Keep your men away from me,” Mavra said.
“I will, but only until you don’t seem to have a clue, then we’ll find them ourselves.” Harkins put his hands on his hips and did an about face. “Clear this area. I want three divisions launched from this location. Don’t chase them away. Wait until I have an idea where they are and then move out cautiously. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Carson said.
A young soldier rushed up to Carson and handed him Neil’s phone, which Carson passed off automatically to Neil.
“Thank you. I can use this,” Neil said.
Mavra let them play their military game while she and Neil walked out of camp and into the woods. “It’s dark,” she said, holding to his arm. “I just need some peace. I have to relax.”
“Do you need cards?” he said.
“Not yet.”
“I noticed you didn’t tell anyone about the fact that they mated out here.”
“I think we can wait to tell anyone about that,” she said. “They’re not insects, so they won’t be giving birth in a few hours.”
***
“Will that tool help?” Kek-ta asked.
Backyard Aliens Page 8
