"I'm not worried about hitting the ground, I'm worried about the fall itself. That's a lot of time to think about everything," Titus said.
Kate's mouth quirked into a small smile. You and I, she thought, don't need a fall from the sky in order to think about things too much.
She looked over the latest incarnation of Titus's outfit. He's finally outgrown the hooded sweatshirt he had relied on for so long, though the new look—an army green jacket with a soft, oversized hood, a baggy tank top beneath it revealing his too-thin collarbone and chest, loose-fitting cargo pants that would stretch to fit over his werewolf form if he needed to transform—still didn't look particularly heroic.
"You look like a hobo," Kate said.
"You look like a ninja," Titus said. "Are you sure you should take your eyes off the sky?"
"What am I going to crash into?" Kate said, knowing full well it would upset him.
It was hard to miss the Research Institute for Extra-Terrestrial Information from the sky. The headquarters itself was relatively non-descript, a small brick and glass building the likes of which you see at every office park in the country. But the field of satellite dishes behind the building, including one wider in diameter than the building itself, was a site to be seen. Kate thought they looked like a field of the angriest flowers in the world.
She landed the aircraft, which could set down vertically like a helicopter, in a pair of empty parking spaces in the RIETI lot. Titus sighed heavily when the landing gear connected with the pavement.
"I don't understand you," Kate said. "We've already traveled through time. This, on the other hand, is just flying."
"You're lecturing me about neuroses?" Titus said.
Kate shot him the dirtiest look she'd ever given him.
Titus blanched. "Sorry. I'm snippy. It's the anxiety. Sorry."
She popped the cockpit and stepped outside. Titus followed, trying to catch up.
They entered the lobby and the receptionist, a strangely photogenic young man wearing a checkered shirt, knit tie and dark glasses, looked up.
"Are you kidding me?" he said.
"We're here to see Lester Rice-Bell," Kate said.
"We have an appointment," Titus said. Kate glanced at him. Titus shrugged. "We do."
The receptionist checked a calendar on his desk and shook his head in surprise.
"I… you do. Okay," he said. "Take the elevator to the third floor. I'll let him know you're on the way up."
Titus and Kate stepped on the elevator, the same way normal people who are not dressed for superhero combat do. Titus hit the button for the third floor. They looked at each other again.
"When did normal stuff get weirder than weird stuff?" Titus asked.
"About two years ago," Kate said. The elevator dinged and they stepped off to find Lester Rice-Bell, president of RIETI, waiting for them at the door.
"I have to admit, I never thought I'd have two superheroes show up at my door," the man said. He had a round, friendly face, a body that wasn't so much overweight as soft from inactivity, fair hair cut expensively to hide its thinness on the top of his scalp. He shook Kate's hand first, then Titus's.
Rice-Bell led them into a pleasantly furnished but inexpensive office. Everything about it said well-used and well-loved. Kate soaked in the details. The furniture looked second-hand, or brought from home. The books on the shelves were not just decorative, but read, multiple times. A bookshelf along one wall had framed pictures of what appeared to be historical members of the RIETI staff.
Rice-Bell caught her looking at the photos.
"Some of my predecessors," he said. "We're sentimental. The world's become so strange since they founded RIETI back in the 1950's. I sometimes envy their innocence."
He invited them to sit down. Titus accepted, but Kate continued to wander the office, reading the spines on books and picking up photos to examine them in closer detail.
"Thanks for meeting with us," Titus said. "We're looking into, um, unusual signals being sent into space."
Rice-Bell raised an eyebrow.
"You can't just say something like that to someone who has spent his entire career trying to talk with aliens and then not give me a little bit of detail," he said.
Titus fidgeted a bit in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs as if trying to figure out how an adult sits.
"Later? After we've had a chance to follow up on all our leads," Titus said. "This may seem like a strange question but… well we know you've been sending out… friendly messages to space for a long time."
"Since right after World War II, yes," Rice-Bell said. "I know. We sound like quacks. But our philosophy is: it's a really self-centered belief to think we're the only ones out there isn't it? There has to be someone else out there, staring up at the sky, wondering if they're alone in the universe."
"So you send out radio signals," Titus said.
"Radio's the wrong term, but yes," Rice-Bell said. "We send out information about ourselves. Our biology. What we breathe. How we think. We send music. Literature. Images. We like to send classical paintings."
"Why bother?" Kate said from across the room. "All these years. Why keep doing it?"
"Because maybe in my lifetime we'll make contact," he said.
"And what if you don't like who answers back?" Kate said.
Rice-Bell's face darkened.
"Why do you say that," he said. "Is there something…"
"I'm just speaking hypothetically," Kate said. "What's the point in sending out all this information if at best they may ignore it, or at worse they may use it against us?"
Titus ran a hand nervously through his hair. "Mr. Rice-Bell," he said.
"Please. Just Lester."
"Lester, has anything strange been happening here lately?" Titus said.
"You're in a building dedicated to finding extra-terrestrial life, son," Rice-Bell said. "Everything we do is strange."
Titus shrugged, silently agreeing.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, though? No misuse of your equipment, unexpected test results?" Titus said.
Rice-Bell laughed.
"Believe me, if something weird happened, we'd not only know it, we'd be celebrating. We spend our lives looking up waiting for someone to say hello. If we heard something, we'd be ecstatic."
"What about unauthorized access of your equipment, though?" Titus said.
Kate crossed the room to look out the window, where the field of satellite dishes were plainly visible, like the strangest crop ever grown.
"That equipment is the reason we exist," Rice-Bell said, suddenly very serious. "No one touches it, fixes it, adjusts it, or looks at it too long without us knowing about it. We can't afford to make a mistake, and we don't have the operating budget to repair it if someone were to tamper with it."
"I assume you've got it under guard at night," Kate said.
"And day," Rice-Bell said. He stood up and joined Kate at the window, pointing out the fencing and cameras along the perimeter. "You might imagine, we're a temptation for pranksters. I'm almost ashamed to tell you how much of our budget goes into security, but people want to see us fail. They think we're just crazy old loonies out in the hills playing science fiction."
"Sorry to hear that, sir," Titus said.
Rice-Bell turned to smile at both of them.
"But we carry on. There are worse jobs than safeguarding a field of postcards from Planet Earth, right?" he said. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Titus pulled a plastic card from the pocket of his oversized pants and placed it on the desk.
"If you ever feel like something is amiss—or if you feel threatened in any way—the number on that card will connect you with our team," Titus said.
Rice-Bell laughed again and tucked the card into the top drawer of his desk.
"I appreciate the sentiment," he said. "But I'm still optimistic our first encounter will be a great meeting of the minds, not War of the Worlds."
Titu
s let out a near-approximation of a laugh, playing along. They shook hands again and let Rice-Bell guide them back to the elevator. Once outside, Titus and Kate shared a look.
"He was lying about everything," Kate said.
"Absolutely," Titus said. "Spinning so many lies his lies were lying."
"We're coming back tonight," Kate said.
"I figured," Titus said. "You get what you needed?"
"I spotted three gaps in their security while looking out his window," she said. "And stole the receptionist's security passkey when he was checking the calendar."
"Great," Titus said. "The sensor in the card I gave him will steal his passwords to anything he logs into while he's in the office."
Kate nodded approvingly, once again unlocking the cockpit to the Indestructicar. She found herself vaguely annoyed for thinking in Emily's terminology.
"So where do you want to get dinner while we wait til dark?" Titus said. "I'm starving."
Chapter 15:
This is not Area 51
Jane and Emily landed in the desert as the sun rode low in the sky, bathing everything in pink and gold. Jane turned her face to the sun, almost worshipful, feeling its rays splash onto her skin, her cells drinking it in like water on a hot day. It seemed more potent here, and thus she felt stronger as well, her body recharging as daylight crashed against her skin.
Before them, an abandoned complex spread out, washed in dust and the remnants of mankind, long forgotten in the desert. An old, tall chain link fence had descended into disrepair, fallen in some places, cut open in others, the barbed wire above it pointless and no longer threatening. Low beige buildings dotted the property, windows scratched opaque by time and the elements.
"Okay, now that I've seen it, this is not Area 51," Emily said. "Nothing here screams government facility for holding alien prisoners. It looks like an old gas station."
"You never know," Jane said. She went to tear the gate to the facility open, but Emily beat her to it, shoving it with her bubbles of float hard enough to snap the long-rusted padlock and chain holding it closed.
"I suppose we could've flown over that," Emily said.
Jane shrugged and walked in. No one had been here for a long, long time, she thought. It felt like a corpse, left to mummify in the sunshine.
"What do you think?" Jane said, watching Emily pull her costume goggles down over her eyes against the setting sun. "In one of the buildings?"
Emily made an I don't know face and started walking toward one of the nearest prefab structures. After a few steps she paused, looking down.
"What," Jane said.
Emily stomped her foot. She took another stomping step, then another, then another, and then started jumping up and down, kicking her feet in the sand.
"Any particular reason you're doing that, or have you finally completely glitched out?" Jane said.
Emily turned back to her as she hopped, her goggles now crusted with sand.
"What?" she said.
Then Emily landed with a clang instead of a thud.
The women looked at each other.
"You hear that?" Emily said.
"Yup."
The pair started kicking, looking for the surface below until they found a metal hatch, bigger than a door, the surface scratched and worn by sand and wind.
"Oh, this looks like a fantastic idea," Emily said.
"Going into the hatch?"
"It worked so well on Lost," Emily said.
Jane gestured around her at all the emptiness surrounding them. She squinted at Emily.
"Signal's coming from somewhere," she said.
Emily sighed heavily and threw her head back in resignation.
"Fine. But if there's a Scotsman down there I'm going to panic," Emily said. Again she waved her hand and she bubble-of-floated the hatch open. She and Jane looked down into the gloom hesitantly.
"Age before beauty," Emily said.
Jane sat down on the lip of the hatch, feeling around for steps until she found rungs of a ladder. It occurred to her that using a ladder was a bit ridiculous when you could fly, but for some reason going down into a subterranean lair felt more natural if she had her feet grounded on something, so she climbed like a regular person. Emily did the same, though Jane could sense that Em was using her gravitational powers to take part of her weight, as if afraid she might slip and fall.
When they reached the bottom, they found themselves in a low-slung tunnel system. It reminded Jane of submarines in movies, tight and short with rounded walls. The lights were, creepily, still on in most places, and perhaps more eerily, had burned out in enough spots to create heavy patches of shadow. It smelled slightly rotten inside, like an old drain pipe.
"So I've had this nightmare before," Emily said. "Usually there are xenomorphs in it."
"You watch too many scary movies," Jane said.
"The scary movies aren't why I'm afraid right now," she said.
"Something tries to kill you on a daily basis," Jane said. "I don't know why you insist on watching horror movies all the time."
"Schadenfreude."
"Bless you," Jane said.
They walked side by side down what appeared to be the main tunnel, passing darkened corridors, areas with tipped over chairs, restrooms, even a small kitchen area. Emily inspected the kitchen for clues.
"This place looks used," Emily said.
"I'm sure it was," Jane said.
"No, I mean, it's not spotless, like it hadn't been occupied in a long time. It's not dusty. It's a little cluttered. I'm saying there's been activity here," Emily said.
"How recently?" Jane asked.
Emily shot Jane another "I dunno" look.
"I mean Titus might be able to tell by scent or something, but I couldn't tell you," she said.
Jane tilted her head apologetically and headed back down the main corridor. And then she saw it—a shadow, the size of a person, moving quickly ahead of them, trying to remain in the background.
Jane pointed to the runner, grabbing Emily by the shoulder.
"What!" Emily said, too loudly. Then she saw what Jane was pointing at and started whispering. "Should we chase it?"
Jane was already running at top speed down the hallway, still not comfortable with flying in the enclosed space. She watched the humanoid take a sharp turn, nothing about its shape and movement indicating it was a normal person. Jane took the hard right turn as well and could hear Emily's heavy Doc Martens slapping against the concrete floor behind her.
The creature in front of them led Jane and Emily into a larger area that opened up at the end of the hallway, an airy, empty space with little light. The being scuttled further into the shadows, and Jane let one hand burst into flames so that they could see better.
It was just enough illumination to make her regret doing so as they came face to face with a different creature, twelve feet tall and hunched over, its arms long enough to drag along the floor like an ape's. It had one massive yellow eye dominating the center of its head above wide, fanged jaws.
"What the carp is that!" Emily yelled.
Jane came to a stop, moving into a battle-ready stance, and eyeballed the new enemy. For all its alien strangeness, the thing that seemed oddest about it, Jane thought, was the appendage on its chest—something seemed to be latched on there, a cross between an octopus and a crab, segmented and still, both connected to the monster but somehow entirely apart from it.
Just behind the bigger creature, the first critter they'd chased crept forward, an entirely different sort of alien—purple-blue skinned, with too many arms, too many eyes, a mouth like a beak. It too had something attached to its chest, a smaller version of the crab-like thing on its enormous companion.
Jane stepped back to bring herself to Emily's side.
"Em, don't let the little one escape," Jane said.
"And how do you propose I do that?" Emily said.
"If he runs, bubble of float him," Jane said. "I'll take the—"
/> "Better idea," Emily said. "Wall of slam, dudes!"
Emily shoved her hands forward, knocking both creatures big and small off their feet violently. The flurry of kicking feet and flailing arms would have been funny if not for the complete horror of what they were looking at, Jane thought.
"That didn't do what I thought it would," Emily said.
"I'm actually almost impressed," Jane said, just as both aliens scrambled to their feet. The smaller, purple one made the first move, trying to flee past the heroes before they could catch him.
"Emily!" Jane yelled, but Emily's bubbles of float seemed to be too slow to catch the creature. Jane jumped at him instead, not sure where she should grab, and decided to just throw a punch at his face instead. She connected, hard, but the creature struck right back, grabbing hold of her wrist with one of his too-many hands and punching her right back in the jaw.
"What the . . . ?" was all Jane could get out before getting punched again. The creature emitted a soft, huffing noise and she was suddenly positive the being was laughing at her.
"I got this!" Emily yelled, but Jane turned back just in time to see the larger alien knock her off her feet, sending the blue-haired girl flying into a nearby wall. The "oof" noise she yelled sounded so painful Jane felt it in her own guts.
"That. Is. It." Emily said. "You one-eyed Rancor-lookin' wannabe, you have messed with the wrong Emily!"
But as Em raised her hands for another wall of slam, the monster scooped her up in one massive paw and held her tight, arms pinned.
"Aw, come on," Emily said as the alien lifted her toward its sharp-toothed mouth.
"No," Jane said, and, stealing a move from Kate's handbook, head-butted her own opponent between its many, many eyes. The purple alien released its grasp on her and Jane kicked the creature in the knee as hard as she could before charging to Emily's rescue.
She leapt into the air, throwing a haymaker at the giant monster's face, connecting with such force she could see its thick, greenish skin ripple with the impact. The monster flung Emily away reflexively, bouncing the poor girl off the wall a second time, as Jane pummeled the creature's enormous face. The beast knocked her back and she could see the appendage latched to its chest glow with a reddish light from within. The monster swiped at her with huge, clawed hands, catching her cape and using it to knock her from the air back to the chamber floor.
Like A Comet: The Indestructibles Book 4 Page 8
