by Lesley Davis
Dink’s home was well hidden in the dense trees. It looked nondescript and deceivingly derelict from outside appearances. Emory knew what the subterfuge hid.
Her sigh was heartfelt when she finally drew the van to a stop. Dink hurried out to greet her. She got out of the van as quickly as she could, given her injuries. She fell to her knees to wrap her arms around his shoulders.
“Welcome home, Em,” he said, squeezing her back just as tightly.
“I’m so glad to be here, August.”
It took a while for Emory to let him go. Dink was more of a brother to her than her own flesh and blood one could ever be. They’d met years ago when Emory had been introduced to the man who could hack any system built and had no compunction in doing so. Emory would always fight by Dink’s side.
She finally pulled away and sat back on her heels. She reached out a hand to tug at his beard.
“When did all this facial fuzz get so out of hand, Grizzly Adams?”
“It’s hard to keep up a grooming schedule when there’s an alien invasion,” he said and helped Emory back on her feet.
August “Dink” Staves was four foot five inches of pure genius. Dink had been born with achondroplasia, resulting in his dwarfism. Emory had never paid much attention to his height except to gift him with the nickname that had become his pseudonym. Years ago, they had sat watching Threshold together and both had become huge fans of Peter Dinklage. Emory had thought it only fitting that August be nicknamed after such a marvelous actor who didn’t let himself be pigeon-holed by height alone—just like August Staves didn’t allow himself to be. It amused them both that Dink carried his hero’s name with pride and it was known among their circles with respect and, in some areas, reverence. Dink was the conspiracy theorists’ poster boy. There wasn’t anything he didn’t know about or couldn’t find proof for or against. He was short, dark haired and handsome—when his beard was better managed. And Emory had been prepared to go to jail protecting him and their source.
Right now he was trying to help Emory inside to help stem the bleeding that had opened up again in her leg.
“You really did a number on yourself,” he said, guiding her through the barren looking living quarters that were merely for show. He led her to a back room where a hidden trap door led them down to the true lair that lay beneath.
Emory limped past the bank of monitors and computers that decorated Dink’s “war room.” She followed him into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub while Dink began pulling out antiseptic bottles and way too many bandages.
“Let me shower first. This probably looks worse than it is because of all the blood.”
Dink held out his hand. “Give me your keys to the Wondermobile and I’ll bring in your bags.”
Emory dangled the keys before him but didn’t hand them over. “Don’t touch the alien until you’re properly outfitted. That sucker is radioactive. I am not listening to you whine about prolonged exposure making your balls shrivel up and drop off. And no messing with my launcher either. It’s not a toy for you to tinker with and try to improve on.”
Dink looked suitably offended. “As if.”
“You definitely would, but we need it. It’s the only weapon in our arsenal, seeing as Sofia snuck the big bag o’guns out of the Bus without me spotting it.”
“I’m going to question you about your crazy idea to befriend a Damocles guard.”
“Ply me with enough coffee and I’ll cry on your shoulder about how enamored I was to her charms.”
“I saw that for myself when you kissed her, Emory.” He patted her knee. “I’ll brew a big pot. We have a lot to catch up on. And you’re going to tell me everything you got up to in the company of one Captain Martinez while I was offline and you were in a cellar.”
Emory wondered how long she could hide in the shower before he came and dragged her out. She knew he wasn’t joking about pulling every sordid little detail from her. She hoped she could keep the fact she desperately missed the feisty captain to herself.
*
Cleaned up and stitched up by Dink’s amazingly steady hands, Emory sat watching as he bit into his third Butterfinger in a row. He looked totally blissed out on the abundance of candy. Emory couldn’t decide if his rapture was because he’d been devoid of chocolate for so long or because they were the spoils of an argument long since waged between them.
“So, about these aliens you didn’t believe in that you’ve been carting along behind you in a cooler that is now is my possession…” He grinned around a mouthful of candy.
Emory smiled at his choice of words. If she managed to live past this invasion, she’d never live down the fact she was wrong. Especially if Dink had anything to do with it. He’d been as giddy as a kid at Christmas peering into the cooler, oohing and ahhing over the dead alien’s body. She knew it was only a matter of time before he had it stuffed and mounted somewhere. Once he’d sorted out the logistics of getting a radiation proof display case.
“I have conceded you are Master of All Theories. Enough with the gloating. Just tell me what your thoughts are on the paperwork I snuck out of Euphoria.”
Dink had the sheets of paper spread out on the table before him as he sat at his bank of computers. He pointed to a sheet with his candy bar. “This circular pattern they have printed here has been driving me crazy. So I did some research while you were in the shower and have come up with some interesting theories.”
“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”
Dink nodded in acknowledgment. “This pattern is an awful lot like the motifs we see in ancient artwork. Usually, it’s scrawled on the walls of caves, or across vast plains only to be spotted from flying above them. It’s the series of patterns within patterns.”
“Like a mandala?”
“Exactly. These geometric patterns are a spiritual thing, a symbolic representation of the cosmos.”
“And it would be in Euphoria why?”
“I don’t think this is symbolizing a mandala in the ancient form. I think this is a modern usage. Something Russom said got me wandering down another path. He mentioned losing a guard in CERN.”
Emory considered this. “The Collider?”
“The Hadron Collider is there, or, as of now, was. It’s the one place that got damaged with as much ferocity as Area 51 did. That can’t be a coincidence. Nothing these aliens are doing is. Yes, they’re wrecking cities and blowing up buildings. That’s looking to me like sheer spit and vengeance, a show of power. But Area 51 was blown off the map. That’s where everything was supposed to have started. So what’s so special about the Collider?” He brought up a file on screen full of schematics and information relating to the quantum physics machine. “Look at the shape of it. Look familiar?” He waved the pages at her.
“Surely the aliens aren’t invading us because the scientists think they have found the God particle?”
“Knowing the human race has the ability to create this specific particle? To be godlike? Would you trust us with that power?”
“I don’t trust us with putting decent TV shows on cable,” Emory muttered and leaned closer to look at the screen. “Dink, this Collider has been powered up for some time. Why choose now to invade?”
Dink searched through the information. He brought up a news piece. “The Collider was shut down for a while for maintenance purposes. It was said to be getting an upgrade so it would be even more powerful. Maybe it’s the extra energy that’s drawn the aliens out to shut it down. It was already the most powerful machine ever created and they were juicing it up to the nth degree.” He considered this and took another bite from his candy bar. “This atom smasher has created the Higgs singlet. Something that doesn’t interact with matter in the usual way. In some circles it’s believed that singlet could theoretically, with enough power behind it, open up a worm hole in time and space.”
Emory had heard the theories. She’d consigned them to science fantasy over science fact. But what she’d seen in the last few days had ope
ned her eyes to so much more.
“What if it’s not enough to have the particle to create something like a universe? What if ramping up the power opens up dimensions between us and other worlds?” Dink said.
“To let more aliens in?” Emory didn’t like the sound of that. “Why would they blow it up if that was the reasoning?”
Dink turned away from his screen to look at Emory. “What if it wasn’t for the aliens’ benefit?”
Emory’s mind clicked into gear. “We have saucers,” she said, having the horrible feeling she knew where Dink was going.
“Turn up the power, open up a wormhole, pilot a saucer or twenty…” Dink waved his candy bar at Emory to finish his hypothesis.
“And boldly go where the aliens would rather we didn’t dare venture.”
“Would you want us populating the galaxy with the same brand of humans we cultivate so well here on home soil?”
“I can think of a few people I wouldn’t mind sending off-world.”
“They’d jettison your mother off the ships before they even left our atmosphere.” Dink tapped on a screen. “They blew up Area 51, probably to remove the saucers. They blew up CERN to get rid of the Collider. The rest of the destruction has been to show their superiority. Warn us to know our place in the universe.”
Emory closed her eyes at the implications. “This is a bigger conspiracy than you or I could have imagined. Bigger than we can do anything about too.”
“That’s why I’ve sent out word to the basement dwellers. We’re going to need their help deciding what we do next.”
“But we’re just a few discordant voices going up against the military, the government, the world leaders, and the aliens.” This was way bigger than she could ever have dreamed.
Dink just grinned at her. “Don’t ever forget, the biggest of fires start from the tiniest of sparks.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Row upon row of endless cylinders met Emory’s eyes. The glass on each was covered in a weird kind of condensation. It wasn’t exactly wet, but it obscured the view of the inside of the cylinder. One by one, she wiped away the stickiness to peer inside. Not recognizing the body within, she quickly shifted on to the next one, then the next, then the next, in a never ending search. Frustration burned through her as every cylinder revealed a human specimen but never the ones she was searching for. It was never her nieces, her brother, or her sister-in-law. Frantic now, Emory wiped her hand across another patch of glass and stepped closer to see inside. A body, unlike the others who were suspended motionless, floated untethered in the liquid behind the glass. Emory couldn’t see its face, but by the shape of the body it was female. She waited as the body shifted and turned as if caught in the gentle swell of a wave. Dark hair pressed up against the glass and then the face appeared.
Sofia.
Emory almost fell out of her seat. She’d fallen asleep, sprawled out with her damaged leg propped up on another chair. The jolt wrenched her leg, and the sickening pain that shot through it made Emory moan out loud.
That alerted Dink to her being awake. He looked up from his monitors. “Hi, Sleeping Beauty. You okay?”
Emory rubbed at her eyes. She tried desperately to banish the vision of that nightmare from her mind. “Bad dreams,” she muttered as she eased her leg to the floor and waited for the ache to subside. “Any news from your military or government pals about those bases Russom gave me?”
Emory knew Dink didn’t want her to go into any of the bases alone, even under the guise of being Russom’s enforcer to close the laboratories down. Neither of them knew exactly what that meant. Did she walk in, kick everyone out, and then just turn out the lights and leave? Emory was more inclined to storm in and smash the labs to pieces but, again, it was highly unlikely that was the procedure either. And what about the bodies? What about the access points that meant aliens could still access those areas? Until they knew how to proceed, as much as Emory wanted to go turn every base upside down to find her family, they had to wait. Dink was cashing in all his favors with his informants to see if anyone knew if these bases even had a hidden base underneath them. For all they knew, Russom could be sending Emory into a trap.
The waiting was killing Emory.
“So far, nothing. But that’s not such a surprise considering some of the secrets they’ve told me. If they find any aliens labs they won’t keep it silent but they’re coming up empty. Those labs would be very well hidden, as you’d expect.”
“Then we need to start making plans as to which base is the nearest so that I can start throwing my Damocles muscle about.” The dream she’d had kept niggling at her brain. “I’ve seen what they do to their test subjects, Dink. I’m not letting that happen to my family. Not if I can help it. And as a Dionysius minion, I’ve got more power than you and I could ever hope to have to complete this task.”
Dink ran a hand through his recently trimmed beard. “As soon as you can bear more weight on that leg of yours we’ll devise a plan of action.”
Emory nodded. She was acutely aware of how much damage she had done to her leg. They’d cleaned it out and sewn it back up, but the damage was going to take a while to mend. Emory didn’t have the luxury of time. “We’ll fashion me a walking stick out of something. The sooner I can hit the road again, the better.” Her eyes caught a flash of something on the screen Dink had been sitting in front of. “What are you watching?”
“Saucers flying over London.”
“How are the British faring?”
“Firing everything they have at them and putting up one hell of a fight, albeit in vain.”
“Any chance of them winning this war for us?”
“Not a chance in hell, sadly. But that stiff upper lip mentality means they’re going down with a roar and not a whimper.”
They watched as the saucers were blowing huge chunks out of the iconic Nelson’s Column that stood so proudly in Trafalgar Square. The lions at its base were crushed by the falling masonry as the column fell just like so many others around the world. The people below were crushed by the debris, too slow to have gotten to safety in time.
The rest of Dink’s monitors showed the equal devastation meted out around the world.
*
Her hands deeply buried in the innards of a saucer, Sofia was less than pleased when her name was called and drew her away from her work.
“General Russom wants to see you, Captain.”
Sofia wiped off her hands and reluctantly followed after the young airman who seemed anxious to get her back inside the base. She’d been trying to avoid Russom ever since his little show-and-tell in the levels below. It was hard to equate the man she had admired with the person who hadn’t been bothered by the dead humans in jars down on Level 43. For the first time since she’d been recruited by Dionysius, Sofia wanted to walk away.
But where would she go? Especially now?
Not for the first time she wondered what mischief Emory was getting up to on her drive to wherever the first base was Russom had given her the location of. Sofia hoped she found her family and had her mind put at rest over their safety. She couldn’t begin to understand that fear. Her family was scattered to the far corners of the globe, each too busy doing their own thing to bother letting her know they were safe or to care enough to hear from her. She had no idea whether they were dead or alive, let alone where they were. She both envied and pitied Emory’s connection to her family, especially the children she was willing to risk her life for. Sometimes it was easier not to care. It got the job done easier.
Ushered into Russom’s office, Sofia stood before his desk and waited for him to acknowledge her.
“Captain. Have you heard anything from Agent Mays since she left?”
Sofia frowned. This was about Emory? “No, sir.”
“By any chance did she say she had somewhere else to go before following the orders I had given her?”
“Sir, she barely said good-bye then left. She didn’t divulge any details of
what orders she’d received from you. Or, for that matter, what orders she’d had prior to her being here or at Area 51.” Sofia prayed neither her face nor her voice gave her away in any of her lies. Why she was covering for Emory she’d never know.
“I was expecting her in Denver, yet she never reached the base or reported in.”
“You’ve had confirmation from the base, General?” She knew exactly how he knew Emory wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Sofia was an engineer. She’d taken apart her radio, just like the one every Damocles agent was given, and had found the tracking device with ease. But she was a loyal soldier; she’d left hers where it lay.
“Her last signal was on a road in Denver, but there’s been no communications and I can’t reach her.”
Sofia was surprised Emory had waited that long to rid herself of the tracker after Sofia had told her she’d be spied on.
“I’ve also received word of a saucer being brought down in Kansas City. Witnesses tell of someone armed with a rocket launcher that threw themselves into the beam and fired it.”
Sofia felt the color drain from her face. I’ll fucking kill her! She was so caught up in her anger that she barely heard what Russom had to say next.
“Damn looters were crawling all over it when my men finally got there. They saw some idiots running off with anything they could scavenge like damned vultures over dead flesh. I’ve got them questioning the local militia. Some of those men are better armed than us.” He stared at Sofia. “Back to Damocles Six. I need to know if she’s following my orders, and I can’t do that if I can’t raise her on the radio. CIA agents can disappear at will. I need her found.”
“Permission to go search for her myself, sir?” The words were out of her mouth before she could rein them back.
Russom looked surprised. “You? Why?”
“Because I spent time with her. Built up a rapport.” Kissed her. “She drives a very distinct VW Bus. It’s probably one the aliens wouldn’t touch. She should be easy enough to track down.”
