by Carrie Jones
“Right.”
Lyle peppers out. “Hey. The Rendlesham Forest incident? Was that real?”
“They were trying to show their strength, landing near two military bases like that,” China explains. “Those were Mullys. Arrogant SOBs.”
“That is so amazing.” Lyle rocks back on his heels. “Everybody says it was nothing. The British were all, ‘There is no security threat.’”
Pierce shrugs, but anger flashes in her, somewhere beneath the surface. “What were they supposed to say? ‘Aliens are showing off, bullying us, but our presidents, our prime ministers don’t even know because the military is too afraid to tell them?’ That the military want to handle it themselves because they know how bad it could be?”
I swallow. “Really? Could it be really bad?”
Pierce touches my arm. Baldy, standing by the door, sneezes.
“Yes,” she says. “It could be really bad.”
Her fears flash inside my head. Windigos everywhere. Corpses everywhere. People tortured. The planet overrun.
“And if we find this chip? What is it going to do? It’s just going to tell the president that this is happening? I don’t get it.”
“Okay,” Lyle adds. “No offense, but I’m not really a massive believer in the intellectual prowess of our president.”
“Big words,” China snorts.
“Some of us have brains as well as brawn,” Lyle retorts, pulling himself up straighter.
China eyes him. “What brawn?”
Pierce sends a thought at me: Why must the males of your species always do this alpha-dog posturing?
I answer aloud by accident. “I have no idea.”
“Mana!” Lyle’s face fills with hurt.
“That’s not what I mean! I meant … I have no idea why you guys have to fight all the time,” I try to cover.
“It’s stupid,” Pierce says. Remember, you cannot read minds.
China grins. “I think they’re talking about us.”
“You wish. You two are so egotistical,” I say, and smile to make it not so mean. Then I turn back to Pierce. “Can we just do one final rundown for the television viewers and move on? Okay?”
“Okay.” She smiles like it’s a relief. Lyle taps his foot, all annoyed.
I continue on. “You have a vested interest in what happens because Earth is your home, too. And for some reason you can’t go back to your … your … home planet place. So you work with people like my mom and try to gather up information so you can inform the world leaders, like our lovely president, what is going on. Because there is no way that kidnapping people is cool, right? And my mom has the chip that does what exactly…?”
China and Pierce exchange a glance. I’m blocked out of Pierce’s thoughts completely.
“It has the evidence to unequivocally prove that aliens exist, and that some are a threat not just to humans but also to other aliens existing currently on this planet,” Pierce answers.
I resist the urge to blurt out the word bullshit, and instead hook my arm into Lyle’s as Pierce suggests we take a tour of the facility. This feels pretty abrupt to me, like a massive change of topic and like a way to keep me from asking questions.
“Lyle…” I whisper.
“There’s more than one room?! How cool is that? What do you think will be in the other rooms?” He smiles at me.
“Lyle, do you believe that stuff about the chip?”
He cocks his head a little to one side. “What do you mean? You think they’re lying?”
I put a finger to my lips. We’re walking so slowly Pierce has doubled back to us, so we abandon our conversation and speed up. The compound is all underground. There is a weapons room filled with cell phones and pens and regular old guns, along with netting. There are cages that are currently empty. They remind me of something out of the movies Lyle is always making me watch—all thick glass and bright lights.
“Can the spitting aliens get through those?” I ask Pierce.
“No. Acid-proof,” she says, knocking the glass with her knuckles.
She shows us a room filled with lush plants and what must be artificial sunlight. It feels like a forest, a really lush, dense forest. The growth is somehow old, with tree trunks that require three people to hug. Lyle whistles in appreciation. I cannot believe he is whistling again.
“This is my room,” she says, inhaling deeply. “My kind don’t do well in man-made structures away from nature. So we brought nature in here.”
“It is so beautiful,” I whisper.
“It is,” she agrees, and reluctantly takes us through the rest of the compound. There are rooms for guards like Brian and Aaron, guest quarters, a huge industrial kitchen, and even a pool, all underground.
“I expected this whole compound to be more Spartan,” Lyle says as he stares longingly at the pool, “and smaller. I expected it to be smaller.”
“Well, it is underground,” I add. “I think that is a natural expectation.”
Pierce doesn’t say much during our exchange, and she is really professional throughout the tour. Lyle’s enthusiasm is adorable—not even adorkable—somehow. But I feel like she’s just playing tour guide while China takes forever.
When we’re finally back in the main control room area, China says, “Did you show them their bunks for the night?”
“What?” I startle. “We can’t stay here. We have to go find my mom.”
“This is the best place to do that,” Pierce says out of nowhere. “We can monitor things here, search for leads, and keep you safe.”
“I do not need to be kept safe! What are you even talking about?”
“Mana, there were Windigos searching for you. A man shot at us on the road. Remember? Whoever has your mom is trying to locate you.”
“Then I should be out there! Like a decoy! We could set a trap and snag them, just like in movies and stuff. Right, Lyle?”
Lyle’s face reddens. “Absolutely not.”
* * *
While we were on the tour, Brian’s pain medicine for his foot seems to have kicked in. He’s limping around pretty well now. China explains that it is a mixture of alien technology and human toughness that is keeping him up, and acts surprised that Pierce didn’t show us the medical room.
“It’s his favorite part,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He used to want to be a doctor, before he worked here. All the men in his family were, for generations.”
“Hard to imagine that,” Lyle says, and then we sit at a computer for a while, writing down everything we can remember about the past few days. China and Pierce read over our accounts and China keeps scowling.
“Nothing?” he says. “You remember nothing out of the ordinary?”
Lyle gets angry back. “Calm down, man. We’re telling you everything we know, obviously. Mana wrote about twenty pages.”
I did twenty-one, actually.
“I’m long-winded,” I explain.
“Detailed,” Lyle corrects, nicely, and I grant him a happy smile. He smiles back.
China makes a scoffing noise. “None of it matters. There has to be something.”
He worries about your mother. A lot. Pierce’s thought slides into my head. He is not used to working alone. He depends on her.
He is not the only one. I feel like I’m failing him somehow, but more than that, I feel like I’m failing my mother.
“Wait!” I stand up and pace. “I know there’s something … something I’m forgetting.” And then I remember. “The crank call. We got a crank call.”
China whirls around and glares at me. He doesn’t even say anything, but it is completely obvious that he thinks I’m an idiot. Not a big deal, because right now I’m thinking it, too. “We got this crank call in the middle of the night and I woke up—”
“And this is important how?” China’s arms cross in front of his burly chest.
“She yelled. Mom yelled into the phone.”
His arms drop to his sides. His hand seizes my wrist—n
ot tightly, but in an excited way. “What did she say?”
“‘You better not try it.’” I tell him this as his fingers completely engulf my wrist and actually overlap. Our eyes meet.
“Try what? She never talks like that. Never yells. Not unless it’s serious,” he says.
“Exactly!”
“You guys are getting all excited about a prank call?” Lyle is still sitting at the computer. His face is stiff.
China ignores him and just keeps at me. “What did she say? Exactly?”
“Seriously. She just said, ‘You better not try it.’”
“Anything else?”
“No…” I think for a second. What word did I just say … seriously?… It makes me remember. “Yes. She said, ‘I am serious.’”
China tightens his fingers around my wrist and then seems to realize it, because he lets go of it completely and repeats, “‘I am serious.’”
I nod. Everyone stares at me. “What?”
“That isn’t a normal thing to say to someone prank calling you. You say, ‘Shut up.’ You hang up the phone. Your mother would just hang up the phone and trace the call.”
“She doesn’t know how to trace—” I realize in the middle of my sentence that my mom probably knows how to do a lot of things that I would never expect. Like hunt aliens. “So, you’re saying it was not a prank call.”
“I doubt it.” China whirls away, points at Pierce. “See if we can get a trace on all the calls to the residence within the last five days, just to be sure, focusing on that time frame, obviously, and seeing if there are any repeat calls from that number.” He points at me now, and then at Lyle as if in afterthought. “You two, I want you to get some food, wash up, go to bed, and think about if there’s anything else important you’re forgetting.”
“Wow. Thanks, Dad.” I am snarky. I do not care. I already feel badly enough about not thinking the crank call was important and how I forgot it had even happened until right now.
“I’m not old enough to be your dad,” China says.
“You look old enough.”
He scowls.
“Mean, Mana. That was mean.” Lyle drapes an arm across my shoulders and steers me out of the room.
When we’re in the hallway, I finally say, “He just has such a superiority complex. I hate superiority complexes. And he is so bossy.”
“I can hear you!” China yells through the open door.
“I don’t care!” I yell back, acting like a five-year-old, but the truth is, I do care. I am so sorry I’m being such a brat, but I’m stressed and tired and worried, and being dismissed like a useless baby does not feel good.
“I think they have pizza,” Lyle says. “I’m pretty sure I saw pizza and some of those pretzels your mom makes in the kitchen.”
“Really?” I make a fist. He taps it; we explode them. Pizza and pretzels make everything better. Well, at least a little bit.
* * *
In the kitchen, Lyle and I hash out everything that has happened during the day. He listens to me grump and whine and get sad and I ask him whether his mom is going to worry about him.
“I lied and said that I was going to Grayson Staggs’s house,” he explains. Grayson has ultracool parents who brew beer and have an annual Banff Mountain Film Festival party, and he is Lyle’s guy best friend. Grayson would always cover for him.
And Lyle is completely cool and sympathetic and trying not to be too excited about the fact that extraterrestrial life is a reality, but I know he secretly is. He’s just trying to tone it down because he’s a good enough guy to know that the priority right now is finding my mom. And I love him for that, I really do.
After we have heated up pizza in one of the ridiculously large ovens, and after we have each eaten about half of an extra-large Veggie Delite, Lyle puts down his half-eaten piece and says, “Hey, you know I’m going to be here for you no matter what happens. Okay?”
The sincerity of it makes tears come to my eyes. “Okay,” I manage to say, as he pats my hand across the kitchen counter. “Okay. Me, too.”
“Best buds, forever, right?”
“Friends are friends. Pals are pals. But buddies sleep together,” I respond.
He wiggles his eyebrows. “Awesome.”
* * *
That night, I sleep in a bed I’m not used to, in a room that is just white walls. Lyle’s room is next to mine. I miss him so much, but not quite as much as I miss my mom. Closing my eyes only makes me feel more disconnected from them and the rest of the world. How come sometimes the more you know, the lonelier you become? I mean, seriously, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do when my world breaks apart and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I stare at the ceiling. I try to swallow down the horror of how helpless I am and how alone I feel.
* * *
The next day is more of the same. More lectures about aliens and the government. More conspiracy theories that are real. We all gather in the big computer room. The crank caller’s number had been blocked, but they managed to trace it to an apartment near where my father lives, which they are excited about, I guess. Brian and Aaron want to go alone and recon the place, but China argues with them that their job right now is to protect the compound and Pierce and us, that he should go because my mom is his partner, and so on. This argument lasts for pretty much ever and I have to put my head down next to the computer, bored and tired of all the talk-talk-talk. We need to act, honestly. We need to do something. I need to do something.
A voice, not Pierce’s voice, rushes into my head, interrupting my own thoughts. One word, angry and determined: Now.
Now?
The door to the room bangs open and freaking Dakota Dunham, who is so no longer attractive to me in any way, flies in, tearing at Brian with his hands, spitting acid stuff in his face, and taking him down before I can blink. Aaron shoots at him. The bullets sink in, but the alien/boy/thing just drops Brian, turns to Aaron, and smiles.
Another man appears behind him—blond, fair, and facially looking pretty much like a guy version of Pierce.
“Get out!” Pierce screams at me, pushing me toward the back of the room. Her hands are solid, forceful. Her hair whips around her head like it’s alive. “China, take them!”
“But you—” he starts to say. His hand is on a gun. He is about to jump into the fight.
“I will handle this,” she insists. She leaps over a row of computers and starts toward Dakota the acid-mouth boy. “The children are more important.”
Children? She’s calling us children?
Her thoughts are a blur of worry and anger. I can’t get through them, but then one clear string of thoughts bursts through: Must keep the girl safe. More important. Fight. More important. The weapon.
How can we be more important? I back up. I want to run. I want to close my eyes and wake up in my bed, which is even wimpier. Instead, I lift up a computer monitor and heave it at Dakota’s face. It makes a satisfying thumping noise as it hits the side of his skull. Dakota pivots toward me, all disgusting, gross face and acid tongue and evil eyes. How did I ever think he was cute? Seriously?
“You little jerk! Get the hell out of here!” I scream, in what is one of the worst threatening voices of all time, more of a squeak, really. I grapple for another monitor. “What did you do to my mother?”
“Mana.” China yanks my arm, pulls me over a tangle of computer cables. Lyle is sprinting across the room in front of me, heading for a back door I didn’t even notice during our tour of the compound. I guess they didn’t actually show us everything.
Something/someone behind us yowls.
Something else shrieks.
Pierce! I scream her name in my head as China drags me toward the door.
Go, Mana! Do not let China know anything about you—anything strange. Hide it. Promise me!
Pierce!
“We have to help,” I try to say, but China yanks me along so fast that I’m not sure if my words actually make it out of my mouth. I turn to
try to see what is happening and if I can help. My bag is right in front of me. I grab it without thinking.
“Get down,” China says, all commanding, ducking while he runs, and pushing me down, too.
“Why?”
“Just get down!”
Something green flies through the air above our heads, just barely missing Lyle, who ducks at the last second. The green liquid hits the wall fizzing and searing, and burns it. Lyle reaches out and wrenches open the door. He turns his head to make sure we’re still with him, and his eyes widen with shock or fear. Something bad is going on behind us. I start to turn my head to see.
“Go, Mana. Go!” China pushes me through the door and then barrels behind me, pulling Lyle with him. “Move!”
He crashes his body into the door, slamming it shut. He bolts it and then touches a keypad. We are in a long hallway again, concrete. Closed doors leading to other spaces interrupt the walls just about every five feet.
“That probably won’t hold him,” he pants, motioning for us to run forward again. We do. “Keep running.”
We get two-thirds of the way down the hall when China yanks open a door that appears to be the same as all the others.
“Get in. Get in. Hurry,” he urges. His gun is no longer holstered.
Lyle and I bang into a room the size of an elevator. The walls are shiny metal, like cookie sheets or aluminum foil. It smells like popcorn for some reason, and for a hysterical moment I think maybe we are in a giant version of one of those metal Jiffy Pop popcorn bucket things that you cook over the burner of your stove, shaking it back and forth, back and forth.
“Mana? You okay?” Lyle’s face is white with shock.
I shake my head no and he gives me a quick one-armed side hug. My bag smooshes in between us. China follows us into the room and presses buttons on a side panel. The door shuts. The room moves up like we’re going to a different floor. I catch Lyle by his arm when we lurch sideways.
“Elevator?” I ask, panting or hyperventilating. “Are we in an elevator?”
China’s face shifts into something serious. “Sort of.”
I lean against Lyle a little bit. He’s not winded, but I can tell he’s upset, from the way he’s standing so rigidly. “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”
