by Rae Knightly
The alien who lay on the hospital bed with feeding tubes sticking out of its arms opened its eyes a crack.
Hayward met the being’s gaze. “I know you can hear me. So I want you to listen closely, friend. I’m a wealthy and powerful man. I own thousands of airplanes that have crossed the world countless times.
“But the fuel we use for these airplanes is running out. If I don’t find alternative energy soon, my company will go out of business. I will be forced to fire thousands of people who depend on me to feed their families...”
He gestured towards the floating object. “This piece was extracted out of your spaceship, and it reacts to you. Therefore, I believe you hold the solution to my problem.”
Hayward snagged the object from the air and slipped it into his pocket. “I will ask you one final time. Tell me about the energy that fuels your craft, show me how it works, and I guarantee your freedom. I can get you on a plane by morning, to any destination you may desire.”
He stopped at the end of the bed. “I can make you a special deal, friend. This one time only.” He stared at the floor, choosing the words carefully. “What if I saw to it that you could get home? You see, I have no interest in you–I’m only interested in your technology. So help me duplicate your flying saucer, show me how it works, and I will provide you with access to your own spacecraft. Because, you see,” he straightened his glasses. “I know where it is, and I can lead you to it.”
The extraterrestrial hadn’t moved an inch, but Hayward knew it was listening because it followed him with its eyes. The subject opened its mouth, and a sound left its lips as if it wanted to speak.
“What?” Hayward said, lifting his hand to his ear and approaching the alien’s head. “Speak up!”
The being tried again, but only a croaking sound left its throat.
Hayward’s adrenalin rose slightly. It was the first time he was getting a reaction. Maybe he was finally getting a breakthrough. He checked that the subject’s arms and legs were firmly attached to the bedframe, then leant forward expectantly.
Something caught at his wrist. Yelping, Hayward jerked back. But the alien had wrapped its fingers tightly around Hayward’s wrist and was staring at him with intense eyes. Hayward struggled, watching in horror as the subject lifted its head, its voice coming out in rasps.
“I will not speak a good word for you,” it said. The faintest trace of a smile appeared on its face, then it sank back weakly.
Hayward roared, just as his men erupted into the room. But the alien had already let him go.
The businessman rubbed at his wrist, his teeth bared. “You’ve sealed your fate, friend,” he snarled.
As he stormed out of the room, his edgy assistant followed closely. “What did he say?”
“Baloney!”
***
It happened all at once. One second, Ben was fast asleep; the next, he felt a jolt and tumbled into the void. He wanted to scream, but the high velocity pushed his voice to the back of his throat. He tried to grasp on to something, but could not find his hands.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the sensation vanished, and he was himself again. Or at least, he thought he was.
His senses on high alert, he reached for the bed light but found only air around him. His eyes focused slowly. Soft light washed over him, then forms began to take shape.
Where am I?
A corridor, illuminated by dull night lights, stretched out before him. Several doors took shape to his left and right, while the corridor continued behind him. The door in front of him stood open.
He tried to remember where he had been last, but his thoughts were jumbled. He checked himself and found that he was in one piece, wearing pyjamas.
I must be dreaming.
Deciding to go along with this mind trick, he stepped through the door and found himself in a room filled with strange apparatus. Computer screens flashed strings of information, science jars contained mysterious liquids, baffling instruments lay strewn across a table. Ben concluded he was in some kind of laboratory.
To his right, he discovered a large window. He glanced through the smoked glass and found a dim, empty room that only contained a hospital bed. A man with white hair lay on it.
Ben gasped. “Mesmo!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Contact
Ben stepped back from the window giddily. He stared at his hands, which seemed solid, but when he tried to make them touch, they passed right through each other. His mouth fell open in exhilaration mixed with fear.
I did it!
His spirit had disconnected from his body and had travelled to Mesmo’s location, at the alien’s call.
Mesmo has the spirit portal!
He turned to the window again.
I have to tell him I’m here.
Loud voices filled the corridor.
Tensing in dismay, the boy searched for a hiding spot, then dove frantically behind a filing cabinet in the nick of time, just before two men entered the room. Ben heard them close the door, then settle in front of their computers on the opposite side of a lab table.
Making sure they were concentrated on their work, Ben crawled behind the lab table to the door, then reached for the doorknob. His fingers slipped through it.
Drat!
He checked on the men hurriedly, and instead found a security camera in a top corner of the room, aimed in his direction. A green light flickered on it. Beside him, several screens projected images from other security cameras. Mesmo was visible on one of these screens. Ben on another.
He retreated with his back to the lab table and shut his eyes tight.
Think!
To begin with, he couldn’t save Mesmo. Not in his spirit state. What he needed to do was find out Mesmo’s location. He checked his surroundings for any clues but found none.
I’m going to have to inspect the whole facility.
Ben closed his eyes again, trying to accept that the laws of physics had changed now that he was intangible. He opened his eyes to study the door, and, instead, found himself in the same room as Mesmo.
***
Victor Hayward considered his options while he brushed his teeth. As he pushed out the toothpaste, he considered the pros and cons of delivering the subject to the American military. Or, he could start a bidding war between major world powers. It would pay off a good deal of his debts. If only he had been able to make the alien talk, things would have been so much easier, but that alternative was fading fast.
The important thing was to keep the Canadians out of it. They had, after all, stolen the spaceships off his land, claiming it was “federal property.”
“Federal property,” he snorted with a mouth full of bubbles.
“What, sweetheart?” his wife called from the bedroom.
He spat into the sink. “Nothing, dear. I’m talking to myself.”
He got back to brushing his teeth, mulling over the idea, but he didn’t like it. The extraterrestrial was his. He had caught the alien. Not the CSIS, not MI6, not the KGB. Not any of those secret services, but he, Victor Hayward–because he was the one who had discovered the alien lying among the debris of the crash.
Hayward quickly dismissed the uncomfortable memory of his first contact with the being. He had approached it, thinking it dead. But when the alien had moved its head, Hayward had shrieked and run for his life. Not one of his finest moments, he had to admit.
Fortunately, the alien’s facial traits had been burned into his mind–enough for him to send out a quiet face recognition search among his Victory Air crew across the globe, with the positive outcome.
For goodness sake! This creature had been travelling the world doing God-knows-what since its arrival. If not for Hayward, it would most likely still be going about its business with complete impunity.
He filled his cheeks with water and pressed on his phone to pull up the security screens of his underground laboratory, his toothbrush still in his hand.
That’s when he saw t
he boy.
He gagged on the water in his mouth.
“Are you ok, sweetheart?” his wife called while he coughed raucously into the sink.
He rushed into the bedroom–toothpaste stuck to the side of his mouth–and jumped into a pair of trousers and shirt.
“Sweetheart?”
He left his startled wife, grabbed his phone and jacket and practically flew down the stairs of his mansion. He swung open the front door, struggled to put on his coat, then dialled a number on the phone while sprinting towards his limousine.
When he knocked loudly on the windowpane, his chauffeur–who was fast asleep in the driver’s seat–jumped so hard Hayward thought he was going to have a heart attack. The man scrambled to catch the hat that slipped off his head, then clumsily extracted himself from the vehicle.
Hayward’s cellphone was stuck to his ear, ringing on the other end. He heard a click as his assistant picked up.
“A boy! There’s a boy in the room with the alien!” Hayward screamed into the receiver.
He grabbed the chauffeur’s car keys and pushed him aside. “Move over!” he yelled, plunging into the car, then turned on the ignition and screeched away into the night.
***
Forgetting his own safety, Ben rushed to the hospital bed and found the alien extended on it. Mesmo’s cheekbones protruded through his grey skin. Gone was his friend’s rock solid frame.
Ben held back a cry.
He looks deathly!
The alien turned his sunken eyes to him and managed a small smile. “Benjamin,” he whispered, opening his hand. The watch with the spirit portal rested in his palm.
“It worked!” Ben gasped, though he had to muster up the courage to speak.
Has Mesmo been in this state all this time?
Could Mesmo make his spirit appear healthy and strong, while in fact, his physical body ailed? Ben didn’t dare think of the answer.
“I’m here now,” he said encouragingly. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out. I just need to figure out where we are.”
A phone rang outside the room. Ben heard the man’s voice who answered it turn to alarm. There was a thump and the sound of running feet.
“Go!” Mesmo urged. “You are a spirit. You can go anywhere, as long as you stay in the vicinity of the portal.”
Ben nodded, his eyes wide. “Hang in there, Mesmo,” he begged.
He turned, closed his eyes and headed straight for the wall. When he opened them again, he was standing in the corridor once more, the two men staring at him from the lab door, mouths agape.
“Get him!” one of them yelled.
Ben turned and sprinted down the corridor, the men’s heavy shoes thudding behind him. He headed for a door with a red EXIT sign on top of it, raised his arm and plunged, expecting to crash straight into it. Instead, he landed on the other side, unharmed.
Sooo cool! ...I think?
He hiccupped in nervous excitement. He could have sworn his spirit body was covered in goosebumps at the idea that he was passing through physical objects. But there was no time to analyze the idea.
The men pushed against the emergency exit door behind him.
Ben clambered up several flights of stairs–his pursuers huffing loudly behind him–until he found a sign that said 1ST FLOOR.
Charging head first through the door like a bull, Ben suddenly found himself in an enormous reception area. The massive, red symbol of Victory Air ornamented the back wall. A night guard stood behind a reception desk, talking to a group of police officers who wore jackets with the letters CSIS on the back. In their midst, stood Bordock.
Ben froze.
The two men burst through the emergency exit behind him.
All groups faced each other, their eyes wide.
Ben didn’t wait for them to come to their senses. He dashed over the marble floor–the hall erupting with warning shouts around him–and slipped through the main doors to the outside world. Taking refuge behind a column at the foot of an extended flight of stairs, he shut his eyes tight.
Take me back, Mesmo! Take me back!
Panic engulfed him as threatening voices neared his futile hiding spot.
There was a whoosh of air, and the ground beneath him fell. His spirit connected to his body with a bang. He yelled as if someone had just hit him with a hammer.
“Ben?” Laura’s shrill voice called him in the dark.
The bed light came on, and Ben found himself sitting upright, gasping for breath.
“Ben! What is it?” Laura cried.
He cast a distressed look her way and burst, “We have to get Mesmo out, NOW!”
CHAPTER NINE
Deliverance
Laura ran into the middle of the road to hail a passing taxi cab. The driver barely had time to hit the brakes, the bumper ending so close to her that its headlights illuminated dust rising in front of her jacket.
She gestured for Ben to get into the car, and soon they were racing down Toronto streets towards the Victory Air headquarters.
It didn’t take long for them to get there, and as they neared the building, the red and blue lights of half a dozen police cars became visible from afar.
“Stop here!” Laura ordered the taxi driver. She threw several dollar bills at him and clambered out after Ben. They both hurried closer to the scene of the tumult.
“What should we do?” Ben asked worriedly.
“We’ll have to find another way in,” she said. “Maybe through that service street there.”
“No, wait!” Ben held her back. “I have a better idea.”
***
Victor Hayward’s phone kept on ringing. He had no intention of answering, his eyes were glued to the road before him as he sped into town way over the speed limit. But the phone rang again, and when he glanced at it, he realized it was his assistant. He picked it up at the risk of ending in a ditch.
“What?”
“Boss, the police is here.”
“The what?” he bellowed.
His assistant’s voice wavered. “Yes, Boss. The CSIS is here with a warrant to search the building. They say they are searching for proof that we knew our oil extraction fields were depleted.”
Hayward snorted into the phone. “Yeah, right! Bunch of liars. They know we have the ‘package.’ Resort to Plan B. I want the ‘package’ removed at once. You have two minutes. Do you understand?”
His assistant sounded distant and nervous. “Yes, Boss. Removing ‘package’ at once.”
***
Ben decided he wasn’t enjoying this spirit travelling much. He’d much rather soar on a bird’s wings or dive into the deep on the back of a whale, but right now he had no choice.
He wasn’t sure where he would end up, or even if Mesmo was up to the task of connecting with him, but as soon as he focused on the alien, his spirit jolted out of his body and materialized in an underground parking.
Hearing voices, Ben hid behind a car and watched as Mesmo was rolled on the hospital bed into a waiting ambulance. They caught sight of each other for the briefest instance before the ambulance doors were shut on him.
Pursing his lips, Ben noticed the ramp that the vehicle would use to escape–and he instantly knew what he needed to do.
***
The limo screeched to a stop. Victor Hayward exited the vehicle and ran up his meticulous stairs to the entrance of his headquarters. He pulled the doors wide open, making sure his voice boomed into the reception. “What’s going on here?”
His short legs took him swiftly to the dozen-or-so police officers who were assembled under the red symbol of his company.
A man detached himself from the group. He was not wearing the CSIS vest like the others, but a neat, light-grey suit that Hayward would have approved of in other circumstances. A sense of authority hung around the agent, perhaps because the lights reflected on his shaved head, or maybe it was because of his emotionless green eyes. Either way, Hayward knew instinctively that he had to tread with care�
�he recognized a person with his level of intellect when he saw one.
“Mr. Hayward?” the bald man said, showing him a piece of identification. “I’m Agent Theodore Connelly, with the National Aerial Division of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We have a search warrant for the premises.”
“Naturally,” Hayward growled icily, noting that Mister Bigshot here wasn’t even hiding which department he was working for. He can wipe his nose on his search warrant for all I care–as long as he doesn’t find the alien…
“Mr. Hayward, I need to talk to you privately,” the agent said.
Whatever keeps them busy, Hayward thought. Out loud, he said, “Follow me.”
Agent Connelly gestured for his men to spread out and Hayward noted with satisfaction that they were heading to the elevators, which–he knew–did not go down to his secret, underground laboratory. Only one separate elevator did that–and he had the key.
Both men entered the room that the receptionists used to work in when they weren’t out front.
Hayward leant against a desk and crossed his arms. “Well? Let’s have it. What’s this all about?”
Connelly finished closing the office door, and when he faced Hayward, he wasn’t smiling. The agent’s eyes bored into him. “Mr. Hayward,” Connelly said in a low, threatening voice. “You have exactly two minutes to deliver the alien to me.”
Hayward’s arms dropped, as did his mouth. “Wha…?” But his voice caught in his throat because something entirely abnormal was happening to Connelly’s face.
***
Ben raced up the ramp of the underground parking area. Far below him, the ambulance roared to life. He ignored the closed garage door and dashed through it, finding himself in a dark service street close to where Laura and his physical self were located.
It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for.
