“I don’t blame you,” said Vega.
“Me either,” said Anna. “But help me out,” she added uncertainly. “We’ve been with you this entire time, so when, exactly, did you issue all these complex orders?”
Redford grinned. “Fair question,” he said. “I have electronic sensors in my throat, and I’ve practiced forming words subvocally that an AI friend of mine named Nessie can pick up. I hear her voice in a comm implanted in my ear.”
“So you’re one small step from having an AI in your head,” said Anna.
“Essentially correct,” replied the colonel.
“Interesting,” said Vega. “This is basically identical to the system that we and the other extraterrestrial species on Earth are now using.”
“Now that’s something I wouldn’t have guessed,” said Redford.
“So when we were sitting here in silence,” said Anna, “you were issuing orders to this Nessie?”
Redford nodded. “She’s being kind enough to interface with the helicopter’s AI to direct our trip to Huntington. She also issued the orders to scramble jets on practice runs along our route to ensure one is always relatively nearby. She’s very good with logistics that way,” he added with a smile.
“Then before we begin,” said Anna, “you might want to have Nessie locate the Rest Easy Motel. I’m not exactly sure where it was, but we were there just prior to being brought here.”
“She’s found the address,” said Redford almost immediately. “What about it?”
“You might want to send a few of your people there,” replied Anna. “There’s a blue Honda rental parked in front of room forty-nine. Inside the trunk is the body of yet another black-blooded alien.”
“Of course there is,” said Redford wryly. “Thanks for the tip. If I had to guess, I’d say this relates to the mess we found in the underground parking structure at the Camden International.”
Anna smiled. “Good guess,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about what happened later. As I said, I don’t plan to hold anything back.”
Redford ordered Nessie to send his people to the Rest Easy Motel to retrieve the alien body as the detective had suggested, this time out loud.
“How long is the flight to Huntington?” asked Anna when he had finished.
“Nessie says about two and a half hours. I’m having her take off now. You can start bringing me up to speed once we’re in the air. I can’t begin to tell you how eager I am to hear what you have to say.”
“Won’t we need headphones?” asked Anna as the aircraft gently lifted from the ground and began to rise.
As the warehouse became a small dot and then vanished behind them, the answer to Anna’s question became obvious, as the cabin remained almost perfectly quiet. “That’s quite some noise-canceling technology you’ve got there,” she said.
“Thanks,” said the colonel. “It’s the best there is.” He paused. “Although I’m not sure why I said thanks,” he added with a smile. “It’s not like I invented it. Speaking of which, do you know how active noise-canceling systems work?”
Anna nodded. “I have it on a few surveillance drones I use. It’s my understanding that these systems pick up ambient noise, analyze it, and generate counter sound waves—equal but opposite. Where the incoming wave has a high crest, the counter-wave will have an equally low trough, and vice versa. So the waves cancel each other out.”
“Very good, Detective,” said Redford. “The system this aircraft uses does exactly that, but better, faster, and more accurately than any other yet developed. And the counter-waves are stronger. It does calculations to ensure that the noise is zeroed out in front of each passenger’s ears. Not only does it know not to cancel out our voices, it actually amplifies them a little.”
“Impressive,” said Anna. “If you close your eyes, you’d think you were in an executive conference room back on the ground.”
“Nothing but the best for my clairvoyant friend and her alien emissary,” he said with a smile. “So let me turn the stage over to the two of you. Ready to tell me what this is all about?”
“More than ready,” said Anna. “But brace yourself,” she added. “You’ve heard of drinking from a fire hose?”
Redford nodded.
“Well, this will be like drinking from a fire hydrant,” she finished with no hint of exaggeration.
38
The two-and-a-half-hour flight seemed to be over in a flash, as their discussion was so engrossing they lost all sense of time. First Anna described what had happened at Salem Hills High and the Camden International, and how her instincts, which she had long honed, and her willingness to give herself over to her subconscious when necessary, could transform her martial arts and sharpshooting skills to rarefied levels.
When it came to extraterrestrials and the state of the galaxy, Redford was able to come up to speed even more quickly than Anna had managed. He had spent his entire career thinking and writing on the subject of extraterrestrials, and he was able to see certain implications of what he was being told without needing them spelled out.
Vega ended the discussion with the last bit of information he had shared with Anna. He told Redford how several Vorians had been eliminated, and provided additional background on what Anna had already told the colonel, that over six hundred additional Tarts had just arrived on Earth. Finally, Vega disclosed how he had refused to call for possible Vorian reinforcements when he and Anna were running for their lives, and the reasoning behind this decision.
This completed, Anna added her insights into the angel/demon nature of the historic conflict between the Vors and Tarts, and the colonel was just as astonished and intrigued as she had been. Anna could tell that if Redford died at that moment, he would die happy, knowing that he finally had answers to questions that had plagued him his entire life, as well as answers to questions he would have never even thought to ask.
Anna liked the colonel from the first moment they had met, and the positive signals she continued to receive from her hidden mind could not be stronger. He insisted that she and Vega call him Steve, to remove any barrier of formality between them, and the more they spoke, the more she trusted him.
And the more attracted to him she became.
But was she attracted to him simply because of her vision of them kissing? And if this was the case, and if this preview ultimately led to the embrace she had seen, had her vision of the future actually caused this future to come into being?
After she had told Redford about Foria, and that the Tarts were behind it, he had paused to issue a flurry of orders, scrambling US intelligence and military assets to LA, Chicago, and New York to find anyone involved and stamp out this drug with a vengeance. The force that he ordered to be assembled was authorized to use whatever resources were necessary, and do whatever it took, including invoking martial law, to destroy every last atom of Foria and anyone involved with its distribution. Handpicked members of Redford’s own team would lead the charge, and would take over whenever the trail led to a Tartarian.
Finally, the colonel ordered any and all samples of the drug to be brought for analysis to the most advanced Black Laboratories in the country, where it would be treated with the respect, caution, and menace it deserved.
Anna had been fighting to get an FBI task force to investigate Foria, but Redford’s powers seemed limitless, and what he was setting up would make her vaunted FBI task force look feeble. She had been alarmed by this drug, and wanted it weeded out, and now the might and resources of the US military were being pressed into doing just that.
Given everything she had learned, this development messed with her head in a big way. Had she just been lucky? Or was her subconscious mind as powerful as Vega thought, orchestrating events to achieve this remarkable result?
She still couldn’t believe this was the case—her powers were much too weak—but it was definitely food for thought.
They finally made it to their destination, not having encountered a whiff of troub
le along the way, and landed in the middle of a barren stretch of desert that turned out to be nothing of the sort. Once they exited the helicopter, they found themselves on a compound spread out over ten acres of desert, with four expansive ranch houses in close proximity, two serving as living quarters, and two as offices and labs. The entire compound had been absolutely invisible until Vega had pressed a button, and then it had materialized in an instant.
Vega also let it be known that they had constructed a single long runway two miles distant, also invisible, and a small hangar containing several private jets capable of international travel, and a number of helicopters. He and most of his fellow Vorians had become licensed to fly both types of aircraft.
Their alien host led them to the closest ranch house, where they took bathroom breaks, and where he fed them a much-needed brunch from a surprisingly well-stocked refrigerator and cupboard. Finally, with their bladders emptied and food in their stomachs, their alien friend introduced them to two of the four Vorians stationed there.
Tom Vega was a jack of all trades, a leader and problem solver. He had been the first of the current Vors to go through the portal, and was in charge of the entire Vorian contingent. All four of his underlings at the facility, on the other hand, were scientists. And while none of them were soldiers, each had undergone extensive military training on Vor prior to the mission.
Two other Vors were absent, currently visiting Silicon Valley, where they were buying experimental technology they could use to construct an array of specialized transmitters. These transmitters would provide protection if the Tarts ever found the Vorian base. The devices would be spread out about a quarter mile away from the central ranch house, surrounding the compound with a twenty-foot-thick ribbon of sound, like an invisible fence used by a dog owner. The frequencies it produced would be inaudible to both humans and Vors, but would be agonizing, debilitating, to any Tart who tried to cross the threshold. And it would even thwart any noise-canceling technology that the Tarts might use, generating a tangential wave that could actually counter the counter-wave, keeping the original sound pure and at full intensity.
The two Vors they did meet were both females, with features similar to human females, at least while clothed. Both looked as if they could have been Vega’s sisters. Baby-faced and slender, with flawless complexions, hairless arms and legs, and eyes that were slightly too big.
The first introduced herself as Lisa Moore, and the second as Kaitlyn O’Connor. They explained that their names had been chosen using a random name generator, as had Vega’s. Kaitlyn was the Vor’s chief scientist on Earth, and Lisa was their expert in genetic engineering. Both also served as medics, having been trained in human and Vorian physiology alike before arriving on Earth. Kaitlyn had been overseas until just the night before, when she had rushed to Utah in the hope of meeting Anna.
After the introductions were out of the way, the three Vors gave Anna and the colonel a quick tour of their labs and facilities, which were top of the line. Anna was particularly interested in the chemistry labs.
“So is this where you store the cure for the Tarts’ demonic possession drug?” she asked.
“It will be soon,” said Vega. “We weren’t aware there were any Tarts on the planet until just last night, as you know. Now that we are, we’ll be sure to have the antidote on hand. But I’m told our lab is short one of the needed ingredients, methyl-chloro-hexadiene. We’re having some delivered to a PO Box in town, which is scheduled to arrive in a few days. After that, we’ll be able to whip up a batch in no time.”
“What about your memory erasure drug?” asked Redford. This was one he was particularly interested in. He had been working with a Black Laboratory trying to perfect such a drug, but so far the project had been a total failure.
Vega gestured to a wall of cupboards at the far end of the lab. “We have about twenty of these pills in a bottle in the first cupboard. As I said earlier, we haven’t used any yet. Now that our presence here has been discovered, I doubt we’ll ever have the need.”
“How do they work?” asked Redford. “Do you need complicated computer and medical equipment to actually excise the memories after the pill is taken?”
“Not at all,” said Vega. “Once taken, the subject is in what you might call a hypnotic state for several minutes. During this time, you just have to have a subject recall certain specific memories, and then order them to forget them forever.”
“Sounds a lot like the Tarts’ zombie drug,” said Anna disapprovingly.
“Not at all,” said Vega. “Yes, you can direct an unwitting human subject, but only during the few minutes the hypnotic state lasts, and only when it comes to memory erasure. If you tried to direct someone to do your bidding after the drug wore off, it wouldn’t work.”
Anna nodded, but she was still troubled by the concept of memory erasure. Once again, she filed this away to revisit at another time.
They finished the tour and returned to one of the ranch homes that served as a residence, ending up in a magnificent library, complete with actual, physical books, and a sizable conference table. The library, like the entire house it was in, had been designed to be as comfortable to a human being as possible, so that it could become the residence of the eventual winner of the Vors’ Oracle lottery.
The two humans sat on one side of the table, and the three Vorians on the other, with Vega in the middle, Lisa Moore to his right, and Kaitlyn O’Connor to his left. A pitcher of ice water was in the center of the table, and Vega poured them each a glass as if he were hosting a tea party rather than one of the most important meetings in the history of both species.
“Your facilities are impressive,” said Redford when they began. “How did you do it?”
“I don’t understand,” said Vega.
“You’ve only been on Earth three years, right?” said the colonel. “You came knowing nothing about our current society. And you possessed nothing, other than gold. You had to learn our languages, technology, customs, and so on. So how did you get from there,” he added, gesturing all around him to encompass the entire compound, “to here, so quickly?”
“Our conscious IQs are very high, and our conscious minds are much more adept at soaking up information than yours. So learning what we needed to learn took us a fraction of the time it would have taken you. Also, we spent many years back on Vor training and planning our steps once we arrived here. And our minds were . . . programmed, if you will, to convert Vorian expressions into human ones, since they don’t match. We can switch this programming on and off at will.”
“Thanks, Tom, but you already touched on all of these points in the helicopter.”
“Right,” said Vega. “Given the limitations of your conscious memory, I thought you might have forgotten.”
The colonel laughed. “Trust me, I might forget the name of the street a friend lives on. But I’ll never forget a word of my first conversation with an extraterrestrial.”
Redford paused. “Let me ask the question a different way,” he said. “The construction of this compound, alone, must have taken enormous amounts of money and resources. I mean, hell, you have your own private jets here, which run ten to twenty million dollars apiece. And you’re also financing other facilities and activities around the globe. So how did you possibly manage it?”
“Now I see what you’re asking,” said Vega. “The answer is that since we’re more advanced than you technologically, we’re able to raise money very quickly. Almost a hundred million dollars so far. A dozen of our people began selling scientific advances to corporations around the world as soon as they got their Earth-legs under them.”
A disturbed look flashed over Redford’s face. “Please tell me you didn’t sell the tech that makes this facility invisible.”
Vega shook his head. “Not a chance,” he replied emphatically. “Only things like improvements in manufacturing and logistics. Or mathematical advances only useful to software engineers. Or cheaper optical processing. That
sort of thing. Nothing that would make the papers. Nothing flashy.”
Redford exhaled loudly. “That’s a relief,” he said. “Because your invisibility tech makes what we have look primitive. We can’t afford it getting into enemy hands. And our own military would kill for it.”
“I trust you’re using the word kill metaphorically,” said Vega.
“Yeah. Sure,” said the colonel, in such a way that suggested even he didn’t know just how literal this statement might be. “But not to worry,” he added. “No one will hear about the tech from me.”
“As an interesting aside,” said Vega, “we developed the invisibility technology on Vor for our use here if the portal ever reopened. And assuming you had enough sophisticated technology for us to build it when we arrived. Not even the Tarts have anything this advanced,” he added. “Not that it gives us any real advantage in the war effort back home, since it can’t be used to cloak a starship.”
“So just how far ahead of us are you tech and science-wise?” asked Redford. “How long until we’re completely stalled out like the other twenty-seven intelligences?”
Vega nodded to the Vor named Kaitlyn O’Connor to reply
“Well,” said the Vorian chief scientist, “none of us are completely stalled out, as I’m sure Tom has told you. We continue to make progress, as evidenced by our light-amplifying and invisibility tech. But this progress is relatively minor. Evolutionary, not revolutionary.
“But to answer your question,” she continued, “I’d estimate that humanity will hit the externally imposed Omega Point in about fifty of your years. Maybe less. The Gatekeepers—or if you don’t believe in them, the laws of nature, our own incompetence, what have you—seem to keep the tightest leash on advanced genetic engineering, neuronal engineering, runaway computer evolution, and nanotechnology. So you’ll catch up even faster in these areas.”
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