The Fellowship for Alien Detection (28 page)

“Nothing,” said the Alto.

“Okay . . .” said Haley.

“So,” Dodger asked between bites, “you're like, a Man in Black, or what?”

The Alto flicked the plastic hula doll on his dashboard. “Remember the Men in Black, Holly? Those were good times.” He cocked his head toward Dodger. “I am a person for hire. I am adept at certain things.”

“So you do, like, secret missions and stuff?”

“Affirmative.”

“What's the coolest place you've ever gone for a mission?”

“I don't remember most of them, but I think I was in Antarctica, and that was neat. Another time I might have briefly been on the International Space Station.”

Haley peered at him. “Come on, really?”

“Oh, and Mall of America was pretty cool,” the Alto added.

Haley just shook her head. “We need to make a plan. What are we going to do when we get to Juliette?” She turned to the Alto. “What did Alex Keller think we should do?”

“She said that she would be in touch with more information,” said the Alto. “But first, she had to get her and her dad off the grid, to assure that the aliens didn't come after them, too.”

“She's going to call you?” Haley asked.

“Affirmative,” said the Alto. “I gave her the sequence of prepaid phones that I am using, a new one each day. Hopefully we will hear from her soon.”

“I wonder if they got her,” said Haley, glancing out into the twilight.

“She didn't sound like someone trained in avoiding alien encounters,” said the Alto. “And I believe her dad may be a bit of a crank.”

“Okay,” said Haley, turning back to Dodger. “So, if I'm understanding this right, and if Juliette's not on any map, then it's not even going to
be
there when we get there, right? And how is that possible again?”

“It's in a time loop, stuck repeating a day in 1994,” said Dodger. “At least, I think.”

“The whole town,” said Haley, trying to picture it. “And so the people inside . . . they don't know what's happening to them?”

“I don't think so,” said Dodger. “At least, their radio DJ seems to have no idea.”

“That would make sense with testing trial protocol,” said the Alto.

“What do you mean?” Haley asked.

“Well, when you are running tests, experiments, you want everything to be the same each time except for the variables you're testing.”

“Okay,” said Haley, thinking of science class, “so, the people are the test subjects, and the test is . . . the day? And they have to keep repeating it.”

“More like the people are the rats, and Juliette is the maze,” said Dodger.

“Okay, so the people are being brought there, then run through different tests. Since the day is always the same, they can see how the tests work. But,” Haley wondered aloud. “What are the aliens testing? And what does it have to do with putting chunks of that crystal underground all over the country?”

“All over the world,” said Dodger. “That's what it looked like on the map I saw.”

“They must be setting up to do something on a global scale,” said the Alto.

Haley tried to imagine it: going to bed each night thinking the next day would come, all the plans and hopes, only to wake up and start all over again. And to not even know it? Was there a worse nightmare than to have the possibility taken from your life?

Haley's thoughts were interrupted. She noticed the Alto whispering to himself, a word, over and over. “Bliss . . .” And he was fiddling with that bracelet.

“What?” Haley asked again.

“Hmm?” The Alto seemed to shake out of a trance.

“You just said something,” said Haley. “It sounded like ‘Bliss.'” She peered at him, but the Alto's face remained its usual blank, his eyes on the road.

“Bliss . . . Bliss . . .” He seemed to be running the word over his tongue, as if he was trying to get to know it. “It's—something, familiar to me. I'm not sure what.”

“You knew about the sun-falling-to-earth thing the other night, too,” said Haley suspiciously. “What exactly is it that you know about all this stuff?”

The Alto shrugged. “I don't know anything . . . at least as far as I know.”

Haley frowned at him. “You know that's a ridiculous answer, right?”

“Hey, sometimes it's hard to know what you know,” said Dodger.

Haley looked from one to the other. “Is this a boy thing?”

“Maybe,” said Dodger, and he finally smiled. “Sorry.”

Haley looked away, surprised by a thought she'd just had. There was no time for considering whether this Dodger character was cute or not.

Then she heard that jangle from beside her again. When she turned to see the Alto fiddling with his bracelet yet again, she held out her hand and said, “Okay, that's it. Hand it over.”

“What?” said the Alto.

“The bracelet. Give it. Now.”

The Alto glanced at her, frowning. Haley figured he would refuse, but then he sighed and slipped the chain off his wrist. “I don't know where I got it,” he said as he handed it to Haley.

Haley turned the bracelet over in her fingers. The chain was a tarnished silver color. Five little charm pendants hung off it. They were oblong, flat polished discs of a silver-gray stone. Each had a crude shape etched into it. On the first disc was a rounded circle, possibly the letter C or a crescent moon. The next one showed three vertical lines, slightly wavy, the middle line the shortest and the right-most line the tallest. The next charm had what looked like IX, either letters or Roman Numerals. The fourth had a little sun and a line like the horizon, and there were two little vertical lines above the sun. And the last charm had a symbol that Haley couldn't decipher. It looked sort of like a yin-yang.

Haley looked at the Alto. “Did you make these?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe? Or someone gave them to me . . . Christine . . . no. Charlene.”

Haley considered the symbols. “You keep saying ‘C' names. Someone you're trying to remember.” She held up the crescent shape. “Maybe this C is to remember her name.”

The Alto nodded. “That is what it feels like. When I look at that C, I feel a hollow place where the name should be, like a puzzle with a missing piece. Sometimes I even think I can see her face, but . . . I can't be sure.”

“And . . .” said Haley. She held up the symbol with the little sun. “Is this the ‘night sun descending?' Like we saw the other night?”

“I believe so,” said the Alto. “Those are the only two I have figured out.”

“Why would you be wearing a symbol for those crystals falling to earth?” Haley wondered aloud. “Unless . . . You know something about all this.”

“I . . . I'm not sure,” said the Alto. “I mean, yes, I do.

“About a year and a half ago, I woke up in a hospital in Phoenix. I literally had no memory of where I'd been. Everything before that is this big blank. I mean, I remember snippets of earlier jobs, and most of my childhood, but whatever I was doing right before I woke up in Phoenix has been . . . erased. But then I found this bracelet, sewn into the cuff of my pants. Wherever I'd been, I smuggled it out.”

“So how did you end up with us?” Haley asked.

“Well, since then I've been taking odd jobs for hire, run-of-the-mill black-ops stuff, trying to piece things together, until this job posted.”

Haley raised an eyebrow. “Posted? What, is there like a job board for mercenaries?”

The Alto smiled. “Of course. But it's on a site whose server can only be accessed from about twenty computers in the entire country. I was at the one in the basement of a preschool in Mississippi when I saw Keller's post looking for help. Usually there are multiple bids for a black ops job. But nobody wanted this one. And when I read about the missing time and Juliette, it felt right.”

Haley looked back at the bracelet. “So, you've got the falling crystals. And someone's name that begins with C. And no idea about these other three?”

“No. I don't even know what puzzles those pieces are missing from yet, so to speak.”

“Do you think the aliens took your memories?” Dodger asked.

The Alto looked up into his brow. “That is the most likely scenario . . . right, Holly?” He reached out and flicked the doll. Holly bounced vigorously, her spring squeaking in the lingering silence.

Haley sensed that the Alto had shared enough for the moment. She handed back the bracelet. “Okay,” she continued. “Well, so, anyway, let's assume Juliette is a lab . . . for testing whatever they plan to do globally. If we're going to free those people, and the planet, then we're going to have to get in there.”

“Free them?” said the Alto. “That's a different mission than you were talking about two days ago. What happened to just getting the story?”

Haley's motor had started to whir, and her thoughts surprised her. “Well, it's bigger than that now, isn't it? Whatever this is, it's dangerous . . . to everyone. I mean, if they're installing this technology all over the world, what if the goal is to have us all repeating the same day?”

“That may be, but stopping them it is a good deal more dangerous to us,” said the Alto.

Haley didn't like that thought, and yet she snapped right back at him. “Is that a reason not to do it?”

And now the Alto smiled. “Of course not. Danger is always preferable.”

Until it's too dangerous
, Haley thought to herself, her insides twisting.
Are you sure you want to do this?
The doubt demon had a good point. She'd gone from trying to uncover a possible alien conspiracy to trying to stop one.

“What do you think?” she asked Dodger.

He sighed. “I just wanted to get to Juliette . . . but, I mean, sure. I guess. We could save the world, too.”

Haley nodded. It wasn't a very enthusiastic response, but hopefully Dodger would come around.

“So, if I understand this correctly,” said the Alto, “our new mission parameters are to get into Juliette and somehow disrupt the time loop program.”

“Yes,” said Haley. “Freeing Juliette should be the key to exposing the rest of the plot. Which brings us right back where we started. First, we need a way in. I don't suppose they'll be a door with a welcome mat when we get there.”

“A door . . .” said Dodger. “Oh . . . wait.” He sat up, like a light had gone off in his brain. “I think I could get in there, and maybe get us all in.”

“How?”

“When I was underneath Lucky Springs, in that room I told you about with the giant crystal, I kind of interfaced with it.”

“Interfaced?” Haley asked.

“Yeah, like, I uploaded into it, but the point is, I had the option to travel to a bunch of places. And I think one of them was caves beneath Juliette. So, I think if I had wanted, I could have beamed myself to Juliette right then. How far is it to go back to Lucky Springs?”

Haley decided to leave her pile of questions aside for the moment, most of which concerned how Dodger could have
uploaded
himself into a rock. Instead, she pulled out her Tracking Map. “Too far,” she said, “but if you're right and there's one of these rocks beneath each abducted town, then . . .” She ran her fingers over her map again. “Here!” she said. “Mesa Top, Arizona. It's the closest abductee town to us. Southwest of here, not really on the way to Juliette but a lot closer than Lucky Springs. They had a Missing Time Event about ten years ago, and they have a UCA mine. What if we go there?”

“If I were those agents,” said the Alto, “I would not expect that.”

Haley looked back at Dodger. “Yeah,” he said.

“Okay, then. That's the new plan. Should we try to get there before dawn? When no one's awake?”

“Affirmative.” The Alto plugged Mesa Top into his GPS. “We should stop in a couple hours for me to engage in sleep, then we can be there by four a.m.”