Secrets under the mesa, p.6
Secrets Under the Mesa, page 6
After wading through hundreds of posts each month, nothing surfaced about our hybrids. And that made sense, since the hybrids didn’t appear as the typical alien creatures found in books and movies. They looked a lot like us which actually made them more terrifying. What’s scarier, the hairy, fanged easily identifiable monster in the closet or the evil twin sleeping in the next bed?
“Did you call Joe about the Dallas sighting?” Dylan wanted to know.
“I thought I’d give him until mid-morning before I call. He’s been sounding really tired lately and I don’t want to call too early and wake him up.” The cancer seemed to be progressing on schedule, and I doubted he’d be around in another six months. I tried not to think about that too much. We’d become close and communicated almost daily. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him so soon.
“Well, I say we take a little drive over to Pearl Street,” Ben said.
“Definitely,” Dylan agreed.
“And what if we run into one?” Abby asked. “What do we do? Grab it and hog tie it, then call the Alien Police to come pick it up?”
Ben spewed maple donut particles all over my coffee table.
I laughed and said, “Abby has a point, guys. We need a plan.”
A loud knock at the front door of my apartment interrupted the conversation.
I frowned, wondering who it could be at this early hour, as I put my hand on the doorknob and started to press my eye to the peephole.
Something made me stop.
An internal alarm sounded in my brain – perhaps some danger-sensing ability leftover from our ancient ancestors, or maybe my subconscious mind had picked up a warning sign that it failed to share with its cognitive cousin. At any rate, I removed my hand from the doorknob and stepped away from the door, just as the peephole exploded. Bullets blew a five-inch hole in the wood before embedding themselves in the opposite wall.
I was standing there in a daze, gawking like an idiot when Ben jumped from his chair and pulled me down on the floor just as more bullets shattered the front window. A shower of broken glass peppered our backs. Dylan and Abby hit the ground too.
Ben yelled, “Stay down!” a half second before more bullets annihilated the living room windows in an explosion of glass. A few hit Mini NORAD, shattering a monitor and causing unknown damage to some of the other electronic hardware for which I still owed considerable sums.
The bullets stopped. We waited on the floor for another few minutes before standing up. Ben now held a .38 automatic, two-hand style like the cops do on TV. It had magically appeared in his hands at some point during the action. I knew he owned one and had mentioned taking the concealed handgun permit course, but he really looked like a pro just then. He crept to the side of the front window and slid an eyeball to the edge of the remaining glass.
“It’s clear,” he said. Then he repeated the procedure at the other set of demolished windows. “Clear.”
We took a moment to check each other for damage. Other than a few cuts from broken glass on my forearms, we all seemed to have emerged from the assault intact and unharmed.
“What the fuck, Josh?” Dylan asked. He had his arm around Abby who appeared remarkably calm. Most women would have been reduced to hysterics after a violent attack like that, but not Abby. I was beginning to think she was made of sterner stuff than me.
“I think someone is trying to send us a message,” I said, annoyed by the quaver in my voice. “What are the odds that this was a random act? Somebody must know about our involvement. I wonder if it was the same assholes from Dulce.”
“I don’t know,” Ben replied. “But the next time, I’ll be ready for them.” No quaver there, damn it. I felt like Don Knotts to his Clint Eastwood.
I conducted a cursory examination of my computers. The damage looked extensive, but until I ran diagnostics on everything, I wouldn’t know. My heart sank. If we lived through the next few months, I would have to take a second job.
Police sirens in the distance now. This day was getting better by the minute.
###
The next few hours were filled with police reports, cleaning up broken glass and supervising the replacement of the windows. Fortunately, I’d found a company that agreed to send a crew over later that morning.
The police had proven more difficult than the window repairs. I didn’t live in south Dallas after all – drive-by shootings weren’t common in this white collar area. Initially, just two officers arrived, and after they’d confirmed that the shooters were long gone, the grilling began. Squad cars carrying backup officers came next and were followed by a nondescript sedan bearing plainclothes detectives. We stuck with the same story no matter how many times and how many different law enforcement officials asked the questions.
Did you see the shooters? No. We were too busy crouching on the floor avoiding gunfire.
What were your friends doing here? We’d met at my apartment and had planned to go to breakfast together.
Why so early? What kind of question is that? We’re early risers, I guess. And we really love breakfast foods.
Who would want to harm you? I have no idea.
Do you think you were the target or could the target have been one of your friends? How would I know? To my knowledge, none of us has any enemies. But you might want to do a cavity search on the big one there.
(Middle finger from Ben.)
Are you or your friends involved in any illegal activities? Absolutely not. We’re all law-abiding citizens. Still, that cavity search might not be a bad idea. He’s got a shifty look about him, don’t you think?
And so on and so on for the next two hours.
Finally, the fine representatives of the Dallas PD were finished and left en masse, with the parting threat of more questions to follow as reports were written and found lacking. Shortly after, Ben and Abby also left to run some errands but planned to return within a couple of hours, at which point we would venture down to the arts district of Dallas. Dylan stayed behind with me.
I watched him as he made a fresh pot of coffee in my kitchen. I could tell that methodical brain of his, which had aced pre-med classes, was contemplating thoughts more complex than scooping coffee. I remained silent. Finally, after we sat down at the kitchen table with steaming cups, he spoke.
“Josh, I’ve never doubted anything you’ve told me. You know that right?” I nodded. “The problem is I wonder if you’ve underestimated the situation.”
“Well, no shit, Dylan. Obviously I have. That’s how I almost got myself killed a couple of hours ago. My friends too.”
“I don’t mean what happened this morning, per se. I mean the bigger picture.”
“You mean the bigger picture of not just alien hybrids trying to kill off our species, but the fact that people in high places apparently want us to stay out of it?”
“No, the even bigger picture.” He gazed out the kitchen window at the fall colors in the neighboring park. That view was the main reason I’d leased the apartment. Dallas wasn’t known for breathtaking scenery or interesting topography – flat and extensively developed were the predominant themes here. But a lovely little manicured park resided next to my complex and from the kitchen window I could watch children play, leaves change from green to orange and neighbors walk their dogs in the dusky, golden light of early evening. I did some of my best writing in the spot where Dylan sat now.
“Elaborate, please.”
“We know the alien hybrids exist. We’ve watched the videos numerous times. You and Ben saw one at the gas station on that first trip. Joe has confirmed recent sightings in Arizona and now we believe they’re here. We don’t know their agenda; we just assume they mean us harm, as evidenced by what happened in the video on the mesa. We also assume there is a group of powerful people in the government who are responsible for the creation of these hybrids and are even now aware they’re loose.”
He paused a moment before continuing.
“Do we really believe these government people didn’t plan this all along? Doesn’t it seem a bit far-fetched that they’d lose control of their multi-billion dollar project and then just write it off to experience?”
I had a feeling that whatever Dylan was about to say would send me to the Mylanta cabinet.
“What if that was their plan all along? Develop the technology, create the hybrids and then step back and let their protégé do their dirty work?”
“What dirty work?” I asked. “We believe the hybrids were created as part of a weapons program to create the perfect killing machine. One that was smarter and stronger than our enemies. One that would look human on the battlefield but could out shoot, out run and out last any human adversary. I’m not following you, Dylan.”
“What happened twenty thousand years ago, Josh? Remember the ancient astronaut theory? It’s always made sense to me. The DNA jumpstart we allegedly got from extraterrestrials gave Homo sapiens the edge over Cro-Magnon man. We developed farming, we built cities, we advanced so rapidly and in such a superior manner that Cro-Magnon died out. He couldn’t compete. It could have been a case of natural selection – the best, brightest, strongest and fastest always prevail in nature. But it wasn’t a fair competition because we had an advantage given to us by the extraterrestrials. This had nothing to do with nature. They jacked around with our DNA, plugged in an extra gene or two, or maybe just activated some that were dormant, who knows? But they did something to us that gave us an edge. Homo sapiens prevailed, Cro-Magnon died out. And it wasn’t because nature had determined we were the better species, but because we cheated.
“We became extraterrestrial ourselves. We were the first hybrids.” He let that sink in before continuing.
“Part earthling, part something else. Now we, the hybrids, have created another, supposedly better hybrid. It’s like a mailman suddenly deciding to perform brain surgery. We’re out of our league. The extraterrestrials are capable of space travel. They are unquestionably vastly superior to us in evolutionary terms. Yet we have the balls to think we can do what they did? The arrogance of the people responsible for this is astounding.”
I couldn’t deny any of his logic, but I still wasn’t clear on where he was going.
“What do you suppose would happen if the ETs found out what we’d done? Do you think they’d be happy about it? Something tells me no. We don’t know why they did whatever it was they did to our DNA, but let’s assume it was for altruistic reasons. We must seem like children to them, or even pets maybe.”
I smiled at that. It made me think of a Jack Handey quote: I wish outer space guys would conquer the Earth and make people their pets, because I'd like to have one of those little beds with my name on it.
“You’re thinking of the Jack Handey thing, aren’t you?” Dylan smiled. “Anyway, I imagine it would be like parents dealing with naughty children. We might be in for a very bad scolding. Or, let’s say their motivation wasn’t so magnanimous. Maybe they engineered us to be a slave race. Or a food source. Good grief, there are seven billion of us fuckers on this planet. If ‘human’ is on their menu, we’d be quite the smorgasbord.”
I couldn’t help it. The writer in me found the idea hilarious. I imagined goliathan tables covered with platters of braised human in delicate wine sauces. Ben could feed a family of aliens all by himself.
We have to worry about natural disasters, asteroids hitting the planet, nuclear war, global warming, solar flares and EMPs. Now we also have to worry about aliens devouring us at some massive intergalactic feast?
“So, what you’re saying, Dylan, is that not only do we have to contend with the hybrids who want to kill us, the government traitors who also want to kill us if they can’t keep us out of their business, now we might be dealing with some pissed ETs coming back to earth and either spanking us or eating us? This situation just gets better and better.”
"Yeah, but that isn’t all. There might be another concern. Maybe the assholes that started all this were after more than just putting down insurgences in Afghanistan or Iraq. Maybe they’re looking at a much bigger picture too.”
“What, like world domination?” I smiled.
Dylan cocked an eyebrow. “Consider history, my friend. You think it’s that farfetched?”
I realized it wasn’t. A flood of would-be world conquerors ran through my head: Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, the Romans, Hitler. An inner circle within the tangled web of scientists, politicians and military people involved with Dulce Base whose ultimate goal was to control the world, starting with their own country. It’s happened countless times in history. Just because there was a science fiction edge this time around didn’t make it any less plausible.
“Fuck, Dylan. That would explain Operation Clean Sweep. They sicced the hybrids on the people they wanted out of the picture, staged an uprising, then sent in the military as part of the emergency protocol to finish off the rest of them.”
“Maybe. It seems reasonable, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, unfortunately it makes more sense than anything else. And if that’s the case, there might be more hybrids than we’ve been thinking. If they knew Clean Sweep was coming and had time to hunker down somewhere, it could be that very few or perhaps none of the hybrids were killed.”
I remembered the creature at the Chevron station outside of Dulce – thought of that horrific smile and what it conveyed and wondered how many more had been crammed in that Nissan. How many more were holed up somewhere, safe and sound...waiting for the opportunity to unleash their killing urges? How many more were infiltrating my city even now?
I headed for the Mylanta cupboard.
“One thing at a time though, buddy,” Dylan replied. “We should probably just focus on the here and now – the immediate threat that we know about.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” I said, looking out the window at the park below. I watched a woman in a black track suit walking her dog. It was some kind of foo foo breed...a shih tzu or poodle. Dylan followed my gaze and confirmed my theory.
“It’s a shih tzu. They’re cute and friendly but prone to renal dysplasia and respiratory problems. A good choice for an apartment dweller though,” he shot me a pointed look. I smiled, and watched the woman and her dog. At that moment, she glanced in our direction. She was wearing dark sunglasses which covered a large portion of her face, but despite that, something about her seemed very familiar – and not familiar within the context of the park. I studied the shih tzu, realizing it was not one of the canine regulars.
“What is it?” Dylan asked.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“Who is she, Josh?”
“Remember the woman from the casino that I told you and Abby about? The one who was hitting on me but who finally directed us to the bartender for information about Joe? I’m 90 percent sure that’s her. What in the hell is she doing here?”
Dylan studied her for a few seconds then said with a frown, “I’m guessing she’s spying on you.”
My bay window was tinted to improve energy efficiency during the long, hot Texas summers, but I’m sure she could make out two figures on the other side of the glass.
I jumped out of my chair.
“What are you going to do?” Dylan asked, following me into the living room.
“I’m going to have a conversation with that woman,” I smiled in a way that made Dylan visibly nervous. I’d been beaten up, shot at and almost killed in my own home. I was at the breaking point, and this woman was going to give me some answers.
I bolted out the front door and flew down the concrete steps of my apartment complex with Dylan on my heels. The quickest way to the park was through the gated swimming pool area, then down a sidewalk that ran between two other apartment buildings. The sidewalk connected with a paved walking path that led to the park.
She’d been close enough to my building for me to recognize her, but we had to go about a city block in the opposite direction to gain access to the park. Still, it took two minutes tops to get there. We slowed to a halt on the spot where she’d been. Even in late October, the grass was still green but the trees were losing their leaves and there weren’t many places she could be hiding. She was nowhere in sight.
I detected a faint fragrance and lifted my nose up in the air like a bloodhound. They say the olfactory receptors have the ability to trigger memories more poignantly than any of our other senses. The scent of that perfume placed me squarely back in the casino in Dulce, New Mexico.
I was right.
Just then, we heard a car door slam on the far side of the park. We sprinted in that direction but were too late. The black sedan (again with the black!) was driving away at an accelerated speed and was already too far away to make out the numbers on the license plate. We stood at the curb of the residential street and watched it disappear around a corner.
“That was her, Dylan,” I said, breathing heavily after our sprint. “I recognized her perfume.”
Dylan didn’t question me. He just nodded in silent commiseration. We’d had an opportunity to get some answers and blown it.
We walked back to the place she’d been when we spotted her. I wanted to stand where she’d been and see what she had seen. From that vantage, the second story bay window of my apartment wasn’t opaque. I could make out the back of my kitchen chairs and a round object on the wall, which I knew to be the tacky rooster clock my mom had given me for Christmas two years ago.
Next to the bay window was the recently replaced smaller window of my living room. The one which was located directly above mini NORAD. How interesting that the larger window had not been targeted by our assailants this morning. Was it possible that our attackers had known precisely where my electronics were? Had they known all the human occupants were in the living room and not in the kitchen? The intact bay window implied some kind of advance or covert knowledge.
