2140 On an old mining road just inside the Nellis AFB Range Complex.
Max drove slowly through the night, the lights off, finding the old overgrown path only by the light of the stars and a quarter moon. The Jeep was no longer blue…it was now flat black…his clothes as well. He’d change their color again in the morning…to match whatever part of the desert they were going through. He had to go slowly, stopping periodically to listen for other vehicles out on the desert…although the night wind was picking up, and that helped to cover the noise of the Jeep.
Max was scared…he admitted that to himself. More scared than he’d ever been in his life. Not scared for himself…..this was much worse than that…scared for Liz…his wife. He thought back on the decade that Isabel had been warning him….warning him about giving away the secret, warning him about getting too close to humans. The boogey man she’d used had always been the same….Area 51…the place the Air Force took aliens to vivisect them.
For a decade now, the military and Area 51 had been the boogey-man, and the fear was consuming him….misplaced fear……fear from a stereotype no less outrageous than the concept of bug-eyed alien monsters. For in point of fact, the US military was really one of the least xenophobic organizations in the culture. No, it certainly wasn’t perfect, but on July 26, 1948 President Truman had issued an Executive Order integrating the services, and that process had worked far better and far quicker within the services than it ever had ain the population as a whole. And by September of 1999 any military base would have shown evidence of acceptance of diversity…people of all races, working as a coherent unit….children of Black, White Filipino, German, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese…and other backgrounds, golden children who were living proof of the diversity their parents embraced, whatever went on in the outside world.
But that wasn’t the reality that Max saw…he saw only the memories of aliens strapped to autopsy tables…with evil scientists pawing through their entrails, and in the darkness of the desert it was far too easy to envisage Liz’s face on the body being vivisected.
If he hadn’t been thinking of Liz, Max might have marveled at the changes that had occurred in him in just those two and a half weeks…but he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about his wife Liz, flesh of his flesh, joined in love and joined in marriage….and his responsibility. Max didn’t even bother to question how far he would go to save her….flesh of his flesh, he’d do whatever he had to do…anything at all. And if he found that anyone had hurt her….the rage grew in him…becoming stronger..almost rivaling his fear for her safety. No, there was no limit to what Max would do….fight….die…kill for her…but not now. Now was the time for stealth. She had to be alive…because he was sure he’d have felt it in his soul if she weren’t. Laboriously he drove and stopped…drove and stopped…working his way across the Nellis Range Area…toward Groom Lake.
2150 Passenger Terminal, Tonopah Test Range Nevada
The
two C-12s had landed at Tonopah Test Range only 15 minutes ago, and both were soon to take off again.
The first would be going back to its home base at Nellis AFB carrying two prisoners to turn over to the Federal Marshal Service on charges of assault and battery, illegal use of drugs in the commission of assault and battery, and any other charge that the Southern Nevada US Attorney’s office could make stick. Both Blaukopf and Schreiber would be traveling in handcuffs, each escorted by an armed security policeman.
The second aircraft would be refueled, and the crew would convert it to a partial medevac configuration with one litter for the TASERed teenager, two medical support personnel, and three empty seats. It was decided that Slammer, Jim, and Laurie would go, while Peter remained behind to start evaluating how close they could safely get to the hangars that had been torn up by the FTL drive.
But in the meantime, the interview continued…..
“Liz..” asked Peter, “…why did you come into the conference room when everyone else was running…trying to get away from the light?”
“I didn’t think it would do any good to run…..not when I saw the salad plates sliding towards the light.”
“What did you think was going on out there, Liz?” Peter asked.
Slammer’s eyes grew wide when he heard Liz say,…..”I thought it was a singularity…that’s about the only thing that could do that..”
“Ask her how she knew about singularities,” Slammer said to Peter. “That’s just not something any sixteen year old teenage runaway could possibly know. I didn’t know what it was,…how could she.”
Liz turned to look at Slammer, struggling to keep her eyes from crossing again…then she looked back to Peter. “That was a singularity…wasn’t it? A ring singularity?”
“How could she possibly know that…unless she is something more than she appears to be,” asked Slammer again.
Liz giggled, “ I read it in a Scientific American…two years ago now…”
“Is that possible, Peter? I mean, that sounds like too pat an answer…is there any way we can check to see if there was any such article published?”
“I’m pretty sure there was, Commander,” said Peter. “I was the coauthor…”
‘
Well damn,’ thought Slammer.
‘..am I the only one here that DOESN’T understand this stuff?’
“Sir,” said Laurie, “since Dr. Schreiber and Dr. Blaukopf raised the issue…maybe we ought to just ask her…straight out….about being an alien, I mean.”
Slammer nodded to Peter and he asked her, “Liz…this may sound like a funny question…but ..are you an alien?”
Liz began giggling, “People are always asking me that…me and Maria….because of our antennas.”
“Antennas?” asked Peter. “Do you mean antennae?”
“Yeah…Antennaes,” said Liz, the ones that come out of our heads…”
“You have antennae coming out of your head, Liz? I don’t see them…”
“That’s because I’m not in uniform…I only wear my antennas when I’m in uniform.”
“What kind of uniform, Liz?”
“My waitress uniform. Maria and I have waitress uniforms with antennas…not real antennas….deely-boppers with ping pong balls….that’s why the kids think we are aliens.”
“Deely-boppers?” said Peter and Slammer in unison, both looking puzzled.
“Sir, they are kind of a head band with springs that come up with the headband that wave when you move your head…I’m sure you must have seen them.”
“Why would you wear antennas…I mean, antennae,” asked Peter.
“That’s our costume when we serve them food…like Galaxy melts, and Saturn rings and space fries…and my personal favorite, the Men in Blackberry Pie.”
”So these are all types of food? And the antennae…just a costume?”
“Not just food but drink too. I like the Blood of Alien Smoothie but Max…Max just has a Cherry coke, with a Tablespoonful of Tabasco.”
“I imagine that lights a fire in him," said Laurie.”
Liz blushed, “No…not really…but I know what does…whipped cream and Tabasco…but it’s a little hot…”
Jim came back into the room then with the security manager, and gave a thumbs up.
“Blaukopf and Schreiber are being loaded onto the plane for Nellis right now. They’ll hold them there until the US Marshals get there. They are reconfiguring the other C-12 to move Liz to the Det….oh, and I got through to the JAG, too.”
“Great, what did the JAG say about us notifying her parents about her medical condition?”
“Uh…sir, the JAG said the only one we can notify would be her husband…”
“Her husband? Another sixteen year old kid, whose apparent only known skill is as a forger? That doesn’t seem right.”
“He’s a great cuddler, too…” said Liz.
“Well, that’s great…he forges documents and makes whoopee….why can’t we call in her parents?”
“She’s an emancipated minor, sir…because of the marriage.”
“She ran off and they both lied about their ages to get married…that can’t be valid.”
“It is sir,... until it’s annuled, it’s perfectly valid, according to the JAG. You have to notify Max Evans. And apparently the two of them have been in contact with their folks, they found a couple APB’s out on the two of them. Max Evans and Liz Parker, married in Las Vegas at the Elvis chapel on the 25th of February.”
”Well, if they have APBs out on them, we should be able to turn them over to the local cops, shouldn’t we?”
“Well sir,” said the security manager, “ I suppose we can…but I don’t think that would change anything. I was talking with one of the Nye County Deputies…they know the couple. Liz and Max and Anna saved one of their deputies a couple weeks ago. He was shot up when a traffic stop suddenly became a big drug bust…Liz and her husband pulled the guy through….then Max busted the jaw of a would-be rapist…someone with an outstanding warrant out on him for raping a little girl up in Fallon…..I mean…Nye County Sheriff's Department really likes these kids. I think the locals know about the APBs, they’re just ignoring them.“
“And according to the JAG, sir, until the marriage is annulled, it’s perfectly legal, and every day that goes by makes it less likely that the Nevada courts would annul it if the kids objected..and they seem pretty happy, according to the Deputy....”
“So what happens if we just notify the police department that sent out the APBs? What’s wrong with that?”
“The JAG says that would be a violation of the
Posse Commitatus act…he says we can do that..but then we’ll have to go to jail for two years.”
Slammer just shook his head. “Sounds like when the drugs wear off the young lady, we take her back to Max. Why don’t you see if you can contact him…reassure him that she’s OK.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about Max…..he’ll come get me,” said a giggling Liz. “He gets lonesome at night if I’m not there…ever since we got married.”
‘Yeah, well I’d like to see him get through our security,” said the security manager jokingly. He’d remember saying that tomorrow, and by then the joke wouldn’t seem funny at all……
2300 Correctional Custody detainment area, Nellis Air Force Base Nevada.
The guard checked the ID…..it was clearly valid. “You’ll have to sign these forms, sir,” said the senior guard, “for us to turn custody of the prisoners over to you.”
”Not a problem, Agent Anderson and I have our car right outside. Here, we might as well put them in our handcuffs so you can have yours back. There’s your signatures..”
It was another ten minutes before the prisoners personal property was found and inventoried, and the federal agents signed for those contents as well. The prisoners were carefully loaded into the back of the GAO car with Agent Anderson riding shotgun. The correctional Custody guard shook the hand of the agent.
“Well, this sure makes it easy on us. We thought we were going to have to wait for the Federal Marshal’s office to pick these guys up tomorrow afternoon. This is really service.”
“Well, the FBI and the Marshal’s Office do a lot of work together. Charlie and I were in the area on other business and had some time…thought we’d help them out.”
“Well, you and Charlie take care. This is Las Vegas, there are a lot of drunks on the road 24-7, the casinos never close. Drive carefully.”
”We’ll do that…thanks for your help, Master Sergeant Jennings.”
“No problem, Agent Pierce…”
