Angelique Rising (40 page)

             
“Goons,” she said, fleeing the table.

             
I felt a hand clasp onto my shoulder. A
large
hand.

             
“Hello, there,” I heard behind me. “Guess we have a lot to talk about, Son.”

             
I looked up and saw the huge Air Force man I’d seen in the forest standing above me. General Peerless. I remembered he’d told me his name just before a hypo was plunged into my arm.

             
“Well,” I muttered to him. I should have punched him in the nuts just on principle. I wish I’d done something like that at Little Island, at least once. Come to think of it though, I guess in my own way I did.

             
“General,” the Doctor said icily leaning forward in his seat, “Mark and I have not completed our initial interview, much less our orientation sessions.”

             
“I’m sure, Doc. But Mark here is kind of a special case. Sorta doesn’t fit our rules now, does he?”

             
“Even so,
I
am charge of initial treatment so I’ll have to insist that you leave.”

             
“What about you, Mark? You have any objection to my sitting in here? You don’t, do you? Just a fly on the wall, that’s all I’ll be.”

             
I got the unnerving impression I was being fought over, like a rabbit between two houndogs.

             
“General,” I said indignantly, “I appreciate all you’ve done for me and all the Doctor has done. But really, this alien thing isn’t something I care to get further involved in.”

             
“This alien thing?” the General repeated casting a suspicious look at me which he instantly softened into a forced smile of friendship. “You seem to know a lot for a returnee who’s just arrived.”

             
“My memory is fine,” I snapped.

             
“What about that ship? You said you
stole
it?”

             
“General!” the Doctor erupted, losing the battle to keep the edge from his voice. “This man, our
guest,
is a civilian, and you have no jurisdiction over him yet.”

             
Yet?
I wondered in stunned disbelief. I didn’t want that military gargantua to have jurisdiction over me
ever.

             
The Doctor was staring at the Air Force man murderously, willing him to leave, looking like he was on the verge of using some kind of coercion I could only guess at.

             
The General smiled at me again. “We’ll talk later,” he said, his eyes narrowing to a hard stare.

             
“Not until I approve it!”
the Doctor hissed, his voice laced with threat. The General, rigid and towering, glared disdainfully at him but did slowly walk away. I noticed none of the people on the terrace looked at the General when he passed and some actually scurried out of his path.

             
“I’m truly sorry about that, Mark,” Dr. Montgomery said, an unsettled tone in his voice. Or maybe it was fear. “The General can be a bit prickly.”

             
“Prickly?”

             
“Let’s get back to what we were talking about. You were telling me what you remember.”

             
None of it felt right. “Jailer” Caroline had said. TRUST NOT. I was scared and clearly out of my element so I did what anyone suspecting it is they who are the imbecile in the room would do. I would find out as much as I could about
them
and make my move
out.

             
“Doctor,” I said crisply, hoping I sounded decisive, “I’m sorry but I just don’t wish to discuss this further. Besides, you apparently know as much about these aliens as I do, so you don’t need my assistance.”

             
I expected him to be angry or at least take a try at keeping me talking. Instead, he just made a gesture with his hand indicating he interpreted my reticence as an insignificant temporary inconvenience that I would soon get over.

             
“Then why don’t you look around here, Mark? Talk to the other returnees, get your feet planted firmly back on the ground. Get comfortable. Anything you need or want, you just ask for it. When you’re ready, we’ll talk again. How’s that for fair? No pressure. Despite that calm exterior of yours --which I compliment you on-- I know you must be overwhelmed by this. There’s no shame in that, none. I’m here for you and I will absolutely help you get past the rough spots. But one thing I want to say. What you did, getting away on your own like that, I think you’re phenomenal. Truly.”

             
His compliment leveled me. And Dr. Montgomery, he just walked away. He not only walked away, he left me alone for four whole days, as well as (I’m convinced) kept Peerless away from me too. I realize now that his tolerance of my intransigence was not the result of any respect for my wishes or desire for friendship, but concern over my mental condition. Returnees, I later learned, often came back in tenuous shape and Little Island had learned the hard way to go easy on them at first. The result was that I had a four day “honeymoon” period, left pretty much to my own devices.

             
I did not, as Caroline had suggested, ask for a cab, my reason being that I was fairly sure I’d be refused and I didn’t want to force the issue before I was sure of my rights and opportunities at Little Island. Also, the plain fact was that I was still feeling awful and didn’t relish leaving their pampered comfort for a lonely flight back across the country and for what? I’d been away too long already, the semester was blown, so what was the point?

             
By my second day at Little Island I was up on my feet, tottering I admit, but up and looking for admittance to that very select group of people who
know for sure
whether UFO’s exist.

             
None of the other returnees, however, would talk to me. They all said “After.” After what?

             
It was on the fifth day that Peerless’ men came for me. I was led through hallways, hallways and more hallways. At last I entered a large building that didn’t appear to be part of the main complex. We’d been buzzed in past many locked doors to enter it, each of which, I noticed nervously, locked behind us.

             
The building looked like a combination warehouse-laboratory of some kind. The General was standing before
it
with a group of Air Force people who all turned and stared at me.

             
“Is that
it
?” I shuddered, my testicles shrinking at the sight of that alien spacecraft. I’d never seen it clearly from the outside before. How had they transported it here, I wondered. Heck, how had
I
transported it here?

             
“You don’t recognize it, Son? Hell, you say you flew it. Deserves a medal,” Peerless added hastily, to which the others around him nodded quickly in agreement. He turned to me.

             
“You
sure
no one’s inside this thing?”

             
I felt like throwing up. I didn’t want to even be in the same room with that spaceship.

             
“No,” I said weakly, “I came back alone.”

             
“Open it.”

             
“How?” I asked, flabbergasted at the suggestion.

             
“Look,” he rounded on me, a vein now bulging in his neck, “you had to have opened it to get yourself out, so you must know how. Give it a try.”

             
He was right, I had opened the door but was thankfully not idiot enough to repeat the act for him.

             
“Interrogation,” he snapped angrily. “Take him to Interrogation. We’re gonna get some answers here and you’re gonna help us. One way or the other we’re going to get that door open.”

             
Well he was right about that anyway.

Alien Advantage
on Amazon.

The Dangerous Path of Loving Jaesha

by

Lorain O'Neil

Chapter One

Kenneth

              Her back was to me, she was standing in front of her easel, paintbrushes in hand, staring at a painting.
Whatta cute little ass
I'd thought. Darn, I'd let my mind roam, I was noticing the backsides of garage artists? In truth I was just bored, my girlfriend had left me and perhaps I was a bit lonely, but regardless
you know
your life's on the skids when...

             
"Ms. Hampstead?" I asked. She turned. My God she had purplish-blue eyes, I'd heard of that color but had never seen it before. "My name is Kenneth Stone, I believe you drew this portrait of me? For an employee of mine, Joan Lexington?" I held up the ripped canvas and smiled though admittedly didn't put much effort into it.

             
She sucked in her breath at the sight of that slashed canvas, walked toward me and inserted her finger into the tear precisely at the point where my inked crotch
was.

             
What the hell?

             
"Bad break up?" she laughed. "Heh better
this
," she wiggled her finger still in the portrait, "than
you
, eh?"

             
I wouldn't do that if I were you.

             
It was absolutely true but I didn't appreciate her mentioning it. I had broken up with Gloria who'd taken a knife to the drawing while I'd thought she was packing her things. All my own megalomaniac fault if you believed Fraulein Gloria.

             
"I was wondering if you could repair it?" I retorted acidly giving the impertinent
artiste
my most lethal glare.

             
Completely unflustered she removed her finger, took the portrait from me and began walking around the room holding it out in front of her, studying it. The portrait had been a joke of Joan's, who was head of my vetting department. Joan checked out every business, government or person that wanted to work for or with me. But Joan's true love was art and I'd told her she could do all the art for my new South African hotel.

             
Joan had known I displayed no personal mementos of myself anywhere, not photos, awards, degrees, nothing, so when she'd spotted a portrait this woman had drawn in a local art shop, a fluke, she'd tracked her down to the garage (which I'm sure she thought of as her "studio") and commissioned an ink portrait of me drawn from photographs. Joan's ostensible joke was that the sketch had been her first "selection" for the hotel, but in reality it had been a feeble excuse to give me a personal gift. Joan had had a thing for me for years, something I'd never encouraged because she was a world away from my type. God, sex with Joan would've been like drowning in a vat of lemon-rhubarb crème custard, and not quickly either. But I'd hung the portrait Joan had given me up in my house because I'd
liked
it. Unfortunately Gloria had known that.

             
"Sort of," cute-assed-little-artist finally said as she gave me a totally fake smile I knew meant she was thinking of how much money she'd get for the repair. And it sure looked like she needed it. Her garage would've been a dump if it could've afforded the permit. And it was only one thin wall away from "Abdul's A-1 Auto Transmission Service", cramped and scruffy, and intermittently noisy. Her paints, canvases, easels, and all the rest of an artist's accoutrements were crammed into the small space. The door of the garage was rolled up against the ceiling, a sliding glass door (there was a crack in one corner) in its place so she had lots of light, but the workspace was nevertheless confined and shabby. A narrow staircase led to a second floor that I'd noticed upon arriving contained apartments, she no doubt lived over her "studio." I idly thought what a dismal life for such a pretty young woman.

             
And shoot, she
was
pretty, especially those ridiculously violet eyes. Perfectly proportioned, a few more pounds she would've had a shot at beautiful even. About twenty-two or three I judged, seven years or so younger than me. Her hair was long, brown, at least until she moved into a shaft of sunlight where it flamed deep chestnut. She was tall and thin, but not the fashionable thin women strive for, but a didn't-get-enough-to-eat thin that tugged at me mightily. Probably chose art supplies over food every time. I made a mental note to pay her well for the repair.

             
"Here's the thing," she said as she regarded me intently, "I know a guy who can repair the canvas, then I can ink it over. No one will see the damage except you 'cause you'll know it's there. But this guy, he'll charge you two-fifty, five hundred if you walk in dressed like that, and then there's two hundred on top of that for my work. So in the end you'd be paying almost as much as what your employee paid for it in the first place."