Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1) (13 page)

Gavin bit
down on his lip. For once, he wasn’t responding impulsively. Instead, he
glanced in the direction of Evan and Mitchell his face full of consideration.

Iris threw
back a lock of hair from her face. Despite the news, her psychic sense told her
this battle was far from over.

J
ACK WATCHED
the
conversation scroll onto his screen. It converted audio conversation into words
thanks to Iris’s iPhone and some reverse-engineered software. The information
leak was greater than he imagined.

“F
OR STARTERS
,
you can begin by telling us who you are. You must have an identity, and if you
claimed to have lived here then you must have had a name, albeit a fake
one . . .”

Mitchell,
his body submerged in a bathtub of water, felt Iris’s anger and resolve. She
too could sense his feelings because they shared the same telepathic stream of
consciousness. Just because her physical body was seated on her bed, about a
dozen feet from Mitchell, didn’t mean she couldn’t be connected as closely to
him as lovers engaged in a kiss. She may as well have been riding a stallion
and charging wildly ahead with a lance. This was the image that flashed between
her and Mitchell. The UFO investigator didn’t mediate to temper her rage
against the presence. She sensed Mitchell was on her side—and for this
moment in time—he supported her line of questioning.

As if the
alien ghost was a suspect caught in the blinding lights of an interrogation
room, he behaved a bit more cordially than their prior visitation. Gone was the
sadistic grin. He may have been caught in a partial truth, not quite a lie, but
an omission nevertheless. The presence maintained enemy aliens would unleash an
engineered plague. Yet the revelation that transpired earlier in the evening,
namely news of the birth of a super corn, had sprouted seeds of doubt. Everyone
had second thoughts about assisting the alien presence, especially since an
evolutionary advancement might be impeded. Kassidy went so far as to label it a
“plague with benefits.”

“I will ask you
again,”
Iris said. Posturing in her subconscious mind, her hand
had found her physical body’s hip. But that was just habit. She was detached
from her physical being now. Her subconscious was revisiting a land where
broken people traversed ruddy soil in desperate attempts to find sustenance.
But Iris had to wonder just exactly what point of time was the presence
recreating for them? Perhaps it was just his people, decimated from a century
long war. If what the botanist concluded was correct, the corn had been
affected by light in a way that may have restructured it, via its DNA, to a
positive, even desirable outcome. If this plague had been successfully launched
before, might the so-called victims now be transformed into higher beings? Iris
admitted the idea was radical. She was buying more and more into the belief
that alien worlds existed. Yet her father never told her aliens didn’t exist,
only that they would never visit her home.

“Can’t you
show us a world where your enemy succeeded?”
Iris
demanded the answers in rapid succession, giving the ghost little chance to
answer via image response.

“I will
start with your first question. My alias as a human was Galloway. I worked at
Aero-Sat, a manufacturer of geosynchronous satellites. I, of course, assumed an
identity illegally. It was for your race’s benefit.”
They
watched him shuffle down a corridor of a sterile white building. His ID card
pinned to his lapel.

Iris felt
Mitchell’s reaction. It was a grimace. Only it wasn’t visual. It was a tug at
her mind. She had already heard Mitchell’s argument as to why he had believed
the presence. It was all about revenge. The presence couldn’t bear the thought
of the enemy aliens succeeding. It was why Mitchell originally believed. Now,
Iris could feel, the more information the presence divulged, the less his story
and motivations were made valid. The presence paused and then attempted a
rebound.

“Ah, I see.
You don’t believe my people could behave so altruistically. Maybe you’re right.
But I felt a need to justify my identity theft. Your society is so offended by
this notion. Our people could trade each other’s makeup and consider it a
compliment. But that’s beside the point. What I did was protect your planet
from the plague. And what the bugs did on your planet . . . I
can’t even begin to recount.”

Iris
grunted. It was another failed attempt to constrain her tone. She didn’t need
body language to show the presence how angry she was.

Mitchell, in
an effort to temper her rage, sent a thought to the presence. “
My colleague
has opened a door you probably wanted to remain closed. I suggest, if you still
require our assistance, that you divulge whatever you know about these enemy
aliens. We need to understand why they are trying to harm us. So you could
begin with detailing what you know about their presence on Earth.”

Of course,
his thought came more in the form of imagery. A human fist rapped on a door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.

The
presence, in turn, sent the image of an opening door to the inquisitors. It
creaked. Images followed.

Disgust and
disbelief permeated Iris’s subconscious. She witnessed aliens with fake human
cloaks, bedding human females, creating babies . . .

In another
scene, a human was being subjugated to some red beam of light reflecting off a
hovering ball. She witnessed the victim’s transformation in a wink of an eye.
One moment cognitive, the next catatonic, but ultimately programmed against his
will. She couldn’t help but think of Ron. Her mind raced. Papers scattered
everywhere. Perhaps the papers stood for memory files. A whirring noise
activated a scene. It sounded more old school—rather like the ticking
emanation from an old projector—than a creation from the late Steve Jobs.
In seconds it became clear. It was the Estes Park hotel! A blow by blow replay
of her experience of three years ago, only seen from another perspective
because others hid themselves in an adjacent room, their minds transfixed. What
were they attempting? In a moment it became clearer. The ghosts were neither
children nor apparitions but mere holographic images sent to fool the ghost
hunters. The projections emanated from the intruders’ minds. They were the
projector. It was as if images were being created for Iris and Ron’s benefit.
She listened closely to, to read their minds. They said, in effect, if she and
Ron expected a haunting, then they would get one. So what really were the red
spheres of light the projected children had thrown at Ron? Some form of mind
control? She sensed her physical body gasping for air, a noticeable rise and
fall of her chest.

“Come on!
You can see what I see! Tell me what’s going on here . . .”

“I am afraid
we are not quite as linked as you think. I cannot experience your memories.”
The
alien presence’s tone sounded sincere. She willed her physical body to calm;
she recalled a relaxation technique where you make an “O” using your index
finger and thumb. She then explained what had happened to Ron.

The ghost
responded with deliberate calculation.
“As I said, I could only speculate.
The best of our spies could not uncover every covert act of deception used. But
I would surmise to guess, your friend might now be a sleeper, and in time, his
mind will be used for a distinct purpose.”
The presence hesitated.

“Come on.
You damn well know what that purpose is. Tell us!”
Iris charged
again, on her white steed, lance at the ready.

“We
speculated the enemy might want to create what you might call facilitators.
When
the change is completed, the remaining humans will need guidance. Your friend
might head some kind of division where the recently compromised might go for
assistance.”

Mitchell
intervened.
“But you said it was a plague. How can there be survivors? And
to get back to my colleague’s question, are there other worlds where this
change took place? Some evidence we might consider.”

Iris and
Mitchell could sense the alien’s head swaying back and forth.
“No. No. No.
There are no surviving worlds. Don’t you see, even if they intend for this to
be evolutionary, it can’t be. Large segments of your population will not
survive this change. Others will be doomed to service. Once the enemy
manipulates the structure and behavior of the survivor’s DNA, a collective
consciousness will harness their minds. They will become subservient, without
chance of resistance, against our foe. This is a violation. It is not
evolution. And I hoped you would find the examples I had given you to be
alarming. What they’ve already done to your people is an outrage. Creating
sleeper agents, populating your planet with hybrids . . .”

Iris drifted
in thought. She would give the presence the benefit of the doubt. What if it
was true? If there were hybrids, could any person be trusted? She pursued her
troubling conclusion.

“So how do
we know who the enemies are? I surmise you cloaked yourself somehow in human
form when alive. But what about these offspring you claim exist? With a mix of
alien and human DNA, wouldn’t they be obvious? What weird traits might they
exhibit?”

“I wish it
were that simple to detect.”
The alien answered, and Iris
experienced a flash, dour and equivalent to a sigh.
“The DNA contribution of
the alien progenitors will remain dormant until such time your biology and
planet is altered. That’s why this is not a desirable propagation of your
species. It will only serve to further their agenda: genocide and servitude.”

Mitchell
felt his thoughts echoing, as if he screamed in a cave.
“You claim there is
no means to detect the hybrids or those subject to mind alteration. I have to
wonder how you can ‘theorize’ their existence. You would have had to experience
these acts for yourself. If so, then you allowed these violations to take
place.”

“The few of
us remaining
w
ere already weakened from their
attacks. We could not hope to stop any of their groundwork. We focused our
energies on the bigger picture. Namely, I became an employee at a firm so the
artifact might do its job: protect Earth against the
plague . . . or light weapon . . . if you prefer
to categorize it as such. Your object was retrieved from the enemy who unlinked
it from a power source in Russia. I managed to repossess it and restore its
function—at least for an interim. But we have little time to argue since
its function has obviously been interrupted. I do need your assistance to
re-link the object again with its power source. And I stress again—it
must be you. I trust your governments will only make a bad situation worse. Our
surveillance deemed they are too embroiled in their own collusions in an
attempt to rule the world globally. They even reworked my obituary. I had died
when my ship crashed; they had me dying in a plane wreck. They have probably
reverse engineered my craft. And obviously realized I was alien. Yet they
failed to pursue the bigger objective. They never concluded my work had to have
an objective other than surveillance. But if they had, I am sure they would
have secured the artifact and employed it to work in some twisted
means . . .”

“You mean
the artifact has multiple uses?”
Mitchell asked the presence.

“You could
say that. But most important is aligning the reflectives, what you call balls
of light, in a pattern that will negate the enemy’s light discharge. See that
it happens or find the remaining portion of your population a slave race.”

“How could
this work?”
Iris and Mitchell inquired.

“You might
call it a parabolic method.
It will reflect the light away
before your DNA can be rewritten, or worse.”

M
ITCHELL’S
MIND
scrambled to make sense. He posited light could be stored.
It could also carry instructions. If light could be stored in DNA, what the
presence claimed might be true. He would need Evan’s molecular expertise to
sort this out.

But he had
to wonder who would survive the attack and become the enemy’s slaves. The alien
answered, giving Mitchell even more ammunition to believe his government
engaged in numerous conspiracies.

Mitchell
sensed Iris didn’t care for where the discussion was going. She thought the
presence was subjugating his thought process with logic. As a scientist, he
would be most prone to reason. He could hear her every thought. Maybe she was
correct. One moment earlier, she felt as if he had become distrustful of the
presence as she was. Now she felt he was starting to come around again, to the
presence’s point of view.
Am I?

“T
HERE
ARE
those in your government who want to mandate
vaccinations. These inoculations are often unnecessary and can cause more harm
than good. Ironically, those in power refuse the very inoculations they
endorse. It’s as though they know, maybe from sort of consciousness outside
themselves, of the ultimate enemy plan. Every person who regularly receives the
injections loses their ability to fight disease on their own. Bottom line: many
of these people will not survive the change. Those that do will experience
transformations. Paranormal abilities will become normal abilities. But the
cost is great; the survivors will serve the enemy, willfully procuring your
planets restored resources to their benefit. Their minds will not be their own.
And, in a final sadistic irony, those government leaders so desperate to rule
will have no choice but to serve.”
The presence
continued its monologue apparently indifferent to the wall of doubt Iris had
tried to construct.