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Authors: Tony Butler

Different (8 page)

BOOK: Different
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"I hated it when he used to cut bits off us with his knife to see if we bled or could re-grow the missing bits,” Eve complained. “It was stupid and used to hurt like shit!"

"Eve!” Adam didn't like to hear her swear.

But Eve wasn't listening. She was staring open mouthed at the barred window and so was Ben.

Lights were dancing over the window. Tiny spheres of brilliant red, green, blue, white and yellow lights, hundreds of them were swirling and spiralling across the window. Adam thought they were amazing and even when they stopped dancing and formed into words, he couldn't stop smiling. The lights made him feel good.

Hello Adam-Ben-Eve
, the lights spelled out and then swirled around to spell out more words.
Come outside we're waiting
.

"We can't,” Eve said. “We're locked in."

Close your eyes and we will open the window
.

Adam looked at the others and they both grinned at him and screwed their eyes shut, so he did the same. Even with his eyes shut he could see the lights glowing far brighter than before, so bright it almost hurt. Then they dimmed and when he opened his eyes, he saw that the iron bars on the window had melted and he felt the night air blowing through the window. The glass was gone too.

The lights were about three feet away and Adam stared in surprise at the figures standing smiling at him. There were seven of them and they were all wearing strange one-piece suits that looked as though they were made of some kind of thin metallic material. Each of the visitors’ suits was a different colour to his companions, and the one wearing red had the red lights swirling around him, and the blue lights danced around the figure in blue, and so on. They all wore long silver coloured boots but didn't seem to be wearing space helmets.

"Hello Adam,” the voice was inside his head, but somehow he knew it was the figure in green who had spoken. It was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman because of the suits and their hair was closely cropped, but they were all about the same size as an average grown-up. Except for the fact that their foreheads seemed slightly bigger than normal and the suits they wore, they looked like normal people. Adam knew though, they were aliens from another planet, the one he'd visited in his dreams. These aliens, unlike most of those on TV, were old friends and didn't mean him, Ben or Eve any harm.

"Come,” the voice said. “We have much to do and very little time."

Adam glanced at Eve and Ben and then climbed out the window and stood barefoot in the grass.

"No! The night is to cool.” It was the one in red who spoke this time. “Go back and put on your clothes, Adam. Tell Eve and Ben to get clothed too, but hurry."

Eve was already halfway through the window but Adam pushed her back inside. “They say we need to get dressed first,” he said.

They changed their nightclothes for the red plaid shirts, jeans and trainers and Adam led them back through the window and over to the waiting figures.

"Come,” the man in blue said. He and the others seemed to float across the grass and Adam, Ben and Eve had to jog behind them to keep up.

"Where do you think they're from Adam, Mars?” Ben asked.

"No, we come from a world much further away than that,” the yellow suited man's voice said. “We have been searching a long time for you, Adam, Ben and Eve."

They stopped at the edge of the U shaped marshes that were half a mile wide and ran north for eighteen miles before they started to curve in a seven mile arc. Then they ran back parallel to the first eighteen mile stretch. The doctor had explained a freak seam of coal that had been mined in the nineteenth century caused its shape. The coal had been excavated to a depth of sixty foot, when the miners breached an underground stream that had flooded the workings. Later they had tried to fill in the mine with rubble, earth and sand and created the marshes.

The men stared at the marshes as though looking for something, then Adam noticed that the surface of the marsh was beginning to glow a luminous green, and it was growing brighter.

"Look!” Eve said and Adam saw that a gigantic mushroom shape was rising up out of the marsh. It seemed to be spinning and to be covered in coloured lights. It rose high above their heads to reveal a huge glowing white cylindrical core beneath it. Two curved panels at the front of the cylinder slid apart in opposite directions and a flat beam of silver light about three foot wide shot across the surface of the marsh towards them.

"It's a flying saucer,” Ben said. “A real flying saucer."

The beam spanned the surface and the men started moving across it.

"Come children,” the man in red said into Adams head. “Keep in the centre of the beam and you will be safe."

Ben tentatively put one foot on the silver path and then the other. “It feels solid,” he said, and started following the men. Eve was next and Adam followed behind,
it was just like walking on the floor,
he thought.

They went into the cylinder section, which was bigger than their room and about ten times as high as their ceiling. The silver path retracted and when it blinked off, the curved doors of the cylinder slid shut behind them.

There was a faint humming sound in Adam's ears and he became aware that they were travelling upwards. With a barely audible click they stopped and another smaller door slid open and he followed the others through it.

The three of them stopped and stared in disbelief for above, in front and below them and stretching into the distance as far a he could see were millions, no trillions of stars. It was though the flying saucer had become transparent and they were standing on nothing.

"That is your home on your right,” the man in green said, pointing with a long slender finger. “The planet you call Earth."

Adam saw the blue tinged planet that looked no bigger than an orange and was suddenly afraid. What was going to happen to them?

"Fear not Adam,” The man in red said. “Once we have rectified the damage that your scientists have inflicted upon you, we will take you all back again."

Suddenly the ship was solid again and the stars were only visible from small oval shaped widows spaced evenly around the spacecraft. The nearest one was about a hundred yards away.

The men removed their suits and beneath them they were wearing some sort of uniforms consisting of a tunic top and trousers that were made of white material and trimmed in silver. The man who'd been wearing green turned out to be a woman and so did the one who'd been wearing yellow.

"I am Hiljah, the guardian of the red. I command this ship and am the leader of this expedition,” The man who'd worn the red suit said, speaking aloud for the first time. “Let me introduce my companions. Nikarra, guardian of the green. Fijojo, guardian of the blue and my second in command.” Nikarra and Fijojo nodded and smiled at them. “Linitutlu is the guardian of the yellow and Girrisul, guardian of the white."

"We have been searching for you children for a long time,” Girrisul said, “Ever since Adam came to us and told us of your plight."

"But the doctor and his friends are thinking of killing us soon,” Ben said. “Adam heard the doctor talking to Janine and the other men. Adam can do things like that; hear people talking even though they're in another room."

"As for the doctor killing you, we intend to tell you a way of stopping that. We also know of Adam's gift,” Girrisul said. “Adam comes to us at night sometimes in his dreams. That is how we were able to find you.”

"You never told us, Adam,” Eve said.

"That's because I never remember my dreams,” Adam said, “but I knew I had met, Hiljah, Girrisul and the others before."

"Several times,” Hiljah said. “But now we must examine you before we take you home."

They followed Hiljah and the others back into the cylinder and when the door opened again, they went into a narrow corridor and then into a room that contained bright overhead lights and shiny tables.

Girrisul led Eve to one of the tables, she climbed onto it and lay down on her back. Ben did the same on another and then Adam was led to a third. “Please lay down on the platform, Adam,” Hiljah said. “We have to examine you now."

Adam lay down and the lights glowed brighter and he heard a clicking sound. It felt as though someone was lightly flicking a fingernail against his arms and then it stopped as quickly as it had begun. The lights withdrew and he saw the man in green smiling at him. “We have repaired the genetic damage caused by the scientists and all of the physical damage too."

Adam stared at his hand in surprise; his little finger that had been lopped off by the doctor was starting to re-grow. “That's awesome,” he said.

"My toe's growing back,” Eve exclaimed.

"So is my ear,” Ben said.

"Now, it is time for us to explain,” the man in red said.

"I don't understand,” Adam said.

"Then let me explain and you will,” Hiljah said, and his eyes glowed brilliantly blue.

Chapter 9

Janine Schroeder unlocked the door of the children's room and had taken a step inside before she noticed the beds were empty, and then she saw the window. She ran over to it and saw the molten metal of the bars and globules of melted glass on the concrete floor and felt a moment of fear. She looked out of the window and saw a hole in the wire mesh security fence that led onto the Devil's Footprint.

"Adam! Ben! Eve!” she called but there was no reply, just the silent writhing mist. Turning on her heel, she ran out of the room and upstairs to the laboratory and as she expected, and despite the fact that it was only seven in the morning, Richard Anderson was sitting at a bench and peering into his microscope.

"Richard, the kids have gone,” she cried.

He looked up at her and frowned, “Gone?"

"Yes. You'd better come and see this for yourself,” she said, “Otherwise you're not going to believe it. The bars and the glass in their window appear to have melted, and there's a hole in the security fence."

* * * *

Senator Henry Matherson and his business partner and friend, Russell Downey, flew into the East Midlands Airport on a direct flight from New York. Jeremy Marchant MP and the scientist Richard Anderson were waiting for them in the lobby.

They shook hands and Jeremy led them over to a chauffeur driven limousine but not until after the driver had stowed their luggage in the trunk and returned to his seat behind the wheel, did Jeremy speak.

"The children have been missing for over a week now,” he said. “The three of us, Janine, Richard and I have searched along the main paths but have found no trace of them. The problem is, of course, if they've been injured or killed finding their bodies is essential. We can't risk them being found by anyone except us."

"I told you we should've sanctioned them when we terminated the experiment, three years ago,” Russell grumbled. “But no, you were too squeamish to do what needed to be done."

"Damn it Russell, we don't just go around murdering kids,” Henry said. “There's no way they can get off the Devil's Footprint, well not unless they've grown wings that is."

"Tell me about the weird stuff,” Russell said. He was the head of Henry's security team and never missed a thing.

When Richard had finished telling them about the window and the hole in the security fence, Henry frowned. “You're sure there's not another hole in the fence somewhere that the kids could have escaped through?"

"Yes, we called in an outside firm to check it out, from the outside of course, and they couldn't find one."

"Which means they're still on the land somewhere,” Jeremy said. “But how on earth do we search a hundred and twenty six square miles of heavily timbered land that's also riddled with unmapped mine shafts and boreholes?"

"Dogs,” Russell said. “We set some tracker dogs on their trail."

"Hmmm, yes that would make sense,” Jeremy conceded, “but I'm not sure we have tracker dogs in England, except for the police and the military of course, and we can hardly go to them."

"I've had the best team of hunting dogs in Georgia flown in to one of our military bases,” Russell said. “They'll be arriving in Catherstone about the same time as we are. One thing's for sure though, there's no way the kid's got out of that room on their own. That means somehow someone has penetrated our security and is out there on the Devil's Footprint. So, unless you want to risk doing some serious time in prison we're going to have to flush the bastard out."

Henry nodded. What Russell had said made sense. “What do we do when we find him, or maybe her?"

"It's a fair bet that whoever it is hasn't been in contact with the law, otherwise this place would be crawling with police. No, we're dealing with a maverick, possibly a reporter who's working on his own. We'll know for sure once we've caught him, but there's only one solution either way. The intruder has to disappear permanently, along with the kids."

"No, we've discussed this before,” Jeremy said. “We agreed to let the kids live out their lives here in isolation."

"Russell's right, Jeremy,” Richard said. “We can't risk them being found. It's been three years since we abandoned the Primeval Project and the children are a living time bomb. They'll destroy us all if they ever manage to escape or someone finds out about them. What do you think, Henry?"

"We have no choice if we ever want to feel secure,” Henry said. He'd been avoiding making that decision for too long, how different it had all seemed nine years ago when the four of them had set up the project.

Genetics were Richards's speciality and he was convinced that if he introduced the genes of reptiles into human children then the children could develop the ability to re-grow limbs. If the Regenerator project had succeeded, they'd have all been billionaires many times over, but it hadn't, and now they had to pay the consequences. “We find them and terminate them,” he said. “Then we can get on with our lives without having to constantly look over our shoulders. Agreed?"

"Agreed,” Russell said.

"Agreed,” Richard said.

The three of them looked towards Jeremy who eventually shrugged.

BOOK: Different
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