The Fellowship for Alien Detection (22 page)

She leaned far out of the elevator, her feet momentarily leaving the floor. Dodger watched her and thougth that, though he normally explored maps on his own, it was fun to have someone to share the wonder of new discoveries with. Actually, it was maybe even better.

Vee shuffled through a crate. “Something in here should work. . . .” She returned with a long roll of paper. “This is from 1990. I collect them on the decade. Most people think a map like this is worthless, but that's exactly what they thought two hundred years ago, and why there are so few of those maps left. People need to have the long view on the world.”

Dodger reached out carefully, afraid to damage it, but Vee thrust it right into his hands. “Go ahead,” she said. Dodger was surprised by how she treated them. Not like they were precious, but like they were tools. He was reminded of how he left his maps scattered on his floor and tossed them around in the car. A map that was wrinkled and hard to fold back up had been used for important things.

Dodger unrolled the map. Vee raised the lamp over his shoulder.

He found the compass rose, oriented himself to north, then found the major cities: Denver, Santa Fe, Reno, Flagstaff. . . . He first traced the bright blue veins of the highways, the red arteries of U.S. routes. He looked for the gray bones of railroad lines, curving along beneath and behind.

Up, down, across he looked. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah. New Mexico . . . skirting the wide swaths of forests, the emerald national parks, following the squiggles of rivers, slowly back and forth across the map—

And suddenly there it was.

Juliette.

Dodger felt a deep squeeze of adrenaline. His heartbeat kicked up a notch.

“Found it?” Vee was leaning around his shoulder, nodding.

“Yeah,” Dodger said, suddenly short of breath. It was in the northern highlands of Arizona, west of Flagstaff, southwest of the Grand Canyon. It was just there, like any other town off the highway, in medium bold black font which indicated a town of around twenty-five thousand. The town where the radio came from. Occupying a tiny gap where on his maps there was nothing.

It all really did exist. Dodger had believed it before, but this put any doubt to rest for certain. “Yeah,” he said again.

“Get the coordinates and landmarks,” said Vee. “I'm afraid I can't let you take the map.”

“Thanks.” Dodger slipped out his little notebook. His fingers were slippery, clammy, making it hard to flip to a fresh page. He had already figured out the latitude and longitude: 35° 23' N, 113° 49' W. It was habit. Memorizing strings of numbers was easy for him, a skill that none of his teachers had ever suspected. Writing them down, though, that would be good, just in case. He scribbled quickly, then drew a sketch of the surrounding area.

“Exciting, isn't it?” Vee murmured. “I remember the first time a map did that for me.” She leaned over his shoulder.

Dodger clutched the coordinates close to his chest.

Vee chuckled. “Don't get your bloomers in a bunch, boy. I've no interest in your mystery town. Your interest in it is enough for me.”

“Sorry,” said Dodger. He still couldn't believe he'd found it. He started rolling up the map. “And thanks for helping me.”

“You're more than welcome. It's—” Vee stopped. Dodger saw her brow furrow. She looked up.

Dodger followed her gaze, and as he did, he noticed a strange humming noise.

It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the comparatively bright circle of light up at the surface.

Once it did, he saw movement. Two forms, silhouettes. People. People with lights on their heads, rappelling down the mine shaft on ropes.

“That can't be good,” said Vee. She looked at Dodger. “Friends of yours?”

“No,” said Dodger. “I don't have any friends.”

As the two figures zipped toward them, Dodger noticed a strange white light beginning to flicker around them, bouncing off the walls, a black-and-white light like a strobe.

“That can't be good, either,” said Vee.

Lucky Springs, NV, July 5, 2:46 p.m.

The flickering light increased. It seemed to be at once lighting the walls and draining the color from them. “Nope, not good,” Vee repeated.

“We have to get out of here!” Dodger said. He looked around wildly. Would it be paranoid to think people were showing up because he'd just found the Juliette coordinates? Or would it be naïve to think otherwise? Either way, there was something completely unnatural about that flickering light.

“Nowhere to go,” Vee muttered. “That's the only way out.”

Dodger looked up helplessly. The figures were closing. The flashing light was starting to hit the pulley above his head.

Dodger looked over the side. “What about down?”

“Just a dead end down there,” said Vee.

But as Dodger had said it, he'd almost felt like the crystal had heated up, like it was agreeing with him. Plus, the strobe light had started to flicker around them, and Dodger had a peculiar sensation of slowing down, like the air was becoming oatmeal. Moving was getting harder—

“Just do it!” Dodger shouted. “Down!”

“Well, all right, I suppose it's worth a try.” Vee fiddled with the rope. Above, the figures were no more than twenty feet away.

Dodger's arms felt heavy, his thoughts getting stuck in his mind . . .

Suddenly the elevator dropped downward with a screaming chorus of ropes and pulleys. The rushing blackness extinguished the lamplight. Dodger heard shouts of surprise from the figures above, but they were quickly erased by rushing wind.

Dodger gripped the sides of the elevator. He felt sure they would smash to a rocky death any second.

“Okay, hang on,” Vee called over the wind. Sparks began to rain down from the pulley and the elevator slowed, then slammed hard against the mine shaft floor.

“Out,” Vee ordered.

Dodger scrambled over the side. He fell out and landed on damp clay ground.

The world was utterly black around him, the air thick and sweet smelling.

He heard the sound of boots hitting the ground. “Dodger, where are you?”

Dodger turned. “Where are you?”

“Over here,” Vee called. She sounded close, but Dodger couldn't see a thing, and he couldn't place Vee in the darkness. “We should go this way.”

Then he heard the zipping of lines from above. He looked up to see the two headlamps getting closer. The ropes were buzzing like furious bees.

“Dodger!” Vee's voice had gotten farther away.

That flickering light was now shining on the elevator. Dodger scanned the dark, looking for some sign of Vee. All he saw was the rough outline of round tunnel walls. Close. Miles of rock in all directions. Dodger felt like it was crushing him.

“Vee!” he hissed.

No reply.

He got to his feet and backed away from the elevator, running his fingers against the wet wall. The lights were getting close. He wondered if he should try to run around the elevator, toward where he thought Vee was. Or turn and go behind him. She'd said this was a dead end, so what was the point? Maybe he should just sit down and let whoever was coming get him.

And then they arrived.

Dodger took a few more steps back as three lights dropped into the tunnel, like little stars. Two were pale and constant. The third made the point of a triangle beneath them. It was a more brilliant white but flickering, the source of that strobe light. Only now it went dark.

“Rats,” said a male voice.

The two lights bobbed, and Dodger thought of those deep-sea creatures, with the bioluminescent lure and the giant translucent teeth.

There were two clicks, and then the lights dropped another couple feet. Boots crunched on the ground. One headlamp swung around and lit a figure.

“What's the problem?” a low, female voice whispered impatiently.

“It's a proximity effect,” a male voice answered. “All the parameters are set now. It just needs to recalibrate.” He sounded only mildly frustrated.

“I told you we should have just activated the field the moment he arrived in town.”

“And I told you that the Director was very clear that we not repeat the mess in Memphis. The FBI is still all over that scene, and we have no idea where that agent and the girl are. The best move was to wait until the boy was isolated and we were sure he'd tracked down the coordinates.”

“It was the best move until your field generator stopped working,” said the woman.

“One . . .” said the man like he was exhausted.

Dodger thought their bickering sounded a lot like his parents.

“Don't get annoyed with me, Two,” the female named One said. “Just make it work. No more mistakes or the Director will flip out.”

“‘Flip out,' nice
human
phrase,” Two huffed. His headlamp shone down on the shiny metal box in his hands. It was still flickering faintly.

“Oh, and what's that,” the female countered. “Do I hear you trying to employ their sarcasm?”

Two just sighed. “It's almost there. I just needed to correct for our proximity to the amplification node.”

One turned away, her headlamp sweeping around the room. Dodger backed up carefully, sliding his sneaker soles over the soft earth. “He can't have gone far.”

Dodger tried desperately to keep still, and also to keep up with what he was hearing. One and Two were here to get him because he'd found the coordinates. They'd tried something in Memphis that hadn't worked and now there was a secret agent on the loose . . . and they were using a field thingy to catch him—that must have been the glowing—but it wasn't working because they were close to some kind of node?

Oh, and there was Two's comment about a human phrase, which meant that these two . . .

Weren't.

“Okay . . .” said Two, “here we go.”

A brilliant white light began pulsing from the shiny box in Two's hands. Dodger could see that he was short and square, wearing khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt like many of the casino revelers up in town. The outfit looked out of place with climbing harnesses and headlamps. The light increased, and Dodger could see One. Her climbing gear was buckled over smooth khaki capris and a flower-printed, sleeveless shirt. They both had skin that almost seemed to reflect the light, like plastic. And why were they wearing black goggles in the dark?

The light spread from the box, flickering like a strobe, becoming so bright that Dodger had to squint and turn away. A humming sound accompanied it, like being near power lines, growing louder.

Dodger backed up. Whatever this field was, it did something to reality, or time. He'd felt that strange slowing down when it had touched him before.

“Wait . . .” he heard One say. “Two, over there . . . do you see . . .”

Both lights swung right toward him.

And then Dodger realized that he was slightly glowing.
No!
he thought.
Not now!
He tried to press the glow back inside himself, but his heart was racing, his nerves sizzling, and he couldn't gain control, especially because it felt somehow
stronger
now. There was suddenly far more energy at his back. The crystal felt like it was positively burning.

Their footsteps started toward him.

“How is he doing that?” One asked.

“Don't know, but let's get him.”

Dodger turned and ran. He'd only taken three steps when he tripped on an unseen rock and fell over. A tearing at his knee and a bright stinging pain and that coolness running down his leg definitely meant blood. He needed light! He jumped up, extended his hand in front of himself, and pushed out, creating a warm glow around it, but not enough.

Around him, the walls were beginning to flicker with that black-and-white strobe effect.

Dodger kept running. He could hear their footsteps behind him. He reached around and pulled out the black crystal. He held it straight in front of him and pushed himself into it, connecting with its energy as hard as he knew how.

The crystal burst with light, illuminating the entire tunnel around him.

And the radio broadcast began pouring from Dodger's body again.

“Howdy, folks, the time is seven forty-five here at KJPR and that means it's time for another four in a row of continuous hits!”

“What is going on?” he heard Two shout.

“Freeze him already!” shouted One.

Dodger could see the tunnel now, the rocks on the floor, and though he was lit up like a neon sign and blasting radio, and though his knee was killing him, he ran like he never had, hurtling rocks and darting back and forth.

“Now, folks, before we get to the music, I actually want to read you a special bulletin from the Weather Service. . . .”