The Fellowship for Alien Detection (38 page)

“It might mean they're close,” Haley had said. “Close enough to be affected.”

“Or close enough to get grabbed. They could be in Paha'Ne by now.”

They'd decided to find food and try their parents again. But then all at once the townspeople started turning toward them.

“That's them!”

“They're the ones!”

“We were chasing them!”

“We don't know why!”

“But they did something important!”

“Haley! Dodger!” a familiar voice echoed from the stage. Haley looked up to see AJ standing at the podium. “Come up here, you guys!”

The crowd parted, and Haley and Dodger walked forward in a daze. As they neared the podium, Haley took Dodger's hand. “You up for this?” she asked.

Dodger shrugged. “I don't know.”

Haley sighed. “Me, too.”

“Over here,” said AJ, motioning Haley and Dodger to the podium. They stood, dirty and exhausted, facing the crowd. “Go for it,” said AJ.

“Is it true you're the ones who discovered the town?” a reporter yelled. The microphones below swelled upward like a horde of snakes.

“Tell us how you found it!”

“We heard you found some kind of connection to United Consolidated Amalgamations!”

“Do you know where their offshore offices are located? We want to reach them for comment!”

“They're pretty far offshore,” Dodger commented under his breath.

Haley wondered where to start. She squinted against the bright spotlights aimed at her, staring out at the sea of people. She thought again, of that moment in school. “My summer will be . . .” she said quietly, remembering the blank page.

Haley had the answer for her snickering classmates now:
My summer will be a trip to the far reaches of intergalactic space, where I will help save the rest of you from getting locked into permanent mind control by an invading alien race. How do you like THAT?

She thought of all that time she'd spent imagining just what it would be like standing at the Daily Times Building, and how she would feel like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. Now, she looked out at where she had actually ended up, a place she had never expected, but maybe, as the Alto had said, the place she was meant to end up all along. Relief washed over her. She'd taken a huge risk, followed her Sixth Sense at the expense of the other things she'd wanted, and . . . it had worked! She had the story, one bigger than anything she would have accomplished in the JCF. Inside, the doubt demon was quiet.

“What was that about your summer?” an anxious reporter called.

In the back, crane cameras lifted slowly. Beyond those, satellite trucks beamed their images out across the world. Haley imagined herself on TV screens in Amber, Greenhaven, Thorny Mountain, even perhaps in the Hilton in Nairobi.

“Is it true that there were aliens?” someone called.

“What did they do to you?”

“Well . . .” Haley imagined the words coming from her lips. Starting all the way back at the beginning with the clocks . . . then about Suza, Graceland, Roswell, about Dodger and his fascinating connections, their adventure together, all the way to the distant shores of Paha'Ne.

And suddenly her mind started spinning ahead. What would be next from here? If she could pull this off, there was no limit to what she could do! She had that sense of infinity again, of the possibility that was everywhere, beckoning to her. . . .

But then the creature in her gut squirmed and she remembered more. Like how even though she'd gotten the story, she'd come
very
close to going too far
how
many times? Just because things had worked out didn't mean there hadn't been a few moments when she'd felt worse than she ever had. And that was some part of why, when she'd had the chance, for the biggest story of all, to live with aliens, she'd said no.
How did I turn that down?
she thought. But when she heard a voice from the crowd, she knew:

“Haley!”

Haley saw a line of heads bobbing through the crowd.

“Haley!”

“Dad!” Haley cried. The feeling was overwhelming. She stared as Allan pushed toward the stage, carrying Liam, Jill right behind them. There was also a burly man right behind them.

“Dad?” said Dodger from beside her.

“Francis!” Harry shouted.

Haley felt her eyes welling up. She glanced at Dodger. He was looking out at his dad barreling through the crowd, and he had a look that was kind of shell-shocked but also maybe thrilled.

Seeing them, Haley felt a certainty: From now on there was going to have to be a balance between those things she yearned for, and those things she needed: the things, like family and friends that kept her whole. Behind the podium, Haley took Dodger's hand again. “Let's go,” she said.

“Were you aboard a UFO?” called a reporter.

“Come on, tell us what happened!”

Haley turned back to the hungry crowd, the cameras, all of it, and offered her most professional smile. “We're kinda tired, and our parents are here, so, you can read the whole story in our field reports. Call the Keller Foundation if you'd like to publish the article.” Haley stepped away from the podium.

Reporters shouted for more, but Haley and Dodger headed straight for Harry, Allan, Jill, and Liam, who were just reaching the steps.

Haley jumped down the steps and the tears were coming and she threw herself into the mess of arms and hair and tears and family.

And out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dodger wrapped tight in a bear hug from Harry, his arms hugging right back.

After a minute of hugs and blubbering, Haley asked Dodger, “You hungry?”

Dodger's face cracked into a slight smile, and he spoke in a zombie's moan:
“Pancaaaakes,”
he said.

Juliette, AZ, July 7, 7:49 a.m.

Something had happened, Caroline Rialto knew that. But, standing in the parking lot of the Plan Nine Mercantile on Foster Avenue in Juliette, staring up at the sun, she couldn't quite put it together. She remembered working here at the grocery store, where she was a checkout clerk and spent day after day running people's bad food choices over an incessantly beeping scanner, hating the starchy collar of her puke-brown-and-white uniform, and working too many hours and on and on. . . .

But she also remembered being a technician at a strange mountain laboratory, where she worked surrounded by giant radar dishes.

In some memories she bagged people's groceries, asking if they wanted plastic around their meat products.

In other memories she did experiments in tuning some kind of crystal for a mass hypnosis of some kind.

Project Bliss
, it had been called.
Don't miss our daily specials
, she said to her customers. She had a feeling that one was related to the other. Like, maybe she'd ended up here at Plan Nine after that job in the lab.

Or . . . because of it? Had she been
put
here?

Well, she'd have to figure it out later. Ever since night had become morning, and since, somehow, twenty years had passed, even though in Caroline's mind it had never
really
been 1994 . . . whatever, the point was it was slammed inside the grocery store. People apparently felt some strange need to eat in order to cope with change. And yet here she was, standing outside, almost like she was waiting for something.

Project Bliss. Don't miss our daily specials
.

She looked back to the sky, trying to find the answers, but all she saw was the store's big sign, where the name was written as Plan IX.

She turned to head back into the grocery store, when a car careened into the parking lot, tires screeching.

It raced right toward her, a dusty black sedan. Caroline didn't move. Something about this car . . . It skidded to a halt right in front of her. She peered in the window and saw a hula doll bobbing happily. She also saw that the driver's seat was empty.

“C-Caroline?” The voice had come from behind her.

Caroline turned to find a large man, dressed all in black, with short black hair and olive-colored skin.

She thought he looked scary.

She thought she knew him.

He was just staring at her, his brow working. He had a finger on his watch but now pulled it away and started fiddling with some kind of charm bracelet on his wrist.

It was a weird thing for a large man to be wearing.

Or maybe she had made it for him. Before he left.

Project Bliss. Don't miss—

“It's Caroline . . . isn't it?” the man whispered, like he wasn't really sure.

Her gaze locked on him. “Yeah?” she said. He smiled, looking so relieved, and then she remembered: “Theodore?”

The man's face scrunched. He fished inside his shirt with his thumb and produced a set of dog tags. He held them out to her.

Caroline stepped closer and looked at the name there:

The Alto? That was a weird name. . . . Except it was clear that letters had been scuffed and scraped by years of action.

Letters of a name she knew.

“Theodore Rialto.”

Theodore smiled, as if hearing this was a great relief. “That's it.” He held up a bracelet. “You gave me this, to remember, after I . . . escaped.”

Caroline felt an overwhelming rush inside. She held out her left hand. “You gave me this, right before you left.”

Theodore looked down at her hand. At the slender silver band with the diamond on her finger.

He pulled her into a long, crushing hug.

“You found it,” she whispered. “After they caught us. You got out before they plugged us into the project. Before they wiped our minds.”

“Well, almost,” said Theodore.

“Why? Why did we do it. . . .” Caroline could feel the pieces jumbling around. “We . . . we thought . . .”

“We thought it was wrong, what they wanted to do,” said Theodore. “We wanted to stop it.”

“And you did it. You got the code into Juliette. You freed the town.”

“I had help,” said Theodore. “Kind of amazing help.” He pulled back from her and checked his watch. “The military just got here. They're going to want to interview everyone. If we leave now, they'll never know we existed.”

Caroline tore off her apron and rounded the car. “Aww,” she said as she opened the door, “you kept Holly.”

The Alto smiled. “She was my copilot.”

The black sedan screeched out of the Plan Nine parking lot and off toward the wide horizon.

Juliette, AZ, July 7, 8:18 a.m.

The One Horse Diner was packed. Dodger had shoveled in about half of his pancakes and was now picking at them, feeling a little queasy from the sudden burst of real food.

“So, they're gone,” said Harry from beside him.

“Mmm,” said Dodger, but then he remembered that was his old answer to his dad's questions. “They got out once the time loop was busted,” he added. “They could come back, though. They still need somewhere to live, and this is one of their possible places.”

“And you got to see their home world,” said Allan. “Really?” He sounded a little jealous.

“If it's any consolation,” said Haley, “it had been mostly destroyed by a star that went super giant.”

“No fair!” Liam added, “Our sun is boring.”

Dodger laughed. “I can't believe you guys met up,” he said to Harry.

“It was that Keller lady,” said Harry. “She gave us these coordinates and we met up over in Flagstaff before we came out here. I'm just upset we didn't get here in time for me to give those E.T.'s a piece of my mind, and by my mind I mean my fist.”

“Dad,” Dodger groaned. He rolled his eyes at Haley.

But then he felt his dad's hand fall on his hat and ruffle it around on his head. “I'm just glad you're still here.”