The Fellowship for Alien Detection (15 page)

She sat up and turned off her alarm. It was definitely time to get a new one. Maybe she could go to Base Surplus and Consignment after school, or tomorrow—

There won't be a tomorrow!

The thought shot through her head like a searing laser. Suza winced and shook her head. Without knowing it, she reached back and slapped behind her left ear.

The feeling passed as quickly as it had come. What had that been? Suza had no idea.

She got dressed and shuffled into the kitchen. It was nice to find it quiet. Usually, Angie was up by now, wrapped in her so ugly, baby blue robe with the fuzzy collar, her mane of blond hair everywhere. What Dad saw in her, Suza didn't know. . . . Why did her mom have to leave?

Another weird thought popped into her mind:
She didn't leave; I did
.

Suza unknowingly slapped behind her ear again. Of course her mom left, a while ago now. Still, Suza could remember her, always wearing those silly pink sneakers. . . .

Suza sighed. Her dad had tried hard to explain to her why things hadn't worked out. Something about people being
incompatible
. They didn't fit each other. But then what about Suza, who fit with them both? Shouldn't they have been like three Lego blocks, with Suza in the middle? How come it didn't just work?

A voice drifted through the kitchen window. “Darn it all, MacDougals!”

Suza looked out and saw her neighbor, Mr. Davis, sprawled in the road.

He tripped
, Suza thought to herself.
Well, duh, that's obvious
. She turned away.

It occurred to her now that if Angie wasn't up, Suza would have plenty of time to go see AJ down at the One Horse.

She needed to say bye to Dad, though. Suza headed down the hall and peered into the still-dark room. Two lumps lay buried in the covers, Angie making a light, yucky snore.

“Dad,” Suza half-whispered. “I'm leaving for school.”

Matt rolled onto his side. “All right. Did you eat something?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, love ya, kiddo.”

Suza felt a little double beat in her heart. “Love you, too,” she said quietly.

Outside, Mr. Davis and MacDougals were gone. Suza walked over to her bike. She bent to pick it up when she noticed something shiny perched on the edge of the seat. Someone had carefully placed it there for her: a shimmery silver rectangle of metal, about three inches long, notches in its sides and symbols etched in a line across it.
Right
, she thought. She picked it up—it seemed to weigh almost nothing— and slipped it into her pocket.

As she got on her bike, another thought arrived:
Show it to AJ
. Why AJ? Well, AJ was a grad student in astrophysics, and he spent most nights up at the observatory. He was also always talking with Matt about his theories on how there were aliens visiting Earth. How they were already here and practicing mind control. That always made Dad laugh.

Another thought suddenly arrived.
Hurry, before they notice
.

Suza hopped onto her bike and raced down into town. She passed that fenced-off construction area again, causing a man in a yellow hard hat to stare at her. Wasn't there something weird about him?
Don't worry about that. Keep going
.

Reaching Main Street, Suza locked her bike and headed for the diner. On her way, she heard a voice that seemed familiar:

“Come on! Excuse me, who do I talk to? This thing took my quarter!”

As she neared the glass door to the One Horse Diner, a large woman in a yellow dress walked out.

The words “half-pint” floated across her mind as she ducked into the diner.

“Suze!” AJ was standing at the end of the counter, filling coffee mugs. His white apron was already smudged with grease, ketchup, and Hollandaise. “How's it going, little lady?”

“Hi,” Suza said. She was feeling odd. Like—things were wrong somehow. She looked down the long row of booths. An old man was coughing on his coffee. A young woman was looking at her friend with red-faced embarrassment as the friend wiped at her shirt.

“Earth to Suze,” AJ called. He came around from behind the counter, filling a few mugs at the tables along the front windows. “Hey, I know why you're here.”

“You do?” Suza asked, feeling a flash of worry.

“Yeah, but, bad news. We're fresh out of peanut butter.”

“Oh, right. I know, or, I
knew
, but . . .”

“What's the matter?” AJ asked, stopping beside her.

I have to show him, quick
, she thought,
before
. . . Before what? She couldn't remember. But there was something. Some time pressure. Suza reached into her pocket.

AJ's face suddenly grew serious, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you have it?”

“You mean this?” She held up the metal piece. It seemed to gather all the light in the room and reflect it back out, making a glittering diamond pattern on everything, like a disco ball.

“Whoa,” said AJ.

“I . . . I was supposed to bring it here, right?” Suza asked.

“You . . .” AJ's face twitched as if he was working through a complicated thought. “The—the um, the plan. That's the key to the plan. . . .”

Now Suza noticed that the diner had become silent. She looked around to find the entire restaurant gazing at her. People were twisted around, half-standing to get a good view; passersby outside were even pressed up against the glass, looking in from Main Street, their faces wide in wonder. All staring at the metal piece, making twitching, problem-solving faces, like AJ.

“But . . . this doesn't work,” AJ murmured. “We've already tried it. We . . . we have to take it straight to the observatory, instead.”

Hearing these words, a great flood of relief and certainty rushed through Suza.
Yes!
she thought.
This is what's supposed to happen. AJ is supposed to take this to the observatory
. “Okay, here.” She held the piece out toward AJ.

But he stepped back, shaking his head. “No, that's what I'm saying . . . it doesn't work. If I take it, they'll just . . . They always stop me. Every time I try, I—”

He started slapping behind his left ear. Suza watched him do it without surprise. Now she heard a similar sound around her. Other people were slapping, too, and in moments the entire restaurant was doing it, some lightly, some harder. It sounded like rain on a roof.

There's something wrong with us
, Suza thought.
With all of us. We're being controlled—

Suddenly her head was flooded with a commanding, monotone voice:

SUZA! Y
OU WILL COME TO SCHOOL
NOW! C
ALMLY AND WITHOUT DELAY
!

The volume made her wince. Suza turned back to AJ. “You have to take it!” she said. “You're
supposed
to take it!” She felt certain of this. That was the only way to stop this— whatever was wrong with them, he—

N
OW
, S
UZA
! R
IGHT NOW
!

Suza shook her head.
No!
she shouted back at the voice.
I won't do what you say!

“Suze.” AJ stumbled into the counter. The coffee-pot slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor. “It doesn't work if I take it,” he said breathlessly. “We've tried this already. I don't even know what I mean by that, but . . .”

The slapping in the room grew louder, like the rain had become a downpour.

“Please!” Suza shouted desperately. “AJ, please! We—”

The door to the One Horse slammed open. By the time Suza whirled toward it, the four orange-suited construction workers in yellow hard hats were already inside. People screamed. Two of the short men grabbed AJ by the arms.

“No!” he shouted as they dragged him behind the counter.

The other two grabbed Suza by the arms. She tried to lunge away, but one man spun her around. He had torn the metal piece out of her hand in an instant.

“No, give it back!” she screamed.

The construction workers were barely taller than her. Their faces looked oddly blank and smooth, like their skin was made of plastic. Their eyes were hidden by black oval goggles.

There was a crash behind the counter. Suza tried to look, but she couldn't.

S
TAY CALM
, S
UZA
! the voice commanded. A
LL THIS WILL BE OVER IN A MOMENT
.

Suza heard AJ shouting from the floor behind the counter. “Not again! Suze! You have to take it! Next time you take it!”

The workers dragged her out of the diner and down the street. Suza tried to break their grip, but it was no use.

C
ALM DOWN
, S
UZA
. D
OWN
. D
OWN
.

And she was calming down, despite her panic. This was the only way, wasn't it? She didn't need to worry. No more bad thoughts.

As Suza was led away, everyone on the street stood perfectly still, watching her pass. As soon as she was by, each person would slap at the area behind their left ear and then suddenly resume what they were doing. It happened in a wave down Main Street.

Juliette, AZ, April 25, 7:36 a.m.

“Well now, this is a continuing problem for you, isn't it?” said Principal Howard, a pitying smile on his face. “But don't worry. We'll get the bugs out of Suza Raines eventually. . . .”

The worker took her by the wrist, but this time, Suza didn't yell. Instead, she hid as far inside her head as she could get, clinging to a single thought, trying to burn it into her brain. And as the orange light washed over her, she kept repeating it, over and over—
Next time I take it— Next time I take it— Next time I take it— Next time I take it—

Until all of her thoughts were gone.

Port Salmon, WA, July 3, 8:52 a.m.

The day before Haley and the Alto disappeared into the dark countryside, and just under three thousand miles away, Francis “Dodger” Lane sat alone in the corner of an unfinished kitchen, head in his hands. He looked like he was crying, sitting there, head slumped over between his knees, but he wasn't. He had the first three fingers of each hand pressed against his temples, and he was listening as carefully as he could.

He heard a persistent plinking; a leak had formed in the plywood roof over a year ago and now a small cascade collected in a permanent shallow pool on the brown tiles. The floor was sagging there. He also heard a tiny scraping, probably squirrels, or maybe the rats that always tormented Dodger's mom's tomatoes. Distantly, cars droned by on I-5. However, none of these sounds were what Dodger was listening for.

“Francis!”

Neither was that. But Dodger looked up, all the way to the mold-splotched ceiling, and sighed. “Coming,” he replied, though not loud enough to be heard. It was time to go; he knew his father, Harry, was itching to get on the road before the Seattle traffic got bad, to get gas at that one service station south of Bellevue that had “The Only Reasonable Price in Town,” and then get down to Eugene and check in to the Relaxation Depot before the pool closed because, as Harry Lane had espoused for as long as Dodger could remember, you had to use the pool and exercise facilities. Otherwise “What These Places Charge Is the Royal Rip-off.”

And Dodger could just see how it would go wrong, like it always seemed to: how there would be freak traffic in Seattle, how that service station would be out of 87 octane (and if you were going to fill the tank with that premium stuff you “Might As Well Shove Your Wallet in There, Too”), how the hotel pool would be closed because a kid went to the bathroom in it and the exercise bike wouldn't be out of order but the calorie counter would be off and then, “What's the Point?”

What's the point of this trip?
Dodger thought to himself. Then again, staying here didn't hold much promise. June had been miserable in Seattle, it always was, as if the Pacific Northwest took pleasure in mocking the calendar's proclamation of summer with a purgatory-like dirge of fog and rain. Through the clouds, you could practically hear the rest of the Northern Hemisphere getting on with the fun of the season, and all you could do was wonder why, why would anyone live here? Of course, July was usually so stunningly sunny that you forgot about all that, but of course, in typical fashion, they were leaving just before that sunshine was due to arrive.

But Dodger didn't have anything to do in the nice weather anyway. At least when it was dreary, nobody criticized him for hanging out in his room playing
Civilizer 4.2
, a computer game where you planned and constructed perfect homes, cities, and towns for this endearing little race of creatures called Darwees. Or, even better, for hanging out over here at Number Two Orca View with his maps.

They were scattered around him now, some of the jewels of his extensive collection of paper maps, which he kept carefully stored in the stainless-steel oven on the wall above him. It was the only appliance in the kitchen of Number Two. There were just holes where refrigerators and dishwashers were supposed to go. There weren't even countertops. Only one of the walls was finished. Everything else was just raw board, most of which had greened and warped, sagging in the moisture. Other than the oven, the only finished item in the kitchen was the “Sedona Dream” floor tile, which was serving as a sturdy lake bed.