The Fellowship for Alien Detection (29 page)

Haley sank back into her seat. Outside, the stars had begun to bejewel the dark in earnest. Beneath her excitement for the new plan, she also felt fresh worry. This was yet another decision they were making
not
to go back.
One choice at a time
, the Alto had said . . . but again, this felt like the choice they
had
to make.

And she had new questions now, too, beyond what was happening in Juliette and around the globe. Haley now found herself wondering: Who were these aliens? And where were they from?

Haley looked up at the stars and wondered how far you had to go to get those answers, and she wondered what she would do with the part of herself that, despite these dangerous choices she'd already made, was still yearning to find out.

Apache National Forest, AZ, July 7, 12:36 a.m.

Later, in the unknown void of dark, Dodger awoke to find the car silent and still. He sat up. The front seat was empty . . . no, not empty. The Alto was curled on his side, asleep. There was a timer perched on the dashboard, which read 39 minutes, 40 seconds, and was counting down. Dodger wondered where Haley was. The windows were all fogged.

He grabbed the blanket that the Alto had provided him with and got out of the car. The air was cool and sweet-smelling. The car was parked in an inky patch beneath a cluster of pine trees. Beyond that was a wide, barren slope and then distant folds of desert hills sketched in silver. Here and there were dome shapes, little cinder cones from long-ago volcanic activity. Dodger saw a lump a little ways from the trees, like a person sitting.

He headed across the slope. Tiny, sharp-edged volcanic rocks crunched beneath his feet. He saw that Haley was wrapped in a blanket, knees pulled up. And he heard a sniffle, like crying.

Dodger wondered if he should leave her alone, but then her head snapped around, probably at the sound of his footfalls. Dodger saw her wiping quickly at her nose and eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “Mind if I sit?”

“No,” said Haley, her voice hoarse.

Dodger dropped down beside her but immediately jumped up. “Ow.” The volcanic rocks were like needles.

“Here,” said Haley. She scooted over, making room on a pad of grass and dirt, a little island in the cinders.

“Thanks.” Dodger sat beside her and looked up. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” said Haley. “I have never seen so many stars. And the Milky Way—it's usually just a smudge, but here it's, like, feathery.”

Dodger followed the brushed edges of the galaxy, stretching up from the horizon and bowing overhead. “We're at a pretty high elevation,” he said. “That's why things are so clear. Well, that and”—he swept his hand around—“middle of nowhere.”

“I can't even pick out the constellations,” said Haley.

Dodger gazed at the sky. One of his favorite maps at home was of the night sky. Haley was right. The constellations were irrelevant with all these other stars.

“It's just crazy,” Haley was saying. “I mean, there are really aliens, which means . . . How many other worlds do you think are out there? There could be hundreds,
millions
. That's so many, and like, compared to that, we're just a little speck. Isn't that freaky?”

Dodger hadn't really thought about it. “I don't know—why would that be freaky?”

“Well, just because, like, it's not just stars and comets and stuff out there—it's, like, different ecosystems and different civilizations, and each one has its own customs and holidays and pets and favorite foods and . . . it's so much. I was thinking, at the beginning of this trip, about how the world was so big, with so many details, that there was no way you could see it all. But if there are alien worlds, too, that takes it to a whole other level. It's . . .”

Dodger heard her sniffle again, and a little clicking sound. He looked over and saw Haley blinking at tears again. “You okay?” he asked.

She huffed. “So stupid,” she said, motioning to her leaking face. “I wanted to get out here, on this adventure, out in the big world.”

“That's not stupid at all,” said Dodger, realizing that he'd never thought of this trip as an
adventure
. He'd always thought of adventures as being more . . . fun. It occurred to him now that maybe this was what an explorer's life was actually like: lonely, full of tough choices, danger, and now and then a talk with a fellow adventurer by moonlight, in some desolate place. That last part didn't seem so bad, but the other facets had so far proven to be harder than Dodger could have predicted.

“Yeah, well,” Haley was saying, “except now, thinking about how big the universe is, about all the possibility . . . it's making me miss home. I miss my silly little town of Green Haven, my house, my parents . . . and that stinks! I've been feeling so bad since I left them, I'm beginning to wonder if I was even made for all this. It's like I got stuck with a faulty heart.”

Haley knocked on her chest with her fist. “Sorry, ma'am,” she said in a male voice, “this ticker won't be able to handle the big adventures you had planned.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Hearing Haley made Dodger feel a little guilty. “I don't think I've missed my dad yet,” he said, except how many times had he pictured Harry frozen on Main Street in Roswell? A hundred? Once a minute? So maybe that was missing him. “At least you got to call your parents and tell them what was happening,” said Dodger.

“Would your dad have any idea about the missing time, or that kind of thing?” Haley asked.

“Oh, he'll have a pretty good idea of what happened,” said Dodger. “At least, the alien part.” Dodger glanced at Haley. He had been about to tell her more but then held it back. Haley caught him looking.

“What?” she asked.

She had a kind of clear gaze, he noticed, behind the starry reflections in her glasses. Her eyes seemed wide-open, taking you as you were. And they seemed to want the truth. Or maybe it felt like she could be trusted with the truth. Sheesh. It suddenly occurred to Dodger that Haley was maybe cute, too. He hadn't really noticed before now. And she also looked hurt and lonely out here, just like he was.
Tell her,
he thought. But normally, he didn't really tell anyone anything. . . . Then again, nothing was really normal anymore.

“It happened to us before,” he said.

“What did?”

“The missing time. Well, to my dad. When I was really little I . . . I was abducted.”

“Whoa,” said Haley. “You mean by . . .” She glanced up.
“Them?”

“Yeah,” said Dodger. “I don't remember it, but I think I always sensed it, at least that something had happened. They didn't take me forever, like the people in Juliette. I was gone for eight days and then I got put back. I think that's why I can hear the radio and use the crystal and stuff. I think I've even been to Juliette. Like, they took me there. That's why the caverns looked familiar when I was uploaded.”

Dodger felt like he'd uncorked himself and now he was pouring out into the night. He'd never said any of this. Never considered putting it into words. He half expected Haley to back away from him like he was actually an alien.

Instead, she rubbed his arm. “That's crazy, Dodger. I'm sorry.”

Dodger nodded. “My parents never told me about the abduction. I had no idea until this afternoon.”

“They were probably trying to protect you,” said Haley.

“Maybe,” said Dodger, “but my whole life I figured that they thought I was a screwup, that they were disappointed in me, and I already felt weird inside and that vibe from them only made me feel worse . . . but all that time they were actually feeling guilty about the abduction and worrying about if my weird behavior was because of the aliens. It's like we were going around in circles, over and over.”

As the words came out of his mouth, Dodger was kind of amazed by what he was saying. It was almost like listening to someone else speaking.

“Ha,” Haley chuckled.

“What?”

“Lines need to be straight,” said Haley. “You said going in circles, and that's just something I'd been thinking when I was back with my family. It's not really the same, but sort of. They were driving me nuts. I didn't know how I was going to survive the whole trip with them.”

“Ditto,” said Dodger. “I just can't believe they didn't tell me. I mean, my dad had to know that if we came on this trip, we might run into aliens. Why do that if he didn't want me getting abducted again?”

“Maybe he was looking for answers,” said Haley. “It sounds like your parents felt guilty and sad about the abduction, and they never really even knew exactly what had happened to you while you were gone. That's probably part of why they didn't tell you. Maybe your dad wanted to know more, so he could make it make sense to you.”

Dodger thought about their conversation in the Denny's. How tortured Harry had seemed. And something was suddenly so obvious that he couldn't believe he'd never realized it before. “He wanted to find Juliette just as much as me.”

“Probably,” Haley agreed.

The thought stunned Dodger. All those hours he and Harry had spent in the car, not speaking . . . they'd both been secretly hoping for the same thing! Dodger almost laughed. Unbelievable. And Dodger probably knew what Harry was thinking right now, wherever he was:
He thinks they took me,
Dodger thought to himself.
He thinks he failed to keep me safe, again
.

Dodger felt his insides twist with guilt. He hadn't meant for that. When he'd decided to leave, he'd been angry, furious. And didn't he have every right to be? His entire life had been a lie! And yet his dad had been trying, had maybe been trying all along, but Dodger couldn't see it. . . . He rubbed his hands over his face. “I am an idiot.”

“Here we are,” said Haley, “two idiots. But at least we're two idiots who are about to save the planet from aliens. Right?”

Dodger laughed. He looked at her and they shared a smile and Dodger felt something kind of electric lighting up his nerves. “Right.” He tried to think of something funny to say, something that would be easy to talk about instead of all the heavy business of their current predicament. “Seen any shooting stars out here?”

“No luck yet,” said Haley, “but I haven't really been looking that hard.”

They both looked up. Dodger tried to let his gaze go wide. “My aunt says it's a good omen not to see a shooting star,” he said.

“How so?” Haley asked.

“Well, you're supposed to wish on a shooting star, so she said that if you
didn't
see one, that meant that all your wishes had been fulfilled. Like, you wouldn't see one unless you needed it. She's kind of a hippie. My dad can't stand her.”

“Oh,” said Haley. “That's kind of a cool theory, though. I mean, a different spin. Like the universe is looking out for you.”

“I guess,” said Dodger. “I think she just made it up so we wouldn't be disappointed.” Then again, if Haley liked the idea, maybe he could, too. He looked around for something else to show her. “Check it out,” he said, pointing to the horizon. “There's Mars.”

Haley followed his finger to the little orange dot. “Oh, neat.”

“I think,” said Dodger, shifting around, “Jupiter is going to be coming up here somewhere soon—”

“Oh, hey!” Haley smacked Dodger's shoulder and pointed. “Over there! Shooting star!”

Dodger scanned the sky. And then he saw a little white light to the east, falling earthward.

Except then the light leveled out and started coming straight toward them. “Oh, crap,” said Dodger.

“That's not a star, is it?” said Haley. “Come on! We have to get back to the car.”

It was coming fast, so fast that Dodger could already make out multiple blinking lights on it. It stopped not far from them, its circular hull glinting in the starlight. Now a brilliant orange beam speared down from its belly, illuminating a patch of forest below. The craft darted a few hundred feet closer, the light scanning over the ground again.

“Come on,” Haley whispered. She was in a crouch, tugging on his arm. “We need to hurry—”

“Hold on,” said Dodger. He knew she was right. The ship would be here soon, too soon, he feared, for them to even make it to the car. And yet the closer it came, the more Dodger thought that he could
feel
the ship. There was crystal inside it, maybe the ship's power source. And after interfacing with the crystal beneath Lucky Springs, he knew what the magnetic connection felt like. He closed his eyes and he could almost sense the crystal out there, not just as energy and warmth—his body was starting to heat up—but also as intelligence.

In fact, he felt like there was only crystal in the ship. No actual aliens. He could practically picture the interior, a basketball-sized chunk of crystal floating among circuitry. Maybe this was a reconnaissance drone.

It was all Dodger could do not to call out to it, through his mind and the energy currents that connected them, and say,
I'm right here!
Except . . .