The Fellowship for Alien Detection (37 page)

“How about it?” asked the Director. “You two could be our ambassadors from Earth. We could all learn so much from each other. And if you think this view is amazing”—the Director waved her hand at the vast scenery beyond the window—“just consider that this is the part of the universe we think of as our boring old hometown. So, what do you say, Dodger?”

Dodger had no idea what to say. He
had
been a lab rat, and yet he was also something unique in all the universe. He gazed out the window, at the glowing world, the vast reaches of space that would be open for him to explore, the maps he could create. He thought of the yearning he'd had all his life, to escape from the world that always seemed to fit him all wrong, to find a place that really felt like home, that felt . . . right.

He glanced over at Haley.

She was gazing out into space. “New map,” she said with awe.

She pressed her hand harder into Dodger's.

“Would we be able to see our families?” she asked.

The Director seemed to sigh. “You could see them, and know that they are well, but . . . since they would be part of the worldwide interface, you would not be able to tell them about their condition. We could of course program it so that they didn't miss you, or, if you'd like, we could have you removed from their memories altogether, for everyone's ease.”

“I've seen how that ends up,” Haley muttered. “And what if we say no?”

“Well,” said the Director, “I guess then you'll take your place among your fellow man. We'll have to insert you in Juliette until everything's ready, of course. And you, Dodger, we'd have to keep you here.”

“Doesn't sound like much of a choice,” said Haley.

“Everything's a choice,” said the Director. “So, what do you say, my intrepid explorers?”

“I—” Dodger didn't know how to finish. Here it was. Something like what he'd always wanted . . .

And yet, he had to wonder if maybe those things he'd felt, about not fitting in, were really true anymore. Sure, things had seemed that way, so many times in his life. . . . They had even felt that way on this trip, but that was all before he'd learned the truth about his dad, who actually wanted the best for him but had as little idea as Dodger did of how to make that happen. They'd been doing the best they could, or the best they knew how. . . . Maybe it could be better now, if he went back. And if he left them, he'd be condemning them to a life under alien mind control. Of course, as the Director offered, he could
have
his parents' painful memories of Dodger and his abduction removed entirely, but he had to wonder . . . back on earth, back in Port Salmon, had he really tried his hardest to make the world fit him right, to fit into it better? Couldn't he try harder, especially given all that he now knew?

But maybe I'll try and fail
, he thought. Maybe he'd never really get it right and his parents would never really get him. Maybe he would still have trouble making friends. He looked at Haley . . . or maybe, just maybe, it was possible to not only make friends but maybe more than friends . . . if he tried.

Haley squeezed his hand even tighter. As she did, Dodger felt something pinching into his palm.

“I'm sorry,” Haley was saying with a deep sigh as she gazed out at Paha'Ne, “but I can't take your offer. I . . . I just can't.”

Dodger sighed to himself. He joined her in gazing out at Paha'Ne. At the same time, in his mind, he reached back along the interface, searching. . . .

And then he said, “Well, I think it would be amazing.”

“You do,” said the Director. She sounded pleased. “Dodger, this is very exciting. Our child of the stars come home.”

Dodger kept searching. . . . There it was. He took his hand from Haley's. Held it by his side. The bit of metal that Haley had given him was still there. . . . He turned his palm up and glanced down quickly at it.

“But I'm sorry,” said Dodger, “I'm gonna go home.”

He sank back, and in his mind, he suggested the symbol from the Alto's bracelet, which Haley had transferred to his hand, to the interface.

The Director clearly sensed it. “What—”

Command accepted
, said the interface.
Project Bliss Control Interface Status: Disengaged
.

Wild lights and sirens began to sound around them, and Dodger turned, grabbed Haley by both hands, and flung himself backward into the crystal glow from which they'd come.

They hurtled through the orange blur of space and time, part of a torrent of charged particles, bodies and yet information.

The interface around them was alive with a frantic, repeating message:

P
ROJECT
B
LISS
I
NTERFACE
S
TATUS
COMPROMISED
!
A
LL
T
EST
S
UBJECTS ARE WAKENING
. D
ISCOVERY IS
I
MMINENT
.
A
LL
P
ERSONNEL
B
OARD
T
RANSPORT
I
MMEDIATELY AND
E
XIT
E
ARTH
T
IMESPACE
. R
EPEAT
, A
LL
P
ERSONNEL ARE TO REPORT TO THE NEAREST
E
XIT POINT AND LEAVE
E
ARTH
T
IMESPACE
.

There was a blur of ships and aliens, departing from points all over the globe and joining the interface, back to Paha'Ne, with only two humans heading in the other direction, back across the universe, back to Earth and Juliette, which Dodger had just freed.

Juliette, AZ, July 7, 5:43 a.m.

In the third spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, on the planet Earth, on a high desert plateau, in the early morning, a town appeared where there had not been one for nearly twenty years.

In a moment, about twenty thousand people who'd been getting ready to go to bed on the twenty-fifth of April 1994 suddenly found July morning light streaming through their windows. They stumbled outside, trying to comprehend it all.

Amazingly, the phone and power lines still worked, though not the cable lines. There were a few people with bulky old personal computers, one of whom had an early internet application called the gopher. That, too, was useless.

Only two people in Juliette even had cell phones, and they were primitive things the size of shoe boxes and they wouldn't connect to the current satellites, either because the technology was different, or because their accounts had been in default for years.

Luckily for the just-returned and unaware time travelers, there was a capable young woman sitting atop a mobile home, parked a few miles above the plateau. She called the police, the news outlets, and the military. Everyone over the age of twenty with whom she spoke remembered Juliette—the memory cloaking had been removed when Project Bliss was disengaged—and didn't even realize that they hadn't remembered it moments before. Combined with the astonishing video that Alex shot of the town sketching itself into existence, which immediately went viral, there was a sudden rush from all points around the nation to get to Juliette. Within an hour, the first helicopters were buzzing the area, and a steady stream of news vans and military vehicles began arriving on a newly remembered highway leading north from Interstate 40.

They found the streets full of people stumbling around, some in their pajamas, trying to reconcile what had happened to them.

One group that would never understand what had happened was the myriad of desert creatures that, over the twenty years of Juliette's absence, had dug their dens and burrows in the empty sands of the plateau. These hundreds of creatures, including the entire population of a rare and as-of-yet-unclassified species of lizard similar to the Gila monster, were unfortunately squished when all the roads and foundations returned without warning. The human species, meanwhile, was suddenly safer than it had been in a long time.

Juliette, AZ, July 7, 6:23 a.m.

After their return from the interface, Haley and Dodger had sat somewhat stunned, on the catwalk with Suza and AJ and the Alto, watching spaceships fly overhead. Then they'd heard an ominous announcement that
Anti-Detection Doors
were about to close at all exits to the cave complex. Dodger had instructed them all to hold on to one another's shoulders again, and he'd beamed them out through a door that led to a sewer tunnel beneath Main Street. They'd popped out in the tunnel, and when Dodger had turned back to the silver door with the black discs, he had no longer been able to make them light up. The Paha'Ne had shut down the interface, at least for the moment.

And just as they stepped away from the door, there had been a tiny snapping sound, and the section of tunnel just above the door caved in, hiding it from view.

“We need to find a phone,” Haley had said immediately.

“Mine is toast,” the Alto had replied. “I think teleporting might have fried it.”

They had climbed up out of a storm drain, finding themselves in an alley off Main Street. Suza had left to go home, and AJ had done the same.

The Alto had been standing there looking lost, when Haley handed him his bracelet back. “One more charm to figure out,” she said. “IX.”

The Alto had slipped the bracelet back on and nodded. “And the name . . . Charity,” he said, then shook his head. “Nope.” He looked at Haley and Dodger and made something resembling a smile. It made his face look comical. “Thanks to you both. She's here, I think. I just have to figure out where.”

Haley wondered if they would hug or something. But the Alto just started out of the alley.

“Thanks,” Haley called after him. “You know, for lying to us, and the rest of it.”

The Alto turned. Now his face was serious. “Don't say good-bye. They might be back someday.”

This sent an unexpected chill through Haley. “What happens then?”

“I'll be in touch.” The Alto rounded the corner and was gone.

“Way to leave on a downer,” said Dodger. “Let's find a phone.”

“Yeah,” Haley said heavily. She wondered if the Alto was right. They'd thwarted the Paha'Ne's plans, but . . . their planet was destroyed. They still needed a place to call home.

“Don't worry,” said Dodger. “They'd know better than to mess with the Fellowship for Alien Detection again.”

Haley shook her head. “If they do come back, we are going to need a catchier name.”

Juliette, AZ, July 7, 7:04 a.m.

Suza Raines was getting suspicious. As she dropped her bike and walked up the steps, she had almost convinced herself that this was still her house, still her life. . . .

She was so nervous that she paused at the door. It would take a while to put together all the mixed-up memories in her mind, but anyone who'd lived the same day over and over in a town where she didn't even
actually
live, a town that had only recently been returned to reality and the memory of the rest of the world, was probably allowed some time to sort it all out. And Suza was planning on some serious mornings of sleeping in late to do so. But that didn't change what was about to happen right now. She considered turning around and coming home later—

The door opened. Matt stood there. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, rubbing his head. “We—um, I'm not your dad, am I?”

“No,” said Suza.

Matt nodded groggily. “Do you know where we are? And what day it is?”

Suza shrugged. “Arizona. It's July.”

“Huh . . .” Matt stared blankly outside.

Suza pushed past him into the house.

She ran to the kitchen and picked up the phone, dialing with a trembling finger.

The phone rang. It rang again. Picked up.

“What?”

Suza heard the clucking of a chicken in the background, and her heart tried to lurch its way out of her throat. She couldn't breathe. The phone started to slip out of her hand, but she caught it with the other and managed to whisper, “Steph?”

It was silent on the other end. There was a light clicking sound. Then a slow breath. “Sis, is that you? Where are you?”

“Juliette,” said Suza. “It's in Arizona. Turn on the news.”

A hand cupped the phone. “MOM!” Then Steph returned.

“Stay there, kid,” she said through her tears. “We're coming.”

Juliette, AZ, July 7, 7:25 a.m.

Before long, the major news networks had set up shop, flown in their crane cameras and even erected a stage with a podium for speakers to inform the confused populace about relief efforts, and for the people to give their wild accounts to a rapt national audience.

No one had much information, and the crowd was getting restless, until two young people were spotted making their way around the back of the crowd in main street. They had planned to avoid detection. They'd tried calling their parents from a gas station pay phone, but neither the Richards nor Harry was answering. Dodger and Haley had shared worried glances about this but hoped it was that EMP effect of missing time.