Trespassers: a science-fiction novel (17 page)

“
What
’
d you find out?
”
George asked.

“
You were right. It was just a few bags of equipment and supplies.
”

“
Of course it was,
”
George said with a laugh.
“
Nobody jumps off a moving ship.
”

“
Yeah, you
’
re right,
”
Stewart conceded. This should have made George suspicious. It was unlike Stewart to admit George was right twice in one conversation.
“
So anyway,
”
Stewart continued,
“
we should have the area cleaned by tomorrow night.
”

“
Good, keep me posted.
”

As Mindy overheard this conversation, she was struck by three things. First, Stewart covered up the fact that trespassers did actually jump from the ship. Second, he made no mention of the heart-signal tracker. And third, she had no idea what he meant by
have the area cleaned by tomorrow night
.

The SUV joined the rows of parked cars hidden behind large piles of limestone. Mindy stepped out and experienced her first mouthful of limestone dust
—
one quickly learns to look away from the wind and breathe through the nose. She followed the gang to a small corridor carved out of the towering rock. This modest opening was almost invisible against the landscape. As they disappeared into it, Mindy could feel her lungs restricting. She wasn
’
t sure whether it was from the limestone dust in the air, the claustrophobic corridor, or the anticipation of what lay ahead. Mindy was ready to take it all in, but there wasn
’
t much to take in, yet
—
just bare rock walls covered in white, powdery limestone.

As Stewart reached the old dented door at the end of the corridor, Mindy was almost expecting a grand presentation, perhaps a swooping motion of the arm as he bid her an official welcome. Instead, he yanked open the creaky metal door and disappeared into the darkness. Inside, the lights flickered on from some cheap, unseen motion sensor. The room was small and ragged, adorned with a soda machine that generated an annoying hum and a small sliding window that gave a view of a small, barren office. A few generic posters hung on the wall with tattered edges and faded ink. They proudly informed anyone who cared about minimum-wage standards, right-to-work laws, maternity-leave regulations, and workers
’
compensation rights. Mindy didn
’
t care about any of these things. She was expecting a grand fortress and instead she got this dump.

A few presses of the Pepsi-machine buttons in just the right sequence
, she thought,
and the face of the contraption would crack open and unveil a staircase leading to a double-o-seven type of lair
. She clung desperately to this hope, to fend off the rising concern that this really was all there was to it.

As soon as the rickety door slammed shut behind them, Stewart pulled an ID card from his pocket and waved it at a blank spot on the wall. Mindy felt the floor vibrate, and the whole room began to lift. The doors, the poster-lined walls, even the soda machine, it was all rising above her. Suddenly her bearings returned, and she realized that the room wasn
’
t ascending; the floor was descending. Like a sturdy cargo elevator, it was gently lowering them to a subterranean level.

As she stared up at the bottom of the Pepsi machine that was now overhead, she realized just how antiquated the secret-staircase idea had been. This truly was much better.

“
Did you want a drink?
”
Web asked, having noticed her staring at the machine.

“
Oh .
.
. no.
”
Then a thought occurred to her.
“
But .
.
. does it actually work, though? I mean, could someone buy a drink from there?
”

“
Of course,
”
Web replied.
“
The Pepsi man comes on Thursdays to stock it.
”

Then, the bottom of the wall appeared, like a curtain rising to unveil the next treasure. This treasure was a broad hallway that led to a thick double door, resembling a bank vault. The walls were powdery white, but there was no limestone dust down here. It was just a paint job in keeping with the theme.

Stewart led the way to the bank-vault door, where he promptly turned to the others, gave a quick bow, and swooped his arm in a ceremonious arc.

“
Welcome home, Mindy Craddock,
”
he announced with a smile.

Web gave a little golf clap, and even New Guy cracked a warm smile. Stewart hit the lone button on the wall, and the doors parted in the middle, retracting with a muffled hiss.

Four steps later, she was finally inside, and the thick doors hissed to a close behind them. Mindy was absorbing images that most of her Redundancy Department colleagues only dreamed about. She was already wondering how she would describe it to them, if she was allowed to describe it at all.

The grandeur of this place surpassed her imagination. It was unlike any place anyone
’
s imagination had ever conjured. You didn
’
t just walk into it. It enveloped you. The farther you went, the safer you felt. It defied logic for a structure to be so cold and so inviting at the same time.

The floor was coated in a pleasing mix of dark, overlapping colors that had an almost three-dimensional feel. The walls were very much the opposite. They were gray. But Mindy noticed something quite odd about them, something she couldn
’
t quite put her finger on. She stopped in her tracks to get a better look. It was as if the paint was so deep that the longer she looked, the deeper she saw into it.

“
Marvelous,
”
she thought to herself.

“
What
’
s that?
”
Web asked.

Oops, she had said that out loud.
“
It
’
s like the wall
’
s not there,
”
she explained.

“
It
’
s there,
”
Web chuckled. He tapped the wall with his fingertips as his voice took the tone of a tour guide.
“
It
’
s a depth paint. It
’
s designed to allow your eyes to see distance. It actually covers the full range of the human eye .
.
. which means you can focus on it just as if you were looking at the night sky. It reduces the fatigue on your eyes from being indoors.
”

Mindy nodded at these words, but she didn
’
t take her eyes off the wall. She was feeling the wonderful effect that he described.

“
You can also look at it up close,
”
Web explained, putting his head near the wall to demonstrate,
“
and your eyes can focus on it just the same.
”

“
It feels good,
”
Mindy admitted, as she soaked it in.

Web liked Mindy. In their brief time together, mostly traveling in an SUV, he had found that he could talk to her about food, which was not as easy as it might seem. He couldn
’
t talk to New Guy or Stewart about food. New Guy rarely said more than two words about anything, and Stewart was the type who didn
’
t care what was on his fork, as long as it was nutritious, not too sweet, and reasonably easy to chew. From a conversational standpoint, this did not mesh well with Web who was simply too passionate about food to allow the assertion that
potatoes taste just as good from the microwave
.

Web often felt that if he didn't keep a tight leash on his passion for eating, he would swell to the size of a hot-air balloon, which was something he was determined to avoid. Avoiding it had become a full-time job. Diets didn
’
t work for him. He settled into the technique of leaving food behind. Whenever he ate, he made a conscious decision not to finish, and he took great pride in walking away.

Another thing he had pride in was this building. He had much more to show Mindy. Every detail was up to a standard beyond compare. Even the hinges on the doors were works of art that satisfied form and function to the highest level. When a door was pushed shut, one was convinced that a nuclear explosion couldn
’
t rattle it. In this place, the only things that would ever need replacing were the humans.

Stewart led the way into his office.

“
Don
’
t tell anyone what we
’
re on to here,
”
Stewart ordered, as soon as Web had shut the door behind them.
“
We
’
ll get that heart-signal generator working, and then we
’
ll head back in the morning to lay the trap .
.
. just the four of us.
”

Mindy was thrilled to be counted in
the four
. Apparently, she had passed the on-the-job interview. There were now 218 people on staff at the Limestone Deposit Survey Group.

Stewart tapped a smart board mounted into the wall. Its screen came to life. He wrote
OFF THE RECORD
at the top with his finger. Below that he wrote
GEORGE.

“
Okay, what are we telling George?
”
he said, mostly thinking aloud.
“
As far as he knows, it
’
s cargo dumped in a field. We
’
ll keep it at that for now.
”

“
Write
overtime
on there,
”
Web said.

Stewart rolled his eyes,
“
That
’
s taken care of, I told you. Don
’
t worry about it.
”

“
That
’
s also what you said last time.
”

“
This is different,
”
Stewart insisted.

“
Last time you said
overtime is taken care of
. And you said
don
’
t worry about it
. I didn
’
t worry about it, and overtime wasn
’
t taken care of.
”

“
Excuse me,
”
Mindy said, raising her hand.
“
I have a question about something you said earlier.
”

“
Sure,
”
Stewart dropped into the chair behind his desk.

“
Well, on the phone, you said we would
have the area cleaned by tomorrow night
. What does that mean?
”

“
It
’
s protocol,
”
Stewart explained.
“
Whenever there
’
s an unauthorized alien encounter, we have to make sure that no public suspicions were aroused. So, like .
.
. if these had actually been supply bags dropped from an alien ship, we would have to go locate each one of them, make sure nobody stumbled across them, and make sure nobody gets the wrong idea about what they are or where they came from.
”

“
And by
wrong idea
, you mean
right idea
,
”
Mindy added.

“
Exactly. They can be duffle bags dropped from a cargo plane or a military supply pack that fell off an Army convoy. .
.
. It doesn
’
t matter what people think they are, as long as they don
’
t think they
’
re from outer space.
”

“
But these aren
’
t supply bags,
”
Mindy said.

“
No.
”

“
Well, one probably is,
”
Web inserted.