Trespassers: a science-fiction novel (25 page)

He gazed at the roof tops and felt overwhelmed by the brick and mortar staring down at him. This was what his rut looked like: a canyon with walls too high to conquer. More than aliens, more than proof that his hunches were right, more than anything else, Bruner was searching for two good days in a row .
.
. then maybe a third. He knew he couldn
’
t indulge in this type of self-pity for long, but he was enjoying it for the moment.

On the face of the building in the distance .
.
. a broken window. Something seemed very out of place about it. Was it a clue? Maybe. He crossed the road to take a closer look.

He entered the restaurant and made it past the empty hostess stand
—
which was guarded only by the magazine this time
—
and he walked to the back of the restaurant, finding the same door that Jin had discovered yesterday. Bruner climbed the stairs and found the room with the broken window. He surveyed the broken glass on the floor and noticed how the dust had been disturbed. He peered out the hole in the window and into the open sky. Something had landed here, and that something had been carried away. This wasn
’
t proof of anything, but it made Bruner feel he was very close.

It had never been
proof
that drove Bruner. It was something very different. It was a feeling that he somehow
knew
aliens existed.

Bruner strolled back downstairs and asked the hostess what she knew about the broken window. She told him she hadn
’
t seen a thing and she didn
’
t remember anyone going up there or coming down. Bruner suspected she wasn
’
t the observant kind.

“
Did you see
me
go up there and come down?
”
he asked.

She didn
’
t have an answer, and that was exactly Bruner
’
s point.

for the Heartbeat

Stewart peered through the drapes, surveying the quiet street below. He was in Room 215. It was decorated with antique furniture and a nineteenth-century motif, complete with a hand-stitched quilt covering the bed, candle lamps, and paintings of Early American farms.

Grizzly and a nephew stood next to the door. Mindy sat at a table across from Web, who was still working on his device. Mindy monitored the iPad
’
s display of four cameras: the lobby, the elevator, the hallway, and the street entrance. All were quiet.

Web leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and started nodding as he looked over the prototype. Stewart knew him well enough to know exactly what that meant.

“
It
’
s finished?
”
Stewart asked.

Web turned to Stewart, still nodding.

“
So, it
’
s
signalling
, now?
”

A smile stretched across Web
’
s face. Stewart stepped closer and the others followed, all eyes focused on the machine.

“
What is it?
”
Grizzly asked.

“
It
’
s a heart-signal generator,
”
Stewart said.
“
It
’
s going to bring them right to us. You see, these trespassers are searching for someone, and they
’
re using a heart-signal tracker to find him. What this machine does is put out a signal on every frequency, so they
’
ll pick it up and come right to us.
”

“
That
’
s not how it works,
”
Web countered.
“
It actually alternates between the high and low range of the frequency spectrum, confusing the tracking device into thinking it
’
s receiving a match for the frequency it has been calibrated to detect.
”

“
It
’
s still going to lead them right to us, right?
”

Web nodded.

“
Does it work?
”
Grizzly asked.

“
Let
’
s find out,
”
Web replied, as he reached for the power switch at the base of the machine. The device was circular and had the general appearance of a tiny football stadium. At least, that
’
s how Stewart saw it. This image didn
’
t dilute the importance of the moment, as Web gently rocked the lever into position. There was a rattle as the device warmed up, then a steady pulsing as it reached full capacity.

Stewart and Web smiled. Then Grizzly
’
s voice broke in with a cold douse of common sense.
“
Does it work, though?
”
he repeated.

The man had a valid point. There was no way to know
for sure
that it was doing its job. Nonetheless, the little stadium continued to pulse.

Seven-point-one miles away, Dexim and his team were having doubts about their own tracking device, as they traveled along an old country road in the borrowed Ford Edge.

“
It works,
”
Tobi said, reading the concern on Lyntic
’
s face. Lyntic nodded and turned back around to face forward in the front passenger
’
s seat. She still wasn
’
t convinced, though.

The heart-signal tracker was balanced on Jin
’
s knees in the back seat, and it was his job to let everyone know when the light on the device began to pulse, indicating that the signal had been acquired. Jin watched the little light
—
dead as a doornail, not even a flicker.
What if this thing really doesn
’
t work
, he thought.

“
It works,
”
Tobi repeated, this time to Jin. He sounded more confident each time he said it.

In all actuality, the team was not
relying
on this thing. If they failed to locate her signal, Lyntic had several photographs of their target, which had been converted to two-dimensional images on opaque paper to conform to Earth standards. These could be shown around to the locals to pick up a lead the old-fashioned way. Finding the girl
’
s heart signal was merely a shortcut that could save days of looking.

As Dexim held the car within the faded lines of the old asphalt road, he allowed himself a rare luxury: he imagined things going well. He pictured the tracker leading them right to her. He envisioned a quick and painless explanation, followed by a smooth exit from the planet.

Dexim couldn
’
t hold this dream for long. Allowing that the tracker would find her, there were still bound to be complications. It was not an easy thing they were going to tell her
—
that she wasn
’
t who or what she thought she was. Who knows how she might react? She might not accept it. She might refuse to go with them. Dexim wondered how
he
would react if he were in her position.

When the Ford Edge finished its systematic search of the back roads with no luck, it continued onto the interstate to try a larger loop of the area. Traffic was heavy, but flowing. Driving on Earth was not like navigating a spaceship. There was a moment-to-moment decision-making requirement that didn
’
t exist with space travel, and Dexim was getting a workout, keeping his eyes on the lane, on his mirrors, and on cars buzzing past.

“
Are you sure this is food?
”
Jin grimaced, as he inspected the gray meat between the two buns he held in his hands, as if it were a science project. Dexim had made a pit stop at a fast-food drive-thru, and the car was filled with the sound of meals being unwrapped.

“
You don
’
t have to eat it.
”
Dexim laughed.
“
I just wanted you to get the full experience
—
this being your first time on the planet.
”

“
I don
’
t see anything wrong with it,
”
Tobi said, chewing a mouthful of his own double cheeseburger.

Lyntic stuck with fries and a milkshake. Jin
—
not feeling that adventurous after all
—
folded his burger back into its wrapper and placed it on the floor.

He heard Dexim turn the blinker on, followed by the pulsing rhythm of the turn signal. Jin watched out the window as the car drifted into the neighboring lane. The skyline of buildings rolled across the horizon, and Jin was struck by the countless windows. They reminded him of the window of his childhood hut, where he had watched so many cars pass by. He realized he was now one of those splendid travelers, dashing off to some great adventure. A satisfied grin should have come across his face. It was absent.

Jin thought he would escape his sorrows by leaving them behind, crawling out from under them like a snake shedding its old skin. But bouncing against the car door with the slow, steady contours of the road, Jin finally realized that you don
’
t leave your sorrows behind. You take them with you. It was somehow comforting to know that he would actually have to deal with his sorrows, instead of running from them. After all, they were very familiar, like an old faithful friend.

The car had finished getting over, but the sound of the blinker kept pulsing. Jin shifted his head to see the dashboard. The flashing green light that accompanied the blinker was nowhere to be seen. Yet, clear as day: blink-blink .
.
. blink-blink .
.
. blink-blink.

Actually, it was more like beep-beep .
.
. beep-beep .
.
. beep-beep. And it
wasn
’
t
coming from the dashboard. It was coming from Jin
’
s lap. It was the tracking device.

“
I got it,
”
Jin called out, still watching the monitor.
“
I got her!
”

Dexim
’
s foot was quickly on the brake, not because of the exciting news, but because of the stopped traffic in front of him. The entire car shifted from the hard braking. Lyntic
’
s seatbelt caught her, and she instinctively threw her hand over the fast-food packages on the console, trying to keep them from falling. She was mostly successful, except for one fry container tipping over and ralphing its contents all over the passenger
’
s floor. Tobi was still chewing his burger, as his head rocked forward and tapped the back of the driver
’
s seat. He didn
’
t seem to mind. He didn
’
t even stop chewing.

Jin held the tracking device in place as his body strained forward. His eyes shifted to the windshield where he saw brake lights and the uncomfortably close trunk of a red Cadillac.

“
Holy shit,
”
were the words that rolled out of Dexim
’
s mouth, riding on a wave of adrenaline. His palms held a death grip on the steering wheel and his foot still pinned the brake pedal to the floor. After a few breaths, the words rolled out again.
“
Holy shit.
”
This was an expression that he had picked up from his many travels to the States. He had heard it on television and in movies. He had heard it in real life. It had become natural to him. And in times like these, only natural words would come.

Images quickly appeared in Dexim
’
s head, images of what would have happened if they had drifted three inches farther before coming to a stop, if they had hit the Cadillac. The police would have been called, and his carload of aliens would have fallen under the suspicious eye of a law-enforcement officer. He certainly dodged a bullet.

The noisy excitement in the car slowly died down as everyone settled back into their seats. Lyntic let out a sigh of relief. If Dexim had rear-ended that Cadillac, she would have felt just as guilty. That
’
s the way it works when you
’
ve been a lifelong team. You don
’
t suddenly abandon ship and point a finger.