Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1) (24 page)

M
ITCHELL
SCOOPED
Iris into his arms as if he had become a swooping hawk.
Carrying her just beyond the stone wall, he laid her down and brushed his hand
along her cheek.

“That was a
pretty stupid thing.”

“No,” she
said, “just an impulsive one. Someone had to do it. And we don’t have any means
to judge how much radiation has been released.”

Iris watched
Mitchell take in the light show. “I have a pretty good idea,” he said. But his
tone was not reprimanding or angry. “Your impulse was correct, someone had to
do this.”

“Hopefully,
it won’t be any more harmful than an X-ray.” She pouted. “Maybe a
few
X-rays.”

“Yes, but
you usually wear padding for that.”

She smiled
at him.

“What’s so
funny?”

“I’m just
picturing you giving me an exam.”

“I’m not
that kind of doctor.”

“And I’m not
that kind of ghost hunter. Not anymore.”

“For the
life of me, I have no clue as to who I’ve become in these last days
either . . . It’s not the future I pined for when I began
chasing UFOs. I’ve been yelling at people,
mostly you,
acting like some
drill sergeant.” He kissed her forehead. “I don’t like this version of me. I’m
sorry.”

Iris
blinked. “No. Don’t get me crying. I have enough just thinking about
DJ . . .” It was already too late, the dam had burst. Tears
flowed freely down her cheeks.

“Here,”
Mitchell said, removing her glasses. “Let me take these. I think you can go
without seeing for a moment or two.”

Her voice
croaked a single word, “Thank-you.” Iris stared into Mitchell’s eyes for a
moment. He seemed to be drowning in her gaze. She knew this connection was much
more than just a physical one, and she wondered with irony if her glasses were
a barrier that kept her from seeing what Mitchell saw in her. Mitchell jabbed a
thumb beyond the wall. “I’m going to give you some privacy. If you need me,
I’ll be right beyond that stone.”

The light
show was no less amazing than before. The giant TV screen was reconnected and
on it played scenes from space. It was mostly constellations, partial views of
galaxies colored in red, green, and purple hues.

Iris
reflected.
Was this a GPS for space farers? If so, I wonder how many
civilizations came to our planet as visitors, and should our ancestors have
been more cautious who they welcomed?

Her Dad
interrupted her daydream. He gestured for her approval to sit.

“You are so
courageous. I can’t put it in words. I guess if I had been around for you. I
would have already known this.” He smiled and patted her knee.

“Did you
know about DJ? Dad, you’ve got to level with me on this.”

“I didn’t
know. It’s pretty sad. I should have. And not just because of my job, because I
was blinded”—he masked his eyes—“my sight.”

She gripped
his arm. “No, Dad. That’s not it. I shared telepathy with her, well, up until
recently. I never saw it.”

“Then it’s
connected to this object.” He folded his arms over his knees and interlaced his
hands. “DJ seems to have been affected by the change in her mother. But I was
in close contact with her for a time and nothing happened to me. But then again
I wasn’t an embryo growing in her womb.” He fell silent and stared upwards.

“Contemplating?”
Iris asked.

“There’s not
enough time in the universe for that, my darling.” He bent his head sideways
until it met Iris’s.

Evan’s shouting
echoed throughout the pueblo.

“It’s
shutting down—again!”

Evan was
correct. Iris scrambled back toward the cauldron in time to see the lime-green
moss extracting itself from chocolate-colored soil and then, the soil itself
discoloring from deep brown to taupe. In minutes, the barren, lifeless soil had
returned.

So had
hopelessness, but just for a minute, because yet another distraction was on its
way to the pueblo.

T
HE
HELICOPTER
gleamed in the near cloudless sky. It was hovering above
two of the grandest stone structures, somewhere over the point where the rock
was cut so as to resemble the letter U.

“This is
black. If this is what I think it is . . .” Evan’s voice
trailed.

Rusty cupped
hands above his eyes. “It is black in color. But it is not who you expect.”

Mitchell was
across the wall and could not hear the conversation.

“Damn it.
You’ve led more spooks here. Haven’t you?” He pointed a finger at Dan. “That’s
a black helicopter.”

“No. I have
not.”

“Then who
did?”

“It is not
spooks. I know because the other man from my team lies dead in Jack’s vehicle.
I don’t think any other agents from my organization would know about what’s
going on here. I think they were out for selfish gain.”

“How about
just ordinary police . . . maybe all our yelling and shooting
attracted attention?”

“No, Mitch.
Trust me. Local officials steer clear of the canyon. For them, it’s a place
where all the space kooks converge.”

Mitchell
threw up his hands. “Well, welcome to space kook central.”

Dan laughed.
“Trust me, Mitchell. Standard police have no interest in involving themselves
in UFO chasing. Just take some breaths. It might even be someone who can help
us.”

Mitchell
stared at him. “Oh, you mean someone else will come along to save the world,
because
we
have obviously failed!”

Evan scaled
the wall and landed about three feet in front of Mitchell and Dan.

“Nice of you
to drop in, Evan. What do you think we have here? Our friend Dan doesn’t
believe it’s of any concern.”

Evan nodded.
“He may be right. Rusty believes it’s Bill. You know, the nice Hopi man who
rejected us.”

Mitchell
pinched the bridge of his nose. “Makes sense, he’s searching for Rusty.

“Let’s just
hope we don’t have to put out yet another fire. Although, I suppose in a while
it won’t matter anymore.”

Iris dropped
in front of him.

“Nice
landing. Are you trying to become some kind of superhero or something?”
Mitchell teased.

“I already
am.” She turned to the helicopter. “And I don’t think we are out of
time—at least not in a conventional sense.”

B
ILL
LANDED
his helicopter and entered the canyon with no aggression
except for the excited yelps of his accompanying collie, Tawa.

There were
no words exchanged. Bill and Rusty embraced.

“This is
touching,” Kassidy remarked.

Rachel
punched her arm.

“I mean it.
This poor young man obviously carries the weight of his people on his
shoulders. I just hope the old man is wise enough to redirect his energy to
positive use.”

Rachel
placed a hand on Kassidy’s brow as if checking for fever.

“Okay, maybe
drying out has opened my perspective.” Kassidy clasped Rachel’s hand. “I’m just
glad we’re all still here, considering . . .”

Kassidy
turned her head toward the arguing.

Mitchell’s
voice was raised. So was Evan’s.

“Uh, oh,
that sounds serious,” Rachel said to Kassidy, “let’s go defend our girl.”

B
ILL
AND
Rusty continued to embrace. Tawa raced around them in circle,
kicking up brown dust clouds. It continued as if some timeless scene trapped in
a snow globe. Meanwhile, Kassidy and Rachel had scaled the wall to find the
source of the ruckus.

“Hey,”
Kassidy said to the arguing trio, “mind keeping it down. People are trying to
mend here.” She pointed toward the reunited Hopi.

“We’re not
arguing. We’re discussing,” Iris responded.

“Iris has an
intriguing idea. We’re yelling out of excitement, and to be heard over that
damn racket from the helicopter. When he is going to kill the engine?” Evan
complained.

Iris threw
her arms over the shoulders of her fellow ghost hunters. In the middle, she was
in a better position to be heard.

“I was thinking
about how Evan had explained the defense system. It would effectively bounce
the light directed at us back into space. Then I thought there might be another
means to deflect the light or at least, a means to avoid it. You guys remember
the time slip. We thought it was some kind of poltergeist.” Rachel and Kassidy
nodded.

“But guys,
we know for sure it’s the result of the object in tandem with the OBOLs.
Because recall, when we searched for the power source and requested the help of
the OBOLs they gave it to us. But they could not help throwing us into a time
slip. After we managed to find the source, the OBOLs must have had to back away
so as not to cause another slip. Are you following me so far?”

She paused
until they nodded once more. But both women wore frown lines and furrowed
brows. “Okay, I realize we’re not scientists. It’s hard for me to express this.
It’s probably going to be even harder for this to have a probability of
working. But let’s suppose we can cause a massive time slip. Evan likened this
to entering the fourth dimension, a dimension of time. I think we can make this
happen with the OBOLs assistance.”

“But we
can’t get the power source to hold. Correct?” Rachel asked.

Evan,
standing across from the woman with arms folded, nodded. “But we may not have
to have it hold for long. The last connection lasted nearly thirty-three
minutes. Possibly, enough time for Iris’s plan to work.”

The women
nodded. Kassidy waggled her finger as if a child waiting for the storyteller to
continue.

“I think if
we all enter a time slip, we can sidestep the enemy threat. Think of the plague
as an oncoming truck. It’s bearing down on us. But we have the capacity to
sidestep it. We can essentially just move ourselves out of the way.”

Dan’s jump
off the ledge was as not so catlike as the others. He fell to his knees and
began cursing his joints. Mitch extended a hand to lift him back to his feet.

Iris pointed
at her Dad. “Kind of like that. But with more grace.”

“Ah, what
did I miss?” Dan asked, winded.

“Where were
you?” Iris asked.

“Oh, just
appreciating the Camden family reunion. You know, I think we should get a dog.”

Iris put a
finger against her lips.

Dan mimicked
the gesture and nodded for her to continue.

“As I was
saying, we sidestep the oncoming truck. The Greys only have one chance at this,
according to Galloway. Once they’ve discharged the weapon we can step back into
our time.”

Iris
explained the power source would fail and cause everything to return to normal
time. Evan added there would be missing time and for the most part, a large
percentage of the population would probably never remember what had happened.

“But where
would we go? In this fourth dimension . . .” Rachel asked.

Iris pursed
her lips. “I don’t know. But it’s our last chance. I don’t think we’ll have
time to scout out another viable power source.”

“She’s
right,” Mitchell said to Rachel. “Even science experts like us can’t project
where we’ll all be in this time slip.” Mitchell nodded to Evan. Kassidy
grimaced and harrumphed.

“But that
still leaves a huge problem,” Rachel pointed out. “How will we know when to
enter the time slip? Won’t we have to know when the enemy is discharging the
light weapon? The power source will only hold for minutes.”

Iris nodded.
“That’s where the raised voices came in, Rache. Not everyone is confident I can
get Ron to cooperate. But think about it, he’s experiencing visions of a ship.
He believes it to be alien. I believe it to be the ship carrying the weapon. If
we can time its arrival to our orbit, we can project when it will be in
position to fire. That’s when we enter the time slip. And because of alien
arrogance, they have unwittingly given us a means to track their
moves—hopefully, it will be their last move.”

“Or, ours.”
Kassidy’s tone was singsong. “I have to say, Iris. This is a little
farfetched.
I mean, you’re asking the entire planet to sidestep a bullet.”

“There’s
beer at the end of the tunnel, Kassidy. Now you have a positive image to
reflect on. Believe it can happen and it will.” Iris cupped her free hand
around her friend’s chin. “Do it for me. Pretty please . . .”

“I think
I’ll defer my beers to Iris. She clearly needs them more than I do.”

The teams
enjoyed Kassidy’s jest. Any break from the reality of their new reality was
welcomed.