The Fellowship for Alien Detection (32 page)

Apache National Forest, AZ, July 7, 4:17 a.m.

The voice tore through Dodger before he could push it back. He knew how to keep the radio transmission at bay, but this was different. Someone had hacked into the crystal network and was blasting this broadcast.

“I
REPEAT, MY NAME IS
A
DAM
J
OHN
L
ARSON AND
I
AM SENDING THIS TRANSMISSION FROM THE TOWN OF
J
ULIETTE
, A
RIZONA, AT EIGHT O'CLOCK MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME
.”

Dodger managed to open his eyes. The shocked gaze he was getting from Haley made him pretty sure that this voice was blaring out of him into the night. He had to stop it, but he also wanted to hear it. He tried to split his mind in two, half holding the UFO at bay, and the other half listening to the signal.

“W
E ARE CAPTIVES HERE
, I
REPEAT
! I
F ANYONE CAN HEAR US, PLEASE SEND HELP
! M
OST PEOPLE HERE DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND, BUT SOME OF US ARE AWAKE
! W
E'RE AT THE OBSERVATORY IN
J
ULIETTE AND WE HAVE A PLAN
! W
E'VE ISOLATED THE SOURCE CODE OF THE PROGRAM
. . . . I
T'S SOME KIND OF TIME LOOP
.”

Dodger found the voice in the warmth of the crystal transmission, almost like he could see its bright frequency among the others. He wanted to keep listening but wanted to make it quiet. . . .

“W
E DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME
! T
HEY ALWAYS FIND OUT, AND
I
THINK THEY RESET US EACH DAY
!”

Dodger finally corralled the radio and quieted it. Stopped himself from glowing. In his head though, he heard the rest:

“W
E ARE GOING TO TRY AGAIN TONIGHT TO DISRUPT THE TIME LOOP
! I
F YOU ARE OUT THERE, PLEASE SEND HELP TO THE SOURCE OF THIS SIGNAL IMMEDIATELY
! W
E DON'T KNOW HOW LONG WE CAN DISRUPT THE CODE
—”

The transmission ended. The rest of the world flooded back in, just in time for Dodger to hear the Alto say:

“Watch out!” He was diving right at Dodger, grabbing Haley in the process, and the three of them tumbled backward and around the thick roots of a large tree.

The beam from the UFO zapped where they'd just been.

“Whoa!” said Alex, who'd barely avoided it.

“So can you commandeer the craft or not?” said the Alto, jumping to his feet.

“Right,” said Dodger. He reached back through the energy. The others controlling it seemed to have momentarily disappeared. Maybe they'd been busy trying to quell that transmission from Juliette.
Land in the clearing
, Dodger commanded.

The craft began to lower but then yanked sharply back up. Dodger could feel that the controllers had returned.
Land!
He instructed it.

The craft jerked, then lowered, back up . . .
LAND!
Finally, it obeyed and started to drift down.

“I've got it,” he said, jumping to his feet. “Come on, quick, before I lose my grip.” He stumbled out of the woods into the clearing. Haley, the Alto, and Alex followed him.

Dodger emerged in the grass. The ship was above him, lowering. Dodger kept commanding it down. His head ached, and he could feel the warm blood running from his nose, tasted its salty tang in his mouth, but he kept pressing, holding on to the craft.

Haley put a hand on his shoulder. “You can do it,” she said.

Dodger squeezed the light as hard as he could. The ship dropped down and settled on the grass.

Dodger approached slowly.
Open
, he thought to it. A section of the center sphere of the craft slid open. Dodger could see the orange crystal glow inside as well as the blinking of electronics. He stepped up onto the ring-shaped edge of the craft and peered in the door. A labyrinth of machinery surrounded a circular space only a few feet across. In the center of the space hovered the basketball-sized globe of the crystal.

He slid inside the warm space. He felt like his skin was tingling, hairs standing on end as he got close to the crystal. He placed his hands on it and the voice of the interface spoke to him:
Manual Override engaged
.

He turned back to the group. “I got it,” he said, “I think.”

Haley climbed in. The Alto followed.

“Dodger,” said Haley. “That message. There's a resistance inside Juliette. If they can disrupt the time loop . . .”

“Then we want to be there when they do,” said the Alto. He started flicking at his watch. I'll send the car to the coordinates. Hopefully it will continue to distract them.”

Dodger nodded. “So, straight to Juliette then.”

“What about me?” Alex was standing on the rim of the ship, looking into the cramped space. “And my dad?”

“Contact our parents,” said Haley. “Tell them to head for Juliette.”

“Your father will have been taken there,” said the Alto.

“But where is it?” she asked.

Dodger took a hand from the crystal and slipped out his notebook. He flipped to the folded-down page and handed it to Haley. “Give her the page,” he said. “I have them memorized.”

Haley ripped out the page and passed it to Alex. “Get everybody there, our parents, the FBI, police, news crews, military, anyone who will listen. Post it on We Are the Missing, too.”

“You got it,” said Alex. She jumped off the side of the spaceship and hurried back to the RV.

“Okay,” said Dodger. He closed his eyes and returned his free hand to the crystal. He felt himself slip into the orange light. He ordered the door to close.

Please select destination
, the interface said.

Take us to Juliette
, said Dodger.

Access to Juliette is not possible
, said the interface.
The next scheduled maintenance and transit gap into the temporal loop is scheduled to occur in three hundred fourteen hours
.

Take us to Juliette's location
, he thought instead, thinking the coordinates.

Commencing
.

Dodger felt a lurch. The craft was moving. Inside the interface though, he could feel the other intelligences becoming aware of his presence. The ones who'd been operating this ship, and he even thought he could feel One and Two. They would have to hurry.

Time to coordinates 35° 23' W 113° 49' N: twelve minutes
.

Dodger slid back through the energy and returned to his body just as the ship shot off over the hills, going instantly from a standstill to hundreds of miles an hour. Dodger was thrown back, right into Haley.

“Sorry,” he said, getting to his feet. “We'll be there in twelve minutes.”

“That's okay,” she said. “Nicely done.”

Dodger looked around. “Where's the Alto?” he asked, but then he saw that the Alto had curled himself on the floor in the front curve of the circle of space.

“He said he needed ten minutes of sleep to make up for waking early before,” said Haley. She sat down on the narrow space of floor, leaning against the strange, glassy machinery. “I wish there was a view out of this thing.”

“Let me check.” Dodger reconnected with the interface.
Is there a way to see out of the craft?

Please select optical assistance or transparent mode
.

Let's try transparent mode
.

Commencing
.

Dodger was pulling out of the interface when he heard a gasp. He opened his eyes and saw Haley gazing around in wonder. The craft around them was . . . gone. It was as if they were floating over the predawn world, the black ground, the purple-to-blue sky, the last stars fading with the brightening horizon. For a second Dodger worried they would fall, but he could still feel the invisible ship beneath his feet.

They were traveling incredibly fast, little clusters of lights sliding by below, highways now and then.

Haley laughed to herself.

“What?” said Dodger.

“We are traveling in a SPACEship!” said Haley. “I mean, just take a second to think about that!”

“Yeah,” said Dodger. “That is pretty cool.”

“Sorry,” said Haley, “This shouldn't be funny. I know in ten minutes we're going to be facing who-knows-what, but just in case this is my last moment with my memories, at least I spent it in a freakin' SPACESHIP!” Haley laughed more.

Dodger reached out and took Haley's hand. She looked at him. He pulled back lightning fast, thinking,
What are you doing?
but Haley smiled. “That's okay,” she said, and took it back.

Dodger squeezed.
Flying on a spaceship
, he thought, and added,
with a cool girl
. For all the things he'd imagined happening when he'd left Port Salmon, most of them bad at best, this . . . this he had never expected.

“Ooh, hey,” he said, having a pretty silly idea. He focused on the hand that was still on the crystal, and rummaged around in the energy interface for a minute. There it was. . . .

Music burst around them. It was KJPR, playing a poppy country song.

Let's get up in my pickup truck and rooo-o-o-ollllll
,

This made Haley's eyes pop. “I know this song!” She cracked up. “My parents were listening to it on the drive.”

She pretended to have a mic and started singing along, bopping her head from side to side.

“'Cause you and me we gotta gooo-o-o-oo.”

Dodger watched her and tried keep himself from kind of freaking out. He looked at the sleeping earth far below where he was standing. At the sky becoming turquoise, and at Haley, and he wondered at how, all the way out here, he had stumbled into this amazing moment.

And he could barely enjoy it because his nerves were ringing and he was already sad because it was going to end, wasn't it? They'd be in Juliette in moments and then what?
Who cares!
he shouted at himself.
Stop thinking about that and think about right now!

Yes, he should do that.

“Take it, Dodger!” Haley called. She tossed him the imaginary microphone.

Dodger caught it. He couldn't karaoke, never knew the words to songs, but wait—actually, he'd heard this song a hundred times or more over the last year on the radio in his head.

He sang:
“Baby baby we can roo-o-o-olll on and on.”

Yes! He did know it.

And they shouted the next lines together:

“And I don't mind, if you need time
,

'Cause we got all niiiight
,

Till the break of daw-aw-wnnn.”

A guitar solo kicked in. Dodger and Haley shared a gaze, both breathing hard. Dodger noticed that Haley had dirt all over her forehead. A tangle of her hair was caught in the arm of her glasses. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked awesome. Like a partner on a far off adventure. . . .

And then she smiled at him. “New map,” she said.

“Huh?” said Dodger.

Haley took a little step toward him. And another.

Oh no!
thought Dodger.

Another step. They were less than a foot apart. She looked up at him—

And suddenly brought the imaginary mic up between them, just as the singer returned with a triumphant scream that Haley perfectly mimicked:

“Awwwright!”
Haley cracked up.

Dodger laughed and also felt like he was short-circuiting. He had no idea what to do next. It was like there were giant flashes and beeps going off in his head, saying
Warning! Warning! Craft has been target locked!
Dodger wondered if that meant he should just lean toward Haley and ki—

Wait.

Or that message was real.

Target locked!
The interface was shouting at him.
Repeat: Craft has been target locked!

“Dodger, what is it?” Haley asked. She must have seen his face.

Now Dodger caught a flash out of the corner of his eye. He glanced behind them.

And he saw the other spacecraft that was now in pursuit and that had just fired a burst of blue light at them.

“Crap!” Dodger threw both hands on the crystal and shouted
Bank hard left!

Would you like to initiate evasive action maneuvers?
the interface asked.

Yes!
Dodger shouted.

Commencing
.

The ship yawned hard left into a steep dive. The blue burst of energy narrowly sailed past the right side of the ship.

“What's going on?” asked the Alto, sitting up. He saw there was no visible floor beneath him and jumped before getting his bearings.

“We're being chased!” Haley shouted.