by Alexander Key
Race to Witch Mountain
Based on Walt Disney Productions’ motion picture screenplay
written by Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, directed by Andy Fickman, adapted by Janies Ponti and
based on characters created by Alexander Key
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Prologue
In 1947, numerous sightings of UFOs were reported across the western United States. The most famous occurred in Roswell, New Mexico, where initial news reports claimed a UFO had actually been captured by the U.S. Air Force.
“I’ve never seen that. Honest. A saucer... Right on a dry lake bed.”
“What’s your status?”
“Are you getting that on radar?”
Although the Air Force denied these reports, the following year it began an ongoing investigation to study the possibility of UFOs. Known as Project Blue Book, this investigation lasted for decades and researched thousands of sightings.
When Project Blue Book was officially terminated in 1970, the government maintained that there was no evidence suggesting aliens had visited Earth.
“They won’t admit UFOs are real because... They’re among us today. Roswell. Gulf Breeze. Area 51. Phoenix. UFOs are visiting our planet. UFOs are real and they know it.”
“Something happened.”
“I know what I saw...”
Despite this claim, many UFO experts allege that the government continues to research alien activity to this day. Most believe the research is done at the ultra-top secret Area 51, a military installation located in the Nevada desert.
In fact, the speculation about, and focus on, Area 51 has been so intense, that there has been virtually no notice or public mention of another government facility hidden just across the Nevada border in California.
It is known as... Witch Mountain.
“Of course UFOs exist. We are facing an alien threat from outside this world. If the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies... UFOs are as real as you and me. Unless the military proves me wrong, I saw an alien spacecraft. You felt a connection to your heart, and heard directions in your mind. One UFO sighting. There’s more than meets the eye. UFOs are manifesting themselves to people. What we’re talking about is the greatest cover-up in the history of mankind.”
Chapter 1
High above the Nevada desert, a fireball blazed across the night sky, its orange-and-red flames trailing along the horizon. It did not go unnoticed. Inside NORAD – the North American Aerospace Defense Command – a group of highly trained specialists observed the fireball.
Buried deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, NORAD had top secret and state-of-the-art equipment designed to detect missiles launched by other countries. But this fireball had not come from another country. It had come from much, much, farther away. In fact, the scientists had been following its path on radar long before it even reached Earth’s atmosphere.
Now they were trying to determine if it was just a random piece of space junk – such as an old satellite or a meteor – falling to earth or if it were something else.
A senior analyst named Pleasence observed the steady stream of data flashing across his computer. He coolly relayed it to the group assembled behind him. “Object of unknown origin is at ninety K and descending fast,” Pleasence said. “Give me a visual track now!”
Ninety thousand feet was just over seventeen miles above the earth’s surface. At the speed it was traveling, it would only be a matter of seconds before it hit the ground.
“Zero match with anything in our database,” Pleasence continued. Suddenly something else caught his attention. He paused, unsure if he should pass it along. Could he be reading the data right? “It’s... maneuvering.”
The fact that it was maneuvering meant that it was definitely not a meteor or satellite falling toward Earth. Something, or someone, was steering the object.
All eyes were on the wall of video monitors. They watched as the fireball streaked faster and faster across the sky. Then it slammed into the earth and plowed deep into the desert floor. “We’re registering impact!”
Standing toward the back of the room, General Lawton observed the screens. He had risen to the rank of four-star general because he knew what to do in any situation – including this one. He turned to a young man sitting at the communication center.
“Get me Henry Burke on the phone,” he ordered. “Now!... Hey, you think this is it?”
“This is the real deal. You’ll learn.”
Henry Burke had a lean face with dark, secretive eyes. He rarely talked, and when he did, he revealed nothing of himself. There were only two things about him that his coworkers knew for absolute certainty: he was brilliant and he did not rest until a mission was completed.
Within seconds of receiving the call from NORAD, Burke was taking long strides down the main corridor that ran through the heart of the Witch Mountain military base. In his hands, he clutched a top secret file. Two of his team members, Matheson and Pope, were practically running just to keep up with him.
Their footsteps echoed through the corridor until they burst through a pair of doors into a hangar where a flight crew had just finished prepping three Black Hawk helicopters. A military wing commander named Carson was waiting.
“Squad and equipment locked and loaded,” Carson informed Burke. “I’ve rerouted local law and media.”
This was important. Even though the fireball had landed in a desolate part of the desert, someone may have seen it. The last thing the team needed was a small-town sheriff or an ambitious young news reporter in the way at the crash site. To control the situation, they would have to be the first ones on the scene.
Once all the evidence of the impact had been cleared away, and Burke and his team determined just what had crashed, they could tell the press whatever they wanted. A slight smile crossed Burke’s face as he thought about what the cover story might be. Maybe they could say it was a research balloon, just as one of his predecessors had claimed at Roswell, New Mexico, more than sixty years earlier.
In moments, the roar of three helicopters filled the hangar and the Black Hawks lifted off from Witch Mountain. They zoomed toward the crash site, flying just above the desert’s surface. At night, traveling with their lights off, they were practically invisible – which was exactly how Henry Burke liked it.
“Impact was 8 minutes ago, how long until we land?”
Less than an hour after the crash landing, Burke and his team were on the scene. In case there was any radiation from the ship, they wore large protective hazmat suits and helmets. The silvery suits glistened in the moonlight and made the team look like aliens from a science-fiction movie.
As they walked alongside the trench made by the impact, the team scanned the area with high-powered flashlights. The heat caused by the crash had been so intense, some of the sand had turned into tiny shards of glass. Suddenly, Carson’s flashlight reflected off something metallic buried in the sand.
Quickly, the group moved closer.
So focused on their mission, the group didn’t realize... they were being studied as well. About thirty yards away, a girl reached up her hand and gently moved some brush out of the way so she could watch Burke and his crew at work. Next to her, a boy did the same. From their hiding place, they examined the men in the strange clothes. They were careful to be quiet, but some leaves rustled and made just enough noise for Burke to hear them, “Awesome...”
He quickly spun around and shined his flashlight right in their direction. He scanned the area for a moment but saw nothing. Still, Burke was not one to take chances.
“Extend and scan the perimeter,” he ordered. “No one gets in. Nothing gets out.”
From their hiding place, two pairs of eyes took in Burke’s face and his stern expression.
It was obvious this man would not be friendly.
Suddenly, Burke signaled a soldier who set a pack of search dogs loose.
There was not a moment to spare. Under cover of darkness, the pair slipped into the desert, the search dogs barking wildly right behind them.
Chapter 2
Las Vegas was like no other place in the world, filled with hotels and casinos shaped like massive pyramids and fairy-tale castles, it didn’t even look like a real city. That was especially true at night, when giant neon signs were turned on and filled the sky with an eerie mix of color and light that seemed otherworldly. This made Vegas the perfect location for UFO Space Expo ’09. What better place to talk about life in other worlds than in a city that looked like it came from one?
Jack Bruno was definitely from this world. He made his living driving a taxi. Jack didn’t want to be a cabdriver, but he was good at it. Depending on the situation, he had the ability to be either friendly or menacing – a good trait for a cabbie. If he picked up a pair of newlyweds at the airport, his warm smile and easy sense of humor instantly made them feel welcome. But if some hard partyers climbed into his backseat – and Vegas had plenty of hard partyers – Jack was big enough and strong enough to keep them from getting out of hand.
At this particular moment, Jack was shaking his head as he drove his cab down the main street, known as the Strip. Even for Las Vegas, things were pretty crazy. The sidewalks were overflowing with people who had come for the convention. Many of them were dressed like characters from their favorite science-fiction movies.
At one corner, he saw three “people” cross the road together. One was dressed as a purple alien with six tentacles and another as a silvery robot with blinking lights on his chest. The third had hair and clothes like Elvis Presley – but his skin had been painted glow-in-the-dark green.
Jack was rolling his eyes when two men dressed like storm troopers from Star Wars signaled him to stop. They had a hard time squeezing into the taxi because of their armor and toy laser blasters.
“Imperial droid,” one said to Jack, trying his best to sound as menacing as possible. “Drive your Genosian Starfighter to Planet Hollywood,” he commanded.
Jack sighed and started the meter. A fare was a fare. In the backseat, the “troopers” laughed and began to have a pretend battle, shooting their blasters at each other, “Die! Die!” Jack tried to ignore them, but then one of them almost hit him in the back of the head with his gun. With lightning speed, Jack ripped it out of his hand.
“Hey!” yelped the trooper, his deep and scary voice suddenly replaced by a high-pitched whine. “That’s mine.”
Jack pointed at a sign in the front seat that read: NO WEAPONS ALLOWED.
“It’s just a toy,” the passenger complained.
“Lighten up.”
Jack shot them a withering scowl in the rearview. They quickly decided to end their battle and didn’t say another word the entire way to Planet Hollywood, where the UFO convention was headquartered.
After he dropped them off, Jack left the Strip. He headed to the airport where he hoped he might find slightly more normal passengers. There were only so many aliens he could handle in a night.
Outside the airport’s baggage claim, he was waved down by an attractive woman in her thirties. He relaxed and smiled the second he saw her. Not because she was pretty, but because she was dressed in a business suit and had no tentacles, face paint, or toy weapons.
“Where to?” he asked with a friendly smile.
“Planet Hollywood, please,” she said as she got into the backseat.
Jack’s good mood deflated a little. He’d been hoping to avoid another miserable trip to that hotel. And he was a bit confused. Why was this woman heading straight into the heart of geekdom? Shrugging, he pulled away from the curb and turned on his radio. For a while, the only sound was the classic rock emanating from the speakers.
The woman was wide-eyed as she looked out the window at the Vegas lights. “This place truly is like being on another planet,” she observed. “So much to do and see. With all this to see every night. You must never get bored. They’ve got everything here!”
“Welcome to the... nut job convention.”
Just then, Jack was startled by a pair of aliens who staggered directly in front of his cab. They were so distracted by all the lights that they didn’t even notice the traffic. Luckily, Jack was an excellent driver, and he managed to swerve right around them.
“Freaks,” he muttered not so quietly as he maneuvered the cab back into the flow of traffic. “Can’t wait for them to get in their spaceships and fly out of here.”
A few moments later they reached Planet Hollywood, and Jack pulled the taxi up to the main entrance.
“I understand your reaction,” the woman said as she pointed toward a group of ridiculously dressed convention-goers. “They certainly aren’t helping our cause.”
“Our cause?” Jack repeated. She was one of them?
“Educating the public about the legitimate possibility of life on other planets,” she explained.
Jack was stunned. She was one of them.
“As a matter of fact,” she continued, “I’m giving a lecture on astrophysical anomaly detection at the... nut job convention. Feel free to stop by. Closed-minded skeptics are always welcome.”
“Keep the change.”
“Thanks,” she handed him a flyer advertising her lecture. It had all of the basic information about her talk as well as a very scholarly-looking picture of her. Underneath the picture it gave her name: Dr. Alex Friedman.
“A classic.”
* * *
“I’m Casey Smith and we’re back with a breaking news alert. An accident research like. And I’m Church Agee, we’re gonna take you to our reporter live on the scene. Officials are calling it the worst chlorine spill in state history. A five mile security perimeter has been established. Highway Patrol Officers have been rerouting traffic since the early morning hours. And we’re now being told, this section of Route 95, will be closed indefinitely. This is Natalie Gann, reporting.”
“Hey come on! Knock it off, will ya? I need to sleep!”
“Yeah, me too.”
Chapter 3
The next morning, as the sun rose over a distant ridge, Henry Burke and his team were hard at work investigating the crash site. A cover story about a mysterious chlorine spill had done its job, and area roads were blocked off for miles in every direction. No civilians would disturb the scene of the accident. Burke was in total control.
In the early-morning sunlight, they could see much more than the night before. One group scoured the long trench where the flying object had burrowed into the ground. They took photographs and used metal detectors to make sure there were no remnants of the craft left behind in the dirt. At the far end of the trench, there was a gaping hole where the object had been pulled from the sand before being transported back to Witch Mountain.
Burke and his assistants, Pope and Matheson, were now searching the hillside where they thought they had heard something the night before. Pope, a fresh-faced scientist straight out of MIT, was just about to take a step, when Burke reached over and grabbed his leg in midair.
Pope instantly realized his mistake. He moved back so as not to disturb anything, while Burke pulled out an ultraviolet light and waved it over the ground Pope had nearly stepped on. Under the light, they were able to make out footprints. From the looks of them, they had definitely not been made by any animal native to the desert.
“Cast it,” Burke instructed Matheson as he moved the light forward and illuminated several more footprints. “Cast all of them.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Matheson was inside the mobile command center that had been set up at the crash site. The center was sleek and modern and filled with computers, monitors, and all sorts of electronic devices.
Matheson had arranged the plaster casts he had taken along a table and was studying them with microscope goggles. Burke, Pope, and Carson all watched.
“The cast we pulled outta the trench indicate a distinct pattern. Review every data gathering entity within a 15 mile radius starting upon impact. Look out for any anomalies. There’s a distinct pattern alternating between the depth of the impressions, here and here. – a differing weight distribution,” Matheson explained, “suggesting not one, but two separate EBEs that were moving fast.” EBE stood for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.
Burke looked down at the casts and considered what the scientist was telling him.
“They were moving fast. Bipedal,” Matheson continued. He looked up at the other members of the team and took a deep breath before adding, “Possibly... humanoid in form.”
He locked eyes with Burke. This was by far the biggest discovery they had ever uncovered.
The moment was interrupted by Pope. As usual, he was enthusiastic, to say the least. “How awesome is that?” he asked, his voice cracking. “I mean those little nanomicrobes that were found in that Mars rock were cool, but” – he paused – “nowhere near as cool as aliens – who run!”
The three other men turned and stared at him, their expressions stern. Pope had said the A word. Gulping, he pretended to be fascinated by the footprint casts.
Burke instantly began instructing the others. “Review every data-gathering entity within a fifty-mile radius, starting on impact.” He scanned their faces to make sure they understood exactly what they were looking for. “Hunt for the anomaly. Look out for any anomalies.”
Chapter 4
While Burke was starting his hunt, Jack was getting ready to begin another shift. Quickly, he walked into the taxi garage to where a line of cabs were parked. They had been fueled up and cleaned out and were ready to hit the streets. Although a sign declared that the area was for taxis only, a large black SUV was blocking Jack’s cab.
“Hey you guys gotta move this thing, I gotta go.”
The windows of the SUV were too dark for him to see through, but he had a pretty good idea of who was in there. Once he got close, a door opened and out stepped Frank, a large man whose suit was stretched to the limit trying to cover his massive body.
“Jack,” Frank said, moving toward him, “you don’t return calls anymore.”
Marty, another big man in a suit, stepped out from the other side of the SUV. “Mr. Wolfe thinks you’re being rude,” Marty said.
Their boss was not a nice man. And right now, he was rather unhappy with Jack. Whenever Mr. Wolfe was upset with someone, it was Frank and Marty’s job to deliver threats and, when necessary, physical punishment. They terrified most people, but Jack could be just as intimidating. He stared Marty right in the eye.
“Tell Wolfe that when I said the last time was the last time, I meant it was the last time.”
Frank let out a menacing laugh. “Mr. Wolfe decides when it’s the last time. Not you, Jack.”
Marty decided to try a friendlier approach. “He likes you, Jack. Hates to see you wasting your God-given talent giving fat tourists cab rides up and down the Strip. What kind of life is that? But we’re kinda late for that.”
“It’s one that I’m late for,” Jack answered as he tried to squeeze past them to the cab’s driver-side door.
“You got a death wish?”
“I drive a cab in Vegas.”
“You’re dead, Jack!” reaching out, Frank went to grab Jack. With lightning-quick speed, Jack gripped Frank by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. Frank let out a quick yelp of pain as Jack slam his attacker’s face into the cab’s hood with a loud thud.
Now Marty lunged at him. But Jack managed to grab Marty with his other hand and slam his attacker’s face against the cab. In seconds, Jack had both thugs pinned against the hood.
“Section eight, paragraph three,” Jack said, reciting from the Nevada code of taxi statutes and regulations. “As a fully licensed cabdriver in the state of Nevada, I am within my rights to deny passage to any potential fare I consider dangerous. You are, of course, entitled to file a written complaint with the state.”
Satisfied that he had made his point, Jack released both men, got into his cab, and drove off.
“See you soon, Jackie.”
As he drove, he attempted to calm his racing heart. The traffic wasn’t helping. Trying to maneuver around it, he glanced in the rearview mirror – and slammed on the brakes. Sitting in the backseat were two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who had definitely not been there before.
Jack stopped right there in the middle of traffic, causing a chain reaction of other cars slamming on their brakes and swerving to miss him. Jack spun around to look at his passengers.
“W... Where did you come from?” he demanded.
“Outside,” the boy answered.
“Yeah, I figured that part out on my own,” Jack snapped. “How did you get into my car?”
The girl pointed at the door. “Through that portal.”
Jack couldn’t make any sense of this. Even after the distraction of the argument with the goons, he would have heard, or at least seen, them come through the door. Besides, he wondered, what teenager calls a door a portal?
Traffic was backing up, and angry drivers were honking their horns. With no other choice, Jack put the taxi into drive and started down the street.
“I am Seth,” the boy said. Then he pointed to the girl. “This is my sister, Sara. We require your transportation services immediately,” Seth continued.
“Really?”
“Really?”
Jack gave Seth a skeptical look and said, “Well, I require—”
Before he could finish, Sara completed his sentence for him. “A currency transaction.”
Again with the strange slang, Jack mused.
Seth reached over the front seat to show Jack a huge wad of cash. “Will this amount suffice?” he asked.
“What did you do?” Jack asked, his eyes wide. “Rob a bank?”
“Is this acceptable, Jack Bruno?” Sara asked.
“Wait,” Jack said. “How did you know my name?”
Sara pointed at the cabdriver’s license, which was displayed by the meter.
“If we have a deal for your services, we must move forward rapidly,” Seth insisted. “It is urgent we get to our destination without delay.”
Jack hesitated. There was something very strange about these kids, especially the way they talked. Then again, “strange” was a word that could have described many of Jack’s customers. And their money sure was real enough...
“All right, all right, I’m going,” Jack said. “Where to?”
Seth and Sara shared a look. They didn’t know how to describe where they wanted to go. Seth reached into his pocket and pulled out a device that looked a lot like a compass.
“I need an address,” Jack said. “I’m not a mind reader.”
“We need to travel in that direction,” Sara said, pointing to the highway entrance ramp.
Jack almost groaned. Already this was proving to be a troublesome fare. “Gonna need something a little more specific than just... ‘that direction’,” he said.
Seth nodded. “We must locate latitude 40.54 cross-intersecting longitude 117.48 within a fractional percentage.”
That’s a real help, Jack almost said. Instead, he commented, “I think we’re going to just stick with ‘that direction.’”
Chapter 5
The mobile command center was a hotbed of activity.
As Burke’s team manned superfast computers wired into a variety of government, satellite, law-enforcement, and security networks, he paced. Back and forth he strode, his eyes scanning the nonstop stream of images that zipped across the many screens.
Carson was marking locations on a computer map interface that used aerial images of the crash scene and surrounding areas. “We tracked the two sets of EBE footprints on and off for 7.3 miles,” he informed Burke. “Finally losing them at a rest stop off the highway.” A line on his computer screen blinked, indicating the path of the footprints. Carson clicked at the end of the trail, and security-camera images of the rest stop grew larger on the screen.
Pope, meanwhile, was rapidly searching through a database of law-enforcement logs and police-incident reports. One entry stood out. “Four hours and nineteen minutes post-impact, there was a highway-patrol incident report filed at that exact very same rest stop,” he said excitedly.
Pope quickly typed a password override and was able to read the entire incident report.
“A car trunk was burglarized,” he said as he quickly scanned the patrolman’s report. “No sign of forced entry. No valuables taken... ”
Burke didn’t hide his frustration. “Give me something better than that, Mr. Pope,” he demanded.
Pope smiled as he continued reading from the incident report. “... except for stolen clothing belonging to a couple of teenagers: a fifteen-year-old-boy and girl.” He turned and looked right at his boss, eager to impress him. “I think it’s better than a possibility that they look human.”
The group considered this development. Up to this point, all they had to go on were footprints. But this information indicated that the aliens looked like a teenage boy and girl, and that changed everything.
Carson shook his head. “They can hide in plain sight.”
But Burke wasn’t discouraged. He always liked a good challenge, and at least they were getting somewhere. “Alright, we’re in the game, people, lets roll with this,” he told them. “Now, two kids don’t walk down the highway alone at night. I need some options on how they were able to evade capture.”
Carson’s fingers started dancing across his keyboard as he scanned through video stills from a security camera at the rest stop. He slowed down when the time stamp on the video neared the time of the incident report. For a few minutes there was absolutely no activity. Then he froze the tape on an image of a tour bus.
“We have a senior citizens bus landing roughly at the same time at the same rest stop,” he said. “Fast forward to, when the passengers are re-entering the vehicle. Fast forwarding...” Carson shuttled through the video of passengers getting off the bus to stretch their legs or use the restroom.
“Thirty-nine people exit,” he said as the last one got off. Then he sped the images forward until the people started getting back on board. “Stop. Rewind. Freeze. There. It looks like the bus picked up some extra baggage.” He hit a button, and the image froze.
The black-and-white image was taken at night and was grainy, but there was no mistaking what they saw. There were now two new figures in the middle of the group, and they were getting back on the bus. They couldn’t see their faces, but both appeared to be teenagers.
“We have a mode of escape and an extraction point,” Burke called out to the others. “I need to know where the package was delivered. We’re losing time.”
Matheson didn’t need to be told twice. He zoomed the camera in. “Nevada plates: Charlie-Peru-3-5-5-3-1,” he read while simultaneously typing them into his computer. Within seconds a flood of information started running across his screen.
“Silver State Trailways,” he continued. “Route schedule indicates... next stop... Sin City.”
“Odds are strong our targets are in Las Vegas,” Burke said, looming over the others. “Find them.”
Pope didn’t need to be told twice. He hacked into a camera feed from outside the city’s main bus terminal and announced, “Eight twenty-five a.m. the vehicle rolled into the Silver State Trailways depot on Ogden Avenue.”
They were getting closer. Pope scrolled through the footage until something caught his eye. As he zoomed in, the grainy image got even more difficult to see. The group still couldn’t make out the faces, but it looked like the same two kids from the rest stop were in the picture.
“Our targets have entered a heavily populated city,” Burke announced. “Too many unmanageable options for hiding and human interaction. I want total access to every single surveillance camera Vegas has turned on. Check office buildings, warehouses, restrooms, department stores... look in... sewer systems if you have to. ”
Anticipating Burke’s order, Carson had already bypassed two separate firewalls and was deep inside the grid of cameras that were positioned throughout the city. “We’re interlinking the system,” he informed Burke.
Despite the amazing speed and skill his team was displaying, Burke was not satisfied. He wanted results. Every second lost increased the chance of these two disappearing – for good. That was unacceptable.
“The targets are on foot,” he reminded everyone. “Walk with them.”
In a flash, maps of Las Vegas appeared on their screens, and they started tracing out possible routes the teenagers may have used after leaving the bus station.
“We have their vehicle,” Burke said, “so we know they didn’t fly away. They’re out there somewhere.”
“Freeman Street at Main to be exact,” Matheson informed the others. “I have activity at an ATM. Freeman Street and Main to be exact. Twelve forty-three p.m.”
Once again, he brought up a grainy image taken by a security camera. On the video, two teenagers carefully approached the automated teller machine. They didn’t come all the way up to it, though, so their faces were still off-camera. As the men watched, suddenly, even though neither kid had moved even a finger, the ATM started spitting out a steady stream of cash.
“Bank records indicate they withdrew the entire contents of the machine,” he continued. “ Fifteen thousand dollars, and also... they never used a card, and they never touched the machine. Not once.”
“Whoa,” Pope gasped. This was the real deal. “Nice trick.”
Burke considered the video and what it meant. “Gentlemen, it seems our EBEs possess some extraordinary skills.”
Carson’s eyes lit up as something else on the video feed caught his eye. “Who found themselves a ride? Stewart Avenue, one twenty-nine p.m. Keep your eyes on the yellow cab, lower left of the screen. Bingo! Here’s the cab company’s security camera. Keep your eyes on the back door of the cab. Right there, get me a license plate.”
As they looked at the monitor, they saw the two teenagers approaching Jack’s cab. Right before getting in, they turned back toward the camera. For the first time Burke and his team got a glimpse of Seth’s and Sara’s faces. The image remained frozen on the screen.
Burke studied their faces on the monitor, trying to take a mental picture. Even though the black-and-white footage was hard to make out, their eyes were haunting.
What were they hiding? And more importantly, why were they here?
“They’re on transport now. And no matter what they appear to look like, kill ’em... they’re not children. They’re not even human.”
Chapter 6
As Jack’s cab drove along the highway far north of Las Vegas, he wondered – not for the first time – if taking this fare had been a mistake. He looked over his shoulder at Seth and Sara.
“Are we there yet?” he asked. The subtle joke was lost on the kids.
“We are not there yet, Jack Bruno,” Sara said. She rubbed a pendant that hung around her neck.
The meter was already at $397.85 and climbing fast. “Are your parents gonna be okay with you guys spending all this money?” he asked.
“We have previously agreed upon our financial deal,” Seth said, his tone, as usual, serious. “If your concern is regarding compensation... ”
Jack cut him off before he could finish. “My concern is the fact, that I got two kids... in the back of my cab with a wad of cash and a drop-off location that’s in the middle of nowhere,” he responded. “Which now in my book reads like a little chapter called ‘Running Away.’”
“Jack Bruno,” Sara interrupted. “Those vehicles behind us are indicating a pattern of pursuit.”
“As a counter maneuver,” Seth added, “I would suggest you increase your velocity to maximum thrust.”
“Speeding? Not on your life. Speeding gets you tickets and tickets cost money,” Jack said as he looked at a stack of unpaid parking tickets on the passenger seat. “And if you don’t pay them off and you get one more ticket, you lose your license.” He looked over his shoulder at them. “Jack Bruno can’t lose his license.” He looked through the rear window and didn’t see any cars on the road.
“Besides,” he added, “there are no vehicles behind us.”
Just then a large black SUV came into view behind him. Suddenly two more SUVs appeared behind the first one.
“At your current rate of speed versus theirs,” Seth quickly computed, “they will overtake our vehicle in less than one mile.”
Jack shook his head. “Just because they’re speeding, doesn’t mean they’re following us,” he assured them. “People speed.”
Even though Jack had said it, he wasn’t exactly sure he was right. He checked the rearview mirror and saw that the cars were gaining fast.
“I’m going to let them pass,” he said.
Jack slowed down to forty-five miles per hour, expecting them to zip right by. Instead, the SUVs slowed down to match his speed.
That was a little suspect. Still, he’d rather give them the benefit of the doubt. Jack rolled down his window and waved for them to pass. “Open road, people,” he called out. “It’s all yours.”
He checked his side mirror, but they gave no indication of trying to pass. Definitely suspect. Squinting, he tried to get a glimpse of who was in the vehicle, but the windows were too tinted.
The lead SUV started to pull up right alongside Jack’s cab. First it pulled up even with the backseat, so it seemed to Jack that whoever was inside could take a long look at Seth and Sara. Then it pulled up to the front seat so that they could look at Jack, too.
Suddenly, the lead SUV pulled ahead and passed the cab. Jack breathed a sigh of relief and looked back at the kids.
“See, what did I tell you?”
But he had spoken too soon.
“Jack Bruno!” Sara yelled from the backseat as she pointed toward the windshield.
Jack whipped around and saw the SUV perform a tricky maneuver that spun it around and had it coming to a stop directly in front of them.
As Jack slammed on the brakes, another SUV purposely slammed into the back of their car.
With amazing speed, Jack yanked on the emergency brake, causing the car to fishtail. Then he gunned the accelerator so that it spun back around. It was an expert maneuver that allowed the taxi to miss both vehicles. Clearly, Jack had more than just cab-driving experience.
“Get down!” he ordered Sara and Seth. “Both of you! Now!”
The SUVs kept chasing Jack, trying to squeeze him in.
“Hold on!” he warned the kids just before he slammed on the brakes again. When he did, the two SUVs that were about to push into the cab shot past them and slammed into each other instead. They spun out of control and flipped over onto the side of the highway.
Once those two SUVs were out of the picture, Jack gunned the gas again and roared past them down the highway. There was only one vehicle left chasing him.
Jack assumed that these were more of Wolfe’s goons trying to send him a message. But they weren’t. It was Burke’s team.
Sitting in the remaining SUV, Burke was re-evaluating the man they were pursuing. He had just taken out two specially trained military pursuit drivers.
“He is just a cabdriver, correct?” Burke asked.
Carson was at the wheel. He shifted into high gear to stay on Jack’s tail, his eyes shooting daggers.
Meanwhile, in the backseat of the cab, Seth was taking matters into his own hands. He pulled his knees up to his chest as if he were making a cannonball and squinted in concentration. Unbeknownst to Jack, Seth’s body started to dematerialize! He phased through the backseat and right through the cab itself.
He rematerialized on the side of the highway. Purposefully, he strode into the middle of the road – directly in the path of the oncoming vehicle!
“Look out!” Burke yelled from inside the SUV.
Carson slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The vehicle crashed into Seth. But instead of hurting the boy, the SUV catapulted into the air, did a complete roll, and skidded along the highway. It came to a stop, a tangled mass of metal.
Inside the cab, Sara panicked. She was not about to leave her brother behind. Using her own telekinetic powers, she mentally took control of Jack’s taxi. First she made the brakes lock, causing the car to skid to a stop.
“What now?” Jack asked, confused.
Then the tires started spinning backward, and the cab raced down the highway in reverse. Jack pumped the brakes, but the cab’s speed kept increasing.
Back at the wreckage of Burke’s SUV, Seth phased right through the tangled metal until he was hovering face-to-face with Burke.
The two stared at each other for a moment before Seth gave a warning: “Stop following us!”
Burke was too stunned to react. Seth phased back through the wreckage and onto the road. Burke looked up and saw Jack’s cab heading right for them.
“Get out! Get out!” he yelled to the others in the SUV, but there was no time. The four of them braced for impact. But the taxi miraculously came to a stop – inches away from them.
Jack took a deep breath. “You both okay?” he asked, clutching the steering wheel.
“We are,” Sara said.
Just then Seth phased back into the cab. Jack had no idea that he’d been gone.
“We should just keep moving,” Seth said.
Jack didn’t need to be told twice. If those men were connected to Wolfe, he wanted to be as far from them as possible. He hit the gas and sped away.
Burke watched as the taxi disappeared into the horizon. “I want a complete profile on the driver,” he told his team.
Matheson nodded. “Do you think he’s collaborating?”
Burke wasn’t sure how much Jack knew about the passengers in the back of his cab. But as far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter.
“Either way, he’s a liability,” he answered.
Chapter 7
As evening became night and the sun rested on the horizon, the desert was at its most beautiful and peaceful. Jack wasn’t so concerned with the beauty, but he certainly appreciated the peace. It was a welcome change after the game of demolition derby that had just been played out on the highway.
“We’re here, Jack Bruno,” Sara said, breaking into Jack’s thoughts.
Jack eased his foot off the accelerator and looked around. He didn’t see anything but desert. “Here?” he asked, puzzled. “There’s nothing here.”
Sara motioned ahead of them, and Jack noticed a small dirt road about twenty yards away.
“Go figure,” he said, somewhat surprised. “You really do know your way.” He turned, and the cab rattled and bounced along the dirt road for about half a mile. Finally, they reached a dark, deserted cabin.
“There’s someone expecting you two, right?” Jack asked as he warily eyed the building. “’Cause it doesn’t look like they’re home.”
The sun had completely set, and long shadows dominated the landscape. The beautiful desert had suddenly turned ominous and threatening.
“Do not worry, Jack Bruno,” Sara reassured him. “We will soon be reunited with relatives.”
Jack put the car in park and turned to the kids.
“All right, the fare comes to $721.80,” he told them. “But after everything that went down today, how about I knock twenty-five percent off ?”
In response, Seth shoved all of his money into Jack’s hand. Neither of the kids said a word as they hurried out of the cab and toward the cabin.
“Okay, then, good-bye to you, too,” Jack said to himself. It was only fitting that the strangest fare of his life had ended in a decidedly unusual way.
Looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror, he thought back on the day. He was totally exhausted.
“I’ve got to get another job,” he told himself.
Sighing, he looked down at the money and began to count it. “I got a fifteen-thousand-dollar tip,” he said when he had finished counting. “That seems reasonable.”
Part of Jack just wanted to take the money and race back to Vegas. But he knew that wasn’t reasonable. None of this was reasonable. And, for some reason, he felt that he needed to look after Seth and Sara. He got out of the taxi and headed to the cabin, determined to do the right thing.
“Hey, you guys overpaid... by a lot,” he called out. He looked around, but there was no sign of Seth or Sara. It was as if they had vanished into the night. Just then he heard the sound of glass shattering.
“Hello,” he called out, a little louder this time. “Everything okay in there?”
The closer he got to the cabin, the scarier it seemed. It was very dark, and most of the windows were boarded up. He looked at the porch and saw the cause of the noise. Broken glass lay on the wooden planks. Something was strange about it. It looked as if someone had broken the window from the inside.
Jack wasn’t easily scared. But nevertheless, he was cautious as he entered. The door was partially open, and he was able to slip in without making a sound.
The inside of the cabin was spookier than the outside. A light fixture hung from the ceiling and swung back and forth, sweeping the room with a solitary shaft of light.
With each swing, Jack could make out a little more detail in the ransacked room. Furniture was tipped over in every direction, and there were broken plates and glasses scattered across the floor.
Jack heard something moving ahead of him, but before he could check it out someone grabbed his jacket and pulled him to the floor. Jack picked up a long piece of wood and swung... right through Seth. Jack brought his arm down and stared at Seth. He and Sara were hiding behind a couch.
“What’s going—” Jack began to ask.
Seth signaled him to be quiet and started to fiddle with his compass.
“Jack Bruno,” Sara whispered, “you should not have jeopardized your life by following us.”
Seth’s compass was now emitting a series of lights and beeps.
“What sort of trouble are you two in?” Jack asked in a hushed whisper.
“This is neither your concern nor battle,” Seth said.
“Seth,” Sara observed, “he’s just trying to help.”
But Seth didn’t want to hear it.
“We don’t need his help. Somebody’s already been here looking for it. We simply cannot trust any of them. Just us, Sara.”
“We appreciate your efforts to assist us Jack Bruno. But my brother is right. We can involve you no further.”
Just then, Seth’s compass seemed to lock on a heading.
“Hey just tell me what’s—” Jack said.
Seth signaled for Sara to follow him into the next room. “Hurry up Sara.”
Jack was so focused on the kids, he didn’t notice that when the light swung by, it momentarily illuminated another figure in the room. This figure wore a frightening mask and black armor. What Jack didn’t know was that it was a Siphon – an alien assassin.
As suddenly as he had arrived, the Siphon disappeared. He was not interested in Jack. He wanted Seth and Sara.
Oblivious to the threat, Jack watched as Seth snuck up to an old refrigerator and opened it. Seth attached the compass to the back of the refrigerator. It suddenly lit up and spun into action, first one way and then another, like the dial on a high-tech safe.
““What is that?” Jack asked.
Suddenly, the back of the refrigerator opened to reveal a secret passageway.
“Got it! Let’s go!” Seth and Sara quickly disappeared through the door.
Jack couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Don’t go in the pimped-out ridge, Jack,” he told himself as he took a deep breath. But he knew he had no choice. He had to follow them. He couldn’t just leave the kids alone, but there was no way he would go unarmed. Grabbing a fireplace poker, he walked into the fridge.
The door led to a stone staircase which in turn went down into a lush, beautiful underground garden. There were large multicolored orbs that pulsed with swirling gases among the plants and trees.
“Hey! What exctly is this place?” Jack asked as he looked around in astonishment.
Seth and Sara did not respond. “This way.”
“Hey hey, hey!”
They had followed the compass to a large glowing orb. Sara slipped the pendant off her neck and slid it into the orb like a key into a lock. Amazingly, the object opened to reveal a small device. For the first time since he had met them, Jack saw both Sara and Seth smile.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“It is what we came for, Jack Bruno,” Sara told him.
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked. “Would anyone else be looking for it... like, say the person who trashed everything up upstairs?”
Seth answered. “We think so. It is very valuable,” he said matter-of-factly. “Which is why it was vital that we locate it first.”
“What makes you so sure that whoever else wanted it, isn’t still looking for it?” Jack asked.
Suddenly, they were startled by a noise from above. Someone else was coming through the secret passageway!
“Go... go!” Jack tightened his grip on the poker. Beside him, Sara removed the device from the glowing orb. As quietly as possible, they moved into the dense foliage of the garden and waited.
They could not see the intruder, but they could see the rustling of leaves and swaying of trees as whatever it was moved through the garden looking for them. It was the Siphon!
His heart racing, Jack tried to figure out a plan. If they made a run for it, they’d give away their position and might not be able to make it to the stairway in time. But they couldn’t just wait. The Siphon was getting closer.
“Run!” Jack cried. “Run, run, run!”
As Seth and Sara leaped out of the foliage, the Siphon’s eyes locked on them. The chase was on!
Sara and Seth sprinted for the passageway, but there was no way they’d be able to outrun the Siphon. It quickly charged to cut them off. “Jack Bruno!” Just as the Siphon was about to reach them, Jack popped out from behind the bushes and smashed the creature on the head with the poker.
Much to Jack’s amazement, the rod did virtually no damage. But the backhand slap the Siphon gave him did do damage to Jack. He went flying backward and landed with a thud on the hard ground. Rolling over, Jack took refuge in the foliage.
Not to be distracted, the Siphon held out his arm, and a gun materialized from his armor. He fired... right into one of the gas orbs! The blast struck true, causing the orb to explode in a burst of fire. This set off a chain reaction of explosions and fireballs. In a matter of seconds, the garden was engulfed in flames.
Jumping to his feet, Jack scanned the garden. He didn’t see Seth or Sara... or the invader. “Kids!” Suddenly, his eyes landed on the kids. They were surrounded by a ring of fire!
As fast as he could, Jack raced to them. But just then, the Siphon burst from the flames and grabbed the device from Sara’s hand. She screamed. Turning, Seth saw what had happened and attacked the Siphon. With the attacker distracted, Sara was able to snatch back the device. Then she used her powers to uproot a burning tree and slam it into the Siphon’s body.
It knocked the invader off balance long enough for the trio to hurry toward the stairs. “Go, go go...” But just as they reached them, Seth looked back and saw that the Siphon was firing his weapon – a sonic cannon that sent out a massive shock wave. Jack could see the air ripple as the concussive energy came closer and closer.
“We gotta move!” Jack yelled.
But Seth had turned and begun to dematerialize and expand his body so that it formed a shield to protect his sister. “Sara!” He absorbed most of the energy from the shock wave, but it still knocked the others to the ground and sent an earthquakelike tremor through the entire garden.
“Seth!” Sara cried out as his body fell to the now-crumbling steps. “Jack Bruno!”
Jack picked up Seth and ran upstairs. “Sara lets go!” They burst through the passageway into the cabin, which was now filled with fire and smoke. Jack kept running, Seth in his arms and Sara right behind him. “Get in!” He kicked out the door, and they raced to the taxi just as the burning cabin started to collapse into a hole in the earth.
Chapter 8
With the fire climbing high into the night sky behind it, Jack’s taxi hurtled down the dirt road and onto the highway.
“How’s your brother doing?” he asked Sara once he’d caught his breath.
“His system has the ability...”
“I will be fine,” Seth answered for her. “It is important that we gain much distanc from this location.”
“Well, I’m happy you’re feeling better,” Jack said, trying to stay calm. The adrenaline was no longer pumping through his veins. He now felt mainly disbelief, not to mention quite a bit of anger. “Because you’ll need your strength to explain to me... WHAT JUST HAPPENED BACK THERE!?”
Jack waited for a response, but there was only silence.
“Feel free to just dive on in,” he continued. “We can start with whose cabin it was. Or what was growing underground?”
He paused. “Or, hey, I got a fun one. Maybe you could tell me who the guy in the robot suit trying to kill us was?”
Sara and Seth remained silent.
Jack had had enough. Slamming on the brakes, he brought the taxi to a screeching halt. He spun around.
“Alright here’s the deal,” he informed them. “The cab doesn’t move until your mouths do. So start talking.”
“The information you are seeking is not within your grasp of understanding,” Seth said.
Jack felt as if he were about to explode. “I saved your life, and now you’re calling me stupid?”
“My brother means no disrespect, Jack Bruno,” Sara said gently. “But we are dealing with issues outside the realm of... your world.”
“Hey I’m a cab driver okay,” he shot back. “I’ve had plenty of worldly experien—” His words trailed off as he saw some rather unearthly lights rising from the smoke. “ – Experiences... ”
“Sara!” Sara and Seth looked out the back window and saw the lights, too. “We have to go!”
“Jack Bruno, I suggest you drive now,” Sara pleaded.
“What is that?” Jack asked, transfixed by the lights.
“Just drive!” Seth yelled.
As the lights drew closer, Jack was still trying to figure out what they were. Maybe they were coming from a small airplane. But why would a plane be coming so close?
Seth turned to his sister. “Sara, we have to go.”
Sara concentrated her energy on the gas pedal, and the cab started speeding forward.
“Hey!” Jack yelled as he was thrown back against his seat.
But the taxi just kept increasing speed. Jack tried to gain control of the vehicle and outrun the lights, which now seemed to be in full pursuit of them.
And they were. The lights were coming from a small spaceship piloted by the Siphon. He had escaped the fiery inferno and would not stop until he caught his target.
“What is it?” Jack yelled as the Siphon fired off a sonic blast.
A huge chunk of asphalt exploded right in front of the cab. Jack had regained full control of the cab and jerked the wheel to avoid the explosion. But as a result, the cab careened down a steep incline.
The taxi raced down the hill. It didn’t help that a fog bank had rolled in, making it nearly impossible to see where they were going.
Looking through the rear window, Sara saw the lights casting an eerie glow in the fog.
“He’s coming!” she warned them.
They reached the bottom of the hill, and jumped onto some train tracks. A few minutes later they raced headlong into a dark tunnel.
Cutting the lights, Jack slowed the taxi to a crawl. Maybe they would be safe in here... ..
“We can’t let him destroy it, Sara,” Seth said to Sara. She was clutching the device they had retrieved from the garden.
“Who is he?” Jack demanded. “And this time I need real answers.”
“A Siphon,” Sara told him.
“A what?”
“He’s an assassin,” Seth answered. “Trained to pursue his target until his mission is completed.”
“And his mission is...?” Jack wanted to know.
“Us,” Sara responded in a serious whisper.
Just then, the tunnel filled with light. The Siphon was back! They waited. Was this the end? Then, just when it seemed they were doomed, the lights zipped back out of the tunnel and into the night sky.
Jack let out a sigh of relief. But he didn’t for a moment think they were out of danger. “We can’t just sit here,” he said. Cautiously, he began to drive the cab out of the tunnel.
“Is there a safer route, Jack Bruno?”
“Not unless you know how to fly.” Safely outside, Jack was about to gun the engine when he noticed that the tracks ran along a cliff. On the other side was nothing but a nasty drop-off. Ahead was an iron bridge over a river.
He had barely registered the situation when a sonic blast ripped through the air. The Siphon had returned! For one terrifying moment, the taxi – and Jack, Seth, and Sara – were airborne. Then, the taxi bounced off one of the iron girders on the bridge and somehow ended up back on the tracks. But the Siphon followed them, hitting the bridge with blast after blast.
Jack clutched the wheel. His only hope was to get into the tunnel at the far end of the bridge. He pushed the pedal to the metal and with moments to spare, they entered the safety of the tunnel. “Jack Bruno!” There was no way an airplane could follow them, Jack thought.
But he was wrong.
The Siphon flew into the tunnel in hot pursuit.
Jack gunned the engine again and started to pull away from the Siphon. The Siphon’s vehicle barely fit in the tunnel and couldn’t maneuver well. Sparks shot off when the edges struck the tunnel’s rocky walls.
“We can do this! We can do this!” Jack yelled to himself – and his cab – in encouragement. “Come on come on, hold it together!” Just then he heard the whistle of an approaching train.
“Oh, come on!” Jack wailed. Was he never going to catch a break?
They were trapped, the Siphon pushing them from behind and a freight train coming at them from in front. Jack was driving as fast as the taxi would go, but it didn’t seem possible for them to reach the end of the tunnel before the train blocked them off.
Inside the locomotive, the engineer was startled to see the two sets of lights approaching. He yanked on the brakes and blasted the horn. The train’s wheels locked up and sent a shower of sparks flying in every direction.
“Faster, faster!” Seth screamed.
“It won’t go any faster,” Jack yelled, his foot pressed all the way down to the floorboard.
“Sara!” Sara focused her concentration on the engine, giving it an extra burst of energy. “Hold on!” The taxi rocketed out of the tunnel inches from the hurtling train. “Watch out!”
The instant they were clear, Jack wrenched the wheel hard to the right. They slid off the tracks and down an embankment.
Behind them, the train slammed into the Siphon’s spacecraft, producing a giant fireball that exploded throughout the tunnel.
Chapter 9
Inside a mobile command center, Henry Burke stared intently at a photo on the monitor in front of him. It was a police mug shot of Jack, taken two years earlier. Beside Burke, Pope and Matheson read Jack’s file.
“Jack Bruno,” Matheson said, motioning at the photo. “In and out of juvie and state pens since he was a kid.” He clicked a button on his remote, and a quick series of photos of Jack skimmed across the screen.
“Grew up poor in Midland, Texas,” he continued. “Showed promise driving demolition derby and dirt tracks. Ironically, at the age of sixteen, his parents died in a car wreck.” A handful of newspaper clippings appeared on the screen. A couple had pictures of Jack as a young driver. Others detailed theomobile accident that killed his parents.
Pope picked up the commentary about Jack. “At seventeen he ran away from his foster home. And he headed to Las Vegas in hopes of going from Stock car to NASCAR. Instead, he found work as a wheelman for Allen Wolfe, the Vegas crime boss.”
Burke nodded. As the wheelman, Jack would have driven the getaway car for Wolfe and his crew. That explained why he did so well driving on the highway.
“Last bust, two years ago, grand theft auto,” Pope continued. “Got out, went legit and... uh. He’s been driving a cab ever since.”
As Pope finished, Carson hurried into the room. “I just spoke to Dominick Firenze, dispatch at Yellow Cab Taxi,” he informed them. “Bruno took a fare a significant distance out of the city. Dispatcher claims that he’s been unable to make radio contact for several hours.”
“Does the cab have a tracking device?” Burke asked hopefully.
Carson nodded. “Until it stopped transmitting twenty-eight minutes ago. For some crazy reason, last location was on train tracks.”
Pope raised an eyebrow. “Interestingly enough, I’ve been monitoring a recent report of a massive explosion on some train tracks.”
All eyes were on Pope.
“A freighter collided with an unidentified object.”
If Burke had been a more emotional man, he would have smiled. Instead, within minutes, the four of them had climbed into a Black Hawk helicopter and were flying toward the site of the train collision.
* * *
Unaware of Burke’s approach, Jack stood on the side of the road looking under the hood of his battered taxi. Almost every part of the vehicle was busted. He shook his head as he tried to imagine how he might get the vehicle up and running again. “Couple of kids, big wad of cash, what could go wrong?” he muttered.
In the backseat, Seth and Sara looked almost as bad as the cab. Sara said something under her breath, but Seth signaled her to stay quiet.
“No, we cannot trust him,” he whispered.
“I know we can’t,” Sara responded. “We must. I can feel it.”
Still grumbling, Jack got back into the car and slumped behind the wheel.
Sara leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder. “We know you are frustrated, Jack Bruno,” she began. “But we must ask you... ”
Jack had had enough. He snapped upright and interrupted her right there. “No, no, no,” he said. “No more ‘Jack Bruno’ this and ‘Jack Bruno’ that. I’ve been asking for answers and... ”
Sara answered his question before he could even ask. “It’s exactly what you’ve been thinking, Jack Bruno.”
Jack flashed an exasperated look. “So now you’re going to tell me exactly what I’ve been thinking?”
Sara nodded. Reading minds was another one of her “talents”. “You already know the answers, Jack Bruno. The Siphon, that spaceship, my brother and I... are indeed not from your planet.”
“So that’s it?” Jack said, spinning around to face them. “Mystery solved. You two want me to believe that you’re both aliens,” he said slowly.
“It is the truth,” Seth replied.
“Well, you don’t look like aliens,” he said slowly.
Sara flashed Seth a confused look before asking, “What does an alien look like, Jack Bruno?”
A few days of driving people back and forth to the UFO convention had given him more than a few ideas. “You know what aliens look like! They look like, little... like, little green people, with antennas and laser guns!. And ‘take me to your leader, Earthlings’ mumbo jumbo.”
“Mumbo jumbo?” Seth asked, more confused than before.
Sara seemed to understand better. “He requires some sort of proof,” she said. “He thinks we are insulting his intelligence.”
“Well, yeah,” Jack said. “I mean, you don’t just drop the, "we’re aliens!" bomb, on somebody. Now, I know I’ve seen some pretty weird things today... but you can’t expect me to believe that...”
Before he could continue, loose items from throughout the cab started to lift into the air. Coins, old parking tickets, and an empty coffee cup were all floating around as if they were in outer space. Jack’s mouth dropped open.
“There are things floating around me, right?” he asked, worried that he was losing his mind.
Sara nodded. “I’m telekinetic,” she explained. “I have the ability to move objects with my mind.”
“That’s impossible,” Jack said, disbelieving.
“It is quite possible,” Sara answered. “On our planet as well as yours. You don’t do it because you haven’t learned to use your full brain capacity.”
“Maybe I don’t do it,” Jack retorted, “because it’s just kinda creepy! And I really would like you to stop that.”
In an instant, everything dropped simultaneously.
Sighing, Jack turned back around. He tried the ignition and after a few coughs, the cab started. Slowly, the taxi started to rattle down the road, it – and Jack – barely keeping it together.
* * *
Back at the crash site, flames flickered in the trees alongside the train tracks. A shadowy figure arose from the wreckage of the collision. It was the Siphon. His body was charred, but somehow he had managed to survive. His leg was severely damaged and bent in an unnatural direction. He straightened it, apparently unbothered by any pain. Then a laser emerged from among the weapons on his arm. He used the laser to burn the armor and flesh around his wound and melt it all back together.
Suddenly a noise from above caught his attention. It was the sound of a helicopter’s rotors. The Siphon slinked back into the shadows to keep from being spotted.
A searchlight from the helicopter moved across the scene of the collision, as Burke and his team surveyed the wreckage.
“The freight engineer is banged up but alive,” Carson told the rest of the team. “Last thing he saw in the tunnel was our taxi and a set of flying lights. He figured it must’ve been a small plane.”
“Small plane?” Pope asked, his curiosity piqued. “Whoa, whoa, whoa... you guys think that there’s a chance that they have a second spacecraft?”
Matheson shook his head. “You have the ability to fly at the speed of light, yet you use a beat-up cab? I don’t think so.”
Burke had seen enough. “Secure the site. Catalog every piece of debris. I want to know what’s train, what’s cab, and... what’s left.”
“Roger that,” Carson replied. “We’ve set up a trace on Bruno’s cell phone. He uses it, we’ll be there before he can hang up.”
Burke nodded, confident that the chase was nearing its end.
Chapter 10
Jack’s taxi was running, but just barely. It sputtered down the road and past a sign reading, ENTERING STONY CREEKEST. 1846. Once a silver-mining camp, Stony Creek looked like the kind of small town where everybody knew everybody else. Jack also hoped it was the kind of town where you could find a great mechanic at any hour of the night.
Jack managed to nurse his cab all the way to Eddie’s Service Station. As they got out of the cab, he turned to the kids. “Don’t say anything. Don’t touch anything. And don’t do anything... freaky,” he instructed them. Then he turned and called out to see if anyone was there. “Hello? Anyone here?”
A man who looked to be in his fifties walked out from a dusty old office. This was Eddie, who owned the garage. “We’re closed,” he explained.
“Oh, there you are. Yeah, I know you’re closed,” Jack responded, “but, uh, just we’ve experienced a little bit of car trouble...”
Eddie shrugged. “We’re still closed. You should’ve better experienced you car trouble when we were open. Well, I’ll work on that next time.”
“I’ll plan better next time,” Jack said.
“Jack Bruno,” Sara said, ignoring his instructions to remain quiet. “The only thing that will convince Eddie to reopen for business will be a significant sum of money.”
“Do I know you from somewhere?” the mechanic asked, looking at her carefully.
Jack didn’t give Sara a chance to answer. “Nope, absolutely not, you don’t know them from anywhere,” he assured him. He pulled the money from his pocket. “We’ll pay you double your rate.”
Eddie was no longer concerned about how Sara knew his name. This was now a negotiation. “Why not triple?” he replied.
“Done,” Jack said with a satisfied smile.
“Really? What’d you get in a fight with a Rhinocerus? Poor Rhino.”
“Poor Rhino, I know!”
“I don’t even know where to start with this baby.”
“Well, where you can start is replacing the front shocks, and the tie rods, and patch up the radiator fix the exhaust and if you have 4 tires, I’ll take those too... you got one hour.”
A few minutes later, Eddie was hard at work on the car while Jack and the kids were walking into a nearby restaurant to get something to eat.
“Over here... come on, sit, sit. Sit down.”
The restaurant was nice but nothing fancy. A country band was playing on the stage, and a few couples were on the dance floor. Sara and Seth were intrigued by everything they saw.
“This settlement of Stony Creek has less lights and energy than Las Vegas city,” Sara observed.
“Yeah well, every place on the planet has less lights and energy than Vegas,” Jack observed, smiling. Then he turned to the kids, his expression growing serious. “Look listen I really need you two not to be ‘aliens’ in here. Understand?”
“No. I do not,” Sara answered. “We are aliens. How can we not be what we are?”
Jack stifled a sigh. “Just can you don’t do any of your creepy magic floaty stuff,” he explained. “Come here. Common.”
As they sat down at a table, Sara looked Jack in the eye and said, “I hope you do not act upon your thought of making a fast break... out of the back door of Ray’s, escaping the Stoney Creek. Never to look back at us again.”
Jack’s eyes opened wide. “H... how... how did you know that?” he asked.
“My sister also has the gift of telepathy,” Seth informed him. “She can read the minds of those nearest to her.”
“Well, you tell your sister that here on Earth, reading minds? Very rude,” Jack gave a little finger wag for emphasis. “Don’t do that.”
“Guys! Welcome to Ray’s! My name is Tina and I’m gonna be your server. Wow, look at the two of you. Ah... what’d you mean look at the two of them? They look like just two regular, innocent.. uh, all American kids. Well, it looked like they just rolled around in a pig pen... right before dinner, that’s all.”
Jack was a bundle of nerves, especially when the local sheriff walked in and sat at a nearby table.
“Evening, Tina!”
“Sheriff Anthony! Your tables waitin’ for you. I’m gonna send you a round of freedom pies huh?”
“Sounds good.”
“Thank you.”
“Alright.”
It seemed as if everybody was staring at them – including the sheriff and his three deputies.
“Now, why don’t the two of you come with me and we’ll get you all cleaned up, huh? Hurry back.”
Seth and Sara had gone to wash their hands when Jack’s cell phone rang, startling him. It was Dominick, his boss from the cab company. “I’ve been trying to get you all night!” Dominick cried. “Where are you? You dump that fare yet?”
“No, not quite, not yet,” Jack answered. “It’s really, real complicated right now.”
“Un-complicate it,” Dominick ordered. “I want my cab back. Spotless.” Jack cringed, thinking about how far from spotless the cab actually was.
“By the way,” Dominick continued, “don’t have your creditors call, looking for you here.”
“Creditors?” Jack had no idea what Dominick was talking about.
“You got all kinds of people trying to find you,” he said. “Pay your bills on time.” Then he hung up.
Jack was confused. He didn’t owe anyone money. Which meant, someone was trying to find him. Was it Wolfe? Or did it have something to do with Seth and Sara?
* * *
“Ja... Jack!”
Unknown to Jack, Burke and his team were listening in on the call and had instantly begun tracing his location.
“Got ’em, Stony Creek.”
“Okay, get us a transport.”
Within moments they were rushing toward Stony Creek. “I want a clean extraction in 20 minutes.”
* * *
When Seth and Sara returned, Jack looked at them nervously. He had made a decision and wanted to tell them what it was.
“You know, I think it would be—” he started to say.
Sara finished his statement, “ – best for everyone if Seth and I found another ride?”
“Seriously,” Jack said, more than a little creeped out that she could read his mind, “you gotta stop doing that.”
“Jack Bruno, it is understandable that you are scared... and confused considering all that has occurred today,” Sara told him.
“I’m not scared. Just... a little confused. The bottom line is whatever trouble you two are in I can’t get involved.”
“It’s already too late to reverse your involvement, Jack Bruno,” Seth said.
The waitress Tina brought their orders.
“Well, I hope you brought your appetites. Three Ray’s burgers... chili fries... and shakes... I hope you enjoy.”
When waitress left, he went on. “I’m sorry,” Jack said, sounding genuine. “But... listen... you guys need someone from... from... from NASA, or... or the Air Force to help you. Not me.”
“If you abandon us now, our mission will be in serious jeopardy,” Sara told him.
“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not my problem...”
“And the chances of our survival zero,” Seth added.
“Everything okay with your order?” waitredd came back. “Trust me, Ray’s burgers don’t get any better the colder they are... We put some of that sauce on it, right there, I promise you they’ll fire right back out.”
Sara moved by her mind a bottle of sause to Jack, then a jalapenos, then a pepper, then a cougar. And he had to play as he took all of this staff by himself to draw Tina’s attention who looked at them.
“Oh, I would love to try some of this sauce... I really would... and jalapenos... I love this pepper... What is that?.. Is that a cougar?.. Poor brother always like MasterChef whoa,” Jack kept on gobbling his burger.
“Well, we’ll use ours,” Seth said.
“You can try it. You go!”
And now all three of them were gobbling their burgers.
“You guys don’t get out very huffin to you,” Tina said.
“We’re normal aliens,” Jack said.
“I see,” Tina said and went to other customers.
“Hey hey, slow down, it’s not a race,” Jack said to kids.
“I’m only following you,” Sara said.
“Thus proving what a bad example I am, this is why I can’t help you.”
Silence fell as the three ate their food. Finally, Sara spoke up. “On Earth, isn’t there a difference between ‘can’t help,’ and ‘won’t help’?” she asked.
Jack swallowed a bite of his food. “Hey look, I’m just trying to be honest here, okay?” he said. “I’m the wrong guy.”
“A wise human once said, You are what you think you are".”
“Yeah, well, why don’t you find that guy and ask him.”
“It was the Buddha. He’s unavailable.” Sara reached out and put a hand on top of Jack’s. “How is it, that beings on your planet... can be so large in form... yet feel so small inside. Maybe you need help too, Jack Bruno.”
Before Jack could respond, his cell phone rang again. He answered it expecting to hear Dominick complain some more.
“Dominick I told you...”
But it was a voice he didn’t recognize.
“Are they safe, Jack?” the voice asked.
Jack got up from the table so that the kids couldn’t overhear him and so that Sara couldn’t read his mind.
“Who is this?” Jack asked when he was far enough away from them.
“Hen Burke. I work within the Department of Defense. I handle their more sensitive cases.”
“What do you mean sensitive?”
“I suspect we both know the answer to that question,” Burke answered.
Jack’s protective instincts kicked in. He looked out the window, scanning for any suspicious activity.
“Look, they’re just kids,” Jack told him. “They don’t want any trouble. Neither do I.”
“Good,” Burke responded. “Then we’re all on the same page. Trouble is the last thing I want as well. But what I do want, and I’m counting on you to help me here... are your two passengers.”
There was something about Burke’s voice that Jack didn’t trust. He looked out the window again. Five black SUVs had driven up the otherwise empty street. They began to block off the roads, closing off escape routes.
“What’re you gonna do with them?”
“Do you care this much about everyone that get’s into your cab? I have had a chance to acquaint myself with your background,” Burke went on. “You’re a convicted felon, Jack. You’ve spent most of the day breaking one law after another, for what? For them?”
Jack glanced back at the table where Seth and Sara remained oblivious. “What do you want me to do?” Jack asked, sighing.
“Not make a scene,” Burke replied coldly. “You walked them into the Ray’s restaurant. Now you can walk them out. I’ll take it from there. And to show my appreciation, I’ll wipe your slate clean.”
A man with a cell phone to his ear got out of one of the SUVs. Burke, he figured. A dozen or so heavily armed men fanned out around the agent.
“Just walk away huh?” Jack asked. “No harm, no foul?”
“That’s right,” Burked answered. “You have five minutes. And then it will all be over.”
Jack looked back at the table. Seth and Sara were gone.
“Five minutes,” Jack answered, not betraying the new plan he had just come up with. “See ya then.”
“I don’t trust him,” Burked said to his armed men. “Cover all the exits.”
Chapter 11
Jack knew he didn’t have much time. Quickly, he scanned the restaurant and saw Seth and Sara over by the stage.
“We’re leaving now,” Jack said when he reached them.
Sara looked right at Jack and read his mind. “They’re here for us, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are.”
“I knew we couldn’t trust him Sara,” Seth said to his sister. “It’s too late, we have to run.”
Jack was desperately trying to figure out how to buy some time, when he remembered the sheriff.
“It’s too late, we have to run,” Seth said.
“Wait!” Sara stopped him.
Jack walked over to the man’s table. “Excuse me Sheriff,” Jack said, interrupting the sheriff’s meal with his deputies.
“Can I help you?” the sheriff asked.
Jack took a quick breath. “I was just wondering what your town’s policy is regarding concealed firearms?”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s a whole lotta guns coming in right now.” Jack motioned over toward the door, just as Burke and his men burst in. The timing couldn’t have been better. The sheriff got up and headed over toward Burke. Jack quickly led the kids in the other direction, looking for a back door.
“Can I help you boys out?” the sheriff asked once he reached Burke, who was busy scanning all the tables.
“Official government business,” Burke told him. “Move aside.”
The sheriff did not take kindly to being told what to do. “Officially my town,” he told Burke. “My business.”
Burke repressed a groan of rage. Local law enforcement was always getting in his way. Burke and his men all reached inside their jackets to pull their guns, and the sheriff and his deputies did the same. In a moment, it seemed like everyone was pointing a gun at somebody.
Only one of Burk’s agents didn’t have a gun. He was an intern. And he compained to his fellow.
“Dude I told you I should have a gun.”
“Now might not be the best time to bring that up... dude. This is not good,” he got the response.
Meanwhile Burke had to negotiate.
“You’re making a mistake, Sheriff,” Burke said, trying to keep his temper from erupting.
“So says every criminal arrested. I’ll take my chances.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Burke said.
While this was going on, Jack managed to lead Seth and Sara to a hidden area behind the stage. Tina helped them. “Shh! Follow me. Up there. Good luck.” There they found a rickety ladder that led to the roof. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best chance they had to escape.
The three of them climbed up the rungs, but when they got to the top, Jack discovered the ceiling hatch was locked – from the outside. “There’s a lock on the outside, we gotta find another... Hey! Hey!” As he tried to figure out what to do, Seth reached past him. His arm disappeared through the hatch and a moment later, the small door swung open.
“Or we could do that.”
Noticing Jack’s astonished expression, Sara explained. “My brother has the ability to control his molecular density. Which allows him to phase through solid objects... or withstand the greatest of impacts.”
Jack swallowed. “That’s neat, real neat,” he said, following Seth up onto the roof as Burke’s men passed by below, unaware. Jack and the kids hurried along the roof toward the back of the building.
Jack was able to climb down from the roof onto the top of a trailer and then jump to the ground. He turned back and started to help Seth and Sara down when he heard the low, fierce growl of a dog.
When Jack turned, he saw the animal only a dozen or so feet away.
“Hi, little fella! Easy, boy,” Jack said, trying to sound as soothing as possible. “Nice little doggy.”
It didn’t do the trick. The growl intensified, and the dog bared its teeth and charged. All Jack could do was cover his face and brace himself for the attack. But it never came.
When he looked up, he saw the terrifying junkyard dog happily licking Sara’s face.
“We appreciate your understanding,” Sara said to the dog. Apparently, her many gifts included the ability to communicate with animals.
“It’s time to go,” Sara told Jack.
* * *
Inside the restaurant, Burke had managed to get a high-ranking government official on the phone with the sheriff. Once the call was over, he turned to Burke and his men. “Well, you got yourself some mighty big friends in some mighty big places. You check out.”
Burke could barely contain his rage. They had wasted valuable time! “Lock down this facility,” he ordered. “No one exits until my team has checked them.”
Moments later, Burke and his men discovered the hatch to the roof. They climbed up just in time to see Jack drive his cab out of Eddie’s garage.
Burke grabbed his walkie-talkie to alert everyone. “The taxi is on the move, I want every possible escape route locked down. I want that cab... and everyone in it!”
Behind the wheel, Jack watched Burke’s men race out of the restaurant, their guns drawn. Some hopped into their SUVs and started them up.
“There are way too many of them to outrun,” Jack said.
Sara took a deep breath. A moment later there was a windows and tires were all blown out.
“Whatever you’re doing,” he told Sara, “keep doing it.”
Burke reached the ground just as Jack and the cab were nearing. He lifted his gun and took aim. Just as he went to pull the trigger, a loud growl filled the air, and the junkyard dog leaped out from the darkness. The dog clamped its jaws tight around Burke’s arm, and the agent let out an agonizing scream as he dropped his gun to the ground. His job done, the dog jumped over a fence and away from the approaching agents.
Jack wasn’t going to look a gift horse – or dog – in the mouth. “Say good-bye to Stony Creek,” he said and hit the gas. But something was wrong. Instead of speeding up, the cab came to a screeching halt.
“No no no no! Not now... Come on, baby, not now, not now come on!” Jack pleaded to the cab. Then a thought occurred to him and he turned to face Sara.
“Sara! Are you doing this? Sara, I said—” he demanded.
Sara didn’t answer. She just opened her door, and the dog raced up to the taxi and jumped in beside her.
“Oh absolutely not!” Jack exclaimed. “This Junkyard does not go with us! I’m done picking up stray passengers!”
Burke’s men started shooting, and Jack realized that Sara was not going to let the cab go without the dog.
“Fine!” he relented. “Junkyard goes with us!”
Sara smiled. In a flash, the taxi was racing down the road, away from the danger.
Sara looked at Jack and smiled warmly. “Thank you, Jack Bruno,” she said as they drove out of Stony Creek.
“Those guys who were chasing us,” Jack said. “, were the same ones chasing us on the highway before right?”
“Yes,” Sara said simply.
“It is vital we find their base of operation,” Seth added. “You must take us to them. Immediately.”
Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want me to ‘take you’ to the guys who are trying to kill you? Let me explain to you how we do things here on Earth. People who want you dead, you avoid. That way you... ...stay alive. Make sense?”
“No one on your planet will stay alive if we do not return to our planet,” Seth responded. “And in order to return, we need our ship. And those men who trying to kill us have stolen our ship. Make sense?”
Jack felt like his head was going to explode. When had things gotten so complicated?
“Where do you suggest we begin our search?” Sara asked, convinced Jack would help.
“I don’t suggest I begin searching at all,” Jack answered. “I do suggest we head back to Vegas, and drop you off right where you got on. You too. It’s just as I thought.
Seth scowled. “Just as I thought,” he said to his sister. “We only have each other. No human is going to help us, Sara. Especially not, this human.”
Jack’s spine stiffened. “Easy on the human-bashing, okay. And for the record, even if I were to help you I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I don’t know anything about, about UFO’s or aliens... I wouldn’t know how to help you.”
Suddenly Jack had an idea that brought a smile to his face. Sara read his mind but didn’t know what it meant.
“Who is Dr. Alex Friedman?” she asked.
Jack laughed. “She’s actually someone who might be able to help you,” he said, aiming his cab toward Vegas. “And for the record, she happens to be human.”
And Jack was going to need all the help he could get. Because outside of the restaurant, the Siphon watched in the shadows, waiting. He did not give chase. There would be time to act soon enough.
* * *
“No sign of the taxi from anyone yet,” one of agents reported.
“Extend the search,” Burke said.
* * *
On his way to Vegas Sara asked for the dog
“He would appreciate you pulling over so that he can relieve himself.”
“Well we don’t have time for that. He should’ve went before we left Stony Creek,” Alex complained.
“He isn’t pleased with your attitude.”
“Really? Is that the way he feels? Well you remind him, that I’m a man... and he’s a dog! And I’m not about to have this, or any conversation with a dog. So my answer is still, no.”
And his car stopped. The dog ran away, relieved and came back happily.
“Junkyard says thank you,” Sara said.
“Did he now? Is there anything else he wants?”
“He said he would love a bone, or a meaty treat?”
“Top of my to-do list, just get in.”
* * *
At front of the hotel Alex gave keys from his car to a waiter.
“Hey! I need you to keep the cab close and get the dog some water. Give him a meaty treat.”
* * *
In the hotel Alex was concerned.
“Okay, stay close to me and don’t talk to anyone. Nice and normal,” he said to his two companions.
However one of agents saw him and made a call.
“I’m tellin’ you he walked right past me. Bad move.”
“We got a hit on Bruno’s license plate. They’re back in Vegas,” news were reported to Burk.
Chapter 12
In Las Vegas, Dr. Alex Friedman was halfway through her presentation – and it wasn’t going well. Unlike her, most of the people at the UFO convention had not come to have an educated, scientific discussion about the possibility of life on other planets. They wanted to talk about green spacemen with fuzzy antennae.
She clicked a button, and a picture of space was displayed behind her on a large screen. “This was captured by a far-imaging telescope at the University of Bahn. Less than forty-eight hours ago,” she explained. “What I want to direct your attention to is this.”
Using a laser pointer, she highlighted a blotch in the picture. She was obviously very excited about the blotch, but her audience could not have been more bored.
“It looks like a smudge,” one person called out.
“Yes! Yes it does! Only... ” She clicked another picture, which looked identical to the first one on the screen. “In the next image capture,” she said, pointing her laser at the same spot, “that ‘smudge’ is gone.”
Her big announcement was met with still more blank stares.
“Was it a spaceship,” someone called out hopefully. “Did they abduct you?”
“Excuse me?” The audience began to stir.
“The aliens that abducted you, were they tall ones or short ones, were they the Grays?” someone else called out.
“Maybe the lizard people!” another audience member shouted.
Alex couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I wasn’t abducted by anyone,” she said, “much less by an alien.”
“How do you know?” someone asked. “Dr. Harlan’s last book was all about how the aliens could erase your memory with probes. Have you read it? You may have been probed.”
Dr. Harlan was the hero of the more “eccentric” convention-goers. Alex thought that he was something of an eccentric as well. He certainly wasn’t a true scientist.
“Donald Harlan’s book?” she asked. “It’s pure science fiction. People I’m talking about science fact, here.. Hard, hard data, not crop circles. Do you hear yourselves? This is why the scientific community doesn’t show us any respect.”
“Dr. Harlan says the scientific community has been them.”
“Hey, you ever actually been inside a crop circle?”
“I have! It was huge! It’s where the mothership landed, where they took me on board... where I was married to an alien woman.”
Alex had had more than enough. “That’s it,” she said, forcing herself not to throw her arms in the air. “I will not answer any more questions... uh, about... alien abductions, crop circles, or Dr. Harlan, is that clear? If we could just get back to the matter at hand. People! Hello? I promise it’ll be worth it, the blue nebula!”
Half of the audience got up and left. Shrugging, Alex pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear and carried on. By the time she was finished, there was no one left. As she packed up, she heard a door open. She looked up to see a man and two teenagers entering. It was Jack, Seth, and Sara.
“The cattle mutilation lecture doesn’t start for an hour,” she said. “But... grab a seat, it’s supposed to be packed. This place will be packed. Always is.”
“We’re here to see you, actually,” Jack told her.
She looked at him. The man looked familiar. She racked her brain, trying to figure out where she had seen him before.
“It’s Jack Bruno,” Jack said with a friendly smile. “We met earlier.”
“We did?” Alex asked, still drawing a blank.
“Cab,” he reminded her. “Airport to hotel. Driver.” As he said “driver,” he made a little motion like he was turning a steering wheel.
“Driver? Oh, the nonbeliever,” she said, remembering. “What are the odds?”
“Hey is there some place we can talk?” Jack asked her.
She looked around the empty ballroom and gave him a look. “The crowds in here making you uncomfortable?”
“Even someplace more private than this?” Jack suggested.
“Look,” she said, “no offense, but I’m pretty busy and... ”
Sara read her mind and completed her sentence for her. “She’s feeling stressed over her thesis on Gliese 581... and doubting her thesis on Alcubierre’s Warp Drive.”
Alex was stunned. “How did you that? I didn’t tell anyone.”
Jack smiled. “Oh, it gets a lot better, trust me.”
Intrigued, Alex followed them to an out-of-the-way exhibit on Mars that was closed. While the kids became absorbed in images of the red planet, Jack told Alex all about them.
“Are you insane?” Alex demanded when Jack was finished.
“I just thought you of all people would understand and wanna help,” he said, shocked by her reaction.
convention? Don’t answer that.”
“I know it sounds really crazy.”
“You think?”
She looked over and noticed that Seth and Sara were no longer looking at Mars. They were now looking at her laptop.
“Hey, please don’t touch that,” she said.
“You captured an image of our ship,” Seth said as he turned the laptop to face her. The image on the screen was the one she had shown at the presentation.
“The smudge?” she said. “You’re telling me you think the smudge is your spaceship?”
“No, we don’t think it’s our space ship. We know it is our spaceship,” Sara corrected.
Alex had been mocked enough for one day. “That’s it, I’m out,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just grab my laptop and...”
As she reached to take the laptop from Seth, his hand phased right through hers. Startled, she jumped back and dropped the computer. Sara used her telekinetic power to “catch” it mere inches above the floor and then float it back up to Alex, who was totally speechless.
“Oh, right,” Jack said with a smile. “They can also do all this stuff too.”
“Who are you people?”
Sara turned to Seth. “Show her.”
Seth pulled the futuristic compass out of his pocket and held it up for the others to see. The device was glowing, when suddenly the glow exploded into a blinding white light and turned the room into a sort of living planetarium. Three-dimensional images of planets and stars swirled around them as if they were in the middle of a distant galaxy.
Alex gave Jack a stunned look, but he just shrugged, as if to say, what did I tell you? She turned back to the kids. “This is huge! I have some questions! I have so many questions! Even though you are the answers here standing right in front of me,” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry. Very excited. Right. But where are you from?”
“Our planet is located some 3,000 light-years from Earth,” Sara said.
“But space travel of such sizable distance... is possible using a paradoxical passage in the unbound...” Seth added.
“Wormholes! That’s it!” Alex was so much excited. “My presentation at City National convention was right! Interstellar travel is possible using worm holes as a shortcut through space!”
“That was my first guess as well, the... wormholes,” Jack said. “Continue doctor.”
“Why did you come to Earth?”
“Our planet is dying,” Sara told her calmly. “Millennia of neglect has rendered our atmosphere unbreathable.”
“That sounds familiar,” Alex said.
“Our parents are scientists,” Seth went on, “who have studied Earth’s changing climate in hopes of finding a solution for our own planet’s future.”
Alex and Jack looked at each other, confused. Wasn’t finding a solution a good thing? Seth shook his head. The leaders of their planet thought the answer would take too long, he explained. “As our people’s fears began to rise and then our parent’s... discovered something our leaders were very interested in. Your planet makes a suitable living environment for our kind. It would be simplest,” he finished, “to abandon our dying planet and... occupy yours.”
“Occupy?” Alex asked, suddenly concerned. “But Earth’s resources can barely sustain our own world population.”
Seth nodded, his expression even more serious than usual. “Hence the need for... elimination.”
is caught Jack’s attention. “Elimination? Okay so wait, I’m helping you conquer my own planet?! No!”
“Not us, Jack Bruno,” Sara claimed. “Most people on our planet are fiercely opposed to this plan.”
“But fear of extinction triumphed among our people,” Seth continued. “Invasion plans were drawn up. Fleets readied to launch an assault against Earth.”
Jack and Alex shared another look. This did not sound promising.
“But then our parents discovered a solution!” Sara cried. “An experiment at an outpost here was successful in regenerating life... into all previous dying plants and trees.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “Which would enable the re-oxygenating of your poisoned atmosphere,” she observed. “Brilliant!”
“Alright, so... what’s the problem?” Jack asked. He was beginning to wish he had paid a little more attention in science class.
“Our military. They prefer a solution of invasion over science,” Seth answered.
“Which is why we had to hurry and retrieve the experiment.” Sara held up the device they had recovered from the underground garden in the desert. “All the proof that our planet can be saved, and your planet spared, is in here.”
Suddenly, things were starting to make sense to Jack. But he still had questions. “Where are your parents? And what about the assassin?”
“Assassin?” Alex asked in a sudden panic. “What assassin?”
“Their work required them to stay behind,” Seth said, looking oddly nervous. “They were arrested for their opposition. We agreed to complete the task for them.”
Sara answered the second question. “The Siphon Warrior Series Deranian 75 were created by our military,” she told Alex.
“They’re bred to hunt?” Alex asked, her heart racing.
“They’re bred to kill,” Seth corrected. “And if we don’t return to our home in time, the invasion will proceed, and one Siphon will turn into a thousand Siphons.”
Alex considered all of this for a moment. “We seriously have to find your spaceship.”
Alex was right. Because at that very moment, a group of black government SUVs raced through Las Vegas.
Burke and his team were closing in – fast.
Chapter 13
Alex was not looking forward to what she was about to do. But if Seth and Sara were going to get their ship back, there was only one person she knew who might be able to help. Unfortunately, Dr. Harlan was not someone she usually got along with.
“So, how well do you know this guy?” Jack asked as they hurried out of the hotel and through the parking lot. They had managed to get Harlan’s assistants to bring them to where he was holed up.
“Oh, we’ve done a few panels and debates together on opposite sides,” she explained as she walked. “But no one knows the shadow world of UFO government conspiracies better than Harlan.”
On the way Alex met Whitley who had some questions. She didn’t have a time.
“Not now Whitley,” Alex said.
And then they crossed with one of Dr. Harlan’s assistants.
“Well hello, Dr. Friedman. So, you finally decided to accept my offer of a romantic Benihana dinner for two. Huzzah!”
“What?”
“Three... three years ago. A screening of the Cooper footage? You were in the fourth row, second seat, in a saucy flower print.”
“Sorry I keep my work and social life separate, I don’t date... colleagues.”
“Colleagues! Indeed...”
“Listen, we need to see Harlan right away.”
Here another Dr. Harlan’s assistant came out.
“Doctor Harlan is presently unavailable for consultations. We’re more than qualified to answer any...”
“There is no time for that, it’s a matter of life and death... that we see Harlan, now!”
“Life and death, ooh! Ooh, what... scary drama queen... theatrics. Yeah, the 411, sitch...”
Alex had to tell his word.
“You’re currently alive. Unless you take us to Harlan, you’ll be dead.”
Dr. Harlan’s assistants became at once very willingly to help.
“Okay, yeah... together if you want...”
“Yeah let’s go... together right now!”
At the edge of the parking lot, they reached a Winnebago. This was Dr. Donald Harlan’s home, office, and transportation. Alex knocked.
“Go away,” Harlan barked from inside. “Book signing’s not until 4:30, read the brochure!”
“Harlan,” Alex called, “it’s Alex Friedman.”
From inside, they heard grumbling. The door swung open to reveal a disheveled older man.
“Well hello, Dr. Alex Friedman,” he announced victoriously. “Quelle surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of the world’s greatest unemployed astrophysicist visiting my humble castle on wheels?”
“Please, Harlan. We have to speak with you immediately. It’s incredibly important.”
Harlan let them in, and they told him just enough so that he could help. They were careful not to reveal that Seth and Sara were aliens.
“So you’re saying the three of you ‘witnessed’ this reported UFO crash?” Harlan asked.
“That’s right,” Jack said.
Alex leaned forward. “We were wondering if there were any intel out there among your sources.”
“I don’t like liars,” Harlan told them. “I hate lying. I really don’t like lying. I can tell when people are lying to me.”
Jack, Alex, Seth, and Sara all grew tense. Had they been discovered?
“But thankfully,” Harlan continued, “your story matches up and checks out with all the reports out of... I got from SEDI and NORAD and NASA.”
“We have reason to believe a team of government sponsored... covert operatives recovered the space craft,” Seth said.
“Okay, back up a little, this is not space camp,” Harlan told, “Let the experts do their work.”
Harlan took a seat at one of his computers.
“You know, you’re very lucky you two kids, that you never came... face-to-face with the aliens who were in that craft,” Harlan told Seth and Sara over his shoulder. “They’re like deadly praying mantis’s. They’ll eat your flesh.”
Sara looked as if she were about to laugh. “Oh, oh yes, I guess we are indeed lucky kids not to have had our flesh eaten.” She paused.“... By the aliens.”
Harlan continued to type, unaware of the sarcasm. “You got that right.” He punched something on the keyboard, and a satellite picture of the crash scene opened on his computer screen.
“Okay let’s go to work here. I got an e-mail from a source that sent me this sat-grab,” he explained. “The spot’s already a blur on Google Earth. How soon after you called it in did the suits come after you?”
“Immediately,” Jack answered for them. “His name was Henry.”
“Burke,” Harlan said with a nod. “Interesting.”
Harlan typed in a quick search command, and another picture opened up on the screen. It was a grainy photo of Burke.
“Burke was a rising star in military intelligence, chief investigator in a UFO sighting near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana,” Harlan informed them. “Two weeks after he declared the sighting ‘unsubstantiated’ he retired to civilian life.”
“Where would they take the spaceship?” Alex asked. “51? Nellis? Wright-Patterson? Vandenberg?” Alex asked.
Harlan shook his head. “Well, from the size and scope of the crash and Henry Burke’s involvement, I would say there is really only one possibility.” He glanced at his two assistants who had been silent until now.
In unison they said:
“Witch Mountain!”
“Witch Mountain!..”
“Witch Mountain!..”
Jack gave Alex a confused look and she just shrugged. She’d never heard of it.
“What are we... a singing group here?” Harlan exclaimed. “Let me talk, and you guys nod!”
Assistants were sorry, “I apologize, I’m sorry.”
Harlan flipped through a stack of black-and-white photos and pulled out a fuzzy aerial picture.
“Witch Mountain, let’s take a look here we go California, about fifty miles across from the Nevada border,” Harlan told them as he handed the picture to Alex. She held it up for Jack and the others to see. “And it’s one of our... most top secret facilities.”
Harlan got up and started rifling through a messy pile of paperwork. If there was any organization to it, the others couldn’t tell.
“They got a schematic around here some place somewhere,” he continued. “But you know if you’re planning on and thinking about visiting, don’t. When I say it’s fortified up the yin-yang, I’m making an understatement. Here’s the schematic.”
Amazingly, Harlan was able to find exactly what he was looking for in the pile. He handed Alex a set of old blueprints stamped TOP SECRET.
“And, do you have the book?”
“Yes, I do,” Alex said.
“Alright then, here’s an aerial view.”
Amazingly, Harlan was able to find exactly what he was looking for in the pile. He handed Alex a set of old blueprints stamped TOP SECRET.
“Thank you, Harlan,” she said, meaning it. “For everything.”
“Whatever trouble you’re in,” Harlan warned them, “trust no one.”
Jack nodded and they started out the door.
“Freeze!” Harlan said, causing them all to stop in midstride.
They turned, unsure of what to expect. Harlan smiled and tossed Seth and Sara each a small pin with an alien face on it that read, DR. HARLAN FAN CLUB.
“Stay in school and keep your eyes on the sky,” he told them. “Remember aliens, they’ll—”
“Eat your flesh,” Seth finished. “How could we forget?”
As the four left to find Witch Mountain, Jack and Alex tried not to laugh.
“We’ll spread the word,” Seth promised him.
Chapter 14
With time running out, the four, set on going to Witch Mountain, raced back into the hotel. Despite the rush, Sara wanted to make sure to tell Jack and Alex something.
“Thank you, both of you,” she said. “Seth and I understand that you don’t have to go forward with us. And yet you choose to.”
“You’re welcome,” Alex said with a warm smile. She turned to Jack. “Bring your cab around. I’m gonna go grab my stuff, let’s meet upstairs... in the convention at my booth, in the lobby, then we get your cab.” Next she addressed the kids. “And don’t worry. We’re gonna get you home. I promise.”
Her confidence and enthusiasm helped them relax, and they nodded. Jack tried to talk her out of coming, but there was no way she would miss it – or leave the kids stranded.
“Alex... huh, listen... I can’t let you come with us.”
“What?!”
“If one-half of what Harlan says is true, it’s way too dangerous. They got in my cab, they’re my problem.”
“Um... no! I have spent my entire life preparing for this moment... and now when I have two actual aliens in need of my help, you want me to walk away? It’s not gonna happen. Man up, soldier, I’m in! Just lay low, ’till I get back and we meet up,” Alex instructed.
“Laying low,” Jack said with a nervous shrug. “Easy, how hard could that be?”
Alex rushed off to her room, and Jack turned to face the two kids, who were both smiling. He eyed them suspiciously.
“She thinks you are very handsome,” Sara told him. “And potentially much smarter than you think you are and act.”
“Really?” Jack said, suddenly smiling, too. After all, Sara wasn’t just a gossip. “So she was thinking about me huh?”
“At least as much as you were thinking about her.”
“So, she didn’t happen to mention in her thoughts that I was a—”
Jack wouldn’t have been smiling if he knew that Burke and his team had arrived and were entering the main lobby, greeted by a friendly concierge. “Hi! I’m Sunday! Welcome to Planet Hollywood. Are you gentlemen here for the UFO Space Expo?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” hissed Burke as his eyes started searching the crowd for aliens far more authentic than any of the convention-goers could ever have imagined in their wildest dreams.
“It’s showtime everybody! Space Echo No. 9 it’s upstairs come on!”
“Should we go upstairs now?” Seth asked.
“Yeah, yeah... let’s go upstairs. Hey, do you think she was thinkin’ about?...”
Meanwhile, Jack’s smile had faded when he noticed Seth and Sara had disappeared into the crowd.
“Seth! Sara! Seth!”
Frantically, he began searching the exhibit hall and was found by Frank and Marty. They hold him tight.
“Jack! Tried to warn you Jack. Mr. Wolf doesn’t take rejection well.”
“This is so not a good time.”
“You’re out of time Jack.”
However he was lucky to meet his two pervious passengers dressed like storm troopers from Star Wars . They were happy to see him again.
“Well well well, if it isn’t the rebel alliance cab driver scum! Not such a tough guy out of your ship are you, swamp rat? You’re in our house now!”
Troopers took attention of Frank and Marty, Jack kicked them out and ran away.
Siphon was here too. Visitors were amused by his appearance.
“Wow! Costume’s great man!”
Jack was looking for his kids. “Seth! Seth! Sara! Seth...”. He found them watching a play.
“I sure hope we have enough fuelage to get back to planet Earth comrade!” a women on the stage said.
“Fear not Celeste! We must get to the ship!” another actor led his part.
Here came the third actor dressed as a beast and started to grimace.
“My leg! Oh no!” a women on the stage fall down and cried.
“Look at that beast from another galaxy!” another actor led his part. “It’s so disgusting and scaly!”
“Didn’t I tell you two to stay by my side?” Jack said to kids.
“Is this a reenactment of a piece of Earth’s important history?” Sara asked, motioning to the play in progress.
Jack looked up and saw the poor quality sets and the bad alien costumes and just shook his head. “No, come on. This is nerdy.”
Seth gave him a look. “What is nerdy?”
“You know nerdy,” Jack said trying to think of a good description. “Like people who believe in all this alien stuff.”
Seth smiled. “Like you?”
Before he could answer, something caught Sara’s eye.
“Jack Bruno,” she said pointing to the other side of the stage.
It was the Siphon. He was stalking his way through the crowd, his robotlike armor blending in perfectly with the costumed characters.
“Impossible,” Jack said, shocked. How had that thing survived the explosion?
The Siphon climbed up on the stage to get a better look at the faces in the crowd. Everybody assumed he was just part of the play.
“Oh, no!” said one of the actors doing a bad job ad-libbing a script change on the spot. “It is the arrival of the space creature from planet Gitoffthestage! Thankfully my weapon can destroy him.”
The actor pulled out a phony light saber and posed like he was going to engage the Siphon in battle. The Siphon had no idea what was going on. He used one of his real lasers to slice the toy in half.
The actor was furious. “Dude, that’s not in the script. You are so fired.”
Just then, the Siphon spotted what he was looking for. He locked his deadly stare on Sara, Seth, and Jack and started shooting at them.
“Look out!” Jack screamed, diving for cover.
Sara used her telekinesis to move props from the play into the path of the oncoming blasts. Assuming this was all part of the show, the crowd cheered wildly as each prop exploded in midair.
Sara looked above the stage and spied a very large, very heavy-looking lighting grid hanging from the ceiling. Refocusing her energy, she broke some of the cables free, and the entire metal structure swung down and slammed into the Siphon.
When the metal in his armor came into contact with the wires in the grid, countless volts of electricity started coursing through the Siphon’s body. He was knocked off the stage and into a giant glass Planet Hollywood globe. Everything exploded in an amazing display of colored glass and sparking electricity. Then Burke with his agents holding guns and looking for their aliens also appeared at the stage.
“You’re down! Everybody, down! Stay down! Stay down! Stay down! Get down! You, down! Everybody, down! You with the blue hair, right there!”
“Best... convention... ever,” one of the observers shouted to his friend.
Meanwhile, Jack hurried Seth and Sara down the escalator and into the casino, where he noticed a group of black-suited government agents ahead of him. He turned the kids in a different direction and started snaking through a maze of slot machines. But there were agents in every direction! In the middle of the group was Burke, smiling triumphantly as he moved toward them.
Jack frantically looked for an escape route. Suddenly an idea came to him.
He turned to Sara. “Sara, you listening to what I’m thinking?”
Sara smiled and nodded, message received. She focused her concentration, and after a moment, all the slot machines in the huge casino hit the jackpot. Hundreds of bells and sirens went off. Lights flashed wildly. Money started pouring out of the machines.
A riot erupted as gamblers deliriously scooped up piles of money. In the pandemonium, Burke lost sight of Jack and the siblings.
In the lobby, Alex stepped off the elevator, totally unaware of what had been happening. She heard all the noise and turned to see the casino in chaos. From the middle of it all, Jack and the kids came sprinting toward her at full speed. Grabbing Alex by the arm, he pulled her along with them.
“What happened to laying low?” she asked, running to keep up with them.
“Who lays low in Vegas?” Jack asked rhetorically. “Let’s go!”
They hurried out of the casino.
By the time Burke and his men made it to the parking lot, they had no idea which way Jack and the others had headed. Burke was fuming.
As they raced to their SUVs, Burke saw something that changed his mood. It was Jack’s cab swerving through the traffic, chased by the Las Vegas police.
Within seconds, Burke’s SUV joined the pursuit and was quickly followed by the other SUVs.
The taxi jumped a curb and raced down an alley. As it hurtled toward the other end, the cab ricocheted off garbage cans and Dumpsters, tossing trash everywhere.
Just as the cab was about to make it out of the alley, another pair of SUVs arrived and blocked their escape. The taxi slammed on the brakes and came to a screeching halt.
Once the cars had all stopped, police officers leaped out, weapons drawn.
“We got them!” Burke announced, taking charge of the situation. He held up his arms and waved off the police as he approached the back of the taxi. “Our suspects, no one else interferes!”
“Our suspects!” he ordered.
The door to the taxi opened, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, three figures slowly stepped out into the alleyway.
Now Burke was raging mad.
There was no Jack, Seth, or Sara. It was Dr. Harlan and his two assistants.
Harlan smiled at the assembled group and gave Burke a wink.
“Greetings, Earthlings!”
Chapter 15
While Burke was busy with Harlan, Jack was driving Harlan’s Winnebago toward California.
From the passenger seat, Alex looked over her shoulder at Seth and Sara sleeping in the back, totally exhausted by their adventure. Even in his sleep, Seth clutched the experiment tightly. Sara was snuggled up with Junkyard. “I didn’t even imagine they’d actually look human, much less like kids,” Alex said. “They survived a crash, are chased by our military, hunted by an assassin, and have the weight of two planets’ survival on their shoulders. Unbelievable.”
Jack took a glance at them in the rearview mirror and smiled. “They’re lucky you joined us,” he said. “We’re lucky.”
Alex laughed. “Luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure science,” she claimed. “Chaos theory. The underlying order in apparently random data.”
“So, more like... fate?” Jack observed.
“Science,” she corrected. “Think about it. What are the odds that they would crash near Vegas during a UFO convention? I got in your cab. They got in your cab. And, now we’re all in Harlan’s mobile home loaded with his intel on where their ship is. That’s not luck. That’s a predetermined order of how things work in the universe.”
Jack laughed. “So I was always going to meet you?”
“In theory,” she said, a teasing note in her voice.
“And we were always going to help the kids get their spaceship out of the fortress?” he continued.
Alex nodded. “Science supports that logic.”
“Have you always been this positive?”
“I’ve always been a "searcher" for answers. Though my folks would say I was merely a day dreamer. How about you?”
“Me? I’m a... Much easier book to read. All my life my answers have been, yes or no. Zero gray areas.”
“Where’s the mustang fall? A yes or a no.”
“That’s not just any mustang. That’s a 1968 Ford Mustang GT390 Fastback. Steve McQueen’s car in Bullet. Never seen Bullet?”
“No. Dude...”
“It’s currently a no. But one day I’m gonna earn that car the honest way. And then it will be my yes.”
For a moment they shared a look that was sweet and a bit awkward. They came from very different worlds, but an amazing chain of events – whether luck or chaos theory – had brought them together.
“Jack?” Seth woke up.
“What’s up pal?”
“Are we there yet?”
“"Are we there yet...?" Good in any universe apparently. Well, Alex?”
“Yes...” she looked the map.
Hours later, they were within a few miles of Witch Mountain.
“Well, the maps are 30 years old but they’re the best intel we got,” Alex said. “Looks to be about 5 miles from here to the entrance.”
Jack pulled the Winnebago off onto the side of the road.
“This is how it’s going to go down,” he explained. “You three will stay here. I go check out the mountain. If I can find a way in, I take it and look for your ship. If I can’t, I come back and we take off. Understand?”
“Negative,” Seth protested. “Sara and I will be going with you. It is our mission. It is our ship.”
“Hold on,” Alex interrupted. “I’m the one with all the maps. So, I’m not staying back here alone.”
Sara looked Jack in the eye, once again reading his mind. She smiled. “It’s okay, Jack Bruno,” Sara said. “I know you are worried for our safety.”
“If you can read my mind, then you already know – we can’t win,” he said.
Sara nodded. “But we can try. If not, our parents will be dead.”
Jack took a deep breath. This was news to him.
“Without proof of their results,” Sara explained, “they were sentenced to death.”
“We have very little time left to get back home before our parents are executed,” Seth added.
Jack and Alex exchanged looks.
“The fate of our parents and our two worlds are locked away inside Witch Mountain. Please, Jack Bruno, help us,” Sara pleaded.
Jack looked at Alex. “Chaos theory, huh? Okay! Let’s rock and roll.”
Chapter 16
The terrain surrounding Witch Mountain made it difficult enough to reach, and the security made it practically impossible to enter.
They had to climb over rocky crags and through a fast-moving stream while evading surveillance cameras and a high-voltage fence.
Much to Jack’s amazement, they made it all the way to a bluff overlooking the entrance – a giant archway carved right into a granite cliff. Military vehicles passed in and out through the heavily guarded entrance. It looked like there was no way the four of them could go through it.
“That’s depressing,” Alex said, looking over the situation. “Now what?”
Jack tried to think of something. “I was hoping chaos theory would deliver us a big tank or a battleship,” he said.“Okay, new plan. We abandon the old plan.”
Sara looked at him glumly. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”
“I thought you could read minds,” Jack said.
“I can,” Sara said with a shrug. “I was just hoping I was wrong.”
“There’s gotta be another entrance,” Jack said.
Alex pulled out one of the schematics from her backpack. “If the map is right. According to Harlan’s intel there are several service tunnels spreading outward. Might be worth lookin’ for right?”
Jack considered this for a moment. It was certainly better than trying to bust through the heavily guarded entrance. “That’s what we call Plan B,” he said. “Let’s go.”
But just as they started off, Sara began to wobble.
“Jack,” she called out to him.
He rushed forward to keep her from falling. Her eyes were rolling backward and her eyelids were fluttering.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, coming up beside Jack.
Jack grabbed hold of Sara, and when he did, she turned to the side, revealing the plastic tip of a dart sticking out of her neck.
Alarmed, Jack spun around. “Seth!” he called out. But it was too late.
Seth grabbed at his neck as he, too, started to stagger. Jack laid Sara down and rushed over to catch Seth before he fell.
Suddenly, twenty special operations soldiers emerged from the surrounding woods, as if by magic. Their camouflage had been perfect. Seconds earlier, they had blended in perfectly with the foliage. Burke led the team, a triumphant smile on his face. His mission had finally been accomplished. “Mr. Bruno! And I believe Dr. Friedman.”
“What did you do to them?” Alex demanded, her face ashen.
Burke gave her a disdainful look. “Consider yourself lucky. I could have you both shot on sight for trespassing and violation of U.S. government property.”
Several soldiers approached carrying stretchers to take Seth and Sara away. Jack lunged to protect them, but another soldier took him out with two quick blows from the butt of his rifle. He fell to the ground. Jack tried to get up, but he was quickly knocked down again.
“Mr. Bruno,” Burke said unsympathetically. “I have to believe that you’re smart enough to know you can’t win.”
Jack looked over and watched as Seth and Sara were carried away. Even though they weren’t fully conscious, their eyes pleaded with him to help.
There was nothing Jack could do but watch as the two were loaded into a Humvee.
“Sir! With all do respect, you have to listen to me,” Alex pleaded. “They came in peace, we cannot respond with violence. The future of Earth depends on it. It’s absolutely vital that they get home!”
“They are home, Dr. Friedman,” Burke said smugly. “They’re now in my custody.”
“Custody? You can’t expect to keep them prisoner and get away with it? They have rights!”
“They’re illegal aliens on U.S. soil without so much as a passport. Patriot Act enables me to detain them for as long as is necessary.”
“You can’t keep this quiet. You can’t silence the truth,” she warned him. “The world has a right to know that they exist, of their existence.”
“And you’re going to be the one to blow the whistle, Doctor?” Burke asked with a laugh. “A failed astrophysicist... fired by three universities for obsessing over UFOs teams up with a lifelong ex-con... and declaring that the government has captured two normal-looking kids... and is holding them hostage inside a mountain... that doesn’t exist? It’d be so much easier to let you speak than to deal with all the paperwork with killing you,” Burke finished.
“Someone will believe us,” Jack said.
“From behind bars?” Burke asked. “Let me remind you, Mr. Bruno, as a convicted felon, you’re looking... at twenty years just for standing on this mountain talking to me. Shall I go on?”
Jack turned to look at Alex, totally ashamed of what Burke had revealed – and what he was about to say.
“No,” Jack assured him. “I get the message.”
Burke eyed him for a moment, content that he had solved this problem for good. “Smart man,” he said. “We’ll give you a lift down. So much easier than walking up. Give them a lift back now.”
Alex turned to give Jack a searching look. “Wait,” she pleaded. “That’s it. It’s over?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, watching as disappointment flooded Alex’s face. “I will not go back to prison.”
They were quietly loaded into a Humvee and escorted back down the mountain with a driver and armed guard.
“Thankfully, Sara and Seth didn’t have to witness how quickly you gave up,” Alex fumed, her arms crossed in front of her. “They trusted you. I trusted you.”
“I told them from the beginning it was a suicide mission. And I wasn’t wrong.” Jack had done what he could. Hadn’t he told them he wasn’t up for the job?
“They trusted you, I trusted you.”
“Well, join the club of everyone else in my life who I’ve disappointed,” he snapped.
The driver and guard shared a look as they listened in on the growing argument. The two in the back sounded like an old married couple.
“People dissect them like frogs in a high school biology class,” she told him. “You know that.”
“Whatever,” Jack answered. “It’s not my problem, and it never will—”
That was it. Alex reached over and slapped Jack across the face.
The guard turned around to look. As he did, Jack timed a perfect punch to the jaw, knocking him out cold.
Before the driver could figure out what was happening, Jack lunged toward the front seat and forced the man’s head into the window, shattering the glass in the process.
The driver lost consciousness, and the Humvee careened out of control. Jack quickly yanked the unconscious driver over the seat into the back, while Alex dived into the front and quickly grabbed the steering wheel. She managed to get control of the vehicle right before they would have slammed into a tree.
Once they came to a rest, Jack and Alex took deep breaths. Both driver and guard were out cold.
“When did you know?” Jack asked her, wondering how long it had taken her to figure out that he never intended to just give up.
“The minute they took your kids from you,” she said with a knowing smile. “You haven’t bailed on the kids yet, why start now?”
“The slap,” he said as he rubbed his sore cheek. “Very realistic by the way.”
“I’m very detail-oriented,” Alex said with a laugh.
Chapter 17
Henry Burke sat in an all-white observation room that overlooked a high-tech laboratory. Seth and Sara were unconscious and connected to a series of wires and tubes in the lab. They were being examined by Matheson and Pope, each dressed in full medical gear.
“How soon until the subjects are prepped?” Burke asked, speaking into a microphone.
“They’re heavily sedated,” Matheson answered. “Minimal med tests proceeding within forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
Burke couldn’t wait. “Unacceptable. Commence the procedures.”
“We don’t know enough about their systems,” Matheson reminded him. “Any sudden change could terminate the subjects.”
“You can’t just kill them,” Pope interjected.
“Mr. Pope, you’d do well not to forget what our mission is,” Burke said. “Our orders come from Washington. And Washington wants answers to some very complex questions. Our goal is to provide those answers. Now, if you... are doubting your ability...”
Pope knew that it was useless to argue. He just nodded. “No. Sir.”
“Very good, then,” Burke said. “Commence the tests, Mr. Matheson.”
“Right away sir, initiating tests.”
* * *
Using one of Harlan’s old maps, Jack and Alex were able to find the entrance to an abandoned service tunnel hidden beneath some scrub brush.
“After you,” Jack said.
“I’m right behind you.”
“Thanks.”
They moved forward on their hands and knees until their way was blocked by a grate.
“Back up!,” Jack said.
“What?”
“Move back a second.”
Jack grunted and strained trying to push it open, but he couldn’t budge it.
“For the record,” Alex said, “I get very claustrophobic in tight places.”
“Perfect,” Jack thought as he maneuvered his body around so that he could give the grate a couple of quick kicks. On the third try it finally popped off and fell down and out of sight. Jack kept waiting for the sound of the metal clanging against something, but there was no sound at all. The grate just kept falling. Jack took a deep breath before he looked over the edge and down into what appeared to be a bottomless pit.
“How are you with heights?” he asked, trying to force a smile.
The drop was at least two thousand feet. Jack was able to dangle over the edge and get his feet onto the rungs of a service ladder that was attached to the wall.
He signaled for Alex to follow. Slowly and very carefully she inched her way onto the ladder. Everything was okay until she looked down. Then she froze, too scared to speak or move.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Jack told her. “I’m gonna be here the whole time. Be right below you the whole time.”
“I... can’t... ” she stuttered. “You have to go without me.”
“No way,” Jack insisted. “I’m on this ladder. You’re on this ladder. This ladder leads us to Sara and Seth. Chaos theory, right?”
Alex gulped. “No theory,” she said. “Just a lot of chaos.” Still, his tone reassured her. Feeling a bit safer, she began to move.
“I can,” Alex said.
“You can.”
“Here I go. Oh, boy.”
“That’s it. Right here... You got it... Here we go.”
As they climbed down, they discovered service tunnels every hundred feet or so. Jack wasn’t sure which one he was looking for, but he hoped he would know it when he saw it.
Just then there was a loud and ominous grumble from deep below them.
“What’s that? Earthquake?” Jack asked.
“Doubt it,” said Alex. “The mountain was picked for its lack of seismic activity.” At least, that was what Harlan’s documents had said.
There was another, larger rumble that made the ladder shake. They had to hang on for dear life until Alex suddenly remembered something from one of the schematics.
“Oh, no, Jack,” she yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Jack looked down and saw a fiery red glow coming up toward them.
“Exhaust furnace!” she shouted.
“This way. Come here. There's another tunnel right here. Hurry!”
They hurried down to the next service tunnel as the fire rose. Jack ripped the grate off the entrance, and in one quick move he grabbed Alex and swung them both into the tunnel – just as the fireball shot past. The force of the explosion knocked them farther into the tunnel, which was slanted downward like a gigantic playground slide.
The two slid and tumbled until, finally, Jack slammed into the bottom of the tunnel with a painful thud. A few seconds later, Alex landed on top of him.
“You OK?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. OK. Let’s go.”
When they crawled out of the tunnel, they were amazed by what they saw.
They were in the heart of Witch Mountain.
“What now?” Ales asked.
“Find the kids, don’t get caught.”
“Good plan.”
Chapter 18
At his all-white observation room that overlooked a high-tech laboratory Henry Burke got the call from Washington.
“We’re very close to determining the source of their powers... Yes, containment is at a hundred per cent... We’ve recovered the two targets and their spacecraft... I understand... Thank you, sir. And thank you for sticking by me and the project. I know it’s taken a long time to get here, but we both agree it’s been worth our previous failures.”
“All vitals appear to be stabilized,” Matheson reported.
Burke was waiting. But before they could begin, there was an eruption of sirens and alarms. From outside came the sounds of an explosion.
A panicked voice called in over the intercom. “Attention, all personnel. South perimeter is now closed off. South perimeter, closed off. Stand by, all departments, for re-check of radiation. All stations, general alert. Whiskey 7, we have penetration in fence sector 28. Break. Tango 31.”
Something very bad was happening.
“Bruno,” Burke said.
Burke and his team rushed out of the laboratory to find soldiers armed and charging toward the entrance of the mountain.
“DeadIy force authorized. Project Moon Dust troops, meet me in Sector 2. Red alert, security breach! Red alert, security breach! Red alert! This facility’s on red alert!”
Burke looked at a monitor that showed a video of the outside. His eyes opened wide when he saw the enemy. The thing attacking his men was unlike anything he’d ever seen.
It was the Siphon.
“Bravo Team, follow me!”
“Attention! Attention!”
“Go, go, go! Move! Incoming!”
“Fall back! Fall back! Get those men out of there!”
“Sir, this area has been compromised.”
“Make sure the blast door is sealed,” Burke ordered.
“Seal it off!”
“We got an Alpha Level 1 breach in the main hall brooks! All units respond. Isolate it, lock down and secure your sector now. Lost communication with sector 5. We’re under attack. Repeat, all levels have been compromised. We’re under attack. Sir! Sir! What is that?”
“No idea,” Burke answered.
“It’s cuttin’ down our troops. Driving a path straight to us.”
“Head for the lab, let’s go!” Burke ordered.
“Move.”
As the battle raged near the mountain’s entrance, Jack and Alex were able to slip into the laboratory unnoticed. Well, relatively unnoticed. They had to get by a few lab technicians first.
“Hi. Can I borrow that pen?”
With a few well-aimed punches, they got past the workers and put on new outfits.
“I have three older brothers,” Alex explained her excellent karate skills.
Wearing bio-suits, they rushed into the lab where Seth and Sara were being held.
“Come on,” Jack pleaded as he tried to loosen their shackles. “Wake up!”
Alex read the label on the tank that fed into the tubes running to Seth and Sara.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“It’s some kind of anesthetic,” she said.
“Fix it?”
“I don’t know but I can try. Locks are too strong.”
She quickly unscrewed the tubes from the tank and attached them to an oxygen supply.
“Oxygen? Gotta hurry, gotta hurry! Can’t get em open.”
The oxygen started to revive Seth and Sara. Suddenly Sara’s shackles popped open. Jack looked over and saw her waking up. He turned to Seth, who was still woozy but strong enough to phase his wrists and ankles through his shackles.
“Seth! Seth, it’s okay.”
“It’s okay.”
“Jack, you came back for us!” Sara exclaimed.
Jack didn’t speak. He just gave them both a big hug. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”
Now that they were free, they needed to find their ship. The compass and their parents’ experiment were sitting on a nearby examination table. They each grabbed one and Seth turned on the homing mechanism in the compass.
“It’s this way,” Seth said, pointing to a nearby exit. They rushed out of the lab and down the hallway until they reached a giant hangar. Inside was their ship.
“We have to hurry,” Sara told them.
“Tell them that,” Jack said, pointing at the dozens of engineers who were working on the ship. “Maybe they’ll just let us walk on out of here with it.”
Alex thought about that for a moment and smiled. “Good idea.”
Jack had no idea what she meant, but before he could stop her, she grabbed a lab coat and put it on. Then she walked straight into the hangar.
“Excuse me?!” she exclaimed when she reached the group of engineers. “Do you not hear the alarms?”
The engineers looked back and forth among one another, confused.
“All work in this sector is to cease immediately,” Alex continued. “We’ve got off-the-charts readings of sodium hypochlorite, xenon, hydrazine, and you don’t even want to know how bad the gamma radiation is. You’re going to have to do some serious and I mean serious scrubbing down.”
“Who are you?” asked one of the engineers.
“Who... who am I? Who am I?! I’ll tell you who I am. Your worst nightmare at a court martial,” Alex answered. “Now you can do as you’re told, or I can go... tell Henry Burke you disobeyed his direct orders! Your call. Choose wisely.”
The mention of Burke’s name did the trick. The engineers raced out of the hangar. On their way they met Burke and were happy to report him.
“Sir, I am pleased to inform you... all personnel have evacuated the ship’s hangar.”
“What’re you talking about? Under whose authority?”
“Yours. Sir?..”
“Get outta my way.”
Once engineers were gone, Jack, Seth, and Sara came to stand beside her.
“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Jack said with a laugh.
“Me neither,” Alex answered.
Seth and Sara examined the spaceship. It had been damaged during their crash landing. Using her telekinesis, Sara made the ship fix itself. Alex watched in stunned amazement while Jack kept an eye on the door in case anyone returned.
It only took a few minutes to get the ship fully repaired. Once it was ready, the air-lock door slid open so they could all get on. They were almost in the clear... ..
“Thank you,” a voice called out from above. “We were having a hard time figuring that part out.”
They looked up to see Burke on the upper level. Even with the battle raging outside, he was flanked by a group of soldiers, each with his gun aimed at them.
Jack instinctively moved forward and stood directly in front of the others.
“A brave but empty gesture, Mr. Bruno,” Burke said.
“They’re just kids,” Jack called to him.
As they looked up at the soldiers, Seth grabbed Alex and Jack by the hand and Sara grabbed Jack’s other hand. The four of them stood there defiant and united. Burke couldn’t help but think they looked like a family.
Just then, an explosion caused by the approaching Siphon rocked the hangar. In the confusion, the soldiers began to fire at the foursome. But the bullets phased right through them. Seth had transferred his powers through their chain of hands.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
Burke and the soldiers were stunned. They couldn’t figure out what was happening.
But they didn’t have time to try. There was another explosion, and one of the hangar walls erupted into fire. They all watched as the Siphon stepped through the flames.
The soldiers instantly turned their guns toward the Siphon.
“Go! Go! Go!” Jack shouted to the others, using the assassin’s arrival to their advantage. They rushed up to the entrance and through the air lock.
“Stop them!” Burke yelled. “All of them!”
Now the soldiers were firing in every direction, some at the Siphon and others at the ship.
“Go go run run run! Get after them! Alpha break left, Bravo on me!”
Burk’s intern didn’t have a gun yet. “Dude, I could really use a gun right now.” He was granted a big gun. “Oh thank you, this is a really big gun,” but all he was able to do just to hide from Siphon’s fire.
“Cool. We’ve got to get this thing up in the air, let’s go!” Jack exclaimed once they were all safely on board. Seth and Sara grabbed the controls. The air lock hissed shut, thrusters fired up, and the ship slowly came to life.
“Activating shields!” Sara said.
“Powers at 25% and increasing,” Seth said.
“You do know how to fly this thing, right?” Jack asked
“How do you think we got here?”
“Well, you crashed, remember?”
“How do we get out of here?” Sara asked when the ship was floating.
“There!” Jack answered, pointing toward the gaping hole the Siphon had just made in the hangar wall.
“No, no no no!” Birke cried. “Lock down the mountain. Just shut it down!”
Seth and Sara pointed the spaceship toward the hole. But standing in their way was the Siphon, determined to complete his mission. He raised his weapon and began firing right at the ship.
“Siphon! Hold on! Got him!”
Seth and Sara shared a quick look and then flew the spacecraft right into the Siphon – and through the hole to safety.
“Follow the tunnels. There you go!”
“Gates closing in ten, nine, eight—”
“Watch out!”
“ – seven, six—”
“The door!”
“ – five, four—”
“Go! Go!”
“ – three, two, one.”
“The door!”
“Wow!..”
Chapter 19
The spaceship shot high into the night sky and clear of Witch Mountain. Inside the cockpit, the four started cheering. Jack and Alex exchanged high fives while the kids manned the controls.
“You did it,” Jack proudly exclaimed.
“We did it,” Sara corrected. “We did it!”
But then the ship jolted from side to side.
“What was that?”
Seth looked down at the control panel.
“Air lock’s jammed,” he said. “I need to... manually override the system.”
Jack didn’t let him finish. Seth needed to fly the ship. He could take care of the air lock.
“You two fly, just tell me what to do.”
Climbing down into the lower level, he heard the hiss of the open air lock. Jack shut it and turned to go, but just then an arm reached out and grabbed him by the throat. In the reflection of the shiny metal door he could see the Siphon’s face.
Jack broke free and the two fell to the floor. He saw that the Siphon’s weapon arm had been completely destroyed. His other arm, though, was ready to fight. The Siphon slammed into Jack, and the two started to trade punches, jolting the spaceship as they did.
Up in the cockpit, Seth turned to Alex. Jack was taking too long. Something must be wrong. “Alex! It takes two to pilot the ship,” he told her. “I need you to take the controls.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “Are you insane?”
There was no time to argue. Seth bolted, and Alex nervously took his seat.
“I’m sure it’s like flying a plane,” Sara offered, trying to sound encouraging.
“Yeah,” Alex shot back. “I don’t do that, either.”
Down below, Jack was barely holding his own against the Siphon when Seth arrived.
“Hey!” Seth yelled, distracting the assassin.
The Siphon turned to Seth. With one of his targets in sight, he ignored Jack and started to attack Seth. He threw a powerful punch, but it phased right through the boy.
This bought Jack just enough time to jump on the Siphon from behind. He grabbed him in a choke hold and pulled with all his might, yanking the Siphon’s helmet off and revealing a hideously scary head.
“No wonder you’re so angry,” Jack said, moving away from the ugly creature. “You look better with the mask on!”
The Siphon charged him, but Jack dodged the punches. With no helmet in the way, he was able to land a couple of punches directly on the Siphon’s head.
Knocking the assassin to the floor, Jack accidentally opened the air-lock door. The sudden change in pressure caused the ship to lurch.
The Siphon tried to lunge at Seth, but Jack whacked him across the face with the assassin’s own helmet. The movement caused him and the Siphon to fly out the door. Jack clung to the edge of the ship, while the Siphon clutched Jack. If they fell, it would be into the ship’s propulsion vortex and they would be killed instantly.
Jack held on to the ship with all of his strength and smiled.
“This ride’s on me!” he said as he succeeded in knocking the Siphon loose. With an unearthly cry, the assassin fell directly into the swirling vortex. They were safe.
Standing on the ground next to the spaceship, Seth and Sara said their good-byes to Jack and Alex.
“Thankfully, the ship has only suffered minor damage,” Seth explained. “We should be able to lock onto our planet’s coordinates and return safely.”
Seth and Sara exchanged a look. When she read his mind she smiled and gave him a nod.
“You both must hurry. It’s only a matter of time before they get here.”
“Don’t worry about us.”
“Sara and I want you to have this,” Seth said.
Seth reached into his pocket and pulled out his prized compass and handed it to Jack. Jack took a deep breath.
“As long as it is in your possession,” Sara explained, “we will always be able to find you.”
“Thanks,” Jack said, choking up despite his best efforts.
“Your parents would be very proud of what you’ve done here,” Alex said and huged them.
“Thank you, Alex,” Sara said.
“I want to apologize to you, Jack Bruno,” Seth added. “I once said we could never count on humans to help us. Especially you. I was wrong. And for that I’m sorry.”
Jack went to offer him his hand and thought better of it. He pulled him in for a hug. “You take care of yourself and your sister too for me,” Jack instructed him. “Do you understand.”
“Yes,” Seth answered. “This I completely understand.”
“Jack...” Sara ran and hugged him.
“You guys remember that, me and Alex... we’re only a... a wormhole away!”
Then it was Sara’s turn. She asked them to take care of Junkyard – and each other.
“Alright, okay, I want you to promise me something. Take care of Junkyard for me.”
“Anything you want.”
“It’s time,” Seth said.
“You’re a good man Jack,” Jack started to read Sara’s mind.
Jack started to say something. But Sara was able to read his mind and said it for him.
“I know,” she answered. “We love you, too.”
* * *
Meanwhile Burke got another call from Washington.
“Yes, he’s here. Sir, its Washington, they have some questions for you.”
“Sir...” Burke said.
Epilogue
One year later, Jack and Alex returned to the UFO convention, only this time they were the stars. A packed audience hung on their every word as they finished their lecture.
They were talking about their best-selling book Race to Witch Mountain: A True Story. Pictures on the wall highlighted the amazing year they had just gone through. There were pictures of magazine covers, talk-show interviews, and international lectures, all featuring Jack and Alex.
“If everything that you wrote about in your book is true, why risk coming out in the public at all? Why haven’t you been arrested yet, or worse?” they were asked a question.
“We decided right away, that the more public we went with the story... than the less likely we were to... disappear. And so far clearly, we’ve been right. This information should not be in the hands of a secret cabal of men working deep within the dark corridors of the government,” Alex said, wrapping up her speech. “But should be accessible to the public who have a right to know. Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you.”
The audience erupted into cheers and applause. Jack and Alex shared a smile and waded through the crowd to the exit.
“Technically I planned the whole mission,” Dr Harlan told a young woman who accepted his acknolegdement with adorable smile.
Along the way Alex and Sara posed for pictures and autographed copies of their book.
Finally, as they waited for the valet to bring their car, another hand reached up with a copy of the book to be signed.
“Who do I make it out to?” Jack asked.
“Henry Burke,” said the voice.
Jack and Alex both looked up, surprised to see the smiling face of their former enemy.
“Was quite a show you put on back there, Jack,” Burke continued. “Very theatrical. And who knew you could have cleaned up so nicely.”
“Don’t let the suit fool you,” Jack said confidently. “Same old Jack.”
“Dr. Freedman, always a pleasure,” Burke said to Alex.
“Han, nice to see you out of your cave,” Alex responded with polite smile.
“I’ve enjoyed the book. Very interesting read. I especially liked chapter twelve. Wonderfully descriptive.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Jack said confidently. “Oh well, then you’re really gonna love our next book even more and better. Believe me, we’re just getting started. Which Mountain is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“I very much look forward to that,” Burke said with an eerie smile. “I’ll see you both real soon. I understand you’ll both be in London in three weeks. The Dorchester is a lovely hotel and I concur that the Ambassador suite on the sixth floor is very private.”
“You might want to improve your intel,” Jack responded. “The Dorchester reservations were canceled four days ago. I’ll tell you what. We’ll be sure to send you a postcard after you ship off to your new assignment, project High Jump. Is it? You should dress warm, Henric. Antarctica is cold this time of year.”
Henry slowly move away but was called by Jack.
“Oh Henry, you forgot your book,” and Burke caught his copy of the book back.
Alex smiled him nicely to farewell, “Henry...”
Burke opened the title page and read, “Dedicated to Henry Burke. To Henry. The Race is on! Jack.”
Just then the valet arrived with their car. No longer driving a taxi, Jack hopped in behind the wheel of his dream car, a vintage Ford Mustang.
Alex got into the passenger seat; Junkyard was close behind. Suddenly, beeping started coming from Alex’s purse. It was the compass. The light was flashing. Seth and Sara were on their way for a visit.
Jack and Alex looked deep into each other’s eyes and smiled. They knew what that meant – more adventure was yet to come. And if they had learned anything, it was that the adventure was sure to be out of this world!
2009
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