Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers (7 page)

“Yes.” Grace gave up on avoiding the discolored areas and her
hand brushed his cheek.

Drifting off again Adamarus said, “Good… good… don’t want you
mad…”

Grace continued to brush his cheek as Adamarus looked at her
with his one good eye half closed. At that moment she saw it and confusion
clouded her face. Adamarus noticed her puzzlement and with a slight tilt of his
head asked, “What?”

She replied with wonder in her voice, “You look like a young
man again.”

Thinking it was some kind of joke, a very tired laugh burst
from Adamarus. “Well,” he whispered, “I sure don’t feel like it,” and his eye
closed.

The group left Adamarus sleeping in his room and emerged into
the hallway with questions, questions that suddenly seemed anticipated as a
doctor approached them. “Mrs. Maximus?” She nodded. “I’m Doctor Kallen, your
husband’s primary physician.” Grace held out her hand and he took it and shook
it once. “May I… ah… verify something with you?” Grace released his hand and
stared at him. “How old is your husband?”

---

 The door was closed, blinds were shut and they sat around a
large mahogany table. It was just Dr. Kallen, Leewood and Harrington. All of
them were looking down at various test results spread out on the table.

Dr. Kallen was saying, “… so after you classified the test
results, I had Adamarus’ name removed and replaced by a number,” he pointed
this out on several of the forms, “so the people conducting the tests would not
know who was being tested.”

“Excellent,” Leewood said. “What have you found?”

“Most results were normal or expected given the patient’s
condition. But what is extraordinary is, by our best estimate, the patient is twenty-two
years younger than he was just a week ago.” Both Leewood and Harrington looked
up at Kallen speechless. Kallen ruffled through the stack of reports and pulled
out several. “However,” Dr. Kallen shook his head as he shuffled through the
sheets reviewing the data again, “what’s even more astounding is this.” He laid
the test results on the table before Leewood and Harrington. Both glanced at
them, but since neither could understand what they were looking at, they looked
back at Kallen.

“First, Adamarus’ immune system has been boosted – actually
super charged is a better description. I doubt he’ll ever get sick again. I
wish we knew how to do this.” He let that settle in then continued, “However,
the most astounding part was the report from the Molecular Biology Clinic – it
seems that Adamarus is no longer aging!”

---

As the sun set on the third day since the alien ship had
landed, Adamarus woke up starving. The alien green gel-pack covering half his
head had turned gray around the edges. Seeing this, the nurse called Dr. Kallen
immediately.

“How are you feeling?”

“Very hungry. Other than that, I actually feel great.”

“Well,” Dr. Kallen said, “For a fifty-two year old man who’s
been through what you have, you’re looking pretty good.”

Adamarus detected something in the doctor’s tone but ignored
it as his wife came in behind the doctor and smiled at him. But he saw
something in her eyes he could not ignore. He looked back at the doctor, “Okay,
what’s going on that I don’t know.”

In reply, the doctor went to the metal end table beside the
bed, opened a drawer, took out a large round mirror and handed it to Adamarus.
Adamarus took this the wrong way and didn’t immediately look in it. First he
looked at his wife – she looked nervous – then back at the doctor, “So that bit
about me looking good was… what? A joke?” The doctor just gestured toward the
mirror. Adamarus steeled himself and looked. He had expected anything but what
he saw. He actually jumped and fumbled the mirror. In it, it seemed to Adamarus
that a teenager looked back at him. “What the hell? What have you done to me?”

“Not us, the aliens. Frankly, we don’t know how you can be
alive, let alone…” he motioned towards Adamarus’ face. “Actually we were hoping
you might know something. Do you remember anything?”

Adamarus had a blurred memory of hills… one seemed to be
moving towards him and then there was a terrible noise, so loud, impossibly
loud. He looked up at the doctor, “I had a strange dream, but no, it’s all a
blank. Is this…” Adamarus pointed at his face, “permanent?”

“Do you mean are you going to look your age again? Adamarus,
we don’t know anything for sure. Hopefully, we can ask
them
and get some
answers. However, from everything we can see, it looks like the answer is that
it’s permanent. In every way we can tell, except for your memories, you’re a
young man of about thirty again.”

Adamarus stared off into the distance. “Thirty,” he
whispered.

The nurse wheeled a tray in with Adamarus’ dinner. As she
positioned the tray and raised the bed, the doctor said they’d talk later and
left Adamarus staring numbly off into the distance. After a minute he looked at
Grace and slowly shook his head.

Grace said, “Eat your dinner, honey.”

Adamarus, remembering his hunger, dug into his dinner with a
passion. As he stuffed the first large fork full into this mouth, he noticed
his son standing beside his wife. “Nero!” he shouted, food almost falling out
of his mouth. Nero ran to him and got a messy hug and kiss.

Grace followed behind, “Adamarus! That’s disgusting!” Both
father and son looked guilty for a second, then Adamarus shoved more food in
his mouth and they all started laughing.

But then Nero said, “Daddy, you look different.”

The laughter died briefly before the parents picked it back
up for the child’s benefit. Grace said, “Daddy has gotten a lot of rest in
here, that’s all it is.”

“And good food” said Adamarus raising his fork.

Nero looked back and forth between his dad and his mom then
said, “Can mommy come here and get some rest too?”

---

By the end of the fourth day, the special team had set up a
temporary base of operations just outside the force field using three high tech
vans that had arrived at the airport earlier that day. These had all the latest
gear, computers and communications equipment. This had been De Bella’s doing
and it had scored points with everyone. This had been sorely needed for none of
the team had been happy with the announcement that they’d be reporting to the
congressman. The state of the art vans had served to boost the spirits of the
team.

All of their ear drums had been perforated by the blaring
message from the ship and all six members still wore white bandages around
their heads. They were half deaf, had to holler at each other to be heard and
felt foolish as hell. On top of all this, their two half-hour talks with
Captain Maximus had only revealed that he knew next to nothing about the
aliens.

The team had split up, Harrington and one of the agents had
gone back to the hospital to talk to Adamarus again while Leewood and the other
three agents had stayed with the vans to watch the ship and allow Leewood to
update De Bella.

They had not told Adamarus that the aliens were insisting on
talking only to him as De Bella had decided that this was absolutely
unacceptable. He was determined to cut Adamarus out of the picture.

Later the team had regrouped and for several hours inspected
the blockades around the city that the police and the national guard had set up
to keep out the thousands of people intelligence reported were on the way there
”to greet the aliens.” Thereafter, they returned to the ship and, on orders
from De Bella, had used a bull horn and tried unsuccessfully for over an hour
to start up some kind of dialog with the ship.

Now they sat around drinking coffee and eating donuts under a
large canopy that had been erected. They had been going all day and all night
and it was cold and threatening to snow. The police securing the immediate area
had settled into patrols and the special team was left by themselves. They all
needed showers and sleep but were just too tired to deal with it.

They decided each would keep watch for two-hour shifts while
the others got some sleep. The vans had heaters and cots that were actually
quite comfortable. Harrington volunteered for the first watch; Leewood took the
second.

The five men taking the first four-hour sleep period moved to
the vans. Leewood had just laid down when the side door slid open. It was
Harrington. “Something’s going on.” All five piled back out of the vans.

“This had better be good,” one of agents said with a yawn.

The ship had landed backed up against a steep hill. In front
there was about 500 feet of flat ground between the ship and the force field. Before
this area had been nothing but dirt and weeds. Now a large circle, perhaps 300 feet
in diameter, had appeared on the ground. Using binoculars they determined that
the circle was formed by a flat area with no weeds that rose up about four
inches from the surrounding dirt and weeds.

---

 “Good morning Adamarus. How are we feeling today?” Dr.
Kallen said as he briskly walked into the room. It was the next day. He went to
the window and opened the blinds, letting in the bland light of the cold and
cloudy day.

Adamarus had a scowl on his face, “’We’ are feeling great. Like
a kid.”

Dr. Kallen sat on the edge of the bed, “But not in a very
good mood.” The doctor reached over and inspected Adamarus’ ears – each had a
small hearing aid inserted. He removed the right one and inspected the inner
ear.

“I’m fifty-two years old, not… not this.”

Kallen paused and sighed, “Most people would be ecstatic over
finding themselves twenty years younger.”

“I’ve got a fifty year old wife whom I love very much. We’re
supposed to be growing old together. Does that make sense?”

Dr. Kallen removed the other hearing aid, inspected that ear,
then replaced one of the hearing aids and smiled. “Well, she might like the,
ah… extra energy you’ll have now?”

Adamarus forced a smile, “You think?”

“Your ears were badly damaged and I’m afraid they are not
healing as well as expected with these hearing aids in them. I want to remove
them, at least for a few days, and see if that helps. We’ll pack your ears with
a gel and we’ll have to bandage them. You won’t be hearing very well for a few
days.”

Adamarus just nodded then said, “I need to talk to my saviors
about my age.”

---

By noon snow had started falling.  The special team had all
gone to the hotel in shifts to shower and change clothes. Leewood and
Harrington had taken the first watch on site. Sitting in patio chairs under the
tarp, they sipped coffee and watched as the 300-foot circle continued to rise
up from the ground. Infrared images had confirmed that the structure had a
higher temperature than the ground around it. Now, it was obvious. The snow was
not collecting on the raised area, it was melting and forming puddles. Steam
rose up, making the circle easier to see. The growth moved so slowly that you
couldn’t really see it rising, but they estimated that it was coming up about
two inches an hour. It was just growing out of the ground. It was very spooky. They
had concluded that some sort of nanotechnology was being used. Now instead of a
completely flat circle, its center had stopped rising and only about two feet
on the circumference continued to rise up: walls, someone had guessed correctly.
The aliens were definitely building something.

They sat huddled in their wet gear with their thoughts,
neither one speaking—both just waiting for the shift to change so they could go
to their rooms, call room service, shower, change the bandages on their ears, get
some sleep and change clothes.

---

It happened at the end of the fourth day. In the middle of
the night, a reporter dressed like a doctor managed to slip past security and
sneak into Adamarus’ room. Adamarus stared at him as he took out a small video
recorder and, pointing it at him asked, “Hey, what can you tell us about the
aliens?”

Adamarus couldn’t hear a word but got the gist reading the
reporters lips. He pointed at the bandages wrapped around his head and shrugged,
“I hear they’re loud.”

Suddenly the door burst open and the reporter was grabbed
from behind by several security officers. They grabbed his video recorder and
wrestled him out of the room. The security officer who seemed to have the
highest rank lingered behind and apologized to Adamarus, but Adamarus just
waved it off indicating that it was not a problem.

The next morning the five-inch headlines read, “The Loud Have
Landed!”

---

The arrival of the aliens caused a worldwide uproar the likes
of which the planet had never seen. There were riots, marches, rallies,
demonstrations, strikes and many suicides. Across the planet crowds filled the
streets singing songs, waving banners, making speeches and chanting prayers. It
seemed like every point of view was suddenly dialed all the way up on the
intensity level. Even those who would normally have stayed home—the silent
majority and those who had no point of view one way or the other on the
aliens—came out of their homes in a fury to protest the way the rest of the
world was reacting.

The news coverage was continual which only fanned the fires. Books
were in the making, interviews aired and several movies were in the works. Around
the world all manner of hype, craziness and mayhem exploded over the weeks that
followed the alien landing and it all surged in one direction: towards the
alien ship in the city of Hillcrest.

 Law enforcement, civil defense and the government moved just
in time. Spearheaded by the team the President had assembled, the town was
sealed off within a week of the landing. A trench was actually dug partially
around town to help hold off the surge of people wanting to see the ship.

Chapter Five – Best Laid Plans

 “If you believe that doing nothing is a valid
course of action, then and only then is it possible to say that there is always
an answer.”

Dimerities (ancient Amular
philosopher 924-1008)

Source: The Archive

Two and a half months later…

Youth and immortality!
De Bella thought. He was in the capital alone in his office. He leaned back in
his chair and rubbed his eyes. So far only ten people knew about the miracle
the Loud had performed on Adamarus. If the news got out the masses would go
crazy. He had to contain it, control it. “Youth and immortality,” he said
softly into the empty office. More than anything else, he wanted it… wanted it
for himself.

His com unit buzzed and he looked at it. He knew who it was
and he knew what he was going to be told. For almost three months he had had
Leewood try everything to open a dialog with the Loud with zero success. The
damn ship just sat there completely unresponsive. He looked at the com unit
with a resigned expression as it buzzed again. They were going to be forced
into letting Adamarus open talks with the Loud and then later they’d somehow
replace him. Again his com buzzed. Finally he answered it, “De Bella here.”

On the other end Leewood said, “No response, sir.”

“I see.” The congressman’s eyes drifted to the window. It
looked across a park to the capital building. Three days of snow had created a
winter wonderland but De Bella took no notice.

“What do you want to try next?” Leewood asked.

De Bella sighed, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Leewood asked.

“I can’t think of anything else to try, can you?”

“No.”

“Well…we’ll need to go ahead and let Adamarus communicate
with them…at first anyway. You’re authorized to tell Adamarus about all the
messages we’ve received from them.” Leewood said, “Okay,” and the congressman
hung up.

---

 Many had heard Adamarus recount his strange dream which he
only partially remembered: his wife and son, his friend Radin, and also many nurses
and doctors. All this had filtered up to others who had come and questioned him
about it. Eventually, someone decided that this might be much more than a dream
and so Dr. Kallen came to him one day with many different experts: a hypnotist,
interrogators, sketch artists and a computer graphics expert—all with security
clearance to know about Adamarus. They told Adamarus that they wanted to place
him under deep hypnosis in order to get all the details his mind retained of
this dream. And they told him what they thought the dream might really be.

 Upon hearing their suspicions, Adamarus realized that he too
had suspected the same so he agreed, but with one condition—that they bring
those memories back to his conscious mind. The doctors countered with a
compromise: they would allow him to access all that they learned from him under
hypnosis, and then, if they thought it would be wise to give him back those
memories, they would put him under again and it would be done. He agreed and
they went to work at once.

He went under easily and they took him to the deepest levels.
Slowly they took him back in time. And when they reached it, they knew at once
that they had been right. From his subconscious mind, Adamarus recounted
everything in great detail. They got it all—from exactly what the Loud looked
like, to how they moved and sounded. They got details about the inside of the
ship and what various machines had looked like. Even if Adamarus had
consciously remembered everything with complete clarity, they got details he didn’t
realize he had.

“Adamarus, what was behind the moving hills?”

“Dark arches that stretched up as far as you could see.”

“What else?”

“That’s all.”

“Think of those arches, Adamarus. Think about how they looked
at the lowest level you see.”

“Okay.”

“What do you see?”

“Dark arches.”

“Good. And what do you see inside those arches, Adamarus?”

“Another large room…one that lies beyond the arches.”

“Good. And what do you see in that room beyond the arches?”

“Video screens. Lots of video screens. They’re mounted on the
ceiling, facing downward.”

“Focus on the televisions. What do you see?”

“I see two…no…three…all three of the news stations. A Talk
show— the one called AM/PM.”

“Anything else?”

“No. Can’t quite see the other screens. They are angled away
from me.”

“What do you see under the televisions?”

“Darkness.”

“And what is below the darkness?”

“Hills. Vast numbers of hills – the moving hills. They are
watching.”

“You mean hills like the ones around you, in the room that
you are in?”

“Yes, the same.”

“These hills, they aren’t really hills, are they?”

“No. That’s what I thought they were at first.”

“What are they?”

“The hills are the aliens. The aliens are nothing like us. Nothing
like us.”

And so it went for hour after hour.

Over the next few days, several things happened: Adamarus
kept improving, the structure rising in front of the Loud’s ship became a large
dome, and the multitude of people surrounding the town continued to swell.

Adamarus’ smaller alien bandages had fallen off and his
largest bandages had turned gray, a sure sign that they would follow suit
shortly. His apparent age remained unchanged.

---

It was a miserable night. Gusts of freezing wind whipped the
icy rain and hail into projectiles that pounded against the sides of the
special team’s trailers. Like the snow, it passed right through the force field.
On the ground, the snow which had fallen the day before was turning into a
dirty slush.

Leewood and Harrington were on duty and had tried staying in
the warm vans and watching from the cameras, but after dozing off several times,
they decided the freezing weather would keep them awake and went outside. They
sat under the tarp drinking coffee from styrofoam cups and watched the new
development—a large tube, fifteen feet in diameter, had started growing
horizontally out from mid-way up the side of the 150 foot dome. The tube seemed
to be made of concrete with tinted glass windows on its sides. The tube’s
construction was moving much faster than the dome had – they could actually see
the thing growing. Leewood went for pizza, and after dinner, they noticed that
the tube, after reaching a length of 100 feet, had angled downwards.

By midnight the rain/hail was coming down so hard they could
barely see. They retreated to the van where infrared cameras confirmed that the
tube had reached the ground. By 1:00 AM the downpour had let up a little and
they had ventured back outside. A small room had formed on the ground at the
end of the tube and by 1:30, a door was visible at the end and confirmed what
they had both hoped, that it was the entrance to the dome.

Harrington ventured into the frozen rain for a better look. The
freezing rain burned her face and stung her eyes while the two-foot snow drifts
that had turned to shush crunched under her rubber boots. In between the drifts
she found herself slipping on the ice. Eventually she made her way along the
edge of the force field to the closest point to the newly built room and
studied it. To get a better look, she walked forward intending to push into the
force field as far as she could. That was when she discovered that the force
field was gone. And that was when the door at the end of the tube opened.

It was too cold to talk so she just clicked her mic rapidly
half a dozen times.

Leewood got the message, “I’m coming.”

The hail started pouring down again and she could just barely
see Leewood scrambling out to her, encountering the same difficulties she had. When
he arrived, she told him what had happened with the force field dropping and
the door swinging open on its own. They looked at each other and back at the
open door. Harrington shrugged, “Looks like an invitation if I ever saw one. Should
we wake the others…get some backup?”

“Not yet. They’ll only want us to wait for them and I’m tired
of waiting.”

“I hear that.”

They walked to the door and entered. Inside it was warm and
dry. Before them was a moving ramp. They got on and it carried them up about 150
feet to where the tube leveled out. From there it was about a 100-foot walk to
another door which entered the dome itself. This door was round, made of metal and
looked heavy. A rubber like substance around the edges sealed it. To the side
was a button lit by a green light. The door opened. It was several feet thick
and it slid out and then rose up out of the way. They looked at each other and
hesitantly proceeded.

Inside was a room that extended out for about fifty feet. At
the far end on the right were two rows of seats facing left. They counted ten seats
in all, two rows of five. What they faced was an unusual window on the left
side. It was about fifteen feet wide and started a few feet from the ceiling. It
extended down to the floor and continued across the floor for about eight feet.
A green glow came through the window from the inside of the dome beyond.

Harrington and Leewood slowly moved forward. As they got
closer they noticed that the window was made of extremely thick glass encased
in thick rubber. When they reached the window and looked out, they could see
the inside of the dome which was brightly lit and bathed in green. Centered on
the floor below them was a strange mound about twenty by thirty feet, and
perhaps thirty feet high. It was a complicated structure and they quickly recognized
it from the artist’s conception of what Adamarus had described while under
hypnosis. Several long tentacles shot from its base and waved slightly in the
air.

“Shit!” Harrington yelled as they both jumped back.

“I’ll be damned,” Leewood said. “That’s a Loud!”

The two team members stepped closer to the window. They
jumped when a screech came from the other side of the glass. They never figured
out that this was a translation of their own words.

Suddenly the organic mound filled with air, expanded outward
and shot upward, its height increasing by 400 percent. It happened so suddenly
that the team members staggered back. It seemed to flex then push back down. They
now noticed an oval hole near the top of the mound and they could see that air
was being expelled from it from the spittle and fluid flying through the air. Although
the room was highly soundproof, they could still hear the screech coming from
the alien and it seemed to vibrate within their chests. They could see the
glass in the window vibrate within the rubber it was encased in. When the
screech ended and the alien had deflated to its original size, they noticed a
small box above the window light up. An off white bar ran across it and it was
being lit with a green light which was extending from left to right. It was
obviously a progress indicator. When the light reached the end, a mechanical
voice came from it causing the two to jump again.

It said, “All is ready. That room is yours. Equip it as you
see fit. We will wait three days for Adamarus. He must be alone. If he does not
appear or he is not alone, we will leave.” Behind it a large door appeared and
opened. Beyond the door was what looked like a lift—obviously the way the alien
came and went between the dome and its ship. The creature turned and slid
towards it.

Harrington hollered out, “Wait, we need to talk to you. What’s
wrong with us?” A second later they could hear a screech coming from the other
side of the glass – obviously her words being translated.

The being paused halfway to the door, expanded again and
screeched, “Nothing is wrong with you. Adamarus has been scanned, approved and
prepared. Others may be at a later time.” It had never turned around and so it
continued through the door which closed behind it.

“Shit!” they said in unison. The translator lit up and a
second later they again heard the screech on the other side of the thick glass.

---

At the same time, twelve miles away, Adamarus slept soundly
beneath a white sheet. The sheet rose up on the left side of his chest and then
a large alien bandage which was now gray fell to the floor and the sheet
dropped back down. Adamarus groaned and rolled to his left side. The gray
bandage still remaining on the left side of his head fell away and rolled off
the bed.

The last of Adamarus’ bandages had fallen off.

---

The next morning after breakfast, eight doctors filed into Adamarus’
room and gathered around his bed. The only one he recognized was Dr. Kallen. “Good
morning, doc, brought some friends I see.”

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“To be honest, great.”

The group of doctors looked at each other. A couple cleared
their throats. Dr. Kallen continued, “Yes, the aliens, or I should say, the
Loud, did a rather excellent job of putting you back together, not to mention
taking twenty some odd years off your age.” What Dr. Kallen did
not
say
was that Adamarus was no longer aging and that his immune system had been
supercharged. “As you may have figured out, the remaining bandages came off
last night.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes. In fact the only reason we’re still keeping you is
to…” he looked around at the other doctors, “well, we’d like very much to learn
more about exactly what the Loud did to you – understand, it could help many
people.” He looked around helplessly, “However, we have been…we’ve received
requests from above to release you at once. I guess conducting meaningful talks
with the Loud is high on the agenda and you are central to that.”

Adamarus nodded understanding, “And you really have no
medical reasons to refuse these ‘requests’…” the doctor nodded, “and even if
you did…”