Sleeper Seven (19 page)

"How 'bout a pinwheel, Captain?" Franti proposed, breaking the silence. "They'd eat it up — look at 'em!"

"Pinwheel huh...sure...what the hell, I just can't say 'No' to you pricks today," replied the Captain, waving his hand casually. The men laughed and began to coordinate their commands once again, similar to their re-entry procedure.

"Roger that," acknowledged Franti. "Lift at two-hundred yards out, on my count. Aft up, to starboard."

"Aft up, starboard, check," Thatcher replied.

"Three...Two...One...Mark."

Each pilot entered their commands as the muffled sound of the thrusters engaging filled the ship. The image on the floor panels, which had been displaying a neighbor's backyard swimming pool, suddenly flipped up to reveal Franti's Aunt and Uncle still standing on their front stoop across the street, but this time appearing upside-down.

"Aft up," Thatcher confirmed.

"Three...Two...One...Burn it fellas!" Franti requested with unrestrained glee.

A rumbling took hold of the ship, and the image of the couple spun out of view as though they were in a giant clothes dryer. Jess found herself drifting in circles about the cabin, the static air pressure alone not enough to hold her ultra-low-mass body in place. Flattening herself against the perimeter wall, she was able to maintain her position and watch the other pilots hoot and holler as they enjoyed the ride.

"OK gentleman, we're a mile out," the captain informed them as the spinning decelerated. "Nice execution. Normalize orientation, enable night camo, and take us back to O-hi-o. Finn, review the tapes for any tourists and write up the report. Did anybody see any flashes?"

"No, sir," Franti responded, "I don't even think we had a single collateral observer, it was a clean run."

"Well in any case, you're on social media review when we're back at the ranch just to be safe."

"Crap," Franti mumbled under his breath, as the viewing panels re-oriented to normal and they began to pick up speed.

~ 42 ~

U
tterly confused by this entire chain of events, Jess had seen enough, and would parse the details later. Right now she was more concerned that she had been away from her physical for far too long, and so she took her leave of the crew. The journey that took these men hours in their magnificent flying machine took Jess under a minute; one of the benefits of a nearly one hundred percent reduction in mass, she supposed.

Awaking in her craft in the middle of the Mongolian jungle, bathed in the late morning sunlight, she found her body had a splitting headache. Tired and hungry, she also had to pee again.
Bodies are so high maintenance,
she thought with annoyance as she pulled herself out of the craft. Afterwards, she had a picnic of granola bars, then meditated to the chattering of exotic birds and the faraway sound of rushing water. After a short walk around the craft to stretch her legs, she re-boarded and lay back for the long journey home. In moments, she was fast asleep while the craft sped eastward above the jungle.

She awoke in darkness. Glancing at her phone, she found she had slept for almost the entire trip — just under five hours — as the map showed her descending into the Nevada desert. Two jets approached and flanked her, giving her a start, though their intentions didn't seem as hostile as the last time that had happened. She couldn't tell how far up she was in the darkness, and was surprised when they split off after a few minutes of shadowing her.

Suddenly she was barraged by lights: straight ahead, a mile-long runway lit up in front of her, bright blue and white lights running down the length of it on each side. It seemed a little overkill, however, as the craft expertly descended to a perfect stop in the middle of the runway next to her hangar. A moment later, the runway lights were killed, plunging her back into darkness. As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the base, her craft began taxiing towards an idling military truck in front of the hangar. Two camo guards emerged from the back, followed by Kal and Len, who walked briskly towards her. Popping the hatch, she climbed out to greet them. Before she could let them know how sorry she was for coming back empty-handed, they engulfed her in a group hug.

"Great job this morning, Jess!" Kal said. "We got word the subject is safe and sound."

"Yeah," Len added, "Heard there was a few wrinkles, but that's pretty much expected in this line of work. Important thing is, you did it, kid. Come on back and let's debrief."

Arms around her shoulders, they accompanied her into the hangar. Sitting in a debriefing room wired for video and sound, she told them all about the experience. When she got to the point in the jungle, they listened without surprise as she described the strange situation with the Jeep and its surreal occupants. Then she hesitated. Len, sensing her equivocation, reached for a small remote and paused the recording. He leaned forward and looked at her with concern.

"What's going on, Jess?"

She wanted to know all about the situation — who the subject was, where he went, and why he was being held in North Korea to begin with — but more importantly, she had questions about the larger ship she boarded. How is it they have access to this amazing technology, but use it only for hot-dogging and terrifying civilians, for one. But she knew that those experiences were outside of her mission parameters, and she worried about their reaction if she revealed them. She decided to keep them to herself, for now.

"Who was that man, was he...human?" she asked, deftly pivoting her hesitation into curiosity about her subject. "And where did they take him?"

"Sorry, honey," Kal said apologetically, "we don't know much more than you do on some of this stuff. It's all compartmentalized, for everyone's safety, including yours."

Len continued solemnly. "Jessica, when you believe in this country, you take it on faith that they're doing the right things, and you leave your curiosity at the door. If you saw some strange sights, well honey, you just forget that ever happened, and focus on the success of your mission."

If they only knew,
she thought to herself.

"C'mon now," Kal said encouragingly. "Let's finish up here and have you a little celebratory midnight snack,"

Based on their reaction, and complete lack of curiosity about the bigger picture, Jess knew she had made the right decision to withhold what she had seen. She was on her own now.

~ 43 ~

T
he next morning, after Jess packed up her things, they escorted her to the tarmac to await the daily flight from McCarran. As the 737 descended, she joked about the carbon cost of transporting her alone in this huge jet.

"Oh honey, you're not the only one this time, you'll see," Kal contended. As the jet taxied to a stop in the shimmering morning heat of the Nevada desert, she watched upwards of thirty people descend the stairs. They looked like normal people — young, old, male, female, of varying races, hairstyles, and clothing options.
Don't seem military at all,
she thought,
but then maybe that was the point, considering
. A few were laughing and joking with each other, while the rest kept to themselves.

Several more white school buses with blacked-out windows arrived, and the new arrivals boarded them before speeding off towards different areas of the base. She initially thought she was pretty much alone here, but now realized she just happened to miss the daily commute when she arrived. The place was as tight as a drum, a seeming ghost town, with nobody around to give even a hint of anything happening behind those closed hangar doors.

When the dust settled, they boarded the newly empty jet. The flight back was uneventful, with the exception of Kal and Len reiterating to her the importance of the papers she had read and signed, regarding the information she obtained within the employ of the U.S. government, and how revelation of this information was tantamount to treason against the country and would be swiftly prosecuted, and that this information is required to be taken to her grave, yadda yadda yadda. She was not even to answer questions about her experiences in the negative; if asked, she simply was not to respond at all.

Strangely enough, they spent a solid minute or two focusing on the fact that there would be no deathbed confessions either, and if there were, there would be consequences for her remaining family and descendants, not in terms of harm — that they made clear — but in terms of defensive misinformation and damage of reputation, in order to minimize credibility of the claims. Jess was a little freaked out by all this, especially the talk of deathbed confessions, which were a good seventy years out — if she were lucky.

They then discussed their relationship, and how she was an independent contractor to the U.S. government, and not a member of any armed services branch, and that from time to time she may be called to perform special projects, but without any specific contract of employment. At the end of this standard red-tape speech, they handed her an envelope and asked her not to open it until later. They were soon back on the ground, and they bid her adieu as they bundled her into a taxi.

It was strange being dumped back into the real world, watching the tourists head to the strip, not a care in the world other than what shows they would see, and how much money they might win — or lose. Perhaps they would do some things that would stay in Vegas, as the saying went, but at least it would be
their
choice to keep those secrets.

Her head swimming, she suddenly had no idea where to go. She finally asked the patient taxi driver to take her to the main terminal; she had decided she just wanted to go home. She missed Chicago.

On the short drive around the airport perimeter, she remembered the envelope, and retrieving it from her bag, opened it. Inside was a check, made out to her, from 'Straubel-Guillen Services LLC' in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. Shocked, she stared at the figure for a full minute, until the taxi stopped at the main terminal.

~ 44 ~

A
fter landing at O'Hare, Jess immediately took a cab to her bank and deposited the check. Arriving home, she collapsed on the couch, her cat greeting her by taking up residence on her stomach and purring loudly. Gavin must have heard her trudge up the stairs, as there was soon a knock on her door. Eliciting a yowling complaint from the cat, she arose to open it.

"Look who's home! Hey Girl!" Gavin exclaimed, attacking her with a hug. Dragging her to the couch, he sat down and pulled her down next to him.

"So how was it? I haven't gotten a text from you in a few days, so I got worried. Were you able to get in on a program?"

"Oh yeah, I was able to get in on a program all right. Gavin, you won't believe what has happened over the last few days. I don't believe it."

"Try me. What, did you go astralling all over the universe or something?"

"Well, not quite...I mean the Center was fantastic, but then I got poached."

"Oh babe, did it hurt?" he asked, frowning.

"NO! Stop it! Gavin, seriously, this, like, undercover lady from the government flew me to Vegas, and tried to get me to do some corporate espionage work, but then the real government people rescued me, one is a bartender and the other is a handyman at the center, and they're
married!
Can you believe it? And then there is some other stuff I totally
can't even tell you about!
"

"OK, babe, you're sounding like a bad TV movie here. Slow down. You went to Vegas? To be a spy?"

"YES! But now I am freaking out. Gavin, I think I'm in over my head. I did some stuff I wasn't supposed to, and saw some stuff I wasn't supposed to, and now I KNOW! But I can't tell anyone what it is! And it is KILLING me! What do I DO?" she yelled, shaking Gavin violently by the shoulders.

Gavin gasped loudly and covered his mouth. "Did you sleep with a Russian agent? I always knew you were a double-crosser, you little firecracker!"

"
Seriously
Gavin," Jess begged, "I need help with this. What do you do when you know too much?"

"OK, OK. Well, what do you want? Do you want to have a happy life? Then just forget about it and move on. Go talk to my therapist if you need to. Do you have PTSD?"

"Gavin! It's not like that. I know some...stuff...like stuff that people don't believe in...OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO TELL YOU BIGFOOT IS REAL! I can tell you that! I saw it with my own eyes! Unless I was set up. They could have done that...I haven't totally discounted that possibility...but I seriously don't think they did, and if not, then...OH MY GOD — BIGFOOT!"

Gavin's joking smile gave way a little. "Shit, Jess. Come on now. You've been gone for like five days and you come back to tell me your a government spy and you've seen Bigfoot? Let's go to Marie's and get a drink. You obviously need one. And no talk about Atlantis or the Loch-Ness monster, okay?"

Twenty minutes later, sitting at a long oak bar, Gavin ordered two bottles of Bell's Oberon. Then he turned and gave her his serious face.

"Now let's get down to brass tacks. You saw some shit, you can't un-see it, you can't let it go, and you can't tell anyone. Does that sum it up?"

"Yes. Exactly. I mean, it's so momentous, so gigantic...and so...strange."

"Well you said before it was something people don't believe in, and since we both obviously believe in ghosts — and you already mentioned Bigfoot...Oh my God Jess, did you see
aliens?
"

Her eyes grew wide as saucers as she held her bottle to her mouth mid-drink.

"Jess! Oh my God! I
guessed
it! You didn't tell me! You didn't tell me!" Gavin exclaimed, then lowered his voice. "Holy crap, there really are
aliens?
Well I always figured, but really? That's so cool!
Noice,
Jess," he added, high-fiving her. Then under his breath, to himself: "I
knew
there was aliens."

"Wait, are they here to harm us or help us?"

Jess froze in place, her mouth full of beer, unable to confirm or deny, or even to say the truth — that she didn't know exactly.

"Oh, right, you can't tell me. That's like my therapist, she said if someone calls and asks if I am a client, she can't even tell them either way. She says it's an ethics violation to even give an answer, yes or no. She just has to say she can't answer those questions. OK, so don't tell me anything. We're gonna be like old school
Don't Ask Don't Tell,
all right?"