The Twelve Stones (41 page)

“
Aliens?” Geoffrey laughed
.
“Little green men from Mars
,
right? Came here to probe Uranus?” He laughed at his own joke. “There’s no such thing as aliens!”

Kline rushed over to Geoffrey, lifting him over his shoulder and tossing him causally across the room. Geoffrey collided with the opposite wall of the trailer, threatening to shake it off its foundation. With a resounding crash, he fell in a crumpling heap on the floor.
With h
is body still somewhat
bruised
from the earlier fight at JPL,
he
cried out in pain. He raised his head up to watch his boss approach him. Geoffrey shut his eyes, preparing for the worst.

And suddenly, he found himself righted, with Kline brushing off Geoffrey’s
leather jacket
. Smiling, Kline picked up a chair that Geoffrey’
s
body had knocked over
,
s
et
it right and help
ed
Geoffrey into it.
Geoffrey sat in a daze
,
certain that death was coming at any moment.

Kline walked over to
his trailer’s built-in kitchenette
. “Would you like something to drink
,
Mr. Tate?”
h
e called over to his second in command. His tone was pleasant and unlike anything Geoffrey had ever heard before.

Incredibly confused as to Kline’s motives, and still a little woozy from his boss’
s
attack, he shook his head
. The room
spun around him.
Reaching up with
his hand, he felt the back of his head, hoping there was no blood.

Kline took a teapot from his hot plate and filled it with water from a jug in the refrigerator. Setting the teakettle on the camp stove, he turned back to his assistant and clasped his hands in a warm manner.

“
Now,” Kline began slowly, “
l
et me show you something.” He pointed to a poster on the wall
,
full of stars and galaxies. “Do you know what that picture is?”

Geoffrey shook his head. He was tired of the games.

“
A few years ago, NASA aimed that fancy Hubble telescope of theirs towards a rather small, generally empty
-
looking spot up in the sky near the Fornix Constellation. Over a period of a few days, they took a snapshot
,
and that right there is what they found. They call it the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.”

Geoffrey looked at the picture. It was a bunch of stars and galaxies, nothing he hadn’t seen a million times before in science fiction.

“
Thousands of
g
alaxies, each with billions of stars, with trillions of possibilities
for
life existing out there, and that’s just one tiny slice in the sky.” Kline shook his head and laughed, “You know, it isn’t just the universe that’s infinite
;
h
umanity’s
ego gives it a run for its money.

“
The very thought that we’re the only sentient beings in the universe is laughable. My boy, the question isn’t
if
there’s life in the universe, but
where
they are and just how many are there. Someday soon, people will laugh at this belief, in the same way you’d laugh at someone who told you the Earth was flat.”

Geoffr
ey swallowed. Whatever his boss's
rationalization for the stone that gave him his strength, it was hard to deny the raw power Kline
had
demonstrated at JPL.

“
You’ve always admired this ring.” Kline put his hand out in front of Geoffrey’s face. The dull tan finish of the ring reflected the light from the fluorescent bulbs. Geoffrey nodded in response. Kline smirked and opened up a cupboard
,
retrieving a cup and tea.

“
Green tea
.
I
t’s
fantastic with anti-oxidants.” He extracted a teabag and placed it in the cup. Tilting his head towards his ring, he examined it closely before speaking.

“
It was 1943
,
”
Kline began
.
“I was a Colonel in the British infantry. The Americans
,
along with my unit
,
had the responsibility of chasing Rommel out of North Africa. My boys had spent a lot of time on the front lines, clearing out German strongholds through Northern territory
,
when we happened on a mansion unlike anything we had seen before.”

He poured the hot water into the cup and sat down across from Geoffrey. “Our unit commander had seen just as much action as we had in the last few months. So, when we came on the mansion, we were ordered to clear the area of any German resistance, and then take a day to rest. The idea of a hot shower and a real bed was quite a motivator
,
let me tell you.

“
There weren’t many people left in the town
.
M
ost had cleared out long before the Germans came. And there wasn’t much chance of any German resistance there; most of the army had fallen back by then to protect Italy for the planned invasion by American forces later that year.”

Kline paused as he sipped his tea. “I was downstairs
,
going through some personal letters looking for evidence the occupants might be Nazi affiliated, when I happened on a safe. I called my mate downstairs to the basement
,
telling him what I had found. Like me, he was ecstatic. Most of the soldiers were shipping back tons in ‘
s
ouvenirs,’ - looting of course, a less polite term for it
,
and we were the only suckers in the unit who had yet to find anything of value.”

Kline sipped from his tea again
.
“We were good friends. We had gone through training together, split rations when one fellow was low on sugar, coffee or gum, what have you, but on that day
,
we found something we could not split. After he opened the safe up with a few well
-
placed charges, I eagerly dug through it, hoping to find some commodity stashed away safely by the mansion’s owner hours before the Germans had invaded. My mate ignored all that and went directly for the stone. However, once he grabbed it, something about him changed. He began screaming, ranting and raving
.
I didn’t catch most of it
;
the man was insane. He accused me of stealing from him, and to my amazement, grabbed the safe
—
which had to weigh several hundred pounds
—
and hurled
it at me as if he were tossing a pebble. His anger grew from there, uncontrollable, raging. Every time he managed some feat of strength I thought was impossible, he would outdo it by a thousand times only moments later.”

Geoffrey watched his boss’s face
.
Kline was far away, and his eyes stared off in the distance as he told his story.

“
When an animal at the zoo becomes uncontrollable, the only humane thing to do is put him down. With my rifle, I shot my friend, the first shot going wild. Once he saw what I was about, he charged, and I pulled the trigger
again
, as many times as I could, finally killing him. As my mate lay on the ground
,
bleeding out of several holes that I, his best friend
,
was responsible for, the stone flashed and fell from his hand. Curious, I picked the stone up, and felt what he must have felt. It was like grasping a live power cable in your hands. Dangerous, and yet…” Kline’s voice grew strong and dark, “knowing at the same time
that
you control all that power, it’s…”
H
e smiled as he licked his lips
.
“
I
t’s quite a feeling.”

Kline’s eyes returned to the present and focused on his assistant. “I couldn’t return to my unit. Not after shooting a fellow soldier. Besides, while the power had driven my friend insane, I found I could control it, channeling it into strength that no man has ever been capable of. I abandoned my unit, returned to London under a new name, and began my life as a businessman
,
profiting off the reconstruction of Europe. When my fortunes amassed, I disappeared into the ether, only to return in the 1980’s with a brand
-
new identity.”

“
So you’re not…?” Geoffrey trailed off, attempting to absorb all the information.

“
My boy, even if I were to tell you my real name, you wouldn’t find anything. I wiped every record of what I humorously call my ‘first birth’ off this planet. In fact, I’ve been known as several different identities on three different continents. It isn’t difficult when you have money.”

“
Plastic surgery can only go so far, and you don’t look older than 40, and yet, to have served as a soldier fifty years ago?” Geoffrey spluttered
.
“It defies all logic.”

“
Logic?” Kline thundered as he rose up from the chair, a terrifying figure indeed. “What you have seen me do, what you’ve seen Mr. McCray accomplish, defies more than just logic.”

Geoffrey cowered, his mind racing for answers
.
“The stone has some sort of longevity associated with it?”

Kline smiled broadly, his temper receding
.
“My boy, I haven’t aged a day in thirty years.”

Geoffrey’s eyebrows rose. The more Kline talked
,
the surer he was
that
he was going to die. “Mr. Kline, why are you telling me all this?”

Kline smiled, “Because you’ve seen far too much without having some valid questions about the work we’re doing here. I had hoped to keep you in the dark a bit longer, but
it
seems that is no longer possible if I want the job done right.”

“
Why am I still alive?” Geoffrey asked bluntly, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer. “You’re telling me something that’s too fantastic to believe, and yet, I’ve seen it all with my own eyes. I know men like you. Men like you control information like you control power. You don’t just give up information without having some plan for me.”

“
You’re right
;
I do have a plan for you. For one, you've never been anything but loyal to me, and now, in addition to your generous salary, you are fully aware of the fact that there is absolutely nothing at all to keep me from killing you right here on this very spot
,
” Kline said maliciously
.
“Which means you know you are on a short leash. The phrase
‘
keep your enemies close
’
isn’t cliché by any means.

“
I’m going to give you one more secret. This ring is surgically implanted into my body. A steel rod welded into this ring connects directly to the skeletal structure of my hand. There is nothing on this planet that will take this stone off of my finger. So any thoughts of you stealing the ring and consolidating your power over me are useless.” Kline smiled
.
“If you want to continue living and make an obscene amount of money at the same time, you really have no choice but to follow my orders.”

Kline moved quickly
.
O
ne
second, Kline was lazily stirring his tea
;
the next
, his
face was directly in front of Geoffrey’s. “One false move,” he warned in a low
,
hissing tone “will be your absolute last. Do we understand each other?”

Geoffrey
,
nearly certain he was about to die, closed his eyes tightly and thought of the home he grew up in. He was nothing if not a survivor.

“
What would you have me do?” Geoffrey opened his eyes
,
hoping they didn't betray the deep fear that had settled in the pit of his stomach.

Kline smiled and adopted his cheery tone once again. “Excellent. You can begin by telling me from the beginning what happened at JPL.”

Geoffrey nodded and began to run down the series of events. Kline stroked his face occasionally
,
listening intently. He smiled once he heard Geoffrey tell him about how his gunmen had emptied their clips into Alex’s body, and yet he remained unscathed. He dashed over to his notes, running his hands carefully through the brittle diary pages.

Satisfied, he snapped the book shut turned and smiled at Geoffrey. “Do we have any leads on the boy?”

Geoffrey shook his head
—
and then, remembering,
he
patted the inside of his jacket and took out the Christmas
c
ard.