THAT FALL

Josey told Oren how she had grabbed her backpack and found them waiting for her beside Navin’s car. She slid into the passenger seat as Navin keyed the Charger to life and grumbled, “We will not get there for at least four hours.”

“Fold space as you can,” Reynolds said from the back seat.

“Can’t you beam there or something?” Josey asked.

“Not with you two,” Navin said, turning from Longwood’s driveway onto the highway.

Josey took one last look at Longwood. She stared out the passenger window, lost. She did not want to discuss Victor, the attack or the occasional machines they saw roving across the horizon. She did not want to discuss the x-rayed, dead Lindsey. She did not want more stories about Nurse Vasquez and her miracle baby. She whispered, “I don’t understand any of this.”

“It is war. That you can understand,” Reynolds said. “But I am afraid if Renya does not awaken, there is not much we can do.”

“You keep saying wake up, but I’ve seen her awake–she just seems to be Angie then not Angie.”

“Because Angie is a fiction, Josey. A role she designed. She is not Angie, but she may soon forget that.”

“Then, how did she become Angie to begin with?” Josey asked, unlocking her seatbelt and turning around in her seat.

Navin shot her a look and demanded, “Put that belt back on.” She ignored him.

Reynolds said, “Embedding is a complex process. We design persona and the being takes on a body and personality to fit that persona.” He paused, as Navin avoided cars blocking the highway. Josey noticed Navin was topping the speedometer. Reynolds continued. “We found that sending out people to pretend never worked. They would always slip and perform what your earthlings call miracles or magic, and then they would be killed or crucified or banished.”

Josey asked, “Crucified?”

Reynolds was firm. “That is what I said.”

Josey turned and faced front but did not reattach her seatbelt. Screw, Navin. He was getting punched the first chance she got. She noticed the clouds of smoke hovering everywhere. So many places burned or burning.

Reynolds continued. “You embed a pretense. She is Angie Krigare, a history professor who was working at one of your universities. She does yoga. The agent is aware of the role. But the pulse interrupted our signal and forced the agents to lose contact with the base. With us. They all took on their personas. Renya, too, cannot recall anything else.”

“But she should be fine,” Navin spat.

Reynolds ignored him and said, “We sent the signal a week before the scheduled invasion, as planned. But the Ryads scrambled our signal with their feedback loop. Some of our people phased–half in, half out–like Renya. Some are not awake at all. The Ryads cut them off from our signal.”

“Crappy plan,” Navin said, again glaring at Reynolds through the rearview. “Good thing I did not have my transmitter on or I would be Dave Johnson the bumbling kid detective.”

Reynolds said, “It was not my plan. And the Ryads did not have the technology to scramble the signal years ago, so we never considered it was possible. We tried countermeasures. Some of it worked.” He sighed, adding, “It does not matter. Only getting her back matters.”

The road was frighteningly quiet. Ships hovered in the smoke-stained sky. Tank-looking machines, with thick black glass sides, rolled across the horizon through and over abandoned carcasses of military trucks, and tanks, and one plane nose-down in a field. She watched one machine advancing in complete silence. Something like that should make a sound. She wanted the creaking of metal, the crunching of leaves underneath. Nothing. The absence of a human presence heightened her anxiety. She had not seen a single person on the road covered with abandoned cars and wreckage, she assumed, from the lightning strikes. After living the Longwood drama, she refused to watch the impressions she sensed rising from the devastation. The aftereffects were enough, and she decided not to replay each car wreak or downed machine they passed.

“So, those ships,” Jack pointed up at a hovering, long silver ship. “Whose are those?”

“Andolonians,” Navin said, navigating past several abandoned vehicles. He resumed speed as he cleared the last heap of cars. “They are scheduled to activate, but seem in a holding pattern.”

“Why can’t you two beam us to your base or do some of that glowing thing?” Josey asked.

“It does not work like that,” Reynolds said. “I told you. Not when we have to take you. And Jack.”

“So then, you two go. Jack and I will be fine,” Josey said.

“We cannot leave you,” Navin said, slowing the Charger as they approached a pile of abandoned vehicles blocking the road.

Josey noticed an arm hanging out of a car window. She winced and turned away. Why had she agreed to come? Why was she sitting in Navin’s car and listening to this claptrap? She remembered one of her early conversations with Dave. Navin. Whoever he was. She had said, “You know there’s a ghost in the pool room.”

“Yeah?”

“Sometimes, when I’m in there at night, I can hear voices. We could use my recorder and try to hear it,” she said.

“Like what? Ghost hunters?” he asked, considering. Shuffling papers on the reception desk, he said, “I have some paperwork to do, so maybe later.”

She said, “Give me that ring and I’ll leave you alone. For at least fifteen minutes.”

He looked up and said, “At least thirty.”

“Deal,” she said and offered her palm, waiting for the ring.

Removing it from his finger, he said, “I don’t think I ever take this thing off… probably shouldn’t.” Then he looked right into her, as if he was searching inside her head. She stepped back, but when he placed the ring in her palm, she wished he was her father. She wanted him to hug her, hold her, tell her she was safe. He only said, “Now, take that thing and give me thirty minutes of peace.”

She remembered fighting her frozen feet as she forced herself to turn from him and leave the reception desk. She remembered how tingly she felt putting the large ring on her thumb, wishing it meant as much as she wanted it to mean.

Josey tried not to think about Renya, unconscious and alone in the depths of her own mind. The state was too familiar, too recognizable. The night she overdosed, she had prayed to the Mother and the Father, seeking a Wiccan solution. She had watched for signs. All she had was another failed romantic relationship, a broken transmission she did not have the money to repair, and a visit from her devoted step-father. She remembered wishing that her mother was still alive, or she was not an only child. Or she was born to another family who went on picnics, opened big boxes on Christmas morning, celebrated birthdays and took vacations. Not a family who lost their mom in a car accident.

Josey had warned her mother after dreaming about the impending accident. She tried to stop her. But her mother insisted on being on time for work. These thoughts plagued her when, alone in her apartment, she swallowed all her anti-depressants and her roommate’s Valium. She just wanted to sleep beyond the memories, and the dreams, and the nightmares that plagued her. And, for the third time, they sent her to Longwood.

Navin had told her, “You know, if you quit coming here, I’ll have no reason to return.”

She had not revealed her pain and instead, had asked for him to bring her a new puzzle. Just as she never disclosed her pain to Jack, another man Josey wished was her father. The nights stealing chocolate from the cafeteria and sneaking into Lansing’s office to read files kept her amused. The books Jack had loaned her kept her engaged. The way he watched her complete puzzles without the compulsion to put pieces in without asking pleased her. That old man understood her. So, at least she was with him. She had nowhere else to be.

She cracked the window, starving for fresh air, but closed it again when all she received was a lungful of smoke. The air was heavy with sulfur. Burning wood, melting metal, charred leaves peppered the normally pleasant autumn breeze. Not mourning the loss of the planet, she wondered how she would survive once these invaders resolved their conflict. She expected the winner would either enslave the survivors or not permit survivors. She admitted that she did not care and drifted into a restless sleep.

The tarot deck in her hands was familiar, but it was not her tarot deck. The back of the cards was an iridescent robin’s egg blue, shimmering in her hand as if lit from within. Drawing the top card, she placed it on the glass-top table before her. The World card was before her, glowing. The picture wavered as if made of clear, sparkling seltzer. The figure within the frame was a nude woman wrapped in a purple ribbon. She appeared to dance and swirl and rise off the paper. Then the woman pointed the staff she held at Josey and told her to close her eyes. Josey did.

The woman from the card stood before her robed in an emerald gown, her sparkling, copper hair flowed about her shoulders. Cats curled about her feet. With a glorious smile she held out her hand for Josey to take it.

“Do not fret, my little one. You are safe.”

Josey shivered at the woman’s touch. “I never feel safe,” she said.

“Well, let us have enough of that. Just rest.”

Josey looked around. Red and orange flowers that could be roses filled the garden. The petals were as big as Josey’s palm. Overhead, birds and butterflies swooped and dipped among tall trees, the leaves melodically chiming. Josey could see stars beyond the dome covering the garden. Inside the dome it seemed a sunlit, spring morning. “Where are we?” she asked as a cat curled about her feet. The cat had three emerald eyes.

“You are in my garden,” the woman said.

Josey felt anxious. She said, “I just want to leave.”

“You cannot leave this time,” the woman said. “You must help me.”

“Help you? How can I help you?” Josey asked. This woman did not need help. She was beautiful and magical and powerful.

“You must tell them. You must reach me,” the woman glowed a warm champagne pink.

“I don’t understand all of this,” Josey said.

“Admitting confusion is a hard thing. But confusion is how we grow. How we change,” the woman said, pausing and adding, “And fear is how we earn power.”

“I have no power,” Josey said. The woman’s eyes were a deep topaz. Josey felt joyful and warm. She let the woman squeeze her hand.

The woman took Josey’s necklace charm in her hand and admired it. She said, “Ah, but of every being here, you are the only one who can hear. Who has the power to see.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Josey said. “See what?”

The woman’s eyes turned black, and she said in a thunderous roar, “Tell them I did this to myself. My command. And only I can wake I.”

Josey woke to the Charger carrying them along the highway. She murmured, “Only I can wake I.”

“What did you say?” Navin asked.

She ignored his question, asking, “How much longer?”

“Three hours,” Navin said.

Why all the nonsense with the portal? Reynolds kept insisting that safety demanded Renya use the portal and that traveling by car exposed them to terrible danger. Through the smog, the silent, hovering ships lit against the late afternoon sky. The post-apocalyptic world seemed abandoned. The radio was all static. The phones did not work. Random litter blew along the road. Not a single store was lit and not a single person roamed the streets. House after house appeared dark, and some were boarded up as if awaiting a hurricane. Yet, the science fiction scenery did not frighten her. The only place she sensed danger was in this car. The tension between Reynolds’ and Navin was unnerving. She tried to read them, but only saw blackness. She could only guess the attack was imminent and the hovering ships would fire more of that lightning. As they passed near a rest stop, she could see military vehicles and a smattering of bodies in the parking lot.

Jack, who had been unusually quiet, broke the silence and asked, “Where’s your son? The one Renya says was taken?”

Reynolds continued to gaze out the window. He said, “He is lost.”

“Did agents take him? Like she remembers?”

“Not exactly. That memory is not hers. And what she is recalling happened a long time ago.”

“So, where is he?” Jack asked.

Reynolds did not respond.

Josey curled up into the passenger seat perturbed. There was no sense in speaking to Reynolds. The guy was creepy. And bossy. Josey was enamored with Renya. Reynolds annoyed her. She probably could respect Reynolds if she could get a story out of him that made sense, but the guy spoke in riddles. Like a cop or an FBI agent who never answered questions, he only demanded answers. Josey said, poking, “I think I might become a cop after all of this.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Navin asked. “You just almost got stabbed.”

“That is a hard life,” Reynolds said.

“And you would know, old man?” Navin asked, noting the open road and accelerating to a steady hundred and twenty per hour.

Reynolds said, “That is what we are. On a larger scale.”

Josey tapped her window with her thumb. “I want to believe you, but you sound crazy as fuck.”

“I suppose I do, yes. But it is true.”

“Larger scale…“ Josey said as she shot a look into the rearview. “I’m only entertaining all this and agreeing to go with you people–or whatever you are—because Renya got Nurse Vasquez pregnant. And saved Oren. That was another fucking miracle. And miracles are scarce in this world. And because Jack believes you. And I’ve seen some seriously weird shit.”

“And you have to investigate it,” Reynolds said, returning her gaze through the mirror with his blank affect.

“Things have to make sense for me.”

“I suppose we have time for some back story,” Reynolds said, trying to adjust his large frame in the small space the back of the car afforded.

“That would be nice,” she said, turning again in her seat. “I expected to deal with mentally ill people at Longwood. Not aliens or angels or whatever you all are. And I’m a pagan. A wiccan. So, my curiosity is more than piqued.”

Reynolds said, “Fair enough. They called us angels. I guess that is how people can understand things. Humans classify things to feel safe and are far more likely to make up an answer–even if wrong—than they are likely to suffer not understanding until someone reveals the full truth. And when they finally get the truth, they hold on to whatever they believed to start. Even if they are wrong.”

Jack said, “Hear, hear. People love to have answers, even if they’re wrong. Like the entire concept of god.” He chuckled.

“I don’t even know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy,” Josey said. “I can’t figure all this out. Aliens here. Aliens invading. All this… this destruction. It’s so sad.” She noticed a strip mall along the highway, burned crispy. None of this could be possible.

“Good and bad is really perspective, is it not, Josey?”

“There is right and wrong,” Navin said.

“Oh? This from you. You are adhering to absolutism?”

Navin said, “On the big stuff, yeah.”

“I’m thinking you’re the good guys because you glow gold and green and Renya saves dying guys and impregnates women with no plumbing,” Josey said. “But you could be taking Jack and I to one of those ships to do experiments on us. Which Jack would love, I bet.”

“It would be interesting,” Jack said.

“Power does not mean I am more honest. What if those were federal agents we killed? What if my people are the ones invading in those ships?”

“You could be. Who knows? There was that video disappearing lizard-agent. I don’t quite understand that one,” Josey said.

“I cannot explain that,” Reynolds said.

Navin added, “He cannot explain that one at all.”

“Easy, son,” Reynolds said leaving the car in an uncomfortable silence.

Josey listened to the engine and wondered if they needed more gas. She leaned over to read the gauge, but it read full. Had she slept, and they had stopped? She was tired of the questions and the madness. Josey filled the vacuum of silence and said, “Then, considering how wonderful the energy you bring is, then I guess I hope you’re the good guys.”

“Interesting. So, you go by your instinct, Josey? Your gut?”

She considered and said, “I do, I guess. When I don’t go with my intuition, I make mistakes. I feel good around Renya. And Navin, when he’s not lying. And I’m trying to like you, Reynolds.” She chuckled, and added, “But I often misunderstand my own emotions. So, Jack and I are probably going to some slave ship or someplace equally unpleasant.”

Navin slowed the car and weaved through another pile up. The headlights shined on a few people who stood along the side of the road and tried to wave them down. One woman was carrying an infant. Josey was glad the sun was setting, and she could barely make out faces and expressions. She wished to experience sympathy, but the only emotion she could conjure was disappointment.

She asked, “So, who’s invading?”

Reynolds took time until he said, “Well, the invasion happened thousands of years ago.”

Navin rolled his eyes and said, “Do you ever answer a fucking question with a fucking straight answer?”

Reynolds smiled. He said, “I have heard that exact statement about me before.”

“Yes. From me. Because you are the international man of freaking mystery. Just answer her fucking question!”

“I see you have adopted some human tendency for profanity.” His comment ignored, he said, “The first invasion occurred thousands of years ago as you have read in Doctor Geddis’ paper. The recovery mission has been ongoing–the effort to free this planet. This second invasion by an outside force is weakening the current rulers–the ones who have been here. The agents. And now, that is our chance to reclaim the planet.”

Navin hit the steering wheel. “You make no sense, man. Just tell her straight. The Ryads have been here forever. They run this planet. They use it mostly for uranium and gold and other mining operations.” He paused an allowed Josey to stare at him. “Yeah. That is one whopper of a tale, right, Father? And the invading force, the Andolonians, are in an ongoing war with the Ryads. I am sure Katro or Castania explained all of this in simple terms without riddles.”

“Most of it,” Jack said.

“It does not matter what they know and what they do not,” Reynolds said. He took a moment and adjusted his large frame in the tight back seat. He said, “The Ryads invaded this planet over forty-thousand years ago. They enslaved earth and all its inhabitants. The Neanderthals were the superior race, but they fought the invaders with limited power and tools and the invaders knew they were the ones to destroy. We did not arrive until it was too late. The Homo Sapiens merely submitted, thinking the invaders were gods. This is common for homo sapiens. Going with the flow. Simpletons, really. No insult meant.”

Josey chortled and said, “None taken. I hate humanity.”

“Andolonians are in those long ships? And Ryads are in the disc ships?” Jack asked.

“Yes, Jack,” Reynolds said, shifting in his seat. “The invaders placed certain humanoids–like the agents–into power. Those Ryad pretenders run this planet to this day. The Ryads would take any measure to continue to hold power. Floods. Inciting wars. Destabilizing the environment. Then, about twelve of your years ago, we learned of a covert plan from another galaxy–the ones with the long ships that were seen over your Louvre. The ships that are rolling on the horizon,” he pointed. “The Andolonians are a warlike race. They invade and wipe planets clean of resources. They have a desolate planet, so are always farming other worlds. Sensing the weakness of the embedded invaders, who have been struggling to keep the humans repressed, the Andolonians are in place to invade and usurp the Ryads. Nasty, all of them. Katro and I, and Navin, are police from multiple races across the universe that serve the Seventh Council. You must understand: Most worlds do not have leaders and elections. We govern ourselves, you might say. Complete freedom is the ideal. These invaders–these lesser races–believe in force and violence and repression. We have been trying to remove the invaders and leave the humans to evolve as they might. Now the second invasion will weaken both sides and it is imperative we stop all of it, arrest those breaking universal treaties, and restore order to this planet.”

Josey stared at him, her mouth wide. She said, “What you’re talking about is thousands and thousands of years…”

“We do not experience time the way you do.” Reynolds said, “To me, the creation of your planet was a few years ago.”

“I keep waiting for you to explain all this. Katro already explained the politics to me,” Jack said.

The sudden weight of her desire to end humanity hurt her. The need to end herself. She asked, “So, you guys are here to save us?”

Reynolds continued to stare out the window. He said, “Yeah, Josey. Believe that.”

“I can believe people that living for millions of years have problems,” Josey said, staring at her hands. “I can barely take the twenty-six I have lived.”

“You would be surprised.” Reynolds’ voice faded. “We have problems, like anyone else. We get angry and do stupid things. We argue. Life is life, no matter who is living it.”

“So poetic,” Navin mumbled. “You are telling her that her planet is a slave planet and you end the story with ah, well, that’s life.”

Josey could see Reynolds staring into the rearview mirror. He spat, “Earth is a slave planet. Yes. They use it for resources and as a place of amusement and power.” He paused, adding, “The problem is we have so many of these issues across–even just this galaxy. I keep telling the Council we are understaffed and we should abandon some of these smaller projects.”

“We’re a smaller project?” Josey asked, putting her hand to her chest. She wondered at her own resentment.

“Yes, your planet is insignificant.”

Josey said, “I’m not insignificant. Jack’s not insignificant.”

Reynolds’ face did not change. He said, “Considering all the living beings in the universe, you are insignificant.”

“And why are you so special then? Why is Renya?” Josey asked, spinning completely around in her seat. When Reynolds did not respond, she said, “I’m insignificant most of the time but individuals are special. We’re all special. There’s no one like me, or Jack, anywhere in this universe.”

Reynolds held her stare. He said, “That is a human wish. Your kind are pretty average.”

She shot him the nastiest look she could muster.

Jack laughed and said, “You get a look at that stare? That’s one in a million.”

Reynolds looked out the passenger window and said, “No, it actually is not.”

Josey ignored the insult and said, “So, you said your son’s lost. Isn’t he like you?”

“I did not say he was dead. I said he was lost.”

“To what?” Josey asked.

Reynolds turned to her and said, “To this planet and this maddening mission. And Navin, in his stubbornness, insisted on doing the same. And now my wife is likely lost, too. So, Josey? You are not special. Not to me. Not in the grand scheme. Do you know what makes you special? Someone else thinking you are. Or you doing something amazing. To me you are just another human just like any other human. Nondescript. Boring. Common. When humans recognize that you are all the same–and that only amazing effort or connecting with another in some special way makes you special. Until then, mortal? I have no use for you other than to help me save the ones I find special.”

Josey harrumphed and took her seat again. Reynolds was rotten. Maybe they were going right to some slave ship. Josey knew she wasn’t special, but to judge a whole planet, an entire species as meaningless?

Navin whispered, “Well, he handed you your hat.”

She had had enough. She curled into a ball, not obeying when Navin insisted she put on her seatbelt, and slipped into a restless nap.

She was searching the floor for the lost, final piece of a puzzle. She stood and examined the picture: A photograph of the planet earth bathed in moonlight. Josey admired the shimmering lights illuminating the city borders of the continents of North and South America. One piece, the area around New Jersey, was missing. Josey chuckled and bent again to search the floor. Everyone knows that when you do a puzzle, you dare not vacuum or sweep because one of those little buggers would inevitably slip onto the floor, unseen, until that moment when it was the only piece left. Then, one would need to crawl around like a toddler searching nose to the floor. Josey assumed that crawling position, but instead of finding the piece, Josey found a clowder of black cats in states of sleep, curling about or cleaning paws.

One raised its head and Josey met its three emerald eyes. “The piece is in your hand,” the cat said, purring its words into Josey’s head.

A flash and blackness. Josey was watching the beautiful woman from the earlier dream stroll in the rose-filled garden. Butterflies flitted about and Josey could hear birds chirping. Although it was daylight in the garden, Josey looked up and found the garden was under a dome beneath a sky of stars. She forced herself to watch the woman.

The woman strolled towards a small boy who was playing with kittens. The boy teased the kittens with a long feather and giggled as the kittens grabbed for the toy.

Josey heard a deep, male voice, saying: “I have to go.”

The woman. sad, knelt by the child and whispered, “We’ll have fun while Daddy is gone. Me and you.” She brushed a curl from the boy’s forehead. “Mommy and Navin. Just the two of us.”

Then, the woman turned to Josey. Through the slight tears at the corners of her eyes, she stared at Josey and called out: “Only I can wake I.”

Josey woke in a sweat when Navin opened her window and the breeze began to rearrange her hair. Disoriented, she bolted upright, wiping her face with her hand. Drenched with sweat and chilled, she sat up, pulled out her hair tie, and replaced the short strands into a tighter bun. She could smell the ocean. Where were they now? Somewhere in Jersey judging by the Victorian and Colonial houses lining the road. Another abandoned town. She imagined people hiding behind those closed house doors, fearful and disconnected. The only light of the dark night was from the hovering ships and the occasional military truck parked on the side of the road. The military presence seemed heavier here. She realized that she would never know why. “So much hubris. We thought we were so tough. Invincible. Now?” she whispered. No one in the car heard her.

“And that brought us here to more insanity,” she said, finishing her car story and expecting Oren to comment.

But he only said, “Don’t turn around.”