Runaway Heart

TWENTY-FIVE

What they found was Susan sitting in the guest house with a strained, worried expression. She had been halfheartedly working on a UCLA application for student aid, and sprang to her feet as they came through the door.

"Thank God you're all right," Herman said.

"Where the hell have you two been? I called the cops, but they said they don't investigate missing persons cases for forty-eight hours."

"Honey, you remember Gil and Tom?"

"Of course I remember. How could I forget them?" But she was furrowing her brow.

"Honey, you won't believe it. You won't, but you have to."

"What?" She was getting impatient now.

"We… Jack and I were kidnapped by CDF troops. We were taken away in an Aurora Hyper Whispership-a prototype, I think."

"A what?" Jack mumbled. His split lip where Paul hit him was sore and causing a lisp.

"It's a prototype aircraft. An Aurora Whispership."

"You sure it wasn't a Klingon Star Fighter?" Jack blurted.

"I heard the pilot calling Dreamland Control. He said, 'We're entering The Box.' He said, 'this is Psych Twenty-seven.' Tom and Gil told me that Psych series aircraft were Aurora prototypes being tested at Area Fifty-one. They said the government was working on noise-cloaking devices for aircraft called 'Whisperships.' "

"Wait. Hold on a minute. Who went to Area Fifty-one?" Jack asked.

"We did."

"We did?"

"You bet we did. What kinda detective are you? We were out there inside the secure Dulce Genetics Lab on Level Four." He turned to Susan. "You remember what's done down there, honey?"

"Nightmare Hall," she said. But the way she said it was disbelieving and incredulous.

"It's where the government is doing research on aliens," Herm said. "At least, that's what Tom and Gil thought."

"Whoa! Hold it! I'm not doing any X-Files shit."

"Look, Jack, that's where we were."

"That's where you were. I was at a plain old military base in the desert with guys wearing standard GI camouflage. There were no Star Fleet salutes and no aliens. Trust me, I saw everything."

"We had on hoods. How could you see it?"

"My hood was leaking. They got a moth problem they need to address."

"You're kidding? You saw what was out there?"

"Kinda." Now Jack was taking a step backward because Herman was moving in on him, that intense look back on his raccoon face.

"Like what?" Herman challenged. "What did you see?"

"Like what? Like miles of runways. Looked like they went all the way to the horizon."

"The long strip on Papoose Lake! What else?"

"I don't know… little dirt-covered hangars. Calm down, will ya?"

"The igloos!" Herman shouted and spun triumphantly toward Susan. "He saw the igloos!"

"No igloos. No Alaskans, no polar bears, no ice. Just little hangars built into mounds of dirt."

"They're called igloos. They drag the prototype aircraft off the runways and hide 'em in there when the Russian satellites go over." Herman was really getting excited.

"This proves what Tom and Gil were saying."

"Really?" Susan seemed less sure.

"We were there, honey. I know it! My sinuses… my sinuses were plugged when I got back. You know that's the only place I get sinus allergies."

"You use your sinuses for global positioning?" Jack sneered.

"Dad, slow down a minute."

"We were there. Right inside Dreamland, right where Gil said they were doing tests on the aliens."

"Herm, you've gotta stop with this alien stuff," Jack pleaded. "You sound like some lunatic who just took a ride in a spaceship. Keep it up and you're gonna start getting your meals delivered under the door."

"Roland was killed by something that went right up the side of a glass tower, hung there, and pried open a window. A feat requiring superhuman strength. Then whatever it was ripped Roland apart. Shredded him."

Jack turned to Susan. "Make him stop."

"I think a hybrid, a Ten-Eyck chimera did it. Yes-some half-man, half-space-alien, gene-spliced by using DNA from a dead intergalactic traveler."

"From the planet Ten-Eyck?" Jack said sarcastically.

"Maybe. Yeah… why not? A hybrid made at Dreamland in Nightmare Hall."

"Excuse me. I gotta go outside and cough up a furball." Jack turned and walked out of the room onto the porch.

He sat in one of the Brown Jordan deck chairs, his ass right there, pressed against the same white plastic that Barbra Streisand and Jim Brolin pressed their asses against. Not much of a thought, admittedly, but he was trying for some earthly reality. He decided that regardless of his attraction to Susan, he had to dump this gig.

His memory of the trip was nothing like Herm's. Okay, the helicopter had been strange. He'd seen something with angled sides and all kinds of panels hanging off it. And, yes, it had been incredibly quiet, and he'd heard the Dreamland Control radio transmission, same as Herm. But that was a long way from hybrid aliens.

What Jack remembered about their kidnapping was a little out there, but certainly not from some George Lucas epic. He remembered seeing the guys in camouflage with little round patches on their pockets. He remembered being put in a car and driven across the base, seeing the whatevers-the igloos, and the little one-story building with all the security. He had caught a glimpse of that door lock, squinting through the pinhole in his hood. There was a unique procedure for getting into the place: Everybody was dressed the same and each had an ID card that, he guessed, must have been reissued every morning, because it confirmed the individual's exact weight. The soldiers stepped on a scale and were weighed along with their weapons, then they inserted the card into a slot to verify the scale weight. Jack guessed nobody got to take a piss or sweat on duty. Next there was some kind of eye scan where a laser went into the left eye and read capillaries or indecent thoughts- something. After which the door slid open.

Jack remembered the ride down in the elevator, going to the little medical room, and the doctor with the bushy brown hair. Then Jack Wirta, private eye, was pissing into a cup like an NFL wide receiver. DNA!

Then came the shot and the strange dream. The dream was sort of a replay of the trip he and Susan took to San Fran. He never remembered having a dream that seemed like a memory before. He and Susan were back in Alioto's Restaurant. He'd been telling her what the coroner's report said… He'd also dreamed about several of the conversations he'd had with Herman.

He stood up and walked over to the patio wall, propped his foot up, and wished he hadn't stopped smoking. While he was having these thoughts he looked down and saw it.

The sand was still wet from the rainstorm that had passed through after making its way south from San Francisco. The midnight downpour had darkened the sand and hardened it. Just outside the low brick wall there were a bunch of footprints. He leaned over and studied them. They all had the same sole markings, but appeared to be three different sizes. That meant three men.

This is good detecting, Jack. Too bad you're not being paid.

He walked around the wall to get a closer look, knelt down, and examined the footprints. The treads on the boot soles were identical. Crepe soles in a zigzag pattern. Uniform boots-military issue, like the ones the soldiers who had put him in the car were wearing. It was then that he noticed the three holes punched into the damp sand. They were about two and a half feet apart, at the angle of an isosceles triangle.

A tripod!

Somebody stood out here after the rain and took pictures.

Still shots?

A video transmission uplink?

So, what were CDF commandos doing out here taking pictures of Susan?

He already knew the answer: They were doing surveillance, ready to kidnap her if they thought it was going to be necessary. He was now pretty certain the dreams he'd had were not dreams. He and Herman had been debriefed- quizzed under drugs while a commando team waited here to be told whether or not to seize Susan.

Had he and Herm "passed" the test? Is that why she had been left alone? Is that why they had been released?

Herman saw hybrid aliens, but Jack was trained to see evidence, and these footprints under the wall were definitely evidence.

He turned and walked back inside. He sat down on the sofa and listened to Herman's rant.

Herman was jazzed, talking about Area 51, Dreamland, The Ranch, Aurora Whisperships, and a bunch of other Roswell nonsense. Jack listened, but his mind drifted. Suddenly, Herman unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down.

Okay, Jack thought. I'm outta here.

Herman was showing Susan an abdominal surgical wound with four stitches.

"What is it?" Susan asked.

"Somebody did some kinda operation on me."

Jack didn't like this. In fact, he hated it.

"I had an arrhythmia in the helicopter," Herman was saying. "It was gone when I woke up."

"Dad, you've got to go get checked out."

"I will. But, honey, I've never felt better. I feel reborn, like I'm ten years younger. Like this heart problem somehow got fixed."

Herman and Susan sat transfixed, but Jack needed air again, so he told them what he had found under the wall. They all trooped outside and looked at the footprints. Herman took photos.

Jack had another thought. "Herm, did you have any dreams while you were asleep out there?"

"Yeah, I dreamed about some huge, winged bat-humanoids, and some reptile men that my old clients, who once worked there-"

"Forget the Japanese animation," Jack interrupted. "Was there anything else, more like memories of what you did over the last few days?"

"Yeah. I had a strange kinda dream that was exactly like my trip out to JPL. My talk with Dr. Zimbaldi."

"I think before we take you to the hospital we need to go check on Zimbaldi."

"Why?"

"I don't think you were dreaming, Herm. I think we were both spilling our guts. I think Zimmy is about to eat it."