A/N: Hi! So, exciting announcement! If you go to my profile page, there is a link to my photobucket account and there are (slightly awkward) avatars that show what each character looks like in my head (I mean, if they were cartoon characters, this is what they'd look like). The program I used to create them had flaws (I couldn't make Eric as... overweight... as I wanted, and Maria doesn't look quite right...). But it's the basic idea anyway. There are two new characters on there that have not been introduced yet, so you can speculate as to what they'll be like and how we'll meet them :) Also on that photobucket account are photos of their new home, which they will be arriving at in just a few chapters :).
Nate and I had identical looks of annoyance on our faces as Eric blasted us with his tirade about being left alone and nearly killed. Too tired to even speak to him, I helped Nate inside and took him into Eric's bedroom.
Eric followed us, knife still in hand, and stopped cursing long enough to ask "Why is Nate sleeping in here? This is my bedroom!"
I turned to Eric and, my voice tight with restrained anger, told him, "Nate nearly was killed last night and needs to sleep on an actual bed in order to regain his strength. You'll be sleeping in the basement from now on, because once Nate is better, the women will be needing the bedrooms.
"Women?" Eric said the word like it was a disease.
"You got a problem with that?" Jess spoke from the bedroom doorway, Cole sitting on her left side and her shotgun in her right hand. I hoped that Rob had not given her any ammunition.
Eric's face lost all its color as he turned to face the tiny woman in the doorway, and he mutely shook his head "no" and sat down in front of his computer without another sound.
After Nate was settled, I showed Rob the basement where he promptly collapsed on the floor. I trudged back up the stairs knowing that I still had several things to do before I could join the rest of them in peaceful slumber. My hand was on the doorknob to the garage when Jess interrupted me.
"Where are you going?"
"I have to go empty the Hummer and then take it somewhere and drop it off so that no one connects it to us. I also have to inform the authorities that we left 3 Souls tied up in the mountains so that they can make sure they're safe." My rambling reminded me that I needed to ask Eric to remove all records of our prints and other identifying data from the police databases.
Jess's beautiful green eyes were troubled as she replied, "How are you on our side if you still care about the aliens so much?"
"I don't know," I replied honestly, "I guess I just figure that I can't do anything about the Souls that are already here, I can just help save the humans that are still fighting to survive. I don't want to hurt my fellow Souls, but I don't want to hurt you either." It was such a complicated situation, if only Souls and humans could coexist together peacefully.
She nodded thoughtfully and said no more. I turned and opened the garage door and was surprised to find that Jess followed me. She had not been up all night like the rest of us so she had no reason to sleep right now, but I had not expected her to help me. We worked in comfortable silence emptying the Hummer, haphazardly stacking the supplies around the garage. I knew we would have to sort through it all later, but right now I was just too tired. It only took us about fifteen minutes to get it all out of the Hummer. When we were through, Jess returned to the living room and turned on the TV while I poked my head into the guest bedroom where Nate was sleeping and Eric was working on the computer.
"Eric, would you mind hacking into the government and police databases and deleting all the files that they have on all of us? I'm sure we left fingerprints and DNA all over and I want to make sure they can't trace anything back to us."
Eric responded with a monotone voice, his face expressionless, "I did that weeks ago for you, me, and Nate, but I'll see what I can do for the new peeps."
I smiled, as irritating as Eric was, he was incredibly helpful, "Thank you Eric, maybe also get the names of the two women who Rob knows that we'll be retrieving soon, that way you don't have to do it again so soon." I paused for a second before I added, "I have to run out for a bit, I'll be back soon."
I turned and left, shouting a goodbye to Jess in the living room, and hopped into the Hummer. I gave it one more check to make sure that all evidence of us was gone and then I backed it out of my garage. I was nearly out of the driveway when I noticed Jess running toward me from the garage. I quickly put the Hummer in drive and rolled back into the garage and rolled down my window, wondering what she needed.
"How are you going to get back?" She asked as she approached the window.
"I don't know. I thought I might call a cab or something." I said shrugging.
"But then someone might remember you. Hold on, let me get my keys. I'll follow you and bring you home."
I was surprised at her offer, but it made sense. If Nate had been well and we had had the other car, I probably would have had him do the same thing, but I never would have asked Jess to do it. I was not going to say no, though, so I backed out of the garage a second time and waited for her to join me. Once she was out of the driveway and behind me on the street, I took off. I had been thinking on the way down the mountains where I would drop the Hummer off and I had decided that I wanted to put it somewhere that had lots of other cars and people but that did not have security cameras. I did not want to be seen. For this reason, I drove out to the highway and made my way east toward the interstate. When I got there, I pulled into the Park & Ride parking lot and sat in the car for a moment until no one was around. As soon as it was all clear, I hopped out, tossed the keys into a nearby irrigation ditch, and jumped into Jess's waiting green Ford.
Without a word she turned out of the parking lot and we began our drive back home. I glanced over at her and was surprised to find that she was relaxed behind the wheel, her small hands resting loosely on the steering wheel and her face smooth and calm. Sometime since we had arrived back at the house she had brushed her hair loose, the wavy golden strands glowing in the sun. I did not realize that I was staring at her until she glanced over at me and gave me a small smile.
I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind, "You don't seem to mind driving in traffic," and it was true. It was about five in the evening and the interstate between Denver and Boulder was very busy.
She smiled and shrugged, "I went to college in Portland, Oregon, and compared to there, this isn't anything, trust me."
"College?" I asked, once again speaking before I thought.
She laughed a little and then sighed, "Yeah, I know I look seventeen, but I'm actually twenty-three."
All I managed to say to that was "Oh," as I processed the fact that this human girl, woman, I corrected myself, was actually only four years younger than my human host. After a short and slightly awkward pause, I added, "What did you study in college?"
She snorted a laugh and said, "Sociology. You wouldn't believe it, but that actually saved my life. Well, actually, Cole saved my life. Maybe both of them saved my life, I'm not really sure."
"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.
"Well, my best friend Janie went to Uganda her last semester of school to do some relief work and I got a letter from her a week before graduation telling me that there were aliens out there who were taking over everything and that at first she thought it was a good thing because the wars and the hunger disappeared but then she realized that the aliens were actually taking over the humans, like making them disappear. She was really scared and she didn't know how to get away from them but she wrote to me and told me that I needed to be on guard about it. I honestly didn't believe her." She paused and I had the urge to take the hand that was sitting on the center console, just to comfort her. I kept my distance, however, and after a moment she resumed, "A week later, I graduated and got on a plane to come home. I was doing an experiment that I sometimes do in crowded places where I put headphones in and don't turn any music on and listen to people's conversations. It's kinda a dishonest thing to do, but I was glad I did it this time because the two people next to me were talking about Souls and being inserted and different planets. It took me the whole plane ride to figure out that they were talking about the same thing that Janie warned me about. I was so scared. My family met me at the airport and they seemed weird. They were talking funny and my brothers didn't tackle me like they usually do. I was on pins and needles the whole way home because I wanted to talk to them about what I had heard on the plane but I didn't know how to bring it up. Then we got home and Cole was so excited to see me, but he was growling at my family and wouldn't let any of them come near me. He grabbed my sweatshirt and literally dragged me out of the house and into the garage and when my parents followed, he barked at them and I think he would have attacked them if they had tried to come any closer. I figured it out then that the aliens had taken them too, and I was so scared that I just jumped in the truck with Cole and we left. I haven't been back since. So yeah. Cole saved my life, and I guess so did one of my sociology experiments." She finished with a small smile, but I knew that she was mourning her family.
"I'm so sorry about your family, Jess, but I'm glad that you figured it out and escaped."
"Janie figured it out, and Cole figured it out. I just ran away." She said, her green eyes hollow and centered on the road.
"You did the only thing you could have. If you had stayed, you'd be gone by now." I said gently.
She did not respond, just reached up and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. She stared straight ahead, but I could not help but glance over at her from time to time. I found myself incredibly grateful to Cole for dragging her out of her parents house and saving her life. I might have to be nice to the mutt after all.
When we were nearly two-thirds of the way home, I asked Jess to pull into a gas station. She had a pair of sunglasses in her glovebox already so she put those on and I hopped out. I filled up her tank without having to make any small-talk with the attendant and while I was waiting, I walked over to a payphone that was sitting outside the convenience store and picked it up. I dialed 911 and waited for the answer.
"911, what is your emergency?" A woman's voice asked calmly over the phone.
"I would like to report three kidnappings." I said in a tone much lower than my normal voice.
"Kidnappings?" The woman clarified.
"Yes, I left two Souls tied up in a house up on Highway 72 and another Soul tied up in the woods just off Highway 7. I can't tell you exactly where, just go look and make sure you find them." With that, I hung up the phone.
I walked back to the truck, replaced the gas nozzle, twisted the cap back on, and hopped back in.
"Did you call the police to tell them where the Souls were tied up?" Jess asked, and by the look on her face I could tell that she was not sure how she felt about me saving the Souls.
"Yes." I said. We finished the rest of the drive home in silence.
When we arrived home I showed Jess my bedroom and told her that she could use it for the time being and then I went downstairs and collapsed on the floor and drifted off into a deep, deep sleep.
When I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to see that it was already nine in the morning. Usually an early riser, I had overslept my normal wake-up time by several hours. I rolled over and stretched, already feeling knots in my back from sleeping on the hard basement floor.
I gingerly got to my feet, feeling like an old man, and stumbled up the stairs, rubbing my eyes and trying to smooth my hair down. Rob was standing in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, freshly showered and looking as though he had never felt better.
He smirked as I arrived, and poured me a cup of coffee, shoving it into my hands, "Sleep well?"
"I must have, but I think we need to buy mattresses ASAP, that floor is brutal."
Rob chuckled, "I've slept on worse, believe me. Between the army and traveling like I have, that is nothing."
"You were in the army?" I forced my body to stay where I was and not retreat in fear as I asked the question.
"Yeah, for a while. After three tours in the Middle East I didn't reenlist. Spent the last couple of years just wandering around with my backpack."
The knives, James Bond impersonations, insane driving and first aid skills all made sense now. He was a military man. Why did we have to rescue the violent humans? Why not the nice ones? Between angry Eric, trigger-happy Jess, and army Rob, this house was liable to blow up!
I took a long gulp of my coffee and switched the subject, "How do you want to go about rescuing your friends Rachel and Maria?"
Rob sighed and sat down at the kitchen table, "I don't know. I've gone over and over it in my head and I just don't know how we're going to sneak in there. They're completely hidden where they are, but there really is no way in or out without being seen. I'm sure they've got the whole block being watched day and night."
"What if we didn't sneak? What if we just walked right up to it and left with them?"
Rob looked at me, startled, "How would we do that?"
"Well, that is basically how Nate and I rescued you. I'm a Soul; they trust me. As a species, we do not doubt what the other says because none of us have reason to lie to the others. If I were to go and get them, they would never suspect me."
"I'd have to go with you, they'd never trust you by yourself." Rob said slowly, hope beginning to fill his voice.
"Could you write them a note or something? I don't think it's safe for you to go."
"No, they'd never believe a note. They'd think that I was taken over and that I wrote that as a Soul."
"What about a video?" A voice suggested and both of us turned around to see Jess walking into the kitchen with messy hair and wearing some of Nate's sweatpants and an old t-shirt, both of which were so baggy on her that she looked a bit like a ragamuffin.
I smiled at her in greeting while Rob considered her suggestion, "A video might work. If I took a video of myself telling them to trust you, and made sure that my eyes were in it, then maybe they'd do it."
"I think it's a good idea. If it doesn't work, then we can try again tomorrow and I'll bring you along, but there is no point in risking more exposure if we don't have to." I said.
Rob nodded slowly and thoughtfully, "Alright. We'll give it a try."
My phone had video recording and playback capabilities, so we decided to use that since it was small and easy for me to carry. We set up in the living room for our recording session and Rob asked that we wake Nate and Eric and have them join us. When Nate and Jess were situated on the couch and Eric was behind the camera—he refused to be in front of it—we started taping.
Looking straight into the camera, Rob began to talk, "Hi Rachel and Maria. I know I kinda left you in the lurch but it was actually a good thing. First things first, I'm still human." Eric zoomed straight in on his purely brown iris and then zoomed out, "I found other humans and they are going to help me rescue you. The thing is, this group of humans that I found, well, they've got a spy, sorta. His name is Burns and he is one of them, but he's gone native, I mean, he does everything he can to rescue humans. He saved my life and the lives of all the humans here. You can trust him." Rob stopped and motioned for me to join him, I did so smiling, partially because I wanted to make a good impression and partially because Rob had just said I had "gone native" and of all the descriptions that I tried to give people of what I had done, I liked this one the best.
"So this is Burns," Rob continued, "And he is a part of this group of humans and I need you to trust him and go with him because he can get you out of there. The silver-eyed people, they're called Souls by the way, trust him because he is one of them, but he is really on our side." I waited while the camera zoomed in on me this time to show that I did, indeed, have the silver ring around my eyes. Then Rob shifted gears again and had Eric point the camera at the couch, "And this is Nate and this is Jess. They both live here too. So does Eric, he's the one who is taping, say Hi Eric." Eric mumbled a "Hi" from behind the camera and Rob went back to talking, "Anyway, Nate and Burns are best friends and we just found Jess yesterday, so she's pretty new. Eric has been here for a while. They all live in Burns' basement and Burns brings them food and things to survive." Suddenly, Cole bounded into the living room and jumped onto Jess's lap and Rob laughed, "Oh, and how could I forget Cole, he is Jess's dog and he lives here too. So please, go with Burns, trust him, he'll keep you safe and bring you back here."
Rob finished his little speech and Eric stopped recording. We all gathered around the tiny screen of my phone to watch the playback. We decided that it was a success and I put it in my pocket, making sure it was fully charged, and headed toward the door. Jess pressed two pairs of sunglasses into my hands and I gave her a grateful look. Rob walked with me giving me a detailed description of where the two women were hiding. Everyone except Eric stood in the garage to see me off and I told them not to worry and then I pulled myself into Jess's old green Ford and backed out of the driveway.