Ch. 28: Infiltration (Part One)
Liz
Serena was already at the back door when Tristan and I got there. The three of us were supposed to wait until Michael contacted me before we went in. The three of us huddled together and went over the plans.
{Liz, the corridors are clear.}
{Thanks, Michael. We're going in.}
I opened the door a bit, trying to see if anyone was guarding the back door. "The coast is clear you guys," I announced. Turning fully to face Tristan and Serena, I asked. "Ready?"
They nodded and I pushed the door open gently, careful to not make any noise. Gesturing for them to follow me, we headed towards the conference room. There were no guards at all and I sent silent thanks to Isabel and Michael for that one.
Stopping in front of the door where the officials were meeting, I pressed my ear to the door. The soft sound of conversation confirmed we were in the right room.
Nerves suddenly creeping up on me, I began to doubt our plan. What if they didn't believe me? My hand rested on the doorknob for a while and Tristan placed his hand on my shoulder. "It's your choice, Liz."
Glancing at Serena, who met my gaze evenly, I opened the door. The eyes of four men in tailored suits were trained on me. I took a deep breath and as Tristan closed the door, he said softly to me. "It's time to be a hero, Liz."
Turning back to the four confused men, I opened my mouth to speak. But one of the officials spoke up first, "How did you get in here, miss?"
Taking the time to look at the officials, one of them caught my eye. He looked familiar but I couldn't quite place it. His gaze locked with mine and he looked away quickly with a strange expression on his face. I turned my attention back to the sixteen eyes that were staring at me.
"My name is Liz Parker and what I'm about to tell you may shock you but you have to listen to me," I began. "I need your help. There's going to be war soon and I need you to help me the resources I need to fight as hard as we can against it."
The man sitting at the far head of the table, whose name tag read Hal Carver, leaned forward on his elbows with a scowl across his face. "If this is your idea of a joke, young lady."
"This is no joke."
"Who are you saying is going to attack us?"
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for their reactions to this one. "The Skins. Aliens."
Hal gapped at at me openly and sat back in his chair. The man who looked familiar to me began to look nervous and the two others began to yell.
One of them, Jonathon Meru, stood up in his chair. "This is nonsense. Aliens? They aren't even real."
Glancing at Tristan, he gave me a small nod and I turned back to the men. Waving my hand slightly, I placed my shield up. The green sizzling energy fascinated them and they looked on in fear. Putting my shield down, I stared at them evenly.
Tristan snickered from behind me. "It doesn't get any more real than that, does it boys?"
Sending Tristan a glare, I focused my attention back to the now pale grown men. "I'm not lying."
Meru shook his head in disbelief, "I don't believe you. This cannot be real."
"I know this is hard to digest right now," I said, trying to calm the hysterical man down.
"How do you know this?" Carver asked. Wondering why he seemed calmer than the rest of them, I pushed the thoughts aside. He was willing to help and I was going to take all I could get.
"Because it has been foretold and it's happened before to another planet."
"Another planet?" Meru asked with wide eyes. "As in your home planet?"
I fumbled with an answer because I never really considered Antar my home planet. Before I could reply, Tristan stepped up next to me and said. "As in *my* home planet. I've seen what the Skins can do. If you don't want to see destruction and your whole planet in ruins, I strongly suggest you listen to Liz."
The man sitting next to Meru who had been quiet until now, Ronald Berkes, looked at me and said, his voice shaking. "I think that we need some time to think about this."
Shaking my head, I replied. "I'm sorry, sir, but it doesn't seem like we have a lot of time. You see, the Skins are landing in 358 days."
The four men all looked at me and I met their gazes. It just seemed awfully surreal that in a matter of fifteen minutes we had revealed the secret we had been trying to protect for as long as I had known the aliens.
Hal Carver intrigued me. I had a feeling he knew more than he was letting on and I had the same impression from Richard Dodie, the man who I recognized for some odd reason. Meru and Berkes I knew needed a lot more convincing.
Taking a deep breath, I waited for their responses.
Michael
"Iz, move over now. The broom is pressing into my side!"
"At least you don't have a leg cramp," Isabel shouted back. "You could have at least showered, Michael."
Isabel and I were in the janitor's closet watching the corridors in case someone else came in. I had taken some walkie talkies off some guards so if anyone went on, we could hear it over the frequency. You could say it was cramped in here.
My mind reached out to Liz to make sure she was alright. I was worried that something would go wrong. Isabel noticed my nerves and said, "She'll be alright."
Her words didn't comfort me very much. The sound of the walkie talkie fizzling broke me through my thoughts. "Johnson, we have a problem in the control room."
Isabel and I looked at each other in panic. Alex was in the control room making sure the cameras stayed off. Isabel gripped my shoulder painfully. Our attention was completely on the walkie talkie. "Marcus, I'm going in to check it out."
Isabel gasped and immediately began to get out of the closet. I grabbed her arm to stop her. "What?" she said angrily.
"Isabel.." I started.
"Don't, Michael. If it were Liz, you'd save her."
Torn between going after Alex and making sure that no guards came in to protect Liz, I glanced between the door and the walkie talkie. "Try calling Max. Maybe he can get Alex out."
Isabel reluctantly grabbed her cell phone from her pocket. Stabbing the phone with her fingers to dial the number, she waited impatiently for Max to answer. She growled at the phone. "We must be in a dead zone, Michael. I can't get a hold of him."
Knowing that we had no choice, I peeked my head out of the closet. "No one's in the hall. We should go now."
Isabel nodded, her concern for Alex evident, and we went to the control room. Searching frantically for the control room, Isabel and I became easily frustrated.
You would be too if you were in what seemed like an endless hallway of doors. Finally we reached the control room. Isabel burst in.
"What the hell?" Alex asked. He sat by the main computer with his lap top connected to it. "Did something happen?"
Isabel ran over to him and hugged him tightly. "No, Alex. The guards are coming. We have to get you out of here."
"But the cameras…"
"Can't you disable them permanently?" I asked.
Alex shook his head.
"Well figure out something soon, because we don't have much time left."
That's when we heard it.
Liz
There was silence in the room until Meru asked, "Say we believe you, what do you want us to do?"
Grateful that we were finally getting somewhere, I addressed the question. "There's a lot of Skins. They outnumber us by a lot. We need some fire power."
Berkes slammed his fists on the table and glared at his three colleagues. "This is crazy talk! You can't really believe her! You're being lied to."
"No," I said, my anger at the ignorant man building up. "*You've* been lied to. You're beloved government system has a unit designed to capture aliens and experiment on them. The government *knows* there was a crash and they *know* that we exist. I'm telling you the truth. The truth is that your people were cutting up and interrogating the wrong people. *We* aren't the enemies. You've chased us down and hunted us because we're different. Well guess what, Mr. Berkes, *we*, the aliens, are about to save every single human on this Earth whether you help us or not. So I would strongly suggest that you open your eyes to the world around you and begin to see who really lives in it."
Berkes mouth formed a perfect 'o' and he slumped back in his chair. Richard Dodie, the man who looked familiar, wore a worried expression on his face. "I believe you. But if I go up to one of my bosses and declare that we need nuclear weapons to fight an alien race, than I'm going to lose my job."
I was happy that the majority of them were coming around even if we had a long ways to go. "Before we discuss this any further, I had to know now who is going to help me. If not, then I'll erase your memories of everything you just heard."
Carver spoke first. "I took this job so I could help our country and its people. I'm with you."
Dodie nodded. "I agree."
Turning to look at Meru, I was pleasantly surprised by the strength in his voice. "I agree also."
Berke glanced at me and than reached for his pocket. "You're the danger," he said, malice and hatred in his voice.
Then there was a gun shot.
And a piercing scream.
