Cassie shifted, slowly coming around after having passed out. She found herself lying on a hard, cold surface. Opening her eyes, Cassie was surprised to find herself staring into the eyes of a small, childlike, frail-looking alien. It looked a great deal like the characters in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact, as Cassie looked closer, she found that it looked exactly like one of them.
Cassie blinked, shaking her head and looking again at the alien standing in front of her. She then saw that it was a life-sized, freestanding cardboard cutout, and that there were more of them standing around. At least, Cassie saw that there was one more of them: Data the android from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Looking around, Cassie saw that she was surrounded by various kinds of sci-fi memorabilia. Toy phasers, Darth Vader masks, Spock ears, plastic lightsabers and other strange odds and ends lined the shelves around her. There was also a large collection of posters hanging on the walls, also echoing the general sci-fi theme of the place. Posters from The X-Files, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, and also movie posters. There were theatrical posters from Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Most of the shelf space, however, was taken up by pencils, mugs, t-shirts ashtrays and posters, all of them bearing the same red and white logo with the same stenciled lettering. The letters all spelled out the same thing: Area 51. Cassie didn't know what "Area 51" was, but she didn't have any time to think about that.
"She's awake." Cassie heard Rachel's voice coming from somewhere behind her.
Rachel strolled casually up to Cassie, holding what appeared to be a small stick.
"What's going on?" Cassie asked, feeling more confused than groggy, which she thought was strange since the last thing she remembered was being caught in an explosion and then nearly being engulfed by a fire, before passing out from the heat.
"You were knocked out. You know, after that totally unexplainable explosion happened," Rachel said, giving Cassie a look.
Cassie knew what Rachel's hidden meaning was. As far as the adults were concerned, there had been no Yeerk, no Dracon beams fired at them, and the mysterious fire would have to remain just that. Mysterious. Cassie turned, and saw her father and Crazy Helen come rushing over to her. Her dad knelt beside her and started running his hands over her head.
"Ow! Dad, cut it out!"
"She looks okay," he muttered. "Superficial cut. Serious bruising, but I doubt she has a concussion. Still, I'll take you by the hospital emergency room before we go home. Have the doctors there check you out. And Rachel too, both of you probably inhaled some smoke in that fire."
Rachel gave Cassie a sly wink. "Doctor Carter may be there. Noah Wyle. I wouldn't mind seeing him."
"What happened out there?" Cassie asked her father.
"Well, Cassie -"
"It was the aliens!" Crazy Helen broke in. "They have those exploding rocks that they spread around out there. BOOM!"
Walter sighed, rolling his eyes. "We're on the edge of an Air Force facility. They have a base out on the edge of the Dry lands. You can see the jets flying over most of the time. One of them probably just lost a bomb or a missile by accident, that snake-bit horse must have set it off. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"That sounds possible," Cassie said.
"It was the Martians!" Crazy Helen exclaimed. "They keep a bunch of aliens locked up at Area 51. That's why it's so secret out there. That's why the government won't talk about it! The Air Force keeps them locked up in cages to extract the secrets of new technologies from them. You think computers and stealth just happened? All that stuff came from aliens! Here, have a souvenir mug. They're normally $10.99, but you can have this one free because you got hurt."
Crazy Helen pulled one of the mugs off the shelf, polished it with the sleeve of her blouse, then handed it over to Cassie. Cassie took the mug with a sort of bemused smile. It seemed kind of odd to her, to receive a gift for nearly getting killed.
"I have a pecan log," Rachel said, holding up her stick.
"Do you want a mug, too?" Crazy Helen asked.
"No, I like the pecan log. But I don't really believe in aliens," Rachel lied with a perfectly straight face.
Helen smiled knowingly. "A lot of people do, young lady. Very smart people, too. Out there at Area 51 they know, oh they know. The government doesn't want any of the few people who know the truth to tell anyone else. Right now, the microchip they put in my head is transmitting every word I say to one of their black helicopters. And then the helicopter relays the info they gather to the secret base of the New World Order out in the Azores, which is where Atlantis is, you know?"
The three of them just gave Helen an incredulous look, since none of them really knew how to respond to that.
"Well, we might as well get out of Helen's hair," Walter said, supporting Cassie and putting his other hand on Rachel's shoulder. "Cassie, are you sure you're all right? Can you focus your eyes?"
"Um, yeah, I'm fine." Cassie took a breath, knowing what the answer was probably going to be, but still wanting conformation. "What about the horse we were taking care of? What happened to her?"
Walter shook his head, not quite believing what had happened himself. "It's the strangest thing, but there isn't a trace of her left. Not a trace."
Cassie sighed; she'd suspected something like that. A point-blank shot from a Dracon beam tended to leave nothing behind but a severe burn mark on a surface, and in all that fire, one more burn wasn't going to attract any attention.
"Hah!" Crazy Helen burst in. "It was the Martians! This is all the fault of those darned aliens!"
Cassie and Rachel both had to make an effort to keep straight faces. Their thoughts were remarkably similar: It's a very strange sort of world when a person who calls herself Crazy Helen is at least partially right.
The three of them said their good-byes to Helen, and met up at the truck.
"Well," Walter said. "I think this definitely takes the cake as one of the strangest, most dangerous animal rescues we've ever done."
No one had anything to say to that, and so the three of them were silent the rest of the way. Walter made good on his intent to take Cassie and Rachel to the hospital, and both of them were checked for signs of smoke inhalation, and Cassie was checked over to see whether or not she had a concussion.
As it turned out the only things that the two of them had gotten, besides freaked out, was Cassie's cut and her bump on the head. The doctor had said that the headache would probably go away by the time she got home.
Walter dropped Rachel off at her house, thanking her again for risking her life for Cassie. Once Walter and Cassie got home, Walter gave Cassie a fatherly hug, kissed her goodnight, and tucked her into bed.
