Many of the characters within this story, and the universe they inhabit, are the intellectual property of Jason Katims Productions.
Roswell: Re-Imagined
Written by Horatio Jaxx
Chapter 57: Best Laid Plans
Diane was only partially asleep when she heard the front doorbell ring. As she propped her head and shoulders up to see what the time was, she noticed the dim blue light of a pre sunrise sky glowing through and around the curtains in front of the window. The time was five o'clock to the minute. The doorbell rang again. Phillip rolled over onto his back in response to the second ring. He paused a moment to gather his wits and the doorbell rang again.
"Somebody is at the front door," Diane reported after sitting up on the side of the bed.
Phillip looked to the clock on the nightstand for the time, and then the doorbell rang twice again.
"I'll get it," Phillip declared after noting the time.
Phillip got out of bed and began attiring himself in his robe and slippers.
"Who could be ringing our doorbell at this time?" Diane questioned as she stood up and reached for her robe.
"We'll soon find out," Phillip announced with a hint of irritation.
Phillip was still fastening his robe about him when he stormed out of the bedroom and started for the front door. It was an hour away from his wakeup time, and Phillip was not pleased with the loss of sleep. He could not imagine anything important enough for someone to be ringing his doorbell at that hour. His suspicion told him that it had to be someone he did not know or barely knew. Anyone else he trusted to have the sense to contact them by a phone call first. By the time he reached the front door, Diane was in her slippers and robe, and standing just inside the living-room.
"Who is it?" Diane asked as Phillip looked through the window built into the door.
Phillip gave no reply. He was too busy being confused by the sight of the two men standing outside his front door. Both men were attired in blue jackets with the emblem of the Department of Homeland Security emblazoned on them. His immediate thought was that there was a terrorism scare in the community. An instant later, a foreboding suggested an alternate possibility. The earpieces that the two men were wearing suggested to him that they were connected by two-way radio to someone else. Phillip gave Diane a glance of apprehension and then he turned the knob and opened the door.
"Phillip Evans?" The tall man standing first in front of the doorway questioned.
"Yes," Phillip answered with a suspicious study of the stranger in front of him.
"I'm Agent Devon Plank," the tall man announced as he displayed his Homeland Security credential in front of him. "This is Agent Vincent Gummersall," he added with a nod to the second man behind.
Agent Gummersall raised his credential up and extended it forward for Phillip to see. Phillip took his time examining what looked to be authentic Homeland Security identifications. He then turned his gaze up onto the face of Agent Plank and asked the question that he was loathed to hear the answer to.
"What's this about?" Phillip questioned dryly.
"May we come in?" Agent Plank questioned back with a bland delivery.
Phillip took a moment to give Agent Plank a look of annoyance before stepping back two feet from the doorway. Agent Plank took one step across the threshold and stopped, brandishing a blank stare. Phillip immediately picked up the hint that he was expected to lead the way into the interior of the house. He walked back into the center of the living-room with Agent Plank two steps behind. Agent Gummersall stepped through the doorway, closed it and stood guard just in front of it.
"What's going on?" Diane asked as she stepped up next to Phillip.
Agent Plank gave no indication that he heard the question. He was already retrieving a document from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
"Mr. and Mrs. Evans, my orders are to collect the both of you and your son, Maxwell Spencer Evans," Agent Plank reported after reading the name off the document, "and your daughter, Isabel Gloria Evans."
"What?" Diane almost shouted.
Agent extended the document as Diane spoke. Phillip snatched it up and began reading it without a wasted instant.
"Presidential Emergency Powers!" Phillip read aloud at close to a shout.
"Please ready yourselves and your children to come with us," Agent Plank advised in a calm voice.
"Are you arresting us?" Diane questioned with an almost hysterical tone to her voice.
"Why?" Phillip bellowed an instant behind his wife's question. "This doesn't even specify what crime we're supposed to have committed," he asserted as he flagged the document at Agent Plank.
"That's not my department, sir," Agent Plank countered with indifference. "My job is to execute the order."
"Presidential Prerogative has no weight without a national emergency," Phillip grumbled as he returned to studying the document, "and even then, it's debatable. You have no right."
"If you don't produce your children, sir, we will be forced to take them out of their beds." Agent Plank responded with a monotone delivery.
Even as he spoke those words, Agent Gummersall was already halfway out the front door, signaling for more agents to come in. Phillip continued to confront Agent Plank with a stare of defiance.
"They're just teenagers," Diane insisted vehemently. "What could they have done? They're seventeen years old."
A second after she said this, Agent Gummersall led two more agents into the house. Diane immediately moved to block their path to the hall leading to the bedrooms.
"You can't do this," Diane insisted.
Agent Gummersall used his body to block Diane from obstructing the movements of the two new agents.
"Check the bedrooms," Agent Gummersall directed with a point as Diane continued to insist that they could not come into her home.
Phillip looked away from his stare at Agent Plank when the two new agents entered the house. He immediately began insisting that he and Diane would get their kids. Agent Plank ignored the the offer and used his body to block Phillip away from the path of the two new agents.
"Sir, I need you to step aside. I need you step aside, sir," Agent Plank instructed as he did that.
The two new agents entered the house and hurried past the commotion without hesitation. It took them several seconds from the moment they entered the house to reach the two bedrooms with closed doors, and then they quickly went inside. Phillip and Diane suspended their objections and began listening to the sounds coming from their children's rooms. To their surprise, there was no talk coming from either one. The only thing they heard was the footfalls of the two agents. Shortly, both agents hurried back into the hall outside of the bedrooms and looked to Agents Plank and Gummersall with confused expressions.
"The room is empty," the first agent reported.
"There's no one in here either," the second agent called out an instant behind.
A perplexed expression instantly formed on Agent Plank's face as he paused for a second to consider the reports. He then yelled out to the two new agents to search the house before turning his attention back to Phillip and Diane.
"Where are your children?" Agent Plank questioned with a stern look.
"What the hell is going on here?" Phillip yelled back with a furious expression.
"This is our home," Diane yelled with greater fury. "How dare you come in here and ransack our house."
As that was going on, the two new agents were quickly searching through the bathrooms, closets, the garage and any compartment large enough to conceal a person. Agent Plank suddenly noticed that the confrontation between him and the parents was close to becoming physical. That was the antithesis of his orders. He quickly backed off from his stern stance and appealed to Phillip and Diane to have a seat. When they refused, he politely advised them that he would have no recourse but to physically restrain them if they did not. Phillip and Diane complied with the request after taking a moment to seethe about having to do so.
"Mr. and Mrs. Evans, I need you to tell me where your children are hiding," Agent Plank entreated in a soothing tone.
Phillip and Diane had no idea where Max and Isabel were. However, at that moment, they were not inclined to give any indication of that to the DHS Agents in front of them. They sat with angry scowls as they listened to the two new agents rummage through their home. After a few minutes of searching, the two agents hurried into the living-room.
"They're not in the house," the first new agent to enter the living room reported with urgency.
"They have to be," Agent Plank insisted. "Keep searching. Check the attic. Look for crawl spaces."
"They're not here," the new first agent insisted with greater urgency.
"They have to be here," Agent plank insisted with a scowl. "They couldn't have gotten out."
"The longer we delay, the more distance they put between us and them," the first new agent spoke soberly. "They're not here," he finalized with emphasis on each word.
Agent Plank's expression took on a whole new level of confusion. After a few seconds of indecision, Agent Plank pressed his left hand against his earpiece and brought his right hand up to his face. An instant later, he began speaking into the microphone attached to the inside of the cuff of his jacket.
"The packages have fled the house and may be somewhere in the vicinity. I repeat the packages are not secured. Patrol the area, quietly, and report any sightings."
Agent Plank then looked at Phillip and Diane with a bewildered expression. They returned the look in kind. After several seconds of contemplation, Agent Gummersall spoke up with his advice.
"We need to call this in."
Agent Plank turned his attention toward Agent Gummersall in frustration and then he reached into his inside jacket pocket and retrieved his cell phone.
LINE BREAK
"Major, report," General Pittman gruffly barked at the image of Major Ryan on the large video screen in front of him.
For the past hour General Pittman had been in his command-and-control center taking reports on the readiness of Operation Commencement. It was then a quarter past five, Thursday morning, when Major Ryan called in to give his report. General Pittman Was expecting to hear that all fourteen teenagers had been collected and were on their way to Holloman. A second after he commanded Major Ryan to speak, he started hearing a completely different outcome.
"Sir, I'm getting reports that several of the packages are missing," Ryan reported with a hint of alarm.
"Missing?" General Pittman bellowed back. "What do you mean, missing?"
Ryan, momentarily, looked off screen towards someone who was speaking to him. He then turned back towards the camera to respond to the General's question.
"I'm getting more reports that the packages are not where we expected them to be."
"Then where are they?" General Pittman demanded more than questioned.
"We don't know that yet," Ryan answered in a matter-of-fact manner.
"Then how many did we get?" General Pittman growled back. "Tell me that."
Ryan discerned from that question that General Pittman did not understand the full extent of what was happening on his end. He paused only long enough to compose his features into a harsh expression while staring directly into the camera, and then he responded to the question.
"General Pittman," Ryan began to explain. "So far I have no reports that any of the Roswell Fourteen have been collected."
"I thought you had them under surveillance," General Pittman hollered at the image of Ryan.
As General Pittman was speaking, Ryan was being distracted by something going on off screen.
"Major Ryan, explain this," General Pittman stridently insisted.
"I can't," Ryan answered back with a confused expression. "We had their dwellings under video surveillance all night. Every door had at least one camera on it. They should be there."
"Don't tell me where they aren't, Major. Tell me where they are." General Pittman demanded a second behind.
Ryan was not unnerved by General Pittman's fury. He was too busy taking a report from someone off screen. Several seconds later he turned back towards the camera with more bad news.
"General," Ryan responded gruffly. "I now have reports from all teams. All fourteen of the packages are missing. The parents are in the homes, but the primary targets are nowhere to be found inside."
General Pittman paused to take this in. A stunned look dominated his expression as he examined the space between him and the floor. A few seconds later Ryan spoke into the silence.
"We have to assume that they knew we were coming. That's the only explanation that makes sense," Ryan asserted strongly. "We have to get the locals in on this, sir. We don't know how long they've been gone. They could be out of the state by now."
"No," General Pittman blurted out with a sudden awakening. "We need to keep this in-house," he roared back at Ryan.
General Pittman paused to ponder the situation before barking more orders at Ryan.
"Bring the parents to Holloman," General Pittman grumbled as if he continued to ponder the situation. "And find out how the hell they got past you," he finished with a holler.
"Yes sir, General," Ryan answered back with a hint of discourtesy.