The Prison and the Aliens
Note: This is the second of my stories featuring Dain Hacker. Dain is a Tribute Character, based on one of my favorite character actors of all time. See if you can guess who he is…
A Dain Hacker story
Operation Bartowski's investigation involving dogs had been one of the most successful operations in the team's history. That was due, in no small part, to the willing involvement of Anthony Schaeffer. The man had been a dog trainer for damn close to sixty years.
He loved dogs, instinctively understood their tics and little ways. The Ring-known to be infiltrated by the Alien colonists-had been purchasing dogs from his company, turning them into highly efficient killers. Even worse, there had been rumors of Alien/Canine hybridization efforts.
That was something Schaeffer simply could not abide. He had never married, so each and every dog that came under his care was his child.
Dain Hacker had learned that about Schaeffer a long time ago, back in the Fifties, when they had both worked at Florida's Road Prison, Hacker hiding under the name of Walking Boss Thomas Godfrey, and Schaeffer as everyone's favorite Dog Boy.
No one ever used his real name, it was always, Hey, Dog Boy! But he never complained about it.
Now, with the investigation done, the…err…Ringleaders…had been dealt with, and the dogs…
Hacker sighed.
The salvageable ones were going to go back to Schaeffer's place, his actual home, a nice ranch with plenty of green to run around in. But the others…
No one wanted to talk about it, especially in front of Schaeffer.
Euthanasia, plain and simple…
Now, back at Castle, Anthony Schaeffer helping to finish the report to be sent off to General Beckman, Dain Hacker knew Chuck Bartowski had already Flashed on the "Road Prison Incident", as the title read in the NSA Files.
Now the kid was looking between Schaeffer and Hacker, and Hacker just knew what he was going to say.
"What actually happened there? Did you really see aliens there?"
Hacker groaned and laid his head on the table, and Schaeffer, bless him, nodded.
"Yeah… Don't know if there was just the one, but he was really an alien, and Tom, sorry Dain, killed him. Green blood and goo all over the place, and these guys from some sort of secret thing like the CIA descended upon Road Prison, like a plague of locusts."
"Okay, Dain," Chuck fixed Dain with a very serious, Ireallymeanit gaze. "The files don't hardly say anything. You've got to tell us what happened back there."
Dain sighed as he scratched his head.
It had all started with a simple traffic accident.
…..
Somewhere in Florida, 1953
You would think, by now, that I would have learned to be less careless…
Dain Hacker muttered some choice curses under his breath as he drove his car down a twisty country lane, somewhere in Florida. He was currently hiding under the alias, Andrew Dillion. He was fairly sure Matt wouldn't have minded…
He'd met an old friend from the Great War, what the kids nowadays called World War I, to differentiate it from the even greater war that followed twenty years later.
Dain, you old sod, look at you! You haven't aged a day! Have a drink with me and we'll talk about the old days!
Bad enough that his friend was approaching eighty, and looked it, while Dain, in spite of prematurely silvered hair-ironically for an immortal, he had gone completely gray by the time he turned thirty five-looked to be merely a hard-used forty. Even worse, his friend had commented on how young he looked in a busy bar. Everyone heard that, and some were savvy enough to realize an immortal might be wandering around in Florida.
Worst of all, that someone had also been savvy enough to realize certain governmental agencies might be very interested in the above-mentioned immortal wandering around in Florida.
That was Dain's cue to flee the premises; immediately and forthwith. He didn't know where to go. Just that he had to go. Now. Before those agency types caught up with him.
They had caught up with him just a few short years before. Now that agency was short three agents…
Dain didn't like…doing what he'd had to do…but he knew what selfish, greedy men were capable of.
So, there Dain Hacker was, speeding down this twisty Florida road. He didn't see the oncoming car until it was too late. One too wide turn, and both cars went off the road; tumbling end over end, coming to rest side by side…
Awareness came back slowly. Slumped over steering wheel, head pounding dully. Dain lifted his head, neck and shoulders screaming in protest.
I'm alive, not hurt too bad…
The other car lay about five feet away, the driver slumped over the steering wheel.
Staggering out of his car, Dain Hacker made his way, reeling a little, to the other car. The driver-side window had shattered completely, broken glass everywhere, crunching underfoot, scattered inside the car, even glistening in the driver's hair.
Hacker felt at the base of the man's throat, searching for a pulse. Nothing.
Dead…
He gently pulled the body back, to get a look at the man's face, got the shock of his life…
Someone once told Dain that everyone had a cosmic twin, an unrelated doppelgänger. Dain might have been immortal, but at heart, he was a simple country boy. He had scoffed at the notion of cosmic twins and doppelgängers.
But, here, lying dead in that car, was an exact fleshly duplicate of Dain Hacker. The same raw-boned craggy features, the same silvery hair…
It was enough to set the fine hairs at the back of his neck to tingling.
But it was also a way out of his immediate personal dilemma.
Claim his identity, and give him mine…
Once decided, Dain Hacker acted quickly, dragging the body out of the car and hoisting it into his car, gently settling the body slumped against the steering wheel. As creepifying as that felt, what followed was worse, replacing the contents of one car, Insurance forms, whatever, with the contents of the other.
The last bit was the worst of all. Feeling though the dead man's pockets, denims, shirt, and the jacket, taking everything, and replacing the removed items with his own stuff, wallet, keys…
Then he sat wearily on the trunk of what was now his car, shattered window and all, and looked through the dead man's wallet. A good hundred cash in there, which was better than what he'd had in his wallet. The ID showed a grim, unsmiling visage over the name, Thomas M. Godfrey, Junior Warden of Road Prison; which wasn't all that far from here…
Beginning to have second thoughts-he didn't want to be a prison warden-but it was too late.
He heard the sirens as three unmarked sedans almost literally flew in, coming to a screeching halt right in front of him. Eight men got out, all armed, all guns aimed at him.
"He hit my car," Dain's heart was in his throat as he pointed to the shattered window, and the cracked windshield.
"Out of my way…" the agent in charge dropped his cigarette as he shoved Hacker out of the way.
"Damn…" the man straightened from examining the dead body slumped at the wheel. "His neck's broken."
He rounded on Hacker.
"How did this happen?"
Hacker shrugged. He wasn't really sure how it happened either.
"His car just barreled into mine," he admitted. "Not sure of anything else."
"ID please," the man lit another cigarette as he spoke.
Sighing, Dain Hacker produced his ID.
"Thomas M. Godfrey," the man read the name off the ID, smoke issuing from nose and mouth as he spoke.
"Yes, sir," Hacker felt the stirrings of hope. Was he going to get away this time?
"Your car's totaled," the Smoking Man handed the wallet back. "We'll call for a tow."
"Thank you," Dain Hacker's legs were shaking. He was going to escape them this time.
Next time I might not be so lucky…