Chapter 08
BAU Headquarters
Washington DC
Spencer went back to his desk and started staring at paperwork. Nope, this was impossible. The thing about having an eidetic memory is that you remember everything. He could go back until he was about 8, and he remembered all of it. There was never any indication of anything strange in his family.
Okay, there were a lot of things strange in his family, but nothing that strange.
Nothing. That. Strange.
He stared at the paperwork, trying to think, until two people approached his desk. One of them put a business card from Legal Support in front of him. "Time to talk." Said the DIA agent.
"Sure." Right, interrogation time. Spencer got up.
"Is there anything you want to tell me before we go in there?" The legal rep asked.
"Not that I can think of."
"Okay. You know how this works, right?"
"Yeah."
They went into one of the interrogation rooms and sat down. Spencer knew that Emily, at least, was likely behind the glass, one of many. But he wasn't worried at all.
"All right". The agent across the desk said. "At the moment you're not being charged with anything but just to be on the safe side…." He pulled out a sheet and rattled off the Miranda rights. "Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Okay, have you ever been contacted by the Quadrainian government?"
"The what?" Spencer asked.
"The government from the planet Quadris?"
"No. Before today I didn't even know there was a planet Quadris."
Spencer figured out what they were doing in the first five minutes. Was he a spy of some kind? What was his mission? What were his plans? Of course the answers were no, stop serial killers, and chicken tandoori for dinner, so the questions were not a problem. Honestly even if he hadn't sat in on interviews like this in the past this would not be that hard. They talked in loops and circles, trying to find a hole in his story, but after a couple of hours everyone knew they weren't getting anywhere. Finally the interrogator sighed, shut his notes and turned to the mirror. "I give up." He said. "He's clean."
"I had no idea before today." Spencer said.
"Yeah, your father said he never told you. And your mother never said anything?"
"My mother was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic before I was born. Even if she had I wouldn't have believed her. I guess this means it's been confirmed?"
"The blood test came back right before we came in here."
"Great." It was real. Spencer felt cold and his head felt swimmy. It was real. He put his head down on the desk. What did that mean anyway?
"You okay?" The legal rep asked.
"I don't know." He replied
People came in then, there was more coming and going, and then Emily was there. "Hey." She said. "How are you holding up?"
"I don't know." He said. "I had no idea, I swear."
"I know. They're going to have a briefing, bring everyone up to date. Who do you want in there?"
"Everyone. Anyone. You guys are my family, I have nothing to hide." Might as well get it all out now.
"All right." She rubbed his back gently. "You should know before we get in there, William said he's not your father."
Because the hits just kept on coming today. "That might actually be reassuring." Spencer said. "I'm going to need time to process that."
"Understandable." Emily said. "Come on."
They went to the conference room, packed with people now, and Emily settled him into a chair. The DIA agent who had started this whole mess stepped to the screen. "Okay, here's what we know. None of this has been directly confirmed and some of it has only been secondhand confirmed today. From what we can tell the IGFP is similar to NATO, it's an intergovernmental military alliance made up of preferred trading partners with somewhat open borders. According to them forty-five years ago a group called the Keresdal Alliance attacked the planet Mrr'shaw, home of the Mrr'tani people. The planet was rendered uninhabitable and the survivors pressed into slavery. Now at the time the Mrr'tani people were not members of the IGFP, so the member planets were not made aware of the attack and did not render aid."
"Has that changed since then?" Dave asked.
DIA nodded. "Yeah. Thirty-five years ago the Keresdal Alliance attacked the planet Quadris. Again the planet was rendered uninhabitable. They attempted to take the survivors in as slaves but the planet was a member of the IGFP and the other planetary members sent in military aid. They were able to rescue the survivors. The IGFP immediately declared war on the Keresdal Alliance."
"Is that war ongoing?" JJ asked.
"No. They claim they declared victory three years ago. They have, in their words, made it impossible for the alliance to leave their home system. Based on the videos they shared it looks like they bombed them back to the interstellar equivalent of the stone age."
"Seriously?" Luke asked.
"We only have one side, but according to their reports the Keresdal Alliance was known for committing atrocities along the way. By the end it was a grudge match."
"So what do they want with us?" Matt asked.
Another man spoke up, this one wearing NASA credentials. "The Oort Cloud."
"The what?"
"The Oort cloud sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, is a cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals proposed to surround the Sun to as far as somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 Astronomical Units." Spencer said.
"And we always thought he was human." Emily said.
Once the laughter died down NASA spoke. "The Quadrainian people are going to use the Oort Cloud to put in an early warning system. They were attacked without warning and don't want it to happen again."
"So they're the ones taking Mars." Dave said.
"Yeah."
"So what does all this have to do with Spence?" JJ asked.
DIA stepped back up. "According to William Reid when their planet was attacked he was a junior member of what we would call a law firm. He was outside the city, visiting a client named Lord Alrick Garron at the time of the attack. His primary vehicle was what he called a fast pinnace, capable of interstellar travel."
"He called it a babe magnet." Dave said. They all had a laugh.
"When the attack started Lord Garron paid him substantially to take his pregnant wife to a planet where he knew they would be safe."
"Here." Emily said.
"Yeah. According to Mr. Reid Lord Garron was supposed to join them in no more than a week. He never showed."
"Ouch." Penelope said.
"When they landed they made their way to a church in the desert. According to INS this church is a well-known cover for illegal immigration. Mr. Reid said they had gold with them, which they were able to trade for new identities and some cash to get started. Seven months later Lord Garron's son was born at Valley Hospital in Clark County, Nevada."
"And by the time someone's memory kicked eight years later in they had used their new identities and worked their way up to the suburban middle class." Dave said.
"So Reid's not an…illegal…alien." Matt said.
"Nah." Luke replied. "He's an anchor baby."
Everyone laughed. Even Spencer. "And you're sure all this happened?" Spencer asked when the laughter died down.
A man in an Air Force uniform stepped up. He put a picture on the screen of a small, alien craft. "Thirty five years ago we spotted an unidentified object on radar. We lost it over the Nevada desert. We found it in the morning and removed it to the Groom Lake testing facility."
"The what?" Luke asked.
"Area 51." Penelope replied.
"Since the arrival of the IGFP delegation we've been able to determine that writing found inside the craft is of Quadrainian origin." The Air Force officer finished.
"We have enough evidence for a case." Dave said.
"Mr. Reid testified under oath that he never told the child about his origins." The DIA agent said. "You can't declare something you don't know. Add that to born in the US and his outstanding record, and, well Agent Reid, you're officially the first Alien-American in the FBI."
Emily beamed at him. "Congratulations."
