I’m left wondering about the scope of this covert action. It reaches the President. That’s impressive. But it’s an absurdly small team. I make four of them—the three in here and whoever told the guard about the delay. Maybe there are more soldiers in the other hut, but I doubt it if there’s only going to be a single guard outside. Perhaps they’ve got reinforcements ‘en route,’ as the military is so fond of saying. More than likely, they’re trying to balance numbers against the threat of exposure. Loose lips sink planets.
If these guys are from DARPA, there’s a good chance no one else knows about this. That would explain the absence of the broader military muscle. For some reason, Sharon and Mark appeared on DARPA’s radar, probably quite literally, and even though it’s a fringe possibility, DARPA took the idea of First Contact seriously and investigated. Perhaps they took it a little too seriously. Initially, they thought they’d stumbled across a Russian spy ring, but at some point they realized Sharon comes from slightly further afield, and they nabbed me by accident.
The unnamed officer reaches out and unstraps my left arm as the two guards keep their guns trained on me. I’m not sure what type of firearms they’re carrying. Like the soldiers’ clothing, the guns are black. They’re not handguns, but they’re not rifles either. They’re something in between, being stub nosed with a long magazine poking out from beneath the block of the gun. Lots of bullets. Lots and lots of bullets.
“Do I get to keep the banana?”
“Hah, not likely,” the officer says, tossing the banana back in his black duffle bag.
I was going to eat it.
“How about something to drink, at least?” I’m not thirsty. I’m looking for concessions of any kind, anything to soften my captor’s attitude. Somewhat reluctantly, he retrieves a plastic water bottle and tosses it on the bed. It’s half empty and could have been bought from the nearest gas station.
“And it’s Nathaniel,” he says. “My name. It’s Nathaniel Jacob Lill.”
“Not so nice to meet you, Nathaniel,” I reply.
“Sweet dreams,” he says, grabbing his bag. The three men back out of the room, being sure not to turn their backs on me. I catch a glimpse of a red taillight glowing through the falling snow behind them as someone touches the brakes on what appears to be a truck or a Humvee. The truck is easily fifty yards from the room. An outer cordon? Maybe that’s it. Maybe they’ve got layers around me, and these three are the close-contact team.
I work with my left hand to unstrap my right arm, but the leather is stiff. It would have been nice if they’d freed both hands, but I’m happy with a little paranoia on their part. They’re treating me with the respect you’d afford a Great White shark.
Once my other arm is free, I grab my jacket and walk around the tiny one-room cabin trying to get warm. What a dump. This place must have been built decades ago. It’s a hunting lodge of some kind, although lodge is too generous a term, and with only a single bed, it’s not exactly hunting party friendly.
There’s a portable toilet in one corner, but the bluish water in the bowl is frozen solid. No cameras or hidden mics, but that makes sense given the comments about Sharon and Mark manipulating Earth technology. The soldiers must have felt naked without a radio piece in their ears, although I did notice a pair of night vision goggles in the black duffle bag.
I peer between the slats of wood nailed over the lone window. As I suspected, there’s another hut next to this one. A soft yellow glow flickers from the far window, marking a gas lantern. Action Man wasn’t kidding about low-tech and not taking any chances.
My feet are freezing. I’m wearing boots, but it’s as cold as a meat locker inside this cabin.
I walk quietly to the door. There’s a peephole with a small bead of glass affording a fisheye view of the snowstorm outside. It’s getting dark, but there’s a lone streetlight on the far side of what looks like an empty parking lot buried in snow. I can make out the boots of one of the soldiers standing beside the door.
I try the door handle. It turns, but the door is locked. The lock is old, with a large keyhole accessible from both sides. I haven’t seen a lock like this outside of a B-grade 1950’s movie.
I grab the blanket from the bed, wrapping it around my shoulders and trying to stay warm. I might as well wrap a sheet of ice around myself for all the good it does.
“Think. Think. Think,” I mutter to myself. “What would Sharon do?”
Aside from strip down and lather herself with soapy water, I’m not sure.
“Be serious,” I scold myself, pushing my mind to notice the details around me. Sharon would use the everyday, ordinary things in here to escape, but how?
The mattress is covered with a white fitted sheet. I peel the sheet back and find a a white plastic cover beneath that. The mattress itself has started to rot with age, tearing easily beneath my fingers. Great.
I turn on the tap over the sink, but nothing comes out. The water has been disconnected, probably to stop the pipes from freezing and bursting. Huh—who would have thought something as sloppy and squishy as a water could split open steel pipes?
There’s a medicine cabinet behind the mirror above the sink. I open it. Inside, there’s a jar of vaseline and an unopened condom.
“If only Sharon were here,” I sigh, joking with myself. Picking up the condom, I mumble, “What would Sharon do?”
Chapter 05: Dreams are free
I’m not sure how long I spend pacing back and forth huddled under the blanket, but it’s so stupidly cold I have to keep moving to stay warm. I establish a pattern, walking around the edge of the room, stopping briefly to glance through the fisheye peephole, and then over to the crack in the wood barring the window.
What the hell am I going to tell the President?
I’ve got to get out of here. Sooner or later they’re going to figure out I’m as human as the rest of them, and then what? I’d rather not wait to find out. But how can I escape?
Every hour, the guard changes, disappearing into the other hut before swapping. At a guess, they’re staying out there as long as they can stand the cold, and then switching to get warm again, but that gives me an opening to escape. If I can get the door open, I could make a run for it in the minute or so between guard postings.
But run where?
One step at a time, Joe. Just get outside the hut.
What would Sharon do? She’d use whatever she has around her to her advantage. Okay, so I’ve got a condom and some lube. Condom and lube. Condom and lube. At times like these, I have to treat my mind like a dog. Mind, stay. Don’t go there. No. Stay. Staaaay. Be serious. Condom. Lube. How can anyone be serious with a condom and some lube?
I toss the lube slightly in the air, feeling the weight of the jar as I catch it. I’m racking my brains for a way to escape. And as for the condom. It’s laughable. This is as crazy as rubbing Sharon down with soapy water.
Damn, it’s cold.
Think. Think. Think.
Condom. Lube. Cold. Soapy water.
Lube won’t freeze. Water will, but lube won’t. How can I use that to my advantage? I vaguely remember something about water expanding as it freezes from my high school physics class, or was it chemistry? When water freezes, it expands, exerting thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch. An idea forms in my mind.
I tear open the foil packet and unravel the condom. Rolling the end of the condom over the opening of the bottle and fill it with water. What seemed like a simple idea is actually quite difficult. There’s no pressure, so the water doesn’t inflate the condom. I’ve got to stretch it and then pinch off the condom as though it were a water balloon. I tie off the end of the condom, but I can’t help spilling water over my numb fingers. The lid on the lube is stiff and unyielding, which in any other context I’d find humorous, but my fingers are so cold they hurt.