“Kind of.”
“Did it make you mean?” Allie asked.
“I don’t think so,” Charlie answered. “How come?”
“My mom didn’t get mean either,” Allie told him. “But some of the people she knows did… I think people get mean when they’re scared.”
Charlie recognized himself in her words, recalling the ferocity of his battle, how he had swung at them, kicked, screamed, all of it done in the grip of terror.
Allie smiled. “I have a journal,” she said. “I write down things I think of and stuff.”
“That’s a good idea,” Charlie told her. “I always wish I’d done that.”
“Maybe some time, I could read you mine,” Allie said.
Charlie smiled. “That would be great.” He turned toward Lisa, and saw that she was watching him somberly.
“You’re up next, you know. With Harriet. Your regression. You’ve never done it before, have you?”
Charlie shook his head.
“Sometimes it can be… there can be a lot of information.”
“Okay,” Charlie said softly.
Lisa seemed hesitant to continue, but determined to do it. “During the regression, I saw us,” she said.
“Us?”
Lisa glanced toward Allie, then back to him. “Us, yes,” she said significantly.
Charlie’s gaze swept over to Allie, and he knew that she was his and Lisa’s, conceived in a tunnel of light, a kind of star child, yet an earthling too, precious beyond measure, rare beyond imagining, and so a creature others were surely hunting down.
Mary strolled with Wakeman along the dock in the early morning light, water lapping softly on the wooden pylons. She’d never seen this particular look on his face, oddly dreamy, and somewhat pensive, a man in love, she thought, but also a man who seemed to be taken by a sudden insight.
“Maybe they want to make us better,” Wakeman said after a moment. “Enable us to move to the next rung of the ladder. And in doing that, they’ll better themselves as well.”
Mary shook her head. “I have a different idea. Say it began as a research project… a project on a scale totally beyond our comprehension. A detailed accounting of our entire planet.”
Wakeman smiled. “I like it.”
“Now, imagine this,” Mary continued. “While doing the research, they inadvertently come across an incredible insight. Something that utterly rearranges the way they see the universe.”
“And that’s what Allie is,” Wakeman asked. “The result of this insight?”
“Evolution comes at a cost, Chet,” Mary said. “Every choice is the death of all other possibilities. Maybe something was lost along the way.”
Wakeman nodded. “Probably something very simple.” He thought a moment, then added, “All I’ve ever wanted was to understand them… not even understand, just catch a glimpse, see through their eyes.” He glanced up toward the heavens. “We’re getting close, Mary. We’ll have the girl. Through her, we’ll be able to talk to them.” His eyes glistened. “I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.” He drew Mary into his arms. “What I never knew was that I’d find someone to share the moment with me.” He started to kiss her, but the ring of Mary’s cell phone stopped him.
“Yes,” Mary answered. “Dr. Penzler. Hello.” She looked at Wakeman significantly. “Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you again soon.” She smiled. “Yes, it is unexpected… but that’s one of life’s happy accidents.” She closed the phone and returned it to her pocket. “There’s a new wrinkle,” she said gravely. “Allie’s dad just showed up.”
Charlie and Lisa sat together, the others in Dr. Penzler’s group seated around them, Dr. Penzler near the center, her notebook open, pencil at the ready.
“I just can’t stand this feeling that my life is out of control,” Adams said.
Ray waved his hand. “Welcome to my world,” he scoffed.
“They’re more advanced,” Ben complained. “But that doesn’t make them God.”
Adams seemed hardly to hear Ben. “What makes me furious is that the government has cut a deal with them,” he said. “They know about this, but they cover it up.”
“You people make me sick,” Ray blurted out. He glared at the others. “You’re all victims. It’s time someone took charge.”
The others stared at him motionlessly.
“They come into our homes,” Ray cried angrily. “They… do things to us. And we just sit there and take it.”
“You talk like there’s something we could do,” Ben said.
“There is,” Ray shouted, his temper flaring. “We can fight back.”
Dr. Penzler shifted uneasily in her seat. “Have you ever fought back, Ray?”
Ray shot a piercing look over to Dr. Penzler. “I’ve… yeah, I’d like to think I have. But that’s not what I’m talking about. There’s us, here in this room. Fine. But the people out there in the world, they treat us like we’re crazy.” He glanced from face to face among the group. “If we’re all alone, there’s no fighting back. But if we were believed… if there was proof…”
Dr. Penzler turned toward Charlie. “That was your idea, too, wasn’t it, Charlie? To get proof?”
Charlie shifted nervously, suddenly on the spot. “It was… yeah.”
“Not anymore?” Dr. Penzler asked.
Charlie looked at Lisa, smiled quietly, then turned to Dr. Penzler. “Some things have come up that kind of… rearranged my priorities,” he said.
“This is so romantic,” Ray scoffed. “Charlie and Lisa. Soul mates. Destined to find each other in the stars. It’s enough to make me puke.”
Charlie felt his anger rise. “Why don’t you lighten up, buddy?” he warned.
“Why don’t I lighten up?” Ray snarled. “Maybe because I’m tired of all this cosmic whining.”
“You know what, Ray?” Cynthia said. “All you ever do is shout down everyone else’s story. So, what’s your story?”
Ray glared at her. “You want my story?” He jerked a pistol from behind his back. “Here’s my story,” he said.
Charlie stepped forward. “Give me that gun, Ray.”
“Not the whole thing,” Ray said quietly. “Just a piece of it.”
Then he fired.
Mary rubbed a smudge from the windshield for a clearer view, then sat back, her hands on the wheel. In the soccer field beyond a line of trees she could see Allie darting along, kicking at the ball. She glanced at her watch. Three-thirty.
“They should be here by now.”
“Don’t worry, these guys are very punctual.” Wake-man smiled, his gaze following Allie as she moved across the field. “Pretty little girl,” he said.
Mary nodded as a dark car pulled up near the goalpost, two men in sweatshirts in the front seat. “There they are,” she said.
Wakeman watched a third man move along the edge of the field, a jogger in a sweatshirt. “And the rest of the team, right on time.”
“Yes,” Mary said. She opened the door and looked at Wakeman. “Ready, Chet?”
“Ready.”
Wakeman pulled himself from the car and joined Mary, the two of them now heading across the field to where Allie continued to chase the ball until she abruptly stopped, peered at them intently for a moment, then whirled around and began to run.
“Let’s go!” Mary cried as she bounded forward, running with all her strength, joined by the others, all of them converging as Allie fled into the adjoining woods.
Mary could see her racing toward a break in the trees and into the speeding traffic beyond the woods where… the air suddenly congealed and she felt as if she were moving through a thick invisible gelatin, Wakeman lurching ponderously at her side, encased in the suffocating air, everything slowing as if some mysterious force had been drained from the earth, leaving nothing free to move save the little girl she could still see darting deerlike and unencumbered through the otherwise numb and exhausted realm of earth.