The crowd erupted again in cheers, and the photographer panned over. What did the email say again? What are they protesting, even? Something about government cover-ups or some other insanity.
He turned away as Lynn stepped up to the mic. He clicked his camera onto his tripod, thankful that he’d hauled it along. These people were old, who knows how long it would take.
When he focused on Lynn, he was surprised at the sharpness in her eyes, the grace of her approach.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I am not comfortable doing this, but I have no choice. Most of you know—from your interest in the unexplained disappearances of so many people around the world, to the many of you who I have corresponded with personally—that I have not made any public statements since the discovery of my grandson fifteen years ago.”
She took a deep breath. “But that does not mean I have stopped in my pursuit of the truth. Many of you know this, as I recognize some faces.”
“We love you Lynn!” one woman cried out.
“And what I said, all those years ago, about there being a vast government conspiracy, is as true today as it was then. And it is now time for the people of the world to know that truth.”
Lynn gestured behind her, pointing her finger down an alley to a darkened warehouse, barely visible. “It’s difficult to see, but in that building, just down that alley, is an agency that goes by the name of the SSA—the Sky Surveillance Agency. For decades, they have used taxpayer dollars to study the disappearance of people all over the world. People abducted by extraterrestrials.”
He could hear the collective gasp by the people huddled around him.
She then held up what looked like some sort of government document. “My late husband, Senator Tom Roseworth, joined me in my research later in life, and he was able to find proof of this organization buried deep in the appropriations for the FBI. He was also able to obtain internal emails referencing the rounding up of missing people who had been returned to earth.”
“Jesus Christ,” a man in the crowd muttered.
“These documents are now listed in an article published at this very moment on the website of my daughter, the journalist Stella Roseworth. Anyone, across the world, can see what we’ve found. Including how much the government has known and what it hasn’t told us.”
A few people in the crowd began to boo. “I called you here today,” Lynn said, her voice elevating, “to protest. To let the government know that we demand these truths. That we demand to know more about what they’ve uncovered. If you will, go to them right now. Let them hear you. That we want the truth. We demand the truth.”
The old lady beside her began to yell out the chant, pointing down the alley. “Let them hear you! We want the truth! We demand the truth!”
The crowd picked it up immediately, raising their signs as they began to pour down the alley towards the warehouse. The photographer unlocked his camera from the tripod, feeling the crowd almost push him over. Already, Lynn Roseworth and the other lady had slipped into the mayhem.
As the crowd spilled down the alley, a government car slowly made its way down a parallel street. Inside, the silver-haired representative from the great state of Texas rolled down his window and frowned.
“What this hell is going on here?” Congressman Flip Smith asked. “Maybe this is a bad time to be doing this.”
“It’s actually the perfect time. I want to know more about this agency before your government erases its existence,” said the man in the seat next to him.
“Nothing is getting erased until I get some answers. I’m the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security, for Christ sake. What are those people yelling?”
“Well, according to the news alerts now completely taking over my phone, it’s about just-now-released documents that this agency had knowledge of the abductions of people. What does it say, Flip, that I got a tip about this but you didn’t know?”
“Apparently I’m so clueless I could fall up a tree. And I don’t like it. My people in Austin expect me to be in the know, not spanked cross-eyed. Which is why I so appreciated your call about this. Like I said before: Any time you call, about anything, I’m yours. Which is why I arranged for this. They’re expecting me, but they’re not going to like a civilian showing up too. They can’t deny my security clearance, though, and, like I said, you’re coming with me.”
His companion just nodded.
“Well, crap on a stick.” Flip craned his neck. “Those damn people are all over the front now.”
“We can get you in, Congressman,” said the security detail from the front seat.
“Well get out there, boys. Make us some room.”
As soon as the Lincoln parked, the driver and the guard from the front seat hustled around to open the door for the congressman and his companion. Sandwiching the two between them, the men, both over six feet tall and weighing a combined five hundred pounds, parted the crowd with little effort. The attention of the growing masses was too fixated on chanting and streaming from their cell phones to pay much attention to who was trying to pass through them.
The only entrance was a single metal door, and a pull on the handle proved it to be locked tight.
Flip was already on his phone. “Yes, this is Congressman Smith, and I have an appointment right now. Yes, now. Yes, I am aware this might be a bad time for you, given the circus outside your building. But unless you want me to turn around and start talking to the press, which I can wave over at any moment, I’d open up the damned door.”
After a few moments, the loud sound of multiple locks came from within the door, and the congressman’s guard yanked the handle. The door swung open.
“Go over to that parking garage and wait for me, boys!” Flip said, making sure his companion slipped in before the last member of his detail shut the door. “It’s a good thing you wore that hat and those sunglasses; that crowd might recognize you.”
“I’m usually not discreet. But I thought it was a good idea today.”
The congressman walked over to the harried woman sitting behind a pane of glass, the phones around her ringing nonstop. “I assume you’re the one I was on the phone with just now?”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but this is just a bad time. Can we reschedule—?”
“This security clearance says no.” He pulled out his badge from inside his sports coat.
The woman frantically looked down at her phone, which was lighting up with more calls coming in. She raised her hand to her upper chest, which was turning a bright shade of red.
Flip pressed his badge against the glass between them. “If you can’t read this, I’ll bet I could call the head of Homeland Security down here to see if he can—”
“Just one second. I’ll buzz you in, but you have to stay right by the door until I can get you an escort. And I don’t have the other gentleman on the list.”
“He’s with me,” Flip said. “Open the damn door.”
As she buzzed them through, she knocked on the glass. “Wait for the escort! And I need his name for our records!”
The congressman was already through the door. His companion turned to her, flashing a smile. She stared back at him, tilting her head a bit, struggling to recall how she knew him.
Quincy Martin knew the look well, and stepped through before she could put a name with the face.
Roxy swatted at the reporters who had been shouting questions at Lynn as they made their way to the car.
“Thanks for coming, friends! Keeping speaking truth to power! But I told you Lynn wasn’t taking any questions!” Roxy called out, jabbing at one reporter. “Nice spray tan, by the way!”