Chapter 1

Kent turned his head from the fireplace to the front entryway. Who was at the door? It couldn’t possibly be the man from the phone call. Kent had just hung up with him, and he certainly hadn’t given him his address.

He set his phone down on the small table beside his oversized chair, then gently placed his glass of scotch next to it. He pushed his round thick-framed glasses up his nose and strode across the living room toward the front entryway. He paused for a moment before reaching the front door, taking a deep breath and wondering again at exactly what was going on. Then pulled the door shade aside. Despite being only dimly lit by the soft glow of the porch light, Kent could tell that what stood on the other side of the door window didn’t look quite like a person, but more like something trying to approximate a person.

The stranger was slightly taller than average, wearing a dark suit and holding an attache briefcase. The only thing odder than the fact he had no hair on his head or face, was that his eyes seemed to be opened a little too wide for the casual expression he was so obviously trying to convey. His skin was tightly stretched across his face, without a single wrinkle, like the skin of a newborn baby.

Kent straightened his tie and opened the door. Brisk January air flowed into the doorway.

“Hello. We spoke on the phone. May I enter and ask you further questions about the encounter you experienced earlier today?” He spoke in a clipped and raspy voice. He sounded human enough, but he didn’t quite have the correct cadence, emphasizing different words in the sentence than one would expect.

“Of course. Come on in.” Kent responded reflexively.

The stranger seemed very stiff as he walked past Kent, going from the entryway into the living room by himself. Kent paused before another gust of cold air reminded him to close the door.

When Kent entered the living room the stranger had already found a seat in the other matching oversized chair by the fireplace. He was sitting with perfect posture, the briefcase on his lap. Kent walked to the bar cart, careful to not put his back toward the stranger. “Would you like a drink?” he offered.

“Yes. Thank you.”

The stranger sat perfectly still and silent as Kent flipped a small glass over and poured two fingers of scotch from the decanter. He walked over to him and set the glass on the table in front of him. The stranger didn’t reach for it. His eyes never left Kent. As Kent sat back in his chair and took a small sip from his own glass, the crackle of the fire was the only sound in the awkward silence.

Finally the stranger spoke. “You were outside Lewistown today, where witnesses claimed to have seen a glowing green orb crash somewhere near Cunningham Falls State Park.”

Kent sat forward in his chair and adjusted his glasses. “I was there.”

“And did you participate in the rumored search the civilians undertook? And if so did you reclaim any supposed wreckage?”

Kent realized he hadn’t seen the stranger blink once since arriving. “I’m sorry, I’m not really sure what to say. You want to know if I found a crashed UFO?”

“It’s doubtful an average citizen like yourself would be able to accurately discern what the object actually was or was not. Perception can often be flawed, making people think they’ve seen one thing when in actuality it was another. Your assertion that it was a spacecraft is certainly incorrect.” The stranger hadn’t moved at all while he was talking, as if frozen in his pose on the chair. “If you were to tell people you saw a spacecraft it would likely result in ridicule. Or worse.”

Kent glanced at the fireplace. “What does anyone really know? All we have is our perception. And with our limited understanding we draw conclusions about reality around us.” Kent looked back at the stranger and offered a friendly smile, but it wasn’t reciprocated. Instead a silence stretched between the two, and a gust of wind blew outside against the bay window behind the stranger. Kent thought a storm must be blowing in.

The stranger continued. “Did you know that storms are known to produce a phenomenon known as ball lightning? It is brightly glowing orbs of electro-static energy, known to occur in many different colors. It often frightens and confuses people, causing them to misidentify the phenomenon. Do you suppose that could’ve been what you saw?”

“I suppose. And I suppose it could’ve been swamp gas too.”

“Exactly. You are understanding now. However, based on your original faulty conclusion at the time, did you attempt to recover any supposed wreckage? If so, it would be in your best interest to turn it over to me.”

Kent took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know who you are or where you’ve gotten your information, but I didn’t go into that forest, I didn’t find any wreckage, and I certainly don’t have anything like that in my possession.”

The stranger leaned forward over his briefcase and his expression hardened. “If you brought something resembling wreckage away from that area it could be very dangerous for you. So-” He returned to his previous upright posture, “If you have anything like that here you will now give it to me.” He opened the briefcase and turned it to face Kent. The inside was dark - so dark that the interior couldn’t be discerned. As if the briefcase opened into outer space itself.

“I have nothing to give you.” Kent replied without taking his eyes off the case.

The stranger snapped the briefcase shut. Then slowly set it on the floor at his feet. “Lying will not lead to a desirable outcome for you. If you cooperate it will go well for you. But even if you do not cooperate, I will uncover the truth.” The stranger flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, then immediately reverted to his neutral stare. “So I will ask a final time - Do you have anything resembling wreckage that you recovered from the forest earlier tonight?”

Kent picked up his glass and took the last sip of scotch in it. He rested his elbows on the chair’s tall arms, and examined the empty glass in his hand. “That’s an Aberlour eighteen year.”

“Are you referring to the contraband you wish to turn in?”

Kent’s eyes glanced up at the stranger, then he nodded to the untouched glass on the table in front of him. “It’s a good scotch. You should try it, I think you’ll enjoy it. I’ve found that most people do.”

The stranger’s head tilted almost imperceptibly. “Maybe you are confused.”

“You know it could’ve been like that with us. Offering hospitality, and accepting it in friendship. But you saw yourselves as above us. We were nothing to you but bacteria to be ignored. Or sanitized. And so you infiltrate, and you manipulate. You take and you use. All without regard for the damage you cause. You have no right.”

Again the stranger’s expression hardened. “If you will not cooperate, then you will now be relocated to-”

Suddenly Kent’s left arm shot up. For the first time the stranger took his eyes off Kent, looking now at the empty whiskey glass tumbling through the air. Before the stranger could realize it was a distraction, Kent had already pulled out his service pistol with his right hand and had it pointing at the stranger’s face. The stranger’s gaze returned to Kent, and for an instant he saw the glowing blue barrel. Then he saw no more as Kent pulled the trigger, magnetically propelling a burst of glowing superheated plasma from the pistol into the stranger, turning his head to ash. Kent’s whiskey glass hit the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

Kent was on his feet, his hand flipping the switch on his watch, activating his personal force barrier, its energy rippling across the contours of his body. Suddenly the lights in the house died, plunging him into darkness. It was as he expected, the stranger didn’t come alone.

His eyes darted around the room, through the doorways, down the halls, looking for the other intruders. His glasses scanned every wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum and interpreted it into visual images overlayed onto Kent’s vision. A silhouette moved in the kitchen doorway. Kent brought his pistol to bare and fired two more bolts of glowing plasma. A crash and sizzle sounded as each shot slammed into his refrigerator. A third shot hit something else entirely. The silhouette collapsed to the ground, charred embers in its chest.

Before he could appreciate his victory, a ragged violet line ripped through the air and impacted his torso, sending him toppling backward. He landed on his back and gasped. His force barrier took the brunt of the energy, but his abdomen felt like he’d just gotten a sunburn. Another violet blast cut into the floor beside his head, sending tiny splinters of his hardwood floor flying through the air like confetti. He rolled to his left, into a crouch, and fired through the wall to the right of the kitchen doorway. The motion sensor in his glasses detected a fall, as well as three more intruders shuffling in through the back door. The table lamp to his left suddenly exploded in a violet mist. Kent turned just in time to see two more violet streaks come from silhouettes crouching down the stairs.

It was time to leave.

Kent sprinted toward the bay window, leapt, and curled into a ball as he crashed through the glass.

He landed on the ground outside, rolled, and came to a stop with his back to his car. He had been right, a storm was rolling in. Kent was buffeted with icy January wind, his breath a trailing cloud swept away from his face with each exhale. A silhouette was on his front porch, apparently caught off guard by the man crashing out of a window. The silhouette rushed him before he could take aim with his pistol. Kent knew his own strength was no match for these kinds of intruders, and it was only a matter of time before he lost this wrestling match.

A small silver sphere was tossed from the shattered window by another intruder to the ground beside Kent. He saw his opportunity, and only had seconds to react. He leaned away from his attacker, leveraged the attacker’s own weight against him, and tossed him onto the singularity grenade at their feet. The weapon went off, collapsing the fallen silhouette into himself, disappearing into a single point in space-time.

Kent slid over the hood of his car, opened the door, and fell into the driver’s seat. “Activate tactical mode!” The door slammed shut, a bluish sheen rippled once across the contours of the car’s body, and the windshield flashed a message.

TACTICAL SYSTEMS ACTIVE

Outside the intruders swarmed out of Kent’s home, firing their violet energy blasts at his car. Kent finally paused and took a deep breath, as the only thing he could now hear was the muffled sounds of the exotic energy harmlessly slamming into the outside of the car. In the near-silence he looked mournfully at his home. He would never see it again now that its location was compromised.

Kent ordered the car as he looked at other information displayed on the large screens on the dash. “Deploy pulse rifle. Target hostiles and fire.” From the middle of the car’s hood rose a slightly larger version of Kent’s service pistol. Its barrel spun to the right and began methodically firing glowing blue bolts of superheated plasma at the approaching silhouettes. In moments they were all motionless. And several new holes had been burned into the front of his once beautiful cabin-esque home.

“Send a message to HQ. Agent Kent, authorization four one one seven. Emergency code nine. Hostiles neutralized. Please advise.”

MESSAGE SENT

The front of the storm was upon him now, the wall of angry clouds passing high over him, lit on the inside by flashes of lightning.

MESSAGE REPLY: STANTON PROTOCOL INITIATED. REPORT TO MONTAUK STATION.

Among the strobing lightning above, an unnatural violet flash in one cloud caught Kent’s attention. He slammed his foot onto the accelerator and screeched down his driveway, drifting out onto the rural street. Behind him a dull violet glow washed over his front yard. From a storm cloud above a large disc emerged, descending down to his house.

“Activate stealth systems!” A blue energy rippled once across the hood of the car, and the vehicle vanished from all forms of sight.

STEALTH SYSTEMS ACTIVE

Kent slammed the brakes and the car skidded to the side of the road. His escape seemed to be short-lived. The disc hovered over his house, dwarfing it in size. Kent sat in silence in the now dark interior, peering out of the car window. The violet glow shifted across his yard and onto the road as the disc hovered above him. He was unconsciously holding his breath, as the bassy vibrations from the disc rattled the car.

The disc drifted past the road and over the opposite field. It continued until it was obscured by the trees in the distant woods, nothing left of its presence but a diminishing eerie glow along the treetops. Eventually the glow faded and all traces of the disc were gone.

The rain finally came. A thick downpour blanketed the now quiet scene. Kent’s head fell back against the headrest and he sighed deeply. He sat for a moment listening to the patter of the rain hitting the car. To no one at all he said, “I shouldn’t have taken this case.”

He then sat up, reactivated the car, and screeched away at high speed heading directly for Cunningham Falls State Park.