I sat tapping my fingers on the desk in a slow rhythmic manner waiting for someone to return. Suddenly, my tapping was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a bolt scraping against wood and the door to the room I was in being swung open. Two people walked into the room swiftly and with purpose. One was a female with her jet-black hair pulled back into a tight bun, as if it was being held prisoner by the bobble holding it in place. She looked as if she was in her fifties. The other person who entered was a younger looking male with sandy coloured hair and a purposeful stare. The woman sat down opposite me with a file in one perfectly manicured hand and a coffee in the other. The man also held a coffee in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. He placed the water in front of me and took a seat next to his companion. The woman set the file down on the table in front of her. At that moment many thoughts ran through my mind. Was this a good cop bad cop scenario as Americans would say? Was I under arrest? If I was, no one had read me my rights. At that point, to say I was spending the day out of my comfort zone would have been an understatement.
The two people now occupying seats opposite me had not brought any recording devices in with them. Not any devices that were easily visible anyway. However, the sensitive manner of the information we as a team of five were privy to was not something the authorities would want to create further evidence of. Keeping everything under wraps as long as possible seemed to be the consensus. No one wanted billions of panicking people causing anarchy across the globe.
The woman sitting opposite me broke my train of thought as she cleared her throat and began to speak "Hello A.J. my name is Agent Riley, and this is Agent Vox. I am sorry to keep you waiting. We are very keen to talk to you about what happened in the desert."
In a heartbeat, Agent Vox added to Agent Riley's request, breaking his silence "Yes, we want to know what happened out there for us to know what the best strategy is moving forward. As I am sure you are fully aware, time is a crucial commodity at this moment in time. People's lives depend on how we use the time we have available to us, however long that may be."
I widened by eyes a little and raise an eyebrow at his final words. These presented as very concise no-nonsense words. There seemed to be a veil of desperation hidden behind there seemingly calm professional demeanour. Or perhaps they were wanting me to perceive the situation to be that way, reverse psychology?
Words Jennifer had whispered to me as we buckled up in the Chinook returned to the forefront of my mind. She had stated that what they found was not what we had expected. But Jen had not given me much to go on. So, despite what seemed to be an open and transparent approach taken by Agent Riley and Agent Vox I did not have much information to provide them with.
I started to share what I could, "If you have spoken to anyone else, I was with, which I am assuming you have as I have been waiting a while, then they will have explained that I did not go with them. I was knocked unconscious on the plane and woke up there alone. I did not enter the skyscraper hexagon with them. The only part I played was to call for help. When can I see my friends? I need to speak with them. Are they all, okay? "
They both exchanged a look, and neither were surprised to hear my questions. Agent Riley opened the file in front of her and placed two photos in front of me. They showed ariel view photos of the large hexagon type building obscured by its blinding reflection of the sun. "Is this what you saw?" Agent Riley asked as she pointed a perfect finger at the pictures.
"Yes, but it isn't easy to make out in those pictures," I replied. Agent Vox grabbed one of the pictures and slightly bent the top of the paper up towards me with his right hand and pointed at the image with his left hand. "If you give us a detailed description of everything you saw, including this, you can see your friends."
After I explained everything, I could remember in clear detail, down to the fine pure snow like white of the hexagon Agent Riley neatly placed the images back into her file. She stood up and offered me a small smile which didn't quite reach her eyes. Agent Vox also stood and asked me to follow him. Agent Riley left with the sound of her heels slowly fading as she turned down the south corridor. Agent Vox stopped briefly just outside the doorway of the room we had spoken in and gestured his arm down the north corridor for me to accompany him.
As I stepped outside of the mundane generic room, which I was glad to leave, I saw Kai coming towards us. I quickened by pace to meet him, "Kai, you're here. You must have finished being asked your questions I'm assuming? I thought you would still be locked in a room somewhere relaying what had happened to you all."
He smiled a big welcoming smile, a Kai smile and said, "Yes, all done, I am a first-class storyteller as you well know, so my account was relayed in no time."
"Well, yes, you are right there, your stories are always pretty good," I answered.
"I was coming to look for you," Kai said, then he looked from me to Agent Vox, "I will take A.J. down to the tech room with me, you don't need to accompany us." Agent Vox nodded and turned, following the footsteps of Agent Riley.
Kai turned and proceeded to walk the way he had come. "Are you coming?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Right, yeh," I replied and started after him. In under a few minutes, we were at the farthest point of the corridor, with a sturdy silver door directly in front of us with a silver door handle and a swipe pad to the left-hand side of the door. Kai reached into one of his trouser pockets and pulled out a plain white card and waved it in front of the swipe pad. The small red strip of light at the top of the pad turned green as the device gave a small beep of approval. Kai pulled the handle down and pushed the door open for me to enter first. He seemed to know where he was going and someone had given him an access card, he was ahead of the game, as usual. I entered the room and waited for Kai to close the door behind us. He took a few long strides into the room, and I followed. We had entered a room filled with rows and rows of computers and desks, with comfy looking computer chairs. Computer desk after computer desk was vacant. Where was everyone? Did people usually work here? Some of the desks suggested this was the case, with family pictures, post it notes and pen pots dotted around giving certain desks a feel that they had been claimed and personalised by workers. The place screamed money, the technology in the room and the sheer size of the room, with a tall ceiling and a huge projection screen on the wall the farthest from the door we had entered through gave an air of importance. It was a far cry from the persona of the room I had been locked in moments earlier.
As we passed several desks, I glanced at the documents left on several workstations, which were interestingly written in English. The bright red "Confidential" and "Do not copy" stampings jumped out at me from the pages. As we neared the other side of the room there was a semi-circle of desks facing the large projector screen, with a clear space in the middle of the semi-circle. The rest of our team were sat waiting for us.
"This is a pretty nice set up" Jen said whilst looking at me and tilting her head towards the computer screen nearest to her. She was sat on one of the chairs in the middle of the semicircle of screens.
I smiled, "Yes, it is impressive. And I see we have it all to ourselves. How accommodating after locking us up."
"Yes, no expense spared when there is a full-scale crisis right?" Kai added in a light tone.
"So, this is not quite what we had in mind when we came to China, but I am glad we are all still alive and here together," added Dr Derwent who was sat to Jens left with a few bandages on his arms and some new stitches on the right-hand side of his neck.
"What happened?" I blurted out, eager to know the extent of what I had missed after seeing Dr Derwent's war wounds.
"Well," Lava started and popped her head round from the seat behind Dr Derwent, "When the plane was about to touch down in the desert at our planned coordinates there was a huge tearing sound and the plane hit the sand with a thud. A few of the overhead compartments sprung open and the luggage inside came clambering down on whoever was sat below. You included," Lava said pointing to me.
I nodded in acknowledgement and my hand absentmindedly went to my hair line where my head had been hit.
Lava continued, "The pilots were gone straight away; the whole front of the plane had gone. Suddenly, the temperature inexplicably plummeted." Lava paused and looked from Kai, to Jen, to Dr Derwent and then returned her gaze to me, the one who was present but unconscious at that time this was all taking place. "We definitely underestimated what we were walking into," Lava said, sighing as she finished her sentence and shaking her head from side to side slightly.
Dr Derwent looked at Lava and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and said, "We were lucky to get out of there, I can agree on that. And the men who gave their lives to save us, well, I know we will all be eternally grateful for that."
Kai smiled and glanced around the room then at Dr Derwent and replied, "Yes, well we still need luck on our side. We need to keep working, so those men didn't die for nothing. At least we have more information about these visitors of ours now."
Jen touched her untamed locks and yanked out a pair of glasses that had been hiding in her hair. She pulled them snug onto her nose and picked up several pictures on the desk in front of her, "The military team with us managed to take some pictures from when we were inside the alien craft."
"The hexagon like building," I interrupted.
Jen pulled her glasses further down her nose and looked over the top of them at me, "Yes," she replied, staring at me a little longer than one usually would as a way of impressing on someone 'Don't interrupt me.' She pushed her glasses back up her nose to their usual resting place and continued. "The structure and design of the craft seemed very strange, labyrinth like and hard to navigate around. Now I know initially, we went in there assuming this was an unmanned probe or communication pod of some sort due to it seeming so dormant, but after the front of the plane was ripped away like a wrapper being pealed from a chocolate bar by an overzealous child it was evident, we were not walking into a zone lacking threats."
There was a pause, and I took the opportunity to ask a question, conscious not to cut Jen off again, "What happened on the plane, after the temperature dropped?"
Kai seemed to read the room and decided it was best that he answered, as the others did not seem too forthcoming with information about this point. "It went from about 26 degrees to; I would guess about -1 degrees within a split second of the cockpit vanishing. All the lights on the aircraft went off and it went silent for a second. Then Officer Beckett ordered his men to have their firearms ready for a quick exit from the plane, as we were catching our bearings." Kai gave a nod to those in the room "and when we were unbuckling ourselves it went pitch black. I couldn't believe it. We were in the middle of the desert, in what was almost mid-day." He shook his head in disbelief and rubbed his hands against his cheeks then almost cupped his face before dropping his arms back down to his sides. He continued to speak, "Then we heard gun fire, and the armed unit were turning their torches on as fast as possible, but it seemed as fast as they were turning them on, the faster they were being attacked. There were sounds of crunching bones and things being dragged around."
Kai was interrupted by Jen, "It was terrifying, not being able to see, feeling so helpless and vulnerable."
Kai looked at Jen and nodded then he relayed the next part of the ordeal, "Then suddenly it went silent. We stood still, in the darkness. Listening. We stood for a minute or two, which as you can imagine, felt like an age. Then a light came on, a clear white light, from the torch of one of the British army men with us. Then another, and another. The bright white spotlights slowly shone a light on different parts of what was left of the plane. There was blood everywhere. Beckett whispered for anyone still alive to make their way to the front of the plane. With a shiver I made my way to the front with everyone else."
The others nodded in agreement. Dr Derwent picked up where Kai left off "It was so fascinating, how it had become dark and so cold so rapidly. But once we jumped from the front of the plane wreck, we all experienced the same sensation. Once we had taken the short jump, we were somewhat blinded by the light of the mid-day sun and hit by the heat of the desert. It was as if we had jumped through a gate into another location."
Lava nodded and added "It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, but once they did, I was so glad to be able to see my surroundings."
Jen seemed happy to pick up where she left off about the inside of the alien craft at this point, perhaps wanting to forget the ordeal on the plane. "Once we had our bearings, we could have made a run for it out into the vast openness of the desert, which felt to me quite an exposed route to take. I aired my concerns to the others quickly and Beckett agreed with me, it was an option that would have left us vulnerable. So, we had to go towards the hexagon craft, that is what we were there for. We couldn't let people down. We saw a small way in, a twelve foot by six-foot doorway. In unison we ran towards it. Which, looking back, seems foolish, and like an obvious trap. But after being on the plane, in the dark, it felt nothing could be as terrifying as that encounter. We made our way inside. The temperature took a drastic drop again and the walkway we found ourselves in was dimly lit by a blue glow. But it was not obvious where this glow was coming from as it seemed that the tunnels were evenly and dimly lit all the way. The walkway, or tunnel I think either word is appropriate for our human understanding, led inside about fifteen feet before forking off in three different locations. We decided to split up to cover more ground as quickly as we could. It was no use thought. We never managed to find any rooms of sorts or doors as we came under attack again. We had to quickly retreat. I felt something grab me and Beckett shot into the space above me, and I managed to run towards him. That's when this happened to my face," she said pointing at her nose and forehead.
"I was grabbed too," Dr Derwent added, "Something had a tight grip on my arms. I hit my head as I managed to scramble away amongst the ringing of gunshots."
Kai continued, "We had to retreat, and at that point I tried the radio to see if there was anyone who was still onboard the plane who could help us, as we needed help fast. That's when we found out you were still alive A.J." Kai smiled and looked at me. I nodded in acknowledgement of his words. "And the rest, you know," Kai added.
"That sounds horrible. Did anyone manage to get a look at what attacked you?" I asked, astonished and relieved that my friends were still alive.
"Unfortunately, not a clear look, but we saw something," Lava replied, looking to the others.
"And it was about -1 degrees? So, whatever it is it can control the temperature?" I added.
Dr Derwent stood up and made his way around the computer desks to the middle of the semi-circle of desks adding, "Well from what we discovered about the exoplanets we have narrowed our search down too; it would seem we are looking for one of them that may lack light and experience freezing temperatures as the source of these crafts. The exoplanets near the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri do seem to be our best educated guess so far. However, our knowledge of exoplanets is so limited, it may take years, decades even for our technology to advance to the state we need it to be at to gain any clear answers," Dr Derwent exhaled, and his shoulders slumped slightly as he did so.
"At this point, I think we need to go on educated guesses Dr, don't you? This is like nothing we have every encountered before. We can only use the existing paradigms that we have, right?" Kai asked.
"Yes, you are right Kai, I do not mean to sound defeatist," Dr Derwent agreed.
"So, we can assume that whatever is here, on planet earth, is not a friendly force. Do we know what they want? Our food? Our water?" I asked, "I can't imagine they are here to learn from our knowledge, as their craft was so advanced, and we are working on the assumption that we think these things have reached us from an exoplanet. That is a mean feat." I paused then started to speak again, "And the screeching, gosh that was ear piercing, I am guessing that was not a friendly form of communication meant for us?" I had so many questions, and it wasn't clear the rest of my team even had the answers.
Before anyone could attempt to answer my questions, several well-dressed Agents burst into the room through the access door. We all turned around quickly to see why there was a need for such a dramatic and abrupt entrance. Several six foot something male agents came bundling towards us and then parted like waves to reveal Agent Riley in between them. She scanned the part of the room we stood in, and as she walked towards us, she stared right at me, with her perfectly pedicured finger pointing directly at me, "You, you have been keeping information from us," she said in an accusatory tone. I looked at her in disbelief and then realised she had a few documents in her other hand, her non pointing accusatory hand. She started to wave them around at her chest height as she stopped a few feet away from me. I recognised the papers. I looked at Kai without saying anything then looked back at the Agents stood in front of me. I was in fact keeping a secret, one that I had only shared with Kai, and guiltily not the rest of our small team. I tried to push the pang of guilt away, it would not help in this situation.
Agent Riley continued waving the documents around, staring at me, she continued with her accusatory words, "These field notes from England, they are yours are they not? There are accounts here about meetings with a Dr Immanuel Paley. Who is this? Is this an asset? I am assuming so; seen as though you have hidden this." Her eyes scanned every inch of my face looking for some tell-tale sign. She seemed like a woman who did not like to play around.
The documents she was holding were my personal notes from some months earlier, private reflections that were part of a non-research related matter that I had been pulled in to with an academic doctor who I much admired, in England, someone I would refer to as a dear teacher and friend. Kai and I had spoken about Paley, but we were not sure what the government's intentions would be, or what they would do with him. We chose to keep that between ourselves to protect him. We needed to be able to speak with Immanuel on our own terms, not on government terms. Isolating Paley in some government facility wasn't going to help anyone. Narrowing her eyes Riley moved forward, inches from my face she said, "Start talking," she bellowed.