Fifth Contact – III
Somewhere in America
Tuesday
Connor was flown somewhere for several hours, somehow the Americans seemed to have gained jurisdiction over him. And he was quite disappointed; he had landed in Cork because he had assumed that the Irish government would look after one of their own but they had immediately given into whatever threats or promises the Americans had been giving out. On the plus side he was travelling by private jet, though he wasn’t allowed any company. Nor were there any airhostesses.
It was night when they landed, so Connor could not work out where they had taken him. He was escorted into a car with blacked out windows and driven for a short while. They exited inside a large warehouse building and Connor was escorted into one of the small rooms and asked to change his clothes.
He was given a t-shirt and shorts to wear, but then that had been his uniform for most of the last five years.
His clothes were taken away, presumably to check for alien lifeforms and things.
Connor mentally grouped the people into two groups, scientists and marines.
“Can you take your watch off,” he was asked by one of the scientists.
“Yes, I can.”
There was a moment while the scientist reacted to his pedantic answer. “Will you please take it off?”
Connor wasn’t going to take it off. It was his one line of communication with the Macha, cunningly disguised as the Tissot watch he had been wearing when he had first boarded the Gagarin.
“No, I would prefer to keep it on, if that’s okay,” he replied. “I want to be able to tell the time.”
The scientist decided that enough was enough, lifted Connor’s arm up and looked for the fastening.
“How do you get it off?” he asked.
“I tend not to take it off,” Connor replied.
“Well you can’t keep it.”
“Can I not then. That’s a shame.”
“Will you take it off?”
“No, I’d rather I kept it on.”
“We can’t put you in the scanner while you’re wearing a metal object.”
“Can you not? Well, I’ll just have to not go in the scanner then.”
They tried using some form of saw. But it didn’t work and Connor was afraid they would accidently cut his hand. But they didn’t.
One thing about the über-slugs, they sure knew how to make bloody good neutrino transmitters.
Blood samples were taken and despite still wearing his watch, Connor was subjected to some sort of body scan. It should turn up normal; he would be interested if it didn’t.
And the questioning continued. Where was his spaceship? Answer: in space. How many species were there on board? Answer: currently four. What were the aliens’ intentions? Answer: friendly contact with the Earth. How had he travelled back to Earth? Answer: on a spaceship. What had happened at Hades? Answer: He would explain at some other time. Why? Because that’s the way it had to be. The same questions over and over again.
Some of the questions he answered, some of them he didn’t and some he gave only cryptic answers to.
“What was his role amongst the aliens?”
“I am to be the human representative when negotiations start.”
“And if there are no negotiations?”
“Then I leave and I go back to live in space.”
“And if we don’t let you leave?”
“Then I leave anyway.”
“How?”
“How are you going to stop me?”
“By putting you in a room with a locked door.”
“Oh well, then either you’ll stop me or I’ll leave,” Connor replied. He knew it infuriated them. “We’ll just see what happens won’t we.”
“And how do you propose to get out of a locked room?”
“Well according to you, I can’t, so I won’t be able to.” He was beginning to get annoyed so he gave an equally annoying answer.
“Do you expect the aliens to beam you up?”
“No, that would be silly.”
“What happened on the Gagarin? Why did the others forget about you?”
This was news to Connor. “What do you mean?”
“The other three people who had travelled with you to Hades, when they returned, they had forgotten about your very existence. Their memories returned once they reboarded the Gagarin.”
“I didn’t know that,” Connor said. “The alien entity must have messed with their minds.”
“What alien entity?”
“The one in Hades. That sounds scarier than it really was. I assumed you knew all about it because Pavel spoke to it.”
“What did Pavel say to it?”
“Ask Pavel.”
“We have but we want to hear your version.”
“We’ll discuss that later."
“And what happened in the missing two hours?”
“Again I don’t know, because I ended up missing two days.”
“Did you have sex with Vanessa Rodriguez?”
“Not to my knowledge, well there was the one drunken incident at the U-party but that was before we reached Hades. What a very strange question.”
“So you didn’t know that you’re a father.”
Connor said nothing for a while. Then he said, “Oh, that changes things.”
“Changes things in what way?”
“I have an heir.”
“Why is having an heir so important?”
“A son or a daughter?”
“A daughter.”
“Because she will inherit everything that I have when I die and my responsibilities.”
“That’s normally how it works. But your possessions don’t amount to much, in fact legally they are nothing as you were declared dead.”
“So I don’t get my back pay?”
“No, because it was part of your estate.”
“Oh well, we’ll have to get that sorted. I think I’ll have that as the first clause in any treaty. I’m alive again and I get my back pay please. I’d also like to meet my daughter.”
“I’m afraid Vanessa does not know that you’ve returned and we have no intention of telling her until you are a little bit more cooperative.”
“I think I have been very cooperative, considering. So how is everyone from the Gagarin?”
“Their lives were pretty messed up because of your disappearance. There was a lot of guilt.”
“I would apologise, but it wasn’t my decision. It was just that I argued with Pavel and the alien decided I had the right qualities.”
“Qualities for what?”
“We’ll discuss that after the treaty is signed.”
“We won’t be signing any treaty. We don’t know how you managed to get to Earth but we have seen no sign of these aliens of yours and until we do or you play ball then we’re not going to let you go.”
“Are you planning to keep me locked up forever?”
“Probably for a very long time.”
“That’s not very nice is it? I don’t like that.”
“But we can’t let you go.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know what is happening.”
“But I’ve told you all I’m prepared to say. Today is Tuesday, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So tomorrow is Wednesday.”
“Yes, that’s normally how it works, so why is that important?”
“We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
The interrogator got up and left the room. Connor waved to the obvious one-way mirror.
The next person to enter was an extremely attractive woman. She sat in the chair opposite.
“What do you want?” she purred.
Shit, this was going to be extremely difficult. Connor could feel his body betray him. He closed his eyes. Think about Alan, think about that arse Alan.
“I mean you must want something,” she continued.
At that moment all Connor wanted was to shag her brains out.
He squirmed a bit in his seat. “In the short term, I would like to be able to leave here and I would like to meet my daughter,” he replied.
“Well that isn’t going to happen until you cooperate a bit more.”
“So what would cooperate a bit more entail?” Connor asked. He looked into the agent’s eyes and at that moment, he thought he would give up everything for her, tell her everything. Then reality kicked in again. He had a job to do.
“We want you to tell us what happened on Hades and what you have been doing for the last five years.”
“I ended up somewhere else, somewhere with lots of alien species and then I came back here,” Connor replied.
“And we would like proof.”
“Well let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
“You mentioned Wednesday before.”
“Did I?”
“So what is going to happen? Is there going to be an alien fleet appear above Washington DC?”
“No don’t be silly, because then there would be the risk that you might try and shoot it down. If I were going to arrange for aliens to appear, it would not be anywhere with weapons.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I would want to avoid any accidents.”
She walked over and sat on the edge of the table and leant over, Connor could smell her perfume.
“Can I have a lawyer please, or at least my one phone call,” he asked.
“Who would you phone?”
“I’d phone my spaceship to come and get me away from these stupid questions. Look can I speak to someone who will just answer the question, are you, the people of Earth, at least interested in making contact with aliens?”
“Not until we find out more about them.”
“Well imagine there’s a galaxy-wide civilisation of friendly aliens, would you be interested in joining that?”
“Perhaps, but until we can be sure that they are friendly, we wouldn’t want to sign up to anything without understanding the implications.”
Connor stared at her she was quite sexy. He had to ask the question. “Just hypothetically, if I were to offer you a life amongst the stars, would you be up for it?” he asked.
“And what would we do there?”
“Oh I don’t know, roam around in a spaceship battling alien monsters.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she replied. “Why? Can you offer that?”
“I was just interested in your reply. So can I have something to eat?” Connor asked, he was starting to feel hungry, plus he wanted to find out how much they were going to make him uncomfortable.
“When you’ve told us something we want to know.”
“You need to know two things,” Connor said. “First there are aliens, second they are friendly and that’s it.” Then he sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and tried not to think of the woman asking the questions.
“You know we will use more aggressive questioning techniques,” she said.
Connor opened his eyes and just stared back at her. Part of him wanted to scare her so much, but it would make things worse. They would start shining lights in his eyes and stuff. “Just wait a couple of days and then when nothing happens, you can get as aggressive as you like.”
“Just me or anyone?”
“Just you.”
“I’ll remember that.” She smiled at him.
He smiled back. “Do you promise?”
On the other side of the one-way mirror, the entire exchange was being watched by two intelligence agents.
“Do we believe in the aliens?”
“Not without further evidence, but if there are no aliens, then it begs the question, how did he return to Earth?”
“And if there are aliens?”
“Then why are they hiding? We have to consider the possibility that they are aggressive.”
“Agreed.”
“And can we trust him?”
“I would think not until we have more information. After all we have no evidence that that really is the same Connor Ryan that disappeared on Hades.”
Connor watched the woman leave, he was getting quite hungry. Well all he had to do was last out until the next day, then everything would kick off.
He was returned to his cell and left alone for the rest of the day. Several times he was woken up in the middle of the night. The psychological games had begun.
Well he could psychological-game with the best of them.
It was night when they landed, so Connor could not work out where they had taken him. He was escorted into a car with blacked out windows and driven for a short while. They exited inside a large warehouse building and Connor was escorted into one of the small rooms and asked to change his clothes.
He was given a t-shirt and shorts to wear, but then that had been his uniform for most of the last five years.
His clothes were taken away, presumably to check for alien lifeforms and things.
Connor mentally grouped the people into two groups, scientists and marines.
“Can you take your watch off,” he was asked by one of the scientists.
“Yes, I can.”
There was a moment while the scientist reacted to his pedantic answer. “Will you please take it off?”
Connor wasn’t going to take it off. It was his one line of communication with the Macha, cunningly disguised as the Tissot watch he had been wearing when he had first boarded the Gagarin.
“No, I would prefer to keep it on, if that’s okay,” he replied. “I want to be able to tell the time.”
The scientist decided that enough was enough, lifted Connor’s arm up and looked for the fastening.
“How do you get it off?” he asked.
“I tend not to take it off,” Connor replied.
“Well you can’t keep it.”
“Can I not then. That’s a shame.”
“Will you take it off?”
“No, I’d rather I kept it on.”
“We can’t put you in the scanner while you’re wearing a metal object.”
“Can you not? Well, I’ll just have to not go in the scanner then.”
They tried using some form of saw. But it didn’t work and Connor was afraid they would accidently cut his hand. But they didn’t.
One thing about the über-slugs, they sure knew how to make bloody good neutrino transmitters.
Blood samples were taken and despite still wearing his watch, Connor was subjected to some sort of body scan. It should turn up normal; he would be interested if it didn’t.
And the questioning continued. Where was his spaceship? Answer: in space. How many species were there on board? Answer: currently four. What were the aliens’ intentions? Answer: friendly contact with the Earth. How had he travelled back to Earth? Answer: on a spaceship. What had happened at Hades? Answer: He would explain at some other time. Why? Because that’s the way it had to be. The same questions over and over again.
Some of the questions he answered, some of them he didn’t and some he gave only cryptic answers to.
“What was his role amongst the aliens?”
“I am to be the human representative when negotiations start.”
“And if there are no negotiations?”
“Then I leave and I go back to live in space.”
“And if we don’t let you leave?”
“Then I leave anyway.”
“How?”
“How are you going to stop me?”
“By putting you in a room with a locked door.”
“Oh well, then either you’ll stop me or I’ll leave,” Connor replied. He knew it infuriated them. “We’ll just see what happens won’t we.”
“And how do you propose to get out of a locked room?”
“Well according to you, I can’t, so I won’t be able to.” He was beginning to get annoyed so he gave an equally annoying answer.
“Do you expect the aliens to beam you up?”
“No, that would be silly.”
“What happened on the Gagarin? Why did the others forget about you?”
This was news to Connor. “What do you mean?”
“The other three people who had travelled with you to Hades, when they returned, they had forgotten about your very existence. Their memories returned once they reboarded the Gagarin.”
“I didn’t know that,” Connor said. “The alien entity must have messed with their minds.”
“What alien entity?”
“The one in Hades. That sounds scarier than it really was. I assumed you knew all about it because Pavel spoke to it.”
“What did Pavel say to it?”
“Ask Pavel.”
“We have but we want to hear your version.”
“We’ll discuss that later."
“And what happened in the missing two hours?”
“Again I don’t know, because I ended up missing two days.”
“Did you have sex with Vanessa Rodriguez?”
“Not to my knowledge, well there was the one drunken incident at the U-party but that was before we reached Hades. What a very strange question.”
“So you didn’t know that you’re a father.”
Connor said nothing for a while. Then he said, “Oh, that changes things.”
“Changes things in what way?”
“I have an heir.”
“Why is having an heir so important?”
“A son or a daughter?”
“A daughter.”
“Because she will inherit everything that I have when I die and my responsibilities.”
“That’s normally how it works. But your possessions don’t amount to much, in fact legally they are nothing as you were declared dead.”
“So I don’t get my back pay?”
“No, because it was part of your estate.”
“Oh well, we’ll have to get that sorted. I think I’ll have that as the first clause in any treaty. I’m alive again and I get my back pay please. I’d also like to meet my daughter.”
“I’m afraid Vanessa does not know that you’ve returned and we have no intention of telling her until you are a little bit more cooperative.”
“I think I have been very cooperative, considering. So how is everyone from the Gagarin?”
“Their lives were pretty messed up because of your disappearance. There was a lot of guilt.”
“I would apologise, but it wasn’t my decision. It was just that I argued with Pavel and the alien decided I had the right qualities.”
“Qualities for what?”
“We’ll discuss that after the treaty is signed.”
“We won’t be signing any treaty. We don’t know how you managed to get to Earth but we have seen no sign of these aliens of yours and until we do or you play ball then we’re not going to let you go.”
“Are you planning to keep me locked up forever?”
“Probably for a very long time.”
“That’s not very nice is it? I don’t like that.”
“But we can’t let you go.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know what is happening.”
“But I’ve told you all I’m prepared to say. Today is Tuesday, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So tomorrow is Wednesday.”
“Yes, that’s normally how it works, so why is that important?”
“We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
The interrogator got up and left the room. Connor waved to the obvious one-way mirror.
The next person to enter was an extremely attractive woman. She sat in the chair opposite.
“What do you want?” she purred.
Shit, this was going to be extremely difficult. Connor could feel his body betray him. He closed his eyes. Think about Alan, think about that arse Alan.
“I mean you must want something,” she continued.
At that moment all Connor wanted was to shag her brains out.
He squirmed a bit in his seat. “In the short term, I would like to be able to leave here and I would like to meet my daughter,” he replied.
“Well that isn’t going to happen until you cooperate a bit more.”
“So what would cooperate a bit more entail?” Connor asked. He looked into the agent’s eyes and at that moment, he thought he would give up everything for her, tell her everything. Then reality kicked in again. He had a job to do.
“We want you to tell us what happened on Hades and what you have been doing for the last five years.”
“I ended up somewhere else, somewhere with lots of alien species and then I came back here,” Connor replied.
“And we would like proof.”
“Well let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
“You mentioned Wednesday before.”
“Did I?”
“So what is going to happen? Is there going to be an alien fleet appear above Washington DC?”
“No don’t be silly, because then there would be the risk that you might try and shoot it down. If I were going to arrange for aliens to appear, it would not be anywhere with weapons.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I would want to avoid any accidents.”
She walked over and sat on the edge of the table and leant over, Connor could smell her perfume.
“Can I have a lawyer please, or at least my one phone call,” he asked.
“Who would you phone?”
“I’d phone my spaceship to come and get me away from these stupid questions. Look can I speak to someone who will just answer the question, are you, the people of Earth, at least interested in making contact with aliens?”
“Not until we find out more about them.”
“Well imagine there’s a galaxy-wide civilisation of friendly aliens, would you be interested in joining that?”
“Perhaps, but until we can be sure that they are friendly, we wouldn’t want to sign up to anything without understanding the implications.”
Connor stared at her she was quite sexy. He had to ask the question. “Just hypothetically, if I were to offer you a life amongst the stars, would you be up for it?” he asked.
“And what would we do there?”
“Oh I don’t know, roam around in a spaceship battling alien monsters.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she replied. “Why? Can you offer that?”
“I was just interested in your reply. So can I have something to eat?” Connor asked, he was starting to feel hungry, plus he wanted to find out how much they were going to make him uncomfortable.
“When you’ve told us something we want to know.”
“You need to know two things,” Connor said. “First there are aliens, second they are friendly and that’s it.” Then he sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and tried not to think of the woman asking the questions.
“You know we will use more aggressive questioning techniques,” she said.
Connor opened his eyes and just stared back at her. Part of him wanted to scare her so much, but it would make things worse. They would start shining lights in his eyes and stuff. “Just wait a couple of days and then when nothing happens, you can get as aggressive as you like.”
“Just me or anyone?”
“Just you.”
“I’ll remember that.” She smiled at him.
He smiled back. “Do you promise?”
On the other side of the one-way mirror, the entire exchange was being watched by two intelligence agents.
“Do we believe in the aliens?”
“Not without further evidence, but if there are no aliens, then it begs the question, how did he return to Earth?”
“And if there are aliens?”
“Then why are they hiding? We have to consider the possibility that they are aggressive.”
“Agreed.”
“And can we trust him?”
“I would think not until we have more information. After all we have no evidence that that really is the same Connor Ryan that disappeared on Hades.”
Connor watched the woman leave, he was getting quite hungry. Well all he had to do was last out until the next day, then everything would kick off.
He was returned to his cell and left alone for the rest of the day. Several times he was woken up in the middle of the night. The psychological games had begun.
Well he could psychological-game with the best of them.