With time foremost in their minds, the intrepid investigators hurried around the intricate model and headed straight for the backend of the property. After about thirty seconds of walking, they stopped.
“How are we supposed to get through that?” Foster asked, as before them stood a line of pine trees that were densely knitted together from years of unfettered growth. With trained eyes, Justine scanned the woodland barrier from one end to the other for a way through.
“There’s a path.” She pointed to her right at a small trail cut through the middle of their obstacle. “We should be able to go through there.”
After a quick march through some dense foliage, the two of them emerged onto another large tract of land. Only this portion of the forest was a great deal more barren. Covered by an uneven growth of pine trees, the tallest tree they could see was about four feet tall. Strangely, Foster had seen similar vistas on the television back at Wilson. Documentaries that expounded on the dangers that commercial clear-cutting had on the land.
“This is what you wanted us to see, someone cutting the forest down? I never pegged you as an environmentalist, Hoover.”
“An environmentalist?” the word elicited a torrent of mirth from the artificial intelligence’s nonexistent lips. “Why would I care about the environment? I don’t breathe. No,” the tablet cradled in Foster’s hand sprang to life. “What I’m talking about is the structure that should be on the very left-hand side of the large field of nothing you’re currently standing in.”
As if they had practiced the move a hundred times before, both Foster and Justine turned their heads to the left at the same time. They didn’t expect to see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe a larger house or a hidden garage. But what they saw took their breath away.
“What the hell is that?” Justine blurted out almost irrationally, not fully trusting her eyes. “Is that the same barn?”
“Maybe,” Foster admitted.
For what seemed like minutes, they both stood there in awe. Both just staring across the sea of small pine trees, toward the other end of the field, where a gigantic wooden barn stood that dwarfed the 30-foot pine trees nestled behind it. Given the distance, it was hard to tell, but the structure did look almost identical to its smaller cousin.
“Hoover,” Foster’s eyes began to grow large with avarice at the thought of what could be contained within. “Just how big is that thing?”
“Look at the tablet.”
With one eye still on the monolithic structure, Foster managed to get the device in a position where they could both look at the screen. Instantly, a satellite image appeared showing the large field and the barn near its far end. Without any human aid, a wireframe overlay appeared over the picture like grids on a map.
After a second, it was joined by a bright orange square that encircled the barn. To the right of the structure, a series of basic area calculations began working themselves out on a ghostly dry erase board until a final estimate appeared.
“75 feet,” Hoover said. “From my calculations, I would say that this structure is over 75 feet high and just a tad over two hundred feet long.”
“That’s seven stories tall.” Justine was shaking her head in disbelief. “How in the hell?”
“Actually,” Hoover corrected her before she could finish her question. “That’s more like seven and a half stories tall. But why quibble over five feet?”
“Seven stories tall,” she repeated the figure in hopes that repetition might make the answer more palatable to her brain. “Why would anyone build a seven-story-tall barn out in the middle of nowhere? What the hell would you keep there?”
“Those are all good questions, Agent Rushing.” Foster scanned the horizon before looking back down at the satellite image. “Though, I think the better one would be how someone could build a seven-story barn in the middle of nowhere.”
“Easy,” her brain snapped back to reality. “All over the world, people build things twenty times as tall. Cranes, dump trucks, sawmills. It’s not hard or time consuming to construct something these days if you throw enough time, resources, and money at it.”
“That’s true.” Foster shoved the tablet into Agent Rushing’s waiting hands and began to outline the edges of the map with his finger. “Do you see any place where heavy machinery could have been brought in?”
Not fully understanding his line of reasoning, Justine quickly did a once over of the image, paying particular attention to the surrounding woods for the presence of a construction road or a timber trail. Surprisingly, no evidence existed of either one. “That doesn’t mean anything. Pines grow fast around here.”
“Again, Agent Rushing,” he took back the tablet and swiped his finger across it until the wire frame and the calculations disappeared. “Another completely plausible explanation. But roads cut into the forest don’t disappear overnight. Not to mention,” he enlarged the image until the clumps of trees became distinguishable. “This field was never re-sown after it was last timbered. Do you see how the new growth is spread out and sporadically placed?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling another of Foster’s wild ideas incoming. “So?”
“That type of pattern dispersal means these trees were seeded by natural means. Probably from a summer storm strewing pinecone into this field. See how the heavy growth is located on the perimeter?”
Justine nodded.
“Those trees are probably over thirty feet tall. That’s the normal state of the forest. If large machinery had been brought in here, you would see proof in this picture even with new growth. There would be remnants of roads all over the place. And without those remnants, there’s only one conclusion to be made.”
“Which is?”
“There has never been any heavy machinery in this field at all.”
“Then how did the damn thing get built? By hand?” Before he could answer, she saw his sly grin reappear. Here we go again, she thought to herself excitedly.
“I don’t know. But let’s find out!” Foster once again raised the tablet, so Justine had a good view of the image. “Hoover, do you know what I’m thinking?”
“Unfortunately,” the A.I. made a depressed sound as the image shrunk to the size of a postage stamp. This new thumbnail immediately whisked away to the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Then, the entire screen exploded into a cascade of similar looking thumbnails. “How fast do you want me to play them?”
“Slow enough so we can make out what’s going on.”
“Are you sure you don’t just want me to tell you how the story ends?”
“No,” Foster griped at his friend’s condescending tone. “Just humor me.”
“Don’t you mean, just human you?” Before Foster could retort, an image blazed across the screen which was time-stamped almost ten years ago. “This is the earliest pass over by a US satellite. Everything else after will be a mixture of US and Russian.”
Quickly, the images began to flip forward, creating a stitched silent movie that told the odd narrative of events from the last ten years.
First, near the area where the barn currently stood, an initial swath of trees seemingly disappeared overnight. There was no evidence of them being cut down by a heavy machine or hand saw. Only the strange realization that three large piles of cut wood appeared out of nowhere. Then, like an apparition, the earliest signs of a foundation appeared.
Soon, the ghostly, time-lapse construction began. And to call the process strange would be an understatement. Because no large crew of workers ever appeared on the skeletal frame of the superstructure. No trucks ever delivered materials to the site. And not one crane, which would have been required to hang a 200-foot-long truss, ever appeared in the images.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
In fact, save for a few shots of a solitary man sitting on a stone near the entrance of the barn, no photographic proof existed that anyone was every near the damn thing as it sprang into being like magic.
When the slide show concluded, Justine turned toward a somewhat bewildered but happy looking Foster. “I still don’t understand. How was the thing built?”
“Who cares?” Foster was already taking long strides in the monstrous barn’s direction. “I want to know what’s inside of it.”
Justine wrenched at his shoulder to stop him dead in his tracks.
“Time,” she said calmly. “You don’t have a lot of it, Foster. And if I remember correctly, didn’t you come here to see a man about a thing?” She pointed to the mystery his brain was currently fermenting over. “And that’s definitely not the man we’re looking for, is it?”
“Agent Rushing,” she could see an excuse incoming, so she shot him one of her deathly serious gazes. Instantly, the excuse died on his lips. And with the appearance of a junkie coming down off a weekend bender, he forced out the word, “No.”
“Then, we need to forget about that thing for the time being and concentrate on the reason we came here. The reason I went against a direct order and probably the reason we’ll both be residing in a padded cell soon… Joseph Howlam.”
“They don’t have padded cells anymore, Agent Rushing, just hospital beds with very sturdy restraints.” Foster’s demeanor remained reserved but beneath his fabricated fa?ade brewed an emotional storm. In response to his veiled attempt at menace, Justine laughed, which brought more of his dismay to the surface.
“Has anyone ever told you what a pain in the ass you can be?”
“Oh, Foster,” she hooked her arm within his, grinned compassionately and gently led him back toward the small pathway they had emerged from minutes ago. “More than I’d like to admit.”
A few minutes later, they rounded the corner of the house and quickly ascended back onto the porch where all this had begun. Foster stood on his tiptoes and craned his neck, trying desperately to see through the door’s small pane of cracked glass.
“We need to get a look inside his house. There could be clues to who our mystery man is.”
“What do you mean clues?” Justine crossed her arms as a protective measure against the cold wind whipping around her. “A rerun of Scooby Doo? Can’t Hoover just track his car down? I mean, isn’t that his specialty? Finding things?”
Her gaze drifted back toward the Mustang as a feeling of wanting to press the pedal to the floor, momentarily overtook her senses. “Time is running out on us, Foster. Saunders and Malcolm won’t stay stuck on the side of the road forever.”
“No, they won’t.” Turning in place, Foster shifted his feet on the cold concrete slab. “What’s worse, breaking and entering or committing treason against the United States?”
“That’s easy,” Justine didn’t even have to think about such a silly choice, “Committing treason of course!”
“That’s what I thought.”
Faster than she thought possible, Foster reared back his right leg and kicked at the door with all his might. The wooden door frame, weakened from years of use and exposure, quickly gave way and went crashing into the darkened house.
Justine opened her eyes wide with shock, only to find Foster ushering her into the darkened house. Without much hesitation, she entered the run-down home. “Besides,” he smiled as he followed in right behind her. “I can always tell them you did it.”
“What makes you think they would believe you?”
“Do you want to begin with the first half of your personnel file or the second?”
“Point taken.” Two steps inside the small house, Justine remembered her experience at the bank and instinctively drew out her Slinger. Not wanting to take any chances, she set the weapon to level eight. “Stay behind me!” She barked, swinging her gun purposefully from corner to corner. “And keep your eyes open.”
After a few tense moments of exploring the cluttered house, it was clear they were alone.
Quickly, they returned to the first room of the house, a dark, drab looking living room complete with wall-to-wall brown shag carpeting and a brick fireplace. Harsh light poured in from the destroyed doorway and illuminated a large group of silver picture frames resting on the mantle. The flickers of reflected light drew Justine’s attention straight to them.
“What exactly are we looking for again?”
“In a perfect world,” Foster located the nearest light switch and flicked it on. “A huge sign on the wall that says “Welcome Earthlings” would be ideal. Though I would settle for a little, green-skinned man, or something else tiny that we could haul back to Fitz Hume in the trunk of the car.”
“In that car?” Even though their time together was brief, the bond she’d formed with that kick ass car meant nothing gross was ever going to see the inside of its trunk. “I don’t think so, Foster.”
Pushing that horrible image from her mind, Justine maneuvered past the 70’s furniture lining the walls and stopped in front of the fireplace. There, she carefully examined the picture frames for anything odd. It wasn’t long before a pattern began to appear. “Every one of these pictures has a child in it.”
“Is it the same kid?” Foster asked from the other side of the room. “Maybe he’s just sentimental like Edgar.”
“No.” Justine pushed them aside, one after the other, taking note of a brown-haired boy, blond-haired girl, twin toddlers dressed as ninjas, and an Asian girl trying desperately to hold onto a huge carnival bear. “It looks like five kids from four different mothers.” She stopped her sorting when she noticed a pink envelope wedged underneath the largest frame. “There’s also a card.”
“What does it say?”
“Why not?” she said, slightly defeated. “We already broke into the guy’s house. Let’s add mail fraud to our list of crimes.”
“Is there a stamp on the envelope?” Hoover asked out of the blue.
Justine looked down at the pink stationery. “No,” she turned it over in her hands. The paper looked old, almost like memorabilia. “Just looks like a greeting card.”
“Then it’s not mail fraud.”
“No, it’s just garden variety invasion of privacy I guess.” She slid the card free, opened it, and was surprised to find a small cartoon dog smiling at her with a little caption bubble coming out of its mouth. The contents were three simple words: We Miss You. Then, near the bottom corner of the card was another message written in the scribbles of a child.
Justine read it out loud. “It says… we miss you, daddy.”
“Strange,” Foster noted as they stared at each other, wondering what the shelf full of pictures signified to their subject. “But five alimony checks a month would explain why he lives in such a shit hole.”
Pushing another evolving mystery out of his mind. Foster walked over to an oversized shelving unit stuffed with a plethora of notebooks in varying sizes and colors. Curious about their contents, he wedged the nearest tome loose from its tightly bound perch.
Its worn-out cover bore the words “Book 22” scrawled in black pen.
“Here’s another thing to add to the weird pile,” Foster said, flipping through the first few pages of scribbles and doodles. “And considering the stuff I saw back at Wilson, that’s saying a lot.”
“What’s a weird pile?” Justine asked.
In his mind’s eye, memories of his old room back at the institute appeared. All those crazy ideas put to paper, encircling every conceivable direction his thoughts could possibly take him. Foster couldn’t help but wonder what Mouse was doing with those pictures right now.
“A weird pile is something you throw together when you’re in the dark about an idea.”
Foster had the book halfway shut when something near the middle of the page caught his eye. Straightaway, he wrestled another volume free and began scanning, stopping every few pages to make sure the contents remained the same.
“I’m sorry,” Foster’s voice was quiet and excited simultaneously.
Justine shoved the pink envelope back under the picture frame then turned around to see what had gotten this excitable man even more excited. “Sorry about what?”
“My original comments might have been in error. These books are more illuminating than I first...”
Halfway through the sentence, a series of stomping noises came from the entrance of the house. In a slight panic, he whispered, “someone’s here”.
Mad at herself for forgetting her training, Justine whirled around to see a frustrated Deputy Joseph Howlam standing underneath the shattered remains of the door frame.
“Can someone explain to me why my front door is lying on my living room floor?” Joseph glanced down at the undisturbed porch floor. “There’s a key under the mat.”
Before they could rationally react, the man raised his right hand and took one step into the house. The hand seemed to be gripping something. Then, without a pause, a blue orb of plasma flew over Foster’s shoulder and violently struck the deputy squarely in his chest. A look of shock fell over the poor man’s face as his paunchy body flew past the small porch, and into a small bank of snow next to the concrete walkway.
“What…?” Foster shook his head and turned around to see Justine lowering her weapon. “I thought I said we needed to talk to him, not shoot him.” Exasperated, he strode toward the entrance to see Joseph Howlam’s contorted body slumped on the cold ground like a drunken snowman. “Why did you shoot him?”
“Why?” Justine hurried toward the front door with her hand gripped tightly around the Slinger. “You weren’t in that bank, Foster. You didn’t see what that man did to those employees. The blood splattered across his face, the absolute horror and certainty in his eyes.” She took up a hasty position that afforded one eye on the deputy and one eye on Foster. “If this man is what you think he is. If he’s an … alien. Then there’s no telling what else he’s capable of.”
Cautiously, Foster moved behind her, making quite sure not to trigger her already tightly strung instincts. “We still need to talk to him.”
Justine scanned the motionless body for a weapon. Much to her surprise, the deputy’s hands were empty. In another dismaying turn, his holster still held his standard issue, 9mm Berretta. Confused, she shuffled forward. As soon as her feet touched the concrete, a framing hammer appeared just below the apex of the porch.
Suddenly, a sharp realization hit her. It wasn’t a gun she had seen silhouetted in darkness, but a hammer. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she said confidently. “A hammer can be used as a weapon.”
Foster leaned far enough around her to lay eyes on the unconscious Joseph Howlam. After seeing the deputy wasn’t a threat, he wanted to retort with a witty quip about framing the situation or better still, something about dropping the hammer.
However, he knew some things were better left unsaid. After all, the bank had been a horrific scene, of that there was no doubt. Still…
“Come on Dirty Harry,” he sighed, trying hard to sound more thankful than judgmental. “Let’s get the carpenter back in the house before he gets frostbite.”
