Paul Jones - Revelations

“Let me guess? You’re going to carry out more of your warped experiments on me? Turn me into one of your living machines? Is that it?”

“No, Emily,” Jacob said, seeming honestly offended by her remark. “We need you to take a message back to your people and the others that will join you.”

Jacob gestured with a hand and a map appeared in the air between him and Emily. It was so realistic she felt that if she wanted to she could reach out and touch the mountains and the coastline, run her fingers through the slowly moving waves of the ocean that washed over its surface.

It was a map of what had once been the southwest United States, red now, except for the occasional snowcapped mountain.

Then Jacob began to explain what it was he wanted from her, and with each word he spoke, Emily felt the anger begin to leave her.

“Do you have any questions, Emily?” Jacob asked when he was done explaining the message he wanted her to carry back with her to the other survivors at Point Loma.

“Why?” she asked finally. “Why would you do this?”

Jacob’s lids closed. Beneath them, Emily could see his eyes moving back and forth as though he was deeply asleep. A slight smile crossed his face and his eyes snapped open again.

“Because, despite what you think of us, what you believe us to be, we are not monsters, Emily.”

An opening appeared noiselessly in the curve of the wall to her left. Jacob stepped toward it, still flanked by the two aliens. “This way, Emily,” he said, gesturing toward the doorway.

Emily stood, ignoring the pins and needles she felt tingling through her legs from being seated for so long, and walked through the doorway, the floor warm against her bare feet. Beyond it lay another, larger room. This one was circular, with an oval ceiling that spiraled up to a point far above her head. The room was empty except for one wall where multicolored liquids gurgled and oozed through a row of thick, clear pipes on the opposite side of the room. They merged into a single larger pipe where the liquids mixed together and flowed onward to whatever destination and design the aliens had for it. She did not want to think what that goo might once have been.

Another opening appeared in the opposite wall. This time, beyond the second doorway, Emily could see the gentle swell of a hill, covered in the red lichen, but otherwise clear of the tangle of jungle that seemed to have sprung up everywhere across the planet.

A ramp led from the edge of the wall to the ground.

Emily glanced at Jacob. He held her stare wordlessly until she turned away and walked nervously through the opening and out onto the sun-drenched hillside.

As she stepped from the ramp Emily heard a soft pop behind her. She had expected to find herself next to whatever alien craft she had been held in, but when she turned to look back, she was alone on the hill. There was no sign of the ramp or the room that she had just left. Shading her eyes against the glare of the sun, Emily scanned the sky for any indication of a departing craft, but the air was empty of all but a few small clouds.

She allowed her gaze to follow the downward curve of the hill as it dropped away before eventually meeting and being swallowed up by the ubiquitous red jungle below. Beyond the jungle, in the distance, Emily could see the outline of what had once been Las Vegas. She had assumed that she had been within the aliens’ craft, but the truth was, she now understood, that “room” could have been anywhere on the planet or off it. The aliens—what had they called themselves, the Caretakers?—seemed more than capable of manipulating space, bending it to their needs. Still, it was a surprise to realize that they had stranded her on the opposite side of the city from where they had landed.

On the ground near to where she stood, Emily noticed her backpack, clothes, shotgun, and other belongings, neatly deposited in a small pile.

She dressed quickly, then undid the flap of the backpack and pulled it open, searching inside for the two-way radio MacAlister had insisted she take. It was still there, thank God. She pulled it out and switched it on. A burst of static exploded from the radio. She turned the volume down and held the radio in front of her mouth.

“Hello? Can anybody hear me?”

The quiet soughing of an afternoon breeze moving through the distant jungle was her only answer.

Emily pressed the talk button again, repeating her question, “MacAlister, do you read me?”

Another burst of interference was followed by a momentary silence, then a familiar voice crackled from the radio’s speaker.

“Emily? Emily, can you hear me?” He sounded amazed to be speaking to her, and a little relieved too.

“MacAlister! Yes, it’s me.” She found herself almost yelling into the microphone.

“Are you okay? Are you injured?” The concern in MacAlister’s voice was touching. But it was a good question: Was she okay? She wasn’t sure. Looking down at herself, there didn’t seem to be any signs of injury, but her brain still felt fuzzy, almost as though she was drunk, but without the feeling of needing to throw up. She felt… different somehow.

“I’m okay,” she said hesitantly.

“Where are you?” MacAlister asked, his voice all business now.

She looked around the top of the hill. The sun was well past its zenith, and heading toward the western horizon to her right and she could see the remnants of Vegas poking up from the jungle in the distance, but almost directly ahead of her.

“I’m on a clear hilltop, about six, maybe seven miles north of where we landed,” she told MacAlister. She turned through 360 degrees. “It’s pretty much the only place here not covered by the jungle.”

“Just sit tight, Emily. We’re coming to get you, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied, feeling a steady pull of exhaustion begin to tug at her muscles.

She sat and waited.

Minutes later, as the afternoon sun beat down on the hilltop, the steady beat of the helicopter’s rotors chopping through the air echoed across the Las Vegas valley, arriving long before Emily spotted the dark dot of the Black Hawk as it sped toward her. She pulled off her jacket and stood, waving it above her head with as much energy as she could still muster until she saw the chopper adjust its vector and curve gracefully in her direction.

The helo circled around the hilltop as MacAlister searched for a safe place to put it down. Emily shaded her eyes from flying debris as the Black Hawk descended, and then she was moving to the helicopter before the wheels had touched down.

The passenger door slid open and a shape leaped from within and bounded toward her.

“Thor!” Emily yelled, her voice whipped away by the noise of the Black Hawk’s engines.

The malamute raced toward her, then hesitated and slowed, his head dipping down almost to the ground, but his eyes never leaving her as he sniffed at the air around Emily and let out a low half-whine, half-growl.

“What’s wrong with you, mutt?” she said. The malamute had never hesitated with her before. “It’s just me.” There must be some residual smell or essence of the creatures she had encountered on the ship that was making him nervous. “Come on. Come here,” she cooed, offering her hand out to her dog. He sniffed it once then licked it and that was enough. The malamute almost bowled her over, weaving around and between her legs, pushing up against her. She grabbed the dog by his collar and guided him back toward the waiting helicopter.

Reilly leaned out and yelled something that she couldn’t hear over the roar of the engines, then Burris’s head appeared over his shoulder as the two sailors beckoned her to get in.