The Chrononauts
Chapter 22: Area 51 fiascos

Molly felt guilty after the great lunch. She sighed. “Okay, I’ll check him out.”

A chuckling silhouette on the computer screen said, “No need at the moment; he will be fine, well, at least physically.”

A pensive Molly had to ask. “Um, are you aliens?”

The figure laughed. “We are hardly aliens, my dear.”

Molly was confused. “Well, if the young man is okay, why did you bring me with him?”

He laughed. “Well, mainly because the CIA turkeys were going to kill you.”

Matt was monitoring the bad guy’s radio frequency chatter. “It’s not good. We are going to have a lot of company. A group of F-22 pilots were told shoot us down or don’t come back.” That made Dave really nervous. He looked around and everyone was completely relaxed.

Victoria looked at Snowflake. “There might be too many for her to handle.” She got a nasty double hoot from Snowflake.

Matt looked at a satellite feed. “They will be on us in fifteen minutes.”

Bob talked to the pilot. “He says we can make Area 51 airspace in ten minutes.”

Dave heard that. “Are you out of your mind? They will blow us out of the sky.”

Bob laughed. “Naw, probably not, we have markings they can check. I can guarantee you the clowns in the F-22s won’t be marked. Besides, we’re still in America and we love underdogs.”

Dave continued to panic. “I don’t know. I think they will shoot us down.”

Bob chuckled. “Look, the Area 51 guys are probably bored out of their minds. What’s more fun: shooting down an unarmed plane or a bunch of F-22s armed to the teeth?”

Dave’s voice squeaked, “So our fate comes down to fun?” Bob chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Meanwhile, Molly looked shocked. “Why would they kill me? I’m an American citizen?”

The voice laughed loudly. “I am afraid they are not who you think they are, my dear. They are an illegal US government splinter group. They discovered that your friend there is the Golden Snitch and has a date with destiny. You are lucky they didn’t check your DNA.” The little panel opened and hot buttered popcorn and lemonade were pushed in by the little green hand again.

Molly laughed. “What are these for?”

The voice giggled. “We thought you might like to watch your brother and his friends as they come to rescue you. Trust me, this is very entertaining. Your brother has some very interesting friends.”

Shocked, Molly viewed the gremlin video and was about to watch the live Area 51 feed with audio.

Bob talked to the pilot over the intercom system so everyone could hear it. “So what is happening, Roger?”

He chuckled. “Well, I explained our situation to them and gave them our FBI credentials, but I still get that blah, blah, blah bullshit and we will shoot you down.”

A jittery Dave looked around and everyone was relaxed. Harvard was even reading the New York Times chess puzzle. Bob couldn’t resist screwing with Dave. He smiled. “Don’t worry, Dave. They don’t practice shooting much with all the saucers floating around.”

Molly had watched the attack on the FBI jet and the gremlin monster tearing the wing apart. She could see the people inside the plane calmly watching it all happen, well, except for Dave. The unknown man was awake and he watched the screen with a dropped jaw.

The feed ended and the voice spoke. “I must say that their entity, Snowflake the owl, has a wonderful sense of humor. Now this next sequence is a live feed from Area 51, enjoy. Our heroes are risking the wrath of Area 51 to get away from five F-22s who are trying to shoot them out of the sky.”

The voice saw the fear on Molly’s face. “I mean force them to land safely.” He saw the sarcastic look on Molly’s face. “Sorry, Molly, I couldn’t help myself.”

Roger’s voice cracked on the intercom, “Showtime!”

Everyone looked out the windows at five menacing black helicopters. Matt had the intercom on their “secret” frequency. Everyone on the jet waved at the choppers.

The leader shouted, “Look, those idiots in the jet are waving at us; there is even a freaking German shepherd wagging his tail.”

The people on the plane started laughing. The pilot chuckled, “They must be able to hear us, so much for our top secret frequency, over.”

Another chopper pilot broke in. “Hey, some asshole is shooting at me!”

Roger laughed, “We told you idiots they were coming.”

The choppers turned toward the black jets. One chopper pilot screamed, “Shit! We have four... no, five F-22s on our ass.” Two choppers were blown out of the sky. The other three hid behind the FBI jet.

A saucer appeared and the Area 51 choppers heard, “About time you got here, Gort.” Dave was in his element. The saucer darted between the jets and choppers, shooting down all five F-22s quickly. Some black smoke appeared out of the FBI jet.

Dave ran from window to window, watching everything that was happening. There was a call from Area 51. “You are smoking, FBI One. You may land on runway two.”

Molly had not eaten one kernel of popcorn. She just sat and stared at the screen. She laughed. “You really do not expect me to believe any of that, do you?”

The voice on the screen chuckled to someone else. “I believe you owe me a hundred Glarks.” A hand appeared on the screen and handed the voice some sort of money.

Molly laughed loudly. “Oh come on. You’re pushing it now.”

The voice laughed. “I assure you all that transpired in your reality really occurred.”

Dave couldn’t believe it. They were going to land in Area 51. The plane taxied to a stop in front of a hangar. Nothing happened for fifteen minutes. Dave kept running back and forth between all the windows. “They probably don’t have enough handcuffs. They are going to shoot us for sure. I know it.”

Larry thought Dave was playing a game and kept jumping on him and barking. They finally received permission to deplane. Their phones and cameras were taken from them. They had electronic anklets installed on their legs.

A group of military men went inside the plane to examine all the luggage and compartments. Nobody said a word. They were brought into a conference room and given coffee and some stale doughnuts. A full bird colonel addressed them. “Welcome to Dreamland. Your plane will be repaired for you. We have a couple decent engineers here. You should be ready to go by tomorrow morning.” He looked at Larry and the white owl who were staring at him.

Victoria spoke. “The shepherd is Larry. He is named after the Three Stooges character. The owl is Snowflake. She answers questions with hoots. One hoot is yes and two hoots means no!” The officer chuckled. “You’re not telling me she understands English?”

The owl hooted once.

Victoria answered, “Well, actually she understands ten languages.”

That got one hoot.

Victoria laughed. “See? She hooted in German.” The leader chuckled.

Molly heard a noise and saw that the man with her was awake and fidgeting. A blue beam of light hit him and he fell back to sleep. The voice spoke to Molly. “There are three bullets in his back. You might want to take them out while he is unconscious. I believe you will find them interesting. Oh, I gave him a local for you.”

She took out the three bullets. One was a fifty-caliber entering at a high angle; the other two were hollow point from a much lower trajectory. She asked, “Why were the bullets left in so long?”

The voice answered, “The technology to remove them safely did not exist at the time he was shot.” Molly looked at the screen, confused.

Back at Dreamland, the jet’s occupants were put in separate rooms. They were all interviewed separately. All their stories were identical. Matt’s sister had disappeared and since they had vacation time, they figured they would come out west to look for her.

The colonel talked to Victoria. “That was pretty funny, by the way.”

Victoria looked confused. “What was funny?”

He laughed. “The German hoot joke.” She still looked confused. He said, “You aren’t going to tell me your owl really speaks ten languages, are you?” She smiled at the owl and got an aggravated single hoot.

Dave was sitting alone in a room. There was a knock and a man came through the door. His face lit up. “Hey you’re the moron in that YouTube video with the fake T-Rex.” sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Find ɴøᴠel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Dave sighed, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The man chuckled. “Okay, let’s talk about the jet that crashed trying to shoot you down.”

Dave stared at him. “I really don’t want to talk about that!” The man smiled. “Humor me and I’ll take a picture of you with a real flying saucer with an Area 51 warning sign in the background.”

Dave’s face lit up. “Okay, but you will think I am crazy. The guy in the F-18 tried to shoot us down with three heat-seeking missiles. He somehow missed all three shots. He pulled up beside us and a—I don’t know—a gremlin jumped on our wing. It saw the other plane and maybe thought that one was tastier and jumped on its wing. It pulled a section of metal plate off its wing.”

Dave continued, “The panicked pilot flipped the plane to try to dump it. The gremlin got irate and tried to pull the plane’s canopy off. It failed and went back to the wing, where it dislodged an engine. That caused the plane to spin. The pilot ejected but the creature wrapped its arms around the seat pod, preventing the chute from opening. I watched it fall into the clouds still being held by the creature.”

The man laughed. “You don’t expect me to believe that farce, do you?” Dave sighed and shrugged.

There was a knock on the door and an excited man whispered in the interviewer’s ear. He looked shocked. “We have a video of it? Excuse me, Dave. I will be back in a couple minutes.”

Victoria looked at Snowflake and back at the colonel. “You better apologize to the owl before she does something to you.” The man said something in German in Snowflake’s direction. Victoria stared at Snowflake, “She said that was a pretty crappy apology and that she is not a stupid owl and she is not fat.”

The man’s jaw dropped. “Oh, I get it. You speak German.”

The second-in-command watched the gremlin video. A second recording was just on Dave’s reaction. The rest of the people seemed totally at ease. Some were even laughing while the rockets barely missed their plane. He shook his head. “Who are these people? Find out all you can about them.”

Molly saw the young man starting to stir in the bed. He sat up with a grimace and looked around. “Anna, what happened to your hair? Wow, you have really grown up. I still have your...” He fished around his neck for the gold chain and the little amethyst ring but it was missing. He stopped and looked around again. “What is all this? Where are we? What is a window doing in the middle of the room?” He stuttered and fell back to sleep.

She asked, “What window in the middle of the room?”

The voice laughed. “Oh, he means the laptop screen. He has never seen one before.” Molly looked confused.

The colonel watched the gremlin video with an aide. He chuckled. “That is like the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner. The little girl says that is her owl’s favorite episode and that the owl really speaks ten languages. The little girl says she is a sophomore at MIT. What else have we found out about them?”

The man blushed. “Not a thing. Our clearance isn’t high enough.”

The colonel swore. “We are freaking Area 51. We have beyond top secret clearance.”

The defensive man said, “Something tells me that maybe we need way beyond top secret, sir. We do have some information that is public knowledge. These people were involved with that triplane fiasco a couple years ago and that Yellowstone event last year, but the newspaper coverage was surprisingly sparse.”

The leader went in to talk to Victoria and was surprised the owl was gone. Victoria laughed. “Oh, one of your people was bragging about his chess skills. Harvard bet him a thousand bucks that the owl could beat him. Harvard is moving the pieces for her. She taps the piece and Harvard moves it till she hoots.”

The leader laughed. “Your friend is going to lose a thousand dollars. Our guy is a grandmaster.”

Victoria laughed. “I have ten bucks that says he loses.”

The leader smiled. “It’s a bet.”

The owl and Harvard came back in the room. A limping, very angry grandmaster handed Harvard ten one hundred dollar bills. Victoria chuckled.

Harvard laughed. “Boy, the guy was a poor loser. He threw a stapler at Snowflake. He missed. The stapler bounced back and hit him, um, kind of low.” Victoria chuckled softly.

The leader handed Victoria a ten spot. “It is worth it if he stops bragging about how great he is.” He looked at the table. Victoria had a crossword puzzle spread out. He laughed, “Aren’t you going to do it?”

She yawned. “I already did. I do them in my head.” He didn’t believe her. She chuckled and shook her head. She took a pen and quickly put the first letters of the puzzle on both sides and the top and bottom.

Molly looked at the bullets under a microscope. The metal analysis showed the fifty-caliber shell was old, probably World War Two era. She murmured to herself, “So why is there an ancient bullet in a body with two modern hollow points?”

The voice laughed. “That is the wrong question, my dear.” Molly chuckled and walked over for a handful of popcorn and a glass of lemonade.

Her head went up abruptly. “Why are two modern hollow points found in a body with an old fifty-caliber bullet?”

The voice laughed. “Yahtzee!”

Molly drifted over to the man’s clothing on the table. It was a military uniform. “British?”

“Yes”

“Three bullet holes occurred in wartime?”

“Yes.”

“Vietnam?”

“Earlier.”

“World War Two?”

“Earlier.”

“Oh come on. World War One?”

“About time, Molly.”

Back at the base, the colonel chuckled. “So how did Harvard fool him?”

Victoria sighed. “Harvard didn’t do anything except move the pieces. This is Area 51; don’t you believe in the impossible here? Do you think you are the only ones that are capable of doing impossible things?”

The owl looked pissed. The colonel watched in shock as a glass of water slid over to the edge of the table by itself and dumped into his lap.

Victoria sighed. “Well I guess we are through talking to you.”

The colonel stood up. “You’re through when I say you are through, honey.” Victoria sighed and shook her head. She walked towards the door.

The colonel yelled at her in a huff. “The doors are locked and there is a guard outside.”

She gave him a disgusted look. She opened the door and walked out. He yelled for a guard. Nobody was there. The colonel jumped up and ran to the door. “I’ll fix you, you little smart ass.”

The door had locked. He screamed for the guard and kicked the door, splitting his pants. The rest of the group had also had their fill of the superior attitude. They were told their plane was not ready. Victoria found them all in a room.

Victoria said, “Snowflake says they are lying and they want to arrest us and keep us here.”

The colonel soon found them. The FBI leader, Bob, told the colonel to let them go or it would cost him his job. Belligerently, the colonel replied, “Nobody tells me what to do.”

Bob laughed, “Victoria was hoping that would be your attitude.”

The colonel looked down at her and sputtered, “You are going nowhere, you little freak.”

Bob smiled broadly. “I hoped you were this stupid. Didn’t the above-top-secret rating tell you anything?” Bob laughed. “We will try to make your last day as commander here...enjoyable.”

Molly looked surprised. “That isn’t possible; he is a young man.”

The voice laughed. “That depends on how you measure what you call time.”

Molly chuckled and walked over to the clothes and laid the uniform out. She went to the Internet to find a match. She was shocked to see it was a RAF World War One uniform.

She smiled. “Well, anyone could have put this old uniform on him.” She did a quick comparison to the blood on the uniform. They were the same blood type.

The voice asked, “Aren’t you going to do a mitochondrial DNA match?”

The commander of Area 51 needed to relax. He had the group locked in a cell. He needed to think. He turned on his favorite porn channel and was surprised to see himself doing a threesome with two ugly, fat seventy-year-old women. His package was the smallest one he had ever seen. “What the hell is this?” He found the feed on multiple channels. Even CNN was showing excerpts on its station. He talked to an aide who saw the screen and tried not to smile.

The commander yelled, “Go check all those FBI assholes for communication devices.” The sergeant smirked. The colonel looked at the man. “That damn footage is fake, sergeant. Ask your wife.”

An alarm went off and a man came running in. “We are under attack. Sir, the press wants to know why we are holding and torturing an alien princess. And they want to know if you are taking their threat seriously.”

The commander scowled at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The man continued, “And why did you open the gates, sir? All the press are flooding in and taking pictures.”

He screamed. “What? Where are the guards?”

The man looked at the leader. “You relieved them all from duty, sir.”

He yelled, “I don’t know what you are talking about!”

The man said, “Well, sir, you sent all the guards to Hangar One to guard the Princess. Boy, she is a beauty, sir.”

Meanwhile, Molly watched the young man slowly open his eyes. “Anna, where are we?” He grimaced when he tried to turn.

Molly smiled. “I had to take three bullets out of your back.” The young man looked confused. “I remember pulling you out of the burning triplane and carrying you over to a small brook by a little oak tree...and getting shot. Wait, what do you mean you pulled three bloody bullets out of me?”

The press had received a tip that there was an attack on the base and that all the gates would be opened to allow proper defense. A picture of a beautiful alien woman (known to Victoria as Aunt Marissa) in chains, being held by the base commander with a gun to her head had been released to the press as a teaser.

The newspaper honchos were salivating over how many papers they were going to sell. The press was surrounding Hangar One. The base commander made his way through angry press to the hangar. Several saucers were laying waste to the all terrain vehicles in a parking lot and anything else they could shoot at.

A formation of helicopters approached the hangar. Saucers quickly dispatched them in less than a minute. The base commander came out of the hangar with a gun, holding the princess in front of him. She was in chains.

One of the saucers landed in front of the hangar. The door opened and a man stepped out with a helmet in his hand. The alien was seven feet tall, blond, and handsome. A giant robot that looked suspiciously like GORT in the movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” appeared behind the alien man.

The base commander continued to cower behind the woman. The alien walked up to the commander and bent his hand back until he dropped the gun. He pulled the chains on the princess apart with brute strength and led her away.

The commander picked up the gun and shot the alien in the back. Unaffected, the alien walked up to him and crushed the gun in his hand and dropped it on the ground. He walked to the saucer with the princess. The press all started clapping. The man smiled and waved; he kissed the princess on the forehead. They both smiled and waved, then got in their saucer with their robot and left.

Molly looked at the man. “My name is Molly Meagher, and I am a doctor. Who is this Anna you keep talking about?”

The man stared at her. “So you are telling me you are not Anna?”

Molly sounded disappointed. “Yes, I am telling you I am not Anna.”

She repeated her question. “Who is Anna?”

The man looked her over. “Anna is the daughter of Baron Von Heisen.”

Molly pulled the laptop to her knees. John tried to look at what she was doing. She sat on the edge of the bed so he could see. She got ready to type. “Okay, can you spell the name for me?” He did and she typed it in. “Okay, I got it. There is probably more than one...nope. He had a son, Siegfried, who flew in the German air force in World War One?”

The man looked shocked. “When I knew him, he was a fat little coward.”

Molly looked at the screen. “You couldn’t have known him. He died in 1916 during World War One.”

He laughed. “So what are you saying? I fought the Huns. He could have been one of them. I don’t know the name of who I am shooting. We don’t go bloody drinking together between dogfights.” He looked at the laptop screen. “What is that thing you’re reading?”

Molly laughed. “It is a laptop.”

The man persisted. “What is a laptop?”

She laughed again. “A computer I use to look up information.” He looked confused. She laughed, “Okay. For example, what is your name?”

He said, “John Hollings.” She typed it in. His picture popped up on the screen. He laughed. “Wow that is something. It took my picture.”

Molly laughed. “No, it stores information and people can read it. Wait. This can’t be you. What is your birth date?”

He chuckled. “I was born October 8, 1894 in Boston, Massachusetts.” She turned the screen away from him and asked a bunch of questions. He knew all the answers.

She finally shrugged, “What year is this?”

He chuckled. “1917. Why do you ask?”

Meanwhile the press was all over the commander. “We hear you are holding a family prisoner that you, in fact, told to land on your runway?”

He grimaced. “They are not prisoners. They were under attack by five F-22s. We let them land here for protection after their plane was damaged. We fought off the jets.”

The curious press asked, “What did you fight them off with?”

The commander stuck out his chest. “We fought them with our helicopters, of course.” The press laughed at him. Then everything got quiet. The press noticed several of his men pushing blindfolded people in chains into the hangar. A little girl was bleeding from her head and had chains and a blindfold on.

Victoria said softly, “How long are you going to keep us here? We are Americans; you can’t hold us with no reason. If you’re not going to give us food, could you at least give my dog some water?” Victoria struggled not to laugh as she spoke.

One of his men crisply saluted him and turned to the prisoners. “Okay, on your knees!” He poked them with his rifle. “Here they are, sir. Do you want me to shoot them like usual or do you want to torture them first?”

The commander looked at the press and whispered to the soldier, “Get the cuffs off them, you idiot.” To the group, he said, “You guys win. Get the hell off my base.”

Victoria smirked. “Maybe we should wait for your replacement. You would probably try to shoot us down.”

A smiling man ran over. “Sir, you have a priority call from the Chief of Staff. He said to tell you to get your ass off the base or he will have you shot.”

Molly was shocked. “It is August 4, 2013, John. He looked confused and shook his head. Molly pointed to the laptop screen with the date in the corner. She asked to hear his life story. When it was over, she shook her head. “Wow, you had a full life.”

She looked up Anna. “She never married and was killed in an Allied bombing in 1945.” Next, she looked up his sister, Violet. “She was hit by lightning in her rose garden in 1929. Edward shot you in the back when you were saving Anna. Your friend Bishop saw him do it and shot him out of the sky.”

Molly looked up Anna again. “Okay, here she is. Wow, I see why you were confused. We could be twins. But I must tell you, my breasts are larger.”

John blushed and laughed. “But you don’t only look like her; you sound like her, laugh like her, and even look at me like her.” That made Molly blush.

John laughed. “One more question: who won the war?”

The commander answered the phone. “But sir, who the hell are they? ...Yes sir.” He turned to his second-in-command. “I’ve been relieved. I have to leave now or I lose my retirement. Do yourself a favor and get these people off your base.”

The general wanted to know what happened to the F-22s. His aide said, “The report says they were taken out by helicopters.”

He snarled, “Bullshit. They were taken out by a saucer. It had to be an alien. Our people can’t handle them well enough to take on F-22s. We have a treaty with the grays. Those Massachusetts assholes must have a non-gray alien friend. Find out who these assholes are and what they want and what they are doing there.”

Molly spoke to the silhouette on the screen. “Okay, voice; tell us what’s going on.” The doorway unlocked and opened slowly. A smallish good-looking slightly green man came in. John and Molly had shocked looks on their faces.

The voice, now matched to a body, laughed. “Oh, come on. I know I’m a chick magnet.”

Molly chuckled, “You told me you were not an alien.”

He laughed. “I am not. Actually, you are the aliens. My race has been here off and on for several million years. You turkeys have been here a little over one million years. My name is Gort.”

She laughed. “You’re kidding, right?? That is the name of the robot in the movie, ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’.” The alien chuckled, “Gort is common like Smith is to Americans.”

John gasped. “So what is going on here?”

The not-an-alien chuckled. “Life, death, and certain events are set in stone by Fate. Some events can occur or not occur and Fate doesn’t care about them. Now, let’s say time travel is possible and someone sees an event that is going to happen and does not wish it to occur.”

Gort smiled. “They could go back to an innocuous event and change it and presto, it doesn’t happen. The problem occurs when the event is set in stone. Then, as you say, all hell breaks loose.”

He continued, “Our species usually only visits planets like yours and then we leave it to explore other places. You are, however, unique. You did not evolve naturally. Your intellect was genetically altered so the balance with your moral bearing is off. You are someone’s experiment and we find it intriguing. Those beings left and never came back. We are sticking around to see how it all turns out. You guys are the “Three Stooges” of the universe. Personally, I think the human experiment will end poorly.”

Meanwhile, the FBI jet landed in Denver. Apparently, the group was big news at the moment. They had to dodge reporters until Snowflake made them leave with a meteor hit on the Denver Broncos’ Mile High football stadium. Victoria chimed in. “I guess they should not have beat the Patriots.”

Later, the group was transported to the area where the unknown man was found. It had been blanketed with snow a few days earlier. Larry’s nose picked up his trail and led them to a rock wall. Larry put his paws up on the rocks and barked upwards.

Brady looked over at Bob and chuckled, “Let’s find a way up.” Victoria scanned the area and saw an out of place bush with dying leaves. She curiously walked over to it and pulled on it. It was barely rooted in the ground.

She gently kicked the leaves on the ground away and laughed. “Check this out. We are out in the boonies, correct? Then why would someone plant a large bush here?” Larry already had his nose into the bush. Matt was going to pull it out of the ground, but Victoria wanted to give it a chance to live.

They all smirked at her and squeezed by. They followed Larry through the rocks. It was rough going. They traveled uphill for an hour. The group came to an arroyo partially hidden by overhanging bushes. Larry didn’t want to go forward. His ears were back and the hair on his back stood up. He whined and tried to turn around.

The group went forward and found what looked like a flying saucer crash site. There were burn marks on the rocks and pieces of saucer. There were charred bones that were unidentifiable. Matt bagged a bone and some pieces of saucer. They took pictures from every direction and angle.

They realized the sun would be going down soon, so they headed back towards camp. Matt e-mailed photos of the bones, saucer, and crash site to his friend Triggva at MIT. Larry tried to stay as far away from the bagged materials as possible. They had burgers cooked over mesquite. Larry did stay near the burgers.

They discussed their findings over the campfire. Bob started, “Well, it looks to me like a UFO got shot down by a laser beam and crashed. The man whose tracks we found must have come out of the downed ship.”

Dave was psyched. “Man, I wish I had gone on vacation with you last year.” They made plans to visit the Air Force base that found the man the next day.

Matt chuckled. “The base has probably heard about the Area 51 fiasco. They aren’t going to welcome us with open arms.”

Dave stuttered, “That was a huge saucer and it looked like unconventional weapons took it down. It’s a good thing the people don’t know the man came out of a UFO.”

Molly stared at the alien. “So what happened to John exactly?” The alien became serious. “He was shot by his brother, but it was just in the shoulder. He was supposed to live. The man who shot the hollow points was obviously from the future. He wanted John dead. He did not want him to marry and have a son who would change history. We went back and collected him before he expired. We stabilized him but could not risk direct contact and risk microbe contamination that could destroy us.”

He continued, “The bad guys knew we had to bring him back for modern medical treatment. They were waiting for us and destroyed our saucer with another saucer. We rescued John from the damaged ship but he was grabbed away from us by the bad guys. You were brought in to verify through DNA that he was the individual they were trying to kill. If you had verified the DNA link to Hollings, they would have killed you both.”

He pointed to a scar on John. “We had a locator installed in John’s leg so we could find him if anything went wrong. We managed to take him back before the DNA report came back. They will come after him. They probably know about you, Molly, and will follow your brother in hopes that he finds or knows where you are. He and his friends will be a distraction while John gets to heal a little bit more.”

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