Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 62: That Night, That Meteorite

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The corridor down which Bennett leads Seth and Lynch bustles with more activity the deeper they go. It widens in both width and height, like a mouth opening to swallow them whole. Seth shivers at the thought. Deeper into the beast they go...

As they pass the white-coat-clad workers and the engineers in their grey jumpsuits, Seth searches for any signs for others like him. More extraterrestrials. Or, more specifically, more terrestrial aliens.

Would he be able to feel them? Could he sense their closeness, the way he can with the coyotes? Is that possible..?

He stretches his sensation searchingly, reaching out with his thoughts and his focus for anything that might be like him.

He doesn't feel anything.

His heart sinks: a feeling something like loneliness, and something like trepidation.

Still, with restless hope, he searches. The scientists pass with their plastic boxes emanating odd vibes: some make him shiver, while others try to draw him closer. Lynch nudges him back into line with her shoe every time.

One set of scientists roll by with a cart on which a vertical glass tank sits, topped with metal on either end and tall enough to hold a fully-grown man. It's empty, yet it makes something ugly churn in Seth's gut, and he hurries to walk close to Bennett.

It's not that he likes Bennett, or even trusts him. He doesn't, not really. But he knows him, where these others are strangers, unknowns.

As they continue down the corridor, they pass a large set of double doors opening into what looks to be an aircraft hangar. Seth's ears twitch with the echoes clamoring from the enormous room, with its vaulted stone ceiling and its hulking aviation machines.

"What... are those for?" Seth asks, staring as they pass.

An engineer passing from the hangar catches his gaze, coming to a jerking halt. In her hand is an extensive plastic toolkit, and she has on a blue USAF ball cap, her ponytail pulled through the back. She stares at Seth the way he stares at the aircraft hangar, the way other scientists have been actively trying not to. He's noticed them trying—the way their gazes linger and follow, their conversations halting or hushing as they pass.

Somehow, the open awe of this lady is less suffocating than all the other looks.

"Oh, you mean Alien Air?" Bennett raises his brows. "The hangar, right? Alien Airport, we call her. She's for big operations. All covert, of course. We haven't really had any of those in the years I've been here, but you know, better have one than not, yeah? She opens out into the desert behind the energy plant. Pretty sure you could sneak half a planet in back through there. Yeah, we've got all the works." He beams, his eyes sparkling.

"A real 'Area 51', if you will," Lynch adds, eyeing the hangar entrance—or, Alien Airport, as Bennett calls it.

"Yes, but better. And real." Bennett stops to lean close, into Seth's personal space. He winks, then grins.

Seth leans back from him, only to find himself leaning into Lynch.

"Right," he says, his voice caught.

"Well! This way, Seth! We're almost there." Bennett takes Seth's arm and turns back to stride down the hall, pulling him from Lynch and the hangar.

He leads them a little further down the corridor, deeper into the rock, before turning down a more narrow passageway that branches off into laboratories. The rows of doors are closed, light metal inlaid with white plastic, a keypad above each handle.