Imprint Pt. III

"So you're saying this entire thing is a sham controlled solely by the government with no alien involvement at all," K scoffed, "That seems highly improbable."

"Why do you say that," I asked, countering her skepticism.

"I mean, aliens have been around since when? Roswell, in the 1950's?"

"Personally, I think it was sooner, but so what?" I countered.

"So, if you were an alien race that could travel one billion light years in the blink of an eye, one could reasonably assume that if you wanted to destroy life on this planet, you could have probably done it by now with a flick of the your little finger, don't you think?"

Then she continued, "I mean they've waited over 100 years, that's pretty patient considering all the aggressive military action, we've taken toward them. We've shot down their craft, dissected their 'people', and seem dead set on guarding every inch of airspace against them, even though they have the capability to mysteriously disengage our weapons systems, move at unimaginable speeds, and disappear in the blink of an eye . All things considered, I'd say if they were pissed with us, or had bad intentions, we'd probably know it by now. Don't you think?"

I slowly sipped my third cup of coffee. Her logic wasn't wrong, and she had surprised me with her expert knowledge of 20th Century film. Maybe I should give her a little credit. Just as this thought occurred to me, she continued.

"I mean, come on, give me little credit. So if they're here, and not trying to take over, then wouldn't it make sense to assume our government is working with them, not against?"

"The bottom line is we can't just assume anything. I'm not running into a government agency only to get blown away like everyone in that building," I explained, pointing across the street. "We need to know who's pulling the strings before we make our next move," I declared insistently.

"Okay, so how do we do that," K asked, eagerly awaiting a well-thought out plan.

"It's 3 am. We've been sitting here for hours. If they knew about us, they would've been here, and picked us up by now. I suggest we go home, try to get at least a couple hours rest, and then spend some time independently scouring the web to see if we can gather any other information that tells us something about what might be going on here. Then we can meet here at 5pm this afternoon to swap notes."

It was an executive decision, but since we'd already been through three cups of coffee apiece, I figured if we were ever going to sleep again, we'd need to stop drinking it in the next few minutes.

After considering her limited options, K replied, "Ok, so you're saying see what we can find online?"

"Right," I said firmly, "without getting anyone else involved yet. We need to know as much as we can first."

"That sounds like a plan to me, but I have one more question if you and I are going to be working together, " she paused, hesitantly, "What's your real name?"

Most Breakers didn't share their given name, it was why everyone had a code name and number to keep their anonymity. But considering all that had transpired over the past 8 hrs., I set my coffee down, put my hand out, and answered.

"Rachel Wells."

K grabbed my hand and replied without hesitating, "Sophie Dawson."

____________________________________________

Sleep went quickly, and didn't result in much relief. Online research amounted to even less. At 4:45pm, I grabbed my notepad, and headed towards the diner. Sophie was already seated in a corner booth, vigorously working on her laptop as I walked in. I made my way towards her.

"Hey Rachel," she said proudly, seeming quite pleased that I had trusted her enough to share my actual name.

"Alright Sophie, what do you got?" I asked in a business-like tone as I sat down.

"You first, " she replied.

I took a deep breath and sighed, "Well, I haven't got much to be honest. Every path I followed pretty much came to a dead end. I fussed around on some government sites thinking I might find a loophole to give me more info about the relationship between the Breakers and the government, but it didn't happen. I also scoured local Breaker sites and found nothing worth my time. Did you find anything?"

"I kind of took the historical route," she said, " and it didn't amount to much, until I stumbled upon a really interesting website."

"What was that," I asked, half-distracted by an old man at the counter, loudly slurping his soup.

"ReachET.com, is a site run by a man named, David Green. When I first saw it, I was convinced he was probably some loony, who carried crystals and claimed to be a reincarnated spirit that could talk to aliens, but on the site, he had all these incredible videos.

I was skeptical, but curious, "Videos of what?"

He was still slurping, and I swear it was getting louder.

"Apparently he's been communicating directly with alien spacecraft, and beings that have been visiting for decades." she whispered, crouching down towards the table.

Redirecting my attention and squinting suspiciously, I said, "So how is this not some loony who claims to talk to aliens?"

"You'd have to see the videos to understand," she rebutted, "He's a trained astrophysicist, and has spent his entire life working on this. Through his contact he's developed a protocol with them to communicate, brought others in, trained them in the process, and those people are now having direct interactions with these alien beings and their spacecraft as well. He claims they're peaceful, and have no intention to harm us in any way. Just like I said. Frankly, it sounds like they are more concerned with us harming ourselves."

"Uh, huh." I mumbled, unimpressed with her off-the-wall description, but still distracted by Old Man Slurpy. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Excuse me sir,....sir?"

"Rachel!" Sophie pleaded, sensing I was about to make a scene, as the old man swiveled around. I looked at him, looked at her and realized, in the interest of keeping a low profile, there are some things better left unsaid. Then I proceeded with our conversation as if I hadn't said anything at all. He turned back around and started slurping again.

"I'm not so sure about that, Sophie. If someone had the ability to actually communicate with alien spacecraft, don't you think we'd know it by now?"

"Not if the government doesn't want us to. He's got evidence of that too. Look, I say we get in touch with this guy, and see what he's about. If he is able to do what he claims, maybe he can put us in direct communication with these beings and we can find out what we need to know. It's worth a shot, isn't it? I mean, what else have we got?"

As her last question lingered in the air, I spied a rolled newspaper on the next table over. I couldn't see the complete headline, but I did see the first couple words...."Breakers Crack Alien..."

I jumped up, and swiped the paper out of the booth. Unfolding it, I was able to read the entire headline, "Breakers Crack Alien Code As New Strategy Unfolds, " I read aloud.

Skimming the article, I spouted vital fragments to help Sophie keep up, "Breakers have discovered and begun working with officials to disconnect the alien's Imprint link that has been controlling a large part of the population"...."Officials say they're now breaking the code, and will soon launch offensive military action to remove alien life from our airspace, permanently."...."Breakers responsible for the discovery have been placed in protective custody during the process for their own safety."

"What! That's total bull shit! " Sophie exclaimed, "We SAW them! They took everyone in that room down!"

"Shhhh! I don't think that's part of the public relations strategy, Sophie." I added looking around in a hushed voice. "Old Slurpy" had turned his head to side, and began peering our way using his best covert side eye.

"Written By Chelsea Parks, Alien Affairs Reporter for the Post." After a moment, I continued, "We need to talk to her directly to see what we can find out. She's obviously got some connection within the government to be reporting on these things."

"How are we going to do that, without her knowing what we know."

"Very carefully," I said. "Come on."

____________________________________________

Grabbing Sophie's arm, I started leading her out of the diner as she swept up her computer. Our exit route took us right by "Old Slurpy" and I couldn't help myself,

"How's the soup, sir? Sounds dee-lic-ious."

Sophie yanked me by the arm before I could cause a scene as the man swiveled on his stool, unimpressed by my overzealous enthusiasm.

It was already dark on the street and the puddles reflected the glaring streetlights. A brisk, fall evening was settling in, and the local shops along the street were closing up for the night. As we arrived at my building the metal screen was unlatched, but I struggled to unlock the inner door to the main apartment building.

" You live next to an unemployment office, " Sophie noted as she played with a leaf from the wet stone. "That's convenient."

"Convenient for who?" I replied skeptically.

"You, if you're ever looking for a job, " she replied.

" Yea, you know what's not convenient? The 6am brawl on the sidewalk every morning when the guys waiting outside start fighting to see who'll get to work that day. Their profanities do make for an alarm clock you can't hit snooze on though," I replied sarcastically.

Sophie followed me up the narrow stairway and into a small one-bedroom apartment. If she was hoping to learn anything about my decorating sense, the bare walls and lack of adult furnishings, were probably quite disappointing. I grabbed the only comfortable chair I had, and pushed it towards her.

"Take a seat," I hollered while walking towards the fridge. "Want a drink?" I opened the dirt covered Frigidaire, took a bottle opener out of my back pocket, popped the beer cap and extended my arm towards Sophie.

"You know I'm not 21, right?" she said sincerely.

An unexpectedly loud laugh puffed from my lips, "And I'm gluten intolerant," I said half-heartedly, "one beer won't ruin you."

" I've had beer before, I just haven't been offered it directly by an adult, " she said slyly.

" An adult," I said, "that makes me sound so old."

" Well, you're older than me right?" she asked.

" Significantly," I replied, " but no one said that made me an adult."

Sophie snickered, "You remind me of my mom."

"Man, you're really determined to age me, aren't you." I countered offensively.

"A younger version of my mom, from when I was like, five. Does that make you feel better?

"A little," I said, "so how old's your mom now," I asked uncapping a beer for myself.

"She's dead," Sophie said matter-of-factly.

An uncomfortable silence lingered, before I finally said, "Man, I'm sorry, Sophie. How long ago did that happen?"

" When I was 15. She went to pick up my brother from track practice. On the way back, a tractor trailer made a turn that was too sharp, and rolled on top of her car. That was it, both of them died, instantly" she said, swallowing her tears.

" That's terrible, Sophie, I'm sorry. What about your dad, is he still around?"

"He died before I was born; never met him," she replied, succinctly.

My empathy began creeping to the surface, "So where did you grow up after that? Did you have extended family that could take you in?"

"I kind of just milled around on my own and got by. Other people are kinder than you think. Maybe it was just because I was so young, but I always found a meal here, or there, and an occasional shower. Then I met a guy who had a bunch of high-tech computers in his cafe for customers to use. I started teaching myself what I could. He noticed that I was spending a lot of time there.

One day, he came up to me, and I thought for sure he was going to accuse me of loitering and kick me out. Instead, he handed me a brand new laptop like the other ones in the shop, and said I could spend as much time working there as I wanted. He always gave me lunch and as much coffee as I could stand. People are better than you think.

Eventually, I saw a sign that they were recruiting Breakers to work on severing the Imprint link into our systems, I took the test, got accepted and that's how I started attending those meetings. I originally went to a different lab to work, but I didn't like the people, so I asked to switch to the one down on Cherokee, and that's where I met you the other night for the first time."

" Wow, that's quite a story, Sophie," I said in an unexpectedly somber tone.

"It is what it is, " she shrugged, took a sip of beer, swallowed and asked, "So why are we here?"

"Well, I thought we could come up with a cover story to hit Ms. Parks with tomorrow. What do you think about this...."

Wondering what happens next? Once each short chapter has at least 10 views, I'll write and publish the next so if you enjoyed this story, please keep on reading or check out some of my other stories . Thank you for your support.

Read Imprint: Chapter 4