Imprint (Pt. V)

“Come on, come on Briggs,” Chelsea whispered impatiently while tapping her pencil on her notepad.

“You’ve reached Commander Briggs, please leave a message….”

“Gah, Briggs…it’s Chelsea...call me when you get this.”

Chelsea spent the next hour and a half, writing down theories and surfing the web for clues. Just as she was about to head out for the evening, her phone rang.”

Langley popped up on the caller ID. "Briggs?” she said, desperately grabbing the receiver.

“Hello Ms. Parks, you rang?” he said with a chipper, overly proper tone.

“Briggs, what are you doing right now?”

“Um, that’s classified Chelsea. If I told you I’d have to kill you,” he joked.

“Funny Briggs. Meet me at the corner of Brand and Senate Streets in 20 minutes,” she demanded, momentarily forgetting that he was three hours away at Langley Air Force Base.

Sensing the urgency in Chelsea’s voice, he attempted to lower her energy.

“Hang on there little lady, where’s the fire? I’ve got a few things to take care of here before I head out, and unless you’ve got a tele-transportation device, there’s no way I can meet you anywhere in 20 minutes. How about we meet up for a post-work drink at Lou’s around 9:30 instead. What’s this all about anyways?”

Chelsea hated it when he put her off and despised it when he treated her like a little girl, but she realized he was right in this case.

“Look Briggs, I need to talk to you ASAP, and I’m not gonna do it on a Langley line. I’ll see you at 9:30.”

Four hours later, Chelsea, headed across the bridge into Georgetown and grabbed a hi-top at Big Lou’s. Fortunately it was a Tuesday night, so there were very few people hanging around. Three and a half hours earlier, Briggs had left Langley and was just parking his car.

“Not gonna do it on a Langley line, huh,” he repeated as he sauntered up to the table. “What do you think, I’m bugged? They got bigger fish to fry than little old Briggs, believe you me.” As he said this out loud, he realized it was more likely than not that his line was bugged since he was a direct press contact, but kept that observation to himself.

“Can’t be too careful these days,” she replied sincerely.

The lanky waiter saw Briggs sit down and made his way over to the table.

“Drinks?”

“I’ll have a Bourbon on the rocks,” Chelsea replied automatically. Clearly she had a “go to” drink of choice.

Briggs was slightly intimidated but responded, “Scotch. Neat," trying to sound equally beverage savvy. In reality, he very rarely drank alcohol, but had already planned to take only a sip or two.

“Any preference on the scotch, sir?”

Of course, he had to ask. At the moment, the only word in his head that was related to scotch in any way was “Glen”.

“ Aaa, no, just give me whatever Glen you‘ve got back there.”

Chelsea furrowed her brow and squinted at Briggs as the waiter nodded and walked away. “Not much of a scotch connoisseur are ya, Briggs?”

“Just open-minded, that’s all. So what’s this all about Chelsea?”

“Look Briggs, I don’t think you’ve been up front with me about this whole Breaker thing. I’ve been hearing some interesting stories from sources who read my column and things just aren’t matching up.”

“Chelsea, are you really going to take the word of Joe Schmo over your friendly and connected Langley Press Contact?” He tried to play it cool, but inside he could feel his anxiety levels rising.

“So what are you protecting these Breakers from, anyway? Why do you need to hold them in a special place at all? You have what you need.” She knew Briggs was a terrible liar and coming up with stories on the fly was not his strong suit.

“Aaah, well, Isn’t that obvious?

He was buying time. “Not to me it isn’t. Explain.”

“Um, you know, we have to keep them safe...because the aliens might try to kidnap them to use their skills against us.”

“Uh huh, and how would the aliens have any idea who are Breakers and who aren’t?”

“They could, you just don’t understand everything about the Breakers, plus all of the press hounding them for information would draw too much attention.”

“You are really terrible at spinning stories, Briggs.”

He instinctively began to sweat and tapped his fingers. Within seconds, the waiter returned with their drinks. Holding his glass of scotch up at eye level, he attempted to buy some more time.

“Ah, cheers, Chelsea.”

She quickly clinked his glass and took a swig of her bourbon. “I’m waiting, Briggs?” She knew he was trying to come up with something to say, which convinced her there was more to the story that he didn’t want her to know.

About twenty seconds went by as they stared at each other in complete silence. Suddenly, Chelsea began to feel like she was desperately tired, and everything was spinning until it all faded to black. Briggs hopped off his stool, swiveled around the table and caught her before she collapsed to the floor.

“Sorry, Chels” he whispered in her ear as several men, including their waiter scrambled up to help him. They quickly carried her out the back door and put her in a black SUV before Briggs could do anything.

“Where are you guys going to take her?” Briggs asked the agent as he gathered Chelsea’s things and removed his wire.

“ We’re just gonna keep her for a few hours until we can finish our other objectives. She’ll be fine. Then we can erase her memory and just drop her right back into her life.”

Briggs felt very uneasy around the field agents. They were so slick and unfazed by everything. No one should be that cool under pressure. It just wasn’t natural.

The agent slammed the door of the black Escalade and told Briggs to head back to see General Matthews at Langley for further instructions, then the SUV sped off with Chelsea in the back seat, out cold.

She is not gonna be happy about that when she wakes up. The thought sent a quick shiver down his spine. He made his way back to his car and headed back to Langley.

____________________________________________________

“It’s 7:25, where is she? Wouldn’t she have called if she was running this late?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Sophie declared, “That woman has a mind of her own, and she isn't afraid to use it. Don't worry, she’ll be here.”

Time passed desperately slow, and I found my chin getting increasingly itchy under the Syd disguise. I tried to rub gently so as not to destroy the overall look. A few minutes later a tall, curvaceous waitress appeared at the table.

“Would you all like to order anything? We have a terrific pecan pie back there, or I could bring you a cup of coffee. It’s ‘on the house’.” There was something peculiar about the waitress, and as she continued talking uncontrollably, I knew instantly what it was. Then she continued,

“We all have to look out for one another. Everyone is connected by one universal force. It binds us all together and makes us stronger. Have you all been to the Imprint lab on Oregon Street? They just opened it and it’s a lovely place. I can write out the address for you all if you’d like to check it out.”

“Uh, that’s alright, thank you for the offer, though,” Sophie said quickly, trying to shoo her away.

“We already go to a lab on 7th Street, it’s our favorite place.” I added, flashing a peace sign to try to convince her we were already among the devout.

“Oh, I don’t think I know that one. Would you write down the address so I can check it out? Also, I recently started fundraising for Jack Tremain at his headquarters on E Street. He is running for Senate, devout Imprinter, former military, and a big proponent of environmental safeguards. Would you be interested in making a donation, or volunteering? We’d love to have you.”

What the hell is this? Never shutting up and hawking Imprint labs were par for the course, but now they were walking ads for politicians? When the hell did this happen?

“You know what, if that complimentary coffee is still up for grabs, I’d love it,” I replied, in a last ditch effort to get her out of their immediate vicinity.

“Absolutely, I’ll be right back, no problem at all.” The waitress did an about face, and quickly made her way directly to the coffee pot.

“Thank God,” Sophie exclaimed. “ I thought we’d never get rid of her. And what’s with the political spiel? That isn’t something they normally do, is it?”

I reflected quietly for a moment and responded, “No, no it isn’t, and it makes me even more suspicious. If Imprint is supposed to be an alien program, why the hell would they care about hawking political views. All the more reason to think this was never an alien program at all,” I said, impatiently glancing at my watch. “Where the hell is this woman? It's nearly 8:00. Something isn’t right Sophie, I think we should get out of here.”

We scooted out of the booth just as the waitress was returning with a coffee. Slipping past her, we avoided eye contact as she turned and shouted, “Vote Jack Tremain on December 5th!” before we could push out the diner door.

Confused and concerned we regrouped at my place, our unofficial headquarters. Quite worried about what had become of Chelsea, and knowing she was our only link for any of this, neither of us were sure what to do next. Sophie sat on the sofa, with her laptop splayed across her legs. After fussing around on social media for a few minutes, she saw a bookmark she had saved along the top of the screen for Dr. David Green’s page.

“Rachel, check this out.”

I made my way towards her and she spun her legs to the floor so that I could see her screen. She clicked the link and started showing me around Dr. Green’s page, playing video clips and pointing out pages of documented direct experiences with aliens.

“That’s interesting, Sophie, but it doesn’t really help at the moment.”

I could tell Sophie was annoyed with me for the first time. She slammed the laptop shut and replied curtly, “Well, what else have we got to do now? We did it your way, and now our only potential contact is missing. Maybe we should give it a try my way now.”

I had to admit, I found a number of the videos quite compelling and it was obvious he had worked for the government for a time in addition to his credentials as an astrophysicist. Although I was taken aback by her sudden mood change, she was right. We had no other safe options to try.

“Ok Sophie, we’ll try it your way, how can we reach this guy?”

Like the flip of a coin, her optimism returned, “I’ll send an email to him right now, if he doesn’t reply by tomorrow morning, we’ll find a phone number for his group and reach him that way.”

She spent a good hour composing an urgent yet sufficiently vague email, showed it to me for tacit approval and hit send.

At 11:45 that night, Sophie's cell began vibrating on the coffee table. She grabbed it and answered. David Green was in Phoenix where he spent a good deal of time meditating, running training sessions, and leading meet-ups. He came across as incredibly intelligent and in tune with himself, like a more genuine version of a zen-bot, but much less annoying. He didn't want to force anything on anyone, but invited Sophie and I to fly out to meet him for the seminar he had that weekend.

"How much?" I asked skeptically.

"How much what?" Dr. Green responded.

"Money? How much money to attend?"

"I'm not sure you understand, the people who attend these seminars aren't paying, they are communicating and learning the techniques to reach out directly to another species from another galaxy billions of light years away. That isn't something you can or should monetize, nor would I ever want it to be. Everyone is there of their own free will, on their own time, including me."

Quite shocked, and knowing there was no other course of action, I said "Can you send us the details? If we can find a reasonably priced ticket we'll be there."

As I wrapped up the call, Sophie was already looking for the cheapest airline tickets to Phoenix she could find.

"Here," she said, once I hung up. "Two tickets round trip, leaving tomorrow at 6:45am, returning Sunday at 8:30am."

I grabbed my wallet and pulled out my credit card. One way or another, this would certainly be a trip neither of us were likely to forget.

Wondering what happens next? Once each short chapter has at least 20 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.

Chapter VI is coming soon...