Dulce Truths

Turn comes out of the shimmering gateway and into a place he doesn’t recognize. The room the four of them find themselves in looks about the same size as the room they were just in a few minutes before back at Blue Lake, though there’s no chair, no Carl or Anderholt, no base guards, and certainly no aliens. Not yet, Turn thinks on the latter, and continues to scan his surroundings. The place certainly isn’t Dulce, Turn knows. That place was strange, but not this strange. It’s not that the room is different — it’s that the whole construction and design is different. He can’t recognize the metal used for the floor, or what the walls are made out of exactly. The lighting is strange, like nothing he’s ever seen before. Even the door in front of them looks funny, like nothing you’d ever see on Earth.

“Welcome to space,” Bennewitz says, and Turn looks up to see the wild-eyed man smiling at him.

“Space?”

Walter chuckles at Turn’s surprise. “I imagine my face looked about the same as yours does the first time I was teleported out here.”

“’Out here’… where’s out here?”

“Venus, like I said back at Dulce,” Mark answers, not paying attention to Turn as he checks his pockets. A moment later Bennewitz taps him on the shoulder and hands over 9mm pistol.”

“Not the sharpest tool in the box, but it’ll do,” he says as Mark takes the weapon.

“Venus,” Turn says again, “…so what do we do and how do we get back?”

“What we do is follow Aaron,” Mark says, nodding at the door. “He would have came through as the coordinates of the teleporter weren’t changed.”

“And what the hell’s he doin’ on a mothership 162 million miles from Earth, huh?” Bennewitz says.

“It’s time we find out,” Mark says, and moves to the door, opens it, and then after looking both ways and pulling his head in to give the others a nod, he heads through it. The others are right behind him.

They start moving down the corridors quickly, a half-jog almost.

The inside of the ship looks nothing like Turn imagined it would. The ceiling is tall, perhaps ten feet above their heads. The walls look metal but Turn can tell they’re not. They’re solid and almost seem to undulate, and here and there a control panel can be seen, God knows what function they have, Turn thinks. The walkways are metal. Some sections are solid while others are fence-like grates, allowing them to see down to sections below. Their booted-feet send a ‘ringing’ sound echoing down the corridors as they move. The lighting is dark and a faint orange, though here and there a purplish light can be seen. It’s hard to make things out, and not for the first time does Turn wonder if he should put on his night vision goggles.

“Let’s turn here,” Bennewitz says from the front, slowing.

Behind him Walter scoffs. “Surprised you can see there is a turn.”

“Yeah, why’s it so dark?” Turn asks.

“The Grays are photosensitive,” Bennewitz says in a hushed voice as he comes to a stop. He glances around the corner, seeing if it’s clear. “That means any bright light hurts their eyes. They avoid sunlight like the plague and camera flashes really stun ‘em.” He glances around. “I can see why they like to keep this place dark.”

Turn cocks his head to that in a half-shrug of understanding, and then they’re moving once again. He can’t believe they’re not running into anyone, which in this case, he tells himself, would likely be Grays or Reptilians. Maybe they know we’re here, he thinks, maybe they’re letting us walk right into their trap. He pushes the thoughts away, knowing they’ll do no good. And besides, he thinks, what else is he supposed to do? Not more than 12 hours ago he was killing aliens in a secret underground base. Now he’s on an alien spaceship. Maybe I’m dead already and this is all a dream.

“Stop dreamin’ and look alive,” Mark says just then, drawing Turn from his thoughts. He sees that another bend in the tunnel-like hallways is up ahead, though unlike the others they’ve passed, there are sounds coming from the area. The men slow their pace and get up to the turn, Mark in the lead and pressing his face up against the wall. He pauses just at its edge, then after what looks like a silent prayer, he sticks his head out ever so slightly. He pulls it back a split-second later, looking up at the ceiling as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen, or could believe it, but just didn’t want to.

“Aaron?” Bennewitz asks, and Mark nods.

“Right around the corner, and talking with the Grays.

21 — A Real Blow

“I can’t believe it,” Mark says as he and the others watch Aaron talking with the Grays. They’d been doing so for about half a minute now, each man taking turns to move up and press his face against the wall to get the same look Mark had.

“You can’t believe it?” Walter says. “How the hell do ya think the generals are gonna take it when they find out?”