Dulce Truths

“You betcha,” Charlie says, then looks to Donlon. “Bennewitz is involved.”

“Oh, hell!” Donlon says with a frown, putting his hands on his hips to pace around a bit.

“Bennewitz?” Bobbie says. “Who the hell’s that?”

“Paul Bennewitz,” Heather answers. “He was one of the first to discover Dulce and the alien connection, way back in the day. It wasn’t until the 80s though that he really got involved, and by ‘really’ I mean with John Titor and the 177th.”

“Um… 80s?” Bobbie says, his face screwing up as if Heather had just started speaking a foreign language to him.

“The 1980s,” Stu says, then looks to Charlie. “We can spend a lot of time rehashing and explaining, or we can just send him to Montana with me.”

“Do you really think they’re up there?” Charlie says.

“That’s the plan, always has been,” Heather answers. “Besides, Stu here said that’s where he needs to go.”

“You can kinda say I told myself,” Stu says.

Donlon rolls his eyes. “Time travel! God, I’ll never get used to it!”

“Whoa… Montana again?” Bobbie says, putting his hands up. “And what the hell’s all this about the 1980s, huh? That decade is still six months off! And time travel? Shit!”

Everyone ignores Bobbie, and Heather continues talking, much to the super soldier’s exasperation.

“And if they’re in Montana then it’s a good bet they’ll be going for the Trifecta, just like Stu here says.”

“The… Trifecta?” Bobbie manages to get in.

Donlon nods. “That’s the unofficial name for the three-part plan that the Dutchman came up with years ago, when we first started trying to take Dulce back.”

“God, he was serious about that?” Charlie says, his face screwing up as he looks from Donlon to the others and back again.

“Deathly serious,” Donlon replies.

“So how’s the plan go?” Heather asks.

“Yeah, how’s it go?” Bobbie adds.

“Well,” Donlon starts, cocking his head to one side in a half-shrug, “it might sound far-fetched… but here goes. The first part involves taking down the Gray’s soul catcher, an advanced machine that acts like a net around the Earth, capturing human souls as they leave their bodies and head for the afterlife.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bobbie says.

“The second part,” Donlon continues, shrugging his brows at Bobbie’s comment but nothing more, “involves the alien base on the dark side of the moon.”

“I thought we took that out,” Stu says.

Donlon shakes his head. “Not in this timeline. We took it out once, but the Grays initiated a time-shift and that reality was wiped clean, or at the very least cut off to us.”

“Kinda like the Lake Oswego Incident,” Charlie says, and Donlon nods.

“And the third part of the plan?” Bobbie says, then holds up his hand. “Wait… let me guess — taking out Hitler before he has a chance to flee Germany and head to… where, exactly… South America… Antarctica?”

Donlon narrows his eyes and gives Bobbie a strange, but serious, look. “You sure this is all new to you?”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding!” Bobbie says, throwing up his hands and pacing about a bit.

“Well, Hitler and Antarctica is an entirely different story, and one that’s not the third part of the Dutchman’s Trifecta. What is the third part of it, however, is a crashed UFO that we know of from the 177th’s time in the future.”

“Titor again, eh?” Charlie says, and Donlon nods.

“Report he filed from 2031 tells us that the Russian crash is a lot more important than we realized… or realize… or — hell, you know what I mean!”

Heather chuckles. “Always hard keepin’ track of things when time travel’s involved, isn’t it?”

“You can say that again,” Donlon says with a smile, then looks to the others once more, his serious tone back. “Anyways, if Mark is indeed going to try for the Trifecta then he’ll need our help… and the knowledge that we’re aware of what he’s doing, and are there for him.”

“And how the hell’s he gonna learn that, huh?” Bobbie says.

“By sending us there to tell him,” Stu says, then looks to Donlon. “We can still rev up the teleporter in the basement, right?”

Donlon shrugs. “You mean after we dust the cobwebs off? I hope so.”

“Um… guys…” Bobbie says, “…teleporter… cobwebs?”

“Don’t worry,” Heather says, coming over to clap him on the shoulder, “it’s a lot worse than it sounds.”

27 — Barging In

The Gates of the Mountains north of Helena, Montana

Friday, May 25, 1979

3:44 PM

“When you really come from?” Turn thinks to himself, repeating the phrase over and over in his mind that Mark just said out loud. He’s just about to throw out his first question — a sarcastic one at that — but before he’s able to do so a strange feeling overtakes him. It feels like… static electricity. Narrowing his eyes, Turn looks around and sees that others are taking on strange looks as well, as if they too notice.

“Feel that?” Walter is the first to say.

“Static, and building fast,” Bennewitz says, and right when the words are out of his mouth he looks to Mark. Both men speak at the same time.

“Someone’s comin’ in!”