Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jack and Madelaine had returned to Earth only an hour ago, hiding the ship in the same place Madelaine used before.
He was thinking about a way to monitor this particular space, in case Madelaine ever came back for more Paladin Courier adventures.
He’d been writing computer code in his head all the way from the prison planet.
Seraphina greeted them when they entered the rental house to shower, get a bite to eat of something that wasn’t ship rations and prepare to face the Fearless Leader of the Big Bang Truck Stop, a.k.a. his brother, Diesel.
Jack was giving himself continual pep talks to prepare for that discussion.
They drove to the Big Bang Truck Stop and parked Madelaine’s rental car in the section reserved for humans coming into the convenience store to shop. He hoped to avoid seeing anyone he knew by going this route instead of through the official alien basement entrance.
They’d brought the items they’d collected across the galaxies. Jack had the cardboard box under one arm and Madelaine had found a larger backpack to place the remaining packages they’d collected in one place.
Hand in hand, Jack and Madelaine strolled through the convenience store’s sliding doors and headed to the back corner where his eldest brother’s office was. Of course, three of his six siblings stood right outside Diesel’s office in front of Nova Greene’s desk. How inconvenient.
Cam, Axel and Valene looked like they were having a serious discussion.
Axel saw him first, eyes widening in what looked like sincere relief. It didn’t last. “Where in the space potato farm have you been all this time?” Axel asked, like he was lecturing an errant child who had come home past curfew.
“You were the one who gave him two weeks off in the first place,” Cam said. “By the way, Jack, you need to fill out yards of paperwork for all the time you’ve been gone.” Cam gave Axel a side-eye. “Some people don’t do paperwork, apparently.”
“Hey, it’s your paperwork,” Axel said. “Besides, I didn’t do any because the last time I filled in, you didn’t like the way I did it and you griped for weeks about having to do it all over when you returned.
This time, I decided not to waste my valuable time.
I just left it for you to do the way you like best. Enjoy. ”
Valene, who took one look at Jack and Madelaine holding hands, grinned and gave them both a double thumbs-up. That made him hope that at least he had his little sister on his side.
Jack had missed his siblings. Part of him was glad to be back home on earth, even though he knew that meant his time with Madelaine might be quickly coming to an end.
Madelaine squeezed his hand, signaling she was anxious to get downstairs to talk to Diesel about the package she was here to retrieve. Jack expected they would have to spend a little time explaining to his eldest brother about what he’d been doing for the last couple of weeks away from Alienn.
“Why is everyone upstairs at the Big Bang Truck Stop anyway?” Jack asked.
Valene said, “Aunt Dixie cornered Diesel in his office. Nova called us to rescue him. We were just hashing out a plan.”
“I’ll do it,” Jack said. “We need to talk to him on a matter of importance anyway.”
“Wait a minute, Jack,” Nova said, a twinkle in her eye. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your new wife, Madelaine?”
Jack shook his head. “Looks like I don’t need to.
Seems you’ve already figured it out.” He tightened his grip on the cardboard box and tugged on Madelaine’s hand.
Together, they walked through the doorway where a sign proclaimed this was the office of the Fearless Leader and made their way down the short hall to Diesel’s office.
The door was cracked open and before they got all the way down the hall, Jack could hear Aunt Dixie railing at Diesel about something. This was typical behavior for his aunt, though, and he didn’t worry about it until he heard his name mentioned.
Jack didn’t even knock, he just pushed the door open. His brother sat behind his desk looking miserable. Aunt Dixie stood in front of it, arms in the air, speaking passionately. “—no one has seen him in over two weeks and I think we need to form a search party to find him!”
“Who are you looking for?” Jack asked innocently. Diesel looked incredibly relieved to see him as Jack and Madelaine stepped into the office.
Aunt Dixie let out a squeal the moment he spoke, turning toward him and dropping her arms to her sides.
“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since the bachelor auction.
We’ve been worried.” Aunt Dixie’s eyes moved from him to Madelaine and then down to their clasped hands.
She sucked in a deep breath. “Did you get married? Is Madelaine your new bride? Have you been on a long honeymoon? Where did you go? I hear Lava Rock World is awesome. Is that where you two went or did you go to Gothic Ice Floe Planet instead?” She glanced down at the box Jack carried.
“Say, does that cardboard box have a wedding gift inside? Can I see it?”
Diesel stood up. “It’s time for you to go, Aunt Dixie.”
“I’m not ready yet, Diesel. I have questions that need to be answered.” She opened her mouth as if she was going to launch another barrage of questions, but Diesel slid an arm around her shoulders and basically pushed her out of his office and into the hallway, closing and locking the door.
The three of them heard her outraged tantrum, loudly, from the hallway. Someone, likely either Cam or Axel, led her away from the door until they couldn’t hear her yelling.
“First of all, thank you for rescuing me from Aunt Dixie. Second of all, where in the space potato farm have you been for eighteen days?”
As they’d rehearsed, Madelaine stepped forward and said, “I am the Paladin Courier. I believe you have a package for me.”
Diesel’s expression started at suspicious, morphed into disbelief, stopped briefly at anger and settled on shock. He backed away from her, grabbed the top of his desk with both hands and levered himself around the edge until he plopped into his executive chair. “You’re the Paladin Courier?”
“I am.”
“Did you marry Jack?” Diesel asked.
“Yes. We’re married,” Jack answered for them both.
“I’m surprised you didn’t pry that information out of Axel.
He saw us at the courthouse right after we tied the knot.
Even though I made him swear a blood oath not to reveal it, I figured either you or Aunt Dixie would get it out of him before we returned. ”
“Nope. He wouldn’t talk.” Diesel shook his head and seemed to get ahold of himself. He stood up, walked around his desk and went to a bookshelf on the opposite side of the room. “Follow me.”
Diesel pulled out the fifth book from the left at eye level, grabbed what looked like an old trophy on the shelf and pulled on it. Suddenly, the bookcase opened wide to reveal a narrow passage.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding from Aunt Dixie,” Jack said, impressed.
“That is correct. But I’ve developed additional uses for this space. I found a hidden trap door that has a ladder leading down to space in the basement that I did not even know existed until I did a little exploration a few months back.”
“Interesting. Where did it come from?” Jack asked. The three of them squeezed into the narrow passage behind the bookcase and Diesel pushed another button to close them in.
“As near as I can figure, my office was the original office used by the first person who ran the Big Bang Truck Stop when Alphas came to Arkansas looking for bauxite fuel.” Diesel went three or four steps, squatted down, lifted up a rug and tossed it aside to reveal the trapdoor.
He opened the hatch wide to access a sturdy-looking ladder lit by ambient light from below.
“Alienne Greenly?” Jack asked as Madelaine and Diesel climbed down the ladder into a section of basement beneath his brother’s office. Jack had to carefully hand Madelaine the cardboard box through the hatch before going down himself.
Alienne Greenly founded the town when the Alphas arrived in Arkansas. The town was supposed to be named after her, but the last E in her name got dropped in the official paperwork, which was how they ended up with Alienn, Arkansas.
“The very same. When Alphas came here over a century ago, they bought up quite a bit of land, starting here and extending past the bauxite mine. As time went on, the leadership purchased even more land in the area, including Old Coot and Skeeter Bite. However, the very first structure that was built was the Big Bang Truck Stop, although that wasn’t what it was called. ”
Jack said, “Wasn’t it just Alienne’s Gas Station?”
Diesel nodded. He flipped on a brighter light once all three of them were down the ladder.
The room was nearly three times the size of Diesel’s office.
It looked very much like an old timey office.
Bookshelves lined the walls. Two old desks were strategically placed in the room, along with a circular table and four chairs, as well as a good-sized overstuffed sofa with a coffee table in front of it.
The floor looked like concrete covered by a few rugs scattered here and there.
The most surprising thing was that it smelled clean, like lemon-scented furniture polish and floor cleaner.
“Is my package down here?” Madelaine asked, speaking for the first time since they left Diesel’s office upstairs.
“Yes, it is. And this space offers us more privacy than clearly my actual office ever will.” Diesel walked to one of the bookshelves and pulled an unremarkable wooden box from the top shelf.
It was slightly smaller than a bowling ball and square, of course.
He swiped his hand over the top of the box, although Jack didn’t see any dust, and handed it to Madeleine.
Usually, Jack and Madeline would sequester themselves to look at the package’s contents and read the enclosed parchment letter, but Diesel didn’t give her any parchment. Perhaps it was inside the box.
Madelaine opened the lid, which seem to be hinged on one side. Jack didn’t immediately see what was inside the box until Madelaine pulled out what looked like a roughhewn oval silver nugget.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
Diesel was the one who answered. “That is what’s called a silver bauxite nugget.”
Jack nodded. That must be what Winslow was talking about when he told Madelaine she had to turn the silver nugget right and then left to deploy the Solution.
“Is the parchment inside the box?” Jack asked Madelaine.
She glanced inside as if to make certain and shook her head. “Nope. Only the silver bauxite nugget, nestled in a crushed velvet receptacle. Fancy.”
Madelaine turned to Diesel, who looked uncomfortable. What was that about? Jack wondered.
“Do you have a piece of parchment paper or an envelope for me in addition to the silver bauxite nugget? Or maybe just a verbal message?”
Diesel closed his eyes for a minute and crossed his arms as if he were trying to think of a suitable answer because the only one he had was something she wouldn’t like. Jack had seen that stance before.
“Unfortunately, I do not have anything else for you, although I know I’m supposed to,” Diesel said.
Madelaine sent a panicked look to Jack. “What are we supposed to do now? We have all of the parts to assemble some sort of device that is supposed to be the solution to something very important galaxywide. But we also need the location of where to deploy it and there must be further instructions for what we’re specifically supposed to do. ”
Diesel nodded. “Yes. Everything you just said is absolutely true. In addition to the silver nugget, I was supposed to provide a location for you. Unfortunately, I do not have it. And the worst news is, no one does.”