14 - Nico
T HE RADIO SPRANG TO LIFE , jolting Nico from the boredom of trailing Person of Interest the whole night.
“Thirteen hours twenty-six minutes, and we’re back on the air,” a deep bass voice said.
“You’re listening to Queer Satellite Radio, and if you’re tuned in here instead of one of the fancy news programs, we figure you’re not really wanting an update on the alien situation.
Or the general chaos pretty much everywhere. ”
A soprano voice chimed in. “The good news is suddenly power’s back on and everything’s working again. The less good news is that thirteen , and twenty-six is just two thirteens… Doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”
Nico checked the controller. The dot showed the hummingbird drone—and Person of Interest’s location—two miles ahead on this road that slashed through a grooved volcanic rock field. The sun was just up, throwing long shadows from the scrubby brush on both sides.
Bass voice: “If you think about it, time is a very Earth-bound concept. We have twenty-four hours in our day because that’s pretty much how long it takes for our Earth to spin on its axis.
Some planets spin faster, so on Jupiter a day is only ten hours.
Some spin slower, so on Venus, a day is more like eights of our months.
It’s pretty unlikely any aliens would think about time the way we think about it. ”
Soprano voice cut in, “So you agree it’s a message for us. Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen?”
“Absolutely,” bass voice agreed. “It’s a warning.”
“… And I think that’s the cue for a little Gloria Gaynor,” soprano voice said.
The opening sweep of piano notes for “I Will Survive” filled the car around Nico. Figuring why not? he sang along.
0742 US 380East NM
The road had started to curve around giant rock formations, and Nico ate another almond.
He’d picked up a bag of them at another cash-only generator-powered refueling station in the middle of the night and was allowing himself one almond every five minutes.
The chewing was helping him stay awake. So was the old-school and very gay ABBA marathon on the radio.
He glanced at the drone controller and the dot was… gone!
What was going on? It had just been there!
Nico’s pulse quickened, and he sped up. He needed to get a visual on Person of Interest.
He turned off the music so he could think it through without distractions. Either the guy had found the hummingbird drone and disabled it, or… could the battery have died?
He didn’t know if it would work, but if the power was back on it was worth a shot. Nico dialed Byron.
“No Obstacles! You okay?” Byron asked.
“Yeah,” Nico replied.
“All this alien stuff, kind of weird, huh? Glad the power’s back on for folks, though.”
Nico wasn’t sure what to say, especially knowing Godeane and her people were probably listening.
“Byron, how long does the battery last on the hummingbird?”
“Did you lose your best wedding gift?”
“Not exactly…” The speedometer showed he was going eighty-two on a sixty-five-mile-an-hour road. But it was so early there was hardly any traffic, which hopefully meant no cops. But he still didn’t see Person of Interest’s car ahead.
“It depends how much energy it’s using,” Byron said. “Flying uses a lot. Standby mode less.”
Would being stuck under a license plate count as standby?
“In standby, mostly?” Nico asked. A truck passed him going the other way.
“Should last thirteen hours, give or take.”
Nico did the math: it had been fourteen. So probably the battery.
“Charging it up should work if the battery’s spent, but I can always fix it if there’s another problem.”
Nico would need to get it first.
He took another turn around a stack of massive red boulders and the road rose up ahead. Still no white Mustang. “Where are you?” Nico said out loud, pressing down on the accelerator.
“Viva Las Vegas, baby,” Byron said. “Did you know there’s something like fifteen hundred people living in tunnels under this city? They need free electricity.”
Nico didn’t want to say the question hadn’t been for Byron. He crested the rise, going as fast as he dared around another curve. Suddenly the white Mustang was just three car lengths ahead of him, and he had to break hard to not rear-end it.
Person of Interest’s eyes flashed in the rearview mirror. Nico clocked the moment the guy recognized the giant gray car from Goldstone, and maybe him too. The Mustang shot ahead on a downhill slope that cut through the desert valley, probably going a hundred miles an hour.
He was made.
Nico considered his options. If he didn’t chase him, he wouldn’t know where Person of Interest ended up. But if he did chase him, the guy wouldn’t necessarily go where he was originally going. He’d want to throw Nico off by going somewhere else. Lose Nico before he headed to his real destination.
And if Nico caught up to him, what was he going to do? Drive the guy off the road? Force him out of the car and get into a fistfight to make him to tell Nico what was going on?
“Everything okay?” Byron sounded concerned. “You’ve gone kind of quiet on your end. Vegas not your thing?”
Person of Interest sped ahead, and Nico took his foot off the accelerator. He let the rental drift into the emergency lane and stop by a highway sign.
“All good here. Look, can I call you back?”
“Sure,” Byron said. “Remember, I’m here for you.”
Nico ended the call. He poured out a handful of almonds and tossed them in his mouth.
With all this alien stuff going on, why would Person of Interest be on this road? Untrackable by phone? Where was he going?
Maybe the answer was on the road sign:
ROSWELL
80 MILES
LUBBOCK
250 MILES
Roswell. That made a weird kind of logic—it was famous for aliens. Nico would have bet a hundred recycled bottles it was all connected.
He’d let Person of Interest think he got away free and clear.
Nico set an alarm on his phone for a ten-minute catnap.
Sam was being sucked into the alien spaceship.
“Nico!” Sam yelled, arm outstretched.
And then he was gone.
Nico couldn’t do anything to help. “Sam!” he shouted as he fell through the air, head over feet over head…
Down past the high-rise they’d just been clinging to.
Down as rain and wind hit him from all sides.
Down as the street loomed ahead—
He was going to die.
No, a rational part of his brain said, this is a dream.
Don’t let yourself die in a dream! He shouted to himself.
Wake up wake up wake up!
Nico jerked awake.
0756
Shaking his head to clear the nightmare, Nico felt worse after that.
With a groan, he started up the rental and pulled back onto the road.
To Roswell.
0916 Roswell NM
In the town center, Nico parked by a low billboard with a green cartoon alien on one side and a saucer-shaped UFO on the other. Between those a greeting read:
W ELCOME , E ARTHLINGS!
Y OU H AVE A RRIVED AT
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO
H OME OF THE A REA B ETWEEN 50 AND 52*
*ALL WE CAN LEGALLY SAY… YOU DO THE MATH
Nico got out of the car to check things out. He’d driven around for a few minutes but hadn’t spotted the Mustang. Person of Interest was around here somewhere, Nico was sure of it.
Everywhere else in the world it was like people were reacting to the aliens with the classic things you do in emergencies: fight, flight, freeze. But the feeling in the air here was more like a carnival.
A family with three kids were excitedly getting their photo taken in front of the billboard, some other tourists helping them out.
A visibly pregnant woman walked by with a sign on a stick, large green letters on white:
W ELCOME TO E ARTH!
A guy in a mechanical wheelchair rolled by with a similar sign, and this one read:
PEACE BEY ON D EARTH
An older man with a white mustache and hair pulled back in a matching ponytail came next. His sign had a third message:
I W AS AN “ A LIEN” T OO
All in the same green font, white poster board, sticks. They were walking in the same direction. From the same direction.
Nico headed upstream, trying to find the source. Past a woman with a bindi dot on her forehead in a bright orange sari with another sign that said:
W ELCOME TO E ARTH
Nico pushed through a clump of people waiting in front of a diner and spotted someone coming out of an alley. The older hippie in a fringed vest had a sign that read:
T HIS P LANET
IS
B IG E NOUGH
F OR B OTH OF U S
Circling the building, Nico found a line of people waiting in another alley. He joined the back of the line.
He tried to look like he belonged as more people came into the line behind him. All kinds of people, different ages and races.
The straight Asian couple in their fifties ahead of him started to talk. Nico figured they knew he could hear them, so it wasn’t really spying.
“You sure this is the right place?” the wife asked.
“A hundred bucks is a good payday,” the husband said.
The large redhead in front of them turned around, finger to her lips. “You’re not supposed to say how much they’re paying!”
The person in front of her was a Black man wearing a headband with two green, sparkly antennas bouncing around.
He ducked to not smash them against the doorway as he entered the building.
“It’s like those political rallies,” he said.
“They don’t want us to say we’re being paid at all.
Especially if you get interviewed. They won’t hire you again if you do. ”
Nico stayed in line as they entered the warehouse, which was filled with rows and rows of stacked crates, double Nico’s height. A pile of signs sat on two tables set up by the door they’d come in.
“Choose a sign, the guy up there will give you your fifty bucks.” A bored Latino twentysomething motioned them forward.
“I thought it was a hundred,” the husband in front of Nico protested.
“Fifty now, fifty after the parade,” the bored worker explained. “If you’re interviewed by the media and stay on script, you get a bump.”
“How much?” the antenna man asked.
“Depends how good you do,” the bored worker said.
“Can we keep the sign? After?” The wife had picked up
I W AS AN “ A LIEN” T OO
“Really?” her husband asked.
“I think it’s funny.” She pushed his arm. “You’ve got to keep a sense of humor.”
Nico looked ahead fifteen people to see who was handing out the money: Person of Interest!
He’d found him!
The rush of feeling like he was pretty good at this spy thing didn’t last long—Nico realized he needed to get out of line before the guy spotted him.
When the bored worker looked the other way and everyone around him was busy choosing a sign, Nico darted to the side and tucked himself behind a row of stacked crates. If anyone asked, he’d just say he was looking for a bathroom, that he needed to pee before marching.
He stayed to the shadows, searching the warehouse for the white Mustang.
On the north side were two metal roll-up garage doors, and parked inside the closest one was the car—white with blue racing stripes. Facing in. Which meant the license plate with Nico’s hummingbird drone was by the garage door.
Person of Interest was giving out cash just thirty feet away, and if anyone looked, they could see clear down the aisle to the car—and Nico.
He would have to be careful.
Staying low, he snuck to the back of the car. The drone was there, wings iridescent in the fluorescent lights, leg trapped under the license plate.
“There you are, little guy.” Nico used his rental car key to loosen the screw holding the license plate in place, enough to release the hummingbird drone’s leg. Carefully, he pulled the drone free and secured it in his jacket pocket. He tightened the screw again and ducked into the shadows.
Moments later, Nico walked back out into the alley, past the folks waiting for their signs and cash. He had to let Godeane know.