16 - Nico
The hummingbird drone was charging on the passenger seat next to him.
It had taken forever, but he had finally gotten through to Godeane, and just finished reporting in about Roswell.
There was a lot of background noise and shouting on Godeane’s end as she said, “So our Person of Interest wants to encourage peace with the aliens. Why would they want to keep that a secret?”
“No idea. Where did they get all that cash? It was hundreds of people.”
“I’ll look into it. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to communicate moving forward. They’re evacuating us to Greenbrier. Actually, I need to go. I’ll text if I can. Be safe, Nico. And maybe stay away from major population centers until we know which way this thing is going.”
She disconnected the call.
Nico had to admit that was unsettling.
But it wasn’t going to change his plan. He checked the phone map time to destination…
1 hour 33 minutes to Las Vegas.
1934 Las Vegas NV
Nico found Byron’s van parked in the lot by the giant Sphere.
More than 360 feet tall, the surface’s LED lights made it an enormous bubble-shaped TV screen, and right now it was a human eyeball that kept blinking.
Nico wasn’t sure if it was an ad for eyedrops or just some sort of art piece, humans staring up into space while aliens were apparently staring down.
He rapped on the white van’s side door.
Byron slid the door open. “No Obstacles!” Byron seemed really glad to see him. “Come in, come in.”
Inside, with the door closed for privacy, Byron headed to the front seat. Nico looked around at the wall-mounted monitor, the beanbag chair, the shelves. It smelled like coffee, and felt warm and safe.
Bzz. A bee flew at Nico. He waved it away.
“Don’t hurt it!” Byron called out with a chuckle.
“It’s yours?” Nico asked, holding out his index finger like a Disney princess asking a bird to land on it so they could sing a duet.
The bee did a neat midair spiral and landed lightly between Nico’s first and second knuckle. “It’s a drone!” Nico said the obvious.
Byron grinned. “Did you know bees dance to communicate with each other where to find nectar? It’s a whole set of directions, choreographed to explain the angle from the sun and the distance they need to travel.”
The bee drone waggled along the top of Nico’s hand.
Nico took in all the details. “It looks perfect.”
Byron shook his head. “Not under a microscope. But close enough—people generally don’t let bees get too near them. And it can see, hear, fly—just like our hummingbird.”
With his free hand, Nico fished the revived hummingbird drone out of his pocket. “Turns out it was just the battery after all.”
“Nice!” Byron took the hummingbird and held it against the controller in his hand. “I’ll make it so you can control both. And the bee drone’s special talent is your idea, actually.”
Nico held it higher to study it. “You added a tranquilizer?” It looked like a regular bee. He could feel the six synthetic feet, but Byron was right—Nico had never calmly let a bee land on his finger before, so he didn’t know if this felt real or not.
Byron did some things to the controller as he spoke. “As expected, there was an issue with displacing battery mass for liquid tranquilizer storage, which impacts flight time.”
“Maybe you could add a battery time left thing on the controller?”
“That would have helped, huh?”
Nico nodded.
“Not simple, but doable.” Byron made a note on his tablet. “I’ll add it the next generation.”
“Thanks. How many bees to take out… let’s say a full-size adult?” Nico asked.
Byron considered it. “Fifty, to be on the safe side.”
“How many do you have?”
“We’ve got that prototype, and two copies so far. Just putting some final touches on the automation.” Byron indicated a miniature assembly-line setup on one of the shelves that included a 3-D printer.
Byron handed Nico the new controller. “Call it your queen bee drone. When I get a swarm you’ll be able to control them all like a drone show. I’m betting you can put it to good use.”
“It’s amazing,” Nico said, and surprising himself gave Byron a hug.
“Hey, now.” Byron patted Nico on the back. “You’re doing great.”
Nico couldn’t explain why, but he was fighting back tears.
A chime sounded in the van, and it gave Nico the cover to pull away and think about something else.
Byron spoke, “Go on, Alfred, what it is?”
Nico gave Byron a curious look. He would have noticed if there was someone else in the van with them—it wasn’t that big.
A voice came out of a small speaker as the TV turned on. “Breaking news about the aliens.”
“My AI butler,” Byron explained. “Batman had one, and I guess I always wanted an assistant that could keep an eye on things too.” He gestured to what looked like a small speaker on the ledge by the TV. “Enter Alfred.”
On screen, the newscaster was barely holding it together. “We’re getting confirmed reports of a new alien message, this one in audio.”
An inset audio wave bounced up and down like the kind of machine that measured earthquakes as the audio played a choppy message, every word a different voice:
You / can / not / be / trust / ed.
You / kill / each / other.
You / cannot / be / trusted.
The reporter put a finger to her ear, like she was getting new information. “If that sounds human to you, you’d be right. Turns out it’s an audio remix of radio and TV shows whose broadcast signals have gone into space since the 1940s.”
Nico met Byron’s eyes. Neither of them really knew what it meant, but it didn’t sound good. The news program played the alien message again:
You / can / not / be / trust / ed.
You / kill / each / other.
You / cannot / be / trusted.
The reporter continued. “Picked up by the Deep Space Network, this same message loops through several languages: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and then English again. Estimates are that the broadcast is coming to us from an unknown source, somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.”
Deep Space Network? That was what the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex was part of. Suddenly the pieces connected. This must have been what Person of Interest was talking to that Twangy guy at the satellite dish about!
“Byron.” Nico’s whole body was trembling. The realization felt overwhelmingly important, and scary that no one else knew but him. “I don’t think this is aliens.”
“What are you talking about?” Byron asked.
“I think I know who did this,” Nico said. “I don’t know who he is, but this message—this is humans pretending to be aliens.”
“Are you sure?”
Nico was. It was too suspicious. Too much of a coincidence. Like one of those plot holes Sam could find so easily. “Kind of,” he breathed.
His phone buzzed with a text. It was from Godeane.
We just went to DEFCON 2. Get out of Vegas. I’ll be unreachable for a while.
But there might not be any aliens! This could all be a setup. Part of it was, for sure.
Nico tried to text Godeane back. He typed No! The radio message is fake! and hit send but it wouldn’t go through. He tried again, and again, but the red triangle icon with an exclamation point just kept popping up.
Holy crap. He had to do something.
Sam! Did his plane land already? Was he okay? He had to get to Sam.