Harry Kiehle, a boy of ten, turned the big pair of tourist binoculars east toward the empty government lands and their tall, gated fence.
Harry knew his grandpa put his store near the government fence for all the people who used to visit it. But that was a long time ago. Harry never saw anything when he was looking that way. It had been more than half of his life since the lights in the sky stopped appearing over the government land.
Now, the “Rocketship Fill-up” was less a gas station than it was a hobby to support an old man who’d already been well-retired before the world changed. Gasoline was almost impossible to come by. Their electric charging ports were slow, or so their few customers told them. There were no Hershey’s bars to sell, no Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, no Cheese Curls – just whatever odds and ends Grandpa Jay bought locally, for resale.
“Anything to see, deck officer?” Grandpa Jay always asked him that, every morning, when Harry scanned the far horizon with the novelty binoculars. The vintage coin-operated Tower Optical binoculars were there so tourists could peep at the government land, but Grandpa Jay long ago showed Harry how to make them work without putting in coins.
There were few cars to watch through the binoculars, no planes, and never any mysterious lights in the sky. And no one wanted to pay to see a closed gate and an old fence. There was never anything for Harry to see either.
Except that day there was. That day Harry looked in the vintage Tower Optical binoculars and saw the government gate stood open. He saw three figures walk outside into the road.
“I see two guys,” Harry said. “They’re walking… just walking a dog, a weird dog with a really long nose.”
“Let me see.” Grandpa Jay rose from his rocking chair on the porch. He pulled his heavy coat’s collar up around his ears and joined Harry in the dusty dining area. There were still scattered icy patches of snow from the week before, filthy and gray. Grandpa Jay stepped around the ice and took a look through the binoculars. He looked for what seemed like a long time before saying anything.
“Let’s go inside now, buddy,” Grandpa Jay said.
‘Buddy’ meant ‘listen to me’. It meant ‘behave’. Harry didn’t always listen when he was called ‘buddy’, but he did then. He didn’t like the sound in his grandfather’s voice.
It sounded like some of Harry’s earliest clear memories, like never going to school, like leaving his home, like leaving his parents behind. Fear in Grandpa Jay’s voice made him feel like a child. He behaved.
Harry let his grandfather walk him inside, up to the cramped apartment above the fill-up station’s mini-mart. Grandpa Jay walked Harry all the way to the top of their narrow stairs.
“You stay up here for now,” Grandpa Jay said. “Stay up here and don’t come down until I get you. Do you understand?” Harry knew the way his grandpa was talking, the ‘don’t-argue’ voice. He agreed. He let Grandpa Jay close and lock the door. He even waited for his grandpa to walk back down the steps before he found his extendable telescope and ran to his narrow bedroom window. He looked out toward the government fence.
He got a better look then, at the two men walking on the road. They wore colorful T-shirts and light jackets, despite the cold, with blue jeans and baseball caps. They wore big backpacks, like the Rocky Mountain hikers who sometimes passed through the area. The one on the right held onto their dog by a thick black leash.
But when they walked even closer, Harry saw something else. These weren’t men, and it wasn’t a dog.
The Not-dog had no fur. Its body was a shining metallic gray, perfect and new, like this was the first time its feet met dirt. And it was headless. What had looked, through the binoculars, like a long nose, was really a telescope where a real dog’s neck would be. When it walked, only its legs moved, its metal body stiff, like it was marching along beside its masters.
The walkers weren’t men, weren’t human. Their faces were bright white, whiter than the dirty snow, and there were no ears on the sides of their heads, only small lumps. As they walked closer, Harry saw that they also had no lips and no eyebrows.
These things were real Groom Lake monsters, from the old government base, like everybody talked about! He thought about White Jim. Dillon, a local boy a few years older than Harry, had told him all about White Jim, the alien robot that used to kill people for the old government. Dillon had told him that White Jim lived in the Groom Lake base and left at night to use the locals for target practice.
Grandpa Jay told him that was a fib. The folks who used to work at the base lived close by too. They weren’t mean to the other locals. And nothing was left at the old base. But was White Jim real, after all? And was there more than one?
Grandpa Jay met the White Jims outside, and Harry saw that he wore his sidearm on his hip. Harry opened the little window, just a crack. He felt a burst of the unnaturally cold wind, but he also heard the door shut behind Grandpa Jay. And he heard the White Jims speak.
“Hello!” The White Jims spoke in unison. “Some game last night! Some weather we are having! How are you, male shopkeeper?” The White Jims had high voices. They sounded cheerful, excited. They didn’t blink. Both stared together down at Grandpa Jay. The Not-dog turned toward him too.
“What can I do for you?” Grandpa Jay asked.
“We are searching.” Only one of the White Jims answered. “We are searching for fugitives and accomplices who hide them. They are violent, and we are here to protect everyone from the violence.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The White Jim who did not hold the leash removed his backpack from his shoulders. He opened it and removed several large printed pictures. “Tell us if you have seen these humans,” he said. “Honesty is very important. We are the Neighborhood Watch. It is very bad to lie to us.” He lifted the pictures, one at a time.
Harry trained his telescope on the pictures. He didn’t recognize the people he saw there. He saw a man in a big coat, another in a mask, a woman in a hooded cape…
But when the White Jim reached the last big picture, Harry knew him. So did Grandpa Jay. It was Teddy! He sold them cupcakes and cookies and pies for the store. He always brought a little homemade fudge, just for Harry. Teddy hadn’t visited for a while because of the snow, but was that really why? Was he okay? Why would the White Jims want Teddy?
“No.” Grandpa Jay looked back up the road, toward the government land. “No, I don’t know them.”
“Be honest,” the White Jims said together. But before Grandpa Jay could answer again, another pair of White Jims arrived outside the “Rocketship Fill-up”. They did not speak to Grandpa Jay or to the White Jims who questioned him. But the questions stopped while Grandpa Jay watched the newcomers.
Harry lifted his telescope again and watched the new pair of White Jims pass. They dressed just like the pair who were talking to Grandpa Jay, same dark jackets, same colorful T-shirts, same earless, hairless heads.
One of this pair saw him. The White Jim looked right at Harry, turned up toward him as they passed. This White Jim was walking his Not-dog, but he lifted his open hand to wave at Harry and spread his mouth in a big grin, showing all his perfect teeth.
Harry saw too that the leash was not a leash. It was a wire with one end plugged into the White Jim’s skin, the other plugged into the Not-dog. The Not-dog looked up at him too and its telescope met Harry’s.
Then the first pair of White Jims and their Not-dog all looked up at Harry too. They looked without any word from the other group. His grandfather shot a glance over his shoulder, and Harry fell back and hid at the floor.
“Be honest,” the closest White Jims spoke again. “Do you know them? We want to meet them. Don’t lie to us. We can hurt people if they lie. We have permission. Help us meet these people. We are the Neighborhood Watch, and we have questions.”
Harry tried to find a new place to look out the window, somewhere the White Jims couldn’t see him. He peeked again through his telescope, back toward the old government fence. The gate was still open and a whole army of White Jims was walking through it.
The Neighborhood Watch split up in pairs or other small groups. They scattered in all directions through the icy desert.
* * *
“You have your payment,” Cathy said. “And we’ll be keeping the compromised transmitter, but the rest of your gear passed our scan.” While she spoke, Violet oversaw the repacking of the tractor carrier. Klay and his team placed their baggage back in the carrier’s cab, as well as the series of hidden compartments in the trailer’s chassis, and even inside the hollowed out tractors loaded aboard.
“We will see to it that all of your former clients know that they may have been tracked,” Cathy continued. She gave them time to speak. None did. “If I believed any of you knew about this, you’d be dead. I hope your mole earned enough money tipping off the Liberty Corps to make this worth your while.” Violet returned from the carrier and came to stand beside their skimmer.
“You should leave now,” Cathy concluded. “I’ve already sent David to have the transmitter looked at. If you knew about this, we’ll find out and I’ll find you. Otherwise, we will not cross paths again. Do you understand?”
She watched Klay and his team until they clambered back aboard their carrier and drove it away, hurrying through the dwindling light.
“You really don’t think they knew?” Orson pulled off his borrowed mask and jacket once they’d gone. At a locker in the skimmer’s entryway, he pulled out his coat, repulsor boot, and sword.
“No,” Cathy said. “I think they had one idiot who’s been making some under-the-table extra. We’ve never detected that signal before. I don’t think we’ve been tracked before, but we don’t usually buy Liberty Corps information from them. We only buy machinery. I think the dead man was pinging meet-ups where they sold Liberty Corps information. And I think that’s why the Liberty Corps turned a blind eye. Maybe they pursue the clients. Maybe they’re just finding out where their enemies are.”
“Sneaky pricks.” Orson slipped on his boot. He slid his arms into his coat and began connecting the wiring from his framework to his boot.
“It’s gonna be a lot harder to pick up rare kit now,” Violet said.
“It will.” Cathy nodded. “But it’s time for us to make our own stand. The time for salvaging scraps is over.” She stepped up the ramp into the skimmer. “Violet, go back to the Council. Make sure everyone’s safe. If we’ve opened ourselves to attack, this is our fault. I’ll drive Orson back to his crew and stay with Theodore and April.”
“How will we know we’re safe?” Violet asked. “If the mole pinged us, it won’t matter where Davey drops the transmitter, the Liberty Corps could come looking at us, anytime.”
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “We can’t know yet. Orson and I will leave as soon as we get the sidecar on my bike.”
“Side car?” Orson asked.
“‘Fraid so,” she said. “Are you ready to leave?”
* * *
Enoa had removed few of her belongings from the Aesir during their stay with Teddy and April, only her Shaping training films and exercise mat. By the time the proximity alarms sounded, whooping through the earth ship, she was ready to hit the road again, all films secured.
“Orson already?” Enoa fully extended her staff and pulled her cloak from the back of the couch.
“He would’ve let us know he was back.” Jaleel ran to his room.
“Orson forgot about his friend Franklin coming here,” she called after him. “Is he even supposed to come here now, with us leaving? Maybe it’s him.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think that Franklin guy could’ve even met up with Pops’s people yet.” When Jaleel returned, he was holding his new bow under his left arm. It was smaller than the last one, made of a deep green carbon fiber, with places to attach his spraystick and other secondary projectiles. “This is something else.”
They ran out of the Aesir, taking the passage from the garage until they reached the living room. They found the front door was already open, and they heard an unfamiliar voice.
“…everywhere, Ted.” A woman was saying. Enoa and Jaleel stopped at the end of the passage, out of sight. Dr. Stan stood nearby, also listening. She raised a hand in their direction. “Mr. Kiehle wrote on our chat. A hundred of these robot men left the West Gate. They say they’re the Groom Lake Neighborhood watch.”
“They’re just walking?” April asked. “No vehicles, no air support?”
“Yes, walking,” the woman answered. “But they’re threatening families. Two of them planted themselves at the fill-up station, and Kiehle hasn’t written since his first message. They also have some kind of radar, or something. They’re finding every house, even the hidden ones. I know they’ve hit the Armentas and the Dixons… I left right away, so I don’t have a lot of details. I’m one of the last they’ll hit, if they’re all coming from Groom Lake.”
“We’ll power down everything,” Teddy said. “We’ll just shut off. They won’t detect us if there’s nothing to detect, right?”
“They will find you,” the woman said. “Too many people know where you live. You need to get out, both of you do, and any guests – I don’t want to know! But sooner or later, these things will pressure the right person and they will find you.”