Jynx knocked politely a few times and waited, but Dr. Vickers didn't immediately answer. She reached for the heavyweight brass knocker and dropped it twice, the thick wood door resonating with each metallic clash. Still, no one answered. She waited patiently on the front porch, unprepared for the possibility that Dr. Vickers might not be there. He did have the little museum to run. If he was there, he wouldn't have the key with him, and there was no guarantee that he would give it to her if it did exist.
The neighborhood was old but well-maintained, old fences blocked the neighbors' views of each other's yards. She heard a lawnmower in the distance and a small dog barking relentlessly somewhere further off. She rang the bell and waited a little longer.
At a loss for what to do next, she considered breaking into the house; just stealing the key. It would probably be okay for something as important as a flying saucer. Doing her best to look as inconspicuous as possible, she casually peered at the street-facing windows, in case one of them happened to be slightly ajar. Set up into the hill like the house was, the windows were too high off the ground for her to reach, and even if she did manage to find a ladder, somebody would probably see her.
As the breeze stilled slightly, Jynx caught a few bars of classical music from the backyard or deep inside the house. She wondered if Dr. Vickers might avoid her after Ashley’s performance in the souvenir shop. She peeked in, but the place looked empty. Nothing moved behind the splotchy amber-colored glass that obscured the front entryway. Deciding that it would probably be alright to look around, just in case he was in the back for some reason, she snuck around the side of the house and peered into the backyard, confident that Ashley would be proud of her stealthiness.
The house backed up against the granite hills so the yard had a few terraces with shaggy, stunted palms and a big greenhouse kind of shed with one wall open and covered in chain link. Coming off the far side was a rock fountain, long dried up, and full of dead palm fronds. Nobody seemed to bother taking care of the yard. A path worn into the scattered debris ran from the greenhouse door to the sliding glass door at the back of the house, but the rest of the patio was littered with leaves so deep that the paving stones were lost. As she approached the path, she recognized music, and trod as lightly as she could across the dried fronds, hoping not to alarm anyone.
The greenhouse had a pair of doors, one right after the other with a little room in between. Jynx recognized it as a sort of safety door for bird enclosures; she'd seen them in the zoo. Although she was curious at the sound of flitting wings, like distant applause, and the deep resonant voice of soft cello music seemed to beckon, she could not say what compelled her to open the first screen door into the enclosure. She felt nervous and uncertain, but the anxiety seemed to drive her forward. Each step only served to deepen that anxious need.
Pushing open the second door, her heart crashed in her chest, and she nearly screamed, surprised to see a silent figure in the middle of the room. Motionless, he sat in a fully automated wheelchair with significant modifications. He appeared permanently attached to the apparatus through various hoses and cables. Still afraid she might startle him, she called meekly to the small figure perched in the chair, “Hello?” He didn't respond or move, so she crept closer, still drawn to him. The room itself was an aviary. White and speckled doves cooed gently and flitted from branch to branch. The flapping of their wings sounded like a hurried ovation, and with so many of them, the applause drifted around the room. Her hands trembled as she stepped around to get a better look.
He was old, with long gray hair and a long white beard that hadn't been trimmed. He sat in his elaborate wheelchair, like an old king on his throne, tubes, and cables draped dendritically from his forearms. Although his eyes were open, they did not move or register movement. He seemed petrified, and despite the slow rhythmic beeping of his heart monitor, Jynx doubted that he was alive at all.
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Reaching tremulously for his bony shoulder, her fingertips rested there. She felt the spark between them, like a static crackle, but soft and comfortable, her mind reeled with the colors. Overwhelmed, she felt her knees go weak and her hand trembled slightly, but the colors organized themselves in sequences as she concentrated on them. Strange images appeared through the collection of code, a scene from an old cowboy show, a big green chalkboard, a campfire, and an American flag. Frozen glimpses of memories scattered haphazardly through the chambers of a lock, clogging the delicate intuitive mechanism like pocket lint in a phone charging jack. As she cleared the chambers her solution settled into place, ending the terrible anxiety. She took a deep breath in and with her, the old man on the mechanical throne breathed in as well, a parched gasp that spread into a bizarre, gap-toothed grin. “Well, hello there!” The old man said with a bright, childish smile. After decades of atrophy, his voice was little but a raspy whisper. “I’m Rixy! I guess you must be the one they’re calling Jynx?”
Jynx stumbled backward, surprised at his immediate animation. “How…?”
He chuckled again. “Well, I don’t know. They just told me that you might be coming along."
Jynx was glad that they had already told him, whoever they were. “Who are they?” she asked, although Rixy didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her anymore.
“Hoowee!” he hooted like a TV cowboy, “am I ever glad you came along. I thought I was gonna be buried in that mountain for all time.” He struggled against the various plastic roots that lashed him into his chair, barely able to move, but fidgeting happily. “It was real quiet for a long time, but then that mechanic sparked us up, and I’ve been watching you solve puzzles for a few days, at least.” He grinned. Without smile lines, frown lines, or any real sort of weathering, his aging skin just hung like an ill-fitting mask on his bright eyes and smile. “You got it working?” he asked, without bothering to introduce himself or compliment her on her nails.
A broad, candid grin spread across her lips as she nodded slowly.
“I bet you’re pretty excited.” He grinned back, just as excited until he glanced down at his hands. “Woah.” Turning them over, he inspected his palms, aged but somehow blank and smooth. His fingers were bony, with wrinkly skin, but no scars, no swollen knuckles, no strange marks. They seemed unreal even to him. “I guess I’ve been away a little longer than I thought!” He blurted cheerily, reminding Jynx of a child again. She still didn't trust him, even if he was the only other person in Arroyo Grande as excited about the saucer as she was.
He reached out with one emaciated, bony arm that seemed impossibly heavy, although he giggled with the effort. “Been a while since I had a body,” he attempted to shrug apologetically. “Go on, it's yours,” he offered his tightly closed hand like he might be playing keep away. Though emaciated to the point of nearly skeletal, his left forearm was firmly clenched muscle, seeming swollen compared to the rest of his frame. She reached for his fist, realizing he was struggling to open it. He chuckled bashfully. “You might have to pry it out of there.”
She didn't want to hurt the old man, but he didn't seem to mind as she worked her tiny fingers into the bony cage of his own. He grunted with the effort. After nearly sixty years in a catatonic state, he had all but petrified. After an excited struggle, with both equally eager to reveal the missing piece, Jynx extended Rixy's long slender fingers to reveal a pearlescent disk of the alien metal, no bigger around than a dollar coin and about as thick as a decent skipping stone. Rixy giggled again to see it. “Ironically, there's no time to explain everything right now. Once it's activated it's gonna start attracting all sorts of attention, so it’s probably best if you get your rear in gear.”
Jynx nodded gravely. If she had arrived at the house like a thief, she was leaving, charged with a mission. Rixy had been waiting for her, and now it was hers and it was definitely more than just some trash from the wash.
“But before you get out of here, you mind helpin' me over to that other chair?” A shadow passed over Rixy's face as he glanced over his shoulder at the aviary. “Thought I might play with the birds just a bit before I catch up with you.” He smiled.