Chapter Three
Doctor Lynn’s office was very tidy and neatly organized compared to the one we had just escaped from. It smelled good too or was it her fragrance. Looking up from behind her laptop, her flawless olive skin accentuated her pecan shaped hazel eyes, long curly locks of dark brown hair hung loose down her long neck. She looked kind of hot for a scientist.
‘May I help you? Oh, would I be damned if it isn’t Henry the great standing right inside my tiny office!’ she exclaimed.
‘Hi Di,' Uncle Henry said sounding anxious, 'so sorry to storm into your office at short notice but we need your help.’
‘That’s a first,' She retorted, 'since when did Lover boy ever need help from poor Diana, it must be pretty serious. Go on, shoot, I can't wait.’
Her tone seemed sarcastic which made me wonder whether these two had had some history together and from the look of things, matters it seems hadn’t been ironed out pretty well either.
‘Di, someone just tried to kill my nephew Danny, twice, in a space of twenty four hours.’
‘I am truly sorry to hear that your lives are at risk,' she answered in reply, 'am in the middle of a very important equation here. My colleagues and I at the Virtual planetary lab are exploring extra solar planetary habitability with computer models. We also discovered that these planets orbiting low mass stars and brown dwarfs are quite unstable meaning, a star with a strong gravitational pull can either alter the shape of the orbiting planet or that planet can be thrown out of the system entirely. And by the way,' she added, 'congratulations on your Nobel Prize, you must be famous now aren’t you Henry?’
‘Di, am serious!’
‘So am I.’ she shot back.
‘Please Di, help me for old times’ sake, please.’
‘Okay what can I do you for?’
‘I need to use your phone.’
‘What for?’
‘I need to reach Professor Ted Borelli, director at the ALMA observatory back in Chile. He might know something about my summons to Washington.’
‘You may need to fill me in first before I let you use my phone.’ She said staring blankly at us.
‘Look Di, something is not right. Yesterday morning Ted told me a gentleman from the pentagon had come down to see me and that it was a matter of national security. Naturally I was alarmed, but what the man told me next was something straight out of comic books. He said some scientists at the SETI Institute had made what they believed was first contact with extraterrestrials through radio wave signals from the voyager one probe currently flying in interstellar space and that the signal originated from a planet believed to be orbiting the Epsilon Eridani star.’
‘You must be kidding me!’ She exclaimed, her hazel eyes growing wide.
‘What is the Epsilon Eridani star?’ I asked, this conversation was getting way over my head so quickly.
'It’s the third closest individual star visible to the naked eye from down here Danny.' Uncle Henry explained, 'and, it's ten million light years away. Looks just like our own sun but a little smaller and less bright but it doesn’t mean it’s less volatile. It is located in the southern hemisphere in the constellation Eridanus. Please don’t ask me what a constellation is, we aren’t in a lecture room and besides you shunned college, right?’
I didn’t answer.
‘So they wanted me to check out the information.’ He continued turning to face Doctor Lynn.
‘Where? In Mountain View?’
‘No. The message had already been transferred to Washington.’
‘So naturally you came.’
‘Yes,' Uncle Henry replied. 'I was intrigued like any Astrophysicist would.’
‘Did you decrypt it, decipher it?’
‘Not at first no, because what I heard when played back was nothing intelligible but towards the end of the thirty second radio squeals, I heard what sounded like a man’s voice in plain tongue although I swear I never heard that language before, something intelligible, something real, someone was speaking.’
‘Impossible!’ she exclaimed quite loudly.
‘That then answers Fermi’s paradox!’ exclaiming, yet again.
‘What is Fermi’s paradox?’ I asked. I was getting confused by these two.
‘Danny,' Uncle Henry intervened, 'a group of atomic scientists back in the nineteen forties were having a chat including Enrico Fermi when the conversation turned to extraterrestrial life, Fermi, it’s believed turned and asked, so? Where’s everybody? Naturally, he meant that if there were these billions of planets in the universe capable of supporting life and I mean intelligent life, then how come none had paid earth a visit? That’s until yesterday of course.’
Uncle Henry was not only brilliant; he just seemed to know everything.
‘Di, my nephew here, it appears, was contacted too.’
‘Really? How?’ Her hazel eyes pierced into mine.
‘Go on Danny, tell her what you told me.’
‘Yesterday morning just before I left for work,’ I began,
‘He’s a waiter by the way,’ Uncle Henry interrupted.
‘Chef,’ I corrected.
‘Where?’ She asked, bemused.
‘San Francisco bay area.’ I replied
‘Di, he flew using my credit card, if you’re wondering how a waiter from San Francisco found himself in Washington.’
‘Uncle, you said I could use it in emergencies, remember?’
‘Yeah right.’
‘Gentlemen! Please!’
‘Sorry, Danny proceed.’
‘I always check my emails, it’s kind of my routine, but I was surprised by this strange email addressed to me. The sender called themselves a weird name. Eel. At first, I thought someone was trying to scam me. It said something like, HI DS, you possibly wondering why I have contacted you. I had to reach you before it’s too late. My name is Eel. Reach me as soon as you read this message. Our future depends on you. He seemed to be in a hurry and the person who sent the email also claimed he was my Granddad, who is already dead by the way.’
‘He wrote to you in English?’ Doctor Lynn asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Di,' interrupted Uncle Henry, again, ‘with all these translation websites lying about on the net, I have come to believe everybody out there now speaks English.’
‘That’s not what I meant Henry.’ She replied sounding irritated.
‘Tell her the best part Danny, especially the part where I get to save your life.’
‘When Uncle Henry called me from Chile saying some government dude was flying him to Washington, I took the last DC flight from San Francisco.’
‘Do you mean the same plane that crashed last night killing all onboard?’ She looked startled.
‘Yes,' Uncle Henry shot in,’ everyone else but him, apparently.’
‘How come you survived?' Doctor Lynn asked ignoring him. 'Are you alright?’
‘Same question his doctor turned murderer at the Army hospital asked him an hour ago before trying to inject him with a lethal dose of the truth serum or something like it.’ Uncle Henry interjected, yet again.
‘So that’s why you said someone was trying to kill you?’
‘Yeah,' I replied,’ because the plane didn’t crash, it was shot down.’
‘How plausible is that?' She asked stunned. 'Everyone, including the President has come out to say it was an accident, engine failure.’
‘On board that plane, I had communicated to the sender of that strange email. He had gone on to say he was from our past and future, in the year twenty one twelve and he went to say some people in our life time were planning on altering the future of mankind, trying to turn our species into a super hybrid species able to move through time and space. But, that we would fail and as a consequence, our planet would be invaded by species from other galaxies, and mankind exiled. The sender also said he was that consequence.’
‘Did he say which planet or galaxy he was emailing you from?’ Doctor Lynn asked s
miling.
‘Yes.' I answered. 'He said he were emailing from earth.’
‘Earth?’ she looked rather shocked.
‘Not earth like you and I know or see,' I tried to explain, 'the guy said rather, our same earth but which was now trapped in an intergalactic space between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, whatever that meant.’
Uncle Henry and Dr. Lynn turned staring at each other with mouths opened wide.
‘The Eridanus Super void!'
What’s the Erid…?’
‘Quiet!’ Uncle Henry hissed placing his finger on my lips.
'I thought I heard something.' He said cocking his neck.
Before I could fathom what was happening, a loud sound of gun shots ripped through my ears. Startled, I tried racing towards the door but was grabbed and held back by Uncle Henry’s strong arms.
The shots it seemed had come from the corridor.
‘The windows!’ Uncle Henry motioned. He was already headed for the window. My heart was now accelerating rapidly. I was in a panic.
‘What’s happening?’ Doctor Lynn cried out loud. I could see she too was frightened.
‘I think the people who tried to kill my boy are here.’ Uncle Henry said his face grim.
‘Follow me if you want to make it out of here alive.’ He commanded.
He had reached the window and was opening its latch; outside, students were running in all directions.
‘Quick, after you,' Uncle ordered.
A flurry of gunfire shattered the office door bullets whizzing past me and crashing into the office wall as I climbed grabbing onto the window frame. I jumped dropping heavily onto the greens joining the terrified mammoth crowds followed by Doctor Lynn and Uncle Henry in quick succession aiming for the exit.
As I turned to look back, I saw a face appear in the open window. There was something menacing about this face. Infuriated, raging, with blood shot eyes. Our would-be killer was scanning the frenzied crowds.
Then for a moment our eyes met. He seemed to recognize me and began to climb through the window. I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through my body as I accelerated my paces hoping to lose him in the crowds.
‘This way!’ I heard Doctor Lynn call to me above the screams and shouts of students. She kept racing pointing towards a parked Navy blue jeep Cherokee.
Inside the Jeep, panting profusely, Doctor Lynn turned to us both.
‘Who were those?’
‘I think they were assassins.’ Uncle Henry replied almost out of breath, again.
‘Why were they after us?’
‘Like I told you before Di, it must have something to do Danny’s alien contact.’
‘Could it be the government doesn’t want the public to know?'
We had cleared the campus gates heading for the city metropolis.
‘Maybe,' Uncle Henry replied.
'But why send an assassin in broad day light?’ She kept glancing nervously in the driver's rear mirror.
‘I think we are deemed a threat to national security.’ I replied.
I was seated in the back keeping an eye for any suspicious vehicles trailing us.
'Where are we headed to now?' She glanced across at Uncle Henry.
'To your place I presume.' He replied. 'It’s the only safe place I can think of right now, and I don't think they know you are helping us.’