Chapter 2
The Sorenson and Lankford building was in view at 11:15. On the way to work, I went back to the coffee shop from earlier that morning but only to change into my new outfit in their restroom. The guy behind the counter from earlier was still there but didn’t look up when I walked in. The shop wasn’t busy and I probably could’ve bought a cup quickly but my mind was on other things.
The wind picked up a bit as I walked toward the skyscraper. I walked through the glass doors and stepped into the building and toward security check in. It was Shaw’s turn to work the lobby. Thank God something went right today. The other guy, Libby, was kind of a jerk and would probably have stopped me, then hold a hand just above my head and say something like; ‘Nope, must be at least this tall to enter the building,’ before laughing like he just said the funniest thing in the world. Shaw was a nice enough guy but was really too clueless to have a job working security. He never even looked up from his morning paper as I swiped my card to get through or maybe he did and just didn’t see me as I walked by.
I walked into the elevator. I was going up to the 33rd floor so I jumped to barely push the button. At that moment, nerves kicked in, my heart began to race and I was physically shaking a little. This feels like my first day at work. The thought occurred to me that maybe this was a bad idea. No, there was not a doubt in my mind that it was a bad idea but not showing up today was an even worse idea. The doors opened to my floor. Here we go Baxter. I put one foot out into the hallway from the elevator, like I was checking a swimming pool to feel if the water was warm enough to get in and then I peered around the corner. I saw Miles down the hall. His back was turned to me but it looked like he was talking to Jen; another computer programmer in the building. I walked slowly down the hall and could hear voices in soft, almost muted tones. Some people on the phone and others talking to coworkers in the office but it was my boss’s voice that came out clearer and louder over all of them.
“Baxter,” I turned around to see no one down the hallway and then I heard Mr. Davis say, “He’s late and we’ve got clients waiting in the conference room. Where is he?”
I could now hear Sonya saying something. I leaned against the wall to brace myself.
“He called my phone this morning around 8:30 but when I tried to call back later, no answer.”
There would be no answer. I left my cell phone in my briefcase along with everything else I needed today.
“You know, I didn’t like that kid from the first time I saw him. I don’t know why this company hires these know nothing kids out of college and sends them to me.”
The boss really sounded agitated today.
“I think Krause in HR does it to aggravate me for having graduated from my alum and his hated football rivalry.”
I imagined Sonya rolling her eyes at this remark. I then backed away and darted quickly for the bathroom in the hallway. Whew, I don’t think anyone saw me. I looked at myself in the mirror and realized it was ridiculous to try and work today. I had a real problem going on here and I needed help. No, today was not a work day but a sick day. Possibly a day for going to the doctor, but that much I hadn’t decided. I knew I had to get out of the building without being seen and when I get home, call Sonya back and tell her I’m sick today. That’s why I didn’t show up for work. That now sounded better than strolling in two and a half hours late and two feet shorter to boot. I would just have to deal with the boss’s wrath on Monday. As for him not liking me, maybe he’d like me more on Monday when I pitched him some of my best ideas for the Callahan account. I’m sure Sonya would do fine today without me but the Callahan account was a big one that meant my career in marketing. I could tell the boss while I was sick this weekend, I worked extra hard on this account to insure its success.
I saw the door to the hallway open and quickly dove into one of the stalls. That was close. I looked under the stall at the feet to see if I recognized the shoes, something I’d almost always done since I was a kid. They were a large pair of feet, larger than my usual size thirteen. I didn’t recognize the shoes either. Who’d wear sneakers to work at this time of day? Surely the cleaning crew would be gone by now. But I could see the pants, at least partially, and they were slacks. Well, whoever this guy is, he better not let the boss see him with those shoes on. It was Friday but our office didn’t participate in a casual day once a week. No, it was strictly business attire for the entire office, Monday thru Friday. A second glance at the shoes and I noticed strange writing on the back of the shoe. Huh, I can’t say I’ve seen that brand before but didn’t think much more on this and waited for the guy to leave the bathroom before I made my stealthy departure from the floor and then the building.
The door opened to the hallway and I stepped out of the stall I’d been hiding in. I waited a few moments before I opened the door to the hallway. It’s clear. I ran across the hallway and pushed the button to the elevator. I thought about going down the fire escape doors, worried that if I waited in the hall too long, someone might spot me; however, a stroke of luck hit and the doors to the elevator opened immediately. I ducked in quickly and began pushing the doors close button feverishly, sweating at the thought of someone from the office jumping in the elevator at the last second. The doors shut and the elevator made its descent to the ground floor. Wow, I just averted disaster. What was I thinking this morning when I left the house today? My brain must have shrunk with the rest of my body. This thought, of course made me laugh and breath out a sigh of relief.
That moment quickly ended when the elevator stopped. Darkness and silence filled the small space. “Great,” I said with disgust. “My luck just ran out.” Was the power just out or was it something more serious? Could it be a fire? I imagined burning up in this elevator or worse; being rescued by a firefighter and unconscious from smoke inhalation I’m carried out like a baby in front of my coworkers, in front of Stacy. I’d rather stay in the building and die than be embarrassed like that.
Baxter, you idiot: it’s probably just an outage and will take just a few moments to fix. Then, as quickly as I imagined worst case scenario, the lights and the music came on and the elevator began moving again. It continued its descent for a few floors until it stopped for a second time.
Geez, what’s going on around here?
This stop, however, was paired with the doors opening but the lights and music were still on. This isn’t the ground floor already. I looked up and it was the 17th. No one came into the elevator and so I began to push the close door button again. The doors wouldn’t shut. I peeked out into the hallway. The lights to this floor were out except for an unusually bright light coming from an office down the hall. I left the elevator and headed in the opposite direction of the light toward the fire escape stairs.
At least I’m going down---the thick metal door was locked to the stairway---or not.
I turned around and looked at the light in the hallway. I was mesmerized by its glow in the midst of this dark hallway. It didn’t have the usual florescent glow in the office rooms but rather a natural light that reminded me of mid- afternoon at the ballpark or on a picnic at the lake. It looked out of place in this building so I called out, “hello---is anyone there?”
No answer. I walked toward the light. My eyes began to adjust to the dim lighting in the hall and I looked down to notice that there was mud on the carpet. No, this wasn’t carpet but more like--- thick moss. My oversized shoes began to sink slightly as I headed toward the light. The floor seemed to be pulling the shoes off of my feet. I stood there a moment and called out again, this time only twenty feet from the lit office. “Is anybody here?”
Then, a voice came from the room that sounded like children speaking in unison, “We’ve been expecting you Baxter.”
I froze and a chill ran down from my ears to the middle of my back. I stood there, not knowing what to do next. I turned my torso around and could see everything behind me changing. Out of the walls, shrubs and vines were taking sh
ape. The floor began to look like it was being taken over by roots, plants and tall thick grass. As if I hadn’t seen enough today, I was witnessing something impossible. My eyes and brain should have grown accustom to this after the morning I had but I rubbed my eyes and looked harder at this sight. Then plants and grass around me sprouted out of the floor and continued a course toward the lit room. Now, only a path to the room was visible. Was I still in the building?
I looked around and the surroundings suggested that I was outside somewhere. I tried to step forward toward the lit room but mud and roots captured my shoes. I was stuck. The voice or voices called out again.
“Come forward Baxter.”
“I uh I can’t,” saying this as I looked toward my feet.
The children’s voices said this again almost taunting in tone, “come forward Bax…Terrr.”
I easily slipped out of my shoes and stepped on the newly formed path lay for me. This took some guts on my part or just plain stupidity but I actually walked into the room where the voices called to me. At first, my eyes were not accustomed to such light. It was as if I was standing in the street before being hit by a semi-truck at night. I raised an arm over the brow to shield my eyes, hoping to see what was ahead but it was done in vain. I simply closed my eyes and stepped cautiously forward, measuring every step as if it was my last. I knew there were answers for my morning transformation up ahead and I was all too eager to find them out.
Curiosity burned in me and I could hear the voice say; “Yes, closer; come closer.”
Without hesitation, I continued walking. The light seemed to be pulling me in now. Then I was grabbed by the arm and felt myself being dragged by a force stronger than I back toward the hallway. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to fight or even object to the force that took me back into the hallway. My eyes were still blinded by those bright lights and I could barely see a hand in my face if one was there. I felt as though I was being carried away on someone’s shoulder like a big sack of potatoes. The person carrying me was running at a great speed. There were bone chilling screams behind us now. I still couldn’t see but realized we were in the fire escape stairwell heading up. I could make out some objects as my sight began to come back. Definitely stairs and the person carrying me must be a giant as the stairs looked so far away as we traveled up. What happened back there? Why was I not out of the building and back at home like I had planned?
I caught a glimpse of something as my eyes began to adjust back to normal. It suddenly occurred to be the person carrying me was the one with the big feet in the bathroom. Those shoes were unmistaken.
My transporter to who knows where began to speak softly but in a deep voice, “we are almost there.”
“Wait a minute, I protested, who are you?”
“There is no time to explain now but I will tell you everything soon. Right now you are in great danger and we must get to the top of this building.”
No sooner did he say this and the door that led to the roof opened and we were outside. A loud noise that sounded like several helicopters filled the air. I looked in the direction the sound was coming from and can only describe what I saw resembling an aircraft of some sort; although, it was not an aircraft I was familiar with. For starters, the outside of it resembled a series of mirrors and metal that matched the sky in color. It was clearly built for stealth travel but it was crafted in a manner making it beautiful to look at. There were three wings on each side of the craft shaped like crescent moons. The edges were sharp like blades and the body of the ship was two half circles with an opening down the middle. This was where the stranger and I were headed. When we arrived to the ship, he strapped me into a seat on one side of the craft.
At this moment I got a good look at the person that had carried me up the stairs and who now, strapped me tightly into this seat. It was Miles or a somewhat larger version of Miles. I had known Miles to be into weight training but he seemed to have tripled in size. His head was huge and he was taller, like a foot taller than the Miles I’d known in the office. I sat in shock and my mind went into some kind of recall mode, remembering conversations I had with him in the last year. He seemed like a normal guy; well, not really that normal, but certainly nothing close to this. Who is this guy?
I began to verbalize this thought or question when he looked at me and spoke; as if reading my mind, “I’ll tell you everything on our trip back.”
“Back, back to where, where are we going?”
A smile came across the face of Miles but I just had to sit back, resigning to his wishes and wait to discuss everything later. I remembered what he said about being in danger and eased into a better sense of agreement that we should at least leave this building. The thought began to creep in the twisted corners of my brain that this ship was not of this world and maybe Miles wasn’t either. This thought made me uneasy so I just blocked it from my thoughts and awaited the lift off in this high tech flying machine. When the two halves shut, I was sitting next to Miles but he paid no attention to me as he began what appeared to be his take off routine.
A series of green dots appeared against a silver backdrop and Miles touched just one of these dots to the far left of the background. Then a series of lines showed which looked like a jumbled mess of crosses and upside down T’s with a few tilted and backward E’s. At this, a static noise or scratching sound came out of each line. Then, the same noise came out of Miles mouth.
“Uh, that’s interesting. Am I still in danger here?”
“You’re going to be alright Baxter,” Miles said in soft tone.
His voice had a crackle to it though, like it was sore from coughing or something. Then we lifted off the roof and straight up into the sky. The lift off immediately reminded me of my favorite tower ride at the theme park back home. It was called the Rocket and this ride would shoot you while strapped in a seat 207 feet into the air and stop at the top. The real thrill would come ten or fifteen seconds later when the seat would just drop back to the ground. It was not a good ride for the faint of heart or the full of stomach.
Miles turned a knob and cool air began to hit my face. The air calmed my nerves; albeit, my thoughts were really stunted by the sights of flying into the Earth’s atmosphere. I had seen these images on television and movies---this was really happening though. What I couldn’t get over was the enormity of the blue planet. We pulled through the atmosphere and into outer space. My impression of the Earth’s size quickly paled as the vastness of space came into view through the glass panels. Miles shut off the main thrusters and the space ship steadied. Then a quieter set of smaller rocket thrusters was activated and everything in front of me appeared in flashes as we sped beyond the now blue dot. It was finally on this setting that Miles pulled out a music storage device and started one of his playlists. Heavy rock music came out of the mp3 player.
Miles breathed out a lungful of air before saying, “One thing I’m going to miss about Earth is its music.”
At this, my face took on a vacant stare and the only sound I could manage was, “huh?”
Miles continued, “Well; when we get to ALVERON, I will have to include this mp3 player with the rest of the items I’ve collected from my stay at your planet.”
I was still mystified but I was trying to follow along, “items you’ve collected?”
“Yeah, for the scientists to study---they have been interested in your planet for thousands of years. Your people have so much creativity.”
“Uh…Miles: where exactly are we going?”
“We are headed to the LOMMETRUS GALAXY. We’ll have a stay at ALVERON for a few days and then we head home to STONIA. Interesting---wouldn’t you say?”
Interesting to say the least---I was mostly disoriented from today’s strange events. My mind hadn’t completely wrapped itself around the situation I was in. I felt like a mooncalf at some rocket scientist’s convention and I was having the dilemma of keeping up with the conversations going on around me.
I was completely out of my realm; literally and figuratively, so I started to ask questions that would continue for the entirety of the trip.
“Miles; lets back up a minute and start from the beginning, when I met you a year ago you told me that you are a computer programmer.”
Miles nodded his head at this while adjusting something under his seat and said, “Yeah that’s right, I’m a computer programmer. I program computers for a living.”
I sat there and waited a minute to see if he’d take any initiative---continue with an explanation of how we got here and do it without the prompting of my questions.
“Right then…okay so…you’ve been working as a computer programmer at the Sorenson and Lankford building for the past year because….?”
“To keep an eye on you of course,” Miles said this nonchalantly.
“Of course, keep an eye on me…but wait…now that begs this question. Why would you need to keep an eye on me?”
At this question, Miles decided to respond with real depth. “Look, let’s start from the actual beginning. You and everyone I met on Earth, knows me as Miles but my real name; that is to say, my name on STONIA is KEETCHA. I am from the LOMMETRUS GALAXY which consists of twelve planets; each with its own star that it revolves around, like Earth does with the sun. Only four of these planets are considered major planets while the other eight are minor planets. This has some significance but I will explain that later. I am from one of these major planets---the planet STONIA. My job on STONIA was similar to your planets astronauts but our technology is so much further advanced; we require further skills and demand quite a bit more from the STONIAN space traveler. I am one of only a few on STONIA that could’ve even accepted this mission.”
“But why would you travel all this way to keep an eye on me and who’s responsible for shrinking me?”
Miles put his hand up and said; “Wait, I’m getting to that.”
Miles could see all of this was overwhelming to me and wanted to make every detail of this as easy to understand for me. This made every sentence from Miles sound smooth and measured. I wondered if this was one of the extra skills he had talked about.
Miles continued, “we STONIAN’s are a sensitive people and respect life on all planets. There is a delicate balance between scientific research and not interfering with a planet’s natural evolution of development. I arrived on your planet three years ago. The first couple of years were an observation period; basic stuff really, what was pleasant to eat, animal and plant types and their habitats. I then moved to the city and I got into observing human behavior; how to act in certain situations, language and specific things about the various cultures all over Earth. Humans and STONIANS have a lot of similarities but I was amazed at the diversity among humans that make each person unique. This was common among the various planets in the LOMMETRUS GALAXY but certainly not for one planet. This struck me as important and I sent a message to the ALVERON council about this discovery. I waited nearly six months to receive word from the ALVERON’S about what I found then heard a knock at my door late one evening. A WOCOTIAN uh….Miles was thinking of a word that I’d understand to describe this machine---droid was standing there and delivered this message.”
URGENT, your mission is to find a young man by the name of William Baxter, who will graduate from his University in a few months and start a job at Sorenson and Lankford Marketing firm just two months later. GET employment from this marketing firm immediately and wait for Baxter to arrive. When he does: look after him and keep an observant eye on this young man. The NOBIANS are planning something for him and we need him more than they need him. Remember; keep your eyes and ears open until further instruction. Destroy the WOCOTIAN droid when you are done reading this message.
-The High Council of ALVERON
“So you’ve been spying on me?”
“Not spying, observing and today protecting.”
“Protecting from these NOBIANS?”
“Yes. They are a wicked species and you would not have had any chance of coming back to Earth or staying alive if they had taken you. They are not respecters of other planets or life. You would have been kept alive only for observation and when they no longer needed you---you would be destroyed.”
“You mean like the WOCOTIAN droid you destroyed?”
Miles corrected me on this point; “No, No, No---they’re not permanently destroyed. It’s more like being recycled or that’s what it’s called on your planet but that’s not a word we use on STONIA. Anyway, I just push a button on the droid and it disappears.”
“Disappears?”
“It goes back to the WOCO planet or rather its moon for rebuild and reassignment.”
“We’ll I’m glad that’s cleared up---so then: why me? I mean there are seven billion people on the planet.”
Miles interrupted, “actually, as of a minute ago, the population reached 7,003,507,003;” saying this while checking a hand held device.
A modest amount of annoyance gushed in me at this as I responded, “OK, thank you for that exact amount---now; can you please tell me why I was chosen?”
“You’re not going to like this William but no---I’m afraid I can’t tell you that---at least not now.”
“Why not;” I said with more irritation in my voice?
“Look Baxter, you’re a good guy, actually a pretty normal guy, maybe exceptional in some areas, for a human being of course.”
I started to scratch my head and felt dazed as Miles was talking.
“The council has its reasons for choosing you; maybe just for the simple fact that the NOBIANS want you, we won’t know for sure until we reach ALVERON.”
The conversation reached a point of silence at this while I was still processing what I’d been told by Miles. As a boy, I read books about aliens and abductions but just thought those stories were made up, stuff for science fiction, not real life, not for William Baxter. I started to think about my life, my parents and friends. I thought about my apartment and the cool life I was beginning to build now that I had started working for Sorenson and Lankford. That was my dream job and now I will probably never work in that city again.
Remembering some of the day’s earlier events; and what a day it was, I kept coming back to the words my boss said about me. ‘I never liked that kid.’ Why? What did I ever do to make the boss not like me? Before today, I always showed up for work on time and I never missed a day. Was this some kind of intolerance toward young workers on Mr. Davis’s part? Sonya didn’t seem to argue much with that statement either. Did she feel that way too? Was our friendship or at least great work relationship not real? These thoughts saddened me. I had grown to admire her so much. I wanted to have the career she had and everything seemed to fall in line with that dream. My parents were the only adults that I had leaned on for development but now I was working and had someone like Sonya Meyers depending on me and asking me about my ideas. I was learning a lot from Sonya. Miles started talking again and this snapped me out of these thoughts.
Miles asked, “Would you like to know why you woke up two feet shorter this morning,” asking the obvious while handing me a pair of sneakers that fit my new foot size.
The thought did occur to me at some point this morning.
“Sure, that might be a good place to start back up the conversation we were having,” I said.
Miles pulled out a small vial with an aqua color liquid in it. The liquid moved around the vial which gave it an added florescent quality.
“This stuff is the reason you are quite a bit shorter than you were yesterday. It takes twelve to fifteen hours to be fully effective, which is why I gave it to you just before you left for work yesterday.”
“What did you say? Did you say that you’re responsible for this?”
“The shrinking serum takes several hours to be effective so I poured some in your drink yesterday when you left your desk to go to the restroom. You probably didn’t notice it in your drink be
cause it has no flavor. Those scientists on ALVERON are really thoughtful.”
I smiled and nodded my head in a half-hearted agreement at this extra detail Miles included but this was only to disguise my real feelings of curiosity and uneasiness. Miles poisoned me.
He looked at the vial with admiration and said, “I’m not sure I could have gotten you out so quickly if it wasn’t for this stuff.”
He then unscrewed the small lid and drank the entirety of the vial.