Free Xen Episode One by Odette C. Bell

Prologue
    All three of them sat in the front seat of
the pickup truck, staring up at the night sky above.
    There were 10 trucks and cars parked in the
meadow that night. While everybody else was outside, leaning on
their bumpers, hands on their door frames, chatting excitedly as
they listened to the radio, these three would not leave their
vehicle.
    One man, middle-aged, slightly
balding hair rimming his round shiny skull, sat in the
d river’s
seat, staring with thin-lipped concentration at the dashboard. By
the driver’s-side door was a tall, broad shouldered fellow in
overalls and a checked shirt. With a mop of thick, black hair, he
intermittently glanced at the driver and then up at the night sky
above.
    Pressed between them, with her hands on
her lap, was a woman. In a thick woolen skirt and a light blue
cardigan, she stared at her hands.
    They listened to the radio. But they were
not listening to the same station that the other cars parked in
that meadow were tuned in to.
    “Any signal yet?” the man in the
overalls asked, his voice low and husky.
    The driver shook his head, never shifting
his gaze from the dashboard.
    “Oh my God, can you hear that? That’s got
to be aliens,” a woman outside said in an excited voice, her
distinct Southern American accent making her words twang. She was
standing near a car, waving to a young man, an excited but nervous
look on her face. It was an expression that was shared by almost
every individual there that night.
    They’d come to this small field out in the
rolling pastures behind the town for a special broadcast. The
topic? Aliens.
    Ever since the end of World War II,
humanity’s fascination with the heavens had turned into mania.
Unidentified flying objects were reported every other day, whole
magazines and digests were filled with fantastic stories about
abductions and sightings, and UFO had entered the common
vernacular.
    Any light in the sky was cause for nervous
hope.
    “The broadcast is about to begin, Gerry.”
The woman outside the car waved again at the young man. “Stop
playing with your cigarettes, and get over here.”
    “I’m not playing with my cigarettes, Sue,
I’m trying to get this telescope to sit right. Do you want to quit
ordering me around?”
    “We’ve got to make sure we’re tuned into
the right station, come over here and check,” the woman
insisted.
    Every car or truck in that meadow had their
headlights on, and beams of illumination darted out at all angles,
lighting up slices of people’s faces as they moved in and out
amongst the vehicles, leaned down to fiddle with their car stereos,
or stared up in wonder at the night sky above.
    It was an unusually starry night. Though it
was autumn and a chill had caught the air, the conditions did not
account for the startlingly clear visibility.
    But it was a fact lost on nearly everyone
there. Everyone save for the three individuals in the pickup
truck.
    “Captain,” the man in the overalls turned
back to the driver, “we are running out of time.”
    “I told you, you can’t call me Captain.
Not here. I am John, you are Adam, and she is Jenny.”
    The woman in the cardigan, Jenny, finally
looked up. There was a poignant, almost palpable sense of sorrow
plastered over her face.
    “Adam is correct: unless we can
narrow in on the right signal, our opportunity will be lost. My
estimation is that we have approximately two more minutes. By that
time the fold will close. There will be no further contact.” Jenny
turned to face John. But anyone could tell that her attention was
elsewhere. Quickly her eyes darted towards the windscreen and out
into the night.
    They all knew what was at stake.
    If they couldn’t find the correct signal, if
they couldn’t get a message off, they would be stuck.
    “Look at them all out
there,” Adam
said, his characteristically deep voice resonating in his powerful
chest, “they’re looking up for the aliens, when we are sitting
right here.”
    John let out a