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  “How far does this aura extend,” Jack asked. “Can it be minimized? Does it have to encompass all three of us to keep him well?”

  “I know it has to encompass him. I think it has to encompass me. I’m not sure about you.”

  Again, Mike stuck his head out the door of their room. The hallway was quiet. He listened for several moments.

  Mike and Jack held onto Joe on either side of him as they shuffled down the hallway. At the stairs, Mike handed Jack the car keys. After the boy hurried off, Mike hefted Joe in a fireman’s carry. The aura continued to hold. The elevator binged as the stair door shut behind him. Keeping one hand on the rail and one on Joe’s butt, he made his way down the stairs.

  If Jack simply ran and told the police or panicked, Mike didn’t know what he’d do, but what other choices did he have at this moment?

  Mike’s regimen of workouts at the gym and daily running paid off as never before as he worked his way down the stairs. He was familiar with Joe’s body from years of passionate love making. Mike also couldn’t hide the feeling that what he was doing was heroic, dangerous, more exciting than any mere Earth adventure, and dwarfed any adrenalin rush he got from his regular job as a waiter in a fashionable restaurant. He was carrying the man he loved to an uncertain future, running around with an alien on his shoulder in the middle of a blizzard hoping some drunken teenager didn’t stumble upon them. Mike’s appreciation of the absurd didn’t ease his anxiety.

  Mike staggered several times as he eased down the stairs. Despite being in good shape, he was forced to stop twice to rest his shoulders and arms. Joe was slightly taller and thinner than Mike, but he weighed about the same.

  When Mike reached the first floor, he eased Joe to the ground. The blue aura wavered every once in a while but never flickered out. Joe’s complexion was almost normal. He had long since ceased to tremble.

  As they had prearranged, Mike waited at the bottom of the stairs for Jack to return. As the minutes passed behind the closed door, Mike began to fret. He had a few moments now to worry about the dangers of the drive ahead. There was nothing he could do about it, and he didn’t have much choice. He’d get through it somehow.

  Mike glanced at his watch. Jack had been gone ten minutes. The parking lot was only a few feet outside the door. He couldn’t risk leaving Joe. Had Jack managed to crash the car into a snow drift, and they wouldn’t even be able to get out of the parking lot? He was reaching for the door to attempt to reconnoiter from this vantage point when it swung outward.

  Snow covered the left side of Jack’s coat. He was puffing hard and brushing off snow at the same time. “The car got stuck in a drift. I had to dig it out. I fell a bunch of times. It’s awful out here. Are you sure we have to go?”

  “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “The coast is clear. I had to wait for this busload of drunks to drive off. Who would expect a screwy adult rescuing an alien in the middle of a blizzard in the middle of the night in the middle of downstate Illinois? I’m not sure this is my idea of a good time, but it is one hell of an adventure.”

  “This is not the way I’d planned to spend celebrating your victory.”

  “Me neither.”

  Mike looked out the door. No one was near their obscure corner of the hotel. They braced Joe’s arms around their shoulders.

  “What do we do if somebody spots us?” Jack asked.

  “We keep walking, don’t answer questions, and hope that they’re too drunk or too busy or too incredulous or too stupid or too incurious to try and stop us. Or we hope that our luck holds long enough to get us out of here.”

  Once outside Mike realized the energy field had little if any effect on the wind, cold, and snow. Occasionally flakes stung his eyes.

  They made it as far as the sidewalk without incident. A huge conversion van swayed and rumbled up to the curb and disgorged it inhabitants, a loud group of teenage girls. They all had cigarettes and cell phones and were either giggling or puffing or squealing or texting, a couple attempting all four at once. They sauntered about as if they didn’t care if they and the storm were at the North Pole, and they had all the time in the world to get warm and be cool at the same time. They glanced at Mike, Jack, and Joe. Several of them emitted high pitched squeals. One of them pointed.

  “What’s that blue glow?” one asked. She sported a tattoo her low cut sweater revealed between her breasts.

  Mike said, “Emergency light for drunkards. He’s passed out.”

  Several of the girls giggled again. Mike didn’t think any of them was over fifteen. He, Joe, and Jack struggled past. The snow crunched under their feet. Near the front entrance, someone had shoveled the walk and thrown down salt. That small patch of pavement was almost clear and made even more dramatic the depth of the snow that was piling up. Mike figured there had to be over a foot on the ground. That small patch of clearing was probably the only one they’d see for the entire drive back to Chicago.

  The snow in the parking lot had been tamped down into ruts in the middle of the roadway, but the sides were getting mini-cliffs of white rising higher almost by the minute. At some points even the ruts were disappearing under the drifting snow.

  They had only a few feet left to go, when Lennon Kazakel appeared from between two cars. His jacket was zipped only halfway up. He’d made no other concessions to the cold and snow.

  “Stop right there,” he ordered.

  Mike kept moving. Kazakel tried to grab him as he passed. When his hand touched the blue glow, he drew it back in alarm. “What the fuck?” Kazakel stuck out his hand again. This time his fist got almost as far as Mike’s shoulder before he cried out in pain. He stepped back, slipped in the snow. As he fell, he thunked his head against the fender of a car, moaned for a moment, then fell silent.

  Jack had parked the car as near to the hotel exit as he could get. The boy got in and started it up then helped Mike arrange blankets and a pillow across the back seat to make Joe comfortable. The blue glow was evident for anyone who cared to look. At the moment, no one was around to notice. As Jack got in the passenger seat, Mike got behind the wheel, checked his communicator, was assured as best he could be that the blue protection shield would hold, turned the car on, and put it in gear.

  Mike glanced in the rearview mirror and stopped the car. “We can’t leave your dad unconscious in the storm. He might die.”

  Jack said, “If I’m lucky, he would.”

  Mike looked again. Kazakel began dragging himself to his feet. “He’s getting up,” Mike said. When he saw Kazakel take a few steps, Mike eased his foot off the brake. He looked toward the street beyond the hotel parking lot. In all the time they’d been carrying and arranging Joe in the back seat, not one vehicle had passed by. As Mike pulled away, he saw Jack’s dad fade in the rearview mirror. Mike glanced at the gas gauge, more than three-quarters full.

  The trip to the Interstate that would normally take only a few minutes took nearly twenty under these conditions. When Mike pressed on the accelerator, the car swerved and the tires spun. Once underway, he could feel the car eager to slip one way or another. He tried to stay in the ruts created by earlier vehicles. If he strayed the slightest, the car began to slew out of control. The occasional patch of ice added to the already treacherous conditions. Mike had driven through storms before but nothing this bad.

  Once on the Interstate the windshield wipers barely kept up with the blowing and drifting snow. He only got the speedometer over twenty once in the first five miles.

  “It’s going to take forever like this,” Mike muttered. Even driving this slow, he had to strain to hold the wheel against the howling wind and the treacherous road. The tires rode on packed snow. The car slid numerous times. Even following the ruts in the now one lane road wasn’t much help. As in the parking lot, the ruts themselves were filing with snow. He felt the steering wheel slipping out of his control numerous times. His fingers clutched the wheel in a stranglehold.

&n
bsp; Tension tightened the muscles in his shoulders and arms. Driving was worst when a semi-trailer truck came rumbling up behind him and then passed on his left. He thought those drivers must be insane to attempt traveling so fast on such a night. He almost hoped the big trucks would run off the road. He thought it would serve them right. He wondered what they could be hauling that was so valuable to risk human life by being out on a night such as this much less driving like psycho morons from hell. He doubted if the trucks were filled with life-saving organs for people who desperately needed transplant operations.

  At the first exit, Mike pulled off the road, and let the car idle in the middle of the ramp. At the moment, no one was behind them. “What?” Jack asked.

  “I’m not sure we’re going to make it.” He looked into the back seat.

  Joe had his eyes open and was looking up at the roof of the car.

  “Are you okay?” Mike asked.

  Joe muttered, “I’m not sure. Has the snow stopped?”

  “No, it’s gotten worse,” Mike said. “I’m not sure we can get to the ship tonight. It’s taken us over half an hour to go only a few miles.”

  “We have to,” Joe said. “If your protection keeps working, I should survive until we get there. Without it I’m not sure what would happen. I do know that probe has got to be stopped. My defenses here may not last.”

  Mike said, “There’s an awful lot of snow.”

  Joe sat up and looked outside the car. His hands gripped the front seat. He saw the snow reflected in the headlights and the soft blue glow that spread out a few feet from the interior of the car. Joe lowered his head back to the pillow.

  Mike asked, “Are you feeling better?”

  “A little.”

  “Did I do the defense right?”

  “Pretty much. Good enough.”

  “You helped?”

  “Not at first. That was all you. You’ve learned well.” Mike took the news as good that his ability to use the communicator was increasing.

  Joe continued, “After I felt the glow, I could enhance what you were doing. The first moments of protection were the most important. The emanations from that probe are something I’ve never felt before. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”

  “Jack knows the truth,” Mike said.

  “I’m okay with the news,” Jack said.

  Joe smiled. “That’s great.”

  “I’m not sure how we’re going to make it through this snow,” Mike said.

  “I’ve got to get some sleep,” Joe said, “but maybe I can adjust the defense to help out.” He sat back up. He took out his communicator. He took Mike’s as well. In a few moments the aura seemed to extend with the headlights beyond the front as well as to the sides of the car. The snow the light touched melted immediately. Seconds later the ground where the moisture had been was perfectly dry.

  Mike asked, “How come when I first came out of the hotel the energy field had no effect on the storm?”

  “I configured it differently just now. Let me show you.” He took the communicators and showed Mike a series of taps on both.

  “Slow down,” Mike said.

  “Sorry.”

  After he watched Joe perform the sequence three times, Mike tried it. When he was finished there was no change in the glow. “Did I do it right?” Mike asked.

  “Yes. The glow would have stopped if you didn’t. My mind link was helping. If something happens, just remember what I’ve just shown you and what I taught you the past couple years. It’ll work.”

  “I hope so,” Mike said.

  Joe said, “If you drive slowly enough, you should be able to follow that melting.”

  “You can sleep, and it will continue?” Mike asked.

  Joe manipulated Mike’s communicator. “Yours should be enough. Try it.” Mike did. The glow continued. “Excellent,” Joe said. He put his communicator back in his pocket. Mike put his on the dashboard.

  “People will notice,” Mike said. “We could have a string of people following what we melt from here to Chicago.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Joe said. He looked at the raging snow. “It’s drifting pretty fast. It should be covered over fairly quickly.”

  “If you’ve got that much power,” Jack asked, “why don’t you just stop the storm?”

  “On a good day, I could maybe do just that,” Joe said. “This probe has done something to my insides. My brain waves have been distorted, or my synapses have been disrupted. Something is not right. I’ve got to be at my ship. I can’t help much more than I’ve already done. I’m sorry, Jack. I wish you could have learned under different circumstances.”

  “I’m not sure you’d have ever told me if it wasn’t for an emergency,” Jack said, “but that’s okay. I understand when something is a secret.” Jack had been forced to keep numerous secrets far more horrific than this.

  “It’s not a secret we’re ashamed of,” Mike said.

  “I know, Uncle Mike,” Jack replied.

  They returned to the highway. Mike discovered that if he kept his speed under thirty miles an hour, they could follow in the wake of the heat and melting that occurred in front and around them. It also meant the drive would take at least three hours.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After a few minutes of this steady progress, Joe put his head back down. Looking at him in the rearview mirror, Mike thought he was asleep.

  The actual physical driving was now much less stressful, but far eerier as they followed their own instant individual snow remover.

  After a few miles Jack asked, “Uncle Mike, how come you know an alien? Why is he living with you? Why hasn’t he been captured like on television? What’s he doing here? Can I get one of those light things?”

  “It’s been an amazing four years since I met him. Among his many abilities, he can read people’s memories. He convinced me he came from outer space by reading some of mine and telling me about them.”

  “Has he been in my mind?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Has he told you secrets about me?”

  “The first day you met, you confided in him. He’s never told me what. He told me about your dad that first day he met you at Grandma’s party. I knew we had to take action, but there was no way I could tell how I knew.”

  “You would have let my dad continue?”

  “No, that was not going to happen. You noticed it didn’t.”

  Jack thought for a moment. “Yeah. What else does he know about me? I’m not sure I like the idea of him probing into my mind.”

  “He doesn’t do it for kicks, and I know he doesn’t probe into mine. You can ask him if he probes into yours. He’s told me he hasn’t since that first time.”

  “Can he really just read anybody’s memories?”

  “It’s hard for him to read an Earthling’s memories because of the difference in physiology. He doesn’t do it for fun, and he can’t do it for extended periods of time. He was a cop on his planet. He was trained to look into people’s minds for criminal activity. He’s got implants in his brain that make him more effective.”

  “Are you sure he doesn’t probe your mind?”

  “I trust him,” Mike said.

  “Can he destroy us with a thought?”

  “I suspect so. Partly he’s not going to do anything kinky, drastic, or dangerous because of his training on his planet. They have very strict rules about interference, sort of like the ‘Prime Directive’ on Star Trek. He’s a good man. I love him. He loves me. I believe him.”

  Mike pointed to the communicator resting on the dashboard. “We don’t have another one of those. After he destroyed a mad scientist from his planet, we found that one in a lab he had built. It’d be great if he could make more. I’m not sure he can. It’s taken me years to learn just a little bit. You saw how I fumbled.”

  “I guess it’s more of a neat thing, a new toy, rather than something I need,” Jack said, “but it would be so cool. I bet it’s more
powerful than all the cell phones on the planet.”

  Mike sighed, “Not just phones. Probably more powerful than all the electronics on the planet put together.”

  “He could do like all-powerful stuff. You both could.”

  Mike shrugged, “I don’t want to do that. I guess he could, but we want to be left alone and take care of you.”

  “Wow. Is that like noble?”

  Mike glanced at his nephew. He hadn’t noted any amusement or mockery in his nephew’s tone. Mike said, “It’s practical.”

  Mike used the time as they drove to explain to Jack as much as he could about Joe and their adventures. He finished with details about his implant and their protections.