Love Falls From the Sky Read online

  “Maybe I believe you, maybe not. I think you should lay low for a while. We're going to the department now for you to give that statement, and then you could go to your parents’. You said you are from Arizona, aren't you? I heard Phoenix is quite nice this time of the year.”

  Yes, hotter than Hell's kitchen! Annabeth told herself. After some years of acclimatization to Seattle, she was no longer so eager to endure excessive heat. Plus, she didn't get along well with her a bit overly harsh mother and righteous father. She was their only child and maybe that's why they had high expectations for her. Sometimes she wished she had other brothers to divert this pressure from her. Anyway, she had made herself a life away from them, here in Seattle. And that's how well it went!

  They went to the police station where Annabeth said everything she had to say: facts, but also her assumptions about the involvement of the Mexican cartel. Which of them, she did not even know, that there were so many with Spanish names and she didn’t understand any of them.

  She handed the paper with the statement to Armstrong and asked in a very offensive voice, “What about Hunter, why isn't he here? I'm sure he's an accomplice to this horrible crime.”

  “Your friend Hunter is in the wind. And the company headquarters are locked, and without a warrant, we cannot enter.”

  The policeman kept his phlegmatic tone, although he seemed to realize that there was something rotten about this business.

  “What about the other employees? They haven’t just disappeared too. Right?” Annabeth was increasingly upset.

  “The others received an SMS telling them that the company was closed and relocated due to financial taxation purposes and that they will receive compensatory payments. The fact is that they even had the amounts transferred into their accounts. I suppose you didn't get anything like that ...”

  Annabeth checked her phone but had not received a message about a bank transfer.

  “I guess I was supposed to die in the explosion so I didn't get any bonuses. Not even for staying alive!” she said in a bitter voice.

  Cutter then drove her to her friend Dinah's apartment. As Annabeth was leaving the detective's car, he told her, “Follow my advice and leave the city for a while. Here's my business card. If you need anything, call me. Or if the waters calm down, I'll call you. But the feds might get involved in here. It depends on the outcome of the firefighters' investigation. But if there is a small chance you are right and your life is in danger, you need to get out of this place as soon as possible.”

  Annabeth nodded, thanking him for his care. “I didn't even thank you for saving my life there at the hospital.”

  “Nah, don't worry! It's part of the life of a cop.” Cutter smiled, winking, then started the car, and he was gone.

  He looks like a nice guy! Annabeth thought. But no, I'm not going to get involved with cops anymore. Not everyone will be like Steve, but I’m not taking any chances!

  Dinah welcomed her with open arms, literally. She then tried to console her for the loss she had suffered.

  “I didn't know Jenna very well, but it is really tragic she ended up like that. You know what they say, speak only well about the dead, but this girl was a little too exalted.”

  Sipping an aromatic herbal tea, Annabeth felt as if she were slowly detaching from the realities of a day that seemed hardly to be over. She told Dinah all the misfortunes that had struck her in the last twenty-four hours, ending with Cutter’s recommendation.

  “Yes, my dear,” said Dinah, “this is what you need now. To get away from all this. I wonder if you shouldn't go straight to the FBI with your story. Maybe they’ll put you in the witness protection program.”

  “What evidence do I have to go to the feds with? They'll laugh in my face like that awful cop, Armstrong.

  Dinah thought for a moment and then said, “You know what? I'll call my friend Meryl. She is a painter on the rise right now and has her artist refuge in the mountains where she goes to create new stuff. She has an exhibition at a gallery in London, so for the next few months, her cottage is free. I'll ask her if it’s okay for you to stay there for a while. Plus, you won't be alone. Her dog, Sparks, will keep you company. She left him to my care, but he’s a handful.

  “Sparks, my boy, don't you wanna go with Anna to the cottage?”

  The dog, who was a silent witness to their conversation, being nestled next to the sofa, said only, “Ham!”

  Annabeth agreed that it seemed like a good arrangement for her.

  For a week already they were isolated here in the mountains, she and the faithful Sparks with whom she had made a good home from the beginning. Sometimes she would go down to the small town in the valley with her Subaru—which she had recovered almost intact from the parking lot of the building where she lived.

  They didn't need too many supplies, and Annabeth had redone her wardrobe to replace the one lost in the fire. Dinah had also helped her by donating some clothes.

  The path descended to a clearing through which the crystalline water of a mountain stream passed. Annabeth had been walking for a while, not paying close attention to the trail. She was caught by the recollection of these recent dark moments and didn't notice that Sparks had already reached the bank of the river and was barking incessantly at a very strange sight.

  What else would you call the sight of a naked man lying in a fetal position and encapsulated in a transparent bubble, like an insect in amber?

  CHAPTER 2

  The man seemed young, well built. He could not have been more than thirty-five years old. His eyes were closed, and his face had vigorous features, partly covered by long, black hair. He gave no signs of life in that pod that seemed to be filled with a slightly blueish liquid.

  Annabeth went around his pod, being torn by contradictory feelings. She was frightened but also curious at the same time. I mean, did someone put this man's body in that liquid and then throw him here in the woods? Why would they do that?

  She approached and cautiously touched the thin membrane of the pod. When her fingers brushed against it, the membrane disintegrated and the liquid from it spread on the green grass of the meadow. Startled, Annabeth took a few steps back. The man, however, remained still, lying on the grass. What do I do? Annabeth asked herself. I need to call 911! Ah, damn it! I have no service here. I have to go up the path.

  She was about to return from where she had come, up the mountain path, when the man opened his mouth, drawing air into his chest with a sound that seemed to spring from the depths of his lungs. Annabeth let out a short scream and froze. So he wasn't dead, this guy!

  Then he opened his eyes, looking at Annabeth with interest. Wow! Eyes of a blue so intense, almost purple, you don’t see every day! Annabeth told herself. The man rose from the ground with sluggish movements and approached with hesitant steps, as a small child would walk. Scared, she pulled back a few steps again. The man raised both hands as in a universal gesture that he meant her no harm. But she would not feel at ease in this wilderness with a naked man (no matter how hot he was). That's why she took off her jacket and handed it to the man. He took it and looked at it quizzically. Annabeth sighed and took it back, showing him how to put the jacket around his hips to cover his private areas. This time he complied and, therefore, the embarrassing situation was further alleviated. Unexpectedly, even Sparks had stopped barking at the strange guy. Maybe he didn't peg him as dangerous anymore, because the guy wasn't so naked as before. How knows what was in his animal mind?

  “I guess you don't speak English,” Annabeth said. “Otherwise you would have made a sound by now. Where the hell are you from? If I were one of those crazy, conspiracy theory people, I would say that you are a secret government experiment. Did they raise you in a pod or something?”

  She didn’t receive an answer but didn’t expect it either. He was just looking at her with the same intense gaze. Annabeth walked up the path, beckoning him to follow her.

  “We need to call someone. I'll call when we get
to the cottage because I have no signal here,” she said, pointing to her phone.

  He reached for her phone.

  “You want to call someone? Wait till we reach a higher ground up this path.”

  Again, she didn’t receive an answer, but he continued to show signs that he wanted to put his hand on the phone. Resigned, Annabeth handed it over to him with the screen unlocked. The man took it and looked at it in wonder, turning it on all sides. Then he stared at the screen without touching it.

  “You have to touch the screen,” Annabeth told him.

  But she didn’t go any further with the indications because the display of the phone began to rapidly scroll through configuration screens, applications, and whatever else was on the phone. How did he do that?

  What the hell? He broke it! Annabeth said to herself seeing the strange behavior of the phone.

  Dannar Zander was overwhelmed. And not only because he had just emerged from the stasis capsule in which he had been thrown onto this planet—the planet of his permanent exile. But especially because he had expected to be on a wild planet full of primitive and fierce creatures. Instead, the first creature he encountered was a female very similar to one of his species. The differences were clear but they did not disturb his aesthetic sense at all. The woman in front of him was tall and slim with light brown hair and green eyes like plants in the season of renewal. The women on the Alliance planets were shorter and sturdier and had black hair. Those that came out of this pattern were very rare and obviously sought after as priceless treasures. Alaina, his beloved sweetheart had the hair of a reddish twilight ...

  But the biggest puzzlement was due to the technological item the woman had in her hand. It seemed pretty advanced. The Alliance Council must have made a mistake somewhere by incorrectly assuming this planet was a primitive one. Or—he thought with a trace of hope—one of his supporters tampered with the data and proposed this planet as the place where the leader of the rebels would be left. Maybe they planned to get back to him when the circumstances were more favorable.

  “Webby, are you there?” asked Dannar, using his inner voice.

  “Sure, Dannar, where would you like me to be?” replied that AI that had been welded into his body many years ago.

  “Ah, well, I thought they pulled you out of my system.”

  “Believe me, they tried. But when they realized that this would kill you, they let it go. They needed you alive to face their punishment.”

  As a member of the Alliance's military elite, he could afford this improvement. It was really a necessity to have an intelligent assistant grafted directly inside your brain, connected to your biological organs and sensors. Also, nanocarbon fibers went up to the tip of his fingers as interfaces with other artificial intelligent devices. So now holding the woman's device, he invited Webby to interface with it and find out everything he needed from there.

  “I have good news and bad news,” Webby said after a few moments. “The good news is that this planet—Earth, as they call it—is dominated by these people, who are quite civilized and somewhat technologically advanced. The bad news is that they are not at the Alliance’s technological level and are not capable of galactic flights. So you'll be here for a while.”

  “Oh, but what do I do now? Do you see any immediate threat?”

  “No, and you would do well to introduce yourself to this human female because she seems quite scared, and it would help if she knew you were a civilized individual. I have deciphered their language, so give it a go!”

  Annabeth saw the man open his mouth, but he only made some unintelligible sounds. Then something was heard in a somewhat out-of-tune but still clear tone: “Good ... day ... Anna ... Beth! I'm Dannar Zander.”

  Annabeth recovered quite a bit from the shock and shyly raised her right hand, saying, "Hi!" Her first impulse was to ask him how he knew her name, but then she remembered that he still had her phone in his hand and could see the name there. She made a sign, pointing to her phone, and Dannar returned it.

  She looked at this strange guy, wondering if she should be afraid of him or not. Should she run away and leave him here, or try to help him? She chose the latter, especially noticing that Sparks now seemed reconciled with this guy's presence. She was confident that her faithful and intelligent animal would be able to discern good people from the bad ones. So, she will trust Sparks’ instincts. Maybe those will work better than her instincts that keep failing her lately ...

  “Let's go to my cottage. There, you can call someone to help you.”

  And Dannar followed Annabeth up the path through the rich, foliated trees. So lush with green was his planet too. The gravity here was a little lower than what he was accustomed to, which made him feel quite lively despite the shock his body had recently endured.

  The cottage was interesting to Dannar: primitive but comfortable at the same time. While he was reviewing everything with a curious look, Annabeth thought to herself, Good thing I made the bed today and washed the dishes even though I wasn't expecting guests!

  The cottage was mainly a living space but also a workshop for Meryl, with an easel seated next to the window to the left of the entrance and several paintings thrown all over the place. In one corner there was a small kitchen area, and the rest of the space was occupied by a bed arranged next to a window to the right of the entrance. To the left was a fireplace in front of which there was a sofa. She even had a TV with satellite programs. In the back, after passing the bed, a door to the bathroom was open.

  Annabeth pointed the way to that space, thinking that he might need it.

  “You can go to the bathroom there. In the meantime, I'll get you some of Meryl’s clothes. She is wider in the hips than I am so maybe it will be a better fit for you.”

  Dannar entered the bathroom and Annabeth closed the door, letting Dannar do his business. Webby took action, explaining to him the human habits and the usefulness of sanitary ware.

  “And keep in mind that humans are stricter than we are in terms of body exposure.”

  “I understand now,” Dannar said, untying the sleeves of Annabeth's jacket from around his hips.

  He was going to convince himself of this also when he heard a knock on the bathroom door. Annabeth opened the door and handed him two pieces of clothing, trying not to look at the naked man in front of her.

  Focus, Anna! she thought. It's true that you haven't had sex in almost a year since Steve stepped out of the picture, and this guy looks nice, but still. Remember that you are here just to get away from everyone and everything!

  Dannar came out of the bathroom wearing a yellow T-shirt and Meryl's jeans, which were too short and narrow in the waist. Annabeth's first impulse was to burst into laughter. But she squeezed her mouth closed and then thought that even if she hadn't already seen this man naked, those tight jeans were highlighting his endowment.

  Annabeth handed him the phone again.

  “Now you can call whoever you want. We have a signal here and even internet access.”

  “Whoa! This internet is a thing I didn't expect from humans. Can you believe they have a planetary network as complex as the one of the Alliance? Please keep that phone a little longer for me to access as much as possible.”

  Webby was ecstatic.

  “They would be good candidates for Alliance membership,” he said after surfing the net for a while. “Corruption and greed are on the agenda here as well.”

  “I didn't know you were such an avid observer of Alliance politics.”

  “Yes, how would it have been for us to have different political views? It would have been crazy, wouldn't it? Given that we are bounded for life? Your life, of course!”

  “Right, and now what am I doing?”

  “We need to find a plausible story to explain your presence here. And also why you didn't have clothes or documents and other material goods. And here, credits are used too, only they are called money. I will access some banking networks and make an account. I also need to cr
eate an identity for you. Here the government networks will be very handy for us.”

  Dannar began to unravel the story concocted by Webby.

  “I'm actually from Denmark. Hej, hvordan har du det,” he said, smiling vaguely. “I am a globe trotter, and I was just exploring the area led by some locals I hired in a town called Somberly, about ten miles from here. I was too gullible because while I was in that forest where you found me, they attacked me and took everything. They left me on my bare bottom.”

  “How does this explain that clear pod filled with liquid in which I found you?”

  Annabeth seemed reluctant to believe him.

  “I don't know about any pod. They hit me in the head, I lost consciousness and I woke up when you appeared. Maybe it was the morning dew on my skin that could give you the impression of a transparent pod. Yes, that must have been it!”

  This explanation did not make Annabeth more convinced of his story. He did have a weird accent that could’ve been Scandinavian though, so she ignored her doubts for now.

  “I'll need your phone a little longer. I have to send some electronic communications.”

  “Emails!” Webby corrected him.

  “... to have some money sent, and I also need new documents. What is the closest settlement where I can receive all this?”

  “It's Wellinghton, the closest town. I have a mailbox there where you can get your documents and money. If you are not too tired, it would be good to go there right now to buy the minimum necessary. I'm not too great on the money right now, but I can borrow you a small amount.”

  “Yes, it's convenient for me. But could I get some nutrients first?”

  “Ah, sorry, I didn't think about it,” Annabeth said. “I already had breakfast. I can make you a sandwich, and if you want something cooked, I can crunch an omelet.”

  Dannar didn’t answer, but he turned, guided by Webby, to the metal box where he was told the humans keep the food. He opened its door, but of course, he didn't know what to choose.

  “Touch the food you want so I can do a content analysis. We don't want you to be poisoned from the very first day on Earth, do we?” said Webby.