Red Giant

By R L Nielsen

Natalie Piersson is on the verge of discovering that humankind is no longer the apex predator on earth. What she unleashes could destroy us all or make us gods.

Since her youth, when her brutal father disappeared from a cornfield in broad daylight, Natalie Piersson has been out to discover the existence of extraterrestrials.
She will stop at nothing to achieve her goal, even send people to their death. After orchestrating the destruction at the Buckland oil-drilling site, there were survivors.
A few were human the others were not.
Natalie finds people willing to pay millions to finally know the truth. However, organized religion and the government will do anything to stop this information from reaching the public.
A great war is coming and we can do nothing to stop it.

-Book two of the Frostbite series, Red Giant melds the popular genres of horror and fantasy, creating a thrilling, terrifying masterpiece of fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R L Nielsen
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311420558

R L Nielsen

My journey through life is unconventional. At a young age I learned that whatever I set my mind to I mastered, or if I kept at it long enough, I found success. College studies entailed creative writing, pre-medical studies, biomedical physics, but a drive to succeed on my own merits brought an early end to a traditional education. I suppose the childhood upbringing was to blame for education via the hands-on method of a hard work. At nine I helped with janitorial services at a real estate company, picked cherries in the summers, cleaned mortar off bricks at a salvage yard and other odd jobs as enlisted by my father. By eleven years old I had two jobs on my own. At fifteen I added a third. Between work, I swam four hours a day during my high school years. With friends we built a greenhouse and grew tomatoes through hydroponics and cross-bred rare orchids to sell. All this in the nineteen-seventies in Roy, Utah.Born into a family of eight, sharing responsibilities and a desire for beyond boring food motivated me to learn how to cook at ten years old. On a rare visit to a pizza restaurant, which we could ill afford, I taught myself how to replicate the meal I had tasted. Later, I transformed handmade pizzas into frozen ready to reheat and eat meals. To this day, I continue to experiment replicating and perfecting the foods I taste at world renown restaurants.Fine art painting started in a middle school oil painting class. In a hand-picked class of sixteen, at twelve I was the youngest by two grades. At fifteen, a high school instructor set me out on my own as there was little more she could offer. Soon after, I developed a series of cartoon characters. The characters are now a part of children’s books and a series of collectible artwork. Although traditionally taught, the fine art experience developed into an abstract expressionist style of work in the early nineties.Achievements as a competitive swimmer in my teens resulted in eight high school team records. After graduating, I coached for six years accomplishing regional championships and an undefeated dual meet record each of last four years. Currently, I give coaching advice on technique to masters age swimmers. Many of them now own world, national and state titles.I built several companies, the most successful being a wholesale interior design showroom in Denver, Colorado which later expanded into Scottsdale, Arizona. Many of the innovative design concepts I developed are still enviable styles today. However, after seventeen years exploding rents and the ever waxing and waning economy drove me to close the businesses.Throughout life, the desire to write manifest into a skill I continue to master. Beginning simply with hand-written short stories in grade school for friends, in middle school a typing class and a journalism position at the school newspaper became outlets for humorous tales. In high school and college, creative writing became as prevalent as the need to express myself through painting.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Our dying sun

Our sun, the galaxies only source of light and heat will soon consume the last of its fuel. It will swell over two hundred times its current size and die along with us. The sun’s expansion will evaporate our oceans and turn our planet to cinder. We have seen this happen to our neighboring planets. The planets that were once like ours until the sun’s heat turned them into a molten mixture of rock—hotter than any volcano we have ever experienced.

We must prepare now before the fiery fingers of this red giant scorch our world. If we do not resolve our differences and find a suitable planet to sustain our species, we will parish. Too soon, our burned and brittle remnants will spread as ash across the galaxy with the solar winds, leaving no record of our selfish conquests, or brilliant legacies. We cannot afford to follow the same path of those former inhabitants on the disseminated planets closest to the sun. Their misfortune was a heavy price paid for lacking humility.

The global warming we are experiencing now is an unstoppable force and part of a greater natural cycle. We have adapted to our environment. We have discovered how to live interminably, but we will not be immune to the scorching temperatures of a Red Giant. The violent changes will assure no evolutionary development or scientific marvel will preserve our kind. When we discovered the process for eternal life, the endless continuum required an organism that cannot abide the heat. Now, for the first time in eons’, mortality has become a reality for us all. None of us are safe until we discover that shining new star on which to settle.

The roadblocks we face, each seemingly greater than the last—politicians, wealthy executives controlling heads of state and now even the clergy seem pursuant of self-serving interests. The generation of indifference is upon us. Blinding cynics thwart our common goals and prevent us from reaching a safe haven. The time spent wallowing in vanity and exploiting the minds of the weak now hinders our progress.

For those who wish to join us in an exalted state of understanding, the government’s denial has prevented them from doing so. Far too many have already become victims of childish distractions and senseless entertainment from those playing deadly games with our greatest resource—our minds. The time has come to join efforts and focus on what is valuable, on what matters most. We must find that one suitable planet in the billions upon billions we have discovered and colonize.

-Augxu

PROLOGUE: THE CHAMBER OF LIFE

In an isolated box-canyon in the wilderness, sixty miles outside of Buckland, Alaska, an explosion at the Weston Oil expedition destroyed the drilling platform. When the drill struck a massive sphere buried deep beneath the earth, a volatile force of trapped air, rock and mud shot to the earth's surface. With the power of a volcanic eruption, a chasm developed. The hourglass-shaped narrowing began to grow until it descended three-hundred feet down to the sphere.

Around the site, the blast injured several crewmen. Roan Trujillo survived even after he fell deep into the pit.

During a fruitless attempt at a rescue, it was too dark for Ivan Staniloskii to see Roans broken body lying hidden among the rocks. Had Ivan searched longer, he may have found him, but he was too terror-stricken. A frightening sight had him begging the men to bring him back to the surface. Something was moving down there, he claimed. They swam like giant alligators across a lake of oil.

As the ground continued to destabilized, Nick Thomas hatched a crazy scheme to keep the derrick from collapsing into the shaft. Using a cable attached to several large trees, he attached it to a snow cat on the muddy hill. Renold Dunston had joined the mayhem, if not to keep Nick from killing himself. The plan failed when the tractor slid into the pit.

Feeble-minded men with implausible ideas are the likely culprits for failure when it comes to stopping the greater forces of nature, in this case, gravity. After a tumble down into the abyss, dragging uprooted trees behind it, the derrick came to a rest halfway submerged in an underground sea filled with an oil-like substance. In the narrows of the shaft, the trees, cable and a battered snow cat clumped together. The massive trunks had stabbed like toothpicks into the throat of the shaft and they held the derrick steady for now.

Oxygen, previously depleted from the buried sphere, mixed with the strange oily substance. It breathed life into the hundreds of creatures suspended for eons in a preserved state inside that sphere. It was probably better that Roan remained in a coma at the bottom of the pit. The iron frame of the derrick had created the perfect ladder for several deadly Reptiliomorphs to escape to the surface. While he slept, the morphing reptilian creatures hunted down what remained of the crew, eating most of the men alive. The reptos preserved a select few to further their evolution. Then Renold Dunston destroyed their nest with a bundle of dynamite.

The ground above the massive sphere has continued to erode into a deepening canyon. Evermore, the newly formed valley is warming and generating its own atmosphere. A plethora of strange, thick tropical vines and green, self-warming plants are now spreading across the surface of the snow. Out of the abyss, cries from strange creatures echo down the canyon as the spawned beasts increased in numbers. In the dead of winter, the sunless days are ending and a few short hours of daylight are beginning to appear.

Roan’s deep slumber ended abruptly with a loud crash. In a shallow pool of the oil, his body tingled with life. The prickly sensation soon wore off, like a shot of Novocain. His body is warm despite being soaking-wet in the middle of an Alaskan winter. Several days have passed since the explosion and the fall into a lake. Miraculously, the strange blue-colored oil had revived him. The liquid must contain some life-giving substance, he imagined. Days earlier, he had clutched to a broken arm before the pain cause him to pass out. Now completely healed, the bones had fused back together in perfect alignment. The scrapes and scars sustained while tumbling down the shaft had healed as well. He found no visible signs of his injuries.

The suspended derrick was the source of the thunder that woke Roan. The cable holding it in place had twisted, frayed, and finally given-way under its weight. Confused, he was uncertain of where he was and how he remained alive. The warm waves of blue oil continued to wash gently across his body, long after the heap of metal sank into the sea. Vague imaginings flashed in his mind; the blast, tumbling down in mud and rock, a strange, glowing being that stood at his side. This was no heavenly place, but certainly not hell. It was still on earth or possibly the space between as he had come to believe at various times in his life.

Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there? Roan cried out wondering. Do they know I’m missing...or even care?

Near mid-day, the faintest rays of sunlight crept down the open shaft. When they reached the crystalline ceiling, the chamber glowed with shimmering grey spikes—ekes—e ike small tornados wherey takes away. A er before passing out tom of the pit. ole. pening. andach refracting small bright dots onto the surface of the lake. What life the sun gives, it eventually takes away. A volatile fog began to build. The wispy vapors swirled up like small tornados where the light touched the surface.

Harsh chemical fumes burned in Roan’s throat. Help! he gasped. The sound of his voice began to vibrate the crystalline ceiling like a tuning fork. Several heavy clusters of broken rock tumbled into the lake and the vapors came rolling towards the shoreline. He knew it was time to move, time to find refuge from the poisonous gas and collapsing ceiling.

Roan slipped and stumbled over smooth black boulders along a narrow path. He pondered the massive sphere holding him captive. It's too perfect to be a natural occurrence, too symmetrical to be a water-eroded cave. The oval shaped space curved uniformly around like a giant sports arena. Someone or some thing had to have built this place, but why? Sunlight soon cut through several large cracks in the ceiling, the rays temporarily blinding him. His eyes adjusted. The dome above reminded him of a broken eggshell and he felt like the smallest of embryos. If I could only get to that derrick I could possibly climb out, he thought. In the near distance, a bright archway caught the sun. It led him toward a second chamber now coming visible.

A thunderous roar had Roan glancing skyward. The snow cat, broken trees and crystals the size of house sent waves across the lake. The walls shook and the ground beneath his feet began to quake. Forget climbing up the derrick, Roan thought as it sank. You're trapped. A cluster of razor sharp rocks nearly impaled him. His search for shelter hastened.

Onward toward the archway, the lake suddenly came to life again. The falling debris had done more than send ripples across the water. It woke a monster. Under the surface, the giant heaved a three-foot bow wave ahead of its massive body. It was coming for Roan at the shore.

Move, move, and get away from that thing...

For the first time Roan realized he was not alone. The chorus of loud peeping like geckos in a tropical jungle had not registered in his brain until now. As the monster was nearly upon him, the singing abruptly stopped. On the narrow path, pinned against the far wall of the sphere, there was nowhere to escape.

Ahead of the approaching beast, other strange creatures swarmed to the surface. They leapt like flying fish, landing on the rocks. Their scaly bodies glistened in the light. On webbed feet, they scurried into hiding spots amongst the cracks and crevasses. Roan tripped through a school of the fish-like creatures. Razor-sharp dorsal fins turned a phosphorescent green with a warning. A stab to the foot sent numbing pain up his leg and it refused to work. Hobbled, the monster was gaining on him. It isn't enough to survive the fall, only to be taken by the beast. Why now, why preserve me for this?

Water sloshed ashore in waves. Massive tentacles squirmed like hungry worms across the surface of the lake, searching for a meal. A loud roar rattled more crystals from the ceiling. Hundreds of creatures now joined the rush to hide from the beast.

The toxic fog thickened with the increasing sunlight. Roan’s lungs burned with every breath. If the monster didn't take him, he felt certain the poisoned air would. He buried his face in the pit of his elbow and continued limping along the path. If things were bad here, he could not imagine they would get any better in the second chamber. Pressing on, he hoped to escape the strange squid through a narrow opening ahead. Tales of Jurassic worlds buried beneath the earth came to mind, the kind he liked to read about as a kid. Only in this place, fear replaced his childhood curiosities.

On the slick rocks, Roan fell into a small puddle of the blue substance and his leg recovered instantly. Despite the days that had passed since the last time he ate, or the last time he drank, he craved neither food nor water. His mind was sharp, keen as it had ever been. With the help of the oil, his body now moved agilely like a cat.

Small croaks began again and the surface of the lake returned to calm. I'm hallucinating...it must be the poisonous fumes. Roan thought. If it were not for the pain that he felt earlier, it very well could be a bad dream.

The steep slope soon leveled out. He crisscrossed around several columns, carved from a glassy black rock. The dark pillars towered up from the basin floor in gothic arches of an ancient looking cathedral. The columnar supports webbed across the ceiling. Like roots of trees, they grew into a thousand black fingers, digging into an earthen sky. Organic in appearance, Roan imagined at one point they could have been living things, but they were dead now.

Where there is light, there has to be a way out, Roan thought, continuing toward the glowing archway. Remembering times back with fellow crewmembers, he did little socializing, always keeping to himself. He was not easy to get along with, especially when provoked. Still, someone must care…someone’s bound to be searching for me.

A life full of disappointment and pain reminded Roan how little others cared for lost souls like his. He had abandoned all hope for humanity long before he escaped the ruthless slums of Mexico. The tormenting memory of the murder of his wife and two young sons flashed as he ran along the pathway. Back in Mexico, caught in war between rival drug gangs, they bound him, beaten him senseless and then forced him to watch as punks did unimaginable things to his wife and sons. With sick, twisted values, this gang took pride in honoring men, so they put an end to his sons suffering with a quick bullet to their heads. The way boys looked at him at the end, their big beautiful eyes and dimpled chins quivering with fear, the memory still tears him apart. Back then, he felt conflicted that they should die this way. It was better than being tortured.

Women held a lower place than even dogs for the cowards hiding behind their guns and street ranks for strength. There was no honor held for them. The men kept his wife alive much longer, beating her flesh to pulp for her betrayal. Her refusal to allow her oldest child to become a drug mule cost them all.

While tied up, they strapped her severed head on Roan's lap for half a week, where it festered, grew rank and filled with maggots. There is no ridding one's mind of the stench, or the feeling as maggots worked the flesh off the head of the one you love. How her long soft hair caressed his naked body when they first fell in love, how it clumped with dried blood and filth at the end...

Roan never forgot and never forgave them or his self for what he had done. The gilt nearly destroyed him when the gang spared his life. It was a message, to put fear into the families living in the slums. Had he listened to a premonition and not denied his ability for knowing certain things, then maybe things would have turned out different.

Like a monk seeking solace for sin, Roan bitterly resolved to live in isolation and out of harms way. He sought a place where his face would provoke no one to anger and where his former life could fade away. The cold brutal wilderness was the self-imposed punishment he felt he deserved. However, it did nothing to end the torment that remained in his mind.

At the bottom of the abyss, Roan was as powerless and abandoned as he had ever been. Never before did he feel so discarded, so utterly alone. Despite this, he felt strikingly alive—as though his mind had caught fire. In his head, images burned with impressions he could not describe. They gave clarity to a vision from the past.

It feels like the oil is trying to heal all things, past and present. What is done cannot be undone. Yet peace can be found if I allow it to take hold. Roan thought, but a flicker of skepticism killed his hopes. This could only be punishment for what I've done.

A sweet smell like rain drew a weltering memory of his wife’s final words. In his mind, they repeated. There is a reason for everything under the face of the sun. At the time, it seemed like the same type of manipulation the church had used to draw in the weak-minded and depressed. Did she really know something or was she just repeating a meaningless phrase. Far away were those sunny days by her side. In the cavern, the light no longer seemed to matter. It felt like the dark had finally swallowed him for good, but strangely, he seemed to know the way.

Roan had foreseen the blast at the drill site, but ignored the fateful warnings. He had hoped the explosion would be strong enough to do what he could not; snuff out the sadness. After leaving Mexico, he felt like a coward, running away from the pain. All he wanted to do was hold his family one last time. He wished only to tell them how much he loved them. Something his machismo pride could not allow while they were alive. Back then, he was full of fiery vengeance, but that frosted over when he realized how powerless he was to change his small part of the world. Roan's hate was not strong enough to overcome the control evil people had of this terrible world. That's the problem with people who are truly good inside.

The moldering sadness tuned into a deep depression. Back then, he clung to the guiding words of religious scriptures, but soon found false salvation in its pious leaders. They had no use for men. Charity was exclusively for the women and children who had no means to work and no ability to provide. The men were expected to supply the desperately needed cash to keep their amoral empire thriving. This so-called righteous world held only empty promises for Roan. As empty as the many liquor bottles he discarded each day. The booze did little to mask the pain. Only his wife’s loving memory could slog him out of that murky pit and it eventually did.

If there was some divine, being that helped me, why now? Why not at a darker hour when those I cared for were in danger? Roan pondered, questioning whether his recovery from the fall was real, if what was happening in this place was at all real.

A torrent of rock and earth thundered down heavily. The poisonous cloud shot up into the open sky with a whoosh. Roan rushed to safety in the second sphere.

After traveling well inside, he noted how it looked similar to the first—only round in shape, not oval. Another webbed ceiling, only this one seemed to pulse with life. Down a narrow path, a climb over several slippery boulders came to a sudden halt. The sounds of tentacles slurping to the surface returned. The monster had followed him.

Back at the edge of the first chamber, the oil swirled and bubbled-up with the enormous squid rising from the sea. Massive grey tentacles, covered in coarse black hair looked like a giant segmented earthworm as they moved. With suction cups the size of car tires, it gripped the columns. The smaller tips of the tentacles dug into rock as crevasses as it gained foothold. On elephant-sized feet, the Terra-squid walked agilely for a beast the size of skyscraper.

Roan turned to run. The Terra-squid slapped down an appendage dripping with rust colored slime and blocked his path. A smaller tentacle covered with fine white hairs shot from an orifice and then came sweeping quickly back and forth. Like the trunk of an elephant, it sniffed the air, searching for Roan. There is no need to run, He thought strangely.

Bellowing, thick green foam slopped on the ground. The squid's pointy beak was sharp and hollow and clacked fiercely together near Roan’s chest. With his back pressed flat against the rock wall, his head began to throb. Images began to flash in his mind. It felt like someone had cut his brain open and dumped a movie projector inside. Confounded with a strange premonition, he thought, you have the power to send it away, just send it away and this will all be over. In his mind, he had no idea how to dispatch the beast. Live or die, move forward or stop. So many times, it would be easier to just stop, but the instinct for survival always gave him the kick-in-the-pants he needed to continue.

You have a greater purpose, you are the greater purpose.

At the tip of one of the squid's tentacles, a sharp black claw anchored into the small cracks and it pulled closer. Bellowing louder, it rose thirty feet from the ground. The sucking sound of air filling lungs howled like a storm. The beast arched back and prepared to siphon the liquid from its prey.

Roan held steady, daring his bravery to fail him and it did not. Go away… there’s nothing here for you. He thought.

As though the terra-squid had understood the very thought, it cowered to the ground like a deflated hot-air balloon. Tentacles slipped from the rocks and it quickly retreated into the lake. After sinking below the surface, a steady stream of bubbles trailed the beast as it swam away.

The pounding headache cleared. Roan held steady for a moment until he felt safe enough to move. A thought about the powers he had discovered met with a strong denial. He was nothing but a broken man with little hope that someone would finally rescue him and ease the pain in his mind.

Along a path of grey stones, the walls swallowed him up in a dark, narrow tunnel. On the other side, honeycomb shaped compartments filled the right and left side of the sphere. In the center of the room, a pool of liquid separated the strange boxes. Far away from the sunlight of the first chamber, it seemed darker here. Somehow, the light still made its way into the chamber reflecting off the oily surface in shades of blue, green and grey.

At the far end, more columns of black grew into towering walls and the vaulted ceilings continued. A temple for gods of the underworld, Roan imagined. Nothing else could explain how this place came to exist so far below the surface. Circling left, he stopped and gazed inside one of the octagonal boxes. Through a semi-translucent window of crystal, he saw a dark object bound in a fibrous mesh. Prey suspended in a spider’s web?

Too soon, the acrid fumes from the first cavern seeped into the second chamber. Gathering in a sulfuric swirl at his feet, it rankled in his nostrils and turned the air bitter. An acidic condensation clung on the windows. It began to eat away the crystal with a drip, drip, drip.

Stepping nervously, Roan swiped away a bit of the residue. While cupping his hands to get a better glimpse at the object bound inside, the compartment decompressed with a hiss. What the hell, he said, jumping back. Inside, a creature tore free of the webbing and wriggled to life. It smashed its hideous face hard against the window with a thump, thump, until the crystal shattered.

A piercing cry rang like a church bell in the sphere, but this was no fragile place. A purposeful design, the resounding echo was a call to other creatures held captive in the boxes. Air hissed, more compartments cracked and the other occupants stirred to life. It was not safe to stay here with a thousand hungry mouths looking for their first meal. Instinctively, Roan ran and ran as far from the wall of compartments as he could. His attempt to escape ended at the sleek pillars of black onyx at the end of the sphere.

I'm trapped.

Feeling along the smooth columns, he searched for a door, a knob, any way out. The sphere began to pulse with a faint light from inside. The ceiling turned a translucent green as veins fed the thin membrane covering the massive vessels. Behind him, several creatures in shades of green and rust-red came clacking along on razor sharp claws. If there was a way out, Roan needed to find it now. The search turned to frantic pounding and scraping at the slick stone. With no way out and nowhere to climb, it would not take long before the creatures would tear his flesh from his bones and fill their bellies.

A hoard gathered, following the panicked movement. A serpentine river of stampeding bodies, clawing, scraping, jaws snapping, honed in on Roan.

The reptiles neared and Roan's head began to throb again. Send them away, you have the power...just send them away. Doubt clouded his mind. Unable to find a way out he felt climbing to safety would be best, but the walls were too smooth, too slick to grasp. In a narrowing between two pillars, he did however successfully wedged his way upward inch by inch. With feet pressed against a column his back and hands pressing against the other, the fight to climb out of reach of the creatures, worked.

Below, the monsters snaked back and forth, their bright-green tongues flicking out of mouths filled with ivory daggers. Fifty or more had piled up, scratching for a feast. Hundreds more were on their way.

Leg muscles began to cramp, hands were sweating and arms shook, Roan could not last long in this position. One slip and the monsters would strip the flesh from his bones. The wall felt like a heartbeat pulsing against his body. In his mind, the urge to dispatch the creatures grew. How is this possible?

Be gone, there is nothing here for you! Roan thought and the monsters scattered like mice ahead of an angry cat. Into the oily lake, they dispersed, swimming toward the first chamber where they were likely to find a nourishing meal or become one.

After slipping down the pillars, Roan sat with his hands around his legs. He pressed his chin into the gap between his knees and felt grateful. Staring hard and long back at the compartments towering along each of the walls, there were too many to count. All the while, the drip, drip, drip of the decaying sarcophaguses reminded him of the many more that had yet to come. Maybe the next time he wouldn't be so lucky. Startled, he came to realize what this world really was, an ark with the unwelcome seeds that could destroy humanity. Finally, he had found his purpose. He had to warn the world and prevent what was about to happen.

EPICENTER

Natalie Pearson kept her secrets close to her heart. Controlling her husband Mark Weston was like a dancing a puppet on strings. He was a stepping-stone. A bug on a stepping-stone and I can't wait to crush him with the new shoes he bought me. I'm bored of him already...She did cruel things to gain power. The day she met Mark was a plan that took some time to unfold. When the husband of a former personal secretary found pictures exploiting an affair the wife had with Mark, the woman quit and then disappeared. Natalie was the first to apply for the position. On Mark's office desk she showed him another open position, and then she saw to it that a stack of resumes met only the document shredder and not her future husband.

Natalie had little love for men without money or position in life. A violent father taught her well how to coddle a man gently by the balls, how to become his sweetheart, his adored and trusted lover. Squeeze the balls too hard and you can incapacitate the man, make him a useless lump of putty. A gentle manipulator or a ball buster, either method resulted with her control.

Throughout her life, she had learned to balance the extremes and she handled her men with a deft hand. I'd poison Mark's morning coffee if I were a snake. However, she was not a snake, at least in the terms of a wild creature. Calculating and patient, she was hell-bent to write her own destiny and make certain to pen it in gold. When she married Mark, she cleared the biggest hurdle. Now it was time put a bigger fish in the frying pan.

Natalie was moving on with her plans to satisfy her lust for power and money. Plotting and waiting like a spider watching a fly, she had another man buzzing around the web. Today she planned to have a live body bucking in the silken strands.

Through the windows of a penthouse apartment in Chicago, the first of the city lights twinkled against the dusky sky. Dressed in a crisp white blouse and a skin-tight leather miniskirt, Natalie Piersson felt like a queen. Going without the panties under the skirt made her feel nasty. Not entirely a whore, but smart girls had those feelings too. Not that Mark cared or that she cared to have his wrinkled body pressing against her perfected flesh, working his shriveled worm in her warm hole. The feeling of the leather was a better stimulant. She could moan if she wanted, even scream in ecstasy and mean it.

Gaining the attentions of an idol she had long pursued was firm in her mind; the illusive billionaire Muscollo Seifer. In a clear acrylic chair behind a modern stainless-steel desk, she took one last view of the city lights. A gleaming smile reflected in the glass and then her lips drew flat as she turned and faced a small computer on her desk. She brushed away blonde strands of hair that had caught in a microphone head set, and then rummaged through a purse near her leg. In a small handheld mirror, she quickly refreshed her lipstick, snapped the mirror shut and waited for Doctor Seifer to return to the screen. Fingers drumming on the desk, a flash of self-doubt crossed her mind. He's going to snub me; he's going to say no to the amount of money I'm asking for. She creased the leather skirt deep into her crotch and took a deep breath. The longer Muscollo kept her waiting, the thinner her patience wore. He has to say yes, it's his life's pursuit, his reason to exist and if he wants a claim of it, he'll have to go through me.

Finally...

Doctor Seifer, could you adjust your camera please? Natalie said when he returned. I'm seeing only your neck right now. Although she thought the tufts of dark hair sticking out of the top of his shirt collar were a turn-on, they couldn't carry a conversation.

Doctor Muscollo Seifer’s hand appeared oversized on the screen. He adjusted the camera to his face and then sat back in black leather chair. Better?

Fine, Doctor Seifer. Natalie held back a grimace, noting how large his nostrils were, like a pig's snout. Maybe it was the angle of the camera, but she never remembered him looking this bad in the rare photos shown on the news. Her hand slid from crotch to mid thigh.

Let’s see…where were we? Where beliefs of pious men end, evolution continues on, silently working away. The proof of extraterrestrial life has been around since the beginning. It was only a matter of time before someone discovered irrefutable evidence, said Doctor Seifer. And please call me Meko. If you're comfortable enough to ask for this kind of money, I'd prefer not to sound like a man about to give you an examination.

I’m sure our discovery will help provide the solid evidence to prove once and for all that your theories have been correct, Natalie said, grinning reassuringly. She tilted the screen to reduce the glare and continued. Congratulations on the acquisition, she added.

I find your well wishes, precipitous and a bit too eager for a woman of your prowess, Meko scolded. His nostrils flared white in the most unappealing way. While I’m eager to verify the site, I'm not so quick to part with the sum I'm going to pay for it…not until I've attained exactly what I’m looking for, he continued. Can you tell me…how stable is the area?

Mark Weston came into the small office and stayed out of view of the camera. That is all I need right now, Mark listening into the negotiations, Natalie thought. She snapped her fingers once and pointed at a chair by the door. As the former Chicago Oil Executive sat, the leather seat rubbed against his buttock creating a sound like a burst of flatulence. Natalie cringed, hoping the microphone did not pick up the ungodly noise.

Mark nodded, eyes wide and smiling like a grandfather encouraging a small child. His eyebrows rose, clown-like and he mouthed the word, well?

Natalie had told him little of the negotiation other than it would repay his investment in the Buckland oil expedition. Eager bastard... A quick flash of anger, Mark was creating a distraction and Natalie wanted him to leave. She also did not want Meko to know there was someone else in the room. To make odd motions or stop the conversation would give his presence away. She was in control of the meeting and was not about to let anyone think otherwise.

After Natalie married Mark, they combined their residences. She made certain to keep the relationship on eggshells, their fights never escalated beyond cross words. By keeping Mark off balance, he was too afraid to put up a real fight. He was too old to start over and she preyed upon that weakness, too naive despite his powerful position in the oil company. Natalie used her sex appeal to convince Mark to invest his money in the failed oil expedition. She also convinced him to uproot his stake in the Chicago Oil Company to pay for it all, if only to weaken his power over her. Mark was aimless with her in control of his destiny. Without Natalie, the house of cards would fall. She had masterminded every detail from falsified seismic maps, to the fake satellite imaging. She even prevented communications between the now dead crew—giving false reports that could not be verify. She did her best to keep Mark in the dark and he was none the wiser.

The site settled just as you said it would, Natalie replied, unflinching. Mark shifted uneasily in the chair, his face turning to a scowl. She had to get him out of the room or risk unraveling the scheming. A button punched on a cell phone in her purse sent a call to Mark's home office. With brows furrowed, he was up and gone as expected.

Meko tapped on the microphone, his big round face growing even larger on the monitor. Is this thing working, Natalie?

Sorry, had a bit of a breakup with that last part, Natalie said, coolly. Could you repeat that?

Have you uncovered what I’m looking for? Meko said sternly.

Natalie found the question ridiculous. She knew of Meko’s vast resources for discovering the things that governments and military organizations paid a fortune to keep hidden from the public eye. His name was legend in underground circles of conspiracy theorists who sought to prove extraterrestrials existed. The crazy saucer chasers who believed the government was behind all the cover-ups, they never realized how close they had come. Natalie was not one of them. She too had a great interest in finding the truth. Nobody had considered her secret discovery plausible, until now, now that she found just the right people.

"Yes, I have exactly what you've been looking for and it's not some ancient relic preserved in stone. The