My Home is Now

By Scott Anderson

This story is told by man from Earth named Ivan Dixon. Ivan tells his story in the first person of an accidental meeting with an alien race that has provided planetary protection for Earth for a very long time.
Understandably, Ivan would accept the job of coordinating the protection of this, and several other worlds, from invasion or extermination.
During his journey, Ivan will make new friends and save planetary civilizations, all with the help of a member of a machine race and a highly advanced interstellar ship.
Written from Ivan’s perspective, the man from Earth will play matchmaker to a good friend desperately in need to exercise and prove his abilities.
Also, Ivan’s new duties will take him to unexplored worlds and push him to work through dangerous alien contacts. Nothing can prepare the human for what he’ll encounter, but he will have the support of Tar, his android mentor, and an intelligent saucer with few if any limitations.
Written for all age groups.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312487406

Scott Anderson

Scott Anderson is a veteran war correspondent who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia, El Salvador and many other war-torn countries. His previous book, Lawrence in Arabia, was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

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My Home is Now

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

© 2023 by Scott C. Anderson. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-312-48740-6

The Bathroom

My name is Ivan Dixon.  I’ve never professed to be an expert storyteller, but I need to get this recorded in my own words before I forget what happened.  It has been almost four years since I found myself, through my own actions, to be sitting in a bathroom in an alien vehicle, and while it was orbiting the earth. 

When I had entered this ship, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking around, but it did appear that no one was aboard.  I arrived at the spacecraft in a quick and surprising way and, to avoid an embarrassing accident, I immediately had to use the restroom.  Moments later I heard a knock at the door.

To be fair, let me start at the beginning.  About four years ago, just outside of Palm Springs, California, I bought a trailer in a trailer park.  I would usually call something like this a mobile home or manufactured home, but the handymen and contractors I spoke to simply referred to it as a trailer in a trailer park. 

The coach was a 1963 Cascade and in good condition.  Currently this doublewide looked nothing like its original form.  Along the way a pit had been dug to lower the house to ground level.  A former owner then poured a concrete footing around the perimeter and encased the structure in a 2x4 wooden shell.  The installed shell, the frame and insulation, was then covered in stucco and painted a medium-brown.  From the outside it appeared as any other mid-century modern desert home.

For me, this was supposed to be a permanent house in a historically protected setting located near Palm Springs.  Instead, it turned out to be just a trailer in a trailer park, which was surrounded by neighbors filled with gossip, personal issues, and problems.

The former owner had died in a car accident and left everything, and I mean everything, behind.  The house was fully furnished and included in the sale was everything from pots and pans, to underwear and golf shoes.  Ketchup and mustard were still in the refrigerator and personal financial documents were in unlocked drawers. 

I had been told that the man, David Gregore, had died in a car accident.  The real estate agent had few details and only a little information to pass on.  The real estate company listed the property, but no one cleaned out the house before or after the sale. 

There were a few things left behind that were usable.  And to be honest, most of the furniture was high end and included an eclectic variety of knickknacks.  One of his personal items was a ring that appeared more as an intricate piece of artwork than a wedding or engagement ring.  Made of brushed silver and somewhat heavy, it fit several fingers, which was unusual, and I took to wearing it on a regular basis.

I bought the forever property with the intention of performing a light remodel that would enhance the mid-century modern style.  The 1963 Cascade double-wide had already been completely remodeled and updated several years ago by the original owner.  A concrete footing had been poured around the perimeter, then a 2x4 wooden structure was built to support a thick coating of stucco. 

New double-pane windows were installed around the house and the interior was drywalled, offering a very high insulation value.  Basically, all I had to do was clean, paint, and make a few finishing touches to make it my own. 

Due to circumstances which I still don’t understand, contractors seemed to run from this house.  Over the phone, many appeared to be turned off.  The moment I mentioned the address, they would respond by stating that they didn’t work on trailers in trailer parks.

The Happy Trails Mobile Village was both historic and unique, as you owned both the coach and property.  The Home Owners Association (HOA) only charged a few hundred dollars a month to maintain the park, as each homeowner paid for their own property upkeep, taxes, and some utilities.  This is where I thought my troubles would end. 

After a year, I decided to sell because I was tired of the bickering and fighting amongst the homeowners, Board of Directors, and the new outside management company that the board had hired.  In time, the park had lost its charm and many of the long-term residents had either sold, or were preparing to sell.

The one thing that always piqued my curiosity were the mirrors in both the first and second bathrooms.  A common item in the sixties was the built-out walls over the sinks of mobile home bathrooms.  These bathrooms were usually built with a dead space of several inches to accommodate a built-in medicine cabinet with mirror, which would then sit flush with the wall.  The two bathrooms in this house were no exception to that norm.

The medicine cabinets were long gone and replaced with fixed mirrors that were fastened with plastic clips screwed into the wall.  The obvious buildout meant that there was a dead space of just a few inches behind each mirror.

After making the decision to do just a few more upgrades before putting the trailer on the market, I decided to remove the mirror in the second bathroom.  This smaller mirror would reveal the possible dead space, which I could then install a modern medicine cabinet, and make the bathroom more functional and period correct.

Also, I was hoping that the original owners would have hidden something behind the mirror, simply because it would have been nice to reveal some secret treasure or personal souvenir.

One morning, with screwdriver in hand, I removed the top clips and carefully lifted the mirror from the bottom support clips.  I set the mirror on the floor.  Within this hidden space I found several items that were carefully wrapped.

I don’t know why, but I knew that something may have been hidden.  Wrapped in thick brown paper was forty-thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.  The Series dates were five years old, so they would have had to have been recently hidden.  There were also four sheets of gold that measured approximately 9 inches by 11 inches and a half an inch thick.  The third object was something that looked like a TV remote.

The gold sheets were impressive, simply because they were very soft.  The rectangular shapes were odd as they were similar to sheets of thick cardboard.  The money was clean and looked real, but with my luck, could have been a movie prop or counterfeit. 

The remote looked like a toy from the 1950s.  For the moment, I believed this could have been a movie prop or cosplay item that David felt was valuable, and should be kept hidden and safe.  Props or toys like this were usually made of a thin or brittle plastic, but this was a solid metal piece that looked and felt substantial.

The body of the toy or device was a brushed silver with grey inlaid designs surrounding three colored keys.  Carefully pressing the keys produced nothing but a slight chirp, as if the batteries were going dead and the device was unable to function as designed. 

It was at this time that I looked at the ring that I had found in a bathroom drawer.  The ring appeared to be made of the same color metal, and also had a similar design and inlay pattern. 

I turned the little silver device over and tried to find a manufacturer marking.  The piece had no seams or battery cover, and I set it aside for the moment. 

The money was interesting, but the gold, and its shape and weight, were fascinating.  The gold sheets also appeared manufactured but had no tool marks or stampings.

Let’s go outside…

As a habit, I began to wear the ring on a daily basis.  Also, I would occasionally carry the small remote-looking device.  One particular Saturday, which was not unlike any other summer day in the Coachella Valley, it was sunny and warm with a light breeze coming from the east. 

Bathed in the bright sunlight of the backyard, the details of the small silver and grey remote seemed more defined and easier to see.  There were no manufacturer markings to tell who made it, but it looked slightly larger and more stylized than a standard vehicle remote.  I had tried pressing the various colored keys in the house, but nothing ever happened.

Standing in open and in the warm sunshine, I pressed the yellow center key, just to see if it would work.  The yellow key illuminated, along with the two red keys on the left and right.  Pressing the two red keys seemed to be the natural thing to do.

Instantly, a lightly-distorted energy field appeared and surrounded me in a tinted cylindrical forcefield.  The slight light-blue distortion of the field created a dead space of about two feet between me and the visible wall of energy.  My feet were still firmly planted on the ground.

Directly in front of me, words in yellow appeared to float within the field wall.  The top two rows of words were unintelligible.  The second group of words, in English, stated, Please remain calm and Stand-By.  A solid-yellow status bar appeared waist high and then moved up towards the wording.  As the bar, which appeared to be an indicator, moved up to touch the words Stand-By, the wording changed to Initiate.

At that point I felt the first of two bumps.  The first lifted me up about two feet, allowing the field to fully encase my body and feet.  The second bump then boosted me about twenty feet into the air. 

Normally I would be shocked at the suddenness of this action, and probably be close to a full panic.  But the speed of this elevator, because that’s what it felt like, seemed so planned and normal that it was more interesting than frightening.

Pausing about twenty feet in the air, this controlled system appeared to be preparing to complete a procedure or task.  I looked around and could see my house through the distortion of the protective field.  Also, at this height, I could see the rooftops of most of my neighborhood.

There was a pause after the second bump had lifted me into the air.  The protective field then launched me from my backyard and into the sky.  The distortion of the protective field allowed me to see the neighborhood, then the city, the county, and then the state far below as details grew ever smaller and more distant.

The field began to tint, as the sun turned brilliant, strong, and clear.  I could still see the earth’s surface, though it was moving away very quickly.

The trip through the sky felt as though it were taking hours, but in reality, took only a few minutes.  The field kept me suspended in a safe cocoon, though the wind, clouds, and turbulence outside was clearly visible and heard at a comfortable level. 

The dark tint of the elevator began to lighten, as I headed towards the darkness of space.  I didn’t know where I was going, as there was nothing ahead but the blanket of the never-ending starfield. 

A large object in orbit decloaked as the elevator approached.  Dark against the brilliant starfield of space, the details were hard to make out.  I didn’t close my eyes, because I simply wouldn’t.  I desperately wanted to see what was going to happen next. 

The elevator slowed and then pushed through an open door at the bottom of the vehicles’ hull.  I was looking straight up and into a small dark room.  Then, I heard a door at my feet close with an audible thud.  The view outside of the protective field turned completely dark.  The visible distortion released, allowing my feet to touch-down onto a solid floor.  I then found myself in a chamber with dim lighting. 

The door to this dark chamber opened to a large empty room with more dim lighting.  There was a glow off to the left, but I ignored it for the moment.  Instantly, I needed to use the toilet and said aloud, I gotta find a bathroom.

A soft light from an open door across the room increased, as if in response to my need.  Walking rather swiftly to the open door within this vehicle, or ship, I found a very familiar earth-style bathroom. 

If this was a government ship, they had spent a lot of money on fixtures and finishes.  Actually, this could have been mistaken for one of the local casino bathrooms, as the black marble and chrome fittings appeared both opulent and efficient.  I quickly entered and closed the door.

With all delicacy aside, I completely relieved myself, and then sat for a moment in silence.  The toilet then flushed in a standard way but with an unusual added sound.  Still quiet and thinking, everything about this situation was strange or wrong.  I was still in a sort of shock, but the familiarity of the bathroom seemed to calm my nerves, at least for the moment. 

Speaking aloud, I stated, I wonder exactly where I am?

Sitting on the commode, a three-dimensional image appeared before me and in front of the door.  The cross-section of a ship indicated my location within the bathroom and on the main deck.  Pulling back in steps, the full-color image displayed the size of this ship in relation to my current location.

The next step was a view of the outside.  The ship was in orbit over the earth.  Distances, projected in miles, indicated how high I was and the location of the ship in orbit. 

The view continued to expand, as a replay of my elevator ride played in reverse, all the way to the backyard of my house in California.  Then came a knock at the door.

When I raised my head at the idea that I was not alone, the solid structure of the door altered from a gloss black to a full-color image.  A humanoid machine was standing on the other side and appeared as if within an attached TV screen.  The image was completely clear and lighting within the bathroom lowered in stages.

A robot, not a humanoid but a pure machine, stood and again knocked on the door.  Blue eyes focused on the door, but didn’t appear to focus on me.  The machine appeared as stainless steel with bands of brass.  The clean dull-grey body and torso would not reflect the light.  He, she, or it, also appeared as if designed on earth in the 1940s or 50s.  I waved my hand, wondering if it could see me.  There was no reaction.

Calmly, I said, Hello.  Not knowing what else to say, I paused.

The reply was thin and artificial, but spoke respectfully, Good day.  Are you associated with the man assigned to this post?

Post?  I took a deep breath to calm my nerves.  You mean David Gregore?  He died over a year ago.  I couldn’t think fast enough to provide an answer other than the truth.

That is unfortunate, but does confirm our findings.  The machine, still visible in the doorway, paused for a moment.  Did he pass along the operating instructions to you?

He, or it, apparently thought that I may have been working with David.  Taking into consideration how I was raised, I had to think quickly.  Within my family, you would routinely lie or manipulate almost any encounter for a perceived benefit.  Because of that painful part of my ancestry, I always tried to push forward with the simple truth in order that I didn’t have to remember the details of a false or misleading story. 

I could never understand why my mother would avoid telling the truth.  She always needed to appear that she was right, no matter the subject, or how innocent or painful the situation, she needed to be right at all times.  My mother, as an individual, wanted to be viewed as if she were in complete control of any encounter. 

In this situation, I didn’t know what else to do but offer the truth regarding the limited facts of what I knew.  No, I am not.  David Gregore died in a car accident.  I didn’t know him and he left everything behind.  And, he left no instructions.  I found this remote…and here I am.

After another slight pause, the machine responded, Understood.  And the ring?

Looking down, I verified that I was still wearing the ring.  I’m wearing it.  Uncomfortable for the first time during this discussion, I realized that I was still on the toilet.  I asked, "Would you mind if I took care of this