Manipulate (Book 1, Alien Cadets)

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Claudia heard the TV turn on in the clinic lobby as she wheeled the sedated bulldog into an examining room.

“Could you turn that down?!” she yelled to the receptionist. She hated hearing the news while she worked, particularly Monday morning, when she already felt depressed. The TV quieted, and then her receptionist was at the door.

“Claudia, did you see the footage of the spooks today?” she said. “They’re showing more about…”

Claudia blew some hair out of her face. “I’ve got to do a colonoscopy on this bulldog before his owner gets back. Feels like he’s totally blocked, or possibly an advanced edema.”

“Oh my gosh, you didn’t turn on the TV yesterday? The cadets from Los Angeles are back! Wasn’t your brother one of those kids the aliens took?”

 Claudia fumbled the syringe of painkiller for the dog, her fingers suddenly numb. She lunged and caught it before it hit the floor.

“They’re back?” Claudia said. “When?”

“They just arrived yesterday. Go watch! I’ll stay with the dog for a minute.”

In the lobby, a small TV hung from a corner of the ceiling. Claudia grabbed the remote off the counter, turning up the sound as she approached the screen. A young man stood confidently on the stage. He was very tall, almost as tall as the spook next to him. A dark tattoo sprawled across his cheek, distorting the symmetry of his face. He had dark skin, sharp cheekbones, Native American… Could that be Sam?

“- learned a lot from the Spo. Their language, their culture- and we’ve taught them a lot about us.”

Claudia squinted at the TV, trying to make the resolution higher by sheer willpower. Was that her brother? A bar of text scrolled across the bottom of the TV. “Weekend News: Children taken by Spo returned to Los Angeles. Head cadet known as “Sam” speaks of their capture. Says children have not been abused. Breaking news …..

Claudia gasped. “That’s my brother,” she said. “That’s my brother. Oh God, that’s Sam.” Tears filled her eyes and she wiped them with her forearm.

 “Really?” said the lady who’d brought in her Siamese cat, “The one answering questions?”

“Yeah.”

He looked so different. He’d been a short twelve year old when he was taken, hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet. He was tall now, like their dad, and despite the crazy tattoo on his face, she could see traces of the little boy she remembered. Claudia had been home after her second year of college when he was taken. He wanted to play video games with her all summer, and she’d humored him a little. He was starting to get interesting, or at least not continually annoying. Then the Spo showed up, and she never saw him again.

Sam’s interview was over all too soon for her, and yet not soon enough. She clenched her gloved hands into fists while he defended the Spo. At times over the years she’d obsessed about what was happening to him. She’d worked to reconcile herself to a changed Sam, should she ever see him again. But seeing it confirmed made her so angry she could hardly bear it.

Claudia took deep breaths, managing the pain of futility as she often had in the past. Deal with it, she repeated her mantra. You can’t change it. Deal with it. When their father left, when Sam was taken, when her mother died a few years ago – Claudia had dealt with it. She was nothing if not resilient. She knew how to handle pain.

When the live broadcast was over, the news went back to weather coverage. “Evacuations are underway in northern China for the coming earthquake. Spo are predicting an 8.9 and complete loss of infrastructure…” Claudia muted the TV.

“They’re in Los Angeles?” Claudia asked the cat lady. “Did they say at the beginning of the broadcast?”

“Yes, the first spook said the cadets would live at Pepperdine University, in Malibu. I think it’s only a few miles from their headquarters,” she said.

“Malibu…” Claudia went behind the counter and got on the computer. Tickets from Arizona to LAX weren’t too expensive. Tourists didn’t go to Los Angeles anymore.

“They don’t want family to go yet,” the lady added. “You’re wanting to visit him, right? I’m sure I would too. But one of the spooks said no family yet. They want the kids to “readjust as a unit” or something. They’re going to announce when the cadets’ families can come visit.”

Claudia gritted her teeth. Six years gone and she was supposed to just ignore the fact that her brother was home? Not so much.