The Bodyguard: an alien romance Read online

  Tina Proffitt

  The Bodyguard

  an alien romance

  TINA PROFFITT

  Brittany Bard House, LLC © 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to places or persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

  “Beware the bearers of false gifts and their broken promises. Much pain but still time. There is good out there. We oppose deception. Conduit closing.” –Crabwood Crop Circle message, Crabwood, UK, 2002

  “Even if we were to find extraterrestrial intelligence it wouldn’t be the civilization-altering event that some think, for the simple reason that most people already expect it exists. And we've already factored its existence into the way we view ourselves and our place in this universe. Maybe we've all read too much science fiction. Except you can never read too much science fiction.” –Guy Consolmagno, Vatican astronomer, December 23, 2017

  “We already have the means to travel among the stars...but these technologies are locked up in 'black projects'. And it would take an act of God...to ever get them out to benefit humanity. Anything you can imagine...we already know how to do.” –Ben Rich, CEO Lockheed Martin, 1993 alumni speech at UCLA

  Chapter 1

  “It's the search that creates reality.” -Dr. Antonio de Nicholas

  ∞

  I know he's out there watching me.

  Even when I can't see him, I still know. I don't know how I know—just that it's true. I’ve never actually seen his face. But he's tall, and probably strong, and could hurt me if he wanted to. That's why I’m in here instead of outside. I prefer to spend most of my time indoors online anyway, not because I’m afraid of running into him, just that everything I need is in here. At least, that's what I tell myself.

  I type the coordinates for the low Earth orbiting satellites I'm currently tracking into my VPN. The school would kill me if they knew what I was doing. But I have no intention of stopping, just as things are getting good. For the past couple of days, I’ve been picking up super weird signals, little bursts that could be anything, but could also be something big, world shatteringly big, if they're from you know who.

  Sometimes I wish I had super powers like aliens supposedly have, like the power to heal. I’d make my mother's migraines go away or zap my father's bum knee. I’d also like super strength or immortality, even though that would require me to not be human, but I’m totally okay with that too. I think being human is overrated anyhow. Sometimes I dream that I'm not from here, that I’ve been transplanted from another galaxy where everything makes sense. And when I wake up, I think just how true that could be, considering my abnormality. I've tried to keep it a secret even from my roommate. It's pretty weird not having fingerprints. I suppose I could use it to my advantage instead of keeping it a secret. I could do all kinds of things without getting caught, like hacking the school's main computer, if I was that kind of person. But I believe you get back what you give out. Plus, I don't like sneaky people. You can't trust them.

  “Is your stalker still out there, Lily?”

  Even though Anna's voice is not loud, in the dark, it still jars me out of my imagined world.

  Anna Breen is my roommate and only friend. She and I are a pair of unicorns who don't even have social media accounts. Selfies and celebrity stalking just aren't our thing. Not that I could stand it anyhow. Most of them seriously need to learn to use basic grammar. Spelling and punctuation was invented for a reason, people.

  “I don't know if he's out there,” I say. “I'm looking for a constellation.”

  Anna scoffs. “Don't you mean hacking? Did you finally get that Space-Y thingy?”

  “Satellite constellation? Yeah.”

  “I thought satellites were just for internet.”

  “They are.”

  “We've got internet.”

  “That's not what I want it for.”

  “What for then?”

  “To listen.”

  “To what?”

  “To whoever's out there.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  “Nothing definite yet. But I will.”

  New low Earth orbit, or LEO, constellation signals bounce around the sky instead of returning to Earth like with old satellites. I adjust the Ka frequency band on my laptop between 26.5GHz and 49 GHz, even though that's too high for the human ear to hear, because I figure that if aliens are up there, and they're sending signals, that's where I'll find them, on the highest end of the dial. I read once about how molecules of higher life forms vibrate at a higher frequency than lower ones. So it just makes sense.

  The window blinds are up. Siouxsie and the Banshees (my mom played their old CD for me when I was a kid) sing through the computer speakers connected to my phone's playlist. I turn from the open window and my telescope, the Celestron AstroMaster 90, a gift from my dad for my ninth Christmas. A pair of binoculars sit beside me, and Anna eyes them from the doorway. My I Want To Believe poster is just to the left of her, hanging over my bed. I know she's not into this stuff, but she doesn't make fun of me for believing it.

  Light from the communal kitchen, connecting our room to three others, spills into our space.

  “Turn that light off and close the door,” I say. “He can see in here.”

  “I thought you said you weren't looking at him.” Anna crosses her arms and scrunches up her nose at me.

  With a flip of the switch, the room is plunged back into darkness, and I turn back to the window.

  “What's he up to tonight?” Anna says, setting down a grocery bag from Mr. Edward's across the highway.

  I look away from my laptop's screen and out the window. “The same. Nothing. Just sitting there, watching the door.” I close the blinds and turn to Anna. Right now, our dorm room is like one of those yin yang symbols, half white, half black. But ours is half neat, straight out of an Ikea catalog, because Anna's all packed. The other half, mine, is in chaos, like the last day of camp, because I'm not.

  “Not that many people left to watch.” Anna grabs a cherry licorice from the bag and bites one end, stretching it. “Aren't you going home in the morning?”

  “I was. But I'm stuck—Trigonometry.”

  “I thought you were taking that next semester.”

  “It's not offered at a time I can take it. And if I don't take it now, I'll be stuck here in class after graduation.”

  “Sucks.”

  “What time are you leaving?” I ask.

  “Before you'll be awake.” She snickers. “Flight leaves at nine. But I'm finished packing now that I've got food for the trip.” She dumps out the bag from Mr. Edward's convenience store. Cherry sour balls and a can of sour cream and onion potato chips spills out among other things, a pack of strawberry gum and a box of caramel popcorn.

  “Taking the Berry Ferry to the airport?” I say, watching her stuff her treasure trove into her carry-on bag.

  “Yeah.”

  I'm lucky. I can caught the bus, which is not actually a bus, more of a van, home anytime I want because I live in Alabama, a town called Burning Tree, not far from campus. Most of us without cars of our own are forced to ride it to and from town until we get our driver's licenses. And now that I'm sixteen, one month, and seven days old, I was planning to get mine when I went home for winter break, but can't now.

  Anna picks up the binoculars from the window sill with one hand and bites into another licorice stick with the other. Her sleeve inches down just enough that I can see the tattoo on her forearm, a Bengal tiger that she let the girls across the hall give her last month with their home tattoo kit. Her mother's gonna kill her.

  “He sure is dreamy,” Anna say
s, peering through the binoculars at the man in the silver car.

  She's right, if you like your guys tall and strong with tawny hair and rugged features. The man practically glows even from this far away.

  Anna puts down the binocs and turns to me. “Wanna go get coffee?”

  “Do you have to ask?” I walk past the coffee maker Anna's parents bought her last Christmas. “First,” I say, reaching into my closet for my leather coat, “come with me to return this to Porter.” I hold up his book.

  “What is that?”

  I slide my arms into my coat and don't bother to zip it up over my white oxford with the school insignia emblazoned on the chest. “According to Einstein's widow, it's the book he was reading before he died. It belongs to Porter's mom. He said he needs it back before he leaves.”

  “Let me see this.” Anna flips through a few pages. One of them has highlighting. She reads aloud. “Never utter these words: 'I do not know this, therefore it is false.'” She looks up at me. “Porter is deep. I never knew that.”

  I shrug.

  “You read that?” She hands the heavy tome back to me. “It weighs more than you do.”

  I smile at Anna. As I step over luggage blocking the doorway to our private bathroom, the blue, white, and green plaid uniform skirt I wear gets caught between my legs. The door to the room across the kitchen is open. There's hugging and crying going on in there. Anna and I look at each other and shake our heads. We're just not sentimentalists.

  “It's just Christmas break,” Anna says in a low voice that only I can hear. “You'd think they were all being deployed.”

  She thinks a lot like I do. We get each other. Neither one of us likes showy displays of emotion. I don't have a sister. I guess I just wasn't born under a lucky star. But if I did, I wouldn't mind if she were just like Anna.

  The boys' dorm isn't quite as chaotic as ours—there's hardly anyone inside. And it doesn't smell like cherry licorice either.

  I don't have a brother either, but I know from observing Porter and his friends that most of their packing for winter break will take place in the morning before they leave.

  I knock on door 347, but there's no answer. The door's unlocked though, actually sitting slightly open. Porter's stuff is already packed. His cello case leans against his bed.

  I drop his copy of Isis Unveiled on his desk. “There you go, Porter,” I say to the empty room.

  Anna hooks her arm under mine. “Let's get out of here. It smells like sweaty socks.” She wrinkles her nose in a way that makes me laugh.

  As we pass the gymnasium, the double doors are propped open, and we can see where all the boys are. Porter's among them although I can't see him yet. We stand there for a minute before anyone notices us watching from the threshold of the cement block building and its shiny wood floors. There are no coach's shrill whistles going off. The concession stand is boarded up. There are no cheerleaders on the sidelines to cheer on the players. Yet, here they all are packed inside, shuffling for the basketball and dribbling it up and down the court, shoes squeaking, calling out to each other to pass, their ritualistic way of saying goodbye I suppose.

  Porter sees us and stops. He tries to wave us in, but he gets checked by his fellow player, Robert Lansky, and goes down, which makes Anna and I both giggle. He gets up, a little redder in the face, and makes his way to us. “Come on in and watch.”

  We both shake our heads. “We're getting coffee,” I say.

  “Wait for me,” he says. “I'll come too. There's something I've got to talk to you about.”

  He runs away from us and disappears into the locker room. Anna and I exchange looks.

  “That sounded ominous,” she says.

  I shrug. “Could go either way, but I agree.”

  “I wonder what's wrong.”

  Porter's friend, Robert, whistles and waves, trying to get Anna's attention.

  She doesn't respond, but her grip on my arm tightens though. “Don't let him come with us.”

  “Why not? He likes you. What's wrong with him?”

  “He smells like swiss cheese.”

  I can't help but laugh. From what I can see, there's nothing wrong with Robert Lansky at the moment that a shower won't fix. He's taller than Anna by almost six inches, a good thing since most boys are her height if not shorter. He's smart—I took Biology with him last year. And he's a gentleman. Anytime he's around, he opens doors, lets us sit first, and shock of all shocks, he listens, never droning on endlessly about himself.

  “What's so funny?” Porter is behind us now.

  His arm goes around my shoulders, but I shrug away to turn to look at him. His hair is wet, but at least he smells good now, the faint aroma of body wash. His wet, ginger hair sticks up from his head in spikes, and the freckles on his nose stand out against perpetually pink cheeks. There's something very boy next door about him. I like Porter Markham. He's been my friend since day one at this place, but that's the thing, he's a friend, not hero material. And I don't think he sees himself in a supporting role.

  I just wish he knew that I'm no heroine.

  The three of us share a booth in the crowded coffee house.

  I sip my hazelnut decaf latte and wipe whipped cream from my nose with a rough, brown paper napkin. I always wrap my cup with them so that no one notices my abnormality. Not that it really matters. You'd be surprised how little people notice. No one here ever has before. But not having fingerprints is weird enough to make people suspicious, and I just don't want to take any chances.

  I catch Porter's eye, and he blushes. He's probably waiting until Anna's not around to talk to me. I can see that whatever it is he wants to say, it's of a personal nature.

  “He's out there again,” Anna says, looking out the front window and letting her words drag in an foreboding way. And this time she's not talking about Robert Lansky. “You really need to confront him.”

  “How can I do that?” I say. “I don't know what he's doing out there.”

  “It can't be a coincidence. He's following you around.”

  “Who?” Porter asks.

  I can hear the suspicion in his voice already.

  “Oh, just this guy who shows up everywhere Lily goes, here, the cafeteria, even when we were shopping in Eckerd's downtown yesterday.”

  “Do you know him?” Porter's brow wrinkles and his glasses move on the bridge of his nose with the motion.

  “Of course not. How should I?” I give him my best I don't care tone. But he's not buying it. He still looks worried.

  “He's got just as much right to sit outside in his car as anyone else,” Porter says to Anna, his way of coming to my defense.

  “But he's a creep,” Anna says and taps the rim of her coffee cup with her fingertip, contemplating the creep. “No one seems to know who he is.”

  “I'll go out there right now and ask him what he's doing.” Porter stands.

  “No!” I pop out of my seat, afraid he's actually going to do it.

  This isn't the first time I've seen Porter attempt to be masterful. It suits him only in a scholarly kind of way, like he should be wearing a business suit and tie and carrying a briefcase when he does it. Probably gets it from his dad who's a lawyer. The two of them could've been separated at birth.

  “You don't know who this guy is,” Anna says. “He could be anybody, a killer for all we know.”

  “That's a big leap,” I say.

  “One of us has to go out there to his car,” Anna says, “and tell him to knock it off.”

  “Why don't we call campus security?” Porter says.

  “Hey, I know.” Anna raises her hand in the air, like she's going to swear. “Let's ask him to buy us beer. Then when he does, we call the cops on him.”

  “A sting?” Porter sounds skeptical.

  “A what?” Anna asks.

  “It’s when you set a person up to commit a crime.”

  “I'm pretty sure that's illegal,” I say.

  “According to Alabama state law
,” Porter says, “sting operations are legal as long as it’s not entrapment. They work if you’re trying to catch known criminals. It’s only illegal for the police to tempt an innocent person into committing a crime.” Porter's voice sounds impatient, and that isn't like him, which means he's still got something else on his mind.

  He looks like he wants to say something to me. I hope he doesn't say what I think he might. My feet dangle under the table and start to swing back and forth in nervous energy.

  “What do you have to talk to Lily about?” Anna says, shifting her attention to Porter now.

  Thanks, Anna!

  Porter looks down at his empty cup of cocoa and clears his throat. “I know you don't like going home for breaks,” he says quietly. “So I asked my mother if it would be okay for you to come home with me. She said the more the merrier.”

  He said it. I feel like I just took a sucker punch to my middle, or, since I've never been in an actual fight, like I stopped too fast on my bike and hit the handle bar. And wouldn't you know, his mother sounds just as sweet as he is. My stomach aches. I can't take this much sentiment.

  “I'm sorry, Porter,” I say. “I'm stuck here for the break.”

  He looks back down at his cup, blushing harder. It's at times like these that I wish I knew what to say to make people feel better, but I'm just no good with feelings. I think I was born with a chromosome missing. My mother and grandmother have no trouble whatsoever expressing their feelings. They go at each other's throats like brawling cats on a regular basis. But not me. I'd rather be alone in my room.

  Porter starts to get up just as Robert Lansky walks in and zeros in on our table and Anna. She ducks low in the booth but it does her no good. He's already seen her.

  “Are you leaving?” I say to Porter, who looks like someone just ran over his dog.

  “It's late. I've got packing to do.”

  I know he's lying. He's been packed all day. “Tell your mom thanks anyways for me.”

  “I will,” he mumbles.