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Alex had spent a lot of time thinking about things he could have done differently. Sometimes it felt like his whole life was a string of accidents and mistakes and he was just bouncing from one to the next.
He’d learned though. Patience, reconnaissance, and planning were the only preventatives he’d found that worked often enough for him to rely on. Every time he’d let his impulses get the better of him, there had been a heavy price to pay, and it was worse when he wasn’t the one paying it. He’d seen people suffer and even die due to insufficient forethought, and he wasn’t going to let that happen this time.
The glass Jim Valenti had stashed in his bunker wasn’t earthly in origin. Alex had established that, and he’d done his research. He was well-versed in combing through bullshit to get at the truth, especially when that bullshit could be filtered through a computer programme or two. So. The 1947 UFO crash had been real. Aliens were real. Jim Valenti had been involved somehow. His father was involved now. Mimi DeLuca had known something, before she’d started losing memories, but that wasn’t an avenue Alex could pursue.
Alex’s first impulse was to confront his father, but he held back. Patience, reconnaissance, and planning. He watched from a distance instead. He followed Jesse Manes on his days off. He picked a stomped-on burner phone out of a trash can and reconstructed it. He trawled the dark web. He remembered Grant Green complaining about thieves stealing things from the UFO Emporium, and wondered.
It wasn’t enough. Jesse Manes was a careful man, and Alex felt the all-too-familiar irritation of knowing that there were limits to his abilities. He couldn’t hack a system he had no access to. He couldn’t access information that was only available on paper, or sitting on drives that weren’t connected to anything. If his father had a laptop, he’d never seen it.
As a last resort, he waited for one of the days he knew his father was on base and visited his old house. The way the streets were laid out made it easy for him to sneak in through the back, along the dirt track that ran between the back yards of the houses on each road. He’d considered the pros and cons of approaching at the different times of day and decided on the morning, just after nine when everyone would hopefully be at work, too early for people to be returning for lunch.
He found nothing, of course. There had never been a spare key hidden under a flower pot or garden ornament, so Alex couldn’t get into the house. He checked the tool shed, and found nothing useful there either.
The work bench was new, he noticed in a distant, buzzing sort of way that he recognised as dissociative. He’d been prepared for this too, for any reaction the tool shed might provoke in him, so he’d left it to last. He walked away from his childhood home and forced himself to check, check, double check his surroundings, counting the number of times he did it on his fingers so he couldn’t possibly lose track.
He had to wait in his car for a while to calm down, the image of the new work bench pressing at his mind. The old one had been stained with blood after what his father had done to Michael. It had remained there right up until Alex had left for basic, and he’d never looked in the shed after that.
He reminded himself that reminiscing was not reconnaissance, and drove away.
The bunker that his father visited oh-so-stealthily had a handprint recognition lock, which was modern enough to make Alex hesitate over breaking it. It was always easier to get your enemy to let you in themselves rather than expend valuable energy forcing an entrance. But he still didn’t know what his dad had in there, or whether it was official. No one else visited the bunker, and his dad never visited in uniform, but that might be putting pieces together that didn’t actually fit.
Alex turned the big piece of alien glass over and over in his hands at the cabin that evening, thinking and thinking, trying to persuade himself he wasn’t just hesitating and wasting time. Patience could go too far, and opportunities could be lost to caution. But he didn’t have a plan yet, because he still didn’t know enough.
There were lots of things pointing to his father being involved in a cover-up of gigantic proportions, but Alex was wary of making any assumptions. His family had been stationed in Roswell since his great-grandfather had been assigned here. Aliens were real, he’d just about accepted that, but what was his dad doing that involved them? Was it just continuing the cover-up, or was it more than that? Was it a Grant Green-style scenario where aliens were on Earth to infiltrate, or had there been some sort of integration back in the forties? Hell, that was assuming that there had even been intelligent survivors – it could just have easily been some sort of alien plant or animal life that his family was involved in covering up.
Jim Valenti knowing made a sort of sense. The military had always been closely involved with local law enforcement, and Alex remembered Jim being decent enough friends with his dad, at least before he’d tried to tell Jesse Manes how to parent one of his own sons. Kyle might be involved, but Alex wasn’t sure enough either way to ask. Nothing he turned up suggested it, but who could really be sure?
His brothers would know, but Alex didn’t want to contact them for the same reason he didn’t want to talk to Kyle – if any of them were involved, any conversation would ruin the element of surprise, and that was something he needed on his side.
He needed more intel.
He was dancing around what he knew he needed to do, and Alex sighed and put the glass down in his lap, staring at it for a long moment before putting it aside and standing up. He’d feel better making this call on his feet.
He had the number in his phone, but he’d never actually called it before, and he hesitated with his thumb hovering over the call symbol for so long that the screen dimmed. Annoyed at himself, he pressed it and held it up to his ear, fixing his eyes on the window. It was dusky outside, the sun just gone, and he listened to the dial tone and pretended his palms weren’t sweating.
“Platero residence, Dawn speaking.”
Alex opened his mouth, and for an awful, sickening moment, blanked completely.
“Hello?” she asked, and Alex took a quick breath and pulled himself together. It had been a long time, but he remembered her voice when he heard it. Deep and smooth, every word considered.
“Hi, Mom.”
Silence. Then, “Harlan?”
Alex closed his eyes and smiled bitterly, since there was no one around to see. “No. It’s Alex.” The youngest, not the oldest.
“Oh. Alex.” Surprised, she paused, and he heard movement in the background of wherever she was. “How are you?”
Possible answers spun through his head, and he settled on, “Oh, you know. Same old. You?”
“I’m fine.” He could hear the frown in her voice. “Did you want something?”
“I can’t just be calling for a catch-up?” he asked lightly, like he hadn’t put off this phone call for over a week already.
“Bit late in the day for that, don’t you think?”
Alex bit his lip and kept his eyes shut, pulling back the impulse to snap. It wasn’t all her fault they had no relationship to speak of, even if she had been the one to abandon him to his father’s tender mercies. She hadn’t wanted him then, and she hadn’t wanted him when he was seventeen, desperate to escape his father’s enlistment ultimatum by any route he could find. So he’d kept his distance from the woman who had been his last hope in a dark time – sue him.
“You’re right,” he said, keeping his voice perfectly even. Patience, patience. “I wanted…I need to ask you about dad.”
Her tone was so guarded when she spoke that he felt a pang of sympathy despite himself. “What about him?”
“This is going to sound crazy,” he started, and adjusted his hold on his phone, starting to pace just to let some of the nervous energy out of his system. “But when you were still living with dad, did he ever mention anything weird about anything he was working on?”
She snorted. “Your dad never spoke to me about work.”
“But you lived with him. You must have picked up a few things.”
“Things like what?” Her voice was flat, not yet impatient, but on the way to it.
“I know he was working on something with Jim Valenti.”
“They were friends.”
Alex pushed down his frustration. She was smart to be wary. “They were working on something serious, or something they thought was serious. Something military, something that might’ve involved Grandpa before he died.”
She was silent for several seconds, and Alex waited. He had time. Finally, she said, “They’d sneak off together to that old combat installation outside town sometimes.”
“He has a bunker there.” Information for information. Even if she knew that, he needed to let her know he was willing to share.
“Mm.” She kissed her teeth. “It was serious, whatever it was, as you said. I heard talk sometimes. About containment, mainly.” Another long pause. “The way they talked…it was like they thought they had some great responsibility.”
There was always a point in a job where Alex found the right angle. The perfect flaw which could be exploited, and no matter how long and hard he’d been working the problem before that, finding that flaw always sent light fizzing through his blood. It was the turning point that signalled victory, every time, and Alex felt himself smile. “Responsibility?”
“Mmm. Like they were protecting people from something. But you know Jesse.” Dawn kissed her teeth again, drawing the sound out. “Tsss. His protection only brings sorrow and hurt.”
Didn’t Alex know it. “Can you think of anything else? Did you ever see anything he and Jim were working on?”
“Hm. You sound just like him.”
The light feeling vanished, punched right out of him. Alex reacted defensively, sarcasm always his fastest shield. “Well that’s just hurtful, Mom.”
“Is it? You’re all his sons.”
Alex wanted to scream at her. He shoved the urge down and started pacing again, realising he’d stopped at her words. “Only half. I’m investigating him, Mom. I’m not on his side.”
“Investigating him officially?” she asked, and Alex heard exactly what she didn’t say. Officially, because they were both Air Force. Daddy’s boy, right down to the branch of military.
“Unofficially,” he made himself say, wondering when the conversation had become a battle. “Jim Valenti left me his cabin in his will, and I found some things I couldn’t explain.”
“He shouldn’t’ve been involved,” Dawn said slowly. “It was a military operation, whatever your father was running. But it was his pet, I guess. He could always do what he wanted, even if that meant bringing in civilians. His legacy was always the most important thing to him.”
“So Grandpa was involved?”
“And his father. Right back to the crash, I figured.”
She knew. Alex turned sharply on the spot and nodded to himself. “Makes sense. Harlan the first moved here in ’47. The timeline fits.”
Dawn said nothing, and Alex considered and then dismissed the idea that she’d been baiting him. He had more than enough evidence – she was just confirming what he already knew. “Like I said,” she murmured eventually. “He never spoke to me about work. Did you want anything else?”
Alex looked out over the darkening desert beyond his windows and suppressed a sigh. “No. Thanks, Mom. If you remember anything else –”
“I won’t. Bye, Alex.” Before he could reply, she was gone.
He lowered his phone slowly and swallowed, running through the conversation again in his head. If it had even been long enough to qualify as a conversation. The call had lasted – he checked – barely three minutes.
You sound just like him.
As if he didn’t have enough nightmares as it was.
Still, what little she had given him was enough to spur him into action at last. He planned it all, right down to the way he hid behind his father’s Jeep and waited for him to turn his back to close the bunker hatch. He used the sound as cover to come out and lean against the hood, smile in place for when his father turned around. Sure, it was a little dramatic, but he needed to take his joy where he could get it, especially when his family was concerned.
And the joy he got from swinging his crutch right into his dad’s head, so hard he bounced off the side of his own car? He was going to hold that close to his heart and treasure it forever.
He didn’t feel safe until he had Jesse Manes securely zip tied to a chair, but once he was there, Alex turned his attention to the bunker itself. A cursory exploration, followed by a happy sigh as he settled down in front of a frankly unnecessary number of screens. This was his element, and he was in full control.
And oh, the results were good. More delirious joy as he found the records of the 2010 shut down, giddy disbelief when he found evidence that his father had been funding a military operation out of his own personal accounts. It was all he had hoped for and more. The alien stuff was secondary to the leverage this gave him. Aliens existed – so what? For the first time in his life, Alex had something on his father that couldn’t in any way be twisted against him. It was fucking beautiful. And that was all before he hit any walls he had to hack. It was incredible, really. It was like every birthday and Christmas rolled into one perfect gift, just for him. He literally couldn’t stop smiling.
The bunker even had an internet connection, so he started transferring files right away. Best to cover all bases, after all.
The real test came later, after telling his father what he was going to do. He’d always pushed back, testing limits, and he’d been needling and poking the restrained dragon the whole time they’d been underground. Putting his father in his place again and again, and finally, Alex delivered one final taunt and held out his gun for Jesse to take.
He’d seen his father’s eyes, the tiny, tiny expressions on his face that let Alex know how hard he was trying to find a flaw of his own to exploit, a weakness or a mistake he could turn back on Alex. But Alex had planned, he’d done his homework. He’d removed the bullets from the clip just in case, and it was unlikely, though possible, that his father would feel the difference.
But still. He was handing a gun to his father, and there was a very real prospect that he would try to use it. Alex had had years of practice, and he was still riding high on knowing how very much his dad had fucked up, so he didn’t flinch when Jesse Manes stood up, and met his eyes without hesitation. There was a part of him that wanted his dad to try something, just try to hit him like he was still a kid. An ugly, violent part of Alex wanted the excuse to give him a taste of his own medicine. The part of him that had burned with satisfaction at knocking his dad out wanted to lay into him, really let him have it. See how he liked it for a change.
But his father looked him up and down, then lowered his gaze and turned away. Alex waited for him to leave, and breathed out for what felt like the first time in months.
Weeks later, Jesse Manes was unconscious in the Project Shepherd bunker again, and Alex was ignoring him in favour of hugging Kyle, who took a second to get over his shock before he hugged Alex back.
“You okay, man?” he asked when Alex pulled back. “Not that I’m not cool with this, but –”
“If he’d aimed a few inches higher, you’d be dead now.” Alex had seen people shot to death, up close and personal. His father had almost done that to Kyle. Had intended to do it.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” Kyle said gently, and Alex turned away, taking a deep breath before looking down at his father’s unconscious body. “He doesn’t have that long before he’ll need real attention.”
“What happens if he doesn’t get it?”
“Then he’ll die. Alex.” Kyle put his hand on Alex’s shoulder and squeezed. “I don’t wanna be a killer.”
If Alex did it, he wouldn’t have to be. They had the gun. They had multiple options for body disposal. Kyle wouldn’t have to become a killer – Alex already was one. What was one more life?
“Hey.” Kyle moved to stand in front of him, deadly serious. “I don’t want you to be a killer either.”
“Bit late for that.” Alex didn’t recognise his own voice. He sounded flat and empty. Like his father.
You sound just like him.
He closed his eyes and focused on Kyle’s hand on his shoulder. “Hospital,” he muttered, opening his eyes and setting his jaw. “We can think of a story on the way.”
He didn’t miss the relief in Kyle’s face as he let go and started dragging Jesse towards the exit ladder.
On the way, he ran through the last time he’d seen his father in his head. What could he have done differently? What mistakes had he made that had allowed this to happen? Kyle had almost been killed, almost paying the ultimate price for Alex’s actions. The stakes were so high now, and he couldn’t screw up again. His father was going to wake up, and there were other wheels in motion now as well – Flint, the other staff at Caulfield, the possibility of his other brothers being in on the game as well.
He would do better next time. More patience, more reconnaissance, and a fucking airtight plan. He would pinpoint the places he had gone wrong, and improve. It was the only way he was going to be able to protect his people, and survive whatever was coming.