Taboo Descendants and the Multi-Dimensional War
CHAPTER XXVII—SAUCERS AND ORBS

“Yesenia—what are you saying? No entiendo.”

“I have to stay with Kaya now, and the others. I won’t be safe alone and I will only bring you and your family more of the same danger that killed your father.”

“Ary—” I began to disagree.

“No, Kaya. It’s true and you know it!” She did not whisper any longer. “She—that harlot—brushed the stone as well. I couldn’t understand everything I picked up, but I know that she wants to get to all the Huzeen, both Veex and Zux.

“The Zux they plan to use, but the Veex, they plan to kill. We’re all in danger!”

“¿Quien es aquí?” yelled an angry voice from above us on the adjacent ridge.

It was the guards. We had been too loud.

Norberto ran out from the shadows to smooth things over with the two armed men. They sounded furious but they felt frightened, and their fear made them very dangerous. They feared for their lives.

They must have mistaken us for the Zux that were there two nights before.

“I feel like we should go,” I whispered finally speaking up. “Those guards are suspiciously wary about us being here. They may do something reckless.”

“How could you possibly know that?” asked Ary.

“I told you before. I can kind of do this thing where—” I paused sensing a feeling from her. “You were being sarcastic, weren’t you?”

“I guess this ‘thing’ is useful after all. You can finally detect sarcasm,” she replied with even more sarcasm.

“Whatever,” I said, conceding with a grin.

Regardless of what happened, Ary was still my best friend. We were sisters in spirit and these alien abilities would just be one more unique thing that we had in common.

“If you two are quite done,” cut in Iris with a terse chirp. “I’m going to go out and calm the guards before they shoot Yesenia’s boyfriend. After that, we’re leaving.”

“How’s she going to do that?” wondered Ary aloud.

“She has a PhD in the ‘thing’ that I have,” I answered.

“Oh, cool. So, she’s training you to be like her?”

“No one can be like her,” I answered as Iris walked out with her hands in the air.

The heavily armed men started shouting at her. They must have learned their lesson from Zux. The lesson went something like this: Do not trust strange men walking around ancient sites in the middle of the night. In the same scenario, do not trust strange women even more.

Iris continued to walk forward without fear. Two of the men pointed their weapons at her, screaming commands in Spanish. I did not understand what they said, but I knew that I did not want to be her right now.

“Kaya, they’re going to shoot her!” Ary cried, jumping up off of the ground and grabbing my arm.

“She knows what she’s doing, Ary. Trust her,” I replied.

She’s not afraid. I sensed. She has to know what she’s doing.

As soon as that reassurance crossed my mind, I felt a calm wash over me. Ary felt it too because she let go of my arm and leaned back against the ancient wall behind her. The blood began to flow again to my cold fingers, a result of Ary’s panic. The men began to lower their weapons and ceased spewing their shouted commands.

The night became still once again as the natural sounds of the evening took precedence. Crickets could be heard all around us singing their blissful night song. I noticed for the first time how clean the air smelled. I took a deep breath as I looked up in the cloudless sky and observed the many stars and planets. A crescent moon hung low in the Eastern sky having just risen an hour or so ago. A lone coyote howled happily off in the distance. I had failed to notice before what a beautiful night it was.

Ary and I stepped out from behind the wall and joined Iris and Norberto. The guards looked at each other with dull puzzlement. They could still see trespassers in front of them and they could remember what the last trespassers had done, but they were no longer afraid for their lives.

Abruptly, the silence deafened us all.

There were no other noises beyond our breathing. The bugs did not chirp or buzz about like they had before. No critters crawled in the brush nearby. The coyote had stopped howling to the rising moon.

“What did you do, Iris?” I asked afraid. “What’s happening?”

“Kaya, whatever you do,” Iris called over her shoulder, “Do not break this calm.”

“Okay—” I took a deep breath. Then another, concentrating on the inhale and the exhale. “But what happened to all of the animals? Did you calm them as well?”

“No,” she answered shortly. “That’s not me.”

“Then who?”

“Get to the cars.”

“What?”

“Take Yesenia and Norberto and get to the cars!”

I felt a flicker of fear seep through her resolve, but she pulled it back before it could affect the others. It was enough to let me know that something was wrong. I looked at Ary. Her facial expression remained calm.

“Come on, Ary. We’re leaving.”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her into my wake. I started walking swiftly towards Norberto with Ary’s palm clasped tightly against my own. We used to hold hands in college all the time when we were both single and lonely, so it was not unusual for us.

“Okay,” she answered calmly, walking with me.

When we got closer to where Norberto and Iris stood, I instructed Ary to grab hold of Norberto. She did so without question and we continued to walk hand in hand towards the parking lot surrounded by ancient ruins and silence.

A feeling of doom washed over me pushing Iris’s calmness away. The dreaded emotion was a creepy, eerie, prickly doom that boxed me in horror. I could not help but to be afraid.

“Get that fear in check, Kaya!” called Iris at our backs. “And move faster!”

We sped up, jogging now, still hand in hand.

“What’s happening?” asked Ary worried. She see that I was afraid, but it had not ruined Iris’s calm yet.

“I don’t know, Ary, but everything is going to be okay,” I lied.

“Do you see that odd star?” interjected Norberto, his tone inquisitive. He was not affected by my fear.

“Where?” replied Ary.

“There—to the North.”

I kept us moving forward, which was Northeast, but I had to look. I turned my head about forty-five degrees to the left. There, growing in the sky like oncoming headlights, was a luminescent object. It was too bright to be a star, or even a planet and moving too quickly to be a comet, meteor, or even the International Space Station.

I let go of Ary’s hand.

“Faster!” I shouted, jogging quickly yet still trying to maintain the calm that Iris had establish.

Controlling my fear became almost impossible at that point as I panted, internally terrified, towards my car. Trying not to show fear was one thing, but trying not to project fear was infinitely harder.

“Do you see it, Kaya?” yelled Ary behind me.

“Yes!” I answered, but I was not looking at it anymore.

“There are three of them now. They’re sort of in a line.”

Don’t look at it. It won’t help. I glanced towards the lights.

They displayed themselves in a familiar horizontal line. The left-most ball of light hung lower in the sky than the two to the right.

“Hey, Kay! Look at these lights,” Ary panted. “Doesn’t that look like—the alignment of the pyramids—at Teotihuacan?”

“Sure!” I shouted back. I had no idea.

“You know,” Norberto huffed loudly. “The same alignment—can be seen in Egypt—at the Great Pyramids—of Giza.”

“Your point?” I yelled behind me.

“It’s the constellation of Orion,” he answered. “The three dots—are his belt.”

Norberto was a physicist who loved anthropology, so I naturally trusted his judgment. I looked again at the three bright lights in the sky and watched them rotate to show Orion’s belt in reverse. I did not understand what it all meant, but I knew that we did not want to wait around to see what happened next.

I wanted to run full speed, but I knew that I could not do that and still remain calm. We were only halfway there. I continued to jog, my eyes straight ahead.

Just keep running. Three quarters of the way there now, I no longer looked at the lights in the sky, but I assumed they were still suspended there displaying their message.

We passed the ancient ball court and traveled uphill. The cars sat parked at the bottom of the slope on the other side of the mound where the ground leveled out. The road to Monte Albán, somewhat steep and treacherous, would be safer and faster in the cars than on foot. I wanted to be back in my bed on the vessel.

We stood at the top of the hill breathing heavily. I gasped for air as I massaged a stitch in my side. I looked over my shoulder and saw that the three lights in the sky were no longer just lights. They were dark oval shapes that blocked out the stars behind them like black holes. The lights we had seen from a distance were coming from underneath the crafts. They now shown down on the crafts’ landing gear.

“Kaya—do you—see them?” questioned Ary in between raspy breaths. Her hands rested on her knees. She was still calm, but grew more anxious the further we got from Iris.

“Yes,” I hacked, my hands on my sides. “I see—them.”

“What—are they?” questioned Norberto, catching his breath.

“Are they Veex—or Zux?” Ary inquired breathless.

I suppressed her flicker of fear at the mention of the Zux. She wanted to be afraid, but I could not allow that.

“No,” I answered. This presence did not feel the same as the Tepons. “No, I don’t think so.” The stitch in my side stabbed painfully at my torso. It had been too long since my last cardiovascular workout.

“Then who?”

“I don’t know, Ary, but let’s leave before we replace out.”

We began our descent down the hill. I looked back often. The saucers lined up in a triangle formation hovering over Monte Albán. They stopped moving just as small balls of orange, spherical lights or orbs fell from each one.

The orbs floated towards the ground as gently as a feather would succumb to the force of gravity. At the same time, however, they moved intelligently as if being driven by someone. Or something.

Before the guards dropped out of our line of sight, I saw one of them get approached by an orb. The orb floated all around the man as if observing him intently. His face glowed orange and I wondered to what end.

“Kaya,” came Iris’s voice from within my own head. “Whatever you do, don’t let them scan you—or Yesenia. I have a feeling they are looking for Huzeen. Get in the car and drive away as quickly as possible!”

I put two fingers up to my temple as I had seen Iris do many times before. “What about you?,” I thought back not sure if the communication was two-way.

“Don’t worry about me,” she answered. “I’ll catch a ride from Rahim and speak to Jules about this. Make sure that you are not followed by anyone. Contact me telepathically if you are. Now that the connection has been made, it should be easy for you to do.”

“Wait—I’m not ready to do this alone.”

“Trust in your ability.”

And with that, she was gone.

I could tell immediately the second that she departed, not only from our extra-sensory link via our emotional connection (or lack thereof at that point), but also based off of the effect that her departure had on Ary and Norberto.

Our forward progress was brought to a sudden halt.

Ary immediately hyperventilated, each breath was a loud wheezing noise that pierced the quiet night air. Tears ran thick and rapid down her flushed face.

Norberto, on the other hand, just froze on the spot. There was no moving him. He stared at me, non-responsive, as I spent thirty seconds shaking him and slapping his face. Ary was no help.

I could not believe that Iris had abandoned us. I did not feel strong enough to be in that situation without her, sitting in the open like ducks in a still pond.

A reddish-orange orb floated our way, slowly and methodically. I began to scream at Norberto and Ary, their conditions more or less unchanged, as I became unraveled.

The orb was only five feet away.

I gave up on Norberto and grabbed Ary. I pulled her roughly towards the car. It was not that I did not care for Norberto, but he was not a Huzeen and he was not my best friend. I did not believe that the orb would affect him.

But I had been wrong before.