“Who are you?” I asked again. “Did you even give us your real name?”
“Sorry, mate, but no. I really was a captain in Australia’s Second Commando Regiment in a past life, but I’ve been off the bloody grid for a long time now. So far off that when that extraterrestrial hologram calling herself Michelle asks her AI to find out who I am, even it will come up empty.”
“You know she’s an alien?”
“I do. I know a lot of things. As it turns out, more than you do.”
He paused. “By the way, you might as well still call me Nick. It’s the name I’ve been using for a while, and it’s as good as any.”
“So you don’t trust me with your real one?”
“I don’t come from a very trusting organization. But I’m hoping I can get you to join us. Then we won’t keep anything from you.”
“What organization?”
“We call ourselves the Sentinels. The one secret group in the universe that’s actually looking out for humanity. Started by humans and run by humans.”
“And you want to recruit us?”
“We want to recruit you,” he replied. He gestured at Tessa, lying peacefully on the hard ground. “Not her. I’ll explain why later.”
I desperately wanted to explore this further, but decided to let the captain lay things out in his own way. “You’re aware that others want to recruit me also, right? Recruit us.”
“Well aware. I intend to give you my whole recruiting pitch in a minute. You know, be all that you can be. The few, the proud, the Sentinels. But first, what did Michelle want with you?”
Despite this man’s help, my guard was up. I was quickly learning that the situation was far too messy to trust anyone. I’d have to rely on my instincts to tell me when to be honest, and when to hedge. “She wanted to know what this other group, the one who wants my services, told me,” I answered, my gut telling me to be honest in this case.
He nodded. “You mean Nari and the Galactic Federation.”
My eyes widened. Perhaps he did know more than I did, at that. There seemed to be a whole wide world of people who were better informed than me.
“That’s right,” I said.
“And did you tell her the truth?”
“I did.”
“And what was that truth? What did Nari tell you?”
“He wanted me to join him. The Galactic Federation. Their predictive AI thinks I’m important.”
The captain raised his eyebrows. “Apparently so,” he said in amusement. “Did Nari tell you why?”
“Michelle asked the same thing. The truth is that I have no idea.”
Nicola frowned. “So did he play to your ego? Tell you that they were grooming humanity to take over the whole show? Which is as absurd as your president going into the jungle and telling a group of howler monkeys that as soon as they stop flinging feces around he’ll give them the keys to the White House.” He shook his head in contempt. “And I imagine he gave you the, ‘we’re here to save you so you can save us’ line?”
I shrank back. He was suggesting in no uncertain terms that I’d been played. Despite this, my gut still thought otherwise. “There was a lot more to it,” I replied. “I thought what he said was credible, although there are deeper truths that he didn’t disclose.”
“How do you know that?”
“He all but told us. He wanted a private meeting today, presumably to be more forthcoming.”
Nicola’s eyes narrowed in thought. “That’s something I didn’t know. I was about to try the hard sell to get you to join us right now, so we can get out of here. But this calls for a change of plans. You need to have this meeting with Nari. Learn what he wants to tell you.”
There was a rustling in the underbrush, and I swung my flashlight around to the location of the sound, but nothing was there. I suppose I could have enhanced my vision and hearing, but I was content knowing I could do so almost instantly should the need arise.
“You said Nari wanted a private meeting,” continued the captain when I had brought my head and flashlight back to their starting positions. “Does that mean one without even Brad Schoenfeld in attendance?”
Okay, so he knew about the colonel also. Why was I surprised?
“That’s correct,” I replied. “Just me and Tessa.”
“Brad is a good man. But he’s allowed Nari to mislead him. He’s come to trust the alien far too much. An easy mistake to make. Nari has saved humanity’s collective asses more than once, after all.”
“Brad doesn’t trust him as completely as you think,” I said.
“Interesting,” said Nicola. “And good to know.”
“So why can’t we—”
The captain held up a forestalling hand. “Wait one.”
He tilted his head for several seconds, listening to a faint voice I heard coming through his comm. “Shit!” he barked miserably.
“What’s going on?”
“Apparently, some sleepless American tourist at the lodge you were at saw the flares we set off. Ten minutes ago he called his girlfriend back in the States, and it came up in their conversation.”
These words had come at a rapid-fire pace, as if he was suddenly in a big hurry.
“So why is that such a problem?” I asked.
“Because Schoenfeld’s AI digests every bloody communication on Earth,” he said just as rapidly, “written or verbal. Normally it wouldn’t care a whit about a sighting of flares, but since you’re in the area, this must have stood out like a nuclear explosion. No doubt the colonel has already scrambled a team to the general area, waiting for the AI to pinpoint your location. So my recruitment pitch will have to wait. I need to get out of here before his team arrives. Like five minutes ago.”
He paused to think for just a moment and then raced ahead. “So do this. Meet with Nari. Find out what he wants to tell you. Pretend to believe him, and then contact me so I can get you out of there. Then I’ll tell you what’s really going on.”