With both hands free, Paelen sat up and reached for the cuffs on his ankles. He winced in pain as the bones in his feet stretched out until the cuffs simply slid away. When he was free, he returned his shape to normal with a sigh of relief.
Paelen pressed his ear to the door and heard voices. He counted at least three men posted outside his door. They were locked in a deep conversation, talking about something called football. With their attention diverted, they would never hear him go.
Paelen climbed on his bed. Standing on his pillows, his keen eyes scanned the air vent. It would be a tight fit, even for him. But if he stretched himself out long enough, he knew he could squeeze through.
There were only four screws holding the cover to the mount. He caught hold of one of the edges and started to apply pressure. It took very little effort to pull the vent cover away from the wall. He hid it under his pillow.
Paelen stole a quick look back to the door and then reached up. He pressed his palms firmly against the inner metal walls of the duct and hauled himself up to the vent.
As he had suspected, the entrance to the air duct was brutally tight. Paelen had to painfully stretch every bone in his body to slip through. It was only then he realized his ribs weren’t completely healed yet. As he moved, he felt sharp twinges of warning pain from the altered length of his ribcage.
Biting back the pain and wincing at every move, he entered the countless tunnels of ductwork. The ducts themselves were much larger than the entrance had been and he was able to return his body to its normal shape.
Crawling forward on his hands and knees, Paelen used every sense to listen for danger. When he reached a T-junction, he paused. To his left, he heard nothing. It was still very early in the morning and there weren’t many people in the facility yet. But to his right, he heard voices. Paelen recognized one of the voices. It was Agent J.
What he was saying wasn’t clear. But Paelen was certain he heard the word ‘Pegasus’. Agent J was talking about the stallion!
Paelen followed the voices, moving as quickly and quietly as he could. Moment by moment, the agent’s voice was getting louder. He approached a short tunnel and saw a light at the end shining through another vent. Through the vent, he heard Agent J speaking to two other men.
He approached the opening. Paelen discovered that if he moved his head just right, he could actually see through the louvred grill and down into the office.
Agent J was sitting at a large desk, his back to the vent. Paelen almost gasped aloud when he saw one of Mercury’s sandals sitting on the desk before him. Agent J was waving the second one in the air while he spoke. Paelen looked at the other men and saw the younger one he knew as Agent O sitting before the desk. The third man seated beside Agent O was unknown to him.
‘So, what do you think?’ Agent J asked.
Agent O shrugged. ‘I just don’t know. But there are too many coincidences for it not to be true. The kid’s test results and the way he sticks to the same story over and over again. Those sandals and that winged horse, Pegasus? What about those creatures in the city? I hate to admit it, but I’m beginning to believe him. I think we might actually be dealing with a bunch of Olympians and not the aliens we first thought.’
Agent J turned to the other man. ‘What about you, Agent T?’
‘I’m with Agent O,’ he said. ‘We’ve had hundreds of men out there combing all the boroughs for signs of a crashed or landed starship. We’ve contacted NORAD for satellite detection. There just aren’t any traces or sightings of anything coming in from space.’
Agent J cursed. ‘How the hell am I going to explain this?’ he demanded. ‘Command is obsessed with finding extra-terrestrials. More importantly, their technology. Look at all the weapons developed through findings from the Roswell incident! Not to mention the more recent captures. Alien technology is invaluable, and Command expects us to provide information!’
‘Calm down, sir,’ Agent O said. ‘You’ll give yourself a stroke!’
Agent J held up a warning finger. ‘Don’t tell me to calm down! We are the most powerful nation on the planet! Why? Because we have the biggest weapons developed from off-world technology. How will I explain that this kid and that flying horse aren’t from outside of Earth, but a bunch of old myths coming true? What’s next? Vampires? Werewolves? How about some sweet little fairies riding a unicorn!’
‘I know it’s hard to digest,’ said Agent O. ‘But we’d be foolish not to consider it a possibility.’
‘What about all the others?’ Agent J demanded. ‘Jupiter, Apollo, Cupid and all those other mythical characters. Are you suggesting they exist too? And if so, why haven’t we heard from them before now?’