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“Why didn’t they just kill you like they did your source?”
“How the hell do I know? Maybe because we publish a respectable paper. ”
“How did the man who called know about the Mogadorians?”
“He said he had captured one of them and tortured it. ”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. His phone number was from the area code near Columbus. So north of here. Maybe sixty or eighty miles north. ”
“You spoke to him?”
“Yeah. And I wasn’t sure if he was crazy or not, but we had heard rumors about something like this before. He started talking about them wanting to wipe out civilization as we know it, and sometimes he talked so fast that it was hard to make sense of anything he said. One thing he kept repeating was that they were here hunting something, or somebody. Then he started spouting numbers. ”
My eyes open wide. “What numbers? What did they mean?”
“I have no idea. Like I said, he was talking so fast that it was all we could do to write it all down. ”
“You wrote while he talked?” Henri says.
“Of course we did. We’re journalists,” he says incredulously. “Do you think we make up the stories we write?”
“Yeah, I do,” says Henri.
“Do you still have the notes that you wrote?” I say.
He looks at me and nods. “I’m telling you, they’re worthless. Most of what I wrote are scribbles on their plan to destroy the human race. ”
“I need to see them,” I nearly bellow. “Where, where are they?”
He motions towards a desk against one of the walls.
“On the desk. On sticky notes. ”
I walk over to the desk, which is covered with papers, and start looking through the sticky notes. I find some very vague notes on the Mogadorians’ hope to conquer Earth. Nothing concrete, no plans or details, just a few indistinct words:
“Overpopulation”
“Earth’s resources”
“Biological warfare?”
“The Planet Mogadore. ”
I come to the note I’m looking for. I read it carefully three or four times.
Planet Lorien? The Loric?
1–3 dead
4?
7 trailed in Spain.
9 on the run in SA
(what is he talking about? What do these numbers have to do with invading Earth?)
“Why is there a question mark after the number 4?” I ask.
“Because he said something about it but he talked too fast and I didn’t get it. ”
“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
He shakes his head. I sigh. Just my luck, I think. The one thing said about me is the one thing that wasn’t written.
“What does ‘SA’ mean?” I ask.
“South America. ”
“Did he say where in South America?”
“No. ”
I nod, stare at the slip of paper. I wish I could have heard the conversation, that I could have asked questions of my own. Do the Mogadorians really know where Seven is? Are they really following him or her? If so, the Loric charm still holds. I fold the sticky notes and slip them into my back pocket.
“Do you know what the numbers mean?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I have no idea. ”
“I don’t believe you,” he says.
“Shut up,” Sam says, and pokes him in the gut with the heavy end of the bat.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I ask.
He thinks about it for a moment, then says, “I think bright light bothers them. It seemed to cause them pain when they took their sunglasses off. ”
We hear a noise downstairs. Like someone trying to slowly open the door. We look at each other. I look to the man in the chair.
“Who is that?” I quietly say.
“Them. ”
