Fabricated Ch 12

[companionwolf]

When they reach Washington state, a day or so later of more crappy motels and wasting time away with internet browsing as Davey drives, PC gets the meet up text from Bigly and Lizard. 

It’s another side of the road hostel, with old peeling paint and a elderly counter clerk who hands Alex a tissue silently as blood gushes out their nose. A can rattles in the wind across the parking lot as the group walks to one of the rooms; Tulip gently knocks.

The door opens slightly; a large buff man with a thick beard peers from inside. “You are with Mr. Bradford, yes?’ he asks, and then nods as PC steps into view. “Come in, come in,” he says, opening the door and ushering them inside quickly as he can.

He locks the door behind them. Tulip and Alex stand near the radiator, the latter with the tissue from earlier now shoved up their nose. Bigly, the bearded man, gives them a sympathetic look as he walks over to a lanky form in a hoodie at the small desk in the corner of the room. 

The form unfurls, and reveals itself to be Lizard; blue eyes blink in the low light of the room, and after a round of introduction, Lizard gets up and pulls down a suitcase from the closet. He rummages inside for a moment, and brings out a shoebox; at the same time, Bigly has pulled a duffel bag from under a bad, and is holding a small postal box in his hands. PC twists the ends of the garbage bag he’s brought in in his hands. 

The college students lean over PC’s shoulder as the engineers open the boxes. Metal scrap, glimmering green crystal... if this is fake, it’s certainly convincing. PC takes a long breath. “So this is what was in the stuffed animals Hazel sent?”

Bigly and Lizard nod. 

“Can’t find anything like that crystal anywhere, and I took it to a rock store in town; guy there’s been working with rocks for decades, and he’d had no idea,” says the latter. 

“The metal isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen,” Bigly adds. “It’s like gun metal, but almost reinforced with steel. And there isn’t any bullet chamber, or firing mechanism, but considering the thing’s broken, I can’t even be sure it was a weapon,” he says. “I can’t even be sure these are all the pieces.”

“It’s the same green as the energy beams from that alien’s gun,” Alex says, and PC cringes. 

“The green is plasma,” he corrects. His eyes go back down to the crystals. “These crystals are probably what’s known as Elerium. Crystallized psionics, used as a power source and a conduit for their weapons.” 

He rummages through the garbage bag, pulls out a handful of the green crystals; they’re identical to the ones in the duffel bag and shoe box. 

“That’s your theory?” asks Bigly, and he’s frowning.

“We had a close encounter of the third kind,” Tulip says. “The stuff Bradford has came from the weapon it used.”

“We’re going to the White House,” PC says, “like I mentioned. I’d like to bring both your fragments and mine to show them.” 

Bigly hmmms. Lizard shakes their head, snatched up their box. “You didn’t see this from me,” they say as they put the box away back into their suitcase. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me.”

They glance at Bigly. “You know they’ll ruin you,” they say.

“If were in a fight with a weapon like this,” Bigly answers, “we need all the reverse work we can get.” 

“We can do that ourselves.”

“Not on a mass scale; and do you really want this reaching the military?”

Bigly pinches the bridge of his nose. “Take pictures of ours,” he says to PC, “and you can have my notes, but you can’t have the actual fragments. Bring yours for that.”

“Fine,” PC says, and dumps the crystals in his hand back into the garbage bag. He pulls his phone and snaps a few photos, sends them to the rest of the group as a just in case. Bigly puts away his box once the pictures are saved, chewing on his lower lip the whole time.

“How do you intend to get a audience?” asks Lizard from their seat at the small desk. 

“I’m not sure”, says PC, “but I’ll figure something out.” 

When they get back to the car, Espeon is jumping all over PC, sniffing at his pockets. “Where’s the stuff?” she asks. “I wanna see.”

“We only got pictures,” he says, handing Alice the phone, who holds it up for Espeon to swipe through. The Pokémon nods. 

“Yeah, that looks about right,” she says.

“So glad the expert could confirm,” Davey says with a huff as he slides into the driver’s seat.

“Hey! Have you played the remakes? No? Then shut up! You couldn’t tell a Covenant blaster from a plasma rail gun if your life depended on it!”

Alice drops the phone back into PC’s waiting hands, silently looking up at him. Alex, seated next to him, looks pensive as well. 

“What if the government don’t want to hear you out?” they ask. “Usually they don’t just take random audiences.”

“We could... stage something,” he says.

“Like what?” asks Tulip.

“Another alien attack, like back in Texas,” he suggests. “We’ve got two bodies, and Espeon can probably use psionics to hold one up...”

“Gross,” says Tulip.

“Maybe,” says Alex, furrowing their brow. 

“Well, think fast,” says Davey as he pulls out of the lot back into the road, “because we’re nearly there.”