Chapter 6

A Bigger Plan

The Visitor breathed in the evening breeze and gravitated toward a bayside park. Families were cooking picnic dinners over coals and children played and shouted on the playground. He wasn’t sure if the sights and sounds of the gathered people or the smell of the food attracted him more. Dinnertime found him hungry and still undecided about a place to stay. Travel had been difficult. Long, busy highways circled along the waters of the bay, the Gulf, and the bayous. The few back roads were simply dead ends. Bridges were a necessity for getting from one place to another along the Emerald Coast of Florida. MacArthur had managed to locate both the aquarium and the Center for Oceanographic Studies. These were places frequented by David West when he was not engaged in training Navy dolphins. In nearly two days, however, the Visitor had not managed to meet this man, even in public.        "Let it rest, MacArthur," he whispered, smiling and shaking his head as he realized that he was talking to himself. The Visitor, looking precisely like the homeless person he had become, sat cross-legged in the grass and idly watched three young children. Two were digging holes in the gravel playground. They worked together with their hands and a plastic shovel. Periodically, one would walk across the sidewalk to the water’s edge with a pail and haul water to fill their imaginary pool. This work was interrupted by their mother’s calling them to dinner. Noticing the unkempt, solitary man in the grass, she walked over and retrieved the children, all except one.        The third child remained crouched in the bushes next to the restrooms. He had been arranging sticks and leaves and seemed oblivious to the other children. From time to time, he gave the stranger in the grass a furtive glance.        "You better go eat," the Visitor called to him.        The boy’s large hazel eyes remained fixed on his own hands. There was no reply. MacArthur studied the child with increasing curiosity. Outwardly, he appeared to be a typical, healthy boy in the prime of middle childhood. MacArthur sensed the boy’s hyper-alert state, felt certain that the boy was aware of his presence and listening closely. Beyond that, the Visitor recognized his willful masking of consciousness, an extraordinary ability for a young child. Decorum in a case like this, learned from painstaking lessons at the Colony, required a strategic retreat. Turning away, MacArthur stretched and stood up. He managed to reach the hot dog cart just as it was closing and bought several sandwiches.        Patchy grass and soft sand made a welcome seat for watching evening turn into night over the bay. Chewing on a hot dog, the Visitor watched the gulls catching their last meal along the shore. He caught a glimpse of what looked like dolphin fins popping up from the water’s surface far out in the bay. But his thoughts quickly strayed from this scene as memories overtook him.

Sitting alone in a chamber of the spacecraft, he struggled to control emotions. His stomach felt knotted, his skin cold and damp. Adam MacArthur was stinging from David O’Ryan’s vehement accusations of murder, frustrated with the complacency of Colony members toward his mission. It took all of his newly acquired skills to remain receptive to the verdict of the Elders. He felt, rather than heard, the buzzing tones in his head. It seemed as if all the Elders were speaking at once, approving of his concern for James Vise and for all earth-bound humans. "Elders are not aliens. You must not reject us," they insisted.        MacArthur followed explicit instructions, repeated several times over. He opened a panel in the chamber wall and attached spongy connectors to his forehead, temple and back of his neck. He was immediately immersed in memory sharing, the equivalent of a high-speed movie with the addition of sensations that made it compellingly real.        MacArthur saw the pattern in more than ten millennia of "Visitors" to Earth. He saw that countless small communities of abductees’ colonies had succeeded one another, each one an attempt to bring humans to a new level. He felt the anticipation and then the regret as each mission of carefully chosen Visitors to Earth fell short of the goal. Survivors among the enhanced humans joined the work force of the Elders on one level or another. Like gardeners striving to create the perfect hybrid crop, they continued their work. But well-placed seeds failed to take root and grow. Earth-bound humans continued in their isolation, suspicion and fear of all that differed from their world-view. They remained isolated from the greater communities of the star system.        Retrieving a tiny, barbed crystalline device from a canister behind the panel, MacArthur pressed it deep into the tissue behind his left ear, willing himself to continue until the device remained barely visible against the skin. Left to grow and intermingle with his sensory center, the implant offered the promise of a new connection. With this hope, some knowledge of the Elders’ plan and little else, he left the craft for Earth - a Visitor once again.

The Visitor aroused from memories to the sound of rustling paper napkins. Startled, he and the lone child from the playground both jumped at once. The boy had stealthily approached the Visitor’s side and had stuffed an entire hot dog into his mouth. Without a word, he raced away down the beach. The wily child was halfway to an old, wooden fishing dock before MacArthur recognized that he was not running away. Rather the boy’s attention was focused on something moving ahead of him in the water. When the child began scaling the gate to the old dock, the Visitor felt the first inkling of concern and rose to follow him.        "Hey there, Buddy, hello," the Visitor called from outside the gate. Receiving no response, MacArthur climbed over the fencing and approached the child, who was now leaning over the end of the dock. Incredibly, the boy was trading a series of clicks and whistles with a dolphin that circled just out of reach. Both appeared to become more agitated during this exchange. The child leaped into the water before MacArthur could intervene. The Visitor looked toward the park for help but found that the picnic area was now deserted in the near darkness.        Peering into the water, the Visitor could see the boy was not in danger of drowning. On the contrary, he looked like a young dolphin being swept along in the large dolphin’s slipstream. Still, MacArthur could not avoid the sense of urgency that goaded him into quickly removing his shoes and socks and jumping after the boy. The water felt nearly as warm as the air temperature, but the weight of his shirt and pants limited the Visitor’s movements. Searching his consciousness for a connection, he managed to link with the dolphin as the pair circled back in his direction. Contact with this intelligent but foreign mind differed entirely from his previous experience in communicating with an excited dog. This creature was confused and desperately reaching out for some kind of help. MacArthur had the impression of a wounded but sentient being, but no wounds were visible when, at last, he managed to hold the dolphin’s dorsal fin. Dismayed by the speed at which the dolphin was carrying them away from the dock, MacArthur made a decision. He broke contact and forcibly pulled the boy with him, swimming back toward shore. They very nearly did not make it back. The child wailed, pinched, and kicked in protest. Not until the man and boy reached the gravel beach, did he quiet. The two lay wet and exhausted in the sand and rock. The boy, lying face down, repeatedly tapped his forehead against the sand in silent protest. The dolphin had disappeared.        "Who are you, young man?" the Visitor asked when he at last found the breath to speak. The boy turned away but remained silent. He seemed engrossed in watching the park lights that had just come on. Fatigue had softened the child’s resistance, both physical and mental. MacArthur searched his consciousness, glimpsing the boy’s strange, chaotic world of sights, sounds and sensations. MacArthur shook his head. He was distracted by a strange sensation in his own head and a sound resembling sparks of static electricity. Vaguely, he worried that his unexpected swim had disturbed the newly placed implant. But the sensation soon faded, and his attention turned instead to his clothing heavy with sand and sticky from the drying salt water.        "Come on," he urged the boy, hopefully. "Let’s get cleaned up." Amazingly, the child allowed himself to be led by the hand. They walked, wobbly-legged from exertion, across the beach, sidewalk and grass to the restrooms and made use of the outdoor shower. MacArthur resigned himself to the fact that this boy would not or could not talk to him. But where were his parents? In the process of rinsing sand off the child’s arm, he noticed the small metal bracelet. A medical symbol was imprinted on one side. The other side displayed small print that was not quite legible in the gloom. Coaxing the child into the lighted area of the restroom, MacArthur was able to make out a name, address and phone number, along with the word, autistic.        "Joshua?" the Visitor asked, turning the boy’s face to meet his.        "Joshua," the child repeated quickly in a near-whisper and instantly jerked his head away.        "My name’s Adam," the Visitor ventured, then added "Look at me!"        "Me," the boy echoed, making brief eye contact before trying to pull away from this painful game of meeting someone’s gaze.        "No," replied MacArthur in e.shtmleration, "that’s me!" Giving in to the inevitable, he continued, "That’s OK, Joshua. We’ll get you home. Where did you find the big friend you had out there in the water?" Taking another look, he added, "That’s pretty fancy swim gear you’re wearing. I wonder, did you know you were going for a swim with that dolphin today?" MacArthur no longer expected a response. Whatever else the label, autistic, meant, MacArthur recognized the irrevocable difficulty with communication based on a very different world-view. He continued in a soothing tone of voice. "You’re lucky. Now as for me, I’m a sight. I’ll have to wring out these clothes. Hang on a few more minutes, buddy."        The Visitor was just completing the unpleasant task of shrugging back into his still damp shirt when the static began to crackle in his head once again. Interspersed with the noise came disjointed thoughts:        Move... not your path... Can you hear me?"        The sensation was very like communication with the Elders or Colony members. He was receiving thoughts rather than words, but they were distorted. Once again MacArthur considered whether or not the water had damaged his new communication device. There was no time to reach a conclusion, however. At that moment, Craig Van Patten entered the room.