Part 2 - Part 02

“Because they know who you are and are threatening to walk out if she doesn’t let you stay.”

“So, what is she going to do?” I asked.

“Let me ask her,” she said and spoke to the teacher.

“The teacher said it’s up to you.”

I looked at the students who suddenly began to yell “Otsiron, Otsiron, Otsiron.”

“I’m staying,” I said. “But they’d better make good use of my time.”

They were thrilled to hear that I was going to spend the day with them, which then turned into four days. Ruzha and I spent the next four days answering all kinds of questions that ranged from “did you really eat the meat of the disgusting ehsib” to marriage proposals from some of the female students. On the third day Ruzha brought her camera to class and interviewed her teacher and many of the students. She asked them how they felt about meeting Captain Otsiron, the alien from the planet earth, or as she referred to me “The alien that changed the world”.

I spent my evenings with Ruzha and with some of her new friends. I learned as much about them as they learned about me. I made sure I mentioned many times that they would be the future leaders of Ostikon and had better take their studies very seriously because their world was changing and they would be the leaders to carry out the change. There was one overriding idea that came out of all this and that was my confidence in them. Because I showed confidence in them they believed what I told them. How long that was going to last was up to them. I felt I had done enough to boost their self-confidence and their teacher agreed.

At the end of the fourth day I said goodbye and they all wished me a good trip, not to forget them and to come back as soon as possible.

On the way to supper Ruzha said, “I can’t believe how much influence you had on the students. They probably learned more in the last four days from you than they did during the whole year. I now have more respect and admiration for you too. One time I was even jealous when that beautiful, tall girl offered to marry you.”

“It’s my popularity they love and not necessarily me. In real life, as you know, I am unpopular and boring.”

I didn’t know where she was going with this so I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to discuss it and make things more complicated between us. We only had four days left to be together and I didn’t want to say anything to upset her. So, momentarily I put my arm over her shoulders and smiled. She smiled back. We spent the rest of the evening on the observation deck greeting people and answering their questions. The students had told their parents and the parents told their colleagues and they all knew about me and that I was on the ship. Everyone was kind and there was no moment that I felt threatened in any way.

The next day there was a knock on the door. It was Ruzha and beside her stood our guide.

“I have good news,” Ruzha said. “This evening we are invited to visit the captain and his wife. Isn’t that great? Our guide will bring you back to your room after you are done with your briefing.”

After we ate breakfast we took Ruzha to the front of her school and left for another section of the ship, where secret stuff was done, and I met my handlers. One of the three spoke English very well. After he dropped me off my guide left.

“This is going to be long and tedious,” my handler said, “and anything we discuss here cannot be taken outside. Usually we dispose of people who know too much but, it seems, we are making an exception with you because the powers to be have a vested

interest in you. You have friends in high places. As a result we have to give you a new identity. It will be new for you but this identity already exists on earth, you will just be assuming it. As a result you will have a place to stay, money to spend and a vehicle to drive. We will give you the necessary identification and bank accounts plus names of people who know you, I mean people who knew the previous person whose identity you are assuming. You are to visit these people and only these people until your identity is confirmed and verified by them. You will speak to them as if you know them well and will call them by their first names. You will tell them you had left on a business trip to Algeria and that you got very ill. But now you are better and happy to be back home and planning to stay for good.”

“What happened to the person whose identity I am taking and why Algeria?” I asked.

“Well, we had to eliminate that person for obvious reasons and Algeria because Peter James, the person you’re replacing, used to do business in Algeria,” he replied and continued.

“We’ll spend the rest of today telling you things you need to know and tomorrow we’ll give you your various identification papers and the money you will need. The house where you will live is in the mountains of British Columbia inside an abandoned World War II army base. You will have access to the entire base which is self-sufficient with regards to energy. The last two days we will question you about every detail you need to know and if you fail… let’s say you will not be going home.”

“What happened to the friends in high places and them wanting me to stay alive?” I asked.

“Well, we have our orders. We will make sure you don’t fail. That’s why we’re giving you four days for something that takes four hours to learn.”

“How long are you keeping me here?” I asked.

“We know about your visit with the captain so it depends on you. The quicker you learn and the more you cooperate the sooner you will get out. We’ll call your guide to take you back the moment we are done with you. In the meantime your food will be brought to you here.”

“Peter James?” I said but was abruptly interrupted.

“Don’t even think about it!” my handler said with a stern voice.

I decided it was to my advantage to fully cooperate and learn and remember everything I was told so that I could get out of here early and alive if possible.

“What about my clothes, I don’t have any clothes,” I said.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. We will talk about that later. We have clothes for you and now that you asked, we will burn everything you own,” he replied.

They told me a lot of things which I played over in my mind like a movie. They showed me pictures and told me the names of several people who Peter James knew. One was an old woman at the CIBC bank to whom Peter James often went for services like paying his bills. They told me to call her Agnes. Another one was the local drunk named Oscar who frequented the local bar. I was to buy him a few drinks and say a few things from his past. Another one was a store owner, a man named Fred, who ran a small variety store and sold me cigarettes. And so on.

This went on and on for hours and finally they decided to call it quits. The briefing took much longer than I expected but ended early enough that I didn’t miss my visit with the captain.

When my guide arrived I insisted we skip dinner and go straight to my room. We met Ruzha in front of my room door wondering what had happened to me. As soon as we arrived I gave her a big hug, which surprised her, and went into my room. I went through my clothes and found the three items I was looking for, my watch, knife and lighter.

When I came out I said to Ruzha, “I want to give you one of these items to remember me by, which one would you like?”

“Which one means the most to you?” she asked.

I showed her the knife and said, “This served me well on your planet.”

She took it, smiled, gave me a hug and said, “I will cherish it.”

Our guide insisted that we hurry because as he put it, “His ass was on the line with the captain who hated waiting.”

Ruzha grabbed my hand and we walked hurriedly towards the captain’s cabin.

Even before our guide had a chance to knock on the door the captain flung it open and in a big voice said, “Ah, you’re here, right on time.”

Our guide turned around and left.

The captain and his wife looked jovial and very relaxed. Ruzha hugged them both, first the captain and then his wife. I shook hands with the captain and hugged his wife.

“That feels both awkward and nice. What is it; another one of your customs?” she asked,

For some reason Ruzha was very happy to explain the hug. She said it was a demonstration of affection that she had learned from me.

The captain escorted us to the long table and said, “I heard a lot of good things about you two and I also know you haven’t eaten dinner this evening.”

We both looked at him. He looked at Ruzha and said, “My son is in your class. He was so excited he couldn’t wait to tell me all the things you two did.”

“Which one is your son?” asked Ruzha.

“The tall, thin boy,” replied the captain.

“The loud mouth,” Ruzha told me in Macedonian.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my watch. I gave it to the captain and said, “I don’t have much but this is one of the items I brought with me from earth and I want you to have it. It would mean a lot to me if you would accept it. It’s an earth timepiece, useless here but it was given to me by my father and I want you to have it.”

“Yes, I have seen one of these before in a museum, very rare and very valuable. I am intrigued by the machinery in it and would love to accept it. It will be the most valuable piece in my collection. Thank you.”

“I’m glad,” I said and looked at the many foods and rakia on the table.

“I hope you are very hungry, I have a delicious dish of a special meat which I believe you have eaten before. So let’s sit down and eat.”

I looked at the captain’s wife. She smiled, picked up my glass and poured same rakia into it and topped it with the green stuff. She did the same with the captain’s glass and then poured some green stuff in hers and Ruzha’s glass. She then picked up her glass and raised it high. We all raised our glasses, clinked them, said “To our health” and had a sip. The captain’s wife was ecstatic with the idea of her leading the toast and said, “This is a great day for all women!”

Ruzha looked at her and smiled feeling she was in good company.

The moment I tasted the meat I knew what it was and where I had eaten it before. I smiled and shook my head.

The captain looked at me, smiled and said, “It’s fantastic and not poisonous when the blood is drained out of it.”

Even though Ruzha translated this information for me she had no idea what we were talking about. She too very much enjoyed the meat and ate it to the last crumb.

“How did you manage to get it?” I asked the captain.

“You would be surprised what I can get,” he said. “Too bad you are leaving so early.”

He then looked at Ruzha who looked sad and said, “I’m sure you will be back in no time.”

Seeing that Ruzha was still looking sad the captain’s wife asked her how she was doing with her camera projects.

Ruzha perked up and asked, “How did you know about that?”

“My son, my dear, my son couldn’t wait to tell us everything about you and Otsiron.”

The meat tasted so good that the captain and I kept polishing glass after glass of the mix of rakia and the green stuff.

“Do you know what the name of this drink is?” I asked the captain.

He laughed and said, “You name your drinks too?”

“Yes, but it was not me who named it, it was the captain of the 2nd Destroyer. He called it ‘a symbol of the merging of our two worlds’, the rakia from your world and the green stuff from his.”

While Ruzha talked with the captain’s wife, the captain and I spent the time quietly sipping our drinks and enjoying our company. When our guide arrived the captain invited him to sit with us and offered him food and drink. I was surprised that he accepted to drink alcohol in front of his captain. Yes, indeed, like Ruzha predicted, he was a nice man, reserved but nice.

At one point I decided it was time for us to go. We all needed our sleep and had something to do early the next morning.

“In my tradition it’s impolite to tell the guests to leave so the guests must use their discretion and not abuse their privileges. It’s time to go. We all have things to do tomorrow,” I said.

The captain laughed and said, “I’ll have to remember that one.”

We said thank you to our hosts who voluntarily offered themselves for a hug and we left.

On the way to our rooms Ruzha said, “The captain’s wife invited me to visit her anytime I want to. Isn’t that great?”

“And you should, she has been a diplomat for a long time and she will teach you many things, I’m sure.”

When the elevator door opened Ruzha and I walked out but our guide remained inside and left.

Ruzha gave me a hug, a kiss on the cheek and said she had had a great time tonight.

We then each went to our rooms.

The next three days were uneventful. I spent my days being grilled by my handlers and the evenings with Ruzha visiting the usual places. We were both trying desperately to avoid the attraction we had for each other and to not make things worse than they were.

The final day of my briefing they gave me everything I needed to take with me including the clothing I was expected to wear and sent me to my room. They told me to stay there until the next morning when I was to board the shuttle that was going to take me to earth.

At suppertime Ruzha knocked on my door and I answered it. I didn’t tell her anything except that the next day at ten o’clock I was leaving for earth.

I decided to disobey orders and went to supper with her and spent the rest of the evening walking along the hallways in the shop district and meeting up with her friends.

It was an anxious time for me and I’m sure she too was feeling anxious but it was a subject we didn’t want to discuss.

When we returned to our rooms she gave me a strong hug and again kissed me on the cheek and turned away fast. I was sure she was in tears.

The next morning I was dressed in Peter James’s clothing and had filled the pockets with my money and various documents that I was given when the knock came to my door. It was Ruzha and our guide.

Ruzha said, “You have to give him your room card and everything you have in your room.”

I went back inside and gave him a bag full of clothing and my lighter. I showed him how it worked and told Ruzha to tell him this was a gift from me to him.

This was the first time I saw our guide smile. He thanked me and shook my hand.

From there we went to breakfast. While Ruzha and I ate, our guide left and went to dispose of my old clothing.

“You look really strange,” said Ruzha.

“What? I thought I finally looked normal,” I replied.

She gave me a slap on my arm and said, “You are so funny!”

When our guide came back we went straight to the launch bay and saw the shuttle waiting for me. It was surrounded by Ruzha’s classmates who began to yell “Otsiron” when they saw me. I waved at them. I also waved at their teacher. She was there too.

As soon as we arrived I was told to board immediately. Ruzha gave me a hug and a kiss and began to cry out loud. “Take me with you!” she yelled.

“You know I can’t,” I said.

“Then just remember, I offered to come with you,” she said and yelled. “DON’T FORGET ME!”

In the midst of all the yelling I was pushed into the shuttle and the door was closed. Moments later we were in outer space.

It took about half an hour to reach our destination.

After we landed on top of a heap of rubble I was literally pushed out and the shuttle left quickly.

It was dark and cold outside.

Back on earth

I watched the shuttle fly low towards the mountain and then shoot up vertically like a rocket into the sky and disappear.

I couldn’t believe I was back on earth. I looked around and felt completely alone. I touched my chest and felt for my medallion. It was still there under my plaid shirt.

I was quickly reminded of how cold it could get in the mountains at night here on earth. I searched my pockets and found the key to the door through which I could enter my new home. But where was the door?

I walked down the round hill in the dark and suddenly slipped into a crevice with overgrown vegetation. I followed the gap in the ground and found my way in the open near the road. I was shivering in the cold and couldn’t find my bearings in the dark. The place didn’t look like the photograph I’d been shown. I felt completely lost and regretted my decision to come back. A cold wind blew and I felt my teeth chatter uncontrollably. I wondered if I was going to freeze to death?

I looked up towards the sky. There was a full moon but it was blocked by black clouds. I decided to go back into the crevice to shelter from the wind. I walked as far as I could feel my way in the dark until I reached a wall. I felt to the left and then to the right. I felt something metallic. It felt like there was a door on the right side. I felt for a handle and found it. I turned it but the door was locked. I felt my way around the handle and found the keyhole. I got my key out and kept trying until it entered the keyhole. Then I turned it and heard the locking mechanism click. I turned the handle again and pulled but the door wouldn’t open. I remembered what had happened at the Apserpon facilities and decided to turn the handle and push. The door moved slightly. I pushed again but this time much harder and the metal door flung open. It was pitch black inside and stunk of mold. I slid my hand up and down inside the right hand wall looking for a light switch. I found it and turned it on. A row of flickering fluorescent lights came on. The floor was littered with

paper and junk. I quickly closed the door and put the key back in my pocket. I was still shivering.

I looked around and saw a fireplace in the distance and a pile of wood resting beside it. I went towards it. There was paper, kindling and firewood in the fireplace ready to be lit. But how was I going to light it? I had given away my lighter. I looked up on the mantle above the fireplace and found several boxes full of matches. I lit one and started the fire. Several minutes later I could feel the heat radiating and my shivering began to subside. There was a wooden bench behind me so I decided to stretch out on it. The warmth of the burning fire allowed me to relax and watching the soothing flames dance in the fireplace lulled me to sleep.

Several hours later my body felt numb from head to toe. I slowly got up and put some more wood in the fireplace over the shimmering coals and blew on them until the wood started burning. I felt light-headed. I looked around the room and there was nothing there; no food, no water, no clothing, no toilet, no shower… nothing. There were a lot of windows with bars on them on the outside but I could see nothing through them. The fluorescent lights weren’t much help. Half of them didn’t work and most of them flickered and were giving me a headache. But, on the bright side, I was no longer outside freezing. I decided to stay put for the night and do some exploring the next day. I bolted the door from the inside, turned off the lights, put some more wood on the fire and went back and lay on the bench.

Many things were on my mind. I had just left the ship no more than six hours ago but to me it seemed like it was a lifetime ago. My mind was in total limbo, half looking ahead and half looking behind. I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t turn off my thoughts.

I don’t know when I fell asleep but when I woke up I was overpowered by a great feeling of sadness. It was unbearable. Thank God it only lasted several minutes. I looked outside but it was still dark. I got up, put more wood on the fire and lay back down on the bench.

Suddenly I jumped up. I heard a noise. I’d been sleeping on my back and realized the noise I heard was me snoring. I looked up, light was coming through the windows. It was morning. The fire was still simmering so I tossed some kindling over the coals and when they lit up I added more firewood. It was nice and warm inside but it still reeked of mold.

I went outside. It was freezing cold. I looked around and saw another metal door about ten metres away from the crevice. It was much wider than the door inside the crevice. I went over and tried to open it. It was locked. I pulled out the key but it wouldn’t fit in the keyhole. It was a different type of lock. My handlers on the ship briefed me on everything but neglected to brief me about the most important things, how to get inside. It was getting too cold to stay out so I went back in and sat down on the bench. If I had no key then I needed to break the lock on that door, I thought.

Now that it was lighter in this big empty room I decided to look around and see what else I could find. I went to the darkest part of the room on the far side hoping to find a washroom but all I found was another locked metal door. My key didn’t fit this one either. I came back and looked through the papers and junk on the floor. The papers were old mail from five years ago. It looked like someone had gone mad, torn up all their papers and tossed them on the floor. I regretted that I had to clean all that up but the nice thing was I now had a lot of paper to start the fire.

Just as I decided to add more wood to the fire I looked up on the mantle to see what else there was besides the matches. When I went closer I noticed something on the side of the mantel that looked like a bat hanging upside down. I was startled and backed away. Don’t tell me I’d slept in here with a bat I thought to myself. I picked up a piece of kindling and hurled it at it. I hit it and it fell on the floor.

“Got you!” I said. When I went to investigate I noticed that it wasn’t a bat… It was a set of keys. They were well-hidden on the dark side of the mantle and hanging on a nail. I grabbed them and counted them. There were six and they were all different.

The first door I tried opening was the one inside the big room. The second key I tried fit. I turned it and it worked. After turning it a second time I heard the locking mechanism click. I turned the handle and pulled. The door opened and it was dark inside.

A few metres ahead were black drapes. I looked for a switch and found it. When I turned it on I saw spotlights shining behind the drapes. I parted the drapes and found myself on a stage. What the hell is this I wondered? The stage wasn’t large, about six metres deep by eight metres wide. I found the front curtain and opened it. There was a huge room in front of the stage. It was dark. I stepped off the stage and walked along the wall in the direction I had come from and found a door which I figured was the door I had seen earlier when I went outside. There was a light switch which I turned on. Many lights came on and lit the entire room. I tried the door and found it wasn’t locked. It had no lock. I opened it and entered a short hallway. I turned on the light switch. On the left there was what looked like a coatroom. Straight ahead was the large metal outside door I had seen earlier. I tried to open it but it was locked. I turned the latch under the door handle and unlocked it. I opened it and tried my keys. One of them worked.

I locked up the outside door and went back into the big room. On my left between the door and the stage were six large display cabinets inside the wall about three metres high. In them were nicely displayed old flags and World War II army uniforms. On the other side of the stage were two display cabinets displaying World War II guns and ammunition. Past the two cabinets were two doors. They were the doors leading to the men’s and women’s washrooms. On the right side of the big room there was a lower level with three sets of staircases leading to it. Separating the two levels were railings. There was a huge long table with chairs that could sit about sixty people on the higher level. The lower level had many small tables sitting four to six people each. Facing the centre set of stairs was a large fireplace and to its left, mounted up high, was a very large television. In the bottom corner nearest the television was another door.

After going to the washroom I went to see what was behind that door. It was locked. I went through the keys and found one that

opened it. Behind this door was a huge kitchen with two corridors. In one corridor there were four walk-in freezers and two refrigerators. In the other corridor on one side there was a large oven, a large stove with six elements, two grills and a fryer. On the other side was a long counter. Under the counter and above it were many cupboards full of canned foods, dishes, pots, pans, spoons, forks, knives and other kitchen utensils. It was a big kitchen.

I opened the refrigerators. They were working but there was nothing in them. The freezers were packed with well-labeled frozen meats.

I pulled out a box labeled beef steaks and one labeled hamburger patties and put them out on the counter. I opened the boxes and with a cleaver I removed one steak and a block of six square hamburgers and left them on the counter to thaw. I put the boxes back in the freezer. When I was done I came back up and went into another room past the washrooms. There was no door connecting the two rooms, only a wide entrance.

On the far side of this room were big, tall windows extending along the entire length of the wall through which a garden could be seen and beyond the garden was a large dugout filled with water. The right side of this room, which extended above the kitchen, was furnished with a number of evenly spaced benches with coffee tables in front of them facing the windows. The room looked like a lounge. Immediately to the right past the entrance was a staircase that led to an upper floor. On the right side on top of the stairs there were twelve doors leading to fully furnished bedrooms. Each had a bed, night table, closet, desk, washroom and shower. Outside the door of each room was a large closet full of bedding materials. To the left there was a long well-lit hallway that led to the rooms.

I decided to take the last bedroom, the corner room, the one furthest from the staircase because it had a second window facing east. The rest of the rooms had windows facing north. I took out sheets, bed covers and towels from the closet outside and made the bed. Then I had a shower. I had to run the water for a while to get it to clear. The taps and the hot water seemed to work fine. When I was done I began to look for clothing. I figured every army base had to have all kinds of clothing so it was only a matter of finding them. If I

couldn’t find any then I would wear some of those uniforms in the display cases, I thought.

I then remembered what my handlers had told me. I was Peter James and I had to dress like Peter James. So the question was where did Peter James store his stuff and how was I going to find it.

I spent the next couple of hours looking through every room and in every closet but I didn’t find Peter’s stuff. When I returned to the kitchen I found the steak was semi- thawed. I separated the hamburger patties and left them to thaw further.

When I left the kitchen I looked at the door and it struck me that I had six keys. I had identified three and I had three more which opened doors I had not yet found. I figured there had to be more to this base than what I had discovered so far. I decided to go outside and see what else I could find. I went out through the big front door.

It was past noon now and the sun was beaming from directly above and it was warm outside. Everything was visible including the crevice into which I had fallen the night before. I went out towards the road, up to the fence and began to walk down in an easterly direction.

About ten metres away from the crevice there was a driveway overgrown with grass, weeds and thorn bushes. It was sloping down and at the bottom of it was a huge wooden door that looked like a barn door that split in half and rotated on wheels. There was a lock on the door. I went through my keys and found the key that unlocked it. The big room was poorly lit by light coming through a couple of windows. There was no light switch. I went inside and after my eyes adjusted I could see that it was an underground parking lot. There were two vehicles inside. One looked like a snowplow and the other was a pickup truck. I couldn’t figure out how the snowplow worked and the pickup truck was locked and I had no keys. I looked around the parking lot and saw a door that led to the building I’d been in earlier. It was locked. I tried the keys and found that the key that opened the big front door also opened this door. I opened the door and found a light switch inside. There was a

staircase leading up which I followed and came out beside the coatroom I had discovered earlier.

I went back down and turned off the lights, locked the doors and went outside to look for more doors. This time I followed the fence going up in a westerly direction. I found another driveway. It too was overgrown with grass, weeds and thorn bushes. This driveway was sloping up and then down and at the bottom of it was a huge door that looked like that of an automotive garage. Beside it was a smaller metal door. It was locked. I tried my keys and found the same key that had unlocked the other two doors worked on this one. I went inside and turned on the lights.

It was a big room in which a military tank was parked in the far left corner. To the right just behind the front door was another door that led to a room that looked like an office. I tried opening it. It was locked but I had a key that unlocked it. I opened it and turned on the lights. The office was painted white and was brightly lit. There was a desk facing the window separating the big room from the office. At the far end of the office there were two doors, both had no locks. One led into a washroom and the other to storage room which had been converted into a bedroom. There was a dresser in which Peter James kept his clothes and a safe where he kept all his important papers, passport, jewelry, money, etc., as I later found out. The safe was locked.

My stomach was growling from hunger so I decided to take a break from exploring and went back to the kitchen to cook the meat. I had no idea if any of the equipment was going to work. I tried the stove and it worked. I found a pan, washed it and put some oil in but it smelled rancid. I rinsed it off and tossed the bottle in the garbage and then opened another bottle. This one smelled okay. I turned on one of the bigger elements on the stove, put the frying pan on it and fried four hamburgers.

Surprisingly they were good even after God knows how many years they had sat in the freezer. I cooked the other two hamburgers and the steak. When I was done I went through the freezers and found frozen hamburger buns and bread. I took a package of buns and a loaf of bread and put them in one of the refrigerators. I also took the

box of steak and hamburgers I had opened earlier and put them in the fridge.

After I ate the meat I felt lethargic and wanted to rest so I went to my new bedroom in the corner room on the second floor and lay down.

The next morning I woke up very early. It was still dark outside. I lay in the bed for a while and tried to plan my day. The first thing I needed to do was purchase some groceries. I needed a variety of food to eat, not just meat and bread. But the market was far and for that I needed transportation. So, I figured my first priority after eating breakfast was to find the keys to the pickup truck and get it working. I figured the keys would be somewhere in the garage office.

After eating breakfast, consisting of two hamburger patties on a single hamburger bun, I rushed back to the office and started looking. I found a pad with handwriting on it in the middle drawer of the desk. Peter James had written everything I needed to know on the pad, including where the keys to the pickup truck were located. I would have never found them on my own.

I immediately went to the parking lot, found the keys and went to the pickup truck.

I got in it and tried to start it. The battery was dead. I went back to the office to look for tools. I found a wrench in a toolbox inside one of the desk drawers. I took the battery out and brought it back to the office. The problem now was how to charge it. I remembered reading something about tools on the pad. I took the pad out and reread portions of it. A lot of the tools it specified were stored on the shelves of the tool cabinets on the adjacent wall. I walked over to the other side and began to open the door cabinets one by one from the left, from furthest away from the tank. There were all kinds of things there, including folding metal beds and mattresses. This room must have been used to temporarily house soldiers spending the night here on their way somewhere. I could spend weeks looking through all that stuff. I then looked up and noticed beneath the dust

on the cabinet doors there was writing. I went back and turned on all the lights. That was better, now I could see the writing.

I went from cabinet to cabinet and found one that had a number of items including air pumps and chargers inside. I opened it and rolled out a charger. I grabbed the first one I saw. It was heavy but was on wheels. I rolled it over to where I had the battery, placed the charging clamps red on positive and black on negative, switched the charge to trickle, plugged it in and turned the power on. The on light and the charging light came on. I put the charger on a two amp trickle because when the battery heats up it releases a lot of hydrogen gas when it’s charged fast. I had seen a battery explode before so I took precautions. I also left the doors open so that air could circulate and blow away the hydrogen. I didn’t want it accumulating indoors.

After a few minutes of trickle charge I put the switch to the ten amp charge. There was also a fifty amp charge but I was afraid to try it. Besides I wasn’t in any hurry.

One thing that was bothering me was; what if the battery was a dud and wouldn’t hold the charge at all? Well, there was a test for that. The longer the battery charges the more charge it holds. In any case I left the battery charging and went back to the cabinet to see what else was in it. Next to the cabinet with the chargers was another cabinet and the writing on it was “batteries”. I opened the cabinet door. The top shelves on the entire cabinet were full of all kinds of flashlight batteries. The large batteries were sitting on the floor and looked new.

I went back to the charger and saw that it was still charging. The battery must be okay I figured so I went outside and walked down to the parking lot. I noticed that not a single vehicle had passed on the road. I left the big doors open so that I could get more light and went in to check the truck.

I checked the oil and other fluids including the antifreeze. It looked like the vehicle hadn’t been used since its last tune-up and oil change. That’s good, I thought. The tires were also new but had

deflated a lot and needed filling with air. I would do that after I drove the truck into the garage, I figured.

I decided to go back to the garage and check on the battery. It was still charging. I was getting impatient so I decided to take it back to the truck. After I installed it I tried to start the truck. It started cranking but wouldn’t start. After several tries the battery died.

I took it back into the garage, opened the big garage door by flicking a red switch upwards and watched the door rise and stop on its own. I was happy to see it working.

I placed the battery and charger near the big door, put the charge switch to fifty amps and plugged the charger, which had a long cord, into an electric outlet in the garage. I anticipated an explosion but it didn’t happen although I could hear the battery boiling and the charger clicking every ten seconds or so.

About ten to fifteen minutes later the charger stopped clicking and the green light was on, indicating that the battery was fully charged. The clicking inside the charger was the safety switch going off and on and was designed to protect the charger from overheating.

I turned off the charger and left it there anticipating I was going to come back.

I took the battery back and tried again but after about five long cranks I stopped trying. The truck refused to start. I figured the gasoline reservoir in the truck’s carburetor must have dried up and gummed up the flow. I pushed the lever connected to the gas pedal and saw gasoline spraying inside the carburetor. The gasoline was flowing so it had to be something else. I figured the carburetor was flooded or there was no spark in the electrical system. I let it sit for a few minutes and tried cranking again. It started on the first try. A lot of white smoke came out from the exhaust but it was momentary. The engine seemed to run smoothly.

I ran it for a couple of minutes until the idle subsided and then put it in reverse so that I could back it up and take it into the garage. It refused to move. I gave it some gas but nothing. I checked the

parking brake; it wasn’t engaged. I tried going forward, same thing the wheels refused to turn. It appeared like the brakes were seized up. I figured I would try one more time. I put it in reverse and suddenly I gave it a lot of gas. I heard a loud snap and the vehicle moved. I figured something had broken. I hit the brakes and the vehicle stopped. No matter what, I decided to drive the vehicle into the garage and examine it there but as I drove through the parking lot and up the driveway, except for the scraping sound, the brakes seemed to work fine. The scraping sound was made by the rust on the drums and disks.

I drove the truck inside the garage and turned off the engine.

I went to the tool cabinet marked pumps and grabbed an electric pump with a long air hose. I plugged it in and turned it on. It worked. I turned it off and connected it to one of the front tires. I checked the driver’s door for the recommended air pressure. It was 32 psi so I turned the pump on and ran it until the gauge showed 32 and then turned it off. The gauge dropped to 30 when the pump went off. I ran it again until it reached 34 and when I turned it off it dropped to 32. I did the same with all the tires.

I started the truck and took it outside on the road. I drove it some distance with the brakes slightly applied until the scraping stopped. I tried all the lights and signals, they all worked fine. The gasoline gauge showed the gas tank was full.

I left the truck running while I checked my pockets for my (fake) driver’s license and the amount of money I had. I had something in all my pockets including the three vials of fire water. Unfortunately my handlers only gave me one hundred dollars in cash which was not going to last long. And even though the vehicle permit on the truck had expired five years ago and I had no auto insurance, I decided to drive to the nearest town anyway. I looked at the map in the glove compartment to figure out which direction to go and estimated that the town was about 32 kilometres from the base.

The truck drove very well on the rugged winding back roads and I reached the town in less than forty minutes. It was a small town with a fair sized grocery store located at an intersection between a main

road and the back road I had driven on. I parked in the large empty lot and went inside. I felt very uncomfortable walking in but there was hardly anyone in the store and those who were inside paid no attention to me. In fact no one looked at me or noticed me being there. I picked up some eggs, butter and a box of chocolate chip cookies and paid for them at the checkout counter. The woman who took my money said thank you but didn’t look at me. So, in essence, no one saw me or cared about me, which in a way was a relief but a poor welcome home.

I drove back and parked in the garage. There was so much to do I didn’t know where to start. I closed all the doors, turned off all lights so as not to attract attention, not that there was anyone for miles around, went into the kitchen and put the eggs and butter in the fridge. I had no watch so I couldn’t tell what time it was. My stomach was telling me it was time to eat. I fried four eggs with butter in the same pan I had used the day before, which I had forgotten to wash, and ate them straight out of it. I felt hungrier than when I had started eating so I grabbed the box of cookies, opened it and ate them one after another, all while sitting at the desk in the garage office staring at the handwritten pad.

I read every line very carefully. There was a lot of information, much, much more than my handlers had given me. It turns out I had a telephone, a lawyer, an accountant, etc., and there was a name, a telephone number and questions to ask. It turns out I had a post office box in which I would be able to find my real driver’s license, insurance for the vehicles (not for the tank) and permits to drive them. There was also information on how to open the safe but it was very cryptic and very long. So, before going to do anything I felt it was important to first read the entire pad and make my own notes.

I read as much as I could before I became overwhelmed and returned to the part that revealed information about the safe. For some reason I was drawn to it. Perhaps it was the challenge to open it or my curiosity of what was in it.

I copied the number-letter sequence onto a piece of paper and began to look at it. I stared at it for an hour and it made absolutely no sense. In my frustration I rummaged through the papers in the desk

drawers looking for clues and found some information on the safe. It was the manufacturer’s specification. I read through it and all that was there were instructions on how to open the safe. The lock had numbers one to sixty like the minutes on the clock and you were supposed to rotate it four full turns clockwise and position the pointer on the first number then rotate twice in the opposite direction and place the pointer on the second number, back to the third number and then back to the fourth number. But I had no idea what the numbers were?

I kept looking at the sequence but nothing made sense. There was no separation between the numbers and letters and there were far too many numbers. I decided to rewrite the sequence and separate the number-letters in pairs. After I did that the sequence looked like the machine code I used to write for the microprocessors at the university lab. The first number was 34. What if the numbers were coded in ASCII, I wondered? I remembered 30 hex was the number 0 and 41 hex was the letter A in ASCII. I also noticed the letters in the sequence ranged from A to F. The second number in the sequence was 52 hex which in ASCII is R. The third number was 34 hex or ASCII 4, the next number was 39 hex or ASCII 9. So the sequence went something like this: 4R49… meaning four turns to the right and stop at 49… and so on. When I was done decoding the sequence I wrote the numbers down. I got out of the chair and stood up. My entire body was stiff. I looked outside, it was dark. I had spent the entire day working on this and hoped I had cracked the code. There was one way to be sure and that was to try it out on the safe. For some reason I felt nervous about what was I going to find in the safe?