Page 30 of Love at First Sighting
“Your dad and I worked one,” he says with a huff of a laugh, then lowers his voice, “where this woman…claimed she’d been abducted.
Found her in the woods, miles away from home, no memory of how she got there.
We dug for weeks but got nowhere. She went back to normal life, so…
we dropped it. Wrote it up as ‘Unexplained.’ Sometimes it’s better to never know the truth. ”
Despite being the Men in Black, there’s no guarantee that the aliens have to cooperate with us. Some agents lament about the cases where abductions or flaps happen but then go cold. We can’t always rely on extraterrestrials to come back and take credit for their work.
“Hey,” the bartender behind us rasps. Marcus and I tilt our heads toward him. He’s a wiry guy named Stu with a damp, stained towel tossed over his shoulder. “Someone rented out table six but then bailed. You want a free game?”
Marcus glances to me. “You wanna play?”
I am no expert at pool, but I’m trying to be buddy-buddy with Marcus, and buddy-buddy might mean getting my ass beat at pool.
“Sure.”
I take my drink and move over to table six with Marcus, who arranges the balls in the rack and passes me a pool cue. I have to think about how I’m going to play this conversation as much as the game itself. Marcus shakes the rack, with the eight ball in the middle, and lets them go.
“Put down a dollar. I’m going to get solids,” he taunts.
“So you give me a buck if you’re wrong?”
“Deal.”
Marcus lays the pool cue down on the table and studies the rack in front of him. He gives a few test strokes and then shoots.
He sinks a solid and a stripe. Which means he gets to pick .
“Okay, you got both. Do I owe you money now?”
“Yeah.” He laughs. “Two bucks.”
“Fine,” I tell him. “But you’re not getting my prized two-dollar bill.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. It’s a relic. I pick solids.”
Before I lay my stick down to aim the cue ball toward my best shot at landing a stripe in the pocket, I think about what I want to discuss with Marcus.
I’ve been snooping all week. The appointment with Ian is in his planner, but on his Outlook calendar, Thursday and Friday are blocked out completely, but the details are private.
“So, I see you’re going to be out of the office in two weeks?” I ask. “Staycation? Vacation? ”
“No, nothing luxurious.” As he says this, he leans forward and strikes another solid into a pocket. I take my place and line up a shot, but instead of sinking a ball in, I hit one of his into a pocket. Goddammit. “Tough, kiddo.”
“Anything fun planned?” I ask.
“You realize you sound like me asking you about your weekend plans in high school, right?”
I swallow. “To be fair, I know cooler slang than you did. You just learned what ‘lit’ means.”
“Yeah, sue me.” Another solid ball in a pocket.
“You didn’t know what a meme was, either.”
He glances up and rolls his eyes. “If you come in tomorrow with an AARP membership card, you’re fired.”
“Fine, I guess I won’t be sorting your mail tomorrow, then.” I sink a stripe into a pocket. Marcus huffs as if to say touché . “I’ll have Toby do it.”
“Toby,” he huffs. “Is he doing okay?”
“Honest answer?”
Marcus looks across the bar, where Brad is out of earshot.
“Honest answer.”
“Look, I know I’m not a genius, but Toby is definitely not a genius.”
“Last time I let Brad have a say in our hiring processes. It doesn’t help that the Defense Department makes our job sound like you’re watching paint dry. We’re not getting the government’s finest.”
While I suspect that might be a dig at me, too, it’s an in to my subject, and I welcome it.
“Right. If…if you could run things your way, what would you do?”
Marcus sighs. “Carter, I’m the head of one sector. These decisions come from the top.”
“Of course, but Los Angeles is a big hot spot. I mean, they look at us. Battle of Los Angeles, after all. Years before Roswell. They put emphasis on us for a reason. What would you change?”
We lock eyes. I sink two stripes into pockets. Two for me, four for him. Before he gives me a response, he drops another one in. I think through my strategy. Men like Marcus like the thrill of the win, whether they earn it or not.
It may be a bigger flex letting Marcus win rather than winning myself.
“Higher budgets. Higher pay,” he begins. “We’re running a tin can here. What I wouldn’t give for some more money to pay everyone and get us on the level of SETI, at least.”
“Right,” I lead. “I mean, we’re working harder than ever. Now that any Betty or Barney can put something on the internet, we’re drowning in sightings and potential subjects.”
“We are drowning. We have to pick and choose what we want to take on instead of doing a thorough job. Pisses me off.”
I’ve heard Marcus gripe about his job for years, and I get it.
I hate our outdated technology and terrible pay.
I hate being a neglected child of our department as well.
But now, instead of thinking, He’s got a point , I’m wondering, What would it drive him to do?
Better surveillance would help ease the load on our agents.
Tech partnerships could help financially and technologically.
I see reasons to work with Terra. I wish I didn’t.
I take a long sip of my wood-chip scotch. As I do, Marcus sinks another two balls. Instead of more questions, I play seriously and sink another stripe.
I pause, feigning a pensiveness I hope Marcus doesn’t see through. I’m not nearly as good an actor as El is. I finish off my scotch.
“Have you…have you ever done something you regret for the job?” I ask. I try to come across as a newbie learning the ropes.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I…I mean, did a job ever push you to do something you weren’t comfortable with? I mostly mean near the beginning. I know it gets easier with time, but sometimes, I feel weird.”
Marcus lines up another shot and glances at me. There’s something cold and emotionless in his eyes. “You ask a man my age if he’s got any regrets? Dangerous question.”
Marcus lands the final eight ball in a pocket. He’s won. He’s won and we’re at an impasse. All I’ve gained is a potential motive. And a churning fear in my gut that I shouldn’t blindly trust him the way I used to.