April (Part 91)

April Britt is a young pop music star of some renown. A few platinum and gold record sales have made her and her handlers very wealthy. She lives in Los Angeles and seems to live a charmed life. She never struck me as particularly bright, but she has been amazingly successful on Earth, if money and fame can be measured as a form of success, and probably has a lot of overshadowers.

Finding out that she knew Lal-atha is like finding out Mickey Mouse worked for Satan for twenty years before making cartoons for Disney. It doesn't quite seem to fit, and yet, in another way, actually makes a twisted sort of sense.

I fly out to John Wayne Airport in OC in one of the Lear Jets, and it feels good to pilot a plane again. I've gotten too used to being flown that I forgot the simple pleasure of flying. My landing was a little bumpy, but it's been about five years since I've flown, so I excuse myself.

April lives in Malibu, California. I don't look forward to explaining to her the situation. She probably has so many crazies following her around that what I have to tell her will seem like just another one. I have to try.

The 405 is as congested as ever. It takes me three hours to get to Malibu from John Wayne Airport. I remember when it would have taken about half that time.

I park on Pacific Coast Highway. As I step out of my rented car, the smell of the Pacific Ocean lingers in my nostrils and brings me back to my youth and many memories. In some ways it seems like no time has passed at all. The ocean doesn't change much and five thousand years from now I expect the oceans and beaches here will still smell the same.

April Britt's house is a walled and gated mansion. I spot the security cameras and a few bodyguards patrolling the grounds. It's fine for a pop star I guess, but is not really that good.

I walk up to the front gate and use the intercom/bell.

"State your name and business, please."

"My name is Matt Barkley, I'm a Federal agent. I'd like to speak to Ms. Britt please."

"I don't see any Federal agents scheduled for today. Do you have a warrant?"

"No. This isn't a legal matter. It's a matter regarding her personal security."

"Please hold up some form of identification in front of the camera to your left, please."

I hold up a badge that is quite real and identifies me as FBI. SDAI has access to all needed legal forms of Federal identification so it can conduct its affairs and still remain completely unknown.

"Is there a number we can call to verify your identity?"

"Yes, just call your local office from directory assistance and give them my badge number and name."

I wait about ten minutes and suddenly see two burly bodyguards walk up to the gate. Their weapons bulge behind their jackets and while they look big, they also look slow and I doubt they are much good except for scaring the paparazzi and obsessive fans.

"Open the gate." one of the guards speaks into a headset mouthpiece he is wearing.

The gate buzzes and unlocks.

"This way."

I follow the guards through a lush garden with a reflecting pool and Grecian statues. A life size, nude, alabaster sculpture of Venus emerging from the sea is the centerpiece of the reflecting pool, complete with clam shell and all. I smell gardenias and some other flowers I can't as easily identify and the walk is lined with purple wisteria. It's actually a bit more tasteful than I would expect for a pop singer.

We enter a home via two tall French doors that access the garden. April Britt is lounging on a couch with a drink in one hand and she is eating a tiny sandwich with the other.

"Good afternoon ms. Britt, my name is Matt Barkley and..."

"I know...you work for the FBI. My security team checked you out. What's so important that they send you out to visit me? I receive crazy threats every single day from obsessed fans and jealous girls. The police know my place just as well as the local Dunkin Donuts. So what've you got?"

One of the two beefy guards leaves leaving only one behind. I haven't really thought out exactly how I am going to present the threat. Telling her a galactic criminal extraterrestrial has it out for her seems like it would be...rather unconvincing and not have the right credibility to get her to come with me back to Shamballa.

"We received very credible intelligence that a foreign power is planning to abduct you or worse. We would like to place you in protective custody until the plot is foiled and the foreign agents are apprehended."

"A foreign power wants to kill me? Which one? Iran? North Korea? Afghanistan?"

"I'll explain as soon as you're out of here and safe."

April Britt is dressed in bright white shorts, which reveal her tanned legs, and a loose blouse filled with shades of pink, rose, magenta and yellow. Her blond hair is tied up in a bun.

"You'll explain now."

Against my natural instinct, I decide to tell her the truth.

"An alien, his name is Lal-atha, hates you and wants you dead. He's a renowned criminal and you knew him in a past life on another world."

April Britt looks at me and let's what I've said sink in and then starts to laugh. Her bodyguard starts to laugh too.

"Do you want me to throw this crazy out?" he says turning to April.

"Is that it? Or were you just joking with me?"

The body guard's headset chatters to life.

"Code RED! Five intruders just suddenly appeared in the West garden. Sheeeitt! They're Big mother$!@*&#!...8 feet tall, armed and..."

Pop. Pop. Pop.
We hear shots fired and then the sound of an Uzi. Then the sounds stop.

The burly guard is on his headset, "Report!"

There is no answer.

"April if you want to live, come with me now."

April drops the drink and jumps up from the couch.

"Let's go!" she says, "get me the $&#! out of here."

I grab her hand and throw a jawbreaker sized bit of contact fuse thermite at the northern wall.

"Get down."

The explosion rocks the grounds and blows apart a ten foot section of the wall. Dust and smoke waft through the air and my ears are ringing.

"Come on, let's go. I've got a car waiting."

Her bodyguard has pulled out his Uzi and is guarding our rear as we run across Pacific Coast Highway and over to my car. I hear more machine gun fire and flash of bright light fill the sky - disintegration beams of Lal-atha's shock troops.

We jump into the car and I start it.

A 8 foot alien starts to materialize in front of the car.

"Hang on!"

I floor the throttle and hit the alien and he falls to the side of the road, dropping his weapon.

The bodyguard is shrieking "What the hell are these things. It's getting up, like it didn't even phase him."

"I told you...aliens. Bad aliens."

The guard pulls out a .45 and fires it out the window at the figure retrieving his weapon as we accelerate away at top speed.

"I swear I hit that bastard and the bullets just bounced off!"

"Don't waste your ammunition. They're bullet proof."

"Tech2 this is Tech1 here. We have April Britt, but we encountered hostile aliens. Tell Yal-hune."

"Yal-hune already left to somewhere else...one of the other names on your list was in danger about two minutes ago."

"Dammit! They are timing these things together, because they knew Yal-hune could only be in one place at one time. Lal-atha has learned from his previous encounters."

April looks at me with shock, panic and confusion.

"Who's Yal-hune? Who's Lolitha? And what the hell do these aliens want with me? My God! There really ARE aliens? I knew it!"

I drive as fast as I can. By keeping April Britt's fundamental frequency moving around it will be harder for them to pinpoint. They will keep materializing near us when we stop. So I can't stop.

"In the glove compartment is a flashing light. Plug it into the cigarette lighter, turn the little switch on and clamp it out the window to the roof."

She does I instruct. The built in siren wails and the red light rotates Her hands are shaking and the bodyguard is mumbling a string of obscenities to himself in the back seat - also clearly in shock.

I run through the red lights, narrowly avoiding an accident and head south. Just as we narrowly avoid a UPS truck, I feel that light-headed sensation. I hear April's voice just before the white flash.

"What the..."

We reappear in Arizona in the one of the parking lots of Shamballa. I screech to a halt as soon as my senses kick back in.

April looks around at the vastly different surroundings.

"Could you please tell me just what happened and where we are?"

"We were teleported out of California. We are now in Arizona."

"We were what?"

"Teleported."

"You mean like Star Trek? Beam me up Scotty?"

"Something like that."

April Britt looks at me and then just faints. I carry her out of the car and head towards one of Shamballa's entrance portals.

The bodyguard is also in shock, but conscious and keeps muttering, "This isn't happening. We're being punk'd right?"

"Follow me."

Tech2 greets me with a Security team outfitted with our very latest weapon stuff. It's disheartening to know that even our best stuff is really like a bunch of squirt guns next to Lal-atha's forces.

"Yal-hune back yet?"

"No, but she mentally told me you were coming with April Britt, via teleportation."

"Get her bodyguard to somewhere he can receive medical attention. I think he's in shock. I'm going to take April to sub-level 7 and get her on-board the EMF craft. The craft will shield her personal frequency from being broadcast."

"Okay. It must've gotten hairy out there, you've cracked a sweat."

"Yeah. Every encounter with these guys is nasty. Any other reports of alien invasion?"

"Nothing that we can detect. Yal-hune probably will tell us when she returns."

I move April Britt over my shoulder. While she is fairly light and thin, carrying her this far is awkward and I need to balance her weight. Her blouse adjusts and I feel her warm waist press against my cheek. The smell of her perfume or body lotion wafts into my nostrils and I still find it non-plussing that she knew Lal-atha. Though I realize from our brief encounter that the airhead bit is an act, and judging from the well stocked bookshelves I observed in her inner sanctum, she is actually quite literate and not exactly what she seems.