Chapter 30
Several minutes earlier (again)…
As Sam A was being pulled into the dome, Al was following closely behind, not knowing what to do next. He’d been such an idiot, not paying any attention to this place—he had no idea what was going on. He hadn’t even bothered to look up the names of anyone here, because Sam A had seemed to be on top of everything.
Al was kicking himself.
Sam was thrust to the floor in front of the stage area, and Al watched as curious residents began to gather around the mustachioed guy and his goons. Without knowing the guy’s name, he was unable to look up anything about him. All he knew was that he had to get Sam to yield to the cops when they arrived in about twenty minutes.
“Okay, Sam—listen to me,” he said, “just stay right there and don’t move, okay? No matter what happens, just stay put unless I tell you.”
Sam, whose eyes were glazed over, nodded loosely. “Yeah, okay Al. No problem.” He spoke without urgency; like times past when he’d been neck deep in equations at the Project, and absent-mindedly agreed to join Al for lunch, only to get too absorbed in his work to realise that time was slipping by, and miss it entirely.
The guy with the stache and sunglasses stepped onto the stage as the crowds finished gathering.
“Friends and comrades,” he said, smirking. “Get a load of this sorry sight.”
Sam leaned back suddenly, and extended a hand out to steady himself before finally seeming to notice that Al was standing right in front of him. “It’s alright. I’m okay. Don’t worry.” He waved his free hand at Al with a half smile.
Al grimaced as he checked the handlink for any new data. “Well, you may feel okay, but you’re in big trouble. So just remember what I told you.”
“Our spaceman here,” Moustache Guy continued, “is a hypocrite and a thief. Making all of us give up our stash, only to get high on your confiscated dope!”
A murmur spread through the crowd.
“You dirty liar,” Al spat. “Where do you get off?”
“I didn’t!” Sam cried out. “It wasn’t me…”
Al gestured to his friend. “You tell ’em, Sam!”
A dazed Sam pointed a finger vaguely towards Moustache Guy. “He did.”
“I did what, Al?”
Sam looked to Al, a deeply puzzled expression on his face, and Al realised that their assumed name for him was a little more than he could process at that moment.
“He means you, Sam.”
Sam stared at him a moment, mouth hanging open. He furrowed his brow. “Me what?”
“Oh boy…”
Jeez, is he out of it. I’m gonna need to tell him what to say.
“Tell them—”
But that was as much as he was able to get out before the hologram glitched out. A moment later, he found himself alongside a familiar white Chevy as Sam B emerged onto a desert road.
“Sam…? Where are—”
Taking a moment to get his bearings, he realised he could see the colourful dome just fifty feet away.
“Oh, look who the cat dragged in,” Sam B said, crossing his arms. “Where have you been all day, huh? You weren’t around to talk me out of coming here, so I’m taking that as a tacit endorsement of my actions.”
Al couldn’t believe his luck. “You know what, I’ll give you this one,” he said hastily. “But you’ve gotta save your twin. He’s in trouble, Sam.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean ‘in trouble?’ What, did he run out of nails or somethin’?” He gestured, chuckling, towards the bones of what must have been the structure that Sam had been working on, just beside the dome.
“No, Sam. He made a few enemies, looks like. And they’ve got him all drugged up. The cops are on their way as we speak to bust him and they’re gonna kill him. You gotta take him away!”
“Kill him?!” Sam B’s cool demeanour shifted to fear. “Dammit.”
He jumped into action, running toward the construction site, and snatching up a two-by-four. Meanwhile, Al watched a dune buggy pull up by the dome, carrying the woman that Sam A had turned down the other night. She went inside just as Sam B was emerging from the classroom’s frame.
“He’s in the dome, Sam!” Al called, before following the woman through the door.
Inside, he spotted the woman crouching beside Sam A, as Good Morning Starshine began to play from a record player.
Moustache Guy was continuing to address the crowd.
“If this really is a psychic alien meant to guide us all to the New Age, then surely he could prove himself, even through his little trip, right?” He leaned over Sam A with a mocking smile. “Come on, spaceman. Show us your powers. Impress me.”
As the peaceful melody from the record player drifted through the dome, the door burst open, revealing Sam B and his wooden plank resting in his palm.
“Listen up, hippies! Step aside and nobody gets hurt.”
The bewildered crowd of people stared at him a moment as they realised who they were looking at. And then they all stepped back, leaving an opening to the stage where Sam A and Richie’s apparent girlfriend were cowering.
All except for the goons that had brought him in here, and Moustache Guy.
Al cheered Sam B on as he barrelled towards the goons, and easily knocked them aside with the plank, making them double over as it connected with their stomachs.
He reached Moustache Guy and held the plank like a baseball bat. “I suggest you move.”
Moustache Guy was silent for a moment, taking in what had just happened. Then he stepped aside, looking down at Sam A.
“Touché,” he said quietly.
“Great work!” Al shouted. “Now get Sam A and let’s scram already!”
Sam B held his hand out to his double. “Come on, we gotta get out of here.”
He grabbed his counterpart’s hand and pulled him up with the help of the girlfriend.
“But Al told me not to move…” Sam A muttered, looking entirely overwhelmed by the situation.
“Change of plans,” Al said. “Get going, Sam.”
“Oh. Alright.”
As Sam A seemed to gain his footing—tentative as it may have been—the girlfriend looked from one Sam to the other, her eyes wide. “What’s… uh, happening… exactly?”
“Alien magic,” Sam B said brusquely, before turning back to Moustache Guy. “You the one who drugged him up?”
“Yeah, and he put out a cigarette on his arm, too,” Al said.
Sam B’s eyes narrowed to slits. “It’s… Danny, isn’t it?”
Danny? Al thought, and quickly entered the name into the handlink to see if it produced any results.
Danny nodded, looking far less relaxed than he had been mere minutes prior.
Sam B smiled at him—the kind of smile that Sam only got when he was about to do something satisfyingly painful for the other person—and slammed a fist into his eye, breaking his sunglasses and leaving him sprawled on the floor.
He turned to the crowd, giving the peace sign with his fingers. “Sorry to commit violence in the presence of so many hippies,” he said, tugging on Sam A’s arm as he moved to guide him out, “but sometimes there’s no time to talk it out. You all have a good night, now.”
With that, he led Sam A out of the dome, with the girlfriend helping support the unsteady space cadet. As they reached the exit, Sam B paused, looking back.
“I can’t stand this song.” And then he was gone.
Al lingered a moment, looking down at the punch-drunk Danny as Ziggy came back with some information. He checked the handlink and chuckled.
“Your Daddy owns this ranch, huh? And he’s a cop? Boy, you better hope you get some special treatment once he gets here.” He looked around at the other hippies, who were looking at each other, trying to process what had just transpired. A moment later, one of them—a short girl with pigtails—moved to Danny.
“I can’t believe you would drug Al!” She kicked him in the stomach with her bare foot. “That’s for questioning the powers of the star child, asshole.”