The Vigilante Book 1

Chapter 2

First I get hit by a car. Then find out there's a paranoid conspiracy theorist living with an alien underground and now I'm bein' taken by military forces.

I do not approve of this situation.

I sat in total silence, contemplating my situation as we trundled along the roads to our unknown destination. I curiously observed the FBI agent as he looked down fidgeting with the large pin on his tie. The image on which was a white circle with a blue star that appeared to have two swords crossed behind it and some sort of unreadable inscription around the border.

The vehicle stopped several minutes later and both the driver and the soldiers exited without a word. Richardson and I disembarked to find ourselves in the parking lot of a police building.

He and I went in and were met by a sullen-looking receptionist behind the desk who paid us no heed upon seeing Richardson. We walked down the hallway to an elevator. Agent Richardson pulled out a key from his jacket pocket and inserted it into the keyhole in the wall panel. There was a down button, but no floor number, and the down button was exactly what he pushed. The basement level was dusty and understaffed with little more than some supply closets.

A man looking to be in his fifties who appeared to be blind was sweeping the hallway. he moved his head and looked toward us with his white eyes then smoothed his janitor's uniform and kept sweeping. We headed down the dim hallways to a supply closet. Richardson produced yet another key for the door, which opened to a small tram. It took us quietly to another complex some distance away underground.

The somewhat long and annoying journey felt as though I was being pulled deeper and deeper into the government's hands.

When the doors opened, the scene radically changed from the main level to this underground facility. The walls were smooth, blue-gray tinted steel with there many visible corridors winding around.

"What is this place?" I wondered out loud.

"This is the secret Federal Installation for Advanced Technologies, or F-I-A-T. Around here we just call it the Fiat," he told me, "This is where our scientists make the new experimental tech and prototypes that we use," he added.

"Hmm," I muttered, nodding as I observed my surroundings, "Why here? Under a town?"

"Security reasons. No one would think to look for a secret facility here in a place this remote. This installation is actually the only reason that the military base remains here. Otherwise they would've packed up and went on to a better location a long time ago. There's another entrance to this facility at the base,"

We walked for a ways until we came to a large steel door with no opening mechanisms aside from a small keypad with the numbers one through nine on it, along with a small keyhole. Richardson pushed a long series of buttons, too fast for me to see on it and the door swung open with a nearly silent hiss, we came into a large briefing room with no one in it.

"Have a seat," he told me.

"What is this 'bout Richardson?" I asked, doing as he commanded.

"First, call me Dale. and second; I need to know what you've learned about what's going on,"

"I know that apparently I can be hit by cars without bein' seriously injured, bend assault rifles with my hands, and that there is a paranoid guy who lives with an alien underneath the town. Also that I don't seem to be worried 'bout any of it," I said calmly, "That part is bothering me,"

"Understandably. What did Jack tell you about this?"

"That I was special. And he said that 'you', meanin' the government, had somethin' to do with this, and that he seemed to think that I was different,"