they acted hastily and without going through the proper channels. They were concerned about the teens’ safety, but they should not have done what they did. That’s partly why I acted so quickly when Catherine Sheridan, Reese’s mother, contacted me for help. I have two children of my own, and I can understand why Catherine was so upset.”
Reese glanced at her mother, who looked pensive. “Do you think she’s being forced to say that?” Reese asked.
“I don’t know. She’s obviously delivering a preapproved speech, but I don’t know if she believes it.”
“Listen,” David interrupted, turning up the volume.
“—regret what happened with David and Reese, the more serious offense was done by the Imria,” Senator Michaelson said. “They should never have performed that medical procedure on these teens—these children— without the consent of their parents. While I understand that President Randall wants a clean slate with the Imria in order to pursue peaceful talks, I believe the Imria should address the troubling fact that they essentially used these two teens as test subjects.”
The show cut to footage of Reese and David arriving at Travis Air Force Base nine days earlier, looking dazed as they descended from the airplane. “Last Thursday, when Reese and David returned to California,” Sophia said in a voice-over, “the Imria also returned from their five-day-long absence.” The scene changed to an overhead shot of Reese’s house as she, her parents, and David’s family arrived. They climbed out of their cars while reporters surrounded them. “But when the Imrian ship reappeared above San Francisco, no explanation was immediately given for its sudden return,” Sophia said. The video switched to the black triangle hovering over the city while crowds thronged the streets below, tiny signs bobbing in a sea of people. “As the Imrian ship flew over the Noe Valley neighborhood, perceptions of the extraterrestrial visitors began to shift from stunned curiosity to outright hostility. That hostility erupted in violence on August fourteenth, the day that the Imria first spoke to the world at a press conference on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.”
Reese had never seen footage of the protesters at Fisherman’s Wharf. Now she watched herself being herded through the roiling crowd as a man broke free, raising his hand. She flinched as she saw her parents push her onto the ground while the police moved in, circling the gunman and shoving him onto the pavement.
“What led this man, Mitchell Cole, to threaten the teens?” Sophia asked as the picture returned to the studio where she sat in a pool of light. “What’s behind his distrust of the Imria and their adaptation procedure? When we return, Mitchell Cole tells his story.”
“I had no idea she was going to talk to him,” David’s mom said.
“Why is she giving him airtime?” Reese’s dad asked.
Reese leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands. So far the show had avoided focusing on anything too personal, but the more time that passed without Sophia mentioning Reese and David’s relationship, the more anxious Reese became. Were the producers saving it for the end? David touched her, his hand sliding lightly over the small of her back.
She sensed his own tension through his touch, the acidic bubbles in his stomach and the taut muscles of his shoulders.
“Reese, you don’t have to watch this if you don’t want to,” her mom said.
Reese glanced up, surprised. She realized her mom was talking about the interview with Mitchell Cole. “It’s fine, Mom. I want to hear what he has to say.”
When the program returned from the commercial break, Sophia explained that Cole had been released on bail Friday morning, funded by members of a newly formed Ohio-based group called Americans for Humanity and Liberty. Cole joined Sophia in the studio for the interview. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt and dark pants, and his short, light hair was cut with military precision. “I acted alone,” he said in response to her first question. “I don’t know Americans for Humanity and Liberty.” He had no discernible accent, but there was an underlying tone of contempt in his voice that made Reese bristle. “Whoever they are, they’re on the side of freedom, and I stand with them.”
“Why did you do it?” Sophia asked.
He cracked a brief, cold grin. “Those teens are hybrids. Human-alien hybrids. They’re the first of an army that the aliens are creating. That army’s going to take over our country and our world. We have to put a stop to it. I know you probably think I’m crazy, but I’m not. If what I did wakes people up, then it was worth it. They’re coming for us.”
“You mean the Imria?”
He shrugged. “You want to call them that, sure. They’re aliens. They’ve been taking people for decades, experimenting on them to create these hybrids.”
“Are you talking about alien abductions?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know anyone who has been abducted?”
“I’ve been abducted.” He leaned forward, stabbing his fingers into his palm as he spoke. “They took me. They did things to me that make me wake up in the middle of the night screaming. I saw them in that press conference on the island. They act like they’re trying to benefit humanity, but it’s a lie. They want to change us into them. Adaptation. That’s what they’re calling it. It’s genocide. If we don’t stop them, the new world order will come, and we’ll all be goners.”
Reese shrank back into the couch as Cole spoke, his pale eyes bright in the studio lights. He spoke with such paranoid conviction that even Sophia seemed taken aback. The scene cut to Sophia alone in the studio, who said, “Cole’s theories have not arisen from nowhere. They’re firmly rooted in decades of conspiracy theories. In Cole’s scenario, Earth’s sovereign governments will be destroyed and turned into a single global totalitarian regime: a new world order. I spoke with conspiracy expert Peter Vikram, a professor of history at Harvard University, to get his perspective on Cole’s theory.”
Vikram was a middle-aged South Asian man dressed in a crisp, dark purple shirt and stylish glasses. He was interviewed in his office, sitting at his desk in front of a wall of books. “The new world order typically refers to the idea that there is a secret cabal of powerful men who wish to rule the world,” Vikram explained. “This cabal is often believed to be comprised of businessmen, particularly Jewish bankers. In many ways it’s an anti-Semitic theory. Many of those who believe in this theory fall into the category of right-wing extremists who also believe in stockpiling weapons and building secure bunkers to defend against the coming of this so-called new world order, when individual liberties will be severely curtailed. Mitchell Cole has a slightly different perspective. He’s from the camp that believes that a new world order will be brought about through an alien invasion.” Vikram gave Sophia a wry smile. “At least this version of the theory is a bit more progressive, since it’s not humans of any stripe who are out to get us; it’s only aliens.”
“Do you think that Cole’s theory bears any weight?” Sophia asked.
Vikram grew serious again. “If you had asked me a week ago, I would have said absolutely not. One of the things that is fascinating about conspiracy theories is the way they express anxieties about the modern-day world. They’re an expression of paranoia, and a way of exercising control when one feels powerless. If you believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket, you can take steps to ensure that you survive the apocalypse by stocking up on supplies, building a safe house, et cetera. With regard to Cole’s theory, we can no longer simply call him paranoid. The Imria have revealed themselves. Aliens truly do exist, and I must admit that even I have found their initial statements to be confusing and a little frightening. That changes everything.”
The next segment of the show centered on Dr. Brand’s explanation of the adaptation procedure, followed by interviews with a neuroscientist who had begun to go through the documentation the Imria had released on Thursday afternoon. “I can’t understand it all,” he said, “because much of it involves science that is far more advanced than what I’m knowledgeable about. It seems as if the Imria used a viral-like vector to introduce Imrian DNA into the teens’ cells. The information provided also states that the adaptation is now fully heritable—it would be passed on to children of anyone who was adapted, male or female. I’m not entirely clear on how this works, since the Imrian DNA is added to our mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed on through the mother—at least in humans. But somehow this adaptation procedure has caused the male to also be able to pass on mitochondrial DNA to his offspring.” The scientist seemed a bit awed. “If I’m correct, this is a huge revolution in medical science.”
As the show returned to the interview with Reese and David, explaining their ability to communicate through
