Mind Invaders

Carla recovered consciousness about a quarter of a mile away from the installation when Ken pulled over to let the first fire engine—with siren wailing at ear-splitting amplitude—roar past. She opened her eyes, looked around in terror for a moment, then realized that they were safe and on the way home. He had to pull over and stop to let another fire engine go by, and Carla took hold of his arm. He turned and their eyes met. She was crying again, but now she was smiling through the tears.

“Look at me, Ken,” she said between sobs. “Something happened to me— something wonderful. Can you tell?”

“Are you telling me... ?”

Ken had been growing uneasy as the afternoon progressed. It was now after 5 o’clock. What was happening out there? Was it enough just to pray, or was there something he had to do as well? Decisively he rose from his knees and announced to the rest, “I’ve got to leave. I just know I’m supposed to get out to the installation as soon as possible. I don’t know what I may be getting into or why the Lord is directing me to do this, so please pray for me! You know the guards have my picture and instructions not to let me in.”

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished representatives of the world’s nations, select members of the media,” Leighton began at last, “it is a great honor and joy to welcome each of you here today to this most important occasion in the long and too-often tragic history of our race. We are gathered just to the south of San Francisco where, in 1945, hopeful delegates from less than half of the nations we represent met to lay the foundation for the United Nations. Today we lay the foundation for something far more significant—not just an organization of nations that remain hopelessly separated by national rivalries, but a New World Order that will make all people and all nations equal and one. When we have proven ourselves to be united and at peace, then we will qualify to apply for entrance into an intergalactic community of civilizations that have evolved far beyond us and who stand ready to share technology and supernatural powers that will give us undreamed of access to the vast universe of space and its limitless resources.

It was June 14—a day never to be forgotten. This date, conveners of World Congress 666 were determined, would go down in history as the day of the key event that laid the foundation for a New Age of unbroken world peace and economic and ecological wholeness. They were confident also that it would always be remembered and cherished as the day that the planet was rescued from an almost certain holocaust. For residents of an area famous for its fog, it would certainly be remembered as one of the most beautiful June days in history. The unusual weather provided the dignitaries from all over the world flying into San Francisco’s International Airport a crystal-clear and sweeping view—from the Pacific Ocean and Golden Gate Bridge, over Nob Hill and the skyscrapers along Market Street, across the Oakland Bay Bridge to Berkeley, and on into the Walnut Creek area, over which Mount Diablo could be seen towering in the distance like some brooding giant.

It was late that night when Carla returned to Ken’s house. She had gone back to the base to try to reason with Viktor—without success. Ken had waited up for her, and together they sat at the kitchen table to talk—the first time he’d been available to do that in nearly a week.

“I really like Viktor,” said Ken, “but I’ve never seen anyone so stubborn. Did he tell you what he intends to do?”

Ken was at the restaurant when Carla arrived. While they waited for Jordan and Viktor, she filled Ken in on what had happened—who Kay Morris was and the close call she and Viktor had had that afternoon and how they’d been rescued in the nick of time by an FBI agent named Anne White.

“I know her very well,” said Ken. “We’ve dated a few times.”

“Really? She’s quite attractive,” said Carla.

“A very nice person. You’d like her,” said Ken. “Her real name is Anne
Bartkowski, but she goes by “White’ on special assignments like that.”
“How do you know her and Don Jordan?”

An hour later, when Carla picked up her office phone, it was an extremely excited Leighton who was on the other end.

“You won’t believe what’s been going on back here in Washington!” he bubbled. “I want you to get Kay and Viktor, and the three of you go into my office where I can talk to you all at once on the speaker. I’ll call back in ten minutes.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you, Frank. Kay, uh—she isn’t here any more. She’s... dead.”

The next few days passed quickly and uneventfully. Absorbed in getting her new secretary oriented and catching up on back phone calls, Carla had little time to devote to long-standing doubts and conflicts. They had only been put aside temporarily, however—not silenced. Disappointingly, Ken had been of little help lately in sorting them out. He seemed, in fact, to be avoiding her. On the few occasions their schedules had brought them into contact over breakfast or a late- night cup of tea, he had been uncharacteristically reluctant to carry on their discussions of the past. She couldn’t understand that. Did it mean that he’d given up on her? A few days ago that would have pleased her, but now it bothered her greatly. She felt neglected.

“Ken’s left for the office already,” his mother informed Carla when she entered the kitchen the next morning. Seeing the disappointment on Carla’s face, she added, “He works much too hard—always has, even when he was a boy. Forever some urgent project or other.”

“That’s one of the things that attracted me to him,” said Carla. “He was on a mission, going somewhere, not wasting his time but doing something worthwhile, goal-oriented.”

When Carla entered the kitchen late that morning, Ken was on the phone and his mother was squeezing orange juice. From a pot on the stove came the gentle “plop-plop” of oatmeal cooking. The wholesome fragrance, the homey sound, the instant welcoming hug that Mrs. Inman gave her lent a restorative normalcy to life.