The Fellowship for Alien Detection by Kevin Emerson

Author:Kevin Emerson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter 14

Burns, OR, July 5, 11:14 a.m.

The next morning Dodger stood beside the librarian of the Harney County Library. He had managed to get from her a look similar to what he often inspired in Harry.

“Wait, explain that again?” the librarian asked, standing up from the shelves along the interior wall of the small, brick building. She pulled her glasses down from her black-and-gray-streaked hair and peered at Dodger like he was something written in very small print.

“I need a road atlas, or state maps, or a guidebook, of the Southwest, but I need it to be old. These are all too new.”

“You mean like historical maps? We have a few of those books of gold rush era maps, but I’m afraid they’re only of local areas, the kind that people around here would be interested in.”

“They don’t need to be that historical,” said Dodger, “just kinda. Like from around 1993.”

“1993. But wouldn’t a new map be more up-to-date?”

“No,” said Dodger. “I mean, yes, but that’s not what I’m looking for.”

The librarian squinted, like this was hurting her head. “You know, we spend a significant amount of our budget each year trying to keep our reference books current. Why would someone come to the library for a guidebook or an atlas if it was outdated? But then here you are asking for exactly that.”

“Sorry,” said Dodger. “It’s for a project.”

“And it has to be from the early nineties?” she asked, as if that decade could not have been less cartographically important.

“Yeah. Or a little older, I guess. I mean, really old could be good, but that might be too old.”

The librarian gazed at her stacks again. She kept staring, and Dodger wondered if she was hoping he and his weird request would just disappear if she gave it enough time. Finally she shook her head. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to try a used bookstore, though I don’t know what value they’d find in keeping a not-new but also not-old atlas. Otherwise you should probably try to find yourself a map collector.” She sighed. “But even then, the nineties . . . I don’t know.”

“Okay,” said Dodger, “thanks. I’ll check those historical maps before I go.”

So, after futilely trying to get his meBox to connect to the Wi-Fi, Dodger spent some time online via the library computer. A half hour of searches taught him that finding a map that was not new but also not historical was nearly impossible.

He did, however, find three map collectors that were roughly along their route toward the Southwest. Of the three, a place in the town of Lucky Springs, Nevada, seemed the most promising. Not only because of its reportedly giant collection, but also because it turned out that Lucky Springs was also a town that was mentioned on the We Are the Missing website. A handful of people there had claimed to have experienced missing time and alien abduction. A fortunate coincidence. If his map search came up empty, maybe Dodger could talk to these people or something.

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