Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston Read Online Free PDF Page B

you. You need to learn how to listen.”
    In front of them, the road suddenly opened up as the asphalt separated and fell at a 45-degree angle. Jon pumped the car’s brakes briefly before the Hummer dipped forward and was swallowed by the earth. The vehicle never slowed as it rode into the darkened tunnel.
    Overhead, the asphalt sleeve rose to its original position. There was a snick! sound as it locked into place.
    Gasping, Leah started to speak, only stopping when she saw a smirk curl the corners of Clarissa’s lips. The supervisor expected her to be startled. She wanted a chance to mock her once again.
    Refusing to give her that satisfaction, Leah stared outside the window in wonder. Outside of the movies and a few of Brandon’s video games, she’d never seen anything like this.
    This is just like one of the old spy films , she thought . One of the classic MGM pictures, with the ground opening up as the hero enters a hidden passage. This is like the secret entrance into Stavro’s underground lair.
    Or was it Dr. Evil who had an underground lair?
    The passageway was dark, the black glass of its curved walls shimmering under the passing headlights. The path’s only other illumination came from the glowing blue strip that bisected the road ahead of them.
    On each side of her, Leah saw the Hummer’s reflection on the walls. Behind the glass, she had a sense of movement and activity.
    “When people wonder if there’s intelligent life outside of our planet, I’m surprised they don’t just do the math,” Clarissa told her. “With billions of solar systems in our galaxy, with at least a hundred billion galaxies in the universe, how could there not be?”
    With caution in his voice, Jon said, “This is highly classified.”
    “Don’t be tiresome, Jon. What secrets do you think we can keep private beyond this point?”
    Although she’d never admit it, it made Leah feel better to see Clarissa’s ire directed at someone beside herself. “What secrets are there?”
    “Alien visitation isn’t anything new or shocking, not to the GJSA. Not for decades.”
    “Decades?” 
    “A Fifth Encounter occurred in the late 1940s,” Clarissa told her. “Society was in the middle of the Cold War and everyone was scared to death of Commies. No one was even thinking about aliens.”
    “I’m sorry but…a what encounter?” Leah asked.
    Jon explained, “A Close Encounter of the Fifth kind.”
    “There are five kinds of Close Encounters?”
    “Seven, actually.”
    “A Fifth Encounter is when there’s direct communication between an extraterrestrial and someone on Earth.” Clarissa’s diamond earrings caught the light as she shook her head in irritation. “May I finish?”
    “Please.”
    “It’s the ‘40’s, the world is in the grip of paranoia, and no one is watching the skies. When he found out what had happened, President Truman played Joe McCarthy like a puppet, using him to raise millions of dollars to fight ‘the Red Menace’. Almost all of that money went to building a highly advanced research laboratory in the Nevada desert.”
    Leah listened with rapt attention. It was exactly like in the movies.
    “We’re taking you to the one place where we know aliens have appeared and where, for the last half-century, we’ve had the opportunity to study one another.”
    “Study one another?
    “We haven’t learned as much as we’d like. Many of our questions are ignored. When we do get an answer, we struggle to understand its meaning. When we answer their questions, they often seem amused by our responses.”
    “The aliens speak English? Or – or Earthling?”
    “Not exactly. And, here, we don’t call them ‘aliens’. The extraterrestrials are called ‘the Visitors’.”
    Ahead of them, another gate came into view. Behind the guard post, the tunnel opened into a huge dome, multi-storied but curiously empty of people. Even though the dome was underground, an artificial sky sparkled overhead, its glowing