Marmaduke Freehold Homestead, Saline County Missouri
May 5, 2440 – 8:58:30 AM
“Here she comes,” Dave Roxas said with a shrug and a sigh. He was not only right about them missing the house and the town, but by a literal country mile. He was glad too.
The homestead was steeped in his own family history, too. He had spent a lot of time there growing up and working there most of his adult life. He too was a Marmaduke by blood if not name and part of Freehold legend in his own right. He had been part of Matt’s first posse. He had loved Matt’s sister. He had also almost become matt’s brother-in-law, though he doubted Matt knew he and Annette had spent several months as quiet lovers while he was gone.
Dave had lost his dad to cancer and his mom’s days had been numbered. He and Annette had needed each other that summer while Matt was away, which is all Katherine would say about her eldest publicly. When Annette was a week late in August, they made plans. Then for all the plans and pronouncements of love and a life together that a thirteen and fifteen year old could make, she bled them away the next day. That was the day she walked out of Dave’s life.
The Old Second Empire farmhouse turned country mansion, turned hotel boondoggle was the single largest building in the county and easily was still top five in the state by interior volume. It had come into the family When the Boone twins Married the Marmaduke twins whose only children married each other before the Civil War. Their son was the first to bear the name Matthew Johnathan Boone Marmaduke uniting two already tangled local family trees into something best described as a tumbleweed.
They gave Matt the name, the land, and the house, and Dave would have missed it had it all ended here today.
The alien craft didn’t so much land as settle, the prow casting a long shadow over the field just shy of the house, and far enough north he would still get decent sunsets
“Told you they wouldn’t hit it. You were worried for nothing,” Dave said, holding out a hand across the cab of the truck.
“You did,” Matt admitted, handing over an ancient dollar—their lifelong wager token. One of several dozen they’d been trading back and forth since boyhood. “Now drive us over there,” he added, thumping the roof to signal the crew in the back.
The film crew was the best they could cobble up on short notice since Marshall and Columbia had gone into lockdown It included:
- Martin Shah – high school media studies teacher and drone operator
- Teen Camera Crew:
- Jalen Okafor
- Emily Tran
- Carlos Haddad
They were all cousins, even by Missouri standards, which meant they were entirely comfortable riding around in the back of Matt’s truck, though Dave still insisted it was his truck. Everyone had heard about the things he said to the last person other than Matt who drove it.
The rest of the lead truck’s crew were:
- Amelia Reyes Quinto – Clinic Nurse Practitioner, calm-eyed and stern, known for her skill with pressure bandages and her .22 snake pistol. Unshakable, respected, and not to be tested twice.
- Camila Joy Santos – Clinic nurse, competent, pretty, so new to the job she hadn’t yet threatened to kill any patients for patting her ass
- Jaime Pants – local radio operator who was patched into the Freehold ERS, Arrow Rock Fire Station, and Amazon.
“Where do you want us?” Dave asked.
“About a hundred feet in front of that hatch,” Matt said, pointing, “You getting the video, Leonard?”
“Receiving,” came General Leonard Wood’s voice over comms. “Can your drone operator give us a few more passes around the ship without melting them?”
“Copy that.” Matt leaned out the window. “Martin, do another circuit, low and wide.”
