The snip below is from the UNSETIC File The Measure of Dreams–the tale of Alisa McConaway and Kate Berkshire and their hunt for the two men they love.
What would you do if someone offered to give you the most important men in your life back after you’d lost them?
AJ McConaway lost her brother and her fiancée during Operation: Iraqi Freedom on the same day within hours of each other. Ten months later, she learns everything she thought she knew about their disappearance was wrong.
Kate Berkshire knew that something strange had happened back in June of ’07 when her lover and his best friend vanished from the cockpits of their planes. She knows because she found one of the downed craft with no trace of its pilot, ejected or otherwise. When an old friend offers her the opportunity to bring them home again, she jumps at the chance without realizing the magnitude of her choice.
Now, both women have to decide if they’re willing to brave the pathways between worlds. Someone–or something–that walks those pathways has taken Mat O’Brien and Tim McConaway from them. How far are they willing to go to bring them home again?
Is it worth the world?
Snippet below the break.
Rosemont, IL, May 2008
The chairs were decidedly uncomfortable in the small side room at what used to be the Rosemont Horizon convention center. AJ chewed her lip and drummed her pencil against the tabletop, trying to soothe her nerves—or perhaps deny them. The invitation had been cryptic but intriguing, but having gotten an eyeful of some of the men and women that had filed into this section of the building with her, she was starting to wonder exactly what they were being invited here for.
Just breathe. You’ll find out soon enough.
Bloody hell, McConaway, you’re here with a bunch of trained soldiers and cops. What the hell could that mean?
Nothing good.
“Dr. McConaway?”
She froze in mid-tap. She knew the voice—the accent, really—though she’d only met the woman once. AJ stood stiffly, turning to peer at the speaker.
Once again, Bryn Knight was not alone. With her stood a dark-haired, athletic-seeming man dressed in cargo pants and a t-shirt, his hands clasped loosely behind him in a pose that was almost but not quite military in its bearing. The gesture seemed odd, off, sending flutters of nerves and excitement through her belly.
Bryn smiled. “You are a doctor now, I presume?”
“I—yes,” AJ said, tucking the pencil over her ear and coming forward to shake Bryn’s outstretched hand. “Official last week. What’s this all about?”
She seemed to ignore the question for the moment and gestured to the man at her side. “Scott Andrews, this is Dr. Alisa McConaway. She’s the anthropologist I told you about.”
“Physical or social?” Scott asked as he shook AJ’s hand.
Thoughts reeling, AJ forced a smile. “A little of both. Archaeologist by most of my training, but I’ve got a knack for languages.”
Scott blinked, then looked at Bryn. “Is she the one that translated the inscription?”
The other woman smiled broadly. “Now you see why I insisted that she get an invitation to this little recruiting drive.”
He swore softly under his breath and shook his head with a hint of a smile. His fingers tightened around AJ’s hand for a moment. “Sorry. She didn’t tell me who you were. All I had was your file.”
“My file?” AJ arched a brow. What the hell kind of file is he talking about?
He coughed and looked slightly abashed, glancing toward Bryn before he met AJ’s curious gaze. “Background check, CV, that kind of thing, but blind. No names, just credentials and qualifications. Stories.”
AJ crossed her arms. “Qualifications. Background. For what? What are you recruiting for?” I don’t like the sound of this.
“A project,” Bryn said quietly. “Something we think that you’re uniquely suited for.”
“Right,” AJ said, chewing the inside of her lip. I’m not up for this cloak and dagger bullshit. She turned away and grabbed her messenger bag. “Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but it really doesn’t sound like something I’m interested in. Thank you for thinking of me, but I think I’m just going to go.” She brushed past them, headed for the door.
“If you walk out that door, Doctor, you’ll never know what happened to your brother or your fiancée.”
AJ froze, hand on the doorknob, her blood turning to ice and her spine stiffening. She turned slowly and met Bryn’s calculating gaze. “What does this have to do with them? What the hell do you know?”
“Bryn,” Scott said, tone warning. “If she doesn’t want to be a part of this, you shouldn’t press. Let her make her choice.”
“All the cards should be on the table, Mr. Andrews, before I let her just walk out that door.” Bryn’s gaze never wavered as she walked toward AJ. “They disappeared last summer. Traces of one plane were found, but there was no trace of second plane and no sign of what happened to either pilot.”
“They searched for six weeks,” AJ said, throat tightening. “Then the Department of Defense called off the search after that and I got two pairs of uniforms showing up at my door to tell me that they’re missing and probably dead in service to their country and that they’re so, so sorry for my loss. They were all I had.” It wasn’t quite true—she still had her uncles, Christopher and Peter—but it wasn’t the same as having Tim and Mat. She loved her uncles, but she still couldn’t bring herself to think of a life without her brother or the boy she loved, the boy she’d grown up knowing, just knowing she’d marry someday. “They were the only constant things in my life and they’re gone. Don’t be using them to try to con me into something because all that’s going to do is piss me off.”
Bryn shook her head, her expression pained and gaze sympathetic, as if she actually somehow fathomed the depth of her loss. “They didn’t find any trace because if Scott and his wife are right—and I whole-heartedly believe they are—something stole them to another world.”
This is insane. “Another world,” AJ repeated, expression deadpan though her stomach twisted, acid bubbling up in the back of her throat. “Aliens took Mat and Tim.”
“Something like that,” Scott said, his voice wooden and his expression bleak.
“You two are crazy,” AJ said, then turned toward the door.
“There are pathways between worlds, Dr. McConaway. Something came through a gateway after traveling one of them and swallowed those two men. I know it because we stopped them from doing the same thing here to Bryn and to you. You’ve got a choice in this.” She heard Scott swallow as he paused. “You don’t have to join us, but something tells me it’ll be easier to protect you if you do than if you walk away.”
“Protect me,” AJ said, half twisting around to look at him. “Protect me from what. Fucking aliens coming to take me away?” What kind of insanity did I just fall into?
“I wish I had a better explanation,” Scott said quietly. There was real pain in his eyes as he watched her fingers tighten against the doorknob. “Bryn had to talk me into bringing you here today. I didn’t think you’d believe, given what you do for a living. You uncover and imagine a past based on solid evidence that it took place. This is…this would be hard for anyone, but harder still for someone who relies on logic coupled to imagination rather than just imagination alone.”
She sucked in a breath, gaze bouncing between the two of them. Focus, McConaway. Why would they weave some kind of cockamamie story like this? What the hell are they trying to suck you into with that bullshit? If they’ve actually read some kind of government file on you, then they know that you’re not the type to believe in UFOs and shit like that. ETs aren’t on your radar—ancient or otherwise. So why spin a story like that?
Why spin a story like that unless it’s somehow true? Her stare finally settled on Bryn.
“That disk you brought that night, when you came in with Graham,” AJ said. “Where did you really get it?”
Bryn took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “A bazaar on a planet called Beryl. I could read the Latin, but the Hebrew was beyond me. Assuming that’s what they actually are.”
“I am the key,” AJ whispered, remembering the tingling and the numbness that had enveloped her arm that night, though only briefly, after she’d touched the gold rim of the trinket. “I open the way.”
God help me.
Her hand fell away from the door and she turned fully back to the pair. “All right,” she said. “If aliens or whatever actually came across some kind of pathway and through some kind of door to Earth, I want to know how they did it. Prove it to me and you’ve got me for the long haul—whatever it takes to get them back. I’m in. But you’ve got to prove it, first.”
Bryn glanced at Scott with one brow delicately arched as if to say See? I told you. He just shook his head and handed AJ a notecard with an address scribbled on it.
“Go there and ask for Sierra,” he said quietly. “She’ll show you what you need to see.”
The address was down in the South Loop. “Printer’s Row?”
“Ask for Sierra,” Scott said again. “If you’re still there by the time I get back, I’ll know what your decision is.”
He eased past her and out the door. AJ watched him go, frowning, then looked back at Bryn.
“What’s your part in all of this?”
“I’m just the catalyst,” Bryn said softly. “I was the one that recognized last fall that you were a target too, that it was all connected. We should have approached you then—I wanted to—but my vote wasn’t one that counted at the time.” She took AJ’s hand and AJ surprised herself in letting her. The other woman’s fingers were strong and warm as they squeezed hers. “I am deeply sorry for the loss you’ve suffered, but I hope that with luck it will only be temporary and the world will be a safer place by the time we’re done.”
“Done doing what?” AJ asked, feeling a little sick. What am I doing here? Why am I even thinking about this?
Because there’s an off chance that they’re not crazy and Tim and Mat are out there somewhere just waiting for you to find them. That’s why.
Goddamned hope.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Bryn said quietly. “Would you like a ride to the Metra?”
“No,” AJ said. “Thank you.”
She turned and walked out the door.
The Measure of Dreams chronologically falls between Between Fang and Claw and Bering Songs and Silence, both available wherever ebooks are sold.
Between Fang and Claw
Bering Songs and Silence
