The Arctic Fox 2

Once more, special thanks to Malady for his help editing.

– Rosemary

Chapter 2.1

August 19^th, 2021

9 AM

Marcia Chatham ran out of the house and jumped into the old Mustang beside her boyfriend, Darryl. After their good morning kiss, they hurried to their first yard of the morning as part of their jobs working for Marcia’s older brother, Chet, doing yardwork for different people on the Air Force Base. They crossed McDonald Place, where two days before, they had discovered something in the ground. They didn’t know what it turned out to be, as Darryl’s dad, the CO of the base, had ordered that it be kept secret until they could determine more about it.

As they passed the street, Darryl slowed to a crawl. There was no one living on that section of the road as it had just been built, and a temporary fence had been erected at the start of the block. In addition, there were black tarps affixed to the fence, blocking anyone's view to what was going on.

Both were wondering what they had discovered. Obviously, something was in the ground there. Darryl had joked the night before that it must be a UFO. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, but what was it?

-=#=-

It was a long morning for the two. They worked on several things, some of which had nothing to do with yardwork at all. In one job, they helped a Sergeant who had a fascination with older cars in detailing a 1977 Ford Granada coupe.

A bit later, they went to the base cafeteria where they met up with Chet and Margot for lunch. Margot was Darryl’s older sister, and had been friends with Chet since they were much younger.

For many years, Margot had been Mark, and when she came out as trans, she and Chet had a falling out. Just recently, however, they had gotten back together, married, and adopted a young boy.

Having an older sister who was trans had prepared Darryl for Marcia. He didn’t bat an eye with her being a trans girl like his sister.

Chet offered to pay for all of their food, but Darryl declined, saying he’d pay for his and Marcia’s.

Their food came, and they took their trays to a table near the back of the hall. Marcia had informed Chet about their find of… well, something, at the house on McDonald Place, and he was curious.

“Any idea what they found?” he asked.

“No,” Darryl said. “Dad told us that night that it had to be kept quiet. At least until they found what they were dealing with?”

“Why keep it quiet?” Margot asked.

“Just in case it’s something that they don’t want anyone to know about,” Darryl told his sister.

“I see,” she said, nodding.

Chet caught his wife’s expression, however. He recognized it from when they were kids. “No, Margot. Don’t bug your dad about it. Or mine, for that matter.”

“I wanna know what they found,” she declared. “Don’t you?”

“Sure I do,” he told her. “But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna bug him until he tells me.”

“Well, that’s just one area where we differ,” she said with a grin. “And he’s never been able to resist telling his daughter what she wants to know.”

Darryl let out an involuntary snort, and covered it up with, “Excuse me.”

Margot flashed him an evil look. “You disagree, Darryl?”

“Who, me? I wouldn’t dare!”

“Uh huh.”

Once lunch was over, they headed back to their jobs, although to break the the monotony, Darryl and Marcia went to North Pole to work in the afternoon, and Chet and Margot worked on base.

At 4:30, when they finished work, Darryl and Marcia went to their older sibling’s house where Liz, Darryl and Margot’s mom, was babysitting her grandson. She had Chet and Marcia’s sister, Amber, along as well, and the toddlers were playing together like there was no tomorrow.

The kids were having a wonderful time on a backyard playset that Chet and Margot had refurbished together. Watching the kids was something that Liz loved to do. She had no idea where they got their energy from, but it was wonderful that they got along so well.

Liz turned around and smiled as Darryl and Marcia, or Foxy, as only he was allowed to call her, came out the sliding glass door. Marcia hurried to where the kids were playing, and Darryl sat down beside his mom.

It was a Thursday, and the three families had made it a habit each week, to have dinner at one of their houses on that night.

Darryl told his mom about the day he and Marcia had. When he came to the conversation at lunch, Liz laughed, but she commented, “I hope neither of them told anyone about you finding something in the ground there.”

“Well, Mom. We had to tell him why there was no payment for that house.”

“I understand, Darryl, but your dad won’t be happy if they did,” Liz said.

“Why would they?” Darryl asked.

“Well, just offhand Margot might.”

It was Darryl’s turn to laugh. “She likes to talk,” he commented. “I hope she didn’t. Dad wouldn’t be very happy.”

“Well, I suppose there’s not a lot that could be done about it. She didn’t know.”

A few minutes later Chet and Margot got home, and Chet immediately went to play with the kids along with Marcia. Amber and Chet had a wonderful relationship. She always wanted to play with her big brother, and he was happy to oblige.

With a smile on her face, Margot watched her husband playing with the kids for a bit, then shook her head. It amazed her how good of a father Chet was to their new son, Sammy. He would run up to both the kids, roaring and with his hands held up, pretending to be a bear. In turn, they would scream and run away giggling. Not only did the children love the play, but Chet genuinely did too.

After a bit, Chet ‘caught’ them both, and all three ended up on the ground, tickling each other.

At 6 PM, Gloria and Mike Chatham, Chet and Marcia’s parents, arrived, and fifteen minutes later, Bob Johnson, Darryl and Margot’s father, arrived. Both sets of parents had brought their own steaks, and Chet excused himself from the kids and fired up the BBQ.

Marcia took over with the kids, and they had fun, but it was clear that the kids wanted Chet to return and play.

Not only did Chet put the steaks on the grill, but Margot brought out some corn cobs, and they went on too. It was now routine for Chet to be grilling, so he didn’t have to ask anyone how their steaks were to be cooked, so it wasn’t long before things were ready. While the steaks were being cooked, Gloria sauteed some onions and mushrooms with some wine and butter, one of her specialties to go along with steak.

It was a wonderful dinner, and a great time was had by all. True to her word, Margot tried to get her father to tell what had been found.

“How did you find out about it, Margot?”

“Well, it was our employees who found it, Daddy. We needed to know why there wasn’t going to be payment for that house.”

“Uh, huh,” Bob replied. He reached for his wallet, asking, “How much was the price for that house?”

Margot got a wicked grin on her face. “Two hundred, fifty dollars.”

Bob froze and looked up. “Say what?”

“Well, Daddy. It’s not going to be a continuing contract. We can’t get there now, so we have to recoup our losses.” She tried to keep a straight face, but she wasn’t nearly as good at it as her sister-in-law.

Bob put his wallet back in his pocket and simply stared at his daughter as she broke into laughter. “How much really?”

“Just tell us what was found.”

“I can’t. Not until I get authorization from my superiors.”

“Please,” she said, trying for Bambi-eyes.

“No, deer,” her father answered, “Pun intended.”

At that, Darryl snorted with laughter. “I told you, Sis. You’re not going to get the information out of him.”

Margot glared at her brother, but had to admit that he was right.

-=#=-

The next day, pieces of whatever it was started to arrive at Mike’s maintenance hanger. When he and Bob had looked into the hole to see the wreck, they had been able to make a fair guess as to what it was, but it was only a guess. He found it amusing that his daughter-in-law was trying so hard to find out what it was, but so was the Air Force.

He resisted the urge to micromanage the investigation, even though he certainly wanted to be out in the hanger, helping. He was very curious.

When he left his office that night, it was with the report that the wreck wasn’t complete.

-=#=-

August 23^rd, 2021

1:53 PM

Mike watched as the last of the pieces were brought into the hanger. They littered the floor just outside the window in his office that he used for monitoring what was happening with his crew. He was surprised that in the report, there was a body bag that was taken to the hospital. He wondered who had piloted the thing. It wasn’t assembled yet, and he wondered if the pilot would yield any information.

He told the lead of the investigation that he would be back in a little while, and drove to the hospital. In the hospital, he asked where he would find where autopsies were done, then made his way into one of the lower levels. The base wasn’t designed for such occurrences, so they had to make do with one of the regular doctors.

Mike was surprised when he saw that the doctor performing the investigation was the head of the hospital. Bob was also there, watching from a bit of a distance, and Mike couldn’t blame him.

There were several pieces, but the doctor was able to determine that they came from one body, and that the body, was in fact, a human male.

“That rules out a UFO, then,” Mike said to Bob.

He only received a nod in return.

“Only one man was flying it,” Bob finally said.

“My men will determine what it is,” Mike promised.

“I know, Mike. There’s no doubt about that.” He turned to the doctor. “Can you tell me how long he’s been there?”

“Not really, Colonel. He’s been frozen for quite awhile. I can tell you he probably wasn’t military, though.”

“How can you tell that?” Mike asked, shocked.

“From what I can see of his clothes, they’re civilian. He was wearing a parka, but it’s definitely not military.”

“I see,” Mike replied.

-=#=-

August 26^th, 2021

8:10 AM

Mike stood and looked at the wreck. It was an amazing find, and the army engineers who uncovered it and lifted it out of the ground had been ordered not to reveal what they had recovered until the CO heard back from his superiors.

Mike heard footsteps to his right and glanced that way to see who it was. Bob stopped at Mike's side and looked at the destroyed machine.

Mike's people were working on identifying it. It had a metal frame, covered with cloth, and appeared to be a biplane. The engine was made by Kawasaki, and was a V12! It had shattered when the plane hit the ground.

The plane was obviously a fighter, as it had two machine guns mounted on the front. The question was, how did it get to Fairbanks?

The pilot's body had fared relatively well in the ground, as it had been in permafrost. There was a lot of oil spilled at the crash site, but not a lot of fuel. In fact, it was quite likely that the plane went down due to running out of fuel.

But what was it doing there?

Please don’t forget to leave kudos and comment!

Thanks!

-- Rosemary

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