I hesitated, then turned and walked out onto the frozen bay. The ice seemed plenty thick, the spring thaw having gained little traction. Counting my strides, and trembling from the cold, I continued to scan the star-filled sky for my ride.

Two hundred paces brought me some distance from shore. The surface remained solid beneath my boots, but there was still no sign of a chopper.

The wind howled in my wool-covered ears, sweeping snow particles across the barren ice. Tugging my jacket over my buttocks, I sat down and closed my eyes to attempt a CE-5 communication.

When it comes to meditation, I’m strictly an amateur. Hunkering down in the bone-chilling cold, I ducked my hooded head and closed my eyes, attempting to imagine the Milky Way galaxy and the spiral arm that harbored our blue speck of a planet. When that seemed silly—the E.T.s knew where I was, having just followed me halfway across the world—I shifted my internal eye to the patch of ice beneath me.

I don’t know how long I remained in this position. I may have fallen asleep, but at some point I felt another presence.

Opening my eyes, I found myself surrounded by mist. Directly overhead, a triangle of light seemed to be materializing out of another dimension, along with the flat metallic bottom of an extraterrestrial vehicle. It had to be hovering incredibly close, for it blotted out the stars.

I registered a brief fleeting moment of elation, then sudden panic as the ice beneath me evaporated and I went under, my lung-collapsing yelp stymied by a mouthful of salt water. Rational thought left me as unseen tentacles dragged me deeper into water so frigid it curdled my blood into jelly and strangled my circulation. It was Loch Ness all over again; the darkness, the paralysis of cold, the mind-snapping terror. I caught a glimpse of an immense, dark object moving beneath me as a pink fluorescent light sparked to life before me, revealing a scuba diver.

He shoved a regulator into my mouth, the device attached to a small container of air.

Pinching my nose, I inhaled a dozen quick breaths, struggling to get them into my failing lungs. The diver motioned below to a bullet-shaped canister the size of a double-wide coffin. Grabbing my left wrist, he dragged me to it, the dark container yawning open like a clam as we approached. He laid me inside as another wave of anxiety hit.

He squeezed in next to me and sealed the canister by pressing a device attached to his buoyancy control vest. The moment the pod sealed, a blue light activated.

The diver held up a plastic card.

STAY CALM, ZACHARY.

The top of my head struck the inside of the container as the pod jettisoned through the sea and a second laminated card appeared before me.

POD WILL DRAIN IN 2 MINUTES. CORE TEMPERATURE DROP NECESSARY TO SHUT DOWN BIOCHIP.