Will had decided that is was time to bluntly address the issue since she’d brought it up. “I don’t like the government dictating to me who is on my team, funding or not. I also don’t like someone spying on me to determine whether or not I am worthy of that funding.”
“The government has invested a considerable amount of money into your project. Is it too much to ask that they see a return? I am just a surrogate for their interests.”
“Is that why you’re here? To tell me how great it is that I’m being spied on in my own lab?”
“Not your lab, doctor. The government’s lab. In any case, I am here to ask you to put me in a more pivotal role in the project.”
“A more pivotal role?” questioned Will, now leaning forward and showing his curiosity.
“Yes. You know very well that my knowledge of this project is far greater than anyone else on your team. It is a waste of my knowledge and skills to have me doing menial tasks. Quite frankly, I think I can help you move this project forward.”
It suddenly occurred to Will, that this would be the opportunity he was looking for, to get her to drink the truth serum. He knew he might not get another chance if he didn’t act now.
“I’m intrigued. Let me get you a drink, and we’ll discuss this further.”
“I am not thirsty,” said Ileana
“No, I insist. You want a bigger role in this; have a drink with me as a sign of good faith. Who knows, you might actually find it relaxing—if indeed you ever do relax.”
Ileana shook her head impatiently as Will left the room to get the drinks. He quickly walked into his bedroom and reached for the black cloth containing the vial. He unrolled it and it dropped into his hand. He squeezed it tightly as he went into his small kitchen and took two glasses from the cupboard above his head. He poured himself a small glass of Cholan whiskey, and quickly drank it down to calm his nerves. He then refilled his glass and poured half a glass for Ileana. He took the top off the vial and proceeded to put, what he estimated, was the proper amount into Ileana’s glass. The yellow liquid quickly turned the dark brown color of the whiskey and was unnoticeable when looking at it. Will put the glass up to his nose to see if it was detectable by smell; once again it was no different.
“Lars, you’re a genius,” he whispered quietly as he put the cap back on the vial and rolled it back up in the cloth. He carefully took Ileana’s glass in his right hand and his glass in his left and walked out to the small living room.
“Here you go, doctor,” said Will, carefully handing her the glass from his right hand as he sat down across from her.
“Here’s to Telos,” said Will as he raised his glass, waiting for Ileana to do the same. She looked at him, expressionless, and lifted the glass to her nose, ignoring his attempt at a toast. She swirled the liquid around in the glass and then held it up to the light as if evaluating whether or not to drink it. Will started to get nervous that she’d caught on to the tainted drink. It occurred to him that she always seemed to be in quiet competition with him, which gave him an idea. He drank the whiskey in one quick gulp and slammed the glass down on the table.
“Ah, now that’s a man’s drink…oh, sorry doctor. Listen, maybe you shouldn’t drink that. It’s pretty strong stuff.” Will reached out to take the glass from Ileana, prompting her to swig the drink even faster than him, and she too slammed the glass down.
“Now that we’ve dispensed with your alcoholic ritual, can we please get to what I came here to discuss?”
“Sure. You were saying something about moving the Telos project forward. I happen to think we’ve done a pretty good job moving Telos forward without your help so far.”
“Let’s be honest. You haven’t really done anything significant since you discovered the creatures two years ago. You’ve been extremely conservative in the routing of the rovers, keeping them close to a home base instead of expanding their search radius.”
“Dr. Karkovich, we’ve discovered an entire ecosystem that we could spend fifty years studying without going farther than one hundred feet. We don’t need to risk the rovers trying to cover ground instead of fully understanding the ground we’ve covered.”
Will could see Ileana’s eyes begin to gloss over as the serum took effect.
“The ground you are covering may not have all of the answers I…you are looking for.”
He now began to understand why she’d come. She almost seemed desperate to get him to agree to expand the rover’s radius to find whatever it was she was looking for. Stanzic’s serum was working as he’d promised it would.
“Ileana, tell me why you really want to expand the radius of the rovers.”
She put her hands to her head, trying to gain her equilibrium, which seemed to be slipping away from her.
“I told you, I need to get the answers. I need to find it. It’s my fault. Don’t you see?”
“What’s your fault?”
Her eyes looked heavy, and Will thought she might actually fall asleep.
“I made the decision. It was me. They pressured me to do it, and I knew the time wasn’t right. I told them. Now I can’t find it, and I must find it.”
“What do you need to find? Tell me,” said Will, more adamant than before.
Her head bobbed as she tried to make eye contact with Will. “I can’t tell you. I can’t.” Her voice no longer sounded cold and emotionless; she now sounded desperate and vulnerable, and Will began to feel sorry for her.
“Yes, you can. Tell me. What are you looking for?”
Ileana stood up and began to lose her balance. Will quickly rose to his feet and grabbed her shoulders to help steady her. Before he knew what had happened, she pulled him close and kissed him. He tried gently to push her away, but as Jonas had found out, she had a very strong grasp.
“You are a handsome man, Dr. Will O’Neil.”
“Ileana, please. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I am kissing a handsome man; I know what I’m doing.”
“Please tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Kiss me, and I’ll tell you,” said Ileana playfully.
Will felt guilty, as he didn’t want to take advantage of Ileana’s vulnerable condition, but before he could talk his way out of her request, she pulled him close and began kissing him. He once again tried to push her away and was finally able to get her to stop and step back.
“OK, Dr. Will, I will show you.”
“Yes, show me,” said Will, ignoring Ileana’s new way of addressing him.
She slowly unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, looking playfully at Will, and for a moment, he thought he was in deep trouble. She then reached in and pulled out the access card he had seen days earlier that he suspected opened the door to the black corridor. He began to wonder if he was getting in over his head. He had no way of knowing what was behind that door and how in control of her senses Ileana was.
“Come with me, Dr. Will, and I’ll show you what I’m looking for.”
“Where are we going? You need to tell me.”
“I think you know where we are going. It’s the only way to show you that you need to help me find it.”
“OK, just wait here. I’m going to get my com,” said Will as he gently sat her back down on the chair. She looked up at him, puckering her lips for another kiss. He walked into the bedroom and called Jonas.
“Hey, boss.”
“Jonas, meet me at the entrance to the black corridor in five minutes.”
“What! What about our plan?”
“This is part of it. Just be there!” He pressed the button to disconnect and went back into the living room, where Ileana was still sitting in the chair. He helped her to her feet and led her out into the hall.
“OK, Dr. Karkovich, let’s go get some answers so I can help you find it…whatever it is.”
As Will approached the black corridor’s entrance, he could see Jonas pacing nervously ten feet away from the door, trying to be inconspicuous.<
br />
“Boss, what’s this?”
“Jonas, Dr. Karkovich paid me an unexpected visit tonight, and we had a drink and discussed the future of the Telos project.”
Jonas’s eyes widened with surprise, as he realized Ileana had already taken the serum.
“Oh, I see. And what revelations did she give you about the Telos project?”
Ileana seemed to come slightly out of the stupor she was in while walking to the black corridor.
“Jonas Crouse, do you want to know as well?”
“To know?” Jonas looked at Will as if waiting for him to tell him the proper response to the question. Will nodded affirmatively.
“Oh, yes! I want to know too,” said Jonas excitedly and looking for Will’s approval.
Will just shook his head and scowled. “Don’t overdo it,” he whispered in Jonas’s ear as Ileana grabbed Jonas by the shoulders.
“I will show you as well,” she said. “along with the handsome Dr. Will, who I kissed several times tonight.”
Jonas’s eyes were huge with disbelief as Ileana started to make puckering faces, as if she was recreating the kiss with Will. She began to lose her balance and stumbled backwards into Will’s arms.
“It’s a long story,” said Will, still trying to balance Ileana.
“I bet it is, and one I’ll look forward to hearing in great detail later. What exactly was in that stuff Stanzic gave you?” Jonas whispered.
“Just come on,” said Will, wondering the same thing.
Will helped to steady Ileana next to the black corridor’s entrance. He helped her pull the access card from under her blouse, as she giggled and raised her eyebrows at Jonas. She swiped her card through the slot at the entrance and was about to enter her code into the keypad. Will motioned to Jonas to use his com to record the keys she pushed. He carefully removed his com from his pocket and aimed it at the keypad.
She typed in a series of numbers, and the door slid open into a long, dimly lit corridor that went as far as Will could see. Ileana led them in, and the door closed behind them, making the corridor even darker.
Ileana paused as she stared down the corridor, and her facial expression became dour. Will could sense her apprehension as she led them further in. His instincts told him it wasn’t her fear of being caught inside the corridor with unauthorized personnel, but something else. Whatever her secret was, he now knew it was extremely painful to her.
“Come, I have to show you. It’s my fault. I told them not to push this issue, but they did. I gave in to them because I too am a student of science and thought I had the answers. You may not realize it, but my commitment is to scientific study. That’s why I continue to serve them; it allows me access to resources you can only dream of.”
“Ileana, what if someone comes up this corridor?” asked Will. “We aren’t supposed to be here.”
“I am the only one now authorized to leave the corridor through this access way. No one will see us here.” She proceeded to lead them forward, and they approached another door with encoded access.
“Jonas,” Will whispered, “I want you to keep filming whatever we find in here. Make sure to get Ileana in the pictures as well; we may need some leverage at some point.”
“Got it, boss. So you kissed her? How was it?”
“We don’t have time for that now!” he whispered adamantly. Ileana once again removed the access card from inside her shirt and proceeded to open the locked door.
“Ileana, what’s through this door?”
“I think you will recognize it, Dr. Will.” Despite the fact that he found it annoying that she kept calling him Dr. Will, he was starting to like her with her guard down. As they walked through the door, the light clicked on automatically.
“Holy crap!” shouted Jonas.
“Oh my God, you stole it!” said Will angrily.
Laid out in front of them was an exact replica of all of the Telos equipment, with live feeds from the rovers visible on the view screens.
“You see why I know so much about Telos. I have been monitoring this project since the very beginning, making my own judgments based on my analyses.”
“But why? My findings are made public; this project is as transparent as it can possibly be.” said Will.
“Because the highest level of our government wanted me to begin planning a secret Earth colony to be used as an initial step to populating Earth.”
“Why were they so secretive?” asked Will. “We had eventually planned to move it to that phase once we thoroughly explored the surface over ten years or so.”
“When you first began this project, Earth appeared to be rugged but tamable. I monitored the rovers as you did, and I saw a paradise before me. The officials I work for did not intend to ever let you develop this planet for the common citizen; this was to be a world built only for the elite. That’s why they never tried to pull you into this; they knew your feelings on making this world accessible to all. They are not patient men; they were not willing to wait ten years.”
“Boss, ask her why she was messing with the rovers from the office last night,” said Jonas, speaking loud enough for her to hear.
“I think you just asked her.”
“What you see here is not complete,” Ileana continued. “I have no control over the rovers and can only observe. I have tried to break Dr. Will’s encrypted programming and have been unsuccessful each time.”
“Is that why the project was funded again and brought up here, so you could have direct access to the rovers through your position on my team?”
“Precisely.”
“I don’t understand. It’s been years. Why now?” asked Jonas.
Ileana broke down into tears. “Because they are going to try it again! We lost it the first time, and they are still forcing me to try it again. I must find it first, or the same thing might happen. I can’t live with the thought that I could be responsible for it again.”
“For what, Ileana? Tell me,” demanded Will.
She put her hands over her face to try and block the pain of the memories Will was forcing her to recall. Will gently put his hands on her wrists and pulled her hands away.
“Maybe I can help you find what you’re looking for. You have to tell me what it is—please.” Will looked back at Jonas to make sure he was still capturing all of this on his com. Ileana tried to compose herself as Will’s words seemed to be soothing to her.
“I will answer your question. I will show you my secret, and then you’ll understand why I need to find it.”
Will turned to Jonas and whispered in his ear, “Find a way to disable this thing, in a way that she won’t be able to find easily. I don’t want her to be able to use this to spy on us. I’ll buy you a few minutes.”
Will walked back over to Ileana, pretending to comfort her in her obviously distraught state. A few minutes later, Jonas walked back from Ileana’s control console.
“OK, I made a few alterations at a level it will take her a while to figure out. That’s all I can do with this kind of time.”
Will nodded in understanding.
Ileana led Will and Jonas from the lab and farther down the dim corridor toward another secured door.
“We must be careful. When we go through this door, there can be other people in this section. It’s late, and most will be in quarters, but we must use caution.”
Ileana opened the door and carefully looked left and right to see that nobody was in the corridor. She motioned for Will and Jonas to follow her, and they walked quickly down the hall toward a set of stairs.
“This way,” Ileana commanded. “Up the stairs.”
“Boss, if we’re seen in here, I’m sure it will make what happened on the roof of quorum headquarters look like a stroll through Manikar Park. Why don’t we turn around and get out of here?”
“Jonas Crouse, you are always running away,” said Ileana in a demeaning tone.
“Not always. Sometimes it’s more of a brisk walk,” replied Jonas, s
lightly offended.
“In any case,” said Will. “We’re not going anywhere until I get some answers.”
Ileana reached the top of the stairway and swung open the door.
“Your answers are right through here, Dr. Will. I’ll show you.”
The door led into what looked like a control room with large windows that were blackened. The room was narrow and wound around as far as Will could see.
“From here we’ll be able to see it without being seen ourselves. These windows can be adjusted to allow visibility to the hangar bay below, while still obscuring us from being seen by the workers.”
“Workers? What are they working on?” asked Will.
“A secret project—secret to most of Mars, including many in the government. There is a small group that consolidated power shortly after the war, and they secretly run everything. They have many plans, including making Earth their own world to rule, despite your creatures.”
Ileana walked to a control panel against the wall and proceeded to pull a lever to the halfway position. The dark tinted windows began to clear, exposing the hangar bay below.
“A ship? This is your secret, a big black ship?” said Jonas.
“Not just any ship. Look carefully.”
Will walked around the control room to get a better view of the name on the side of the ship. He finally got to a position where he could make out the name. “EC2?” said Will as he read the name emblazoned on the side of the ship’s hull. “What is EC2?”
“In their infinite wisdom and arrogance, they named it EC2, even after what happened,” said Ileana, rubbing her right temple, as the serum reached its peak.
“Ileana, what the hell does EC2 stand for?” said Will, beginning to lose his patience.
“It stands for Earth Conqueror Two,” she responded, once again losing her balance. This time Jonas steadied her and quickly removed his hands.
Will looked at Jonas with fury in his eyes. “Oh my God, they’re planning on going there. That’s why they have you spying on me, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is my mission to find out everything you know about the planet to help them succeed this time.”
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