“It’s out of my hands, unfortunately. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like.”
“Like annihilate a couple of people innocently following your instructions?” Stephen asked furiously. “You sick bastard, you’d do it and stand here and watch? Where’s the damned button for the door? I’ll open it. You can say I forced you—”
A scream from the intercom made them all suck in their breath. The window showed a view of most of the room and they could see the life-form, now nearly two feet long, clinging to the front of Laura’s dress at thigh level, the rims of its mouths pulsing as it clawed its vaguely tadpole-shaped body upward with newly developed pincers. Press vaulted over the upended table and wrapped a hand around its tail without faltering, slipping his fingers neatly between the razor-edged tips and its main body. He wrenched it off Laura and rolled with it, hollering as the thing’s claws and mouths snapped viciously at his face and the spiny tail whipped in every direction.
Every time Press managed to push it off, it came back, each time a little stronger; he’d dropped the gas line when the creature had gone for Laura, and now she picked up the line and used the Bic to relight it. Forcing the safety valve down, she tried to track the erratic path Press and the life-form made around the room in a vain attempt to burn it without charring Press in the process. Hissing fiercely, the thing went for him again; bellowing, Press finally got another decent hold on the tail and flung it as hard as he could across the room. On the screen, the three men in the observation room saw a fish-eye view of Press and Laura’s predicament as the creature skidded across the concrete floor and hit the wall, stunned. When the couple sought the clock on the wall, they seemed to be staring beseechingly straight into the main camera. Then the alien squirmed across the floor again, and both Press and Laura leaped out of its path as it inflated something around its neck—a flesh sac of some kind. The sudden pouch made it appear four times its original size.
Nine seconds to go.
“Get out of my way, Fitch,” growled Stephen. He stepped toward the console, then stopped short when Fitch pulled a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at him. Stephen found himself looking down the barrel of a small, stainless-steel AMT .45 Backup. Only about six inches long, it was formidable enough to make him freeze. On the other side of the window Press used the end of the extinguished gas line to stab suddenly at the life-form. With only a few feet between it and them, the rigid metal tube sank deep into the inflated pouch, popping it with a sound like a dud firecracker. The creature howled in pain and backed up half the width of the room, then began to advance again, spitting and clicking its teeth.
“Stay there, Arden.” Fitch’s face clearly finished the sentence: Or I’ll shoot. A single bead of sweat made a crooked path down the doctor’s left temple.
Six. Five—
Dan looked around wildly. So many buttons on the console! Which one opened the door? Professor Arden knew, but Dr. Fitch wouldn’t let him do anything. Paralyzed with indecision, he saw the LED display drop to four, then three. He was horrified when the older man moved his free hand to a position over a bright red button. That button could only be one thing—death for Press and Dr. Baker—but Dr. Fitch was carefully watching both the screen and Professor Arden. Michelle Purdue stood to the side with the dazed grimace of a woman in shock.
Two . . .
“No—you shouldn’t!” Dan slammed into the older man just as his hand was descending. His larger size gave him an advantage and the two men bounced off the console and crashed to the floor; the doctor’s .45 went spinning harmlessly across the floor, well out of reach. Still, the smaller man must have had some kind of martial-arts training in his past; he freed himself from Dan’s clumsy grip easily and tried to scramble across the floor, headed back to the console and the incineration button.
He made it to the edge of the table and got a hand at table height before Dan charged him again, this time using all his weight in a simple wrestler’s body drop that successfully pinned the man to the floor. With Dan’s second rush, Stephen sprang to the console and found the switch that released the door to the isolation chamber. He flipped it and the door slid open.
“Come on!” Stephen screamed into the microphone on the console. “Get out of there!”
Press and Laura tumbled through the doorway and Stephen hit the switch again. The door closed, and above the harsh sound of Press and Laura breathing, they all heard a muffled thump as the life-form collided with the other side of the fireproof steel door.
“Enough of this shit,” Press snarled. He stepped over Dan and Fitch and swatted the incineration button; for a second nothing happened, then the views through the window and on the monitor went an eye-blistering orange red as the interior of the isolation chamber was engulfed in flames.
“God, that was so close,” Laura managed. She hung on to the side of the control table, gulping air.
“You okay?” Press asked her as he extended a hand to help Dan to his feet. His breathing was still fast and audible, but the cool demeanor had already returned. “Everything in working order?”
Laura sucked in a healthy lungful of air and held it, as if she were intentionally heading off hyperventilation. At the beat of four, she released it and smiled widely at Press. Her hair was a vivid, shining strawberry blond in the light of the inferno coming through the quartz window, and Dan gawked at her, a little dazzled by the transformation. “Yeah. Just peachy.”
Press was still holding on to Dan’s hand, and now he squeezed it harder and clamped him on the back. “In your whole life, Dan,” he said seriously, “if anyone—anyone—ever treats you badly, I want you to call me. You understand? You’re one helluva guy, Mr. Smithson.” Dan beamed at the praise, then flushed as Laura nodded enthusiastically.
Fitch slowly climbed to his feet under the glares of all four team members. Press’s face twisted and he balled his fists and took a menancing step toward the scientist. “Get a grip on yourself, Lennox,” Fitch said quickly. “I hope you all understand that I had no choice. Because of Sil’s escape, protocol dictates that I was to burn the room in two minutes if something—anything—went wrong that might endanger the rest of the complex again.” He walked across the room, picked up his pistol, and slipped it back into his pocket without comment.
Press started to say something pointed, but Dan’s soft question silenced him. “Protocol?” Dan looked questioningly at the doctor, his boyish face bewildered.
“I didn’t know protocol meant killing the people on your own side.”
15
When Sil got back to the Sunset Palms, the motel she had chosen earlier in the day, she had to dodge around a couple of police officers on the sidewalk in front of the small, slightly seedy building. Seeing them made her hesitate at first, but they were engrossed in questioning a hooker, and if they noticed Sil and her over-loaded shopping bags they gave no indication. She heard little of their conversation, but the word murder caught her notice and stuck; between what she’d learned from the small television on the train and these two uniformed men, it reinforced the idea that what she’d done to the hobo—an act she barely recalled—and the female conductor were unacceptable things. These policemen were agitated and demanding, and the woman they were interrogating appeared frightened. It was no stretch of the mind to realize that she’d have to be careful of her behavior in the future—and watch for signs of retribution from whatever authorities might be involved in capturing her and returning her to the complex . . . or worse.
Inside, Sil pulled the remaining money from the fanny pack and stepped to the registration desk. The guy behind it flipped through an issue of Rolling Stone with a bored expression and didn’t acknowledge her. He was in his twenties and not very clean, with lank blond hair and a space between his teeth that he probed idly with his tongue. Not sure what to do when he ignored her, Sil pushed the folded bills toward him without speaking and waited, her mind on the city of Los Angeles and the imposing mountains that overlooked the municip
ality from nearly every angle.
Finally, he looked up. His eyes widened and he dropped the magazine and hopped to his feet, slicking back his greasy hair with both hands in a pointless attempt at vanity. He wasn’t tall, and the sight of her Amazonian figure made him gape stupidly for a few seconds; then his mouth snapped shut and he scooped up the cash and began counting it. He kept almost all of it and, that done, gave Sil an odd grin that she didn’t find particularly pleasant.
Still, she gave him a shy smile in return.
Sil had picked up as much research material and clothing to go with it as she could and still leave what she guessed was enough money to pay for the room. The concept of counting still eluded her, but while everybody else seemed to do it naturally, maybe it wasn’t important in the scheme of things as they were working out for her. The cashier at one boutique had patiently gone through the bills and returned the excess to her, pushing back the white piece of paper with numbers printed on it that said PAY STUB. “You probably ought to keep this with your records,” she’d said around a smack of bubble gum. Sil had nodded agreeably and pocketed it. Records? What did that mean? When the clerk at the next store had handed it back again, Sil dropped it in the trash on her way out. How important could it be if no one would take it in trade?
But the conductor’s money had bought a lot of things while it lasted, almost more than the dingy-sheeted double bed in the motel room could hold. There was a lot to learn, but the magazine stands along the Strip had proved a limitless resource; spread at one end of the bed, flipped open to the most important pages, issues of Ms., Cosmopolitan, Playboy and Chic showed Sil everything she needed to know about how to dress. She’d bought the magazines and settled on a bus-stop bench to study them page by page. By the time the sixth or seventh bus driver had shouted angrily at her, she was ready to go shopping.
Now, hours later, her treasures were waiting. There was a mirror on the back of the closet door, and although it was pitted and dark with age, Sil could finally see how she looked. Standing in front of it, naked except for black patent-leather high heels, she examined herself. The reflection in the mirror showed a tall, slender woman with straight blond hair and striking, almond-shaped azure eyes, wide set but large. Her skin was clear and smooth, and she had fine, high cheekbones and smartly arched eyebrows. Full, firm breasts, a tiny waist and lean, shapely hips completed her appearance. Her gaze slid to the bed and the piles of satin underthings and tight outerwear that waited. She plucked a pair of shiny black panties from the heap on the bed and held them up.
Once wrapped, she’d make a lovely package.
Dressed at last, Sil was on her way out of the room when she saw something on the edge of the dresser. Partially hidden by the lamp, it had escaped her attention and now she picked it up curiously. There wasn’t much to the device; several rows of labeled buttons took up most of its surface, with a line of larger ones on the left side. The button at the top left was red, so Sil pressed it to see what would happen.
Behind her, voices exploded out of nowhere. Startled, she hissed and spun, then saw that the television had come on. She’d seen the set earlier but had been too engrossed in learning how to dress to register exactly what it was. Now she grinned and experimentally pressed another button, then another; like magic, the picture flashed into something different every time Sil tried a button. She loved it—what a wonderful teaching tool! She drank in glimpses of every channel she could find—so many more than the smaller television on the train. Men, women and children doing so many things, singing, screaming, building. She even found a program about something called earthquake preparedness—what was an earthquake?—that she puzzled over for quite some time before moving on. On the screen, men and women always seemed to be doing a dance around each other, sometimes blatant, sometimes so subtle it could barely be discerned, a sort of silent mating call that left Sil breathless and filled with yearning as she watched. On one channel the words FIVE MINUTES XXX FREE PREVIEW! ($7.95 AUTOMATICALLY CHARGED TO YOUR ROOM AFTER FIVE MINUTES) flashed across the screen and eventually went away as, entranced, Sil spent a quarter hour observing a man and woman strip completely, then copulate in full view of the camera. The sight filled Sil with strange, hot desperation; she needed to be a part of that world no matter what, to possess a man in the same way, to mate.
From union, she knew intuitively, would come reproduction.
The greasy-haired guy at registration called to Sil before she could get out the front entrance of the motel.
“Uh, ’scuse me . . . miss?”
Now what did he want? He looked . . . nasty, and smelled worse. She was tempted to keep on going and leave the idiot stuttering behind his desk, then decided doing so would only draw unwanted attention. Reluctantly, she veered to where he waited. His gaze skittered up and down her figure as though she wouldn’t notice, resting furtively on the cleavage showing above her low-cut black blouse before moving on to the high, cleanly muscled thigh that disappeared beneath the hem of her miniskirt.
“You got a charge on your room here.” For emphasis, he poked at the screen of a computer monitor that was covered in smeary dust and dull nicotine stains. “I’ll need your credit card number for the in-ci-den-tals.” Sil cocked her head; he seemed to have trouble pronouncing the multisyllabled word. His cheeks were pitted with old acne scars and deepened with color at her frank gaze. “Movies, long-distance calls,” he rushed on. “Damage to the room and sh—stuff. You know.”
Sil regarded him uncomprehendingly, then zipped open the fanny pack and offered him the few remaining bills, the same ones he’d returned to her when she’d checked in.
He shook his head. “No can do, lady. Gotta have the credit card. Zip-zap.”
“Zip-zap?” Now she was even more baffled.
The registration clerk cracked a smile, obviously amused at his own label for whatever it was he was trying to convey. His teeth were as yellow as the discolored casing of the computer and she could smell something warm and rotting on his breath—the food from his last meal, lodged in his unbrushed teeth. “Yeah, honey. Zip-zap, Amex, Visa, MasterCard. Plastic.”
Plastic—now Sil understood. Unzipping the conductor’s pack, she fished out a plastic card with a logo that matched a small, pyramid-shaped sign on the desk, a MasterCard. She extended her hand and he took the card and nodded; when he sat and began punching keys on his keyboard, she zipped the fanny pack closed and walked out. She was only a few yards down the street when the guy from the motel dashed out the door and bounded after her.
“Hey!” he called. “Wait up!”
Sil paused for him to catch up, frowning slightly. Did he want more plastic? There was another card in the pack, a Visa. She could give him that one too, if necessary.
But the clerk only waved the MasterCard she’d given him in front of her face. She accepted it reflexively, waiting to see if he wanted something else, but he gave her only another oily smile. “Hey, Miss Cardoza—Angela—can I call you that? You wouldn’t wanna have your credit card falling into the wrong hands, if you know what I mean.” His smirk stretched wider, as if they shared some secret, and Sil felt her lips turn down in distaste. She didn’t know what in the wrong hands meant, although his words implied that his were the right ones. Right for what?
“No,” she said, “I wouldn’t.” She stared at him for a moment, then made a decision. “Where is a good place to meet a man?”
The clerk’s leer dropped away and his mouth fell open. “A guy?” he asked stupidly.
“Yes, a man,” Sil repeated.
The clerk used his hands to slick back his hair again, then tried to look thoughtful. “Well, there’s a lot of guys at the ID around the corner on Formosa.” Sil gazed at him blankly. “It’s a club,” he said uncertainly. “You know—drinks and music and shit?” She finally nodded. “Yeah,” he continued, “you won’t have any problem finding somebody there, plus it’s ladies’ night—they’ll let you in for free. If you can’t find what you’re
looking for,” his glance turned lecherous, “you just let me know, okay?” He blinked at her, his gaze darting lasciviously down her figure. “You can’t miss the place. You’ll see the line.”
“Good.” Without saying anything else, she turned back the way she’d been going before he’d stopped her, tucking the MasterCard back into the fanny pack as she walked. Sil thought she heard him mutter something that sounded like “Ungrateful bitch,” but when she glanced over her shoulder, he was already gone.
16
It took Press a long time to answer the telephone. Fitch could imagine the guy in his room, sprawled across the bed in front of the television. He’d probably have the Sports Channel on, some used-up former athlete with a toupee blathering on about this year’s rising basketball star. But Press was a thorough if not always obedient worker; no doubt the photographs of the destruction at the compound and the two killings were spread across the bed with him—along with a few empty beer bottles.
“Yeah?” Press’s voice sounded groggy.
Finally, Fitch thought with irritation. “The conductor’s credit card has turned up at the Sunset Palms Motel in Hollywood,” he said curtly. “The van’s out front and ready to roll. We’re leaving in thirty seconds, so—”
There was a sharp crash on the other end and the line went dead. Fitch winced at the noise and pressed his lips together, then headed toward the van, grinning at the thought of Lennox cussing in his room and trying to shake the sleep out of his head enough to function, tripping over smelly bottles as he searched for his shoes.
Well . . . maybe not. The man was a professional, after all. While the others climbing into the van looked pressured by the sudden orders and still muddled from sleep—Dan was carrying his socks and shoes—Press was probably already fully dressed, completely alert and in the elevator on his way down. Still, Fitch would bet Lennox really hated him right now, or at least a little more than usual. And that was okay.
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