So saying, Milano got up from the table and dropped to one knee. Then, after removing a box from a pocket, he popped it open. The diamond wasn’t very large. But it glittered with reflected light and looked good against the black velvet.
In a voice that was sufficiently loud for surrounding customers to hear, Milano proposed. “I love you, Sara Devlin,” he said with a slight tremor in his voice. “Will you marry me?”
Devlin felt a confused jumble of emotions. Surprise, because Milano’s proposal was the last thing she had expected to hear. And a sense of tenderness. Because part of her was still in love with the man. But there was a feeling of consternation as well. Because having put the relationship behind her—it was strange to be confronted by it once again.
Thirty extremely long seconds passed. Milano, who was still down on one knee, had begun to perspire. A terrible silence had fallen over the room and Devlin could feel the other customers staring at her as she opened her mouth to speak. “I’m sorry, Mark, but I just don’t know. I need to think about it.”
Milano wasn’t the only one who looked disappointed. One woman said, “Oh, no! How could she?”
While the onlooker's companion shook her head sadly, she added, “That poor man!” And, judging from the way in which the waitress threw two fortune cookies onto the table, she was angry too.
In the meantime Milano got up, returned to his chair, and smiled crookedly. “Sorry, Sara…. I never was very good at that sort of thing.”
“It was very romantic,” Devlin replied reassuringly. “And, if you had done that a year ago, we’d be married right now.”
The other scientist frowned. “So, it’s too late?”
Devlin shrugged. “Not necessarily. But it’s like I said. Please give me some time.”
Milano searched her eyes. “How much?”
Devlin shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
The rest of the meal passed somewhat awkwardly. And by the time Milano gave Devlin a peck on the cheek, and dropped her off in front of her house, she was not only emotionally drained but suffering from a terrible headache.
The front door closed with a solid thud, and Devlin rested her weight on it for a moment as Dog arrived to head-butt her leg. “Was that a mistake?” she wanted to know. “Should I have said, ‘yes’ instead of ‘maybe?’”
However the meow sounded pretty much like all the other meows that Dog uttered, which wasn’t very helpful at all. A couple of aspirin took the edge off the headache, but Milano haunted her dreams, and refused to go away until she awoke the next morning.
There were chores to do, and errands to run, so the parasitologist was away from the house all morning and didn’t return until early afternoon. Upon her return Devlin found that a Fed Ex package had been left on her doorstep. The box felt heavy, and once Devlin took the carton inside, she saw that the return address was located in Benson, Arizona. Something that made no sense at all—until she remembered that Palmer lived nearby.
Dog followed Devlin into the study where she removed the outer layer of packaging to discover another beautifully wrapped box within. There was an envelope plus a card. The hand written note said, “Merry Christmas, Sara. Here’s something that is crusty on the outside and beautiful within. I’m sorry, and if you will give me a second chance, I promise to divulge all my remaining secrets. But only if you call me. Love, Alex.”
Devlin smiled, reread the last two words, and realized that the only time she had heard Milano use the word “love” was when he had proposed the night before. She removed a pair of scissors from the pencil cup, cut through the red ribbon, and let it fall onto the floor. Dog was there to attack it.
The gold holiday wrap came away to reveal the box inside. And once the lid was removed Devlin saw the rock. The geode was a good twelve-inches across and it had been cut in half to reveal a wealth of lavender colored crystals hidden within.
It was a clever way for Palmer to communicate the fact that he understood her concerns and took them seriously. But was that enough? Did she really want to align herself with a meteorite hunter who not only had a tendency to play fast and loose with the law, but was battling a drinking problem as well? Palmer seemed like a poor choice in many ways, yet when given the opportunity to marry Milano, she felt conflicted rather than jubilant. Why? Both the question and the cat named Dog followed Devlin as she made her way back towards the kitchen and a cup of tea.
***
Denver, Colorado
The address that Palmer had been given turned out to be that of a long, low-slung warehouse that was part of a medium sized business park located alongside Interstate 70, just south of the airport. The name displayed on the front of the building was “XYZ Enterprises.” A corporation he'd never heard of before.
The geologist left the rental van out front and entered a small rather Spartan lobby where he gave his name to the bespectacled young man seated behind a bare bones desk. The receptionist nodded expressionlessly. “Please have a seat. Someone will be with you shortly.”
There was something strange about the set-up. Or so it seemed to Palmer as he took his place on the vinyl covered couch. The next five minutes seemed to crawl by, and he was just about to lodge a complaint with the receptionist, when Agent Cooper emerged from the doorway behind the receptionist. Palmer groaned as he came to his feet. “I should have known!”
Cooper was dressed in a blue polo shirt and khaki pants. And there was a Glock riding high on his right hip. He smiled smugly. “Yes, you should have. Welcome to Denver.”
What had been a feeling of vague concern was transformed into something more significant as Cooper escorted Palmer through a security check point and into the laboratory beyond. It was staffed by more than a dozen serious looking men and women. They took no notice of their visitors as they went about their various tasks. “Here we go,” Cooper said, as he led Palmer over to a large window. “Tell me if you see anyone familiar.”
Beyond the glass Palmer saw what looked like an operating room. Except that unlike most surgeries this room had been pumped full of what looked like a thin, slightly undulating mist. And rather than being laid out on a table the way most patients would be, a headless male body was strapped to an X-shaped framework that served to hold him upright. That made almost every square inch of his naked body available for inspection. And a very misshapen body it was.
It was impossible to be sure due to the missing head, but given the man's skin color and Palmer's presence, there was only one name that made sense. “It's Quinton. Or what's left of him.”
Cooper nodded, picked up a remote, and aimed it at the glass. “Yes,” the agent replied, as the grotesquerie began to rotate in a clockwise fashion. “Tell me if you notice anything different about Mr. Quinton.” When the body turned an ugly looking cavity was revealed. The hole was so deep that some of the German’s spine could be seen.
“His hump is missing.”
“That’s right,” Cooper agreed. “As you can see a parasite was present in your friend's body. And having reached the stage where it could no longer hope to mate via Quinton's body, it was forced to blow spores outwards hoping to secure another host. Either directly, or later on, the same way Quinton was infected.”
“Yeah,” Palmer said. “That's the way Sara said it would work.”
“Exactly,” Cooper agreed. And, as you are about to learn, her theories regarding the parasites are being taken very seriously indeed. Please follow me. A very important briefing is about to begin.”
Cooper led Palmer down a hall, past a series of labs, to a large room that was being used as a lecture hall. About fifty folding chairs were available and all of them were filled. The two men were forced to join half a dozen other people who were standing in the back.
The lecture had just begun and, according to the slide on the screen behind him, Dr. Owen Wilson, Director of the Department of Biosecurity, was speaking. He had a pleasant though nondescript face, a long lean body, and looked fit. Like a
runner or a skier. His eyes swept the room as a picture of Devlin materialized behind him. “By now, I imagine that most of you have heard of Dr. Sara Devlin. Or read transcripts of interviews conducted with her in Washington State and New York. Her theories, which were developed while working the parasite problem on her own, largely parallel ours. I will return to the subject of Dr. Devlin in a few minutes.
“But first let's review what we know, or think we know, about the nature of this threat. If we’re correct the whole thing began when a huge chunk of rock hit the surface of a distant planet. The impact threw parasite bearing ejecta out into space where some of the organisms managed to survive.
“But rather than one chunk of life bearing material, we posit that dozens of them were launched into the local solar system, all of which remained in close proximity to each other until the point when they entered our solar system.”
Wilson paused. “Could they have originated from Mars—or another planet in our system? Maybe. But it seems unlikely given the fact that the makeup of this particular parasite implies the existence of a host with a physiology at least vaguely similar to ours. And none of the other planets orbiting our sun have biospheres likely to produce a life form like this one.
“So,” Wilson said as he turned back to the board. “Let’s assume that at least a couple dozen meteorites pass through Earth’s atmosphere and hit the ground. Millions of years pass. A caveman pounds one piece of rock against another. Or an unsuspecting Aztec mason strikes the wrong piece of rock with his hammer. Or an ex-diplomat named Benjamin Quinton cuts a meteorite in half. In each case a cloud of dust is created. And, swirling within those clouds of airborne material, are alien spores just waiting to be inhaled.
“Once inside the warm, moist environment of the human’s lungs the spore grows into a tiny blob of protoplasm,” Wilson continued. “The blob secretes some enzymes. They dissolve the alveor membranes allowing the organism to enter the host’s nutrient rich blood stream. As the blob travels through the human’s blood stream it morphs into a slightly more complex organism that has a whip-like flagella. The process might look something like this.” Wilson turned to indicate the slickly produced animation on the screen behind him.
“Eventually the newest form migrates to the cervical spine where it secretes another enzyme,” he explained. “This one causes the bone building cells to multiply in an attempt to keep the invaders out. Within thirty days the human host begins to have a noticeable bump. As time passes it morphs into a hump. At this point the parasite consists of an amoeboid sysnsical mass which continues to secrete bone generating enzymes.
“During the process white root-like tendrils extend down and into the spinal cord. That enables the parasite to not only send and receive messages via the nervous system, but to stimulate the release of endorphins on command, thereby allowing it to exert a significant amount of control over its host.
“Now,” Wilson said, his eyes alight with scientific enthusiasm. “Here’s where it gets really interesting….. If our hypothesis is correct the parasite can pursue two different means of reproduction. The first involves the cycle mentioned earlier. Except that now, having infected a host which soon begins to die, the parasite must find a mate resident in a second host. Or extend its life long enough to try again.
“Something it can accomplish by exploding outwards. The process kills the host. Which is already living on borrowed time. But the explosion throws thousands of spores into the air where they can be inhaled by new hosts. Or, failing that, at least some of the bloody mist will inevitably come to rest on exposed surface and dry into spore-forms. And, as was the case with Ambassador Quinton, there is a reasonable possibility that they will eventually find their way back into the air.
“But,” Wilson said as he eyed the audience, “Given a choice the parasites want to accomplish more than a simple extension of their own lives. They want to reproduce. And in order for them to do so it is necessary to go to the same location where other members of their species are going in hopes of an alien hook-up. A process not all that different from what certain birds, butterflies, and sea turtles do, except that we know more about them. Not everything mind you—but more.
“What we don't know is what happens subsequent to the secondary mating process,” Wilson concluded. “I see a hand in the back of the room.”
“How does the parasite steer the host in the right direction?” one of the scientists wanted to know.
“It’s our guess that the parasite can guide its host to the correct location by secreting a chemical which locks onto the opiate receptors on nerve cell bodies in the brain,” Wilson responded. “Which makes the host ‘feel good’ as he or she moves in the correct direction. But when the host proceeds in what the parasite perceives as the wrong direction the secretions stop. That creates a condition similar to drug withdrawal. The host therefore is driven to keep moving toward the reproductive site so that he or she can continue to ‘feel good.’
“How do the parasites know where to go? Especially on a planet other than the one they evolved on?” another scientist inquired.
“There’s no way to tell at this stage,” Wilson replied. “Other than to point out that various earth species can do it. So perhaps the alien parasites have a set of migratory coordinates imbedded in their DNA. The same way that some wild birds do. If so, then even though the coordinates originated somewhere else, they are being applied here. And have been for thousands of years, but with only limited success until modern transportation systems came along. Or maybe some other process is at work. It's too early to know for sure.”
“That raises the obvious question,” one of the government officials put in. “Assuming that the process works the way you think it might—where are all of the infected hosts headed?”
“We don't know yet,” Cooper said as he came to his feet. “Our people are constructing a database comprised of people who either exploded like Ambassador Quinton did, or demonstrated the kind of symptoms that we would expect a host to have, prior to disappearing.
“By comparing the travel itineraries of the wealthier ‘head cases,’ which is to say those having the finances necessary to catch a plane, train, or bus we hope to figure out where they were headed. But it's slow going.”
Cooper's pronouncement was followed by a long silence. That was when Palmer spoke up. “Dr. Wilson said he was going to talk about Dr. Devlin. What about her?”
Wilson squinted into the lights and heads swiveled toward the back of the room. “Is that Mr. Palmer?”
“Yes.”
Wilson nodded. “As you know Dr. Devlin was within range of the blood splatter when Ambassador Quinton exploded.”
Palmer felt an emptiness at the pit of his stomach. “And?”
“And we fear that she may have been contaminated.”
“Why? What makes you think so?”
“We have Dr. Devlin under observation. She sought a prescription medication to treat what she described as 'terrible headaches.' Plus, she has become increasingly reclusive of late, and may be in the early stages of paranoia.”
“Really?” Palmer replied sarcastically. “Is it really paranoia if your people are watching her around the clock?”
Wilson shrugged. “Perhaps you're correct. I hope so.”
“And if I'm wrong?”
“Then you may be able to help. She might turn to you for help.”
Palmer didn't think so, but he hoped that such a thing was possible, and nodded his head. “I will help if I can.”
Chapter Eleven
Seattle, Washington
Devlin thought the sound was originating from her alarm clock at first. But it didn’t stop when she hit the “off” button. So she knew the phone was ringing, and was in the process of reaching for the receiver, when the commotion stopped. Devlin didn’t receive that many calls. Especially after 10:00 PM. So it seemed safe to assume that it was a wrong number. And, even if it wasn’t, there was voice mail.
Devlin wa
s in the process of rolling over, and trying to get comfortable, when the phone rang again. Dog took offense and jumped down off the bed. Devlin was annoyed by that time. She turned back and made a grab for the handset with every intention of giving the caller a piece of her mind. “Hello…. Who is this? It’s 1:30 in the morning for god’s sake.”
There was a brief moment of silence followed by a horrible gargling sound. And not just gargling—but talking mixed with gargling. “Sara?” the voice inquired weakly. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” Devlin replied, swinging her feet over onto the floor. “Who is this?”
“It’s Wally,” the voice answered. “I’m sorry about the way I sound—but I think I’m bleeding to death.”
That was when Devlin realized that the person on the other end of the line was Wally Brisco. “Bleeding to death?” she demanded. “Then hang up and call 911 right now!”
There was the sound of a rattling cough. Followed by a more normal sounding voice as Brisco cleared the blood from his throat. “I already did. But I don’t think they’re going to arrive in time,” he said matter of factly. “So listen carefully…. I got the crop circle up and running. It has been analyzing news reports from all over the world. At least six people have exploded in the last thirty days. There's a lot of confusion but that's the truth of it.”
Brisco paused in order to cough up more blood—and made a strange wheezing sound. “Sorry, I’m getting dizzy.”
“Hang on!” Devlin said desperately. “Save your strength! The EMTs will be there any minute now.”
“Got to tell you,” Brisco insisted. “Got to let someone know. They found me through the website. Broke in…. Took the hard drive…. Slashed my throat…. I think they were Chinese. Why would Chinese people want to kill me?”
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