"Nothing doing," I replied. "You want a look, you come back here." When he came close, I would hypnotize him.
A wave of brash determination pulsed through his aura. He stepped into the trailer vault. His finger started to compress the trigger.
With vampire quickness, I jumped to the right.
A bolt of blue light shot from the muzzle of the blaster. The bolt struck the armored wall behind me and splattered white droplets of molten steel.
I had Gilbert by the throat while his blaster still pointed uselessly at where I had been. His eyeglasses clattered to the floor.
"What—? How?" he stammered as he sank to his knees. His aura blazed with fear and emitted spikes of terror that writhed like tentacles. The cabbage odor spewed from him. "Okay. Stay calm." He lowered the blaster and pulled his finger from the trigger. "Let's talk."
I motioned to the glowing spot on the wall where his blaster had struck. "You call that talking? Drop the gun."
The blaster fell from his hand. "I don't mean to cause trouble."
"A little late for that. Is that weapon proof of peaceful intentions?" I tightened my claws around his windpipe.
"Self-protection. Every species has that right."
I kicked the blaster and sent it skidding into the far end of the vault.
"Careful." He spoke in a rasped whisper. "That thing's expensive, and I'm signed for it."
"The only reason I won't kill you is that I need questions answered." I stared into his eyes. No effect. He was definitely not human.
This imposter had said nothing about his yellow aura. Or my orange one. He couldn't see them. He didn't know. I kept this advantage to myself. I knelt over him and cradled his neck in my talons as I read his aura. I loosened my grip slightly, but he knew that I could decapitate him in an instant.
"What happened to the real Gilbert Odin?"
The muscles in the imposter's throat convulsed as he tried gulping. Finally he managed to say, "He was abducted years ago."
"Then why are you here? To abduct me? To abduct others?"
"No. To safeguard the surveillance vessel, the UFO."
"Safeguard from whom?"
The radio clipped to his shoulder suddenly cackled with traffic. "Hawk Vanguard. Hawk Vanguard. This is Eagle Team. What's your situation? Over."
The imposter raised his hand and motioned to the radio. "Please, they're calling me. I don't answer, they'll assume the worst and open fire."
I released my grip and let the imposter go. He withdrew, coughed and clutched his throat. After a moment, he unsnapped his microphone and spoke. "Eagle Team, Hawk Vanguard here." The imposter gave me a conspiratorial glance. "Negative on the intruder."
"Why are you here alone?" I asked.
"Believe it or not, I'm playing the hero. It pays extra." He clipped the microphone back on his shoulder harness and massaged his neck. He found his glasses and put them back on.
"You asked who I safeguard the UFO from?" The alien imposter motioned out the trailer, back toward the security force. "From the humans. Normally when there is an incident like this, rescue teams retrieve the ship and cleanse the crash site. In Roswell, your government seized the surveillance vessel and occupants before we could react."
"We?"
The imposter pointed toward the sky. "The Galactic Union."
"There are more of you?"
The imposter rose to his feet and leaned against the wall. "Many more. It's a galactic union."
"Where is Gilbert?"
The imposter's aura flashed nervously. "Your friend Gilbert Odin didn't take the zero-point flux well."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about. You mean Gilbert's dead?"
The imposter sighed. "It happens. He passed away soon after the, uh, abduction. Really, we meant him no harm."
"If you're an alien, how come you don't look like the stiff in the box?"
The imposter laughed. He sounded like Gilbert. "One of those stiffs—good way to put it. Careless assholes would be more accurate. They knew Earth was off-limits. No, I'm not one of them. I'm from a different species, one closer to yours. Human."
"I'm not human. Not anymore."
"My apologies, Felix. I'd resent the slur, too. Humanoid, then."
"You swear pretty good for an extraterrestrial," I said.
"I watch a lot of cable television."
The imposter's radio cackled again. A wave of anxiety pulsed through his aura. "We don't have a lot of time."
"Let me worry about that," I replied. "You were chosen to replace Gilbert because you most resembled him?"
"Not completely. It took some minor cosmetic surgery, replacing my stalk eyes with these," he touched his eye sockets, "removing my sucker toes, rearranging my genitals, that sort of thing."
"Sounds painful."
"It's a living."
"You might want to work on that cabbage stink," I said.
"Huh?" He lifted an arm and sniffed. "My genome profile could need tweaking. That bad?"
"Trust me. You got a name—beside Gilbert Odin, I mean?"
"My original name is hard to pronounce unless you have a trifurcated speaking passage."
I remembered Gilbert Odin's, rather the imposter's, denials when I first brought proof that it was the red mercury that had caused the nymphomania. My jaw tightened and the bitterness of my anger rose into my throat. "You lied to me."
The imposter's aura lowered into a sizzle. "Sorry."
I splayed my fingers so that he could better appreciate my talons. "You knew all along. About the nymphomania. The UFO. I brought you Dr. Wong's diary and you said it was a hoax. Why?"
He looked over his shoulder. The lights of the security force became brighter as they neared us. The imposter's aura sizzled with nervousness. "We don't have time for long discussions. The Eagle Team gets here and finds us like this, then my cover is blown."
"They don't know you're an alien?"
"As far as DOE is concerned, I'm Gilbert Odin, GS-15."
"Why the lie?"
"Like I said, to safeguard the UFO."
"Safeguard how? The government's torn apart the UFO. They've certainly dissected the crew."
"I keep tabs on what's learned."
"Why not announce your presence to the planet?"
His radio called again. He answered, "Eagle Team, still negative on the intruder. What's your ETA?"
"Hawk Vanguard, give us five mikes."
The imposter rubbed the microphone nervously. "You got five minutes, Felix."
"Keep talking."
"We can't announce ourselves because we're not supposed to be here," he said. "That's the complication. Otherwise we would've intervened a long time ago. Earth is under quarantine. Humans are much too violent and dangerous of a species."
"Why would our government keep the UFO a secret?"
"Fear mostly. Of us. Of mass panic. They used Project Redlight to spread disinformation and debunk the existence of UFOs, aliens"—the imposter made quotation marks in the air—"creatures like me. It then became more expedient to stick to the lie than admit the truth. That's what all governments do best."
"Even the Galactic Union?"
"Even the Union."
"If you knew about the UFO and the conspiracy to cover it up, why hire me? Why press me to investigate?"
"To prove that DOE's security precautions weren't good enough to stop a determined intruder. Which you've done, in spades."
"And you've been involved with this since the Roswell crash in 1947?"
"Me?" the alien asked. "Hell no—do I look that old? I hope not. I was assigned about ten years ago. You see, after your government moved the surveillance vessel from Roswell, we lost track of it. I have to hand it to the humans, they can be sneaky. That's one reason they are so dangerous."
"You knew nothing of moving the UFO from Roswell to Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base?" I asked. "Then from Wright-Patterson to Rocky Flats?"
"No. I swear."
"How does Rocky Flats fit into this?"
"Your government needed better facilities for its studies. All the security surrounding plutonium at Rocky Flats was a sham to cover the real secret."
"The study of this UFO?"
The helicopter passed overhead. Its rotor blades drummed the air.
The imposter followed the noise. "Yes," he answered simply.
"And the use of rare, radioactive materials for weapons manufacture was a cover to hide this isotope of red mercury?"
"Another yes."
"And the nymphomania?" I asked.
"An unexpected consequence," he answered. "It only happened to human females. Earth women are surprisingly complicated."
"Tell me about it."
The imposter's gaze shifted to the containers behind me. His aura grew barbed points, indicating deceit and anxiety.
"There's more to this, isn't there?" I moved toward him, my fangs and talons growing to maximum length.
The alien cringed against the wall of the vault. His eyes grew so wide with fear they looked ready to pop from their sockets.
"Was getting me to break into this trailer part of your alien plan? What did you really want?"
His aura burned hotter and went from distress to outright terror.
I pressed a talon into the soft flesh under his chin. "Talk or I'll do more cosmetic surgery."
The imposter turned his gaze back to the containers. He remained silent.
I pushed my talon in a little harder. "Did the Union send you here to die?"
The imposter shook his head. "No."
"Then what are you here for?"
"The Psychotronic Device."
I withdrew my hand and pointed over my shoulder. "In those?"
He nodded.
"What does this Psychotronic Device look like?"
Gilbert's imposter pantomimed with his hands. "Maybe this big."
The dimensions were about the same as the object I had found.
"What color is it?"
"I'm not sure. It should look like a box with handles."
I grasped the alien by his arm and led him to the container where I'd seen the object. I opened the lid—the yellow glow spilled out—and pulled out the box with handles.
The imposter's aura lit up with swirls of delight. He reached for the device.
I pulled it away. "This is the reason you wanted me to get into the trailer?"
He didn't have to say anything. The way his aura blazed was enough to signal a yes.
"Why didn't you get it yourself?"
"Felix, this is the blackest of the top-secret programs. The Roswell crash happened when the humans' atomic bomb program was in full swing. It didn't occur to us until years later that the United States would hide the surveillance vessel under the security umbrella of its nuclear weapons program." The imposter panned his hands over the containers in the vault. "How could I ask to inspect something that supposedly didn't exist?"
"And once the UFO was buried deep in Carlsbad Caverns…"
The alien finished my sentence. "I'd never get to it."
"And you hired me to do your dirty work."
"Isn't that what private detectives are for?"
He had me there, the intergalactic weasel.
I held the device by both handles and raised it toward Gilbert's imposter. He shirked back.
"What does this Psychotronic Device do? Why was the Roswell UFO carrying it?"
"To test"—the alien cleared his throat sheepishly, as if embarrassed—"the existence of psychic energy. According to the theory, every living creature emits an aura of psychic energy."
The imposter stood within his sheath of a yellow glowing aura. Psychic energy was no theory, it was as real as electricity.
"You have living creatures where you're from. Why come to Earth to test this?"
"Actually, the test involved a little more than proving the existence of psychic energy," he replied.
We vampires used our knowledge of psychic auras to manipulate humans. His use of the words "a little more" implied a sinister motive. The device was no toy.
"How much more?"
"I don't know. My job was to safeguard the surveillance vessel and recover the Psychotronic Device."
"Now that you've found this, what are you going to do?"
"Report to my superiors in the Union."
My grip tightened angrily on the handles. Earth's vampires didn't need competition from extraterrestrials. No one else would pluck our pigeons.
"Then here." I pressed the handles together and crushed the box. The glass panes inside shattered and sprayed out the opposite end toward him.
The alien covered his face and crouched. His aura flared in despair. "What are you doing?"
I smashed the device against the container until I held a piece of battered junk. I offered it to him. "Here. Proof that you found it. Happy?"
The imposter took the device. A glass shard tinkled to the floor. He stared at the misshapen, broken mass and slumped his shoulders as if his luck had the weight of concrete. "Not really."
"It's been more than fifty years since the crash," I said. "Why haven't you made another one?"
"The inventor was on the vessel. His secrets died with him."
The alien's aura dimmed to the color of a rotten yolk. He bore the expression of a man who had let diamonds flush down the toilet. The alien tossed the device back into the container and closed the lid.
I could kill him out of spite but the alien imposter was only doing his job, like any other schmuck. Right now I felt sorry for him.
His aura lightened and swirled with renewed curiosity. "You are an amazing creature, Felix Gomez." His gaze moved to my talons and then right into my eyes.
Vampire hypnosis should've flattened him by now but there was still nothing.
"You have such powers. Such strength." He squinted. "Those fangs. Those claws. You…are a vampire? Humans are so superstitious. Interesting, I didn't think you actually existed."
"Same goes for you."
A searchlight illuminated the trailer's doors.
"The security force is almost here, Felix. You better leave."
"Not yet. Before we kiss and say goodbye, there's one more thing."
"What?"
"You owe me thirty thousand dollars. I didn't do this as a hobby. You wanted confirmation of what was in the trailer and here it is." I stepped on the broken glass and made it crunch.
The alien tightened his lips in frustration. Carefully, he unzipped his parka and from an inside pocket produced a large manila envelope folded over into a thick packet. "I'd hoped you'd take this money and scram before asking too many questions. When I hired you, I got more than I bargained for."
"That's a common complaint from my clients."
The alien handed me the packet. "In cash, to keep bookkeeping simple. I'll keep your secrets if you keep mine."
I opened the envelope and ran my thumb across a stack of hundred-dollar bills. "That's a promise. What about Merriweather, the plant manager?"
"He's made his navy rank by believing two plus two equals five if that's what his superiors tell him. He's no different from any other civil servant."
"And the damage?" I asked. "The wrecked vehicles? The injured?"
"This administration is used to hiding expensive catastrophes. Let the White House worry about it."
"And the agent that I killed? The assassin?"
"A rogue. According to the federal government, the man died doing freelance covert work in Ecuador."
I waved my hand at the containers. "Now you know. What happens next?"
"I have a Q-clearance. That means I forget whatever DOE tells me to forget. Now beat it before the security force gets here. If I need you again, I hope you'll be available."
"If?" I asked.
The alien winked at me. "Make that when."
The glare of dozens of searchlights focused on the rear of the trailer. Excited radio traffic blared from the imposter's
receiver.
"Hawk Vanguard, we've got the trailer surrounded. What's your situation? Over."
"Felix, you're trapped." The imposter pulled the microphone loose. "Eagle Team, this is Hawk Vanguard. Negative on the intruder."
"Roger," the radio answered. "We're securing the area to make sure the intruder doesn't slip away."
The imposter rubbed his face. His aura became a low burn of worry. "It's too late. You won't escape."
I pulled my wallet, cell phone, and everything else from my pockets, and dumped it all into the manila envelope. I shoved the envelope into the imposter's hands.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Escaping," I answered and stepped back into the vault. I pointed to the blaster on the floor. "Don't try anything. So far tonight you're batting zero against me."
I undid my shirt and trousers, crouched on the steel floor, and summoned the wolf transformation.
My body tensed to accept the shock of pain. My heartbeat accelerated. Every inch of my skin burned where animal fur poked from flesh. I couldn't withstand the agony and dropped to my side. My limbs twitched as my bones twisted from vampire to wolf shape. A long muzzle extended from my face.
I lay on the cold floor, panting, gathering my strength. My ears perked up to take in the delicate sounds from outside. I sniffed the air and deciphered the many smells. Sage. Mineral lubricants. Buffalo grass. The reek of cabbage from the imposter. Anxious, sweaty men crept around the trailer.
I sat up and shook loose the man garments draped around my neck. Standing on all four paws and wagging my tail, I stepped free of the pile of man things and advanced on the alien imposter.
His aura blazed around him with awe and terror. With my jaws I snatched the envelope from his hands and bounded for the door.
Two men in black appeared at the end of the trailer. They pointed weapons.
I lunged forward, knocked them aside, and landed in the snow.
The humans brayed like donkeys.
"Holy shit. What was that? A coyote?"
"Coyote—hell—that was a wolf."
"Get it. Open fire."
Weapons barked and bit the ground to my left and right. The flying machine thundered above. A bright circle of light swept over the rocks and snow. I dodged the many men converging on the trailer. Their auras lit up with confusion and fright.
I choose a crooked path through the deepest of night's shadows. Running uphill, I cut into a ravine between the scrub pines. My legs pushed beneath me in a gallop. My breath surged past the envelope in my snout. The stupid humans fell farther and farther behind. If I had lips, I would have smiled.
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats Page 22