A little shiver worked its way down my spine. “Were you frightened?”
“I didn’t have time to be frightened. By the time I figured out what had happened, it was gone.”
“So that turned you into a believer.”
He shook his head. “Not right away. But then I saw it again. Twice. And I started doing some research, discovered there were many, many people who’d had similar experiences. I talked to some of them online, met a few in person. And everything I learned, everything I saw, seemed to tell me that something had been hidden for years, something the government really didn’t want us to know about. Then I made the mistake of stating some of my views openly.”
“Mistake?”
A grim laugh. “I was on the faculty of the astrophysics department at the university. Junior professor, but still. Had a good reception for the papers I’d published, seemed to be on the fast track to tenure.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened next. “I’m guessing the powers that be didn’t appreciate your new hobby.”
“That’s putting it mildly. My department head took me aside and informed me that he didn’t think I was a good fit for the department after all, that I’d be better off somewhere else. That it would save everyone some trouble if I’d just resign instead of being publicly sacked.”
“Jesus.” I didn’t bother with any expressions of disbelief; my father was on the faculty of a prestigious private college, and I knew just how cutthroat academia could be. “What did you do?”
He shrugged. “Went home and licked my wounds. By then my father was my dead and my mother at the retirement community in Santa Fe; I had some money saved up and had the house free and clear, so my expenses weren’t that high. And then someone in the local MUFON chapter asked me to talk at a conference they were hosting, and people seemed to be impressed and asked if I were planning to write a book. I really hadn’t thought about it, but I certainly had enough time on my hands, so I did. It met with some success in certain circles, and I was invited to more speaking engagements, and then came the next book, and…here we are.”
“On our way to Fontana, with a vial that may or may not have some sort of alien virus in it.”
“Exactly.” Although his expression had been somber up to that point, I thought I saw a trace of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “Which, believe it or not, appeals to me more than facing the prospect of grading a stack of midterms. So I’ve learned to be Zen about the situation. Or at least as close as I can be.”
Having done my share of paper-grading during my stint as a T.A. while I was getting my master’s degree, I could sympathize completely. “You’re not the only one who did a total career change.”
“Oh?”
“I’m a certified MFCC — marriage and family counselor,” I added, just in case there had been a shortage of those in the astrophysics department at the University of New Mexico. “I tried it for a few years, but Otto kept pestering me about not following my true vocation.”
“So Otto gives career advice, too?”
“Yes, especially if it’s unwanted. But I realized he was right. I thought my…abilities…could help me as a counselor, but I found myself tripping over them more often than not. You’re bound by a lot of rules when you’re working under a state license. So I closed that business and started another.”
“But you’re still helping people.”
“I’d like to think so.” Of course, that “help” varied widely, from finally convincing Susan Yamamoto to leave her abusive boyfriend to convincing Josh Epstein that investing in the latest hot script wasn’t actually that good an idea after all. One might think such a thing was trivial…except the script in question had turned into the previous summer’s worst bomb, with the studio that bought it losing millions. Josh came out looking like a hero, and couldn’t praise me enough — and also brought me a whole slew of high-paying entertainment industry clients. Everyone wanted a line to the psychic who could help them avoid the fate of the studio exec who’d backed the losing script. Current word on the street was that he was living out of the back of his BMW.
All during this conversation traffic had been crawling along, but once we were out of the city limits and moving into the San Gabriel Valley, things seemed to pick up, and we began cruising at almost-normal speeds. We were both silent for awhile, Paul keeping a careful watch on the cars around us. Now that we were actually moving, people were taking advantage of the situation by zipping in and out of traffic, trying to score that extra car length. I wondered what he thought of the immense crush of people here in Southern California. It had to be some kind of adjustment for a man who lived alone out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico.
“Do you have an address in Fontana?” I asked, a little while after we had crossed the border between Los Angeles and San Berndardino counties. “Because it’s not that far from here, and I don’t know if we need to jump on the 15 or keep going.”
“It’s on my phone.” He lifted it from its resting place on his lap and handed it to me.
The cell phone was still slightly warm from sitting on his leg, and I had to force myself not to hold it more tightly, to feel his body warmth radiating from the plastic. A few compliments and one admiring gaze aside, he hadn’t given me any indication that he saw me as anything besides his current partner in crime. Fondling his cell phone would just make me look like an idiot.
So I pressed a button to get it out of “sleep” mode and found the address, then plugged it into my own iPhone, which had a nifty GPS app. It turned out we were headed to an industrial park that would be easier to access off the 15 Freeway, so I told Paul to turn north and then get off almost immediately at Fourth Street. From there we headed east for a little bit, until I saw the side street that led to this Lampson Labs, whatever that was.
“Turn here,” I instructed, and we pulled into the park, following the signs that pointed us to number 162, which was the lab’s address.
For a Friday afternoon, the lot for 162 looked pretty empty, in contrast to the other businesses in the industrial park. I saw a silver Prius, so new it still had its paper dealer plates, and then a disreputable-looking older white van. We parked and got out.
The door to the lab facility was unlocked, but no cheery receptionist awaited us. Fact was, the place seemed deserted, cars parked outside or no. A door to the left and behind what should have been the receptionist’s desk stood partway open. I could see some lights on, and a stretch of long hallway with bare beige walls — not even any hackneyed motivational posters or improbable beach scenes.
A little chill ran down my spine, and I glanced up at Paul, who frowned.
“Hello?” he called out.
Nothing.
“Are you sure this is the right address?” he asked me, then pulled out his phone and appeared to inspect the text Jeff had sent earlier.
“Yes, it’s the right address,” I replied. Tension made my tone a little more waspish than I had intended it to be. “Besides, it says ‘Lampson Labs’ right on the window. Maybe they’re all in the back of the building or something.”
With more courage than I was feeling at the moment, I moved past him and down the hallway, which was a real corridor and not just a passageway through a cube farm. Closed doors ranged past on either side of us. I had a feeling all those doors were locked.
The one directly to my right swung open, and I jumped. Jeff’s Makowski’s unruly head stuck out into the corridor. “You took your time.”
My heart must have been going about a hundred beats a minute. “You know what the eastbound 10 is like on a Friday afternoon?” I retorted.
He opened his mouth, but Paul cut in smoothly, “We’re here now. Are you ready to look at the sample?”
“Yeah, we’re ready.” And he stepped aside so we could enter the room.
It was a cavernous space, much bigger than it had seemed from its modest little door. Computers and microscopes and equipment I couldn’t begin to
recognize covered the built-in lab tables on each wall, and more tables crowded the middle of the room. The place looked as if it could have supported a complement of at least twenty or thirty scientists, but all I saw was one man, who pushed his chair away from a computer with a display almost as big as my new flat screen. He was short, probably only a few inches taller than I, and maybe a few years older, with dark hair already beginning to thin at the temples. Unlike Jeff, he wore a button-down shirt and a dark tie, and a white lab coat over all that.
This stranger glanced from Paul to me and then grinned. “Who’s the hottie?”
Well, he might have been older than Jeff, but obviously he’d gone to the same geek school of manners and deportment. “I’m the person with the inside line on the possible alien infestation,” I replied, and crossed my arms in the vain hope that it would keep him from looking at my chest. “Who are you?”
He didn’t appear offended. “I’m Raymond Lampson. This is my lab.”
“We’re hoping you can tell us if there’s anything strange about the sample,” Paul said, in an obvious attempt to guide the conversation back into more productive channels. “Persephone?”
It wasn’t worth it to protest that I didn’t like this Raymond Lampson and that I had my doubts as to whether he’d be able to find anything in the sample. Sure, Jeff had vouched for him, but what did that mean? It seemed as if Paul had put a lot of trust in someone he’d only just met in person today. Still, since I certainly didn’t have any of my own resources, I dug in my purse and pulled out the vial, then handed it over to Raymond. He held it up to the fluorescent lights overhead, squinting a little.
“Looks like cooking oil,” he commented.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” I said. “We drove all the way out here so I could bring you a sample of Mazola.”
Jeff shot me a withering look, but I really didn’t care. It was pretty obvious this Raymond person was going to do the tests no matter what I said.
“We’ll see soon enough.” Raymond moved away from us and began busying himself with slides and various apparatus.
“You might as well go back to the break room,” Jeff told us. “This will probably take awhile.”
Break room? I wondered, but I just shrugged and followed Paul as he nodded and headed in the direction Jeff had indicated. Sure enough, toward the back of the building there was a pretty well-equipped space with a couple of tables and accompanying chairs, soda and snack machines, and, thank God, a coffee maker. I realized it had been a long time since breakfast. Lunch had come and gone without us even noticing it.
“Coffee?” I asked Paul.
“Sure. It could be a long night.”
That sounded ominous. I hoped he didn’t think we were going to hang around here for hours and hours. Sure, I could live for awhile on pretzels out of the snack machine, but sooner or later I was going to need something a little more substantial than that.
I busied myself with making some coffee — Lampson had a decent variety from Peet’s, so I put together a pot of Kona Gold. There was a row of new-looking mugs sitting in a cabinet above the counter where the coffeemaker lived, and I grabbed two of them and set them down.
It was strange, though. The place had none of the feel of an office occupied by actual human beings. All the mugs were plain white heavy stoneware with a thick glaze. I didn’t see any of the motley assortment you’d usually find in a regular company’s breakroom. And the refrigerator, when I opened it, was likewise shiny and clean, occupied by only a single takeout container. It was as if Lampson had the entire facility all to himself.
“Here,” I said, setting a mug of coffee in front of Paul, followed by a couple of containers of cream and some stir sticks. I remembered from breakfast how he liked to take his coffee.
“Thanks.”
He poured cream, and I sat down opposite him and took my own mug, adding both cream and sugar. I’d never been a huge coffee fanatic, preferring tea, but I knew from my grad school days that coffee could keep me going the way nothing else would.
“Odd, isn’t it?” he commented, after he’d finished swirling the cream through his coffee.
“What is?”
“This place. It’s set up as if there should be an entire staff working on-site, but I don’t see any indication that there’s anyone but Lampson here.”
So he’d noticed it, too. Of course he had — Paul Oliver was not stupid. The coffee was too hot for me to drink yet, but I wrapped my cold fingers around the mug, grateful for its warmth.
“No one does work here,” I said. “There no food in the fridge, no personal stuff in the the cupboards. And yet — ”
“What?” He leaned forward to blow on his coffee, but I noticed the hazel eyes had remained fixed, watching me.
“And yet it doesn’t feel wrong, even with how obnoxious Lampson was.” I paused, still holding on to my coffee cup, letting the vibrations wash over me. I didn’t sense anything strange, none of the jangling psychic residue of a building that had been hastily evacuated or its occupants told to leave, their business unfinished. I lifted my shoulders and said, “This just feels like it’s his place.”
“It is,” said Jeff, who had paused at the entrance to the breakroom. “He owns the building. Likes to work alone. Guess he can afford to — his father developed most of the land around here. So Raymond bought himself a lab. By the way, he sent me over to tell you that you might as well leave.”
“Leave?” I asked. Barely ten minutes had gone by since we left him in the lab. “He didn’t find anything?”
“On the contrary. He found plenty — he just doesn’t know what it is. And he’s pretty sure it’s going to take him all night to even start to figure it out.”
Paul pushed his mug of coffee away from him. “You’re sure the sample is safe here?”
“And what could you do to protect it if it weren’t?” Jeff responded, and then shook his head. “This place is as secure as anywhere else. I’ll stay here. But there’s no point in us all hanging around all night.”
Some part of me thought abandoning the sample to Raymond Lampson’s tender mercies was a horribly bad idea, but another, larger, part thought getting out of there sounded pretty appealing. Especially if some food was involved.
For a few seconds Paul hesitated. Then he glanced over at me. I had no idea what he saw in my face. Stark hunger, maybe, because he said, “All right. Text me if you have anything. In the meantime — ” He smiled. “ — In the meantime, I think I owe someone some dinner.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even though Raymond had made it sound as if he were going to need all night, Paul didn’t want to stray too far away from the lab. So we ended up at Ontario Mills, a sprawling mall only a few miles away. Since our eating choices were pretty limited unless we wanted to fight the crowds at the food court — which neither of us really found too appealing — we went to the Rainforest Cafe, a kitschy spot that seemed to cater to tourists and families with small children. Not exactly something I would have chosen if I had a decent alternative, but I didn’t, as the other restaurant that would have allowed us to sit down was located inside an arcade. We decided to take our chances with the ersatz Tiki Room and hope for the best.
I didn’t exactly see money change hands, but somehow we ended up at one of the few booths tucked away in a corner, far from the large tables populated with oversized families. The din was a little muted back there, and the faux greenery surrounding the booth and the fish tanks around the corner offered at least the semblance of privacy, if not the actual thing.
What I really wanted at that point was a mai tai roughly the size of my head, but I thought ordering such a thing might not go down very well with Paul. I settled for requesting a glass of chardonnay when the waitress appeared, although Paul only ordered an iced tea.
“It could still turn out to be a long night,” he said, as the waitress departed, and then I felt vaguely guilty for ordering the wine.
“That may well
be, but I have a feeling I’ll be spending it asleep in the back seat of the car.”
He laughed then, and shook his head. “I’m guessing Raymond at least has a couch somewhere in that building, if not an actual bed. We can probably do better than the back seat of the car.”
“Here’s hoping. My back would probably have a few choice things to say to me if I did end up sleeping in the car.” I reached for the glass of water the waitress had left for me and drank. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I actually was, and downed almost half the glass without thinking. Still, I couldn’t help pondering Jeff’s comment about Raymond definitely finding something of interest in the sample we’d brought him. “What do you think he found?”
“Hard to say.” He lifted his own water glass but paused, holding it a few inches above the table as he appeared to consider my question. “Biology isn’t my strong suit. But we all know that the human dermis is like one big sponge. It can absorb all sorts of things. A topical application of a substance carrying an alien virus — or whatever it turns out to be — makes sense in that it would be absorbed quickly and not leave much trace, unlike something given in a syringe or even orally. But why a spray tan, which would seem to target a certain fairly small segment of the population?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about it for a minute and couldn’t see the reasoning. You’d think if aliens were trying to take over the planet by mind-controlling certain key figures, they’d be going after members of Congress. God knows some of them were orange and spray-tanned enough to qualify, but even though their actions were largely incomprehensible to me, I didn’t get the feeling that any of them were directly connected to this. Not yet, anyway.
The waitress showed up then with our drinks, and I took a bracing sip of chardonnay. It was sharp and way too heavy on the oak, which was about to be expected in a place like this. I guessed they were more concerned with pushing T-shirts than maintaining an adequate wine list. Something was tickling at the back of my mind, and usually when that happened the best thing to do was just wait and let it come up to the surface.
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