Some of it splashed against the man’s wingtips. He gestured, and the soldier came over, pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his uniform, and wiped down my face. These ministrations were oddly gentle, all things considered, although his touch made me want to go take a bath. Once he was done with me, he left me more or less propped up on the cot while he bent down to clean away the specks of vomit from the agent’s shiny black shoes.
“Get her some water,” the agent said, sounding more than a little irritated. In a way, I couldn’t really blame him. I probably would have felt the same way if I’d been in his shoes. So to speak.
The hybrid went over to a table I hadn’t noticed before and poured some water into a cup from a plastic pitcher, the kind they use in hospitals. He came back and handed me the cup. I took it and allowed myself a cautious sip. It tasted like water.
“There’s nothing in it, I assure you,” the agent said, as the guard resumed his position by the door. “There are far easier ways to drug you.”
“What do you want?” I asked, since I couldn’t really think of how to reply to that statement. “Where’s Paul?”
“He’s safe…for now.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I think, Ms. O’Brien, that you don’t fully appreciate your situation. I’ll ask the questions…not you.”
Oh, I appreciated my situation, all right. Now that I was slightly more awake and aware, my instincts told me the agents had brought me right back to their base outside Sedona, which meant I had to have been out for several hours — a good deal more than that, if they’d driven me here.
Us, I thought then. Somehow I knew Paul was here as well, that he hadn’t managed to escape. That he hadn’t even tried, I realized with one of those flashes of intuition so clear I might as well have seen it myself. That he’d stopped and turned to see me knocked out by the one agent, that he’d gone down swinging until they’d administered some kind of knockout drug to him.
And he was here, very close. Possibly even in the next cell, although I couldn’t be entirely certain of that.
Somehow the thought cheered me, even though I knew things had gone from bad to just about as worse as they could possibly be.
“Ask away,” I told the agent blithely. “Although I’m guessing there isn’t much I can tell you that you don’t already know.”
He frowned at that statement, the pale eyes narrowing. “All right, Ms. O’Brien. What exactly did you think you were going to accomplish with all these cloak-and-dagger activities?”
“Were they cloak and dagger?” I asked, all innocence. “I just thought of it as trying to not attract attention.”
His expression didn’t change. “How did you manage to free Paul Oliver?”
Ah, so I had stumped them with that little trick. I found the realization perversely pleasing, even though I guessed I wouldn’t be able to pull off the same maneuver again. “Your little clones aren’t the sharpest crayons in the box. It wasn’t that hard.”
Lips compressed, he regarded me in silence for a moment before asking, “Why do you think they’re clones?”
“Well, unless women have started having babies in litters, it’s kind of hard to come up with a dozen men who all look exactly the same.”
An odd noise, somewhere between a chuckle and a throat-clearing, seemed to emanate from the hybrid guarding the door. The agent shot him a glare of extreme annoyance, while I filed that one away for future reference. Maybe the clones weren’t quite as one-size-fits-all as I had thought.
“Moving on,” the agent said, now sounding distinctly testy. “How did you find this facility?”
Perversely, I was almost beginning to enjoy myself. “You mean, besides the phrases ‘Boynton Canyon’ and ‘secret underground base’ being scattered all over the Internet?”
“Yes,” he ground out. “Besides that.”
“Well, I am psychic.”
Another one of those long pauses. He crossed his arms — a sure sign I was beginning to get under his skin. “You don’t really expect me to believe you’re truly a psychic, do you? Save that for the rubes you bilk out of their life savings.”
His sour tone made me wonder if he’d gotten a bad palm reading at the fairgrounds once upon a time. Still, I wasn’t about to let him know that he’d offended me. My tone deliberately breezy, I said, “Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you already believe in aliens and clones and secret underground bases, then you’re already halfway to your six impossible things, right? Although I do admit that we’re a long way from breakfast.”
The word made me realize how hungry I really was, now that the nausea had dissipated. I’d never had a chance to have brunch, and if they’d driven me back here in one of those SUVs, it had to be close to dinnertime now. I knew better than to ask for a meal, though…just in case it might be my last one.
Again he was silent. Then he said, “It will go better for you if you cooperate, Ms. O’Brien.”
“I thought I was cooperating.”
No answer to that. The agent merely turned from me, saying to the guard, “Watch her,” and then swiped his card through the reader and stalked out.
The hybrid and I watched each other for a moment. This was the closest I had ever been to one, and although his wrongness seemed to thrum against some deep chord in my subconscious, I didn’t feel any real threat coming off him. The dark eyes that watched me were calm, and maybe even a little sad.
“So,” I said, almost daring myself to engage him in conversation. Know thy enemy, I guess. “How do you like being an alien hybrid soldier? Do you get a dental plan with that?”
Incredibly, the corners of his mouth lifted. Almost imperceptibly, but still. “Persephone,” he said, and I started. How had he known my first name?
“Because I am not what you think I am, child,” he told me, and came closer.
I forced myself to stay where I was on the cot, not even moving when he reached out to touch my cheek. “Who are you, then?”
“So you don’t recognize me, even after all the years we’ve spent together? I think I should be hurt.”
The inflection was familiar, even if the voice and face from which it was emanating were those of a stranger. My voice didn’t seem to be working so well. “O-Otto?”
“The same. This seemed to be the best way to get close to you. But you have landed yourself in something of a pickle, haven’t you?”
I cleared my throat and said, “I thought you said you never would allow yourself to be channeled.”
“Oh, this creature isn’t channeling me. On the contrary, I’m possessing him. The minds of these clones are such blanks that they’re really quite easy to control.”
“So what now? You going to use that key card and break me and Paul out of here?” I never thought I’d be so relieved to see Otto. With newfound strength, I got up off the cot and went to pour myself some more water. Might as well be hydrated for The Great Escape, Part 2.
“I’m afraid it isn’t quite that easy.”
“Sure it is,” I told him. “Just pull out the key card, swipe it — ”
“I meant in a slightly bigger-picture way.” He watched me, still with that slightly wistful expression, one I was certain had never decorated the clone’s face while it was still in possession of its limited faculties. “Don’t you realize, Persephone, that you’re here precisely because you were meant to be? That everything which has occurred up until this moment has happened just so you would be here to do what you need to do?”
“And that sounds as if it’s counter to everything you’ve ever told me about free will,” I protested. “If I’m just being pushed around like a puppet, then what’s the point to any of it?”
“You’re misunderstanding me. It’s because of the choices you made that you came back here. It’s here that you can put things right.”
“I don’t see how,” I replied. The warmth that had come over me when I realized it was Otto looking out at me through the hybrid’s eyes began t
o die away, leaving in its place a sick chill. He hadn’t come here to rescue me. For some ridiculous reason, he seemed to think I was capable of saving myself.
“You’ll know. You laugh at your instincts, tell yourself they’re fallible, but if you look deeper, reach farther, you’ll understand what it is you’re meant to do.”
“Fine,” I said, at that point too tired for anything except a dull resentment. “But don’t even try telling me I’m the Chosen One or some such nonsense. That sort of thing never turns out well.”
He laughed then. I wondered if such a sound had ever come out of the hybrid’s mouth prior to that moment. “I would never tell someone they were ‘the’ chosen one — but I will say that I believe you were the one chosen for this moment, this time. I told you earlier that things were happening you couldn’t possibly begin to understand — ”
“Which they were,” I cut in. “Alien conspiracies and government cover-ups and — ”
“And more still than that, on levels far beyond those you’ve just mentioned. Only know that what happens here is of far greater importance than you might think. And also know that I have faith in you.”
With one hand he reached out to touch my cheek again. I didn’t flinch from that touch, not when I knew it was Otto touching me. But then his gaze flickered, and a cold, almost reptilian glint entered his dark eyes. I jerked back, almost as if I had been burned. The soldier straightened and stepped away. For an instant I thought I spied a flash of confusion in his features, but then he only turned and resumed his post at the door.
So much for Otto. Now I truly was alone. True, Paul was probably not far off, but he wasn’t in any position to help me.
The door opened, and the agent entered. From the smirk he couldn’t quite conceal, I got the idea he had something fun in store.
“Ms. O’Brien, come with me.”
“Where?” I said warily, not because I thought he’d tell me, but simply to stall him. For some reason, it seemed far safer to stay in this cell than go wherever it was he wanted me to go.
“You’ll see. Someone has arrived who would like a word with you. Get up.”
I stood, mainly because I’d noticed the guard putting an ominous hand on the sidearm at his hip. Whatever was going on, I had a good idea they weren’t going to put up with any nonsense from me.
“Good. This way.”
He motioned me out the door, where two more of the hybrid guards were waiting. They marched me over to the elevators, and we all got in. One of them pushed the button for Level 10.
So we were going all the way down into the bowels of the facility. Somehow I got the idea that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Since I couldn’t do much about my current situation, I concentrated on staring at the brushed-metal surface of the elevator doors and pondering Otto’s words to me. As far as I could tell, his confidence seemed more than a little misplaced. I’d certainly made a hash of things so far. And I wouldn’t exactly call being bashed over the head and transported six hundred miles against my will exercising my freedom of choice.
I also didn’t like the sound of that “someone” who wanted to have a word with me. More than a word, I guessed, and anyone who wanted to conduct such an interview on the deepest level of the base was probably someone I’d prefer to avoid. That someone might not be a person at all, but an alien.
A shiver worked its way down my spine, but I clenched my fists against my sides and hoped neither the agent nor the guard had noticed. Maybe they’d both seen through my bravado and recognized it for what it was — a desperate attempt to hide a case of full-blown terror — but all the same, I wanted to keep up the act for as long as possible.
The doors opened, and I was guided, none too gently, down a long corridor that ended in a single steel door. I really, really didn’t want to know what was behind it.
Too bad, because the guard swiped his card through the lock, and the agent came up and pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner directly above the lock. I supposed it was pointless to use that sort of thing with the clones when all their prints would be exactly the same.
The door opened, but I couldn’t see much inside. The lighting was dimmer there, just reddish sconces at various intervals around the walls. I got a brief impression of a long conference table surrounded by chairs.
“Inside,” the agent said, and I did as I was told.
Then I heard Paul’s voice. “Persephone.”
I whirled to my right and saw him standing there, flanked on either side by a hybrid soldier. He didn’t seem too much the worse for wear, although the cover-up on his left eye had mostly worn off, the bluish smudge of the bruise showing clearly against his skin
“Paul!” I gasped, and began to move toward him, only to have the clone grab me by the bicep and haul me backward.
“Let her go!”
Of course the guard ignored him — it wasn’t as if Paul was in a position to be giving orders — but I appreciated the sentiment even as I made a symbolic protest by pulling against the clone’s grip. Pointless, of course; the hand circling my upper arm might as well have been made of titanium and steel instead of flesh and blood.
“Touching display,” came a new voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar. Out of the shadows at the far end of the room, a man stepped forward.
Well, what used to be a man. Raymond Lampson.
My stomach dropped roughly to the vicinity of the sensible boots I’d put on earlier that morning. Behind me, I could hear Paul mutter a brief Anglo-Saxon expletive.
To the casual observer, Raymond Lampson would have looked like, well, Raymond Lampson. But the expression in his light blue eyes was colder than liquid helium. I saw no sign of Jeff, and wondered what had happened to him.
Irrelevant, I told myself. Better concentrate on what’s about to happen to you.
“Hello, Raymond,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Just the slightest twitch of his eyebrows, as if his alien-controlled brain had required longer than normal to process my remark. “Oh, not a fancy at all, Ms. O’Brien,” he replied, after the barest of pauses. “We’ve gone to some trouble to make sure you were brought back here.”
“Really? Should I feel special?”
“Special for a human, perhaps.” He moved closer, and I backed away. That is, I edged backward a step or two until I collided with the agent. Still, as much of a tool of the aliens as he might be, at least he was human. If I had to make a choice as to which one of them touched me, it wasn’t much of a contest. “We wanted to make sure we had you someplace where we could take care of you safely.”
That didn’t sound particularly promising…not that I’d really thought they’d dragged me all the way back to Arizona just so they could invite me to tea. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”
Paul broke in, “Leave her alone. She doesn’t have anything to do with this. Hell, she didn’t even believe in aliens until two days ago — ”
“Shut him up,” Raymond said mildly, and one of the guards holding Paul slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth. Where that had come from, I couldn’t say. Maybe the hybrids kept it in their pockets for situations just like this.
Raymond gave the barest of nods. “Better. Your companion there is quite misguided, isn’t he? Because we both know that none of this would have occurred if it hadn’t been for you. You just couldn’t leave things well enough alone, could you?”
“If by that you’re asking whether I couldn’t have just sat back and let you get on with your little plan to mind-control most of the population of the United States, well, no, I really couldn’t. Sorry — I wasn’t raised that way.”
“Pity.” He smiled then, or at least attempted to. I got the impression that the alien intelligence inhabiting his body hadn’t quite yet figured out how to make all of Raymond’s stolen muscles do what it wanted — and it was probably even more difficult when it came to replicating movements an alien might never have experienced before. Like smili
ng.
“Well,” he continued, “what is that expression you use? Something about an omelette and broken eggs? No matter. Dr. Oliver there is of little consequence. He’s discredited in the academic community, and only people on the fringes of society believe his words to be truth. He can go off and rave about aliens all he wants; no one who matters will be listening.”
Paul made a few muffled noises, but the duct tape effectively blocked whatever he’d been trying to say. While I wanted to protest, to tell this alien that Paul seemed to be well-respected, I knew it wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, if Paul was viewed as inconsequential, then maybe he might be able to survive all this.
“I don’t know why you think anyone would listen to me, either,” I said. “I’m a professional psychic, remember? Not exactly someone in the mainstream. Hell, half the time my mother still lies and says I’m a marriage and family counselor when people ask her what her daughter does.”
At any other time, I would have hated having to make such an admission, especially to such an unsympathetic audience. But I was past caring about my pride. I was just desperately trying to find some way to stay alive.
“You might be surprised. Your clients appear to trust you, and some of them are placed in sensitive areas, areas we would prefer not to have compromised. So it seems the sensible thing to do is make sure you’re not in a position to say anything to anyone.”
At that Paul surged forward, dragging the hybrids with him. Impressed as I was by his show of strength, I knew it would be for nothing. Sure enough, although he had caught them off-guard, they recovered quickly, and pushed him down to his knees.
“Leave him alone!” I exclaimed. I knew better than to try to make a move toward Paul, although every cell in my body ached to go to him, to push myself between the man I loved and the brutal guards.
“Of course we will — if he leaves off the unnecessary heroics. And as for you, Ms. O’Brien — ” Raymond gestured, and another guard stepped forward out of the shadows, holding a small black case. Raymond took it from him and opened it, revealing a hypodermic with a familiar golden liquid inside.
sedona files - books one to three Page 21