Oh, no one had come out and said it in so many words. But it was pretty clear that Grayson didn’t expect to come back from this mission, no matter how he might phrase things when Kara was around. They might be talking about reconnoitering and gathering intelligence, but the basic subtext was this: Get in, find out what you can, relay any information you find…until they catch you, or you blow the place up.
Because that was what Grayson had asked for, quite calmly, as if requesting pepper on his salad. I’d like as many explosives as I can carry, if you can manage it.
Lance had replied that he could manage it without any problem, to which Paul gave him a sharp look but said nothing. The astrophysicist might appear to have his head in the clouds half the time, but he had a fairly practical streak for all that. After what had happened to Brian, Paul knew the aliens were playing for keeps. And Michael…well, he sat quietly in the corner of the office, observing but not saying anything, as if he knew that any protests he might make would be ignored.
Luckily, Persephone had excused herself from this meeting, saying she knew as much about planning an infiltration mission as she did about baking a cake — namely, nothing — and Kara had said she was going to be away part of the day, since she had to run over to Prescott. She gave no other details, and Lance didn’t press her, but he could tell something was up. On the phone her voice had that too-bright, almost metallic quality that usually indicated she was upset about something and desperately trying to hide it. He didn’t like the feeling that she was hiding something from him, though he knew better than to ask for any more information. If she wanted to talk about it, she would…in her own time.
And Kiki probably was grinding her teeth right now and wishing she could be putting in her own two cents on the plan, but since Kara had drafted her little sister to mind the store, there wasn’t any worry that she’d be butting in any time soon. Oddly, Jeff had opted to hang out with Kiki at the UFO Depot rather than come over here, but Lance couldn’t worry about that right now. If Jeff wanted to play footsie with the girl, that was his problem.
“On the map, it looks as if the canyon dead-ends, but it doesn’t.” Grayson was tracing his finger along the paper, pointing to the spot in question. “You can continue on through here, come in through this narrow ravine until you’re at the upper end of Secret. From there it’s only about five hundred yards to the service entrance I told you about.”
“Hmm,” Paul murmured, then looked up from the map and frowned at Lance. “You getting all this?”
“Sure.” Just because it might have looked as if he was woolgathering didn’t mean he hadn’t been paying attention all along. “So we drop Grayson in Boynton, have him go in wearing normal hiking gear. He can carry the jumpsuit and other…items…in his backpack, and then change inside the ravine where he can’t be spotted from the air.”
“Sounds good,” Grayson said. His whole demeanor had begun to subtly change, his jaw harder, eyes narrower. Despite the shocking difference of the green eyes, he was beginning to look a lot more like the hybrids who had been shooting at Lance and company back during their first encounter with the aliens. “From there I’ll just wait until I have an opening. With any luck there’ll be a shipment coming in. Usually that involves enough people coming and going that I should be able to join in without anyone noticing.”
“You sure about that?” Paul asked. “Because Persephone was pretty clear about how the hybrids all seemed to be psychically linked somehow. Won’t they be able to tell that you’re no longer…like them?”
Damn. Lance hadn’t even thought of that. He scowled at this new complication, but Grayson looked untroubled.
“No. At least, I don’t think so. We — they aren’t telepaths, not in the true sense of the word. We can link consciousnesses to achieve some common goal, but it isn’t as if we — they — are connected at every moment. And the thing is, I can still feel them out there.”
“You what?” Lance demanded. “Since when?”
“Since yesterday, when Persephone put me under. I don’t know why, but for some reason the trance she instigated affected me differently from the one the other hypnotherapist performed. Maybe it’s because Persephone is a psychic. Anyway, when I came out of it, I could sense them again. Faintly, just like a pulse at the edge of my mind, but definitely there.”
“So why the hell didn’t you tell us?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Paul made a noise that was probably meant to sound like a throat-clearing but which Lance guessed was a smothered laugh. In his corner, Michael smiled serenely, like the world’s first Native American Buddha impersonator.
“Okay, fine,” Lance gritted. “So maybe your change in mental status isn’t going to register with them. If you do manage to get in, what then?”
For the first time Grayson looked a little hesitant. “Well, the lower levels aren’t going to do us much good. They’re storage, holding cells, that sort of thing. Levels four and five are where most of the labs are located. I don’t know what they’re up to — ”
“Power,” said Paul.
“What?”
“In your session yesterday, you said they were here because of power. What power? What did that mean? The vortexes?”
“I…I don’t know.”
Somehow Lance managed to keep his eyes from rolling. “No clue at all.”
Grayson didn’t so much shake his head as lower it a little, as if he found something intensely fascinating in the contours of the topographical map spread out on the table below him. “I don’t know where that came from. Sorry. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Anyway, I know where the labs are, but I was never assigned to those levels, so I don’t know what’s actually in them. It just seems to me that would be a logical place to start. That, or the power-generating station in the on Level 9.”
“Which is…”
“A fusion reactor.”
Paul swore under his breath, then said, “I’m not going to contemplate the irony of us wanting to blow up a fusion reactor when it’s the sort of technology our world so desperately needs.”
Lance shrugged. “The world’s in more immediate need of saving right now. We can figure out the whole environmentally friendly energy thing later. ”
The physicist looked more than a little pained, but he didn’t bother to contradict Lance.
Grayson said in neutral tones, “If I can get to the labs, of course they’re my first choice as a target.”
“Okay,” Lance replied.
So…drop Grayson off at the far edge of Boynton, make sure he gets on his way to the ravine that connects the two canyons, hope he can get himself inside and to an area where some high-level explosives can do some good. Piece of cake.
He didn’t bother to articulate the many things that could go wrong with the plan, starting with Grayson getting captured the second he emerged from the ravine and going downhill from there. But Grayson was the only viable asset they had. Lance knew he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting inside himself. They’d managed that once. Once. And he still didn’t know whether that was blind luck or Persephone’s guardian angel — or whatever he was — doing his own version of the Jedi mind trick so the aliens wouldn’t notice the interlopers getting inside. Somehow, though, he had the feeling that guardian angels might not look on an infiltrate and destroy mission in the same light as they would a simple rescue.
“Okay,” he said. “I think we’re getting there. The soonest we’ll have Grayson’s replacement uniform is Friday, so I suggest we all just hang tight until then. And if anyone comes up with any enhancements to the plan, any more ideas, we can reconvene here. All right?”
The other three variously nodded or murmured their assent, and the meeting broke up, Michael driving Grayson back to the shabby house down by the creek, Lance heading home to his condo. He wanted to go talk to Kara, but she hadn’t said when she would be back in town. Besides, the UFO Depot didn’t exactly lend itself to private conversa
tion.
Waiting. More waiting. He didn’t like it, but he’d survive.
Somehow, he always did.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was well past two by the time Kara pulled into the parking lot of the UFO Depot. She saw the store’s UFO Night Tours van parked there, but not Jeff’s equally shabby Ram van, which meant he must have gotten bored with hanging around the shop and taken off for greener pastures, whatever those might be. Thank God. She felt a little bit better after spending more than an hour with Persephone, getting reassurances from her friend that they’d all stick with her no matter what happened, but still, the knowledge of what she carried within her seemed to weigh down every footstep. Better that she not have to deal with Jeff Makowski on top of all that as well.
She was a little worried that Kiki might be irritated by how long she had been away, but Kiki looked remarkably cheerful as Kara entered the store, which was otherwise empty.
“Hey, Kara,” she called out, “you just missed your friend.”
“My friend?” Kara echoed, puzzled. But at least she could assume from Kiki’s breezy demeanor that she hadn’t noticed anything odd about her sister’s own expression or manner.
“Yeah, one of our friendly neighborhood MIBs. You might have told me he was that cute, though.”
“He — I — what?” Somehow the remark didn’t seem to want to process through her already muddled brain cells.
“Yep, he stopped in for a little chat. Seemed a little concerned that you weren’t back from Taos yet.”
“Taos?” Kara repeated.
For the first time Kiki’s grin slipped a little bit. “Yeah, you know, where our mother is supposedly hanging out these days. Don’t worry — I covered for you. I don’t think he noticed anything.”
Kara didn’t quite sigh in relief. Kiki might have her faults, but she’d always been pretty good about thinking on her feet. “Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.”
It was pretty clear that Kiki was less than thrilled that Kara hadn’t bothered to tell her about their mother’s latest location. With everything that had been going on, it had completely slipped Kara’s mind. Besides, she didn’t know for certain whether the agent had even been telling her the truth.
Hedging, she said, “Okay, he might have said something about that, but I had no reason to believe him. Besides, you swore to me on your twenty-first birthday that you wouldn’t stop to dump a bucket of water on her if you found her on fire in the street. So maybe I just didn’t see the point in relaying information about her whereabouts that might or might not even be accurate.”
A scowl creased Kiki’s clear brow, but then it smoothed itself away as she sighed. “Yeah, okay, I guess I did say that. But it was after about four shots of Cuervo, if I recall correctly.”
Actually, Kara was sort of surprised that her little sister remembered even that much of the evening, considered the way the beer and tequila had flowed. “Was Jeff here when the agent came in?”
“Nope. He got bored, said he was going back to the apartment so he could do a remote login, check on some stuff he left running in L.A.”
From Kiki’s expression, Kara got the impression that she wasn’t too happy with Jeff’s defection. However, what had she expected? There was only so much you could do while hanging out at the UFO Depot; she didn’t even have wifi set up, but plugged her laptop directly into the cable modem when she needed to use the Internet.
“Well, I’m sorry my trip took me longer than I thought it would. But I’m here now, so you can take off if you want. Looks like it’s been pretty quiet.”
For a few seconds Kiki didn’t say anything, but just rustled a few papers on the counter. Then, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Kara blinked. “What?”
“Sorry, Kara, but you’re not a very good liar. I can tell something’s bothering you. And then you take off for hours and don’t say anything about where you’re going or what you’re doing, and that isn’t like you.”
No, it wasn’t. She and Kiki shared almost everything, although there had been a gradual moving apart ever since Kiki got her own place. Which was to be expected, but now Kara hesitated. Much as she wanted to confide in her sister, she knew she needed to talk to Grayson first, and then Lance. After that…
I’ll worry about that after I’ve survived those two encounters. Everyone will know sooner or later, but…
“Just stuff,” she said lightly. “I’m worried about what they’re plotting, what they’re going to try to make Grayson do. Or rather, what he’s going to volunteer to do out of some misplaced sense of nobility. That’s all.”
Kiki looked spectacularly unconvinced, but she just shrugged and pulled her purse out from its hiding place in a cubbyhole beneath the sales counter. “If you say so.” And she slung her bag over her shoulder and marched out, obviously annoyed.
Well, there wasn’t anything else Kara could do at the moment. She could only wait for the day to end, so she could close up the shop and go talk to Grayson. What the hell she was going to say, she had absolutely no idea. She had a feeling that no matter what she came up with, it wouldn’t be enough.
* * *
At least at this time of year the light lingered until past eight o’clock, which meant the sun hadn’t even begun to set by the time Kara locked up the shop and got on the road a little past six-thirty. She’d called Michael on his cell and confirmed that he and Grayson were back home at Michael’s place. Better to do this there, where they might have a little privacy. It sounded as if Lance had stayed behind at the Olivers’ to go over a few more things, and she was fine with that, too. If he was still with Paul, then she wouldn’t have to worry about him calling her, wanting to see her.
Apparently Michael had told Grayson she was on her way, because he was standing in the open front door, watching her as she locked the car and made her way up the front walk. His expression was curiously neutral, expressing neither happiness to see her nor irritation at the intrusion. In fact, as she looked at him, for the first time she could see something of the blankness Persephone had described in the hybrids but had never before noticed in Grayson’s features.
Kara swallowed. This was probably going to be even harder than she’d thought.
“Do you mind if we walk down by the creek?” she asked.
He didn’t appear surprised by the request. “No.”
Instead of leading her through the house, he stepped outside and then went down the driveway and through the gate into the backyard. From there they picked up the narrow trail that wandered through the cottonwoods, sycamores, and pines until it reached the creek bed. The chatter of the water seemed somehow reassuring to Kara, as if telling her that it was continuing on as it always had, and that there was no real reason for worry.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, she thought, and smiled grimly.
“So what is it?” Grayson asked, after they had paused a few feet from the edge of the stream. “If you’re going to try to talk me out of going back to the base, don’t bother. You and I both know they have to be stopped.”
“No, I know that.” She swallowed, wishing she’d thought to bring a bottle of water with her. For some reason her throat felt horribly dry, even though it was relatively cool and moist here next to the creek. “I just wish you didn’t think the only way to go in there is some sort of suicide mission.”
A muscle in his cheek tightened as he looked away from her. His eyes seemed even greener here as they reflected the shifting hues of the cottonwoods all around them. “I’ve been in there. I’m remembering more and more every day. Believe me when I tell you that I’ll be lucky enough just to make it inside. I can’t expect my luck to hold long enough to let me get back out again.”
If there had been a note of defeat in his voice, of worry or sadness, it might have been easier to take. But he spoke calmly, without a trace of self-pity, as if he’d just woken up to the fact that he’d been designed as an expendable sold
ier and so couldn’t hope for any other outcome.
She looked away from Grayson then. If he was so eager to walk away from this world, then maybe it would be better if she didn’t tell him at all. What difference would it make? He wouldn’t be around to see the child he’d helped to create.
No. That was the coward’s way out. He deserved to know. He should know, even if in the end it changed nothing.
Voice steady, she said, “I’m pregnant.”
Clearly, that had been the last thing he’d expected her to tell him. He turned back toward her, eyes widening, gaze fastening on her as if he was waiting for her to deliver some sort of follow-up, some explanation as to why it couldn’t possibly be his.
No, it can’t possibly be anyone else’s…
“I went to get an official test today, just to be sure,” she continued. “They said I’m about three weeks along. I’d say that was crazy, but since I know it’s yours, I suppose anything is possible.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then murmured, “Accelerated growth.”
“What?”
His mouth pulled into an unwilling smile before he replied, “That’s how they do it with us hybrids. You don’t think they’re going to wait twenty, thirty years for us to reach the peak of our physical development, do you? No, they make sure we’re ready to go in just about six months. I don’t know for sure, of course, but I’m guessing I’m only about eighteen months old.”
The nausea returned, and Kara stumbled a few paces to a cottonwood tree, put a hand out to it to steady herself. If she’d stopped to think about it, maybe such a notion would have occurred to her. But to realize that Grayson, who had all the outward appearance of someone in his early thirties, might have been in existence for only a year and a half simply floored her.
If he was unnerved by her lack of a reply, he didn’t show it. He went on, speaking simply, “So I guess it makes some sort of sense that the development of your unborn child would also be accelerated. Not to that extent, since it’s half human, but some alteration of the gestation period is to be expected.”
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