Now, the two of them sat in Allan's Blazer outside the boundary fence of Biogentrix as Allan watched Pat apply the final touches of black smudge to her face.
“Okay, I'm all set. Remember, you are to stay here only as long as it remains perfectly calm and quiet. Any lights, alarms, or commotion of any sort and you are to hightail it out of here. No heroics. Understood?"
Allan squirmed in his seat. They had spent most of the afternoon arguing about who should be the one to go in. Allan accused Pat of being too self-reliant again and not letting him help out, while Pat pointed out that she was the one trained in such matters. When Allan had suggested they go in together, Pat explained, with an edge to her voice that made Allan wince just remembering it, that they could not afford to run the risk of them both being caught.
"We're the only two who knows that anything funny is going on. If we're both caught, there won't be anyone left to stop Homlin from completing his plans — whatever they are.”
Allan hated to admit it but everything Pat said made sense. It still didn't mean he had to like it. He started to voice his concern once more, but before he could speak, Pat placed a finger to his lips. "No more discussion on this one, Allan, my dear. Straight to the police, you understand? If they grab me, which they won't, but if they do, you'll then have something to report. No alien stories, just that I've been missing and you know who has me. Are we clear?"
Allan nodded.
“Okay, great. I'll be in and out before you know it. Try not to fall asleep. I wouldn't want anyone sneaking up on you."
"The likelihood of my falling asleep in my present condition is so infinitesimally small as to not be a part of the equation. It's more likely someone will hear my heart pounding and decide to look for the source of it."
Pat leaned over and gave him a firm, moist kiss. "I won't be long,” she said as she opened her door and slipped out into the darkness, leaving behind the subtle fragrance of her perfume and the pleasant sensation on Allan's lips.
Allan squinted through the windshield trying to make out her passage to the fence, but her black clothing was an effective camouflage. He could see nothing.
He noticed his hands had found their way to the steering wheel, which they were firmly gripping. He began tapping lightly with his thumbs on the cold metal. This is going to be a long night, even if she's only gone for twenty minutes, Allan thought. Why had he given in to this harebrained idea? What was he doing out here in the middle of nowhere while his new love broke into a top-secret laboratory? Was any of this really happening, or was he just suffering from overwork and stress? He could remember TJ but already the memory was fading. Had that really happened? It seemed too incredible, too surrealistic. Perhaps none of it had really happened. Maybe Pat had made her story up as well, and now the two of them were simply living out a fantasy -- a very dangerous fantasy.
And now he had managed to drag Dawn into it as well. Not with the real story but a fabricated one. It hadn't surprised him how readily Dawn had been willing to help them out. She'd hardly needed any explanation at all. All they had said was they suspected one of Pat's old boyfriends might have put a tail on her, and they needed to verify it.
Allan didn't like lying to his long time employee and friend even though he knew it was crazy to think they could tell her the truth. They'd cautioned Dawn to not blow her disguise no matter what, but otherwise just to take a leisurely trip to the big city and to enjoy herself. Such a natural approach would be more likely to convince Homlin's men that they were still following the right person.
Allan glanced at his watch and was surprised to find it was only five minutes after twelve. It seemed like Pat had been gone for at least twenty minutes. His instructions were to wait for an hour. If Pat was not out by one, he was to go straight to the police and file a missing person's report, claiming that Pat had been missing not for an hour but for three days and that she'd last been seen with Dr. Homlin. He prayed he wouldn't have to tell yet another string of lies, especially to the police. He was beginning to worry that his nose would start growing from such a steady diet.
The wire cutters, an old pair borrowed from Allan's surgical supplies previously used for cutting the heads off of bone pins, had worked well on the chain link fence. The passage through the opening had raised no alarm, nor had the crawl across the open expanse to the first building.
Having reached the rear door where she planned to enter the lab, Pat stopped long enough to remove the backpack. She returned the wire cutters to the bag and removed a small electronic device. Mailed to her by special overnight delivery, the device was the finest electronic decoder money could buy on the black market. Pat had only needed it once before but in both cases, the instrument was worth its weight in diamonds.
As her preliminary investigation had revealed, the rear door like all the other doors of Biogentrix was electronically locked and required a special sensing card for entrance…or a black market decoder, Pat thought as she applied the sensors of the box to the flat surface of the door lock. She flipped a switch then waited a few seconds as the decoder searched for the correct code sequence. The almost silent click of the door indicated a successful entry.
Pat removed the sensors and gently placed the decoder back into her pack. So far so good. No signs of guards, no alarms, no disturbance of any kind. She entered the building, letting the door close behind her. Better to keep it closed just in case they had it wired to detect any breach of security. It appeared Homlin depended mostly on electronic security, in place of human personnel. If so, it would be to Pat's advantage. At the same time, it would be stupid to assume there weren't any security guards around. Stupid and deadly.
Once inside, Pat was uncertain where to go next. She'd not been able to get a floor plan of the building. No one in the area seemed to know who had built the building or even designed it. All the work had come from outside the community. All there was to do was to check as many different rooms as possible in the time she had…and pray for a little luck.
Behind the first four doors she checked, she found simple offices or labs, the type found in hundreds of research facilities across the country. The fifth door she came to was the first that had its own security lock. Pat tripped the lock with the decoder and silently slipped through it, closing it behind her.
She found herself in a small anteroom of an office. Interesting, she thought, that they would have a security lock on this room. As she entered the adjacent room she saw why. She shined the flashlight around a plush executive office. The beam reflected on a brass name plaque lying on the desk:
DR. FREDERICK HOMLIN
Bingo, Pat almost shouted out loud. Homlin's office. What a stroke of luck, she thought as she closed the door behind her. She directed the beam of light around the room again until she found on the far wall the line of filing cabinets. Walking over to them, she quickly opened the top drawer and leafed through the files, mostly receipts and invoices for supplies. She went on to the second one. About half way through the file she spied an interesting heading -- FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. She pulled the file out and walked over to Homlin’s desk, leafing through the file's contents as she walked.
The most interesting item was a letter dated the last week of September from a Dr. Harrison. As Pat read the letters, a knot began to form in the pit of her stomach. The letter was an invitation for Homlin to meet with a board of FDA officials to discuss his plans for FreeForm and its dissemination to other research labs throughout the country.
FreeForm? What in the hell is FreeForm? She wondered. For some reason she didn't think she would like the answer to the question. Pat studied the rest of the file's contents and found a second letter dated the first of October in which the same Dr. Harrison requested a second meeting to further explore Homlin's "interesting proposal." Whatever Homlin was promoting, it looked like the dumb ass bureaucrats were actually thinking of taking him up on his plan. The knot is Pat's stomach continued to tighten.
She sat down in Hom
lin's chair wondering what to do next. What if Homlin was a legitimate businessman and researcher? This FreeForm might be nothing. On the other hand, why is every fiber of my body telling me that Homlin is up to no good? As she sat there, her eyes slowly focused on the papers lying on Homlin's desk. A familiar piece of stationery brought her eyes sharply in focus.
It was another letter from the Food and Drug Administration, dated Dec. 2, 2003. Only two days ago. Under the letter was the overnight express container in which it had been mailed and on top the letter, brief and to the point, read:
Dear Dr. Homlin,
We enjoyed meeting with you yesterday and feel that we are coming closer to a decision with each discussion. I feel confident that with a final meeting next week we can give you a much better idea whether your proposal can be accepted. We'd like to meet with you on Wednesday, Dec. 8, at 9:00 am. Please call my office to confirm this date and time.
Sincerely,
Dr. Leonard Harrison
Pat frowned. December 8th was only four days away. If Homlin was up to no good with this FreeForm, she was running out of time.
Pat laid the letters out on the desk. She turned on the desk lamp for additional lighting then photographed each document, then returned the file to its correct location in the filing cabinet.
She turned back to the desk to turn the light out. As her hand reached out for the short chain, a glare of light reflecting off a piece of shiny paper caught her attention — a stack of photographs. She looked more closely, a feeling of familiarity starting to grow. What would Homlin be doing with photos of a small child — a disturbingly familiar child. She looked more closely. They looked uncannily like the pictures she’d seen in Allan’s home. Could it be? She glanced at a few of the others, obviously of the same boy but older by at least three or four years. No doubt about it. It had to be TJ. She thought about taking one of them but decided it was too risky, so she took a picture of the stack instead. It would have to do.
She was about to turn off the light again when another object partially hidden under the overnight packet made her heart race. The knot in her stomach hardened and she found it hard to breathe. Her hands suddenly felt cold and damp.
It couldn't be. How was it possible? Her hand released the chain and gently pushed the overnight mailer out of the way, revealing the tip of a knife — the blunt tip of the knife her father had given her as a graduation present; the knife she had used to get into the alien ship. She had last seen the knife sticking out of the alien's neck where she had thrown it in a desperate effort to save her life.
Pat picked the knife up to inspect it more closely. As she felt the familiar grip of it in her hand, the scene of those last few seconds in the ship flashed before her again. The same scene she had awoken to night after night, lying in bed, the sheets damp, her body drenched in a cold sweat.
How had Homlin come upon the knife? Had he found it in the woods? Had the alien given it to him? Surely, this proved the two were somehow connected. The question was how?
Her mind raced with questions, trying to piece all the loose ends together. The sound of footsteps and muffled voices yanked her from her thoughts.
Sneaking Around
Saturday Evening, Dec. 4
Allan stared at his watch for what must have been the twentieth time. He couldn't believe twenty-five minutes could pass so slowly. Where in the hell was she? Why had he ever agreed to let her go in alone? What if she had been caught? At this very minute, someone could be holding her, waiting for Homlin to show up to interrogate her. Or they might have decided to take her to Homlin instead and he was just sitting out here like a lump on a log waiting for nothing, except maybe a carload of Homlin's thugs to drive up behind him. If they caught both of them, no one would ever know what had happened except possibly Dawn. And if they'd already caught Pat in the lab, they would already know they were chasing a decoy. It would be simple enough to capture Dawn and end the whole deal.
I should go check on Pat, Allan thought for the tenth time in the last ten minutes. He glanced at his watch again. 12:35. He would wait five more minutes, that was all. After that he was going in after her. It didn't matter what he'd promised her about going for help. By the time the Waynesboro police could get back out here, Pat could be dead.
12:40 and still no Pat. He was going in.
In one motion, Pat grabbed the knife from the desk and turned the light off. She crouched behind the desk, suddenly feeling as trapped as she had that day on the ship…the last time she’d depended on the knife to save her life. He's out there, she thought as she crawled around the desk towards the door, but this time he's not alone. Suddenly she was reliving her worst nightmare in which she was back in the ship, and the alien was coming towards her as he had that day. In her dream she throws the knife and it strikes the alien in the throat but this time, instead of the alien screaming in pain, it laughs a deep guttural sound and as she watches it begins to cleave itself in half starting at the point where the knife had penetrated. Within seconds, two aliens stand before her. She throws a second knife and a third in rapid succession, both of them sinking deep into the chests of the two aliens. She watches in horror as the two multiply to four, as once again the knife wounds only prompt them to divide once more.
Pat shook her head so hard her ears rung. She was back in Homlin's office, the voices and footsteps drawing closer. She reached the door to his office and cracked it open. The voices were coming from the hallway, and she could almost make out what they were saying.
Pat sighed with relief as she recognized some of the words and realized it was only a pair of watchmen coming down the hall — dangerous in their own right, but at least human. She continued to listen and watch from Homlin's office as the two guards passed by. One of them stopped long enough to check to be sure the outer door was still locked. Thank goodness I pulled it shut, Pat thought as she watched the doorknob being jiggled.
As the voices faded down the hall, she glanced at her watch. 12:30. Only thirty more minutes, and now that she knew there were night watchmen afoot, it complicated things. She would have to be much more careful as she left. Still, she had a couple more minutes. What other secrets could she uncover? She left Homlin's office, tiptoeing down the hall in the opposite direction of the night watchmen, looking for any other doors that might be secured with a digital lock. With only a few minutes remaining, she found one. Quickly she tripped the lock with the decoding device and entered.
She found herself in a much larger room this time. The light of her flashlight shone around the walls, checking for windows. As she suspected, it was an inside room with no windows. She started to flip the light switch on, but at the last minute thought better of it. For some reason, the thought of being in a well-lit room threatened her. She'd try to examine the room with the flashlight. If that didn't work, she'd consider the overhead lights.
She noticed the room's temperature was much cooler than it had been in the hall. It felt like she'd stepped into a very large cooler. She shined her light along the walls again. She estimated the room to be at least thirty feet by forty. Spaced every three or four feet was a row of stainless steel cabinets that went from one end of the room to the other. She walked over to the closest one. The cabinet stood about four feet in height and had a clear Plexiglas top. Pat estimated the top to be at least three inches thick. She shined the light down through the glass.
Her breath caught in her throat as she almost dropped the flashlight. Larvae. Although she'd only heard about them from Allan, she instantly recognized them. Hundreds of them. She strolled down the aisle shining her light first on one side and then the other. On both sides, hundreds upon hundreds of sausage-shaped, grayish-white larvae, stacked in rows, their small blunt ends pointing towards the ceiling.
As Pat stood there staring at the grotesque display before her, her mind raced. Suddenly, all the pieces were coming together. She felt like she'd been studying a picture that looked like some abstract piece of art only to suddenly
realize that it was a close up photograph of a cow or some other simple object taken from a strange perspective.
Homlin had not found the knife or the alien. Homlin was the alien, and here before her were hundreds, maybe thousands, of other aliens just waiting to develop into whatever form needed, just like the larvae Allan had found had done.
Pat thought back to the letters from the FDA. FreeForm. The larvae. Homlin was on the verge of getting approval to ship these alien seeds across the country to other research labs. If Homlin convinced the FDA to allow him to do that, all would be lost. Within weeks, thousands of larvae across the country would start transforming, and her worst nightmare would come true.
Pat ran back to the door. She must get some pictures of the larvae. Maybe they would help her convince the FDA not to approve Homlin's request. She switched on the overhead lights, feeling completely exposed. She ran back to the closest set of cabinets and snapped a half-dozen pictures. Back at the door again, she snapped the rest of the roll of film showing the size of the room. Then she switched the lights off again, throwing the room into darkness just as she heard the pair of night watchmen approaching. Had they seen the light shining under the doorway? Pat wondered as she crouched in the dark, waiting for her eyes to adapt once more. Had she pushed her luck too far?
Allan pulled the handle on the car door and was startled at the rifle-report sound the latch made in the silence. He counted to ten, listening intently for any indication that someone might have heard him. When everything remained quiet, he stepped out of the car and crept towards the clump of bushes where Pat had disappeared less than an hour before. The heavy underbrush continued for about fifteen or twenty yards before clearing to reveal the security fence of Biogentrix.
FreeForm: An Alien Invasion Romance Series (FreeForm Series Book 1) Page 16