Species II (23 page)

The tickle in his head grows louder and he slicks his hair back, then straightens his tie, working to make himself look normal. He concentrates on the feeling of someone inside his head, closing his eyes and reaching for it, trying to backtrack along the lines of neural and telepathic communication—

And suddenly, there it is.

A white laboratory, an extraordinarily beautiful woman in a sweat-soaked hospital gown strapped in some kind of glass-enclosed device. Inside his brain, he sees her eyes open, clear blue, and stare into nothingness, stare at
him.
For a brief flash he is inside her head, a role reversal, and she instinctively scans the room so that he will know where she is. It is not hard to figure out because stenciled on the cinderblock wall to one side of her are the words
BIOHAZARD
4—
MONROE A.F.B.
He learns, too, that she is like him, but not like him; she is everything he has been looking far. She is . . .

“Eve.”

He says her name out loud and knows that on the other end—

—she hears him.

He senses immediately that she cannot come to him. Thus it is his responsibility, his
need,
to go to her.

“Patrick.”

“Eve,” Laura said sharply. “Are you okay?”

For a few seconds, Eve didn’t answer. Instead, she ran her tongue across her upper lip, feeling how the flesh there was still tender and swollen from the dose of radiation. She was feeling other things now, too: emotions, sensations,
abilities.
Finally, she looked at Laura out of the corner of her eyes and nodded. “Yes, Laura. I’m fine.”

But she couldn’t keep the chill out of her voice.

“T
his is it—Press, pull over or you’ll miss it!”

“Damn it,” Press snarled. He practically stood on the brakes, jerking the wheel of the sedan to the side as he did and cussing the Chevrolet when it tried to roll. A hair-raising four seconds later, he slid the car to a stop in the fire lane in front of the Mayfair Market and he and Dennis Gamble jumped out, neither bothering to shut the doors behind them.

Their entrance to the supermarket was like a textbook example of everything that could go wrong on a criminal chase—carts in the way, people screaming and dropping shit all over everywhere; even the assistant manager who rushed up to meet them got knocked into a display of green beans and ended up on his ass when he ran full tilt into Press.

“MOVE!”
Press bellowed.
“GET OUT OF OUR WAY!”
It was amazing the message that a full-throated man could send. Of course, the Glock 9mm he held in one hand probably had something to contribute to the way the folks scattered.

“The stockroom,” Dennis hollered at no one in particular. “Where is it?”

“Back right corner of the store,” said the guy in the manager’s coat. His voice was shaking and he was still on the floor, but he pointed behind Press and Dennis toward the area beyond where a few customers cowered with the cashiers and baggers. “Double metal door with an orange stripe by the fresh-fish counter.”

God bless ’im, Press thought. At least he didn’t ask us any stupid questions. “Let’s go,” he said, and Dennis followed him on a zigzagging course through the aisles until they got to the door the manager had described. No niceties here; and they burst through with a shout, Press with his handgun aimed and ready to fire. But the stockroom was empty and silent, a gray expanse of boxes below poor lighting fixtures set in a ceiling that was too high. Their only hint to where Patrick might have gone was a lighter line at its other end where a sliver of daylight, nearly painful in the gloomy room, revealed that the outside door had been left open.

But outside, the parking lot was silent and empty, the neatly aligned cars nothing more than lumps of sun-washed color. Nothing moved anywhere. Except—

“There,” Press whispered and pointed to a beat-up van in the back row.

“Oh, yeah,” Dennis agreed. The vehicle was rocking up and down and there was no mistaking the familiar motion.

“We have to stop them before he finishes,” Press said grimly. “Otherwise the woman he nabbed is a goner and we’re in for a real mess. Come on.”

The trek down the row of cars took barely five seconds, but it felt like forever. The van was bouncing harder now, and Press ground his teeth and reversed the Glock, then smashed the butt of the gun against the window of the driver’s door. A woman shrieked inside as Press reached through and unlocked it, then yanked open the door, the Glock already turned to firing position. “Freeze,” he yelled. “Don’t move anything!”

“Don’t shoot, man!” cried a voice from inside. “We’re
sorry!”

Dennis peered around Press’s shoulder, then put a hand on his back and tugged at his jacket. “That’s not him,” he said. “I think it’s just a couple of kids from the grocery store.”

Press glared into the back of the van. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the interior light, he could finally see them—some slick-looking guy of about nineteen putting it to one of the cashiers, and her probably underage, too. He should have realized it from the condition of the van—rusty and covered with school and smart-ass bumper stickers. He snapped the Glock toward the ceiling of the van. “Find a fucking motel, you idiots.”

He and Dennis whirled back toward the parking lot but it was just as empty as before, except for a lone woman at the far end hurrying toward her car. Press frowned when he saw her and was about to call out when, incredibly, Patrick Ross stepped out from between two cars about twenty feet to their left.

“Freeze, asshole!” Press barked. The Glock was in place and aimed almost without his being aware of it, his arms extended and steady in front of him. He’d had enough screwing around on this job—no pun intended. He was bringing this bastard in or blowing his head off. No more in-between.

“Whoa,” Patrick said. He stood where he was, respectfully eyeing the weapon pointed at his face. “Hey, why don’t you put that thing down before one of us gets hurt?”

“Want to place bets on which of us that’ll be?” Press said icily. “Now put your hands up, hero. And keep them there.”

But Patrick was anything but concerned. Instead of complying, he turned his head and looked to his friend. “Dennis, what the hell is this? Who is this guy—and what are you doing with him?”

Flustered, Dennis blinked at Patrick, then at Press. The agent knew exactly what was wrong, too. “Don’t get close to him, Dennis. Yeah, he’s looking real normal right now, but remember what you saw on the porch at his cabin.”

That brought Dennis back to reality, making him take a step backward. “Look, Patrick,” he said with a helpless gesture. “Come on—you can’t deny that there’s some really weird shit going on with you.”

But Patrick couldn’t have looked more innocent. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. What kind of shit?”

“Don’t tell him anything,” Press cut in. He motioned with the gun. “Didn’t I tell you to get your hands in the air? You’re coming real close to pissing me off.”

This time Patrick obligingly lifted his hands, the model of compliance. “Whatever you say. Am I right in assuming you’re some kind of . . . police officer? Federal agent?” He gave them both an affable grin. “Boy, the NSEG must be really aggravated at me to go through all this grief.”

Dennis’s mouth turned down. “Knock it off, Patrick. You told me yourself you weren’t feeling right, You need to go in for tests and find out what’s wrong.”

“Sure, no problem. I give up, don’t shoot, and all that jazz. I’ll be happy to go back to the lab and take your tests or whatever they are.” Patrick smiled even wider. “Just lead the way.”

Press frowned and wondered how Patrick had known about the lab, then dismissed it. Hell, it was all NASA- and NSEG-related, wasn’t it? He jerked his head toward the front of the store. “Car’s parked out front, standard black Chevrolet sedan. You know the type—”

“Sure,” Patrick said. “General government lack of imagination.”

“You go on ahead of us.” Press’s tone was cold and unemotional. “If you bolt, I’m going to shoot you in the back of the neck where your spinal cord meets your brain stem. Then I’m going to shoot you again in the skull, just for good measure. In case you haven’t figured it out, I don’t care who you are or who you know, and I’m
not
fucking around.” Dennis looked at him, dismayed, but Press ignored him. “Got the picture?”

Patrick nodded, but still didn’t seem worried as he turned and began walking. His steps were measured and careful, as though he were making every effort not to upset the two men following him, hands in full view while he smiled the entire time. “Bit testy, aren’t you?”

“Just go toward the car, hotshot. When you get there, you ride in the back passenger side.”

Patrick turned his head slightly, until Press and Dennis could see one blue eye glittering above that frozen grin. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll bite you on the back of your head or something?”

“Oh, jeez,” Dennis said, sounding miserable.

“Not a bit,” Press replied. “We’ve got an unbreakable glass barrier over steel bars. And, of course, the handcuffs. And you can bet I’m going to use them.”

Patrick shook his head in mock sadness. “America’s greatest hero, taken away in broad daylight by government agents in handcuffs. For this, I walked on Mars?” He glanced back at Press again. “You did see the Mars landing, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” Press said blandly. “I must’ve been watching America’s greatest game.

“Baseball.”

16

“W
hat the hell is the matter with her?” Brea demanded. “The printouts are going wild—everything is escalating.” She held a pencil against the line of text scrolling across one of the monitors, then glanced at another screen. “Pulse rate is a hundred forty and rising, and she isn’t even on her feet, for Christ’s sake. And look at the spikes on the EKG!”

“This is all screwed up since the radiation therapy,” Vikki complained. She peered across the lab, then made a sound of disgust. “Oh, for—look at her now.”

“What?” Brea followed Vikki’s pointing finger and saw that Eve, sitting in the garden area of her glass habitat, was caressing her breasts through her shirt. Brea scowled. “This isn’t good, Vik. It’s clearly an indication that she’s experiencing an increase in sexual impulses that never existed before the cyclotron procedure.”

“What do we do?”

Brea chewed her bottom lip, then jumped as noise reverberated throughout the lab—

WHAM!

Everyone was suddenly on high alert—the female guards, the techs, the biologists—all gazes locked on the glass habitat, where Eve had risen and gone to one wall, then raised her fist and begun pounding on it. “I guess we wait and see for now.”

Vikki ran a hand through her short brown hair. “Think that quartz glass will hold?” Her voice was shaking.

Brea considered this and finally nodded. “Yeah. They knew what they were up against when they designed it—they lost the first once like that, remember? They won’t make the same mistake a second time.”

“God,” said Vikki as they all watched the alien woman slam the side of her fist methodically against the walls of her cage.

WHAM!

“I sure hope not.”

“D
on’t think I’ve ever been in here before,” Patrick said as Press and Dennis guided him down a long, tiled corridor. “What is this place?”

Press scowled and gave Patrick’s back a little push to keep him going. “If you’ve never been here before, then how did you know we were going to a lab?”

Patrick shrugged, dismissing Press’s slight shove. “I just figured it would be, that’s all. Where else would the NSEG do a bunch of tests?”

Press said nothing, but it nagged at him. It could’ve been in a doctor’s office, or a hospital . . . hell, it could’ve been in a fucking traveling van for all Patrick Ross knew. Well, it didn’t make any difference, because they were here now.

“Wow,” Patrick said. His voice was open and pleasant, a buddy making a comment on the upkeep of a friend’s lawn. “You guys sure haven’t skimped on the manpower, have you?”

“Standard operating procedure,” Press said as they hurried down the corridor. They passed at least a dozen armed guards, male and female alike, all outfitted with portable canisters of the toxic hydrochlorine as well as everything from the customary issue fully automatic M-16s to SWAT H&K MP5A3s.

The astronaut’s sharp blue eyes flicked toward the canisters. “What’s the other stuff they’re carrying?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Dennis said. He looked more alarmed than Patrick. “Press?”

“Never mind,” Press said briskly. “Let’s just get where we’re going and be done with it. Then we’ll find out a lot more about each other.”

“O
h, this is bad,” Brea said.
“Shit!”

“What’s happening?” Vikki’s voice was shrill. “Was she eating something?
What is this?”

Eve was slumped against the other side of the habitat’s glass wall, gasping for air.

“I think she’s faking it,” said one hard-edged woman. Her rifle was at the ready, the barrel pointed at Eve although the glass was bulletproof.