Fight the Future (8 page)

The body looked as though it had exploded. Where the inner organs had been, there was only an empty cavity, as though whatever had been inside had devoured them. The gurney's plastic casing was smeared with crimson and the remains of gnawed bone and tissue.

Sheer panic got him to the base of the lad-der mere seconds later. "It's gone!" he shouted, his voice muffled by his hood. Frantically he worked at the snaps and zippers, and yanked it off. "
It's gone
!"

"It's
whatl"

Overhead, the face of one of the techni-cians appeared, framed by the life-support can-nister behind him.

"It's left the body," Dr. Bronschweig cried breathlessly. Other technicians crowded around the first, as Bronschweig began climbing up the ladder. "I think it's gestated."

He froze, squinting into the darkness below him. "Wait," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I see it—"

In the shadows, something moved. Brons-chweig held his breath, waiting. A moment later it appeared. Limned in blue light from the cor-ner, the plastic rustling as it parted and the crea-ture came through. It moved tentatively, almost timidly, like something newly born.

"Jesus Lord," whispered Bronschweig. His eyes widened in nervous wonder as he stared. Then, after a minute had passed, he took a gen-tle step back down to the ground. "So much for little green men…"

"You see it?" a technician called anxiously.

"Yeah. It's… amazing." He looked up at the faces ringed around the entrance to the cavern. "You want to get down here—-"

Shakily he began working at the ampule, trying to fit it onto the syringe and the plunger in place. He glanced back at the shadows where the creature was, and—-

It was gone. With deathly slowness Bronschweig turned, fearfully scanning the cavern for where it might have fled. There was nothing.

His hand tightened on the syringe as though it were a pistol, and then he saw it in the shadows across the cave. He stared at it for a split second, paralyzed, as its hands lifted and long pointed claws extended.

With inhuman ferocity it lunged at him.

Screaming, he stabbed out with the syringe, managing to inject some of the pre-cious fluid before the thing threw him across the length of the cave. Terrified, Bronschweig staggered to his feet and made his way to the foot of the ladder. Blood trickled from a wound at his neck, but most of the damage seemed to have come to his suit, which flapped around him like a tattered sail.

"Hey," he cried brokenly, staring up the ladder into the technicians' stunned faces. "I need help…"

He glanced behind him, searching warily for signs of the creature, then back up the lad-der.

"HEY—What are you doing?"

They were closing the hatch. Shoving it down as fast as they could and frantically screwing the locks into place, even as Bronschweig watched in disbelief. He flung himself up the ladder, heedless of pain or the blood blossoming across his white suit. He screamed, but his screams went unheard. Above him there was a dull roar, and a dark blur floated across the transparent hatch. The bull-dozer's shovel rose and fell like a striking hand, and with each blow dumped another load of earth onto the hatch. They were burying him alive.

In stunned silence he stood there, unmov-ing, unable to think, when from behind him there came a muffled sound. And it was on him, pulling him down, pulling him off the lad-der, and down into the darkness of the cave.

CHAPTER 8

SOMERSET, ENGLAND

A man stood at the conservatory window of a mansion, looking down as his grandchil-dren romped and raced, laughing breathlessly, across an impeccably manicured lawn. This was one of the few things that gave him anything like peace: sunset, and the sound of grand-children laughing.

"Sir?"

Behind him came the voice of his valet. The Well-Manicured Man continued to stare out the window, smiling.

"Sir, you have a call."

He turned to see his valet holding open the conservatory door. For a moment the Well-Manicured Man remained, gazing wistfully at the idyllic vista below. Finally he headed toward his study.

The twilight seemed deeper here, laven-der shadows darkening to violet where book-cases mounted from floor to ceiling and all the trappings of wealth lay accumulated and forgotten in the corners and on the walls. The Well-Manicured Man ignored all of these, striding to a desk by the window where a telephone blinked insistently. He picked it up, positioning himself so that he could con-tinue to look down upon his grandchildren playing tag.

"Yes," he said.

From the other end of the line came a familiar voice, smoke-strained, laconic. "We have a situation.

The members are assem-bling."

The Well-Manicured Man winced; he did not like surprises. "Is it an emergency?"

"Yes. A meeting is set, tonight in London. We must determine a course."

The Well-Manicured Man's face tightened. "Who called this meeting?"

"Strughold." At the sound of this name, the Well-Manicured Man nodded grimly. There could be no further questions. The voice on the phone continued. "He's just gotten on a plane in Tunis."

Without replying, the Well-Manicured Man dropped the phone back into its cradle. A child was screaming. He rushed to the window.

On the lawn beneath him, the lovely tableau had been shattered. From the house people were running—his valet, the housekeeper, the gar-dening staff—to where the children had gath-ered. A boy, his youngest grandchild. He lay on his side, his face contorted and white as paper. One leg was awkwardly crumpled under him. The valet reached him first and knelt beside him, gently stroking the boy's forehead and call-ing out orders to the watching staff. As the valet tenderly lifted the child into his arms, the Well-Manicured Man raced from the study, all thoughts of Strughold momentarily banished.

• • •

He did not arrive in Kensington until shortly after eight that night. The chauffeured town car slipped silently into the circular drive and stopped before the front door of a large but unpretentious red-brick building, its front door bearing neither name nor number.

"Has Strughold arrived?" the Well-Manicured Man asked the valet who had met his car.

The other man indicated a long, dimly lit hallway. "They're waiting in the library, sir."

He led the Well-Manicured Man down the hall. The faintest susurrus of voices rose as they approached the library, where the valet inclined his head and left him. Inside, walnut paneling and discreet touches of brass and sil-ver ornamented a large room where a group of men stood, staring at the steely blue eye of a TV monitor. A poor quality black-and-white video was playing, dark forms moving jerkily across a darker background dotted with electri-cal snow. As he entered, the men turned expectantly.

The Well-Manicured Man surveyed the group before joining them. A dozen men of his own age and rank, though none possessed his effortless hauteur. Faces no one would recog-nize, though a word from one of them might bring a government crashing to its knees. Men who remained in the shadows.

In the center of the group stood a small, lean man with close-cropped hair, at once ele-gant and imposing. His gaze met the new-comer's, holding it for a moment too long, and the Well-Manicured Man felt the slightest
fris' son
of unease.

"We began to worry," Strughold said in the deceptively gentle tone one might use to scold a beloved child. "Some of us have traveled so far, and you are the last to arrive."

"I'm sorry." The Well-Manicured Man tilted his head in deference to Strughold. "My grandson fell and broke his leg." It was all the apology he would offer, even to Strughold.

The other man seemed not to have heard him at all. Instead he went on smoothly, "While we've been made to wait, we've watched surveillance tapes which have raised more concerns."

"More concerns than what?" he asked, frowning.

"We've been forced to reassess our role in Colonization." Strughold's tone was even; he might have been discussing a minor unpleasantness on the trading floor. "Some new facts of biology have presented them-selves."

"The virus has mutated," another voice broke in, more urgently.

The Well-Manicured Man looked taken aback. "On its own?"

"We don't know." The Cigarette-Smoking Man withdrew his lighter. "So far, there's only the isolated case in Dallas."

"Its effect on the host has changed," said Strughold. "The virus no longer just invades the brain as a controlling organism. It's devel-oped a way to modify the host body."

The Well-Manicured Man's mouth grew taut. "Into what?"

"A new extraterrestrial biological entity."

A moment while the men took this in. The Well-Manicured Man stared at Strughold in disbelief. "My god…"

Strughold nodded. "The geometry of mass infection presents certain conceptual reevalua-tions for us.

About our place in their Colonization…"

"This isn't about Colonization!" the Well-

Manicured Man exploded. "It's spontaneous repopulation! All our work…"

His voice trailed off, and he turned to gaze at the men around him. "If it's true, then they've been using us all along. We've been laboring under a lie!"

"It could be an isolated case," one of the others offered.

"How can we
knowV

Strughold's voice rang out calmly as others joined in. "We're going to tell them what we've found.

What we've learned. By turning over a body infected with the gestating organism."

"In hope of
what'
! Learning that it's true?" The Well-Manicured Man stared furiously at Strughold.

"That we are nothing more than digestives for the creation of a new race of alien life forms!"

"Let me remind you who is the new race. And who is the old," Strughold responded coolly. "What would be gained by withholding anything from them? By pretending ignorance? If this signals that Colonization has already begun, then our knowledge may forestall it."

"And if it doesn't?" retorted the Well-Manicured Man. "By cooperating now we're but beggars to our own demise! Our ignorance lay in cooperating with the Colonists at all."

Strughold shrugged. "Cooperation is our only chance of saving ourselves."

Beside him the Cigarette-Smoking Man nodded. "They still need us to carry out their preparations."

"We'll continue to use them as they do us," said Strughold. "If only to play for more time. To continue work on our vaccine."

"Our vaccine may have no effect!" cried the Well-Manicured Man.

"Well, without a cure for the virus, we're nothing more than digestives anyway."

All eyes turned to see how the Well-Manicured Man would react to this. He was well respected by the members of the Syndicate. If his was now the lone voice crying in the wilderness, they would still hear him out.

"My lateness might as well have been absence," he said in barely restrained fury. "A course has already been taken."

Strughold gestured at the TV and the Cigarette-Smoking Man pointed a remote at the monitor. The tape froze. The Well-Manicured

Man glanced at the screen to see a hospital cor-ridor, where Mulder and Scully were talking with a young naval guard. "There are complica' tions."

"Do they know?"

"Mulder was in Dallas when we were trying to destroy the evidence," said the Cigarette-Smoking Man. "He's gone back again now. Someone has tipped him off."

"Who?"

"Kurtzweil, we think."

"We've allowed this man his freedoms," interrupted Strughold. "His books have actu-ally helped us to facilitate plausible denial. Has he outlived his usefulness to us?"

"No one believes Kurtzweil or his books," said the Well-Manicured Man impatiently. "He's toiler. A crank."

"Mulder believes him," someone else said.

"Then Kurtzweil must be removed," said the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

"As must Mulder," pronounced Strughold.

The Well-Manicured Man shook his head angrily. "Kill Mulder and we risk turning one man's quest into a crusade."

Strughold turned on him with a look of icy malevolence. "We've discredited Agent Mulder. Taken away his reputation. Who mourns the death of a broken man?"

The Well-Manicured Man met his gaze with one of challenging disdain. "Mulder is far from broken."

"Then you must taken away what he holds most valuable," said Strughold. He turned to stare at the monitor, where a woman's face now took up most of the screen. "The one thing in the world that he can't live without."

CHAPTER 9

BLACKWOOD, TEXAS

(t
T don't know, Mulder…" Scully shook J. her head, squinting into the glaring sunlight. In front of her a children's playground rose from the otherwise barren earth, cheerful counterpoint to the surrounding Texas desola-tion. "He didn't mention a
park
."

Mulder paced from the swings to the jungle gym to the slide. Everything brand-spanking new, plastic and painted metal in bright pri-mary colors: blue, red, purple, yellow. The grass underfoot seemed newly minted as well, thick green grass that breathed a sweet cool scent wherever he stepped.

"This is where he marked on the geological survey map, Scully." He jabbed at the folded paper in his hand. "Where he said those fossils were unearthed."

Scully made a helpless gesture. "I don't see any evidence of an archaeological dig, or any other kind of site. Not even a sewer or a storm drain."

Mulder scanned the area, confounded. In the distance the Dallas skyline shimmered in the heat, and children rode bikes in front of a modest housing development. He went back over to Scully, and together they walked around the edges of the playground.

"You're sure the fossils you looked at showed the same signs of deterioration you saw in the fireman's body in the morgue?"

Scully nodded. "The bone was porous, as if the virus or the causative microbe were decom-posing it."

"And you've never seen anything like that?"

"No." Now it was her turn to look con-founded. "It didn't show up on any of the immunohistochemical tests—"