Species II (9 page)

“You’ve got a visitor,” Hawk said into Press’s ear. “I told him to fuck off but he says it’s a matter of national security. And he claims it won’t wait until the end of the demo session.”

“All right,” Press said as his jaw tightened. He turned back to the curious stares of the crowd waiting for him and plastered another charming smile across his face. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s something that requires my attention. My assistant can answer all your questions.”

Knowing glances were exchanged, and he thought that was immensely funny—what did these people think they knew about Press Lennox’s life that could do them any good? Press resisted the urge to shake his head as he strolled nonchalantly away toward the shaded area where he’d parked his baby, a brand-new soft-top Porsche Boxster. There it was, all those coats of custom black lacquer, and some asshole in a colonel’s uniform was leaning all over it. He was five steps away from throttling the bastard when the older man turned and saw him.

Press stopped and grimaced. “Well, well. Carter Burgess.”

Burgess made a game attempt at a pleasant smile. “Hello, Press.” He glanced at the Boxster. “Nice car.”

“The answer is no.”

The colonel held up his hand. “Wait—hear me out. We’ve got another one of those fucking aliens on the loose—”

“My sympathies,” Press said flatly. “But I’m in the private sector now. Get someone else.”

“Come on, buddy. We’re talking about national security. Your country is calling.”

Press didn’t budge. “You can skip the buddy-calling and flag-waving, Burgess. How clear do I have to make it? I’m not interested, and in case you missed the fun here, I’ve got a business to run.” A line of dull red crept across Burgess’s forehead just below the line of his blond-gray crewcut. For a moment Press thought the man was going to take a swing at him, and he almost smiled outright. Go for it, old man, he thought. We’ll give my future customers a live one-on-one.

But Burgess only reached up and pointed to his glass eye, his voice cold and stiff with anger. “Listen to me, Lennox. You know how I got this damned piece of glass in my eye?” he ground out. “It’s a sacrifice I made for my country, and I’d make it again in a heartbeat. Maybe you need to learn the meaning of the word
sacrifice.”

“No,
you
listen, pal.” Press was practically snarling now, right up in the colonel’s face. “I almost got killed chasing the last alien she-bitch you guys spliced together. If the government was stupid enough to make another one—and I don’t doubt that for a moment—let
it
clean up the mess!”

Surprisingly, Burgess stayed cool. “We didn’t make this one.”

“Yeah?” Press turned and started to walk back toward his demonstration area. “Well, too bad. Count me out of the search party anyway.”

“One million dollars.”

Press stopped—he couldn’t help it. “What?

“Cash,” Burgess said softly. “Non-traceable, non-taxable. For two weeks of work.” He waited a beat, then asked, “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

Press swiveled on one heel and turned to scowl at the smug-looking Carter Burgess.

God, he really hated this bastard.

“I
can’t tell you how much I despise getting up this early,” Press said as he stared morosely out the side window of the government-issue Chevrolet sedan. Dawn over the city of Washington, no matter how beautiful the day promised to be, did nothing to cheer him up.

From the seat next to him, Colonel Burgess ignored Press’s comment and opened the leather briefcase on his lap. A quick check to make sure the soundproof glass between them and the driver was closed, and he began flipping through a packet of papers inside. “After the Sil fiasco,” he said matter-of-factly, “the President authorized the Pentagon to form a committee to study the situation and how it was resolved. Absolutely classified, of course.”

“Of course,” Press mimicked. He turned his level gaze on the colonel. “Why worry the public? Besides, the American taxpayers definitely need more committees.”

Burgess was looking at him, but Press could’ve sworn the man hadn’t heard a bit of his sarcastic comment. “The committee is composed of four-star generals,” he continued. “These sons of bitches have seen this country through every military crisis since World War Two. They make the kind of decisions that grunts like you and I can only dream about—”

“Speak for yourself,” Press cut in. “I’m fairly certain we have different career goals.” He paused. “Besides, that alien—Sil—wasn’t a military crisis. She was a government fuck-up, pure and simple.”

Burgess opened his mouth to reply, then held back as the car rolled to a stop at the double-gated outer checkpoint of Monroe Air Force Base. There would be no mistakes here; the armed guard checked everyone’s papers, including the colonel’s, before allowing the sedan to pass through the gate with instructions to the driver to turn right at the directional sign marked
BIOHAZARD
4 and stop for another identification check. He finished his instructions with a crisp salute that disappeared behind the tinted glass as Burgess’s driver hit the button to raise the windows in the car.

“The Sil experiment was a mistake,” Burgess admitted. He pulled a small bottle of Visine from his pocket and dribbled a bit into his good eye before turning to look at Press. “But we’re ready for them now that you’re back in the game.”

A game, Press thought wearily, although this time he kept his mouth shut. The fool was actually calling this a
game.
These types never learned. “Why are you involved?” he asked aloud. “You were always strictly search-and-destroy.”

Burgess shrugged carelessly as he indicated his glass eye, but Press wasn’t fooled. This man still cared very much about that loss. “What happened in Costa Rica put an end to my field-mission days.” He grinned, but it, too, wasn’t a genuine expression. “So Uncle Sam found me a new niche.”

Press grinned nastily. “Hire the handicapped.”

“You’re a funny guy,” Burgess told him with a sour look. He glanced out the window and appeared to study the buildings that went from camouflage-patterned to cinderblock to white paint as they rolled past. “Used to be a man could make an entire career out of knocking off communists. Times are a lot thinner since the Iron Curtain came down.”

A corner of Press’s mouth twisted. “No offense, Burgess, but maybe you ought to catch up with the nineties. From a military viewpoint, aliens are the growth industry now.”

Burgess’s chin lifted and his eyes hardened, his entire appearance just a little too much self-satisfied to make Press entirely comfortable. “Oh, I’m on the cutting edge, Lennox. You just wait and see.”

Before Press could respond, the sedan swung into a parking slot outside a bunker-style building with a discreet sign and logo matching the one they’d seen a few moments before. The BioHazard 4 building looked like any of the others on the base, a small square block attached on one side to a whitewashed, oversized version of an airplane hangar.

“Welcome to Monroe Air Force Base,” Burgess said as the driver released the security locks on the sedan’s doors and the three men climbed out. Press started to say something cutting; then choked it back and laughed instead.

The idiot driver had pulled into the handicapped slot.

“O
kay, I’m intrigued,” Press said as he followed Carter Burgess down the most recent of a series of long corridors. He paused before a door marked
EMERGENCY ARMORY
and watched as two uniformed military guards hefted several boxes onto a table, then proceeded to unload a cache of M-16s and Mossberg 590 shotguns. He couldn’t see any farther into the room. “Since when does a bio-facility need an armory?”

“We’re like the Boy Scouts, Press.” Burgess’s voice was a little glib and Press looked at him sharply. The older man only shrugged and gave him an enigmatic smile. “You do remember the Boy Scout motto, don’t you? Always be prepared.”

“I was never the Boy Scout type,” Press countered.

Before he could say more, an airlock door slid open with a muted
whoosh.
Burgess stepped through and Press followed automatically, not particularly surprised at the high-tech equipment and the med-staff and biologists—all female—scattered around the bio-environment. “This is BioHazard Four,” Burgess announced.

Press nodded, then saw that even the small contingent of SWAT guards were all women, and all armed to the eyeballs with 9mm H&K MP5A3s. “What—” he began, then his voice choked off.

“Jesus Christ!”

These days, Press’s own weapon of choice was a small, concealable Glock 26 9mm. He yanked the gun from beneath his arm without conscious thought, raised it and aimed—

Sil.

It was only the shock of seeing her, of knowing somewhere deep in his subconscious that the creature in front of his eyes was safely restrained, that let Burgess snatch the weapon from Press’s hand without getting himself killed in the process. “Put that thing away, Lennox,” the colonel snapped. “You won’t need it here.”

Inside the confines of a glass-walled set of rooms that reminded Press of a human-sized hamster cage, the new Sil-creature sat cross-legged on a comfortably upholstered hassock in front of a built-in television set. To Press’s shocked eyes, she seemed to be utterly fascinated by a commercial on the screen—some stupid thing with an animated leprechaun dancing around the rim of bowl full of cereal and twittering
“Frosted Lucky Charms—they’re magically delicious!”
Still paralyzed, Press saw the alien woman cock her head to one side like a dog trying diligently to understand its master’s commands.

“Magically delicious,” she repeated, her voice echoing softly over a speaker system in the laboratory. Suddenly she blinked as if something had interrupted her chain of thought, then turned her head and saw Press and the colonel. The television forgotten, she stood gracefully and moved to the glass of her enclosure, her head lifting as she reached outstretched hands and pressed them against the glass. A chill ran across the nape of Press’s neck as he realized that she was actually
smelling
them through the walls of the habitat.

Sense returned abruptly and Press wheeled on Burgess. Furious, he grabbed the military man by the front of his coat and shook him as hard as he could. “You glass-eyed son of a bitch,” he growled, his face nearly pushed against Burgess’s.
“You grew another one!”

“Lennox, calm down—”

“Why?” Press demanded. It was all he could do to keep his fist from drawing back. “Tell me why!”

“What the hell are you two doing in here?”

That voice . . .

Press released Burgess with a shove and spun, stopping short at the sight of the so familiar face. A hundred, no a
thousand,
memories crashed together in his head—love and laughter and fighting, then bitter pain at the end of a relationship gone bad. And the worst of them all, involving a relative of the she-creature watching everything with keen interest from behind a glass barrier a few feet away. “Laura?” he asked stupidly.

Laura Baker ignored him and directed her icy words to the man at his side. “You know the rules, Colonel Burgess.
No men in the lab.”

Burgess stood stiffly, unaccustomed to being chastised. “We have an emergency here, Dr. Baker. We can take it outside if you like—”

Laura’s laugh was cold and disgusted, her expresssion rigid. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? You’ve already contaminated the atmosphere. But please—let me say thank-you for wasting two
years
of work inside of thirty seconds. Your forethought and ability to obey biohazardous instructions are truly amazing.” She glanced over her shoulder at the habitat, where the young woman inside still stood at the glass, studying the men with shrewd interest. “Great,” Press heard her mutter. “So much for a controlled environment.”

Press finally found his voice. “I can’t believe you’re involved in this bullshit,” he said incredulously. “Of all the people who should know better—”

“Dr. Baker is in control of this facility,” Burgess told him as Laura folded her arms and scowled at both of them. “It was under her direction that the alien was re-created.”

He shoved the Glock back into its holster, but Press could feel his face grow hot. “That bitch killed friends of ours, for God’s sake,” he hissed. “How could you breed another one.
How?”

For a second Laura looked at though she might shout at him; then her face softened. “It’s different this time, Press. Half of her alien genes are dormant—”

“Oh, great,” he said angrily. “Sil
Lite.
I feel
much
better!”

“Her name is Eve,” Laura snapped, “not Sil. And this is
not
the same creature. We’ve dampened her mating instincts, strictly avoiding the presence of testosterone in this laboratory.” Her mouth twisted and she sent another look of resentment toward Colonel Burgess. “At least until you two brainwaves barged in.”

“This has got to be the most insane thing I’ve ever heard you come up with.” Press turned and would’ve pounded his fist on something, but he couldn’t find anything that looked like it wouldn’t break. “What if she gets
out?”
he yelled instead.

Laura’s response was amazingly calm, considering how completely freaked out Press felt right now. “She won’t. But if she does, we have that.” She turned and gestured across the laboratory to a gleaming gold control console affixed to the wall. Next to it stood another of the female guards with an unconventional American Arms twelve-gauge slung over one shoulder and a standard-issue Beretta 9mm in a holster at her waist; one hand rested on the console and the hard-faced woman’s attention was exclusively focused on the habitat and its occupant. Spray-painted in the usual black military stencil across the side of the control box were the words
TETHER MECHANISM.
“It’s an electronic tethering device,” Laura explained. “One step off the premises and a toxic capsule will explode in her brain. She’ll die instantly.”

Press gaped at her, then looked over at the creature still gazing fixedly at them from the habitat. He didn’t like the look of . . .
seductiveness
painted across the Eve-thing’s features, but there was still the fact that she—
it
—seemed disturbingly human. “So what happened?” he asked finally. “I knew you were ambitious, but at least you used to have a little soul.”