holding them closely. Only her eyes betrayed her fear.
At every house along his block at least one light burned. None of his neighbors stood at their windows but Ryan knew they were behind the darkened glass of adjacent rooms. He wondered how many had video cameras.
The agents walked him toward a massive, late model American SUV. The rear passenger door swung open.
“Watch your step,” Dobson said carelessly, pushing Ryan toward the open door. Off balance, Ryan gingerly stepped onto the threshold and faltered. Strong hands from within the cabin grabbed his forearm and hoisted him inside. He ducked to avoid hitting his head, barely missing the door frame, and then turned to his house. Unable to wave, he smiled as confidently as he could before sitting down. The cuffs dug into his back and he winced. As the door closed in his face, he saw his wife shudder.
Dobson climbed into the front passenger's seat and the SUV instantly surged forward. Ryan watched out the window, craning his neck for a last look, until the metal and glass frame cruelly severed his family from sight.
The driver powered over the deserted streets, turning corners at speed and ignoring most traffic regulations. Ryan was tossed about the seat like a rag doll.
“Why am I not buckled in?” He asked. The agent beside him answered by reaching across his torso and belting him in place.
“Thanks,” Ryan said but the agent was silent. Ryan leaned forward until the shoulder strap locked. “Where are you taking me?” He asked Dobson. They appeared to be heading downtown but he wasn't sure.
Dobson did not reply.
Ryan leaned into the strap until it dug against his collarbone and, with additional volume, repeated his question.
“He's on the line.” The agent beside him said roughly, forearming him back into the seat.
Through the headrest Ryan saw that Dobson was talking into a headset. “Where are you taking me?” he asked the man beside him but his grim-faced companion returned to being mute.
Unable to exchange pleasantries, Ryan listened, but could not hear, the front seat conversation. He surmised that Dobson was unhappy, for his neck muscles were bulged and strained, and his jaw jerked when he spoke.
Maybe he's getting his ass chewed, Ryan hoped.
“I think you're making a mistake, Sir,” Dobson said loudly. Then his voice trailed off again.
Ryan strained his ears.
“He resisted”—
“Rubbish!” Ryan belched. “Your agent fired a gun in my house!”
Beside Ryan, his companion's face blanched, his eyes squinted into narrow slits. The agent reached inside his jacket...
Ryan's stomach clenched tightly and he braced himself.
“Not now!” Dobson barked and the man's hand withdrew.
“Another time...” the man threatened.
“You're stable,” Ryan mocked, raising his eyebrows. The man's eyes instantly shot open wide. Thick veins bulged from his forehead and neck and his hands clenched into tight fists. Ryan took satisfaction in the man's shackled rage.
“Yes, Sir,” Dobson snapped into his phone. He ended the call and turned to the driver, tersely speaking beneath earshot. The driver repeated the new orders and the lead agent confirmed them before he leaned back and fumed.
Without warning, the driver braked hard, recklessly swerving across the center stripes and executing a U-turn. He throttled the SUV to highway speed and they tore through town, periodically braking to make hard-banked turns, before accelerating to speed again. The craft floated effortlessly through the corners and over the uneven intersections. It had been outfitted for cruising.
At the fringe of town they entered an industrial zone, a hodgepodge of cottage factories and half occupied R&D complexes, seemingly all fronted by rows of automotive repair shops with cinder block walls anointed in gang graffiti. Moments later they left behind the cold immersion of street lights for the murky predawn countryside.
“Where are we going?” Ryan was confused. He'd half expected to be taken to a nondescript, abandoned warehouse.
“Here,” Dobson announced and the driver braked sharply. Ryan was thrown against his shoulder belt and then flung back into his seat as the SUV jerked to a stop. The cuffs dug into his skin and his wrists bent awkwardly. Pain shot through his forearms.
“You're getting out.” Dobson opened his door and dismounted. Seconds later, Ryan's door swung open and he was pulled by the forearms onto the road's shoulder and spun face-forward against the vehicle. He turned his face to protect himself. Keys jangled and suddenly his hands were free. Blood surged coldly into his fingers.
“What's going on?” Ryan demanded. He flexed his wrists; they were strained and sore but they moved on command.
“Not my call.” Dobson said abruptly, already climbing aboard the SUV and preventing Ryan from questioning him further. Before the door slammed shut the vehicle rose up and roared into motion, slinging a jet of stones from its oversize tires. Ryan turned to protect his face.
Bewildered, Ryan reached in his pocket for his phone. Behind him, twin beams lit up the asphalt—startling him—throwing a long shadow onto the hardtop. It was close and Ryan scrambled into the ditch. As soon as he stepped off the hardtop, Ryan turned to look, not sure if he should flag a driver down this close to the rough part of town.
It wasn't his decision. The oncoming vehicle was moving slowly—it had been parked a hundred yards away—and now approached him deliberately. The driver's side window was opening as it crept nearer.
“Ryan?” He heard a woman's voice. It sounded like Natalia Dioumaiev.
“What's going on?” Ryan was suspicious.
“Getting things ready—probably still on the phone.” It was Natalia.
“Where's Robb?”
Natalia laughed nervously. “He sent me to collect you.”
“I want to call my wife, first.” Ryan began dialing his phone.
“Of course.” Natalia glanced nervously over her shoulder. “We don't have much time. Decisions can be changed.”
“Where is Robb?” Ryan was still uncertain.
“He will meet you outside the front gates.”
Night Ride
“ID please, Sir,” a Marine on foot beside the driver's side window requested Robb. The armed guard was stationed between their late model Ford sedan and a dark, one-man shack. In the strong overhead illumination Ryan, from his passenger's seat, could clearly see that the armament he bore completely mismatched his politeness, consisting of an automatic rifle, an ammunition belt over his torso and a large-caliber pistol belted to his hip side.
The Marine was dressed with more than materiel. Beneath his cap a twisted wire dangled, curled behind his neck and connected the lone guardsman's headset to unseen sentries in the surrounding darkness. The others might be only a few feet away, readied to move from the shadows should the slightest of threats arise, or they might be on patrols on the grounds ahead.
Ryan shrugged mentally, not willing to test either theory.
If Ryan was disconcerted Robb was merely complacent. He'd crossed gates like these for years and he took the protocol for granted. His hands rested benignly on the steering wheel of the government vehicle that he had borrowed for this foray into the back half of the campus. Ryan wisely followed suit, folding his hands over his lap in clear sight.
For his part, the Marine was efficient, multitasking radio traffic while he manned the gate. He understood that the nature of his job was not to be friendly, familiar nor forthcoming. He was doing his job well.
Robb handed the Marine his badge. The Marine checked the photo against Robb's face, touched the smart-chip embedded in the plastic and withdrew his hand. He nodded his acceptance.
“I'll vouch for my passenger,” Robb stated.
“Not tonight, Sir.”
Robb's eyebrows lifted but he would not question the armed guard.
“I have my ID here.” Ryan leaned forward and handed a temporary badge to the Marine. It had his photograph and an authorization st
amp—good only for that day—but his badge did not possess a chip.
“Thank you.” The guard took Ryan's card and withdrew into the guard-shack. He did not immediately reappear.
Ten minutes passed in silence. Robb tapped his hands on the wheel only once while Ryan's impatience grew steadily. Neither spoke. They stared at the dark acutely but there was little of comfort in view. At the periphery of the entrance, signs informed that their every sound and action was under scrutiny. Their vehicle and their belongings could be searched. It was illegal to trespass without authorization. These were the terms of entry.
Ryan did not doubt their meaning. The Marine would be altogether too glad to deny them entrance if they balked.
As the cabin air became stifling Ryan rolled down his window and let in the night air. Crickets chirped a temperate cadence and tree frogs croaked with their nightly lust. In another place it might have been a relaxing symphony but after this night it simply added to his restlessness.
Ryan wondered if he and Robb could, without repercussion, simply turn around and leave.
Probably not. He decided. You couldn't behave erratically around men with machine guns.
The frogs and crickets fell silent. The Marine had emerged. He approached the open window while a half dozen flies swarmed above his head.
“Authorization is in progress,” he said curtly. He spun on his heel and returned to the guard-shack. He kept Ryan's ID.
It seemed ludicrous to remain silent any longer.
“How did you learn about this place?” Ryan asked.
“I was briefed a few days ago.”
“Before or after our meeting?”
“After.”
Robb was not forthcoming either.
“A few days...” Ryan noticed that the gate entrance was not of recent construction. “How long has this place existed?”
“Nearly twenty years,” Robb admitted.
“No one saw it being built?”
“I didn't work here twenty years ago.”
“Robb, that's not an answer.”
Robb sighed. “The original buildings were slated to house biological projects—genomics and STEM cell research, I believe—while the outdoor facilities were constructed for tactical development”—
“Tactical?”
“How bio-aerosols move through communities, how and where one could survive an airborne attack, stuff like that. For the first few years I'm sure that's exactly what it was used for. Later, perhaps out of necessity, it converted to this. I doubt the funding ran out.”
Twenty years. Ryan was grave. That dated the compound to the period immediately following his post-doc. The government had apparently conducted a clandestine program in parallel with Pawluk's and Jankowiak's. What was it for?
Robb read his mind. “There's a more relevant question we should be asking.”
“Why should we be asking anything?” Ryan postured.
“Think of the present.”
“Why am I...? Why are we being allowed here?”
Robb nodded. “I don't know,” he exhaled slowly, “but I'm sure it's to suit their purpose, not ours.”
Ryan grunted in return. “They need our help.”
The Marine reappeared. He handed Ryan's ID to Robb and stepped back. “You may proceed. Have a good morning.”
Emergence
They walked across a concrete landing, over the threshold of a double-pane glass door and into a narrow hallway that widely opened left and right but revealed little of what was inside the building.
They didn't turn to either direction nor stop there.
Immediately in front of them was a second set of glass doors. It looked like there was courtyard on the opposite side.
“This way, Ryan.” Robb was less than certain but to him it made sense to push deeper into the compound rather than explore its perimeter. He pushed open the doors and they stepped onto an open-air dirt pathway.
The pathway lighting was dim. Trees grew tall on either side though it was too dark to see beyond the breadth of their trunks. The overhead sky was a blend of pitch that offered no further help yet Ryan was sure there were eyes in their depths. As they moved forward he looked around and up, seeing nobody. Someone suppressed a cough but nobody stepped forward, neither to ask them where they were going nor to help them.
The worn dirt path turned and the trees on one side gave way to a large pool in which several vague forms moved beneath the surface. The figures swam with the long, lazy strokes of dolphins at leisure and were as graceful in glide as they were ambiguous.
Ryan lingered to watch but Robb hurried through. “We'll come back here later,” he promised. He was unnerved.
They moved past the pool, through more trees until the path terminated at another set of glass doors. A weak red glow from emergency lights shone from the building's interior but their eyes could hardly peer through their reflections on the glass.
Robb tested a door—it was unlocked—he opened it and they stepped across the threshold. It was hot inside.
Ryan looked around what was apparently another poorly lit, oversized room. “Where now?” he asked.
“Not sure,” Robb answered. “Let's follow the lights.”
“Sure,” Ryan agreed.
After a couple of steps, the floor softened and their feet scrunched—the floor was covered with a coarse sand. Their eyes adjusted and large boulders, spaced at regular intervals, appeared ahead. Above each rock a heat lamp hung from an invisible ceiling overhead. Some lamps were aglow, confirming the red tint they had seen from the courtyard. It took Ryan a moment to notice that there were large reptiles basking on the rocks.
“Should we...?” Ryan began. “Is it safe?”
Robb was slow to reply and when he did his voice was filled with caution.
“Yes, I think so.”
There was something odd about these reptiles. Where there should have been a head of skin and scales there was hair. Thick hair, dark and well-groomed. Human hair.
Ryan exhaled sharply and shook his head in disbelief. The sudden noise rent the room.
From the nearest rock a mass of hair slowly turned their way. The locks fell away and revealed a round face covered in scales. From narrow eye slits black eyes burned smartly, focusing tightly onto them.
Ryan felt the hair rising on his neck. He felt the hard grip of Robb's fingers clench his elbow, halting him from acting on his urge to flee.
“Welcome, Doctors. I've been expecting you.” The creature said warmly. “My name is John.”
His voice was unaccented and clear. It was an American voice.
Accident
Through a rectangular one-way glass Ryan and Robb observed a hospital attendant lean over a gurney. The attendant was covered from head-to-toe in white biological PPE, only his eyes were visible through a see-through splatter shield on its hood, the balance of his face was covered by a half-face respirator beneath the shield.
Two corrugated hoses trailed up the attendant's back and plunged through white tape strips into the suit's fabric at the shoulder, feeding filtered air from a powered air pack strapped onto his back. There was no exposed skin. In a brazen contrast of color, the attendant's hands were encased in purple Nitrile gloves which had been secured to his sleeves with wide strips of fluorescent yellow tape. Additional bands of yellow similarly isolated his feet in their oversize cleanroom boots.
Ryan and Robb stared in silence, restlessly wondering why their host had brought them here. Neither voiced his concerns. They pondered the oddity: after John had been called out of the room to attend to a phone call, he'd not asked them to leave the viewing room.
The attendant carefully prepared a syringe above the gurney. Beneath a thin, white blanket, the prostrate outline of a man showed. The attendant pulled the sheet back, exposing the man's face. He lay motionless, his eyes wide open and his face gripped in a grimace of pain.
Ryan could see that the sick man was black, had a round face, tight skin and large
eyes—features he associated as being more African than American and reminiscent of populations he'd seen on television of nomadic peoples or of members of tribal villages. No matter the man's origin his eye sockets were red and wherever his skin was briefly exposed it was grotesquely textured with open sores.
His hands gloved in Nitrile, the attendant slowly injected the syringe's contents into the sick man's triceps. He seemed to brace for a response from the patient. There was none.
From the far side of the bed a door opened, illuminating a corridor that was overexposed in bright light.
Robb and Ryan watched in shock. It was their host, John, and he was dressed in standard hospital garb; scrubs, hairnet, surgical mask and latex gloves.
The attendant looked up and must have spoken sharply for John stiffened and paused. Neither Robb nor Ryan heard what was said.
“He shouldn't be there,” Ryan whispered.
“What's wrong with him?” Robb replied. “Unless...” His voice trailed away.
With a defiant gait John approached the patient. As John neared the gurney he looked toward the window where he'd left Robb and Ryan. But instead of belligerence, he smiled. Instinctively, Ryan shook his head with disbelief but Robb's nodded with comprehension.
Once John had acknowledged their presence, he turned and spoke to the attendant. They could not hear his words through the looking glass.
With a measure of agitation, the attendant nodded and turned aside. He peeled off his outer gloves, stepped on a lever, and dropped them in a Class IV Bio-Hazard waste bin.
The attendant donned two clean gloves from a dispenser and then strode to a computer desk which was tucked into the room's corner. He typed a few commands on a plastic coated keyboard and suddenly they heard a light buzzing, then the background noise of the attendant's PPE rustling against itself as the attendant returned to his bedside station—the hospital room's acoustics were being piped into their viewing room.
John reached his hand toward the patient's face. The scales of his hand showed through his glove as roughly textured shadows yet his fingers were graceful and gentle. He deftly pushed back the eyelids and, in succession, shone a light into each pupil.
“What is he doing?” Ryan mumbled with alarm.
Robb did not reply.
“No response,” John muttered over the speakers. “Not good. What did you give him?”
“Fifty milliliters, Doctor,” The attendant answered. Ryan rolled his eyes in surprise. Robb was not affected.
“It's lost its efficacy,” John said wearily. “Mark it in the log.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
John looked kindly at the attendant. “Go on. I'll take care of him now.”
“Thanks, Doctor Smith.”
The attendant turned again toward the computer. Suddenly the patient shrieked—his body convulsed and his hands flung outward—and struck the attendant broadside across the arm.
“No!” The attendant protested.
“What is it?” Dr. Smith asked.
“My suit is torn,” he said with aggravation, his free hand fumbling to remarry the edges of his torn PPE together.
“Is your skin breached?”
“I don't know!” The attendant shrieked.
“Get to Decon now!” Smith ordered.
The attendant shakily pinched the torn garment closed and dashed