Class Fives: Origins (21 page)

“There’s no threat here,” he said at last.

“Concur,” Jones responded.

He rose and turned back to where Roger sat, trembling.

“Mr. Malloy,” he said, “Would you be willing to undergo examination to determine the source of your abnormality?”

Dan saw Roger’s hands, pressed against his face, ball into fists once more, and knew that if he didn’t cut this off immediately some very unpleasant things would start happening.

“Okay,” he said sharply, holstering his weapon and stepping further into the room, “I think that’s enough. Mr. Malloy is under no obligation to cooperate with anything. He’s not under any kind of suspicion, and if he says no, that’s it. I’m going to have to ask you gentlemen to accompany me back to your vehicle, now.”

“No,” Roger said, quietly, causing Dan to snap a confused look at where he sat, head bowed, hands slowly beginning to relax.

Roger slowly looked up at Jones.

“You want to examine me.”

“Yes,” Jones responded simply.

“And if you do, will you leave me alone after that?”

Jones pondered this briefly.

“If it is determined that your capabilities, in and of themselves, constitute no danger to others, then further investigation would be unnecessary.”

“Shit,” Jim muttered sourly, “Is that a yes or a no?”

Jones turned to regard Jim a moment, then turned back to Roger.

“You’re not normal, Mr. Malloy,” he said quietly. “You are abnormal. I understand you didn’t choose to be what you are, but you are. If we can determine the cause, it might be possible to reverse it somehow. Or perhaps help you learn to control it. We won’t know until we’ve obtained more information about you, and whatever it is that makes you what you are. If, at the conclusion of that examination, you want us to leave you alone, I can’t conceive of how we would be able to override that decision.”

“So it’s a yes, then?” Jim cut in. “You’ll leave the guy alone.”

Jones turned to regard him.

“Our job,” he said, “Is to isolate and assess threats to this country. That’s all. Mr. Malloy does not constitute a reasonable threat to anyone, except perhaps himself. But that’s not our department. Yes, we will leave him alone.”

“Okay then,” Jim muttered, a little sullenly.

Jones turned back to where Roger now sat, silent and hunched, his tear-stained face sunk in a black gloom.

“We will contact you when we are ready to begin the examination, Mr. Malloy. Allow for a week. We’ll try to arrange for facilities here in Los Angeles.”

Roger nodded dully.

Jones turned to regard Dan.

“This interview is concluded,” he said.

White rose and the two moved toward the door, exiting the house without another word.

“Keep an eye on them,” Dan said, drawing a sharp nod from Jim who turned and followed the other two men outside.

He turned to look at Roger.

“This was my fault,” he said. “I fucked up. I’m so sorry.”

Roger shook his head and gently sagged back onto the couch.

“It had to happen, sooner or later, right?” Roger sighed. “Can’t keep my ass puckered twenty-four hours a day forever. Sooner or later…”

“You okay?” Dan asked gently.

Roger shrugged.

“Who knows? I guess so.”

He smiled sourly.

“Sure felt good ruining that guy’s gun, though.”

“I’ll bet,” Dan said, allowing a small smile.

They fell silent briefly, then Dan glanced toward the door.

“Well, if you’re going to be all right, I should head out. I’m on the clock and all.”

Roger nodded.

As Dan turned toward the door, Roger looked up at him.

“Hey,” he said, an edge of hopefulness in his voice, “You think you might be able to…”

Dan turned back.

“Able to what?”

Roger hesitated a moment.

“Go with me for the tests. I don’t know, protective custody or something.”

He gave a weak smile.

“I just don’t want to be alone while… whatever happens.”

Dan felt a crawling uneasiness ripple along his chest.

“Don’t you have anybody else you’d want to be with you? A girlfriend or something?”

Roger gave him a sour look as if Dan was missing something ridiculously obvious.

“Family?”

Roger shook his head.

Dan glanced around the room, feeling awkward, his mind flicking over fragments of ideas that might be assembled into an acceptable excuse to beg off this particular request.

“You’re the closest thing to a friend I got,” Roger said quietly.

Dan regarded him.

In his life as a police officer he’d encountered a great number of extremely sad situations. Domestic violence cases where you could feel the pure, concentrated misery pour over you like a rancid shower, homicides of victims whose bodies fairly screamed with the sense of wasted, lost and stolen life. But this was a new kind of sadness for him, standing in a room that seemed to drip loneliness from the very walls.

“Okay, sure,” he said crisply. “But if they try to make me eat any of that jello shit, I’ll shoot ‘em.”

Roger snapped with a barking laugh flecked with the receding tears and fell into a quiet chuckle.

“You won’t have to,” he said. “I happen to like jello. I’ll take yours.”

Dan returned the chuckle, and he could almost feel the light in the room rising slightly.

“So,” he said, “You going to be all right?”

Roger nodded, carefully rose from the couch.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he said, as Dan turned back toward the door and Roger fell into step behind him.

“Okay,” Dan said, “So call me when you hear something and I’ll arrange to go with you.”

“I appreciate it,” Roger said, stopping to allow Dan to open the front door and step outside.

He stopped on the porch and turned back to regard Roger.

“And again, I’m sorry about all this. I just…”

He fell silent for a moment, then fixed his gaze on Roger’s eyes.

“All my life, I’ve hoped that… I don’t know… all that stuff I used to read in the comic books was real. Or at least possible. That there really were special people out there somewhere, helping keep everything together, keeping us safe. Protecting us. That there was somebody who could fix things, no matter what they were. Because I look at the world and see how much crap there is to deal with… and I just wanted to be able to… fix it somehow. You know. I wanted there to be good guys. Real ones.”

He hesitated before plunging ahead.

“I just never thought… what it would be like for them. What it’s like for you.”

“I’m not a hero,” Roger said uncomfortably.

“I know,” Dan said, encouragingly. “I know you would rather you weren’t who you are. But that Jones prick was right about something. You are no threat to anybody. You’re a good guy, Roger. What you choose to do with that… Well, that’s up to you.”

He looked around, noticing the long, black car was gone and Jim was standing by the open passenger door of the cruiser.

“Well, you take care,” he said, turning back to where Roger stood in the doorway to the small, cozy house. “And call me when you get something set up, okay?”

Roger nodded.

“Right. And thanks.”

“For what?”

Roger gave a weak shrug.

“Just thanks.”

Dan regarded him a moment, puzzled, then returned the shrug.

“Well, I don’t know what for, but you’re welcome. I’ll talk to you soon.”

He turned and started off down the walkway toward the cruiser.

Roger watched him go a moment, then stepped back inside and gently closed the door.

Jim regarded him as he approached.

“Should we write any of this up?” Jim asked, his tone slightly stunned.

“Hell no,” Dan said, pulling open the driver’s door and flopping behind the wheel.

Jim settled into the other seat and closed the door.

“I just wonder...” he said, thoughtfully, “If this guy really does ever go over the edge, what the Hell would we be able to do about it?”

“Not a goddamn thing,” Dan said calmly. “But he won’t.”

Jim regarded him.

“You don’t think so?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Based on…?”

Dan started the engine and slipped the vehicle into gear.

He gave a small smile.

“Based on he’s one of the good guys.”

“You sure about that?” Jim prompted. “After everything we’ve both seen?”

Dan shook his head.

“Nope. Based on who he is.”

“And what’s that?” Jim responded.

Dan turned to regard his partner.

“An ordinary guy. Never underestimate the goodness of the ordinary guy.”

He pressed the gas pedal, and the cruiser began to glide gracefully down the street.

Even before they had pulled away from the curb, Jones had already extracted the secure satellite phone from his pocket and hit the single speed dial number programmed into it.

It was answered on the first ring.

“Yes?” the voice said, and Jones instantly recognized it as Crawford himself.

“Sir,” Jones said crisply, “We will be filing a report shortly, but I wanted to inform you myself. We have a Class Five anomaly.”

There was a brief pause before Crawford responded.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, sir. It’s confirmed.”

“I see,” Crawford replied slowly.

It was almost too much to believe, as though a worst nightmare scenario, not expected to ever really be encountered, had suddenly reared its head and roared. Fortunately his job had been to develop plans for every contingency, no matter how ridiculous or remote a possibility, and although little more than the rudiments of a structure had been worked out, it had long ago been decided that such cosmically unlikely situations could really only be dealt with as they occurred, that the unknown doesn’t come in neat little packages, and the best you can do is get ready to throw whatever you happen to have at them when they pop up.

So an actual Class Five anomaly existed, he mused. The impossible biological anomaly really was out there. Whether created by science leaping far ahead, out of control, or perhaps as Mother Nature’s answer to mankind’s presumptuousness, something other than human was among them. And unfortunately it was his mess to deal with.

“All right,” he said at last, “Proceed with the analysis. Report whatever you discover directly to me, understood?”

“Understood, sir,” Jones responded.

“And good work,” Crawford added, almost absently, lowering the phone and breaking the connection.

Jones hung up and pocketed the phone. He might have even, in his own way, been smiling.

7

Cry For Attention

Marvin sat in the outer office, nervously clutching the envelope that contained not only his equations and printouts from the Deep Look system, but also the notes he had jotted down following his conversation with Vernon. He had called the contact number given to him by the liaison officer after the Pentagon meeting, and begun to explain the essence of what Vernon had told him, but was surprised when the anonymous voice on the other end of the line had cut him off, instructing him to say nothing more and simply wait for a return call. When it had come, he had been instructed to attend a meeting the following day at a particular address in Washington, D.C.

Now he sat in this small but impressively furnished suite of offices in a nondescript building just across the Potomac river from the nation’s capital. Across the room from him, the receptionist worked busily on her computer and smilingly deflected his questions, even to the point of avoiding letting him know exactly to whom he would be making his hastily assembled presentation.

At last there was a small buzz from the receptionist’s phone, which she answered pleasantly in a voice too quiet for Marvin to make out any words, then raised her attention to where he sat.

“Dr. Henry?” she said pleasantly, “You can go in now.”

Marvin rose and moved to the inner door, which emitted a faint buzz as he approached, indicating some kind of automatic locking mechanism.

He grasped the knob, paused, drew a deep breath and pushed it open.

The inner office was larger than the reception room, a sanctuary of rich, dark paneling and heavy, impressive furniture. Clearly this was the sanctuary of some quietly important individual.

Seated behind the desk was a mature man in a plain but tasteful suit who looked up at him unsmiling, and nodded sharply at the low, plush chair opposite him.

“Have a seat,” the man said. “My name’s Crawford. I’m nominally your boss.”

Marvin returned the nod, unsure how else to respond, and moved to the chair, settling himself into it.

The man leaned back in his massive leather seat and fixed on Marvin a pair of sharp, calculating eyes.

So, Marvin thought quickly, this is the head of… what? He didn’t seem military, and his office was in a small, nondescript building well away from both the Pentagon and the halls of power across the Potomac river a few miles away. There hadn’t even been any nameplates or signs on the suite of offices he was now within, only the suite number. So whatever this is, he told himself, it’s on the other side of the looking glass.

“I understand,” Crawford said, “You have something additional to report related to the Deep Look event?”

“Yes sir,” Marvin responded, fumbling with the envelope and finally extracting his jumbled collection of notes and papers. “And I think it’s serious.”

Crawford nodded.

“Go ahead,” he said, almost briskly, his attitude denoting his full attention was now at Marvin’s disposal.

“Well,” Marvin began, “I met yesterday with a Dr. Vernon Jenkins. He’s Professor of Physics at Cambridge University. I was directed to him by an old professor of mine, Maxwell Manstein, because he’d recently given a lecture related to – “

“How much,” Crawford cut in, “Did you reveal to Manstein about the Deep Look operation?”

Marvin’s attention caught and he paused, feeling a sudden sense of alarm shoot through him.