Second Earth (9 page)

  
“I’m not really sure.”

  
Shawn turned to her in disbelief.

  
“Really,” she whispered in defense of her
words. “I have no idea where that address will lead us.”

  
“Uh-huh,” Shawn nodded.

  
Adams spoke up from the front seat and broke
the momentary staring contest the two were holding.

  
“So we need to take some samples back to the
ship?” he asked cautiously.

  
Melissa stoically nodded. “Precisely,
Sergeant Adams.”

  
Pushing down thoughts of disrespecting the
dead, Shawn visibly shuddered. “I volunteer you for that task, Agent Graves.
There’s no way I’m touching those bodies.”

  
Melissa frowned at him and then faced the
Sergeant again. “Once we get to our destination, I’ll need you and Private
Montoya to collect some bone samples for analysis back on the
Rhea
.”

  
Adams shifted his eyes to Shawn nervously.

  
“Don’t look at me, man. She’s the one in
charge, or so she likes to keep reminding everyone.”

  
Resigned to his task, Adams looked back to
Melissa. “Yes, ma’am.”

  
“Roslyn, do you think you could assist them?
I need samples from both male and female bodies, as well as…any children or
animals you come across.”

  
At the mention of the word “children,” Raven
turned and looked at the OSI agent sadly. In fact, the word cast an even more
somber cloud over the entire team. It was one thing to think of the bodies as
merely free-thinking adults, but to realize there would have been innocent
children involved as well seemed to sadden the already dark mood the group was
experiencing. “Of course,” she replied softly with a nod.

  
Sergeant Adams spoke up from the controls as
the carrier began to slow. “We’ll be at the coordinates in about five minutes.
It’s just up here on the right.” He pointed a thick, dark finger at a rather
unspectacular-looking intersection.

  
“Very well,” Melissa took out her map once
more and began tapping commands into the computer screen. Within seconds, a
list of schools, parks, and pet stores came into focus. There were several of
each nearby, but none seemed to be close to one another. She plotted the
directions from their current coordinates and handed the map to Raven. “Meet us
back here when you’ve…found everything you need.”

  
Roslyn inspected the map for a few moments
before she addressed Adams. She inputted a series of commands, and the latest
sensor readings from the
Rhea
were
overlaid on the map. Several of the most direct routes were blocked, so she
knew they’d have to take the long way around. “We’ll need the skimmer to get to
a few of these locations.” She then turned to Melissa. “Will you two be all
right on your own for about an hour or so?”

  
Shawn turned to Melissa. “Oh, I think we can
handle ourselves.”

  
“Agent Graves?” Roslyn asked, seemingly
unconvinced by her commanding officer’s remark.

  
Melissa looked to Shawn, then pursed her
lips and nodded. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  
Roslyn gave the unlikely pair a furtive
glance and then turned her attention back to the slowly narrowing road before
them.

  
Once they had arrived at their destination,
Adams parked the personnel carrier in a clearing near an undisturbed patch of
sidewalk. Shawn climbed out of the back, offering Melissa a hand and helping
her out of the craft. As her boots landed on the pavement, she could feel the
years of dust and neglect being crushed under her diminutive weight. She was
instantly reminded that the last people to set foot on this soil were probably
dead, and that they were now treading through a perilous graveyard of
dilapidated buildings and occasional corpses. Even the dust itself could have
been pulverized bones. Mindful of Shawn’s thoughts on the matter, she decided
in that moment to treat with reverence everything she touched. As she turned her
attention from her feet to Shawn, she could see understanding in his eyes. As
if he had read her thoughts, he nodded solemnly.

  
“We’ll be back in less than two hours,
Commander,” Roslyn said as she produced a communication transmitter and tossed
it to Shawn. “Call if you need anything, Skipper.”

  
“Will do.”

  
“Good luck. Both of you,” Raven said, and
added a relaxed salute. And with that, the carrier made a sharp U-turn in the
street and sped off toward their first destination: one of the schoolhouses
Melissa had located. When the carrier rounded a distant corner and was out of
sight, Shawn turned to Melissa.

  
“Where do we go from here?”

  
Melissa looked around the desolate street.
Most of the buildings on this block were over five stories tall. Nearly all the
windows had been blown out, and glass glittered in the streets like a river of
diamonds. Several of the façades had large cracks in them, some stretching
nearly the entire height of the structures. Doors were open or smashed, dead
trees were toppled, and the light breeze flowing through the decaying buildings
gave off a slight howling noise that she found oddly disquieting. She exhaled
slowly, not realizing that the breath was punctuated by hesitation.

  
“What about you?” Melissa asked hesitantly.

  
Shawn scanned the abandoned street, not sure
what he was looking for. “What about me what?”

  
Her back was to him as she scanned the
interior of a nearby building through a shattered pane of glass. “You…aren’t
afraid of running into any ghosts, are you?”

  
Shawn found himself chuckling, despite the
eeriness of their location. “Well, if we do, that weapon of yours isn’t going
to do anything to dissuade them. I don’t think ghosts are particularly
concerned about bullets.”

  
Melissa was silent as she gazed into the
decrepit storefront. It looked like it used to be a department store, with
mannequins lying in haphazard poses of preformed plastic agony. “It’s the
stillness that gets to me, you know? We’re in a city. There should be children
playing, people coming and going, sirens and bells or other such things.”

  
Shawn reached out a hand and gently placed
it on her shoulder. She jumped under the contact as she twirled around to face
him. Instinctively, she’d raised a hand to strike at what had caught her
off-guard—a knee-jerk reaction born of her intelligence operative training. All
at once she felt the familiar foolishness she had been encountering nearly
every time she was around the commander. “Sorry, Shawn,” she offered as she
lowered her hand slowly. “I didn’t mean to—”

  
He placed his hands on her shoulders. “There
are no such things as ghosts, Melissa.”

  
“I know. I know. It’s just…”

  
“Creepy?”

  
She nodded as she folded her arms across her
chest, as if her core temperature had suddenly become uncomfortable cold. “For
lack of a better term, yes. It’s
very
creepy.”

  
He pursed his lips, then scanned the
buildings around them. “You’ll get no argument from me there. So let’s find
what we came for and get the hell out of here, okay?”

  
“Yes. Okay. Very good,” she said as she
followed his gaze nervously.

 
 
He
gave her a tiny shake to bring her focus back on him. “We’re gonna be fine.
You’re gonna be fine. They’re just bones, remember?”

  
She huffed and smiled. “You know, I’m a
rated expert in clandestine operations and physics. I hold high marks in mineralogy,
computer operations, diplomacy, and general intelligence procedures.”

  
“Diplomacy, huh?” Shawn repeated. “I never
would have guessed it.”

  
“Yeah, I do,” she offered with a weak smile,
not catching the sarcasm in his otherwise-warm tone. “But when it comes down to
it, I mean when it
really
comes down
to the bottom if it, just because I’m smart enough to know better doesn’t mean
my body believes what my head is telling it.”

  
Shawn moved one hand from her shoulder to
gently cup her cheek. “I’m right here. Nothing is going to happen to you while
I’m around.”

  
“A premonition?”

  
“A guarantee.”

  
His dashing smile began to melt away the
fear. She smiled, taking his hand in her own. “You know, for someone whose most
recent occupation outside of Sector Command skirted the borders of legality at
times, you make a pretty convincing hero.”

  
“Maybe I’ve simply been reformed?” he
suggested with a smirk.

  
She looked deeply into his eyes. “No, I’m
thinking the exact opposite.”

  
“Oh, how so?”

  
“If I could be so bold as to say—”

  
“And we both know you are.”

  
“You’ve been hiding, Shawn.”

  
“Really?” he replied with honest surprise.
“And just who have I been hiding from?”

  
She smiled. “From yourself, Commander. I
think that now…somehow, you’re starting to find yourself again.”

  
Shawn’s face hardened, and he stepped back
from her touch. “That’s one opinion.”

  
“I’ve got more.”

  
“I don’t doubt it. However, we don’t have
the time, so how about we just get on with what we’re doing here.”

  
She looked at him apologetically. “I didn’t
mean to—”

  
“Well, regardless, you did,” he said
harshly, then made an obvious effort to soften his expression. “Let’s just get
what we came for, okay? We’ll talk it through once we’re not surrounded by
death and destruction. Fair enough?”

  
She nodded. “Fair enough.”

  
Shawn scanned the street once more as he
placed his hands on his hips. “So, Agent Graves, where are we going from here?”

  
She took a deep breath and pivoted on her
left heel. She was now facing the most battered building on the entire block.
Although the tall white building was still in one piece, how long it would
remain so was anyone’s guess. The center of the structure looked like it was
bulging from the inside, as if it were expanding to dangerous proportions and
would explode at any moment. Nearly all the windows on the upper five floors
had been blown out, but most on the bottom three remained intact. Of the two
large wooden double doors that offered access to the space, one was firmly shut
and the other was wedged half-open, exposing the darkness within.

  
Shawn’s gaze followed her, and he stepped a
pace in front of where she stood. “You sure this is the place?” he called over
his shoulder. “Its stability looks…a tad questionable.”

  
“That’s the place, all right. And we’re
going to need to get in there.”

  
A gust of unwelcomed hot air blew down the
street, causing the single cocked door to squeak heavily as it slid open
farther. Without asking, Shawn knew he would have to lead the way into the
structure. However, as soon as he began to shift his weight, Melissa walked off
purposely, not stopping until she was through the opening twenty paces later.

  
Someday, I’m really
going to need to sit her down and have a heart-to-heart discussion on the
meaning of the word “cautious.”

  
A
s
soon as Shawn was through the partially open door, the first thing that
assaulted his senses was the overwhelming smell of decay in the dilapidated
building. Years of neglect had left the structure suffering from damage that
could only be remedied by a complete demolition. The floor was littered with
the crumbled remains of the false ceiling that had once hidden a small maze of
pipes and electrical conduits that snaked along the overhead, themselves
hanging down in places like the long-abandoned spider’s web of some ghastly
technological beast. Several wooden beams, probably more for decoration than
function, had toppled and broken up, the fragments tossed around like some
long-forgotten children’s toy. Two lofty beams that were supporting the roof,
each about nine feet tall and two feet wide, were showing signs of serious
rust. The paint that had once protected their natural surface had long since
flaked to the floor and now surrounded the bases of the pillars like piles of
large, flat snowflakes.

  
In an effort to
remain as clean as possible, Melissa reached into her pocket and withdrew a
pair of light leather gloves. As she donned them, she watched Shawn do the
same.