The Enclave (48 page)
“This electrical activity manifests in an emanation similar to our brain waves, but at much higher and lower amplitudes than ours.” He paused, frowning. “We suspect they are capable of interacting with the environment—turning lights and instruments on and off, and even, some think, communicating with receptive humans. Several technicians have experienced visions and hallucinations when working in their proximity. Others reported the relocation of objects and instruments around the lab that no one can account for, and we’ve actually recorded sounds and voices whose source and even identity we cannot pinpoint.”
He paused again. “We have concluded they are not native to Earth but have come from—”
He was cut off as the pod shivered and a deep groan echoed through the room, sending the entire group leaping back in unison. The shiver traveled over the pod’s surface in a way that only a rubbery outer skin would have accommodated. At first they all stood in rigid, alert silence, but when nothing further happened, they began to relax, and Garzi continued with his presentation.
They had found 1005 of these pods in the temple of Nimrod. Why they had been put there, he did not know. What they were, likewise he did not know, though in the year since they had discovered the things, they had observed not only the groaning and shuddering but also the curious expulsion of obsidianlike cubes. In fact, he pointed out one of the larger three-sided spikes that poked out of the pod before them. “That one is probably very close to expulsion now,” he said. They’d been examining it for six months before the first one was expelled. A second cube had come out three months later, but none since. There were many more found in the tomb. Piles of them, in fact.
The count had been something like five thousand, he’ d said. As of yet, they had no idea what the cubes were. “Perhaps an accretion of waste. Whatever it is, we’ve been unable to cut it, break it, dissolve it, X-ray it, or really, analyze it in any way.”
“Perhaps they’re seeds,” Cam suggested.
The Afghan scientist shrugged. “If so, none appear to have germinated.” He paused. “Like the pods they come from, they do seem to have odd mental effects on those who handle or work around them, so we keep them all in a lead-lined vault.”
Rudy asked if the pods had been X-rayed or otherwise scanned in an attempt to determine the contents. Garzi said they had been X-rayed, but results were inconclusive. Seeming suddenly ill at ease, he turned the discussion back to the black cubes—which, like the pods, generated low-level electricity.
“Come and help me.”
The voice sounded clearly in Cam’s head, startling him. Not in his ear, but in his head. He glanced around, but no one looked at him, everyone staring at Garzi or the pod with varying degrees of attentiveness.
Another shiver convulsed the pod and he saw one of the black points jut outward from the elastic hide, then fall back again, and then once more press forward.
“Ah,” said Garzi. “Here it comes now.”
Cam stood transfixed as the pebbled surface contracted and released and the three-sided point grew ever larger. Then in a burst of thick viscous fluid, it broke free and fell to the floor—not a triangular pyramid, but a solid black cube, its faces slightly bigger than the palm of his hand.
“So now you’ve seen how it works,” said Garzi.
“It is time to let me out. . . .”
the voice commanded again.
A current of panic blasted through Cam—
And abruptly he stood once more at the side of the service road south of the overlook picnic area, sweating in the 105-degree heat, his heart hammering at his breastbone. From over the mountains, thunder rumbled.
He looked up at Rudy, who was watching him closely. “You all right?” his friend asked.
“I remember now,” Cam answered. “That was the first time they spoke to me.”
Rudy’s dark eyes narrowed. “And have they spoken to you here?”
“No.”
He walked to the side of the car and pulled open his door, waiting until Rudy went round to the driver’s side and got in first. Cam followed him, and a window of silence ensued as they fastened their seat belts. But instead of starting the engine, Rudy asked quietly, “You’re sure. Because if they have, maybe you shouldn’t—”
“They haven’t.”
But for a moment his friend continued to study him, searching his face. Finally he seemed satisfied and faced forward, turning the ignition key. The engine roared to life, and Rudy did a tight U-turn, heading back for the Institute’s main road, the half-cool air-conditioning blowing in their faces.
After a few minutes, Cam said quietly, “You still haven’t told me why Swain would be interested in me.”
“We think he wants you because you are apparently the only person to survive the opening of a sarc.”
He glanced at Cam repeatedly, as if expecting him to remember something again or in some way confirm his words.
Cam grew aware of his heart thudding dully in his chest and throat and ears, too rapid to just be a result of the heat and the walk. Images flashed through his mind—a massive puddle of blood pooling out of the dying Garzi, who clutched at his sleeve and sought to speak a warning. . . .
And then it cut off as completely as the flipping of a switch. He swallowed. “I don’t think I was present,” he said finally, frowning at the tremor in his voice. “But why would it matter if I was?”
“Because then you’d probably know how to open them.”
After returning to her desk, Lacey waited until she heard Gen leave the area before accessing Cam’s file. Sure enough, there was a notation of his having been arrested for assault while he was at Cold Spring Harbor three years ago and an additional psychiatric evaluation that noted his problems with paranoia, particularly when it came to the government and authority figures. He had repeatedly accused his superiors—or various arcane objects—of trying to control his mind.They speculated it was a result of his ongoing problems with posttraumatic stress disorder.
There was also an addition to the comments about his faith and the church he attended, noting that some had accused the organization of being a cult because of the way adherents were encouraged to attend daily and submit to the pastor “as if he were some kind of god.”
Not one of those notations had been in his file the first time she read it, and she was absolutely certain of that because she’ d been looking specifically for references like them. Thus, like the addition of her new scar, attributed to a beating from Erik, Cam’s file had been doctored just as hers had. But for what purpose? So Gen could direct Lacey’s attention to them in an attempt to get her to distrust him? Or—more likely—part of the plan to frame him for Manny’s death . . . ?
Of course, for the moment, Manny’s death remained officially a disappearance and the whole matter seemed to have fallen off the radar. Swain had returned in the wee hours of Friday morning from his meeting with the disgruntled postdoc in Guadalajara, and they’d heard nary a word from anyone about it. Which wasn’t surprising given Swain had already warned everyone against discussing the matter with the public, and with the public currently inundating the campus, there was precious little opportunity to say anything. Besides, everyone was more interested in the events related to the open house and expo.
But she couldn’t help wondering if, when Monday came and all the booths and important people had gone away, Manny’s body would show up somewhere and Cameron Reinhardt end up the chief murder suspect again.
“Ms. McHenry?”
The unfamiliar voice drew her around to find a campus deliveryman standing in the doorway of her office holding a large, flat brown box. “That’s me,” she said.
“This came for you,” he said, handing over the box. “I have another.”
She set the package on the desk and used her letter opener to slit the packing tape. Meantime the deliveryman came in with the second box. At her direction, he set it on her chair.
Inside the first package, she found a white dress box with an embossed Ann Taylor logo on it. Inside was a sleeveless, knee-length cocktail dress of dark blue silk georgette. A deep V neckline plunged to the satin band at its empire waist, the skirt a wonderful fall of draping silken folds. Subtle gathers at the bust and shoulders added interest and a soft femininity. She drew it out of the box with a feeling of awe. When she’d heard Swain was having a dress sent, she’ d been annoyed. She hadn’t expected to like it, much less love it at first sight.
Never in her life had she worn anything so . . .
“Ah,” said Gen, who had once again snuck up on her. “I see it’s come.” She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. “Well, try it on. Let’s see how it fits.”
And so Lacey did. It fit perfectly. And except for the neckline, which was deeper than anything she’ d worn in her life, it felt wonderful. Cool and light and swirling, it was the perfect weight and style for a party that would be held outside in mid-June.
Though there was no mirror in her office for Lacey to see for herself, Gen pronounced it lovely. “He got it right the very first time,” she said. “As always, it seems.”
The other box held a pair of metallic sandals with crisscross straps over the toes and three-inch heels. Also a perfect fit and a perfect complement to the dress. “There’ll be jewelry, as well,” Gen informed her. “We’ll have that for you tomorrow.” She smiled, and then offered Lacey use of her own apartment on the seventh floor as a place to dress before the reception. “That way we won’t worry about theft, and you won’t have to traipse all the way up from the basement, risking snags or a broken heel or what have you.” Though her suggestion was perfectly reasonable, it also reminded Lacey of the low station from which she was being raised—as she suspected it was supposed to.
In any case, when Lacey didn’t object, Gen packed dress and shoes back in their boxes and took them up to her apartment, leaving Lacey in a state of disquiet once again. She really didn’t want to spend any time with Gen Viascola at all, much less prepare for tomorrow night’s festivities with her. There was something creepy about being primped and prepared by the former mistress of the man who was to be her escort.
It was late afternoon when the front desk called to tell her that Dr. Reinhardt’s insurance adjuster was in the main lobby, wanting to talk to her about the accident last night involving Reinhardt’s Jeep Cherokee. Uneasy with knowing she was probably going to have to lie, Lacey went down to meet him.
A disheveled man with horn-rimmed glasses and stringy black hair, Mr. Mallory shook her hand as he introduced himself, and immediately wanted to know how much Cameron had had to drink before he’d crashed the Jeep.
“A bottle of cherry-pomegranate juice,” she replied, instantly annoyed. “He wasn’t drunk.”
“So why did the Jeep run off the road?”
Suddenly she had to avert her gaze, unnerved at how the truth was going to sound. “There were a bunch of boulders on the road. A rockslide, I guess.”
He asked her to describe the boulders, then asked where she thought they might have come from, seeing as there weren’t any cliffs or even steep slopes near that stretch of the road. She said she didn’t know.
Frowning, he made a few more notes, then asked how the fire had started. She had no idea what he was talking about, and when he explained, assured him there was no fire and that the Jeep had been fine when they’d left it, except for its crumpled front end and the fact it wouldn’t run.
“Could Dr. Reinhardt have come back later and—”
“No!” She cut him off, more annoyed than ever, and explained that Reinhardt had walked her back to the expo, where they’d roamed around until closing—during which time he’ d called the garage about getting it towed back in the morning. Still, Mallory pressed her—had she heard an explosion, perhaps, after they’d left the vehicle? Seen a light flaring in the sky behind them?
Which of course they had. “That was more to the southwest, though,” she said. “Where the fireworks went off. We assumed it was one of them, firing early.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t the Jeep? It
was
dark, after all. And you were in the middle of the desert.”
Bristling, she assured him she hadn’t been the least bit confused as to where everything was, and the boom they’d heard was not from the Jeep. He made some more notes on his pad, then thanked her for her time and gave her his card. “In case you remember something more about it all.”
She frowned after him, then dropped his card into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out her cell phone to call Reinhardt. He didn’t pick up, so she left a voice mail, telling him she’d just talked to his agent and that she hoped she hadn’t caused him too much trouble. “I don’t lie well,” she admitted. “I don’t think he believed me.”
By then it was 4:30, and her late night having finally caught up with her, she went over to the Madrona Lounge to get an iced mocha from the coffee bar. There she was surprised to find Reinhardt sitting alone at a table by the window, reading from a fat file of documents. A cardboard cup of coffee sat on the table beside it.
As she approached, he ignored her, his attention fixed on the documents.
“That must be mighty interesting reading,” she commented as she sat in the empty plastic chair across from him.
He looked up with an attentiveness that told her he’ d been feigning his preoccupation. “The DNA and prints came back on Frogeater,” he said without preamble. “They’re a match for Parker Swain.”
The words were so far from what she’ d expected him to say, it took her a moment to make sense of them. And when she did, she struggled to get her mind around their implications.
He helped her along: “I think he’s Swain’s clone.”
Then he looked back down at the paper he’ d been reading while she stared at him. “He’s got to be close to twenty years old,” she protested. “How could they have kept him secret for so long?”
“I don’t know. But from what I heard last night, I fear he’s not the only one. And there
is
a secret lab. They caught him and have taken him there.”
He fell silent, allowing her to digest that information, then said, still keeping his eyes on his reading material, “Swain’s ordered me to stay away from you, so I’ll have to go soon. We’d like to chip you before the reception, though. Are you game?”
