Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) (22 page)

She shook his hand, but didn’t say anything.
 

“And this is Mr. Morgan,” Jack said, gesturing to Howard. “He’s a lot nicer. And he’s a billionaire.”

“At least I used to be.” Morgan smiled and shook Melissa’s hand.
 

“And I’m Renee, hon.” Renee didn’t bother shaking hands, but swooped in and gave the girl a hug. “Hey, you hungry?”
 

“Yes, ma’am. Starving.”

“She didn’t have much more than some MRE crackers and cookies on the way out,” Jack said. “Come to think of it, the rest of us haven’t, either.”

“Come on then,” Renee said, pulling Melissa along, the others falling into step behind her. “Do you like chocolate cake?” Melissa looked up at her, eyes wide. She gave her covered head an emphatic nod. “Well, kid, it just so happens that the cooks baked a fresh one for me this morning, and I might be convinced to share some of it with you.”

With Naomi’s arm around his waist as the group headed for the entrance to the labs, Jack said, “And what have you been up to?”

“Oh, not much.”

Behind him, Ferris nearly choked.

***

“This is your room, Melissa,” Naomi told her, opening the door to the room across the hall from where she and Jack stayed.
 

The girl’s eyes were wide as she stepped inside, nearly tripping on Koshka, who darted in ahead of her. A big screen television and a game console with a box of games occupied one corner. A laptop computer and electronic tablet were on a desk, and the bed sported a pink comforter, and a veritable zoo of stuffed animals. On one wall hung a huge mural poster of one of the latest bands that was popular among teens.

“We had no idea what you might be into,” Renee told her, “so we got a little bit of everything. How do you like it?” She followed the other two into the room, leaving Hathcock outside in the hallway.

“It’s awesome. I just wish it had a window.”
 

“I know,” Naomi said. “There’s not much to see outside, anyway. But if you want to look at something, you can use the computer to watch the surveillance camera feeds.”

“Really?”
 

Melissa plopped down in the chair in front of the computer. In thirty seconds she had five surveillance camera windows open, showing views around the compound and in the lab areas.
 

“Wicked,” the girl whispered.

“Hey, kid, don’t tune us out quite yet,” Renee said, tapping Melissa on the hood that covered her head. “In here’s a closet with some clothes in different sizes, so you should be able to find something that’ll fit. You’ll probably gag at the style, but at least you won’t look like one of us old grandma types. And over here’s the bathroom, which also has a shower. Just watch the water, as those idiots in facilities maintenance keep it turned up hot enough for percolating coffee.”

“Okay.” Melissa nodded, then eagerly turned back to the computer.
 

But before she could type another stroke, Naomi had put her hand over the keyboard.
 

Melissa looked up at her. “What?”

With a glance at Renee, Naomi said, as gently as she could, “Honey, you need to get out of those clothes and get cleaned up. How many days has it been since you’ve had a bath or a shower?”

Melissa took her hands away from the keyboard and stared at her. “I…I don’t know. A few days.”

“I think it’s been a bit longer than that, hasn’t it?”

“Fess up, kid,” Renee said with a smile as she wrinkled her nose, “you’re riper than a rotten melon.”

After a moment, Melissa nodded.
 

Naomi reached for the scarf, but Melissa flinched away.

“Please don’t,” she said. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Melissa, honey, we know about the disease you’re suffering from,” Naomi told her, backing off to take a seat on the bed to give the girl some space. “That’s actually the reason you’re here, because we believe this disease, Morgellons, may help us kill the harvesters. And there’s a chance, just a chance, that we may be able to cure you, as well.” She leaned forward. “I know what it looks like, how it affects your skin, and how it makes you feel inside. But I want you to understand that we know the ugly parts are the disease, Melissa, not you. I know we’re asking a lot after all you’ve been through, both before the harvesters came and after, but I need you to trust us. To trust me. Can you do that?”

“The last person who saw my face,” Melissa whispered, “one of the nurses in the hospital, screamed when I took off the scarf. She wanted me to trust her, too.”

Renee, who had taken a seat on the bed next to Naomi, shook her head, a wry grin on her face. “Kid,
you’d
scream if you were in my shoes and had to see Mr. Bald-As-An-Onion Richards bare-ass naked. You think you’ve got problems? Just imagine me having to endure that horrific vision every night. Now that’s the stuff of nightmares!”

“Renee! God, you’re awful,” Naomi scolded, but Renee’s ploy had worked.
 

Melissa was giggling. “Oh, no, no, no,” she said, putting her hands over her eyes before succumbing to a fit of laughter. “Total mental photobomb.” When she recovered, she said in a quiet voice. “Okay. But I’m ugly. I’m warning you.”

“You’re not ugly at all, hon,” Renee said softly. “I can see that in your eyes. Trust us, okay?”

Without another word, Melissa reached up and pulled the scarf down, then pulled the hood from her head, letting her long, greasy auburn hair slip free.
 

Or, at least, what hair she had. Most of her scalp and forehead was covered in angry red lesions, from the size of a dime to one the size of Naomi’s palm over the girl’s left temple. While the skin around her eyes suffered no more than accumulated dirt and grime, her nose and lips were as afflicted as her scalp, and more lesions ran down her neck to disappear under her hoodie.
 

“Do you have these lesions all over your body?” Naomi asked.

Melissa nodded. “Yeah. But most, the worst ones, are on my head and face. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fibers.” Her lips, which looked blistered, quivered into a smile. “They sometimes poke me when I touch them, and they get stuck in my clothes.”

Naomi stood up and came closer. “May I?”

“Okay, if it doesn’t gross you out.”

“It doesn’t, honey. Not at all.” Naomi leaned closer. Most of the lesions, especially those on and around her lips, had tiny fibers, twisted and curled, protruding from them. Some stood out individually, while others were bound in clusters. While it was difficult to make out with the naked eye, it was clear that the fibers weren’t all the same color, as hair would be, nor were they colors typically natural to the human body. She was able to discern red, blue, black, and white fibers. And when she touched them, they were stiff and sharp enough to poke fingertips like tiny needles.

“Not to be rude,” Renee said, “but shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?”

“It’s not contagious,” Naomi replied absently. “Does it hurt where I’m touching?”

“A little. The worst is just how it feels sometimes, like there’s something burrowing under my skin or biting me. I can’t stand that.”

Satisfied for the moment, Naomi stepped back to the bed and sat down. “Okay, here’s what I’d like you to do. Get yourself cleaned up and put some fresh clothes on. Then Mr. Hathcock, who’s waiting outside, will take you down to the galley where you can gobble down as much food as you want.”

Melissa looked through the doorway as Hathcock peered in and threw her a quick salute. “Am I under arrest or something? A prisoner?”

“No, honey,” Naomi reassured her. “He’s one of our very best men, and has only one job now: keeping you safe. Think of him as your guardian or bodyguard, not your jailer. You’re free to come and go when you want and where you want, except to some of the areas that are off limits for safety reasons, and if you need something, he’ll get it for you. You’re not a prisoner, you’re our honored guest.”
 

“Will he take me to see Alexander?”

“Sure he will,” Naomi said, brushing her hand against Melissa’s cheek. “I know Alexander would like that. I have to pay him a visit, too, but that’ll have to wait until later. Renee and I have things to do first.”

“But after you get cleaned up and fed, kiddo,” Renee said as she got up and followed Naomi to the door, “we’re going to need you to help us with some stuff, okay?”

“I’ll be ready,” Melissa said. With one more longing gaze at the computer, she headed for the bathroom, already stripping out of her filthy clothes as Naomi closed the door.

***

Carl sat at the head of the conference room table with Howard on the opposite end. Jack was staring at Naomi, who sat next to him.
 

“
Oh, not much
, you said.” Jack threw his hands up in the air. “Jesus Christ, you went to Turkey and brought seven of those damn things back with you?”

“I wasn’t in any danger,” she lied. “Kiran and his men were there to protect me.”

Jack shot Kiran, who sat along the wall behind them, an angry look. He gave Jack a helpless shrug.
 

“It was a risk we had to take, Jack,” Carl told him. “You know how much I hated the whole idea of collaborating with these things, and I still do. But every department head supported this, President Lynch is now behind it, and we’re down to taking the best of the worst options available. We can’t keep losing cities like Chicago and the casualties that go with them. We’ve got to find some bug spray that’ll kill these things, and find it fast.”

“Come on, Jack, admit it,” Howard said, only half-joking. “You’re just upset because you couldn’t go with her.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Carl said. “It’s done. Get over it. The question we have to answer now is how to proceed.”

“I think there’s only one answer to that,” Naomi told him. “If we expect their cooperation, we have to give them full access to the information we have and work as a team. Otherwise there’s no point.”
 

“What if it’s all a ruse?”

Everyone turned to look at Kiran. “What if this group is to infiltrate us?” He went on. “If we give them access to the labs, the information, the networks, and most importantly the key people, they could destroy everything in the blink of an eye.”

“If they wanted to kill me, they could have done that at the border,” Naomi told him.

“Forgive me, Naomi, but while you are probably the most powerful piece on the board, like the queen in a game of chess, you are not the only one. This place has become the heart of the effort to stop the harvesters. Even though you have other facilities and research organizations, this one is the key. If they can destroy or disrupt the operations here, there will be no salvation for humanity.”

“And that’s been my main reason for resisting this idea so long,” Carl said. “We simply can’t trust these things. If we’re going to work with them, we have to figure out how to do it in such a way as to minimize our potential losses if they decide to turn on us.”

“The network piece is manageable,” Renee said. “It’ll be a bit of a pain, but we can set up an isolated set of servers for them to use. We can bring data in through a one-way data pump so they’ll have access to everything we want them to see, but can’t reach back out into the network.” She looked at Naomi. “The only thing is, for that to work we’ll probably have to isolate all the machines in one of the labs, so any time you want to send something out to someone or even chat over the network you’ll have to go to another area.”

Naomi frowned. “That’s going to be more than a minor inconvenience, but I think we can work with it.”

“Physical security is another matter,” Howard said. “Not in terms of keeping our guests cooped up, but in protecting our folks who need to work with them.” He eyed Naomi, then turned his gaze on Harmony Bates. “I’d prefer to firewall the people as well as our network. We could set up a lab area adjacent to the holding cells downstairs where the harvesters can work on their isolated network mirror, while Naomi and her team continue to work as before.”

“And how are the harvesters supposed to share data with us?” Naomi asked. “They’ll be on an isolated network.”

Howard shrugged. “We could extend their network to your workstations, set up switches that allow you to flip from one network to the other and back, and probably set up a way to bring data out of their network to ours, even if it’s an air gap.”

“An air gap?” Naomi and Harmony exchanged a disgusted glance. “Howard, we’re not going to race around with a bunch of thumb drives porting data from their network to ours.” She turned to Carl. “I know this is risky. I get that, especially since I’m probably number one on their list to get a stinger in my throat…”

“Naomi…” Carl began, but she raised a hand to cut him off.

“…but we’re dealing with too many conditionals here,” she went on, “all of which are going to take time. And some, like passing data across an air gap, just aren’t going to work. Every minute we waste trying to shield ourselves from risk equates to thousands more victims.” Looking at Jack, hoping he would understand, she said, “We had no choice but to make a deal with the devil. Now we have to take a leap of faith and pray they’re sincere.”

PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE

Taking a deep breath, Naomi said, “All right, let’s do this.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jack said before he tapped six digits into the entry lock and the door to the secure lab area hissed open. “Be careful.”

She gave his arm a quick squeeze of reassurance, for herself as much as for him. “I’ll try.”
 

Before she could reconsider, she stepped through, with Harmony Bates and five other members of the genetics team, all volunteers, behind her, one of them for each of the harvesters.
 

The Seven, as the harvesters were being called in the rumor mill, awaited them. They were all in human form, but a chill fluttered down Naomi’s spine and gooseflesh broke out on her arms as she entered the cool air of the lab. Their leader had adopted the guise of Vijay Chidambaram, which deeply unsettled her.