Invasion (45 page)

“Obviously they know where we are,” she said. She wiped her forehead with her hand and examined it. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood. “Is there
another way to get to the exit? We’re surely not going to be able to use the hall.”

“We have to use the hall,” Harlan said.

“Oh screw!” Sheila mumbled. She looked at the gun in her hand, wondering whom she thought she was kidding. She’d never even fired a gun in practice much less gotten into a battle with one.

“We can use the fire system,” Harlan said. He pointed toward the security panel on the living-room wall. “If you pull the fire lever, the whole place fills up with fire retardant. The intruders won’t be able to breathe very well, if at all.”

“Oh that’s clever,” Sheila said sarcastically. “And, of course, we just walk out holding our breaths.”

“No, no,” Harlan said. “In the cabinet below the panel are rebreathers that are good for a least a half hour.”

Sheila went over to the cabinet and pulled it open. It was filled with gas mask–like apparatuses. She took out five and handed them around. The directions on the long, tubular proboscis were to break the seal, shake, and then don.

“Everybody okay with this?” Sheila asked.

“It’s not as if we have a lot of choice,” Pitt said.

They all activated their units and then strapped them on. When everyone gave a thumbs-up sign, Sheila yanked down on the fire lever.

An immediate clanging was heard followed by an automated voice that repeated “Fire in the facility” over and over again. A minute later the sprinkler system was activated, sending out billows of fluid that rapidly vaporized. The room filled up with a smoglike haze.

“We have to stick together,” Sheila yelled. It was hard to talk in the gas mask, and it was getting hard to see as well. Sheila opened the door to the hall and was pleased to see the hall was as hazy as the living room. She leaned out and looked toward the labs. She couldn’t see for more than four or five feet.

Sheila stepped out into the hall. There were no gun shots. “Let’s go,” she called to the others. “Pitt, you and Harlan go ahead so that we know where we are going. Cassy and Jonathan, you carry the tissue culture flasks.”

In a tight group they moved down the hallway. In the haze the corridor seemed interminable. Finally they came to the air lock and climbed in. Sheila pulled the door behind them. Pitt opened the outer door.

Beyond the air lock, the atmosphere progressively cleared, especially when they got on the electric cart. By the time they came to the exit stairs, they could remove their breathing apparatuses.

It was six flights up to the surface. They emerged through a trap door the size of a scatter rug into the living room of a farmhouse. When the trap door was closed, no one would have suspected what it concealed.

“My car should be in the barn,” Harlan said. He took his arm off Pitt’s shoulder. “Thanks, Pitt,” he said. “I don’t think I could have made it without you, but I feel a bit better already.” He blew his nose noisily.

“Let’s get a move on,” Sheila said. “Those people who were after us might have found rebreathers as well.”

The group exited the house via the front door and walked back toward the barn. The sun had set and the desert heat was rapidly dissipating. There was a blood-red
smear along the edge of the western horizon. The rest of the sky was an inverted bowl of indigo blue. A few stars twinkled overhead.

As Harlan had hoped, his Range Rover was still safely parked in the barn. He put all the tissue culture flasks in the back storage area before getting behind the wheel. He took the Colt from Sheila and slipped it into the door pocket.

“Are you sure you feel up to driving?” Sheila asked. She was amazed at his recovery.

“No problem,” Harlan said. “I feel completely different than I did just fifteen minutes ago. The only symptoms I have now are of garden-variety cold. I’d say our human trial was an unmitigated success!”

Sheila got into the front passenger seat. Cassy, Pitt, and Jonathan climbed into the back. Pitt put his arm around Cassy, and she snuggled up against him.

Harlan started the car and backed out of the barn. He made a U-turn and drove to the road.

“This alien infestation certainly has cut down on traffic,” he said. “Look at this. Not a car in sight and we’re only fifteen minutes out of Paswell.”

Harlan turned right and accelerated.

“Where are we going?” Sheila asked.

“I don’t think we have a lot of choice,” Harlan said. “My sense is that the rhinovirus is going to take care of the infestation. The problem then boils down to the Gateway thing. We got to try to do something about it.”

Cassy straightened up. “The Gateway!” she said. “Pitt has told you about it.”

“He certainly did,” Harlan said. “He said you thought
it was almost operational. Did you get any idea when they might use it?”

“I wasn’t told specifically,” Cassy said. “But my sense is that it will be used as soon as it is finished.”

“There you go,” Harlan said. “We’ll just have to hope we can get there in time and figure out a way to throw a monkey wrench into the works.”

“What’s this about a rhinovirus?” Cassy asked.

“Some rather good news,” Harlan said, glancing at Cassy in the rearview mirror. “Particularly for you and me.”

Cassy was then told the whole sequence of events that led to the discovery of a way to rid the human race of the alien viral scourge. Both Harlan and Sheila credited Cassy for the information that she’d given Pitt.

“It was the fact that the alien virus had come here three billion years ago that was so important,” Sheila said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have thought about its being sensitive to oxygen.”

“Maybe I should be breathing some of that rhinovirus now?” Cassy said.

“No need,” Harlan said. “Just riding in the car means all of you are being adequately infected. I imagine it only takes a couple of virions since no one has any immunity to it.”

Cassy settled back and snuggled against Pitt. “Only a few hours ago I thought all was lost. It’s a shock to be hopeful again.”

Pitt squeezed her shoulder. “We’ve been incredibly lucky.”

They arrived at the outskirts of Santa Fe a few minutes
after eleven o’clock at night. They had driven straight through, stopping only once at an abandoned service station to fill up the gas tank. They’d also helped themselves to candy and peanuts from a vending machine. There was plenty of change in the cash register.

Cassy had stayed in the car. By then she’d been in the middle of the period of weakness, malaise, and foaming at the mouth and eyes that Harlan had experienced as they’d left the underground laboratory. Harlan had been ecstatic, taking Cassy’s temporary misery as further evidence of the efficacy of the “rhino-cure,” as he called it.

Skirting the center of Santa Fe, they followed Cassy’s directions and drove directly to the Institute for a New Beginning. At this time of night the outer gate was brightly illuminated with flood lights. The daily protesters were gone, but there was a significant number of infected people leaving the grounds.

Harlan pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He leaned forward and surveyed the scene. “Where’s the mansion?” he asked.

En route Cassy had explained to everyone everything she’d been able to remember about the institute’s layout, particularly the fact that the Gateway was located in the ballroom on the first floor to the right of the front entrance.

“The main building is behind that line of trees,” Cassy said. “You can’t see it from here.”

“Which way did the ballroom windows face?” Harlan asked.

“I believe to the back of the house,” Cassy said. “But I’m not positive because they had been boarded up.”

“So much for the idea of breaking through the windows,” Harlan said.

“Considering what the Gateway is supposed to do,” Pitt said, “it must use a lot of energy, and that’s got to be electric. Maybe we could unplug it.”

“A wonderfully droll suggestion,” Harlan quipped. “But to transport aliens through time and space I can’t imagine they’ll be relying on the same energy as we use to power toasters. Seeing what a single, relatively tiny black disc can do, think of what a whole bunch of them might accomplish if they were working in concert.”

“It was just an idea,” Pitt said. He felt stupid and decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

“How far is the mansion from the gate?” Sheila asked.

“Quite a ways,” Cassy said. “A couple of hundred yards or more. The driveway goes through trees first and then crosses a stretch of wide-open lawn.”

“Well, I think that’s our first problem,” Sheila said. “We have to get to the house if we’re going to do anything.”

“Good point,” Harlan said.

“What about sneaking over the fence somewhere in the back?” Jonathan said. “There are lights here at the gate but I don’t see others elsewhere.”

“There are big dogs patrolling the grounds,” Cassy said. “They’re infected just like the people, and they work together. I’m afraid trying to approach the house across the lawn would be dangerous.”

Suddenly the night sky above the trees lit up with undulating bands of energy that gave the impression of the northern lights. They formed a sphere and began expanding and contracting, reminiscent of an organism breathing.
But each successive expansion was larger so the phenomenon was growing by the second.

“Uh oh,” Sheila said. “I have a feeling we’re too late. It’s starting.”

“All right, everybody out of the car!” Harlan commanded.

“What do you mean?” Sheila questioned.

“I want everybody out,” Harlan said. “I’m going to do something impulsive. I’m going to drive in there and run this car into the ballroom. I can’t let this go on.”

“Well, you’re not doing it alone,” Sheila said.

“Suit yourself,” Harlan said. “I don’t have time to argue. But the rest of you, out!”

“There’s not really anyplace to go,” Cassy said. She glanced at Pitt and then Jonathan. Their nods told her she was speaking for them. “I think we’re into this thing together.”

“Oh for chrissake!” Harlan complained as he put his Range Rover into low range for off-roading. “Just what the human race needs: an entire car full of goddamn martyrs.” He revved the engine and told everyone to cinch up his seat belt. Harlan yanked his own as tight as he could make it. Then he put on the CD player and selected his favorite: Stravinsky’s
Rite of Spring
. He advanced it to a part he especially liked; it was where the kettle drums resound. With the volume at near full blast, he pulled out into the road.

“What are you going to tell the men at the gate?” Sheila yelled.

“I’m going to tell them to eat my dust!” Harlan yelled back.

There was a black-and-white, weighted wooden gate across the driveway. The pedestrian traffic walked around it. Harlan hit it at about forty-five miles per hour and the Rover’s bush bars made mincemeat of it. The smiling guards dove out of the way to either side.

Sheila spun around and looked out the back of the car. The guards had recovered and were running after them. Also in pursuit was a pack of wildly barking dogs. Gatekeepers and dogs quickly disappeared as Harlan negotiated an S-curve around some virgin conifers.

The Range Rover rocketed out of the trees. The huge mansion loomed before them in the night. The entire building was glowing, particularly the windows. The undulating bands of light that were rhythmically expanding up into the night sky appeared to be coming from the roof like gigantic flames.

“Aren’t you going to slow down a little?” Sheila yelled. The engine was whining like a jet turbine and the kettle drums were pounding. It sounded as if the entire orchestra was inside the car. Sheila reached up and grasped the handle above the passenger-side door to steady herself.

Harlan didn’t answer. His expression was one of intense concentration. Up until that moment he’d been steering the vehicle within the confines of the driveway. Now that he had the house in sight, he drove straight toward it across the lawn to avoid the pedestrians. People were streaming from the mansion in single file on the way out of the property.

About a hundred feet from the wide, sweeping steps that led up to the front terrace, Harlan downshifted despite the fact that the engine’s RPMs were already close to
the red area on the gauge. The car responded by slowing considerably. At the same time significant power was directed to the rear wheels.

“Holy shit!” Jonathan yelled as the distance closed to the front steps. People could be seen diving blindly over the limestone handrails to get away from the three tons of steel hurtling at them.

The Range Rover hit the first step and the front kicked up, launching the entire vehicle into the air. The tires made contact with the earth again at the rear of the front terrace ten feet from the double French door entry. Multipaned side lights surrounded the front door on both sides as well as the top.

Everyone but Harlan squeezed their eyes shut when the collision with the house occurred. There was a muted sound of shattering glass that could be heard above the classical music, but there was surprisingly little effect on the car’s forward momentum. Harlan hit the brakes and threw the steering wheel to the right. He was intent on avoiding the grand staircase which was directly ahead.

The car skidded on the black-and-white checkered marble floor, brushed past a large crystal chandelier, and then collided with a marble console table and an interior plastered wall. There was a crunching sound and everyone was thrown against their seat belts. The passenger-side airbag inflated and pressed a startled Sheila back into her seat.

Harlan fought the steering wheel as the car bounced over the crushed table and broken two-by-four studding. The final collision was with a metal and wooden structure draped with electrical cable. The car came to a halt against
a steel girder that shattered the windshield, splintering it into a thousand pieces of tempered glass.

Outside the car there was sputtering and sparking as well as a strange mechanical hum that could be felt more than heard over the booming classical music.