Chapter 3

THE ST. GEORGE PROJECT - FORT TUSCARORA, MASSACHUSETTS

Imbedded in the highly polished surface of the conference table was the gauntlet-and-sword logo of the project. Half-a-dozen copies of Aaron Vaught’s book, ‘The Waking Dragon’ lay scattered about the surface, opened to various pages. Three persons occupied the large room, and all three were angry. Aaron’s book was the cause.

“This is unacceptable!” one of the men said loudly. With a contemptuous gesture, he flipped a seventh copy of the book onto the table. It landed atop the logo. “It’s an insult to our work; to all the personnel we’ve lost in the last year.” He looked quickly and apologetically down the length of the table, where one of the attendees was lost in the shadows. “Sorry, Doctor,” he said.

A man wearing a clean-cut blue suit with a white handkerchief sprouting from the breast pocket--something not seen since the early-sixties, but quite natural-looking on this tall, narrowly built man--reached out and spun the book around. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but clearly not a civilian. He studied the cover.

“Concerns have been raised about results,” he said in a soft, but icily clear voice, “of which I don’t agree, but which have nonetheless been put forth to slash our next-year’s budget. We’re already on a shoestring appropriation; I don’t need further hack-slashing. We show results in the next two weeks, or you two might find yourselves with Bunsen burners instead of electron microscopes. Is that clear, Dr. Moore?”

The T-shirted and blue-jeaned young scientist grumbled under his breath. Then, getting ahead of the biting comment he knew was coming, replied, “Whatever you say, Admiral. You’re the boss. I just think we should be concentrating on facts, not fantasies.”

The admiral looked down the table. “You’re feelings, Doctor?”

The person surrounded by shadows leaned marginally farther into the light. It was a much older-looking, and much less vibrant Dr. Jill Llewellyn. The intervening year had leant her countenance, though still attractive, a darkened, steely edge. “If he’s being groomed for my job, I’d like to know it.”

The admiral looked ironically amused. “No one’s being groomed for your position, Doctor Llewellyn; no one wants it. And Mr. Vaughn--Vaught,” he corrected himself, “is here strictly in an advisory position--and strictly under your command. You don’t like him, he’s gone. He’s detrimental to the effort, he’s gone.”

“He spouts any of his bullshit winged-serpent scenarios,” Dr. Moore, added, but didn’t finish.

“Ed, please,” Jill said. Then, to the admiral: “I’ll think about it, okay?” She stubbed out a cigarette. “Give me a day. Maybe two.”

“You don’t have a day,” the admiral advised. “You don’t even have an hour. He’s on his way from the airport now.”

Jill gripped the edge of the table with both hands and clenched her teeth. She stood up. “Thanks a lot for the fucking notice,” she growled, and stormed from the room.

At the western end of the complex, Agent Pike leaned forward and placed his left eye against the opening of the retinal scanner. At the same time, he placed his right hand atop the glass plate of the palm-reader and waited for the whirls and loops to be read. A low hum sounded and a bar of green light traversed the palm-reader top to bottom, after which came a low beep. Agent Pike stood back. He rubbed his left eye. Either side of him, Aaron Vaught and Marty Kenoshita glanced at the equipment nervously.

“Don’t worry,” Pike quipped. “You’ll get your chance at temporary blindness.”

“Great,” Marty muttered.

The door before them opened silently to the side, revealing another, similar door five feet farther on; the three men entered a small room. They had lost their fourth member, Agent Harris, at the airport. He had something else more important to do, Pike had said. Aaron couldn’t imagine what.

The inside door slid smoothly open after the outside door slid shut, admitting the three men to a long, brightly lit corridor. Agent Pike strode off briskly toward whatever destination lay ahead, and his two companions hurried to catch up. They passed a long expanse of floor to ceiling, wire-reinforced glass set into heavy steel frames.

“What is this?” Aaron asked, pausing to look. He gave a small start as he realized what he was looking at was an indoor lake, the size of a football field--or bigger--surrounded by the reinforced glass panels.

Pike gave the room a measured look. “Dr. Llewellyn calls it the dissection tank--if you get my drift.”

Approaching along the wall of the enclosed, water-filled tank was a youthful, blonde-haired man and a dark-haired, rather severe looking woman of about forty. The man had on blue jeans and a T-shirt; the woman wore a white lab coat over a white blouse and black skirt. They suddenly exited through a door in the glass-paneled wall and were lost quickly thereafter from sight. The three men continued down the corridor.

“Who’s in charge here?” Aaron asked.

“Officially? Admiral Timothy Benedek runs the show. But he’s off-premises most of the time, so you’ll be reporting to the Project’s civilian direction, Dr. Llewellyn.”

Aaron halted. “Jill Llewellyn?”

“You know her?” Pike asked.

“Of her,” Aaron said, throwing a glance at Marty. “I mentioned her in my book. She’s--”

“Not your biggest admirer,” Pike cut in.

“Probably not.” In fact, Aaron had asked some rather pointed questions about the ongoing work of a top-secret U.S. Government project, and the people connected to it. The name of Dr. Jill Llewellyn--and her recently deceased husband--had come up in his research.

“Is she here?” he asked.

“You’ll meet her shortly.”

Aaron abstractly wished for a package of Rolaids. Ahead, a door banged open, and the same man and woman Aaron had seen in the tank-room burst into the hallway. They headed their way.

“Believe it or not, the guy has drawn some correct conclusions,” the blonde man said.

The woman snorted. “He’s made some lucky guesses. Aaron Vaught is no more a scientist than I am a rodeo star. He believes in the lost continent of Atlantis, for Christ’s sake. He’s a crackpot, Ed, a moron!”

“A popular crackpot, then. The President has read his book.”

“Then he’s a crackpot too!”

The pair bore down on the three men. Aaron reddened as Jill continued her tirade.

“Vaughn--”

“Vaught,” the man corrected.

“--wants to collect this thing. To index it. Write books about it and earn lecture fees and pose for goddamn photos with it. I just want to kill it!” she pronounced viciously. “Him, too, if he gets in the way!”

“Jill!”

She suddenly halted at the sight of the three men. Despite her anger, she began to redden. “Hello, Robert,” she said to Pike.

“Hello, Dr. Llewellyn.”

She eyed Aaron and Marty with growing embarrassment. But she looked no less angry.

“Dr. Llewellyn, Dr. Moore, Aaron Vaught and Marty Kenoshita. Gentlemen, Dr. Jill Llewellyn, and Dr. Edward Moore. We’ve only just arrived, fresh from Japan.” He looked unrepentantly pleased.

Nearly as red-faced as Jill Llewellyn, Aaron croaked: “Hello, Doctor.”

Jill only glared back.

Marty stuck out his hand and said, “Good to meet you, Doctors. Quite a place you have here.”

Jill shook his hand briskly, and then released it. She stood back; arms folded defiantly across her chest. “Thank you,” she said.

Aaron cleared his throat. “I guess you’ve read my book.”

“And burned it,” Jill said.

“Come on, Jill,” her younger colleague admonished. He shook hands with the newcomers. “Dr. Llewellyn has good reason to despise your so-called mythological creature, though.”

She said bitterly, “That ‘creature,’ as you call it, killed dozens of personnel on this project--including my husband--so I can’t share your academic sense of curiosity and warmth about it. No matter what the admiral may have said, our mission hasn’t changed at all. We find it--and then we kill it. That point is nonnegotiable.”

From the same door as the two doctors had emerged, they were joined by the admiral himself. “Your mission hasn’t changed, Jill. We find and target the objective with deadly force, the quicker the better.”

A cell phone rang. Ed Moore dug into his jeans pocket and came up with a silver, flip-front phone. “Hello? Dr. Llewellyn? Yeah, she’s right here.” He handed the phone to Jill.

Jill’s face turned from belligerence to chagrin. “I’ll be right there,” she said, handing the cell phone back. She looked at the admiral apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

Benedek nodded as she turned away. Facing to Aaron, he held out a book. It was one of the copies from the conference room, or a new one altogether. Smiling slightly, he said, “The President asked if you’d sign this for him?”

Looking more than a little chagrinned himself, Aaron took the book and fumbled for a pen in his pocket. The admiral handed him his own.

“Not every day you get to autograph one for the Gipper, eh?”

“I guess that’s right.” He looked at the quickly retreating figure of the white-coated project director, then scribbled on the inside cover. He handed the volume back. “Remind me to vote for him next time.”

Jill stood stiffly inside the security office, waiting while the MP filled out the last of his forms. Without looking up, he said: “It was a Jeep this time, Doctor. We caught her trying to hot-wire it.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Jill muttered. She glared at her fifteen-year-old daughter, who stared resolutely back. Tina was hand-cuffed to the chair beside the desk.

“I have to remember next time,” Tina said, “red wire to white, green to green.”

Jill bridled. “This isn’t funny, young lady!”

“Sure, it is,” Tina said. “Especially this.” She rattled the manacle attached to her left wrist.

“Is that really necessary?” Jill asked.

The MP handed her the key. “We’re short-handed today. I didn’t want her making another try while I was out making my rounds.”

Jill undid the bracelet from around her daughter’s wrist, and then from around the chair arm, then handed cuffs and key back to the MP. “Thank you, Chuck. Are there any charges?”

“No ma’am. But if it happens again, you and she may be expelled from base housing.”

“Yes!” Tina applauded.

Jill, for not the first time in recent months, wanted to smack her face.

Tina was into the grunge look now. She wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the likeness of Kurt Cobain, under which was inscribed the legend: Dead and doing better than ever! Her jeans were four sizes too big and rode low on her hips. Her underwear, boy’s boxer shorts, showed two inches at the top. Her hair was buzz-cut on the sides and still bore the mark of a one-time orange die job. Rings festooned her ten fingers and thumbs, and each ear lobe bore half a dozen gaudy earrings. She could almost pass for a rock star, Jill sometimes thought.

“Sign here,” The Chuck the MP said.

Jill scrawled her name. Then, scowling daughter in tow, she walked swiftly through the parking garage to her car. “You know,” she said, “Chuck wasn’t kidding. You’ve put us in a bad position here, Tina.” She backed her Honda Prelude from the cramped space and drove two flights up to the exit. “What you do, affects us both.”

Tina buckled her seatbelt. “I’m sick of this place. You’re gone day and night and there’s nothing for me to do but sit around watching TV. MTV only goes so far, Mom. There’s not a single kid my age--”

“That’s not true,” Jill objected. “There’s plenty of kids your age.”

“Yeah, Jarheads and nerds.”

Jill turned the Prelude up one of the identical and nondescript streets of base housing. “They are not Jar-heads and nerds. Jarheads are Marines, and we have Army troops stationed here,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.

Tina wasn’t in a lightening mood. “I’m sick of Army brats and MPs and the PX ... and I’m sick of fucking green!” she shouted. “There isn’t even a mall nearby! I want to go live with Aunt Julia, Mom!”

Jill pulled into their driveway and removed her keys. The house before her was the same, nondescript split-level on a postage-stamp lot as every other house on the block. “Please,” she said with a sigh, “I’ve asked you not to say that anymore.”

“What? Fuck? Or that I want to go live at Aunt Julia’s?”

“Both!” replied Jill, angering. “I work here, and you live with me. Ergo, this is where you live!”

“Ergo?” Tina laughed bitterly. “Mom, I don’t even know you anymore. You don’t know yourself. You need out of this place worse than I do. It’s made you sick, Mom. Really sick. Ever since Dad died--”

“Please don’t bring that up.”

“--you’ve turned into a Bushwhacker. You only see things your--”

“A what?”

“A Bushwhacker. Like President Bush? You ignore anything not on your own personal agenda.”

Jill had to laugh. “You’re into politics now? A political pundit?”

Tina angered. “Fine. Laugh. If Dad were here right now, he’d tell you the same fucking thing.”

Jill felt tears sting her eyes. She looked away, gripped the keys so hard it hurt. Tina, beginning to cry herself, flung open the car door and slammed it shut. She ran along the flagstone paving blocks to the front porch and leapt up the three steps in one bound.

Jill struggled out of her seatbelt and called after her: “Tina! Wait!”

Tina waited at the front door. She clenched her hands and beat her arms up and down at her sides in anger. Then she spun about. “It’s true! You know it’s true!” she cried. “You just won’t deal with it, and you take it out on me!” Then she broke down sobbing.

Jill was halfway to the porch when her cell phone squealed. “No!” she hissed angrily. “No! No! No!” She read the text message and said, “Oh, God. I have to go.”

Up on the porch, Tina flung out her arms in an “I told you so,” gesture and cried even harder. Jill had no recourse. “I have to go back,” she said. “I really have to go.”

“Big surprise!” Tina sobbed. She dug a thin ring of keys from her back pocket and unlocked the door. She slammed the door hard enough to crack a pane of glass.

Unable to control her own crying, Jill fled back to her car and got behind the wheel. How she made it back to the lab without killing herself or someone else is a complete mystery.

LAKE APOPKA - UTAH

The alien probe had descended to the bottom of the lake. It rested there now, softly humming, a foot off the silted floor. Curious fish swam along its flank, nosing occasionally against the metal plates and the hairline joints. If they discerned anything dangerous in the probe’s composition, they didn’t show it.

The humming changed pitch suddenly and the fish bolted. They returned as quickly as they had fled but maintained both a safe distance and a cautious eye. They scattered again when the probe began to move.

Ahead, almost lost in the murk, was a submerged cave opening. The probe halted before it. From either side, minute beams of light stabbed out, measuring the cave opening’s width. The probe, or something within it, determined the width was sufficient to allow entry and the beams flashed off. It slid slowly forward, disappearing.

Inside, the cave mouth narrowed to the point where the probe no longer fit easily. It scraped debris loose as it passed, lodging momentarily in one particularly tight spot, but then bulled its way through. The ease with which its passing was made indicated the probe could handle more than a tight fit. It entered a wide but shallow pool and broke surface.

Several bats, startled by the unexpected disturbance, flitted about the cave. Their high-pitched screams, beyond the hearing range of the human ear, registered immediately with the probe. The sound of its humming changed, growing louder and higher in pitch. Hundreds of bats dangling from the cave’s roof began to flutter their wings and screech in alarm. They began to drop, to swirl, to mass. Just as the undulating flock began a hurried escape toward a small hole in the cave roof, an opening appeared in the side of the craft and an appendage neither metallic nor organic, thickly braided and glistening wetly, shot upward. At the tip was a small protuberance surrounded by tiny, barbed appendages like fingers. It snagged a fluttering bat and coiled around it like a striking python. The bat screamed and flailed, biting uselessly against the cable’s knotted exterior, succeeding only in French Frying its mouth. The slime coating the arm was acidic.

Another arm erupted from the craft, then two more, then better than a dozen. The probe was surrounded by more and more of the squirming, hissing tentacles until it resembled the head of a Gorgon. Fifteen seconds after securing its first bat, the probe had a hundred or more in its grasp.