New Threat

by Nathan Hystad

  It was nice to hear this from one of them, but it didn’t mean he was being one hundred percent honest with us. Even if he was, it didn’t mean there weren’t more of them against us than he knew about.

  “Do you know Leslie and Terrance?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, I know of them, but not close to them or anything. I think I saw Terrance walking around last night. He looks like me, but I’m sure it was him. We all have our own way of things, slight differences in hair, clothing, walk. Why, do you want to talk to them about something?”

  Mae looked ready to say something, but I tapped her with my hand, without Richard being able to see. “Nothing important. We’ll find them later. Thanks for stopping and chatting, Richard.” I held out my hand to shake it again. The goodbye shake.

  He smiled widely, and said he looked forward to talking again sometime. Mae gave him a quick hug. It held for just longer than seemed normal, and I turned away, trying not to watch. Mary was in the hall, still with the dean, who was waving his arms around and smiling.

  “…and my tennis game sure has improved. There you guys are. Care to come and do what you’re here for?” His good mood dissipated as Mae and I approached them. Mary gave me a cute look and crossed her eyes when Skip was turned around.

  We followed him outside and into the fresh air once again. The sun was now over the buildings, casting its warm glow on our faces as we walked down the cobblestone pathway to a small brick building with a plaque saying Alumni on it. Two guards stood on either side of the door, beads of sweat dripping down their faces in the morning heat. I wouldn’t have wanted the afternoon shift if it was that warm already. I gave them a quick nod as we passed by them and through the thick dark wooden doors. There was something I just loved about the turn-of-the-century architecture in this part of the country. It was also nice to be back in the state of New York, even though I’d just left upstate a couple of days ago. It felt like home.

  “We have our guard station here, and our camera surveillance. The actual security office was across campus and consisted of a fourteen-inch television and a grilled cheese maker.” Skip led the way through a foyer with a twenty-foot ceiling, and into a room on the left side. Another guard was stationed there.

  “Where’s Clendening?” Skip asked the woman.

  She shrugged. “Didn’t show up, so they called me in. Rayez thought he might have come down with something. I guess he was talking about feeling a bug coming on at the end of his shift.”

  The room beyond was dimly lit and had about a dozen flat screens mounted on the far wall. Inside were a few desks; computer fans whirred in the otherwise silent space. Three white-shirted people sat at desks, each with large headphones on. One of them turned to us, and he had a shocked look when his eyes stopped on Mae. It probably felt like he was showing the hybrids behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain.

  The dean tossed him a thumbs-up, letting him know it was okay. I’d judged the man a little harshly, and maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as he’d initially let on. He did have a big responsibility here.

  “Good morning,” he called to them, just loud enough for the other two to hear him, and they also turned around. “Louise, can you bring up the Level Seven file for our guests, please?”

  She gave him a look, as if to make sure he wasn’t asking her to show the strangers in the room a classified piece of information. I noticed Skip nod lightly to her, and she brought it up, taking her headphones off. Three of the screens flashed to different scenes. The top left was playing, and we could hear some grainy sound. It was taken with night vision, and there were two people in the shot. One looked like Janine and Mae; the other looked like Richard, the Asian man we’d talked to in the gym. Leslie and Terrance, no doubt.

  “Is it going to work?” a female voice asked.

  “It has to. Everything is a go. We don’t have much time. He’s going to tell our contacts the details tomorrow.” Terrance rested his hands on her shoulders in an intimate gesture.

  “Did you…” She paused, looking down at the ground. “Get the outpost location?”

  In the green light of the night vision, I could see his posture straighten, and I swore he was smiling. “No, but I know where to get it now. The plan stays the same, just a small detour. This is an all or nothing play.”

  “I’m for the cause the whole way,” Leslie said with conviction. “The Bhlat…” The rest was indiscernible.

  They spoke for a few more minutes in hushed tones so we couldn’t make out what they said, and then quickly went their separate ways.

  The video feed went dead.

  “And you didn’t think to instantly contain them?” Mae yelled at the dean, who shrank back at the sudden outburst.

  “That’s enough, hybrid! You don’t think I’d thought of that? We have more at stake here than the dreams of two aliens. They are stuck here! Do you understand that? They have no way to communicate with the outside world. We’ve been tracking them and keeping an eye on anyone they talk with.” He was inches away from Mae’s face, and I jumped between them, setting my hands on Skip’s chest.

  “You’re done, Skip,” I said, holding him back as he pushed at me. “Listen, where are they now? People are dying out there, and we have every reason to believe those two, maybe more, are behind it. There must be a reason for it. It’s almost as if…” I stopped, my mind reeling for a second. “I think they’re trying to distract us from something.”

  “Distract us from what? They’re stuck here behind gates and guards,” Skip said, stepping back away from me and Mae.

  “Louise, can you show us where they are now?” Mary asked, in a calmer voice than the rest of us had been speaking in.

  “Sure thing,” she said, moving her mouse around and clicking some keys. The top left screen showed us a video of the two of them working in a garden. “See, they’re right where they’re supposed to be, on garden duty. Did you see the size of those tomatoes they have out there? Best I’ve ever tasted.”

  Skip rushed over and tapped the screen. “Garden duty doesn’t start for another hour. Zoom out!”

  She hit a bunch of keys, but nothing happened.

  “Goddamn it.” Skip ran his hands through his hair. “Switch to the next camera. We have one from the other end of the garden, don’t we?”

  She did so and turned the camera to the end where we’d just seen the two hybrids working. There was no one there.

  “Switch back,” he said.

  The camera showed the two of them watering the plants.

  “They’ve hacked in. We need to find them now.” This from Mary.

  The second screen had started playing that same video from before, with the night vision. I looked at it and saw something move I hadn’t seen the first time. There was a third person there with them.

  “Louise, can you zoom in on that second screen?” I asked.

  Skip looked at me with annoyance. “Look here, Dean. We have more important things to do…”

  “Just zoom in,” I cut him off. “There’s someone there with them.”

  The screen zoomed. The picture, while in high definition, was in night vision, and they were some distance away. By the time she zoomed in enough to see them up close, the image was slightly pixelated. The third person was in the dark between and beyond them, but just as they went their own ways, the body turned. “Pause it!” I called. There was writing on the jacket.

  “Security,” Skip muttered under his breath. “One of ours is in on it.”

  Louise went forward frame by frame and stopped on one where we could see him closer.

  “Boss, I know who that is,” she said. “It’s Clendening.”

  That was the name of the guard the woman out front had said hadn’t shown up this morning.

  “That bastard. Any sign of either Leslie or Terrance yet? You two get on the cameras and find me Clendening too!” he called to the other surveillance officers.

  “Nothing on any of them, sir. It’s like they
vanished,” Louise said.

  Skip grabbed a landline from Louise’s desk. After a moment of rushed conversation, he had jotted down some notes on a pad of paper. “Send guards to Clendening’s room in the barracks. If he’s there, hold him until I get there.”

  “Can we get this show on the road?” Mary asked, obviously anxious to track down the hybrids we were there to get before they could do any more harm.

  It appeared they were getting messages out by the guard we’d just spotted meeting with them in the middle of the night. A couple of them with a network out there and a guard on their side, and they could make things happen, even from behind a fence with no phones or web access.

  “Are any of you armed?” Skip asked matter-of-factly.

  I shook my head. “Nope, we haven’t been given any firearms yet. I’m guessing the president thought you would be generous enough to set us up if we needed them, at least until we get to the base after this trip.”

  He waved us forward. Soon we were through the foyer and into an adjacent room, which Skip had to use two keys to open. It was lined with locked gun racks. In moments, all of us were armed, Mary and I with Glocks, and Mae with a Beretta.

  “I’d been holding on the hope they were just all talk, and thought if they were trying something, we could maybe identify any other hybrids in on it. With Clendening in on it, we have no choice. We’re going to take them down. If they had anything to do with those shootings out in the real world, they’ll quickly learn to regret their decision to act as hostile terrorists on our world.” The dean was working himself up, and I just hoped he would keep a level head once we found where they were hiding.

  We left the building, and a group of four armed guards crossed the university grounds with us as we headed to the residence where the hybrids slept.

  SEVEN

  Dozens of the hybrids watched us as we made our way through the halls.

  Skip told a couple of the guards to go to room thirty-seven and sent Mae alongside them to Leslie’s listed residence. We continued to Terrance’s room. When we arrived, a hybrid that looked just like Ray’s girlfriend Kate walked up to us, arms held up, letting us know she came in peace.

  “There’s no one in there. He didn’t come back last night.” She kept her hands up as she spoke.

  Skip turned the handle, finding it locked. He stepped back, and in a moment, he had kicked the area just under the handle, sending shards of wooden frame away as the latch broke and slid through the thin recessed hole. That suit had some fire in his veins.

  A guard entered with her gun pointed forward, and we followed into the cramped space when she said it was clear. I’d somehow expected the random mess of a madman, but what we found was an extremely clean, organized space. Their rooms were small, much like the one Mary and I had slept in the night before, and inside the bed was made as if by a hotel chambermaid. Some papers were set in straight lines on the small desk to the left of the door. Inside the closet everything hung nicely, but I noticed half of the clothes hangers on the bar hung empty. The drawers had few items in them, telling me this guy had packed what few belongings he could possibly have, and was gone.

  Skip’s radio chimed, and we were told they’d found much the same at Leslie’s room.

  Grabbing the papers from the desk, Mary made a move for the door. “Let’s go see what the guard’s room looked like.” She was off, Skip trailing her determined strides, even though he knew where the guard barracks were, not her. I could see her frustration. We were sent to do what initially seemed like a simple task but were being handed something much bigger. It was going to be a lot harder to track these two down out there than inside a fenced-off university campus.

  The guard barracks were across the grounds, and we took four-seater golf-style carts to cross the area quickly. There were already guards stationed at Clendening’s door, and when we approached it, the room was open. A large man stood in the opening, and when he turned to face us, he was white as a ghost.

  “Sorry, boss. He’s dead.” The man stepped out of the way, and Skip rushed past him in the small dorm-style room. The man we’d seen in the surveillance video was slumped on the single bed, throat slit. Blood covered everything and had dripped down into a sticky puddle on the ground beside him. It was a callous, brutal murder, and I knew in my gut it was Leslie and Terrance who had done it. I pictured them smooth-talking the man, getting his help to spread their words across the fence; then, when they got his keys to leave, they’d killed him. In my head, I saw Terrance holding him down, a look of terror on the man’s previously trusting face. Leslie showing a hint of remorse as she slid her knife across his throat, ending the one man who’d been willing to help their cause. It was sick, and I fought back the bile that was threatening to push out of my mouth.

  I left the room and walked down the hall, my ears ringing. The hallway was spinning ever so slowly, and I pushed past the dozen or so guards and made my way to the doors that led outside. I thought I could hear Mary calling my name, but I kept going. The image of the guard was stuck in my mind, and the horrible way the hybrids used and discarded him made me despise their cause all the more. We had to stop them.

  __________

  It was a couple of hours later that we were in the surveillance room, combing through anything with Leslie, Terrance, or Clendening from the past week. The AC was cranked as the hot sun blasted the brick building, creating an oven simulation, and we sat in the cool room hoping to find a sign of where they might have gone. But nothing they’d done was out of place, other than that one thing we’d already seen. Clendening’s room had brought up nothing of use, either.

  Dalhousie had called Mary, and we filled her in. She asked them to have Skip and his team continue to look for leads while they left, and met up at the secret facility. I wasn’t sure how they expected it to actually be secret with a massive transport vessel sitting in the desert, but it wasn’t any of my business.

  “Stop that one again, the screen second from the bottom,” Mary said to Louise, who promptly zoomed in and paused the other screens.

  “It’s on a loop! Where is that?” Mary asked.

  “That’s the loading dock. Where we get food and supplies delivered,” she responded. “I think you’re right about the loop. They did a good job, because the clock on the feed is still going, but there’s a clock on the wall.” She zoomed more, and we could see the second hand smoothly ticking by. After thirty seconds, it was back on the twelve and heading for the one.

  “Get guards to the loading dock! We don’t know what time they actually left. That loop could be from any feed they hacked into. Maybe they couldn’t get out.” Skip rushed out of the room, and we followed him. I was eager to find them and get back to Magnus and Nat, and I missed Carey at that moment.

  Once again, we were heading across the grounds, and there were no hybrids in sight. Skip had ordered them all to their rooms for the time being. If Leslie and Terrance were still there, they could be pretending to be someone else, and it wouldn’t be too hard, since they looked like a hundred other people.

  The sun beat down on us from its high perch in the middle of the sky, and I could feel the sweat already soaking through the lower back of my shirt. The fact that I was nervous and excited that we might find the two outlaws didn’t help the perspiration.

  The warehouse on the edge of the grounds wasn’t huge but was large enough to accept multiple pallets a day and store anything that came in for a while. I imagined trucks backing up before the semester started, unloading skids of textbooks newly revised for that year, and the smell of paper and forklift exhaust sailing through the air.

  We entered the main doors, using keys from Skip’s belt. The other guards were standing there waiting for his word. As soon as the doors pushed open, they quietly ran in along the large room’s walls, guns raised, looking for the threats. Mary raised hers and started in, and I set my arm on hers, shaking my head. Instead, I waved her to follow me, and we hugged the wall of the building t
oward the fence. I wanted to see what was on the other side there.

  The fence was chain-link there, about twelve feet tall, topped with that dangerous-looking wire you always see around prisons. No one was getting in or out with that stuff on the top of the fence. I looked to the left. There were multiple unlabeled white trucks, two backed up to loading docks, and one dock was open, with no truck in front of it.

  We went back to the entrance. Skip was standing at the open loading dock, his hands sitting on top of his head in an exasperated gesture. “How the hell did we let this happen? Clendening didn’t have the keys to get in here.” He stared out the door, and we walked up to the tense man.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, Skip, but I think someone else here must have been in on it. Unless your dead guard stole the keys, or Terrance and Leslie did,” I said.

  “Clendening never seemed smart enough to arrange something like this, but obviously I’ve been wrong before. Like when I thought no human would betray us all by catering to these damned hybrids.” He walked to the office area, and we followed him, Mae staying back after his last comment was dipped in venom.

  Gun raised, Mary stepped in front of us and tested the handle. It was unlocked. Wait, no, it was broken. She didn’t even have to turn it. She pushed it instead, and it stopped short of opening. I saw her give it a heave; something pushed back, and the door closed again.

  “What the hell is that? Get the lights,” Skip said.

  He reached his arm into the dark room and turned them on. The door had a small glass window and he peered through it, turned to us, and vomited right at our feet, Mary and I both jumping back to avoid getting splashed. When he ducked, I could see what he’d seen: the bloated face of a hanged woman, swinging softly in the doorway.