The Pandora Directive

Chapter Twenty

The security alarm blared as I sprinted through the dark corridors, wildly searching for an exit. With a violent lurch, I sat up in my bed. The vid-phone was beeping. I reached over through a groggy fog and hit the receiver. “Yeah,” I growled.

“Listen carefully—” it was the same modulated voice I’d heard on the vid-phone at the Twilight, the first time I’d spoken to Lucas Pernell. I struggled to reach full consciousness. This guy made every word count. “You’re next step will require security clearance. Follow these instructions immediately. Any delay on your part could be disastrous. Do you understand?”

“Who is this?”

“I said, do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Your questions will be answered later. All you need to know is that there are two forces at work in this situation. You have only two certain allies, myself and the keeper. Beyond that, you can trust no one. If the people who oppose us win, the effects will almost certainly be catastrophic. For reasons which must remain unexplained for now, you are in the middle of the struggle. There is no time to spare. You must trust me and do what I tell you.”

I’d done what this guy had told me to do at Autotech and lived through it. Whoever he was, he obviously wanted to keep me alive, which was more than I could say for some of the other parties involved.

“Okay, what do you need me to do?”

“Go to the place where I first made contact with you. Go to there cigarette machine and pay for a pack of cigarettes, but press the blank button on the far right. You will get what you need. Is that clear?”

“Sure.”

The call was terminated. I lay back down and stared at the ceiling, now completely awake. Apparently, I was on my way to Roswell.

After getting dressed, I decided to make one more call. A not very subtle voice was telling me that I might be making a permanent stop in New Mexico. I figured I’d better call Regan before I left, in case I didn’t make it back. I woke her up, just like I’d done to Fitzpatrick the night before. Regan was much prettier. She also seemed to wake up friendly.

“I dreamed about you. One details?”

Seeing Regan’s face on the Vid-phone screen was making me feel highly irresponsible and less than enthusiastic about going to Roswell. “You’re a siren, you know that?”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember that the siren’s song was lethal. My intentions are a lot less dangerous and a lot more pleasurable.”

“Yeah… maybe.”

“You don’t believe me? C’mon Over, and I’ll prove it to you.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what the sirens said.” with a great deal of effort, I pulled my eyes away from her pouting lips and swung the conversation around to the original subject.

“Listen, Regan, I could stare at you all day, but I actually had a reason for calling.”

She opened her eyes wide in exaggerated anticipation. “Do tell.”

“I’ve got to leave town for a day or two. I just wanted to let you know.”

“I’ll go with you. It’ll only take me a minute to get ready.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. After this is all over, we’ll go somewhere together, if you want to.”

“Promise?”

“I swear on my sacred PI oath.”

Regan threw me a sceptical look. “OK. You’d better, you soon as you get back.”

“I will.”

“Well, I’ll let you go then,” She said, pouting attractively.

“Listen, Regan, there’s one more thing.”

She smiled at me. “If, by some freak chance, anything should happen to me, an acquaintance of mine will contact you. His name is Fitzpatrick. You can trust him.”

Regan looked worried. “Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. I just want to cover all the possibilities.”

“If you get yourself killed, I’ll never, ever forgive you.”

“OK, that’s too big a threat. I won’t. Hey, I’ve got to get going. I’ll let you know when I’m back.” I punched the button, and Regan’s concerned face faded to black.

I quickly jotted down a list of things to take with me. A few tools would probably come in handy. Wire cutters, screwdrivers, a laser blade, bolt cutters, a flashlight, a lock pick set, maybe a rebreather. it would probably be a good idea to have a firearm. But ever since I’d lost my gun in a fit of seven-card stud optimism, I hadn’t enjoyed the same sense of security. I hope Rook could set me up with something at the pawnshop.

I went into the kitchen to see if I had any food to take with me. Ideally, I wouldn’t be gone more than a day or so, but I had to make allowance for delays. A search of the cupboards turned up a can of tuna fish, an essentially empty jar of peanut butter, and half a box of saltines. I grabbed the crackers.

All the tools I’d listed were stored away in a closet. I was even fortunate enough to find an unused package of batteries for the flashlight and the laser blade. I threw the tools and crackers into my backpack and left the office.

At the pawnshop, I talked Rook into loaning me a .38. he wanted collateral, but I managed to talk him out of it. I didn’t bother to tell him that there was a decent chance I wouldn’t be back, or he’d never have fronted me the gun.

Feeling moderately prepared, I got into my speeder and headed toward the Twilight Lounge. Ten minutes later, I set it down in the parking lot. The place was practically deserted. I sauntered casually over to the cigarette machine and inserted a ten dollar bill. After four attempts, the machine ate my bill and flashed Make a Selection. I pressed the blank button on the far right and heard a light thump as something dropped into the dispenser tray. Bending down, I picked up a hard pack of Dardos de Pulmones. Without making eye contact with anyone, I ducked back out of the bar.

I hurried to my speeder and slipped into the driver’s seat. The pack certainly looked real. I peeled off the plastic wrapper and opened the top. Inside were three access cards-one blue, one green, one red-each with a military insignia and bar code. There was also a black-and-white ID badge with my picture and a bar code. My designation was Colonel T Murphy, Special Agent, NSA. Damn.

The last item in the pack was a sheet of paper, folded. I spread it out and read a brief, typed message at the top of the page. It read: The access cards are colour-coded. Use them on the panels of the same colour. Security should be automated and can be shut down with the green card. If stopped, used NSA ID. If successful, do not carry object any longer than necessary. Below the message was a set of coordinates. I programmed the coordinates into the speeder’s guidance system and lifted off.

The trip took about four and a half hours. Without the actual coordinates of the base, I could have pulled a Moses and wandered in the desert for years. The complex was camouflaged from the air and built into the side of a rock outcropping. For miles around, there was nothing but red-yellow dirt and the occasional gnarled, bony plants clinging to life for no apparent reason. I couldn’t help but think of Rook.

Roswell had been built long before the advent of speeders and had no apparent doming security. I set the speeder down in the centre of the compound, between two massive buildings that looked like aircraft hangers. The open compound area was approximately one hundred yards square, bordered by a fifteen-foot-high chain-link fence. A garnish of barbed wire adorned the top of the fence, and large power cables ran along the ground on the perimeter. Touching the fence would probably pump enough juice through me to run every espresso machine in Los Angeles for a week.

A smaller building, probably a guardhouse, sat at one end of the compound, where a dirt road intersected the chain-link fence. Behind the two huge structures, I could see a good sized steel door built into the side of the rock ledge.

I opened the speeder and stepped out onto the floor of the compound. It was asphalt but had acquired a layer of sand over the years, allowing it to blend in seamlessly with the ground all around the complex. As far as I could see, no one had been anywhere near where I was standing for days, months, maybe years. In fact, there were no footprints at all.

There were, however, footsteps. I turned around to see two men. One, vaguely uniformed, was emerging from the guard house at a leisurely pace. The other, in full, shiny MP attire, was sprinting toward me and fumbling for the holster on his hip. I turned toward my pursuer and waited patiently for the ten seconds or so it took him to reach me.

“Freeze!”

I was already frozen.

“Get your hands up where I can see them!”

He was young, maybe twenty-four. His face was flushed, and the gun wavered slightly in his white-knuckled hands. I dug into my coat for my pack of smokes.

“Don’t be reaching for anything! Get your hands up!”

I pulled out the cigarette pack and displayed it calmly. “Keep your pants on, Deputy Fife.”

Junior was obviously incensed, but unsure of what to do. He’d probably never pulled a gun on anyone in his life, though I was willing to bet he’d wasted untold hours fantasising about it. In his wildest dreams, he couldn’t have imagined that whoever he lost his gun-of waving virginity to would be so apathetic.

I pulled out a Lucky. “Got a light?”

“Drop the cigarette and get your hands up!”

“It’s not loaded.”

“Drop it!”

The second man trudged up from behind. “Put a lid on it, Todd.” he was older, probably in his late fifties. His MP shirt was open, revealing a dingy white T-shirt. His pants were baggy khaki trousers, and he was wearing sandals. He walked past Todd, the security guard, and pulled a lighter from his shirt pocket as he approached me. “Float me one?”

I held out the pack of Lucky Strikes, and the older guard drew one out. He lit my cigarette, then his own. “I ran out of smokes three days ago. Pure hell. Can you imagine being in a place like this with no smokes?”

I smiled compassionately. I’d run out a cigarette before, and it hadn’t been pretty. Behind the older guard, told lowered his gun, looking like a kid whose baseball had just gotten stuck on a neighbour’s roof. His polished-to-a-fault, military-issue footwear was coated with dust. I felt a little bit sorry for him. The Roswell complex didn’t look like it got much action.

Up close, my smoking partner didn’t appear to be as old as I pegged him, but he had the wrinkly brown face of a surfer-cum-alcoholic. He took a long drag and looked up at me.

“Sorry about the welcome. Told here is new on the job. I think you startled him.”

“I have that effect on strangers. It must be my hat.”

The older guard nodded. Told stepped up. “It’s against regulations for a civilian to be on the grounds. We have to arrest this guy.”

I looked from Todd to Cigarette Guy. He looked back at me and shrugged. “If there’s one thing Todd knows, it’s regulations, though we may have extenu-ating circumstances here. You don’t happen to have an extra pack of Luckies, do you?”

“Sorry.”

“Well, I’m afraid Todd may be right. Looks like we’ll have to arrest you.”

Todd perked up noticeably. “I’ll go get the handcuffs!”

“Don’t bother. Here’s my identification.”

I reached into my coat for the NSA ID and handed it to the older guard. He looked it over thoroughly, with Todd peering eagerly over his shoulder. After a few anxious moments, he handed it back to me. “NSA, huh? Haven’t had one of you boys down here for years.”

“Sounds like you’ve been here awhile.”

“Hell, what is it now? Twenty-three years. Six months… a couple weeks.” he glanced at his watch. “And about five and a half hours. I love this job. I don’t know who I pissed off, but they got me back real good.”

He turned and looked at Todd. “Todd doesn’t know what he did either, but he’s here to replace me. I’m training him to take over all my important duties. Tomorrow we’re gonna go over how to make a decent quiche in the microwave.” he looked back at me. “So, Colonel Murphy, What brings the NSA to our little corner of nowhere?”

“I’ve got to get into the underground part of the complex. By the way, I didn’t catch your name.”

Todd’s eyes got as big as Oreos. The older guard raised an eyebrow. “Willis. So you’re going down? Hasn’t been anyone down there since the war. At least not since I’ve been here. Don’t suppose you can tell me why.”

I shook my head. “Top secret. A matter of national security. Course, that’s what we do, you know.”

Todd caught his breath long enough to squeak in Willis’s direction. “How do we know he’s who he says he is? No one’s supposed to go into the underground section. That’s the one thing they keep telling me.”

“Shut up, Todd.” Willis glanced sideways at the younger guard as though he were the tenth person to tell him that he had a rip in the seat of his trousers.

“I know what they say. It doesn’t apply to the NSA. They can commandeer a bathtub while you’re in it taking a shower if they want to. They’re not accountable to anyone, not even the military. If you give Colonel Murphy any crap, he might just decide to blow your head off.”

I straightened my tie. “Well, I’m glad we understand each other. As for you, Todd, I suggest you check your regulations. The NSA is the exception to every rule. Now if you aren’t too busy, I could use a little help with directions.”

Willis was as co-operative as a man who’d been saved from nicotine withdrawal, and Todd was too cowed to raise any more objections. We walked to the guardhouse, and they disarmed half a dozen alarm systems. It was obvious that Willis had never done this in his twenty-three years of service. At one point, he pulled a lever to restore power to the underground complex. As he did it, he gave me a look that said, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Forty-five minutes after I’d landed, I was escorted to the large steel door in the side of the rock ledge. Willis stuck the key into a key hole on a panel door. The panel opened, and the old guard punched in some kind of code. With a dusty groan, the steel door swung open.

I stepped inside and looked around. The room was small and empty, except for an open elevator on the opposite side. The walls and floor had been carved out of the stone, and the dim, fluorescent lighting gave the interior a harsh, cold feel. The two guards were waiting outside like a couple of kindergarteners on the first day of school.

“Before I go down, tell me something. I’ve heard rumours about why the military shut this place down and sealed it off. What do you know about it?”

Todd looked at Willis, terrified. Willis cleared his throat. “The higher-ups don’t like to talk about it, but I’ve heard a few things. Bad things.”

“Such as —?”

“Well, when I first got assigned here, they told me never to turn on the power to the underground area, no matter what. I asked ‘em why. They just said never, ever do it, under any circumstances. Some people say there’s aliens down there. They say their photo-somethin’… I don’t remember the word. Something about being attracted to the light or heat. They say that’s why the military shut the place down, quarantined it. They say the aliens killed almost everyone down there and almost. I guess you’re gonna find out for yourself.”