The Pandora Directive

Chapter Twenty-Two

I wondered whether my hands would ever quick shaking. It wasn’t just the thought of how close I’d come to ending up like the mummified corpses in the Roswell Complex, it was the fact that I’d almost let loose a plague worthy of Moses into the outside world. I’d come half a blonde hair from becoming the conductor on the Train to Oblivion. I’d screwed up plenty of times in my life, but this would have been the end all. Probably literally.

I opened the window of my speeder and lit a much-needed cigarette. Sure, I’d gotten lucky, but there are worse things than luck. Besides, what was luck but preparation meeting opportunity? Most importantly, I’d found the power cell. Rationalisation in hindsight has always been one of my strengths.

Having the power cell in the speeder with me was eerie, like carrying an urn full of someone’s ashes. It looked innocuous enough, not particularly strange or alien, but it had been constructed somewhere far away, by the hands of extraterrestrials. I looked down at it and wondered what it’s purpose was. Was it a weapon, or nothing more than an alien flashlight? What would a hand-grenade look like to a visitor from another galaxy?

Now that I was clear of the Roswell Complex and headed home, I felt a sudden urge to not have the alien device in my immediate vicinity. Besides, the anonymous caller had said that I shouldn’t carry it any longer than absolutely necessary. I decided to get to the nearest sign of civilisation. I checked my flightpath and saw that I’d be passing close by Albuquerque within several minutes. My heart had finally dropped out of my throat, and I realised I was famished. Maybe some spicy south-western food would clear my head and give me an idea of what to do with the power cell.

Regretfully, I’d never been to Albuquerque. Prior to the war it had been a thriving city, populated by New Age cowboys, misanthropic artists, and sun-baked granola eaters. Now, it was a dusty, ramshackle oasis amid miles of desolation. Nearly all the city lights ran in two parallel lines down either side of Lomas Boulevard — Las Vegas without any of the excitement.

I landed my speeder in front of a dilapidated but warmly lit eaterie called the Last Chance Diner. It wasn’t much of a name, but neither was the Brew & Stew. A sign in front read Best Food for Miles. Some local wit had spray-painted a line through Best and written Only above it.

Over the chicken-fried steak and gravy, I formulated a plan for temporarily getting the power cell out of circulation. I didn’t want to keep it with me any longer than I had to, and I couldn’t think of an utterly secure place to keep it. After due consideration and four cups of coffee-coloured water, I finally decided to put my faith in United Parcel Express. Sure, UPEX was known for making deliveries in pieces, but if the power cell had survived an interstellar crash, it would probably survive a rugged delivery.

After I finished the cholesterol plate, I asked for directions to the nearest UPEX office. I boxed the power cell and addressed it to the Savoy Hotel, care of G. Fitzpatrick. For the first time in my life, I paid the extra thirty bucks to have the package certified; I wasn’t about to let them misplace an extra terrestrial device. The man at the counter told me that the package would get to the Savoy in two days. I accidentally left a fifty on the counter to help remind him. With any luck, it would arrive when we were ready for it. And, hopefully, I’d find out exactly what I was supposed to do with it during the next few days.

Feeling significantly less burdened, I got back in my speeder and pointed it toward home. As I pulled out of Albuquerque, I caught sight of a sign: Phoenix 332 miles. I checked my Geo-grid. Phoenix wasn’t that far out of my way; I could be there in less than two hours. Maybe I should pay Chelsea a surprise visit. After Roswell, I needed to see a friendly face.

Then I reconsidered. I didn’t have an address and I hadn’t brought the phone number, and Phoenix wasn’t a small place. Besides, even if I knew where to find Chelsea, maybe she wasn’t ready to see me. And what would I say to her? Now that I thought about it, I missed her, but Lord knows, I wasn’t ready to put a ring on her finger at this point, not with Regan moving into the picture. Oh, the confusion.

Four hours later, I unlocked the door to my office, an exhausted, gurgling mass of undigested steak batter and grease. I stumbled into the bedroom and hit the bed face-first. It must have been post-traumatic stress. I couldn’t remember ever been so utterly spent. After what seemed like a minute and a half, a pounding sound roused me from the puddle of drool. Blinking stupidly, I lifted my flat, creased face and pushed my aching body up from the bed.

The annoying thumping was coming from the door. I staggered through my office and turned the knob.

“What?”

I was too tired to keep my eyelids up. Something smelled good. If only I could get my eyes open.

“Where have you been all my life, handsome?” It was Regan.

I stepped aside, discarding all the vestiges of vanity and self-respect, and opened the door wide. She stepped past me and walked toward one of the chairs at my desk. Involuntarily, my left eye opened halfway. She looked devastating. Dropping into the seat and crossing her legs elegantly, she turned her gaze back toward me.

“Did I wake you?” She was a paragon of intuition. I grunted and wandered over to the mirror. God, I was a mess. My face looked like a balled up pair of khakis. It desperately needed to be steam-cleaned and pressed. I excused myself and crawled into the shower. Between the hot water and the potent deodorant soap, my synaptic functions reluctantly emerged from hibernation. I towelled off and slipped on a bath robe. Grabbing the pack of smokes from my overcoat, I walked into my office. Regan was just returning to her seat. Apparently, she’d been doing a little snooping.

“Find anything interesting?” I walked past where Regan was primly seated and dropped into my desk chair. She looked at me openly, the very epitome of innocence.

“What do you mean?”

“Searching a PI’s office would be like me going through your purse.”

Regan smiled disarmingly. “You can look in my purse. I don’t mind.”

“That’s not the point.” I lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Regan still smiling at me.

“Are you always this friendly when you get up?” She was incorrigible. It didn’t seem to matter that I was annoyed. The more I got to know Regan, the more I realised that I had to take her on her own terms. Being upset by her uncontrolled curiosity was like resenting a carrot for being orange. She was the way she was, and if that wasn’t enough, then too bad. Unfortunately, even in a state of pique, I was overwhelmingly attracted to her. What I really wanted to do was leap over my desk and show her all the steps of the Forbidden Dance of Love. But caving in to carnal desire at this point would only condone her attitude. I had an image to uphold.

I turned back to her, a pillar of strength in terry cloth. “So, did you find anything useful in the notebooks?”

“Maybe. What’s it worth to you?”

“Do you take checks?”

“Sorry. I require full payment… up front.” her tone allowed for very little interpretation. Be strong, Murphy.

“I’m a little insolvent right now, though I’d be happy to write you an IOU.”

“There’ll be interest charges — you’ll have to make regular payments.”

“That’s OK. As soon as I get my finances organised, I’ll completely satisfy the debt… with interest.”

Regan made a nice sound. “I’m looking forward to it.” She reached down and pulled the notebook from her purse. Opening one of them, she took out several sheets of paper and handed them to me. “This is a summary of what I was able to figure out. Ninety percent are the contents of the alien symbols and notes on translating. As far as I could tell, there isn’t much of anything useful until the end of the second notebook. It’s all pretty vague.”

Regan’s notes had frequent references to OE and EW. the context implied that these were people. EW was almost certainly Elijah Witt. As for OE I had no idea who it could be. Other information included references to PD and the Roswell Complex. The number 186 was noted, which just happened to be the item number of the power cell had recently liberated from Roswell.

“What do you think this means?” Regan had come around the desk and was now standing behind me, pointing at the PD reference. “Do you think he was working with the police?”

I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure it stands for Pandora Device.”

Regan sat down on the corner of my desk. “Excuse me?”

“The Pandora Device. Apparently, your father was working on it not long before he died.”

Regan folded her arms. “How do you know about it?”

“It’s a long story. The important thing is, I’m pretty sure that it’s tied up with the boxes were looking for.”

Regan leaned forward excitedly. “So what does this Pandora Device do?”

“I don’t know. But it’s obviously something big. Seems like everyone and their grandmother is trying to get their hands on it.”

Regan jumped up and walked away. “I knew it! I wasn’t sure exactly what he was working on, but I knew it’d be worth a fortune.” She whipped around to face me.

“We’re close, Tex! We’ve just got to find the other boxes. And then… we take Manhattan!”

I didn’t really want to put a damper on her enthusiasm, but there were other considerations. “Don’t you think we should find out what the Pandora Device is first? Maybe it’s something we don’t want to let into circulation.”

Regan pulled up, a blank expression on her face. “What are you talking about? That’s why we’re in this. For the money.”

I considered telling her about Fitzpatrick and the warnings he’d given me. Regan only saw the financial possibilities. She needed to be aware of the other ramifications, but I decided to keep Fitzpatrick out of the mix for the time being. “Whatever your father was working on, he wanted to keep it away from the NSA. That tells me it’s the kind of thing that could be bad if it fell into the wrong hands.”

“Then we’ll only sell it to the right people.”

“And what if it’s not that simple? What if it’s something that would be better locked up forever than let loose?”

“That’s not an option. Whoever we sell it to, I don’t care what they do with it, whatever it is. It was my father’s work, so by rights is now mine to do with what I will. I don’t necessarily want the NSA to end up with it, but it’s my birthright, so to speak, and I’m going to cash in on it. And I can work with you or I can do it alone.” She suddenly looked around the office. “Where are the boxes?”

“Not here.”

“Well, where are they? I want to keep them myself.”

“They’re hidden away, someplace safe.”

Regan’s face turned a shade redder. “You don’t have the right to keep them from me. They’re mine!”

“No they’re not.”

She turned on her heel and began pacing around the room. I waited patiently. After several minutes, an abrupt change came over her, like the sun slipping out from behind a cloud. She walked toward me and knelt down on the floor beside my chair. Placing her hand over mine on the arm rest, she peered up into my eyes. “You’re right, Tex. I’m being foolish… and irresponsible. We’ll wait and see what the Pandora Device is. If there’s nothing terrible about it, we’ll make a lot of money and live happily ever after.”

Maybe she was on the level, maybe she was baiting a hook with me. Either way, I reached down and ran my hands through her hair.

“You’ll take care of me, won’t you Tex?”

There were very few things I wouldn’t have done for her at that moment. She kissed my hand then stood up and returned to her chair. “So what we do now?”

Like a sign from God, the Vid-phone beeped. I leaned forward and hit the Receive button. Lucas Pernell’s face appeared on the screen. “Hey, Murphy.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ve got the stuff you wanted. You want to meet?”

“Yeah.”

“Same place?”

“Sure. Give me an hour.”

I flipped the Vid-phone off and turn back to Regan. She wanted to ask who Pernell was, but she was trying desperately to be a good girl. That made me happy. I didn’t offer any explanations. Instead, I thought of an errand she could run that would give her something to do while I met with Pernell. If she got lucky, she might even get some useful information.

“I have to hook up with this friend of mine. In the meantime, there’s something you can do for me.” I pulled a notepad from one of the desk drawers and wrote down Archie Ellis’s name and address. Regan took the address and looked it over.

“I want you to go talk to this guy. Runs a UFO shop called the Cosmic Connection. Remember the EW your father referred to in his notebooks? I think it stands for Elijah Witt.”

Regan picked up a pen from a desktop and jotted the name down. “Who’s he?”

“He was, apparently, a friend of your father. He’s also a big wig in the UFO community. Wrote a book called There are Messages from Outer Space. He almost certainly knows something about the Pandora Device and whatever else your father was working on.”

Regan looked up from writing. “What am I supposed to do?”

“This Ellis guy has been in touch with Witt. He knows where to find him but won’t tell me where. I want you to see what you can find out. Ellis is a lonely guy. He’ll say almost anything to keep the conversation going. With someone like you, he’ll probably trip over his tongue, telling you anything you want to hear.”

“And what if he doesn’t incorporate?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something. You strike me as being a capable bluffer.”

“I don’t know if I appreciate that. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Ellis received one of the boxes from your father. When I spoke to him, he said it’d been stolen from his shop just after he received it. There was no reason for him to lie about it, so I think she was being straight up. I have a hunch that the box is now with the NSA, but you should see if you can find out who could have ended up with it. We might need it to find this Pandora Device.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Is that all?”

“Don’t tell him that you know me. Keep it casual. He gets suspicious really easy.”

“What do you want me to do after I get the information?” She asked, looking at me suggestively.

“Meet me back here. I shouldn’t be gone too long. Plan on a couple hours.”

Regan nodded and got up from the chair. We walked to the door, and I opened it for her.

She stopped and looked me squarely in the eyes. “I’m sorry for the way I acted. I know I can trust you to take care of things… to take care of me. It won’t happen again.” she reached up and gently slid her cool hand onto the back of my neck. Our lips met softly, then deeply. As she pulled away, she gently bit my lower lip. A previously unused nerve flared into existence, lighting up my entire left side, all the way to my instep. Without another word, Regan ducked out the door and left.