“The motel is already full. I counted stringers from Scientific American, Nature, and Popular Science.
I glanced over the check-in-counter at the motel and the last room was reserved for Professor Schmitt from Argon National Labs."
“I interviewed Professor Manning at JPL last week. I asked him about Karpinen. He didn't say anything ... But you know Manning. He was interested."
“This is going to be the biggest scientific event of the decade and no one in the mainstream media has come out with it yet. Even if Karpinen is a fraud, there has to be something there. Otherwise, Manning, Schmitt, and all those others would be tearing him apart by now."
“I think that might be the reason the networks haven't broken the news yet. No one knows for sure yet so we are all holding our breaths until we know..."
Jones thought, “To-hell-with-Blythe.” He paid his check, got into his car and drove away. Later that night, Blythe put a 9 millimeter Glock to the side of his head and pulled the trigger.
* * * *
Tabitha came over at daybreak. Some juice and toast and we started setting up. I jacked the main body of the Contraption onto a dolly. We were rolling it to the corner of the yard so it would be easier for everyone to see it work.
A car pulled up and this slinky brunette slide out. “Hello. I am Jennifer Cosgrove from the Benton Publishing Group International."
“I am sorry but the demonstration is scheduled for the day after tomorrow."
“I am not here for the demonstration. I want to talk to you."
Suddenly, I noticed that the crows on the fence line were watching the woman. From the corner of my eye, I saw a quizzical look come on Tabitha's face. I watched the woman closely and started to notice things. “I am sorry but I really don't have time to talk now. We are setting up."
I took a few steps away from the Contraption. She moved as well to stay facing me. Her body swayed sexily but something was not right. It was as if her joints didn't bend the same as everyone else. In high school, I had a friend with severe arthritis. She didn't move the same as everyone else. This woman reminded me of her.
“It will only take a few minutes. We need a proofreader of your caliber at Benton."
“I am sorry but you will just have to come back afer the demonstration.” Faster than I would have thought possible, the woman took a gun out of her bag. I rolled to the ground. When I stopped, I threw the puukko. Before my knife hit, the woman stood with an astonished look on her face and gun dangling from her fingers. Tabitha's throwing knife was sticking out of her left chest. My knife took her in the throat.
* * * *
The Chameleon struggled to live. The genetically engineered body could have handled one piece of metal penetrating her body but two were too much. She should have skipped regulations and brought a User weapon instead of this primitive planet's gun. This planet was just ... The biomechanical chip inside the Chameleon's body registered the fact that her body had stopped functioning. A message was sent to the Chameleon's ship. The automatic destruction sequence started. A thousand message pods were sent expelled in random directions with the details of everything the Chameleon did and the ship plunged itself into the surface of the sun.
The message pods traveled until they sensed a ship belonging to the Users near. Out of the thousand pods twenty made it to User ships. The data was analyzed and sent to the regional control ship.
The Chameleon gone! What could have happened? This was a primitive planet. A sanitation squad needed to be sent. All links to the Users the Chameleon left had to be severed and revenge taken.
* * * *
I looked at Tabitha. “How did you know?"
“She didn't look right. I don't know ... Something about her didn't add up. I had my hand on the knife before she reached for the gun."
I looked back at the woman. Something was definitely wrong. The blood coming from the wounds was not the right shade of red. Her body seemed to be deflating. I reached down and touched her arm. It was too limp. I picked it up. The bones in the arm were deflating. “God, the woman's bones are not bones.” I continued feeling the arm. “I think they are some kind of tough inflatable skin. An organ in the body must pump fluid in and the skin/bones become rigid and take form. Look at how the outer skin is loosing form. This creature ... this woman is a creature..."
“What are we going to do?"
“I don't know. No one will believe what has happened."
“We've got to hide the body."
“I'll check the car. You check the purse."
I found a piece of paper with the letterhead of a near by Holiday Inn. Tabitha found a door card key in the purse.
“Let's put her in the car and park it at the hotel. We will leave the body in the car and let the authorities try to figure everything out."
“Good. But we will need to not leave fingerprints."
I looked at the body. It had become a puddle of flesh on the ground. A brunette wig was lying next to where the head had once been. “Tabitha. Can you drive her car? If you put the wig on, people might think it was her behind the wheel."
We had trouble moving the creature's body into the car. It was like trying to move a 40-gallon plastic bag half filled with water. You would get your hands under an edge and lift. All of the internal fluid would flow to the end of the bag and you would be lifting just the flexible outer layer. Every time we lifted a section away from the two knife wounds blood, or whatever it was, would gush from the openings. We finally oozed the creature into the passenger seat where she flowed to the floor.
The drive to the Holiday Inn parking lot was uneventful. Tabitha left the car at the far end of the lot and limped across the street to where I waited with the pickup. I drove to a payphone. Dialed 911. “There is something strange in the parking lot at the Holiday.” I hung up and drove home without saying a thing.
Two hundred people showed up for the demonstration. We watched the crowd for anything unusual.
Chapter 11
Government
There are two types of government officials in Washington, the political appointees and professional bureaucrats. Thomas Riley was a professional. He started in the State Department five administrations ago. Over the years he had served in the Justice Department, the CIA and the NSA. When the last President was elected, he was in the Security Council. The President had tried to get a good politician in the job of National Security Advisor but his original candidate had a youthful discretion that was discovered by the tabloids. When the appointee was seventeen years old, he was picked up by the police with two other boys and three girls. The cops found open beer cans, two joints of marijuana, and three amphetamines in the car. With the original appointee out, the President had decided on using a safe but dumb politician for the job. With a political figurehead in the top position, a true National Security Advisor had to be found. As a result, Riley had become the de facto National Security Advisor and had not had a full night's sleep in the last two years.
The current problem was a nightmare. A month ago local police in rural Minnesota were called to a suspicious car. The local crime lab took one look at what had been found and called the FBI. The FBI forensic team's preliminary report went all the way to the President's desk. A team of scientists from NASA, Department of Defense, FBI, and a few well-vetted biology professors were assigned the job of analyzing the remains. The first interim report from the whole team had made it to Riley's desk this morning. The report stated without qualms that the remains were not terrestrial. The genetic code of the creature was not dependent on earth type chromosomes but a unique DNA/RNA mix of small molecular chains within a cell's nucleus. The creature's physical structure was even more extreme. The creature had been similar in structure to a squid or an octopus with skeleton rigidity coming from fluid inflatable bones. There was evidence of sutures tying muscles and bones together indicating that the creature was surgically constructed to have a similar appearance to humans.