A woman.
She was naked, and she hung from the back wall as if suspended in midair in a cruciform position. Strange black bands girded her upper arms and wrists, yet there were no cables attached to them.
What was holding her up?
It didn't matter. Nora's frozen stare ranged the wom an's features, most notable of which was a swollen belly like that of a woman eight months pregnant. Her head was arched backward as though she were staring at the ceiling, a mane of long black hair hanging in line with her spine. When Nora stepped closer and to the side she discerned the next most shocking feature: The woman's left eye was opened and appeared normal, but the right eye was an empty socket. A black tube or wire looped into that socket, having been threaded through the optical canal to reach the brain. A second black wire had been fed into her mouth and down her throat.
A young college girl, Nora managed to guess through her horror. There were bikini lines, plus a generic vine tattoo around one ankle. Piercings that had been removed left telltale holes above the navel and through the nipples.
She simply hung there.
Nora detected respiration; then the left eye blinked. Still alive… Obviously another test subject they were monitoring directly. The bands around her wrists and upper arms were the only things she could be held aloft by…
Some sort of gravity-reversing technology…
How could Nora possibly get her down?
The answer lost all significance when Nora reached forward and encountered the same invisible pane she'd discovered in the other room. If felt identical to glass but lacked any frame, any point of foundation. A containment barrier, she realized. A giant test tube.
Her cognizance snapped back.
The doorknob again.
Shit!
She ducked into the leg well of a desk against the other wall.
They'll put ME in that thing if they catch me!
The black-garbed figure entered and looked up at the naked girl. He extracted something from his belt, touched it, and-
Nora couldn't contemplate the next thing she saw. Haven't I seen enough today!
Via some arcane command from the tool on his belt, the entire transparent barrier she hung behind immediately changed tint. The room darkened while the screen itself began to glow…
Like a big MRI machine, Nora guessed. But an ALIEN one…
Now the image of the girl was being displayed like a living X-ray. The ventricles of the heart expanded and compressed, the aorta throbbed, internal organs expanded and contracted. But if that weren't enough, her next revelation surely would be.
Another command from the implement threw a square border of light right over the girl's belly. Then the image within the square increased in magnification times three.
The image alone nearly caused Nora to scream. But how could she, with this otherworldly technician in the same room?
The magnified image now displayed the girl's grievously expanded womb.
The womb contained a quivering, coiled-up worm. It looked like a -roll of hose packed into her belly.
Just then Nora only knew one single thing in the world: When that guy turns around, there's no way in hell he won't see me sitting under here…
It was either sit there and die, or…
The figure remained examining the uterine image, his back to Nora. Nora stood behind him. When she raised the flanged tool high, the floating girl's head moved forward, her left eye watching-.-..
The black figure had only turned halfway when Nora brought the tool down on the back of his skull.
He collapsed… and Nora reached for the door to the hall.
The split-second thought told her she had no choice but to take the chance. Had the other two figures returned to their vessel?
Or were they standing right outside in the hall, no doubt with weapons beyond her imagination?
She flung the door open.
The hall stood empty.
Nora jogged for the exit door. It was closed but she whipped out the object she now knew was a key. Her fingers felt around the face of the bizarre dead bolt, found the tiny slot, then she put the key in and instinctively turned it-
Snap!
The end of the key-broke- off in the keyhole.
Nora shuddered. She hadn't pushed it in far enough, and she'd forgotten to not turn the key itself.
I just broke the key off in the fucking lock!
She banged her hands against the door.
Of course, it didn't budge.
Oh my God, I just locked myself in an alien lab, and one of the aliens is still here!
Even if she'd killed the one in the room with the girl, the other two would certainly be back for him, if they weren't already.
Nora knew the door wasn't opening unless she found a way to push the broken tip all the way into the keyhole.
But with what?
She felt imbecilic trying to blow on it. Then she banged it with her fist. Nothing happened. The one she'd knocked out would probably have a key, but that would mean searching this body…
And with her luck, that's when he'd wake up.
She didn't know if it were a prayer or just a figure of desperate speech when she pleaded: Holy shit, God, please help me find a way!
The idea snapped in her mind.
Her cross…
She broke the fragile chain off her neck, felt the body of the gold cross between her fingers. The post of the cross felt just about the same width as the key…
Nora-stuck-it in the slot, closed her eyes, and pushed.
The door clicked open.
Thank you, God, she thought and ran off into the woods.
(III)
Loren jogged the trail back toward the campsite. Lieutenant Trent better be there, he thought. And Nora better not be too far behind…
Nora.
Shit.
Suddenly, he was grimly aware of the pistol in his waistband. I should've left the gun with her…
The bulk of the desalinator and purification machines caught his eye, then slowed him to a stop. The RTG, he remembered. It was just a few yards away from all that. He turned and followed the power cable, where it ended at the concrete slab.
And there it is, he thought. At once came a sensation like ice water in his belly.
He was looking at the bomb…
The small black disk sat propped up on the rod, just as he'd seen on the surveillance screen back at the station. Is that thing really a bomb? he questioned. How do we really know?
Then his certainties returned the instant he recalled everything else they'd seen, particularly the hundred foot-long vessel levitating out of the sea and moving toward the island, changing color to match the terrain. Perfect camouflage.
A fucking spaceship. Shit.
Then a glance back down to the puck-sized disk. A border of light was flashing on it, as if counting off seconds. Like a timer, he realized.
Loren dropped to one knee, took a breath, then grabbed the disk with both hands. He pulled with all his might but the disk didn't move.
Christ! What did he do? Drill the damn rod into solid concrete? Loren had watched the entire process on the screen, and there'd been no sign of a drill or any other kind of impacting tool that would be able to drive the rod through the cement.
What if I…
He put the barrel of the pistol against the rod…
On second thought that's a really BAD idea.
Loren couldn't figure a way to remove the disk. It's not my problem, he tried to rationalize. It's beyond my control.
The easy way out.
Maybe I can pry it off, he considered, then sprinted into the woods. If he could find a branch sturdy enough to wedge between the slab and the disk…
"Holy Mother!" he yelled when the worm-in the space of a blink-shot out from under the thicket and began to coil about his legs.
Loren tried to kick but the worm's hoselike body encircled his thighs tight as a metal clamp. Loren collapsed.
His heart squirmed as more glistening pink coils raveled up his body. The worm had hooked his ankles with its tail end and was working upward, now past the waist. Its efforts were turning him into a mummy of pink coils. The musculature of its coelum made Loren feel like he was being swallowed by a pulsing mouth…