“Like Charlie Keys?” Eric asked.
“Exactly,” Wakeman said delightedly.
“And someone else?” Eric asked, a note of challenge in his voice.
“Just give me the name,” Wakeman said confidently.
“Lisa Clarke.”
Wakeman sat down at the monitor and typed in the name.
No light flashed.
“She’s not coming up,” Wakeman said disappointedly.
“Looks like you still have a bit of work to do on your system,” Eric said.
“The system’s fine,” Wakeman shot back. “She doesn’t have an implant.” He thought a moment, then said, “And why would she? She’s part… them. They don’t need an implant to track her.”
“So how is she… connected?”
“Probably by some sort of psychic link,” Wakeman answered. He tapped a few keys and the image of a brain appeared on the screen. “This is a brain section from the sample we recovered in Alaska.”
Eric studied the image, noting the internal structure, the uniformity of color, everything he’d expect to find, but with something added, a green spiral of neutrons.
Wakeman sat back, convinced of his analysis. “Antennae,” he said. He looked at Eric. “Lisa Clarke probably has a set just like them.”
Eric nodded. “I think the time has come to find out.”
Lisa saw him as soon as she walked out of the club, a man in a dark jacket, leaning against the wall. He lifted the hood of his jacket, and there was something in the way he did it, the odd concentration of his eyes upon her, that raked a blade of fear down her spine.
She picked up her pace, now focused on a woman in a yellow parka who stepped away from a pay phone as she approached. She glanced behind her. The man in the dark jacket had fallen in behind her.
She continued to move head, the woman in the yellow parka now closing in behind her too.
A lighted bus stop beckoned from the far end of the street, and she headed for it immediately, almost trotting now, her apprehension building. The bus stop seemed very near, yet very far. She could hear the footsteps growing louder and more insistent behind her. They were closing in, and she knew it, but she did not look back.
Then, suddenly, her fear spiked, and she bolted forward and began to run, heading for the cross street now, the footsteps clattering at her rear, so that she knew that the woman in the yellow parka and the hooded man were now running too, rushing after her in full pursuit.
She reached the cross street just as a car sped into it and skidded to a stop, blocking her way. She stopped and glanced behind her. The woman and the man were running toward her at full throttle, the man now with a pistol in his hand.
She whirled around and faced the car.
The window on the driver’s side was down now, and she saw a man sitting behind the wheel.
“Lisa,” the man said. “How are you doing?” He smiled. “We have so much to talk about.”
She stared at him, stunned that he knew her name. Behind her, the man and woman were closing in. She was trapped, and she knew it. There was no escape.
Then, suddenly, five beams of lights converged into a single shining brilliance that swept around her protectively. The light was impossibly bright, and yet she could see through it, as if she were encased in a vase of shining crystal. Through a veil of sparkling light she saw the woman and the man freeze instantly, as if blinded by the very light that held her. She turned and saw the man in the car. He was smiling oddly, and looking up. She followed the direction of his upward gaze and saw a shimmering craft hovering a hundred feet above her, the protective beam shooting down from its base. From inside her tube of light, she could see five globes of blue light, dancing and coming together, the underside of the craft barely visible beyond them.
She lowered her eyes and peered out through the shimmering wall of light. The woman in the yellow parka was very near now, almost touching the rim of light, so that the light itself began to sizzle. The woman jerked away suddenly, and Lisa saw that her face was badly burned.
Her eyes shot over toward the hooded man. He was standing beyond the light, his eyes frozen in stricken awe, the pistol still in his hand, but useless to him now.
Then the light began to move, and Lisa felt herself move with it, floating inside the beam, carried by it like a small child, and she knew that she was being taken home.
She was safe, and she knew it. She saw the hooded man lift his pistol toward her, then the man in the car, nod for him to put it down. Another car arrived, and she saw the man who’d come with the census forms get out and stare at her through the light, helpless to reach her, his eyes locked on hers as the light swept her on and on until, abruptly, it vanished, and she stood alone in her apartment.
She drew in a deep, calming breath, then knew what she had to do, walked determinedly to the phone and dialed the number.
“Information,” a man said.
“The national edition of The New York Times,” Lisa said.
The man gave her the number and she dialed it.
“I’d like to place an ad in the personals, please,” Lisa said, when someone answered in New York.
Chapter Three
The photographs scrolled by in two columns on the monitor, scores of human faces that had been collected in the database.
“These are matched repeaters,” Wakeman explained. “We started with anyone who’d been taken more than once. We noticed there was a subset. People who were repeatedly taken on the same day as others. These are the eight-timers. Taken eight times since childhood, all on the same day, every time. Fifty men and fifty women. They seem to take them when they’re young. Again when they hit puberty.”
“Breeding pairs?” Eric asked.
Wakeman shrugged. “It makes about as much sense as anything else they’re doing.” His eyes suddenly sparked when Charlie Keys’ photograph scrolled onto the screen. “Stop,” he cried. “Russell Keys’ son.”
Eric nodded.
Wakeman indicated the picture just beneath it. “And this, of course, is Lisa Clarke.” He considered the two photographs briefly, then said, “They were both taken on September eighth of last year. That’s the most recent simultaneous abduction. In fact, they’re the only one among the fifty pairs in the last year and a half.”
“You think they’re being bred?” Eric asked, returning to his earlier idea. “Keys with a girl who’s one-quarter alien?”
“You know, maybe I’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” Wakeman said, almost to himself. He looked at Eric. “I’m used to looking at genetic engineering as a way of breeding out certain traits. What if our friends are interested in breeding in?”
“Meaning what?” Eric asked.
“Well, think about Russell Keys. He was a pilot, right? Brave, courageous and bold, so to speak. His son Jesse had the same characteristics. That is, when they were taken, they fought back.”
“And the Clarkes. I know Jacob could… do things,” Eric offered.
“But what are they breeding for?”
“It could be anything,” Wakeman said. “Maybe they’re trying to create a superweapon.” He shrugged. “Or a supersavior.” He returned his attention to the photographs on the screen. “Either way, we should have the answer in another couple of months,” he said.
Lisa stood at the stove, making tea for her mother and Nina.
“What do you think?” Nina asked, displaying the spi-raling conch tattoo on her shoulder.
“I think it must have hurt a lot,” Lisa said. She glanced over and caught her mother looking at her silently.
She knew what her mother was thinking, that her little girl had moved to Seattle, gotten a dingy little apartment, and was now pregnant. Not very impressive.