Second Nature

Chapter 5

5 

Capt. Hughes came on the line and got right to the point. A night patrol had picked up a van-load of Mexicans, illegal aliens, in the desert's military restricted area.  

"Sometimes runners try to smuggle in wetbacks by sneaking along utility roads through the missile range," Hughes said. "It's a big place. Often there's not a soul around. But this time, a chopper spotted them." 

In the living room of the bungalow, Eberhard began pacing. "Where?" 

"Broken down southeast of the San Andres. A banged-up old Econoline van with eight adults inside, a few kids, including an infant. Stranded four days. They siphoned water out of the radiator and drank it." 

"Four days. Did they see any prep activity at Omega?" 

"No sir. They were a good fifty, sixty miles away, with the mountains between them and the site." 

Eberhard sighed with relief. "So everything's under control now?" 

"Well, sir, you said to report to you anything unusual. This runner and the wetbacks with him, they claim they saw a miracle. Virgin Mary, or something. A young woman with purple eyes. Supposedly, she healed the baby." 

Eberhard stopped pacing abruptly, as if the living room floorboards had sheered off from under his toes, dropping into a bottomless pit. He teetered on its brink. "Repeat that, captain?" 

"The Virgin Mary, sir. I speak a bit of Spanish, but the Mexicans are pretty much babbling, not making a lot of sense." 

"Purple eyes, you said purple eyes." 

"Yes, sir. Well, violet-'los ojos violetos'-that's what they keep mumbling." 

Eberhard felt suddenly dizzy, afraid of heights. Don't look down. 

"They're are all badly sunburned, sir. Must've been hallucinating," Hughes said. "Anyway, I decided to contact you because...well, it is unusual." 

Hysterical peasants, Eberhard hoped. Stoned out of their gourds with heatstroke, seeing visions. But he didn't believe his hope, his fear was too convincing. 

He ran. 

He burst through the front door of his quarters, cell phone in hand, hurtling toward the main lab building. "Captain," he said, huffing, "I need you to stay on this line and not hang up. I've got to check the security status at the lab. Don't hang up!" 

"Wilco." 

Eberhard was tall and heavyset, built like a fullback, not a sprinter. But he dashed the whole quarter mile to the lab. He found the guard in the security room slumped low in his chair, chin on chest. A string of drool from his bottom lip formed a pancake-sized blotch on his shirt. On the console in front of the guard, blinking red lights warned that a couple dozen videotape recorders were not recording. 

"Fuck!" Eberhard shoved the unconscious man's shoulder and he spilled out of the chair onto the floor like warm taffy. Eberhard sat down and his fingers flew over the console. The dark screens of a bank of TV monitors winked on in full color, fed by video cameras in the air locks and isolation chamber. He scanned the empty screens and his guts froze. 

No movement. 

No sounds. 

Nobody home. 

Eberhard flipped the intercom switch to All-Stations and shouted into the microphone. "All stations, red alert. The dragon is out of its cage. This is not a drill. Repeat: This is not a drill. Red alert. The dragon is out of its cage."