CODE ELDRITCH

Chapter VIII

The Tree

We were interned below deck on The Dunwich. There were no shackles, bars, or locked doors, but it was very clear that we were high-risk captives.

The sailors that had stayed pointedly out of sight when we first landed on the ship now swarmed it. Anyone that came in contact with us, or indeed even within fifty meters from our pale faces, wore protective suits. We were taken into decontamination chambers, sprayed with some disinfectants in individual airlocks, showered and aggressively examined by doctors waiting on the other side of one-way mirrors.

Only Supervisor Martell was exempt from the invasive procedures. When we were shepherded into an assortment of private rooms on the side of the ship facing away from the coast (starboard? I can never tell), Martell took off in the company of two suited-up officers.

Soon The Dunwich was filled with CCTEA personnel. It was all very Spanish Inquisition.

Candina came in to my room from the adjacent one, stark naked save a little towel about the waist. If the stitched-up lines on each side were any indication, the Naval officers had been extremely thorough in their medical investigation. Her nakedness didn't really register next to that.

"What—" I stumbled a little on the words, "are those new?"

"The rest of the team got the same," she said. It didn't seem to bother her. "They had to check that we hadn't gotten something under our skin."

"Under our skin?" I repeated, shuddering slightly. "No one came to... examine me. Least not like that."

She gave me a look. "Obviously not. You're a PO. Examinations don't usually return much of note, anyway."

That was the umpteenth time in not very long that a CCTEA operative had talked about how difficult it was to examine a PO. If they thought I really was an EA, I had to wonder what their process was for "investigating" anything.

"Anyone tell you anything?" I ventured. I figured Candina, since she seemed friendlier than most, might be more receptive to questions than the others. "About that thing that killed agent Ripley?"

"Code name OT, The Tree," she said. The name sounded sterile from her lips. She gingerly plucked a blanket from the table, unfolded it and shrugged into it. She looked to be hurting. "It's only the second recorded sighting by CCTEA operatives. The first was in Mexico, three years ago."

"I thought this was about that priest - Markovitz."

"Yeah," she muttered, "I thought so too. Not sure if we missed the second memo, or if OT being there was coincidence."

"How many EAs are there?"

"I heard you flipped through The List. You'd have a better idea."

Conservatively, I thought maybe five-hundred or a thousand. Could be twice that, maybe more. Still, stumbling over one when looking for another seemed a little far-fetched.

"Yeah..." I scratched my cheek, staring out the little window, "what if your boss just lied?"

"TO?"

"Yeah, him."

"Not his style. Task groups are put together specifically to be cohesive. Psycho-inundated snipers wouldn't do much good in jungle combat. That'd be throwing away resources."

"Really?" I said, "resources? That's the phrasing you're going with?"

Candina gave a flippant shrug. "It's the official term."

"But what happens now? Can't imagine we'll up and go like this."

"No," she agreed, "most likely they'll try to bring the object here."