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THE TALRINIAN ENCOUNTER

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BACKGROUND:

Most people have heard of the CIA-operated Area 51, the legendary Black Ops test site near Groom Lake, Nevada. Following its opening in 1955 and instant classification as Restricted Area 4808 North (R-4808N), rumors began to circulate that it was used to test advanced technology of extra-terrestrial origin, like pulse weapons, anti-gravitational devices and propulsion systems that would allow interstellar, or even intergalactic, travel.

The CIA has always refused to either confirm or deny the existence of such advanced technology, but the world would still learn of the testing going on there through aircraft like the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter that all came through the Area 51 pipeline.

What far fewer know is that the US Air Force already had a similar base of their own: Area 63, a super-top-secret facility for 24-hour spectrographic and radar surveillance of the skies above North America in general and the United States in particular.

The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board founded Area 63 in the winter of 1947-48 as a precursor of Project Sign, the study project set up by the Air Technical Service Command to analyze the several hundred UFO sightings and reports that came in the wake of Kenneth Arnold's initial observation of the famous nine 'flying discs' in the summer of 1947.

95% of all reported sightings were either hoaxes, optical illusions or similar natural phenomena, but the remaining 5% were unexplained. A one-in-twenty gray zone wouldn't have posed a problem if the number of sightings had been low, but hundreds upon hundreds of reports had flooded in from all over the continental United States and overseas over the course of the summer and early fall. Not all were from credible witnesses, but ultimately close to 250 sightings were categorized as true Unidentified Flying Objects.

---

Ladies and Gentlemen, the core of the story you are about to read was extrapolated from recently de-classified reports hastily written in late October 1948. The documents included the background details of an accidental, but no less fatal, mid-air collision between a commercial airliner and a interstellar craft from the Talrinian System - the newspapers were told at the time that the crash had been caused by the commercial flight losing an engine - as well as the disappearance and eventual recovery of a civilian woman and a US Air Force airspace-surveillance specialist.

Certain details herein continue to carry an A-Zero level classification and therefore cannot be revealed at this time. Also, artistic license has been taken to bridge the few gaps in the narrative.

Lt Col N.N. (Name withheld for reasons of national security)
CSA/MLT Section 17,
National Air Defenses.

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CHAPTER 1

October 27th, 1948 - 21:00 Hours.

First Lieutenant Clanton O'Keefe's Jeep rumbled along the trail that cut through the vast, desolate desert seventeen miles south of the nearest town, CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED. The dusty desert, the open vehicle and the Air Force dress code demanding a squeaky clean outfit at all times didn't mix, so Clanton wore a rain cape over his olive-drab uniform to keep the worst dust off it.

Five minutes after turning off the two-lane State Route and moving onto the old wagon trail, the beams from the Jeep's headlights illuminated a thirty-foot-tall wire mesh fence that had no less than five rows of barbed and razor wire on top of it. The lights also revealed the squad of four, heavily-armed members of the Guard Company who made sure the main entrance was free of hostiles.

Clanton already had his paperwork ready when a gruff-looking sergeant approached him. The sergeant uttered a no-nonsense "Augusta," as he reached for the ID-card and the other appropriate papers. Clanton replied with a "Hummingbird," to prove he was fully up-to-date when it came to the rotating passwords.

The soldiers saluted each other before the electricity was switched off and the barbed fence moved aside. Clanton's last stretch over to the hangar housing the motor pool was a brief one; once parked next to a pair of covered trucks, another Jeep and even an M3 half-track of World War II vintage - used as a towing vehicle - he got out, folded his rain cape, dusted off his uniform and finally strode over to a section of Area 63 that resembled a landing pad for helicopters.

Beyond the landing pad, four enormous radar dishes were constantly rotating keeping an electronic eye on their surroundings: two of them rotated clock-wise like regular radars while the other two covered the vertical and horizontal planes. Installed at the exact center of the four dishes, a dome - two feet tall and four feet across - made of red-tinted glass contained an advanced spectral camera that could record images in every color band known to mankind.

Next to the electronic devices, a concrete staircase went underground. The forty steps led to a thirty-inch-thick door that was designed to be blastproof against everything including a direct hit by an atomic bomb. The door was so heavy it needed to be operated by pneumatic actuators that hissed and moaned like a slumbering dragon.

Once the door had opened fully, Clanton took off his flight cap and stuck it under his left shoulder strap. The first section of the underground base was a security lock where he would need to go through several different scans of an electronic and biometric nature to make sure he was indeed human and that his identity matched the records.

The pneumatic exit to the underground bunker complex slid open indicating that no discrepancies had been found in the scans. Clanton went through it at once and soon entered the large facility.

Nobody knew if the endless, identical, stark-white corridors in the administrative zone had been designed in such a fashion to confuse any potential attackers, but the end result was that they confused everybody, all the time - because of the high level of security required to run such a facility, there were no signs or pictograms anywhere to point the way to offices, meeting rooms or even the on-site cafeteria.

Clanton knew exactly where he was going so the lack of signposts didn't bother him. A brisk three-minute march later, he arrived at the heart of the complex: the door to the airspace surveillance room.

The armed sentries from the Guard Company protecting the door didn't seem to be in a joyful mood, so Clanton abstained from making any kind of wisecrack. Instead, he simply handed out his ID-card and other identification papers for another security check.

The appropriate passwords were exchanged before the inner door swung open to reveal a rectangular room measuring sixty by thirty feet. The strangely bulky walls and the low ceiling - only ten feet off the floor - were also blastproof, but unlike the general construction elsewhere in the bunker complex, the framing walls would keep the rest of the facility safe in case a foreign agent managed to plant and detonate an explosive device inside the room.

Sixteen radar screens were lined up in five rows of three plus a single one at the back. At present, radar specialists wearing headsets sat at fourteen of the sixteen screens monitoring and chronicling the air traffic. Each of the screens displayed a section of the airspace above the continental United States as well as Alaska and parts of Canada and Mexico.

Clanton made a beeline for one of the vacant screens, but before he could do more than pull out the chair, a Corporal - who moved from screen to screen collecting the logged data for further processing - hurried over to him.

"Sir, Colonel Moorhouse wishes to speak with you," the young man said in hushed tones so he wouldn't disturb the other specialists.

"Very well, Corporal," Clanton said and pushed the chair back to the small desk. As he strode through the rectangular room to get to an office at the back, he noticed there seemed to be a great deal of activity on most of the radar screens. Only two of those he walked past tracked fewer than five or six UNACs - an acronym for Unconventional Aircraft, i.e. identified flying objects that were not of this Earth - which was unusual.

A brief knocking on the office door prompted a barked 'Enter!'

The small office at the back of the room was filled with what had to be half the yearly output of a factory producing metal filing cabinets; all looked as if they could only hold one or two further pieces of paper before they would collapse.

The many cabinets only left a small amount of space for Colonel James Patrick Moorhouse's desk, itself meagerly equipped with a lamp, a writing pad and seemingly seventy-five folders containing logged data that he needed to verify before it could be sent further on in the system.

As a result of the mountain of work, Moorhouse's features were haggard and drawn. The black circles under his eyes proved he hadn't slept for a while, and the most unusual stubble on his chin and cheeks underscored it. His uniform jacket hung over the backrest of his swivel-chair. Even his shirt was a mess: the dark patches under his arms an undeniable reminder of the strenuous work.

"Good evening, Lieutenant O'Keefe," Moorhouse said as Clanton entered the office. The men briefly shook hands before the Colonel bumped back down on his chair - Clanton needed to remain standing as there was no room to fit even an upturned soap box.

"Good evening, Sir," Clanton said as he stood to attention.

J.P. Moorhouse let out a long sigh and threw a fountain pen onto one of the folders containing the logged data. "At ease, Lieutenant. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than the tragic mess yesterday, Colonel Mackerbee called in sick. Apparently he has a bleeding ulcer. No wonder."

"Yes, Sir."

Another long sigh escaped the Colonel. "According to the preliminary report you wrote yesterday, UNAC zero-zero-one-two-six appeared on our scopes at twenty-two-hundred hours and twenty-seven minutes at an altitude of four-hundred-and-fifty thousand feet. The craft went through the typical maneuvers until twenty-two-hundred hours and thirty-nine minutes where it collided with the commercial flight and subsequently dropped off the screens."

"That's correct, Sir."

Moorhouse tapped a finger on the multiple pages of densely written text. "Well… for your information, Lieutenant, I can tell you we've located the impact site. Mechanical debris and organic remains rained down on some farmer's field near CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED. We removed what we could of zero-zero-one-two-six and left the rest for the civilian authorities to deal with. It was a mess."

"I can imagine, Sir. Let's hope we got it all. Were the experts able to confirm the classification and origins of zero-zero-one-two-six?"

"Yes. And this is where things are about to get messier. The hull and interior were too badly damaged to tell us much, but the organic remains we recovered proved it was a Talrinian craft."

"Very well, Sir. That means we can rely on the information on the screens."

"Indeed, Lieutenant," Colonel Moorhouse said and ran his hands through already tousled hair. "The maneuvers they carried out prior to the impact were consistent with earlier visits. Basically, it was a Class Six Talrinian science craft here on a mission of research or exploration."

The Colonel fell silent for so long that Clanton began to be concerned about what was next.

"And tonight, Lieutenant," J.P. Moorhouse continued as he leaned back on the swivel-chair - the chair and his spine both let out somewhat unhealthy cracks and pops - "we have Talrinians all over the damn place. They're absolutely everywhere from Anchorage to Key West. From Baja California to Newfoundland. Small, rapid ground assault formations consisting of four to seven hunter craft supported by roaming supply ships. The only reason why there isn't widespread panic yet is because of the lateness of the day. It's only a matter of time before there's a sighting. I don't have to tell you what kind of mass hysteria that'll cause."

"Yes, Sir. It'll undoubtedly be on a scale with July of last year."

"That's the understatement of the week, Lieutenant. And worse, the Talrinians may be friendly most of the time, but when they get a bee in their bonnet, they become aggressive, short-tempered and unpredictable." The Colonel paused to break out in a brief chuckle. "Exactly like human beings… which is all kinds of ironic."

"Yes, Sir."

Sobering, Colonel Moorhouse leaned forward and picked up the fountain pen once more. "What I'm trying to tell you, Lieutenant, is that you better be prepared for a shift unlike any you've ever experienced. It might get worse before it gets better. That'll be all for now."

"Yes, Sir. I'll do my best, Sir," Clanton said before he spun around and strode over to the door.

-*-*-*-

October 27th, 1948 - 23:15 Hours.

Clanton stared at the green-tinted radar screen that seemed to have run amuck. He balanced on the forward edge of his swivel-chair as he tried to keep up with the hectic activity by scribbling like a man possessed. Unconventional Aircraft entry time codes, identification numbers, airspeed, altitude and projected destinations based on previous data - the sheer number of blips on the screen caused him to fill out page after page at such a tempo he would run out of supplies before long.

After he completed yet another page, he reached up to press a button on a panel next to the screen. It would alert the Corporal who was in charge of logistics and supplies, but given the fact the first two times the button had been pushed had failed to produce any tangible results, chances were that the third would be a waste of time as well.

The cause for the delay in getting the much-needed supplies was obvious, but Clanton still glanced up with a frustrated look upon his face. The Corporal in charge never stood still for more than two seconds at a time as he stormed from desk to desk providing the radar specialists with fresh logging sheets, but it had been a losing battle from the get-go - and there was no relief in sight as the high level of security clearance needed for the job meant they couldn't just drag in an additional assistant to help carry out the assignment.

"Corporal!  I need more sheets on the double!" Clanton said sharply. The harsh tones finally did the trick as the young soldier flew past the desk depositing a wad of logging sheets. It was just in time, too, as Clanton had just started on the final page.

His own sector, 0597, was busier than it had ever been, but it contained no critical infrastructure and was thus less important in the overall scheme of things. By peeking over the top edge of the screen, he could see that some of his fellow specialists who controlled the airspace above major cities and important military facilities were swamped in blips.

Everyone wore a headset so they could communicate with the specialists who controlled the sectors adjacent to their own. An 'alert' tone and a trembling voice was suddenly heard in Clanton's headset: 'Sector zero-zero-two-three to all sectors. Top priority!  Massive entry into upper atmosphere at map co-ordinates CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED. Class Nine vessel. Possible Talrinian fleet command craft, flagship or carrier. Hovering for now so unable to project heading- stand by… top priority!  Multiple entries into upper atmosphere at map co-ordinates CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED. Multiple Class One, Two and Five vessels. Possible Talrinian fighter and ground assault formations. Twenty entries at present and counting!'

"Dammit!" Clanton said and thumped a fist onto his desk. "And all this because some hotshot stick-jockey flew so erratically he ended up creaming himself and the scientists!"

"Maybe it was some Fleet Admiral's kid brother… the brass is the brass no matter the color of the uniform," one of Clanton's colleagues said from the row behind him - Clanton briefly turned around to show his agreement by nodding.

At the far end of the room, Colonel J.P. Moorhouse stormed out of the office and hurried over to the specialist who had called in the massive entry - it made everyone pipe down and concentrate on their own screens.

Clanton's own sector remained at the unusually high level of activity it had been at before, but several of the radar contacts seemed to move out of the center and onto the adjacent sectors. He keyed the mic on his headset to say: "Sector zero-five-niner-seven to sector zero-six-zero-zero. Handover. You have four bogeys inbound, bearing zero-six-four degrees at an altitude of ninety-thousand feet. Present speed just below Mach one. Class Four vessels, possibly fighter interceptors. They've never moved out of a tight V-formation so chances are they're on a forward fighter sweep."

When a message of 'Acknowledged, sector zero-five-niner-seven. I have them on my screen,' was heard in the headset, Clanton reached up and offered his colleague a thumbs-up before he concentrated on the rest of the active blips.

-*-*-*-

October 28th, 1948 - 01:47 Hours.

Colonel Moorhouse looked about ready to drop as he moved between the sixteen radar screens to get an impression of the critical and unpredictable situation. He came to a halt at Clanton's screen and observed the blips in silence.

Tension had continued to mount in the radar room after the arrival of the Talrinian fleet command craft and its numerous support vessels. Though the smaller craft moved around constantly to create a strong defensive shield against airborne attacks, the central actor in the play - that had the potential of turning into a tragedy at the drop of a hat - continued to hover at 275,000 feet which was far, far out of range of anything in any Earth nation's arsenal.

After returning from his compulsory thirty-minute break at the completion of the first half of his shift, Clanton sat at a different screen that covered sector 0001. The static marker at the center of the green-tinted screen was Area 63 itself.

A UNAC held his undivided attention as it seemed to perform strange maneuvers at the north-western part of the sector. Identified as a Class Six Talrinian Research and Exploration craft not unlike the one that had been involved in the fatal mid-air collision, it cruised due south at low altitude and low speed for several minutes before it turned south-south-east. Once on the new heading, it picked up its pace but remained at the low altitude. That particular leg of its flight continued for one minute and forty-six seconds until it came to a full stop and seemed to hover.

"Lieutenant," Colonel Moorhouse said as he leaned down to take a closer look at the green monitor, "I know you're already tracking that bogey, but… what do you make of its maneuvers?  I can't recall seeing such a flight pattern before."

"It's definitely unusual, Sir. Another unusual thing is the decreasing number of contacts. My sector alone has lost fourteen UNACs in the past seven minutes," Clanton said while thumbing through his logs.

The Colonel stood up straight and began to rub his chin. He had a headset attached to his belt, but he quickly put it on and plugged the jack into a spare socket on the panel next to Clanton's screen. "Sector zero-zero-two-three, this is Colonel Moorhouse. What's the status regarding the Talrinian fleet command craft?"

'It remains in position, Sir. Numerous Class One, Two and Five vessels have returned to it within the past few minutes. They move off the screen indicating they're docking onto or inside the carrier craft.'

"Very well. Colonel Moorhouse out." After the jack had been pulled from the panel, he put his headset back on his belt. "All right, Lieutenant… they've shaken their fist at us and now they're falling back to the carrier group. Except that one there. And that's right up the street from where we are, figuratively speaking," the Colonel continued as he tapped on the screen near the blip of the craft that continued to hover not too far from Area 63.

"Yes, Sir. Did anything ever come out of the attempts at establishing contact?"

"Not that I'm aware of, Lieutenant. Not beyond the initial meeting where we had to resort to sign language and pidgin English that never went further than 'Me Earthling, What You?' Well, I suppose we did learn the name of their species."

"Yes, Sir."

The Colonel fell silent and settled for rubbing his chin again. "Lieutenant," he said after nearly a minute of silence, "if the vessel moves closer toward us, get on the horn to CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED A-F-B and have them scramble a couple of fast interceptors. We don't want to get caught with our pants down here."

"Yes, Sir. The standard outer boundary of the No Fly Zone is thirty miles from the center. Should I perhaps extend it to fifty miles considering the number of-"

"Excellent thinking, Lieutenant. Yes, if the vessel reaches fifty miles from home base, call the A-F-B," the Colonel said before he moved away from Clanton's screen to get up-to-date with the developments in other sectors.

Clanton watched him for a few moments before he returned to his real job: keeping an eye on the blips on the radar screen. The remaining craft all continued their predictable behavior save for the Talrinian Class Six contact - the Research and Exploration craft continued to hover at an altitude of 300 feet less than 100 miles from Area 63.

He peeked at some of the other radar screens nearest him; all but sector zero-zero-two-three had returned to the number of UNACs registered on a typical evening. The Talrinian fleet command and carrier group continued to hover at a staggering altitude above the surface of the Earth, even after it had been joined by most of the ultra-fast and nimble Class One and Class Two hunters that had streaked across the heavens all over the continental USA and into Mexico and Canada.

Sighing at the weirdness of it all, he checked his wristwatch for the correct time before he set-to making a fair copy of the hastily scribbled data logs so they would actually hold some value for future analysis.

-*-*-*-

October 28th, 1948 - 03:12 Hours.

"Sir, once the Talrinian fleet command craft and its support vessels had gone beyond the Kármán Line and had withdrawn to interplanetary space," Clanton said, standing in Colonel Moorhouse's office at the end of his shift, "the last remaining UNAC contact, the Class Six vessel that hovered not too far from here, disappeared off our screens."

The Colonel leaned back on his creaking swivel-chair. He soon began to tap his fingers on the wooden armrest. "I would feel a whole lot safer if you had tracked it gaining altitude to meet with the other ships, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Sir. Though the vessel in question didn't breach the fifty-mile No Fly Zone, I decided to get in touch with CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED Air Force Base to have them send up a camera-equipped observation plane. Captain CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED reported to me in person. He told me there was nothing to see on the surface. No debris field and certainly no stationary spacecraft."

Colonel Moorhouse leaned forward and reached for one of his favorite pastimes - his fountain pen that he promptly began to fiddle and toy with. "Perhaps we'll get lucky for once. Good work, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, Sir. My replacement has arrived. I've briefed him thoroughly so he's fully up to speed. Here's my last logging sheet, Sir," Clanton said and put the folder on the desk.

"Excellent, Lieutenant O'Keefe. I'll see you tonight… unless I've developed a bleeding ulcer in the meantime. Or you have," the Colonel said before he tried to contort his gray, dead-tired face into something approaching a smile.

-*-*-*-

Five minutes and three thorough pat-downs later - to make sure he didn't smuggle as much as a spent Tic-Tac-Toe scorecard out of the facility - Clanton took a deep breath of the crisp, decidedly chilly night-time air. After the canned air he had inhaled throughout his entire shift, the real thing felt invigorating; he took another deep breath just to cleanse his lungs.

A yawn ambushed him as he walked over to the motor pool to claim one of the Jeeps. The challenge of driving through the desert without filthying the uniform remained the same, so he unfolded his rain cape and put it on.

His experience tracking the many otherworldly contacts had honed his sixth sense that chose that moment to sound a proverbial alarm bell in his ear. The odd, tingling sensation made him walk back out of the hangar housing the motor pool and look up at the vast firmament above him. The stars were out in force wherever he looked, but only a few twinkled as the rising heat had long since evaporated from the desert that surrounded Area 63.

The characteristic whistling of US Air Force jet interceptors patrolling the sector was audible as a constant noise in the far distance. Looking due east, he spotted the narrow crescent of the new moon as it had climbed a short distance above the horizon. Venus shone brightly not too far from the celestial object.

He had already begun to walk back to the hangar when he realized there had been a second bright dot close to Venus. Hurrying back outside, he reacquired the planet but was unable to see any strange lights that weren't supposed to be there.

Before he had left the radar room, he had made sure to give the home sector another check just in case the mysterious Talrinian vessel had returned. Everything had appeared quiet and devoid of UNACs, but he knew through his experience that a lot of things could develop in a very short amount of time when it came to the otherworldly visitors.

He eventually broke out in a shrug and strolled back to the motor pool to get one of the Jeeps. It took five additional minutes before the appropriate requisition forms had been filled out and signed, but then he was finally allowed to head back to the barracks and his bunk at CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED Air Force Base some ten miles from the high-security zone at Area 63.

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CHAPTER 2

October 28th, 1948 - 03:43 Hours.

The first handful of miles along the State Route went by in complete solitude. Distant headlights soon stirred Clanton's interest, but it turned out to be nothing more than five supply trucks going in the opposite direction. The small convoy was escorted by two Jeeps: a command vehicle up front and a heavily armed one that brought up the rear.

Once the rumbling convoy had disappeared from view behind his own Jeep, his sixth sense made its presence felt again. He scanned the skies above him several times, but just like back at the facility, the only things up there were the new moon, Venus and a myriad of stars.

The persistent niggling at the back of his mind grew stronger; so strong in fact that he pulled over at the side of the two-lane blacktop and switched off the engine to be able to listen for any unusual sounds. He sat like that for three age-long minutes before he scrunched up his face in frustration - all he had been able to pick up were the common sounds made by the desert's nocturnal animals and the faint, distant whistling of the patrol jets.

"Dammit, this is ridiculous," he mumbled as he flipped the ignition switch and put his boot on the Jeep's starter button. Another poke by his sixth sense made him perform a 360-degree sweep where he scanned the entire firmament from the horizon to the zenith without finding anything untoward.

Shaking his head in annoyance with himself and his uncharacteristic jitters, he rammed the long shifter into first gear and soon took off in a cloud of dust.

---

Three miles further along the seemingly desolate State Route, he slammed on the brakes which made the narrow tires squeal and caused the Jeep to enter a four-wheel drift.

"Goddammit, I knew something was wrong!" he said out loud as he jumped out of the Jeep and made to run over to the side of the blacktop. At the last moment, he stopped and returned to the vehicle to rummage through the boxes of spares and supplies installed in the back next to the field radio. A flashlight was soon found and turned on - the batteries were fresh so it produced a strong cone of light.

His grim expression conveyed all the worry about what he might find as he ran over to the object that had set the entire sequence of events in motion. The flashlight soon illuminated the familiar swooping fenders of a 1947 two-door, cream-colored Studebaker Commander Convertible. The burgundy soft top had been pulled up and fastened. The left-rear whitewall tire had lost all its air. The driver's side door and the trunklid stood wide open as if the person driving it had been trying to get to the jack and the spare tire. The person, or persons, who had been in the car were nowhere to be found.

Clanton ran thirty feet or so into the desert but soon came to a halt. He swept the cone of light across the vast terrain without seeing anything or anyone. "Hello!  Hello!  Is anyone out there?!" he roared at the top of his lungs.

His thumping heart created such a racket as it made the blood rush past his eardrums that he had a hard time hearing anything apart from himself. "Hello!  If you're too hurt to talk, throw a rock or something so I can find you!"

The silence was deafening as no reply whatsoever came back at him. A mumbled "Damn, damn, damn!" escaped him as he ran back to the Studebaker to shine the light into the trunk. Apart from the jack and the spare whitewall tire, it contained two sturdy leather suitcases, a large traveler's bag and an odd, round box that he couldn't recognize at first - a quick peek under the lid revealed it contained an elegant hat fit for a lady.

Moving back from the trunk, he ran up to the driver's side door, ducked under the closed top and swept the cone of light onto the bench seat and the dashboard. A pair of stylish sunglasses rested safely in a tray underneath the AM radio; a detailed road map opened to the correct page had been put on the seat next to the driver's spot for ease of access. A gold cigarette lighter lay next to the map, but there didn't seem to be anything for it to light.

A brief glinting down in the footwell on the passenger side made Clanton hurry around the vehicle and open the other door. The reflection proved to have been made by a shiny button on a stylish purse. A pair of ladies' gloves had ended up on the carpet next to the purse - perhaps as a result of the bouncy ride over to the side of the road after the tire had punctured.

Clanton took the purse before he stepped back and swept the cone of light across the desert once more. Drawing a deep breath, he shouted: "Hello?  Hello!  Help is near!  Just make a sound!  Any kind of sound and I'll find you!"

When no replies, cries or moans of pain could be heard, he returned to the driver's side of the Studebaker and sat on the seat behind the thin, white steering wheel. Using his chin to pin down the flashlight, he opened the purse in the hope of discovering the identity of the missing woman.

The purse held all the expected items: a few crumpled-up dollar bills, a comb, a lipstick, a small vial of perfume, a powder compact and a nail file. The sought-after driver's license finally came into view after he moved aside a folded-up letter written in a feminine hand.

"Peggy Alexander from Madison Lake, California. What's she doing here so many miles from home?  And all by hers-" Clanton came to an abrupt halt, twisted around in the seat and shone the light onto the minuscule back seat. "Dammit, maybe she wasn't alone?  Maybe she left the car to chase after a dog or a… or a child. Jesus…"

Stepping out of the vehicle, Clanton ran back to the edge of the desert and made the cone of light sweep left-to-right once more. Thinking of something he had done many times in his younger years as a proud member of the Cub Scouts, he moved his hand up-and-down in front of the flashlight's lens to create a blinking effect that he hoped would be more visible from afar.

"Peggy!  Peggy, are you out there?!" he shouted at the top of his lungs; he might as well have said it in a whisper as it yielded no results whatsoever.

"No, I can't do this alone," he mumbled as he ran back to his Jeep. After putting the flashlight on top of the toolbox in the back of the vehicle, he flipped the master switch to ON on the enormous, combat-proven Motorola SCR-694 field radio. Taking the handset out of the pocket, he tapped the transmit key several times.

The tinny speaker in the handset sent out nothing but static at first, but fiddling with the frequency and squelch knobs established contact. "CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED A-F-B, CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED A-F-B, this is First Lieutenant O'Keefe of the CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED unit. Are you receiving me, over?"

'CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED A-F-B here,' a male voice said from the handset's small speaker. 'We receive you loud and clear, Lieutenant. State code clearance and correct password. Pineapple. Over.'

"Code clearance is CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED. The password is spark plug, over."

'This is CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED A-F-B, Guard Master Sergeant CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED speaking. What's the nature of this call, Sir?  Over.'

While the Master Sergeant spoke, Clanton turned around to once more let the flashlight glide across the desert. A strange glinting roughly thirty yards into the desert proved to be a false positive - the cone of light had simply captured the interest of a jackrabbit that came closer with wide-open, sparkling eyes.

"Master Sergeant, this is an emergency," Clanton said into the handset's round mouthpiece. "I have come across an abandoned civilian vehicle at mile marker CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED here on the State Route. The circumstances are suspicious. Although I have no solid proof, I suspect the driver may be wandering around in the desert due to some kind of acute medical issue. Over."

'Sir, in your assessment, does this missing individual pose a security threat to either Area Six-Three or CLASSIFIED INFORMATION DELETED A-F-B?  Over.'

Clanton rubbed his brow - he should have seen that snag coming a mile away. "I don't believe so, Master Sergeant. It seems to be a regular civilian. According to the driver's license that was left behind at the vehicle, the subject in question is a woman from California by the name of Miss Peggy Alexander."

'In that case, we're not in a position to come to your assistance, Sir, however the incident has been logged. We'll contact the civilian authorities at zero-seven-hundred hours. The County Sheriff will lead the search and rescue.'

Clanton's brow was given an entire series of rubs while he pondered what to do. The thought process took several seconds before he said: "Very well, Master Sergeant. I'll deal with it myself. Lieutenant O'Keefe out."

After switching off the field radio, he put the handset back into its pocket before he jumped up into the Jeep to gain a few feet of altitude. His years in the Cub Scouts aside, studying the terrain from the ground was distinctly alien to him and he really had no idea how to - or even where to - look for tracks.

"Peggy!  Peggy!  Are you out there?!" he roared, holding his hands in front of his mouth to act as an amplifier.

Sighing, he jumped off the Jeep and picked up the handset once more. When he turned the field radio back on with the intent of hailing Area 63, all he could get out of it was static, static and more static regardless of which dials or knobs he manipulated. His sixth sense chose the moment to make his nape hairs stand on edge.

Spinning around while holding the handset ahead of him like some kind of primitive weapon, he stared into the pitch-black night with wide-open eyes. Only then did he realize that he had a better chance of seeing anything whatsoever if he swapped the handset for the flashlight - the cone of light soon made a slow, deliberate sweep across the desert floor.

It had already gone beyond a certain point when Clanton slowed down his motion and uttered a mumbled "What the… what in Sam Hill was that?"

He backtracked at once to find the item that he thought he had seen, but was unable to pick up anything. His spot down on the two-lane blacktop only offered a poor field of view, so he jumped up onto the highest point of the Jeep, the hood, to see better.

The cone of light had barely returned to the spot that had caused his sixth sense to figuratively shake him by the lapels when he literally gasped out loud. His free hand whipped down to where the holster for his service Browning would ordinarily be when he was back at the Air Force Base, but he remembered too late that no firearms were allowed within the Area 63 bunker complex so he never wore the holster during his shift days.

A shadowy figure moved out of the desert on the opposite side of the blacktop. It approached the Jeep and Clanton in a weird, unnatural gait akin to a sleepwalker, someone in a deep trance or the victim of a zombification ritual.

Clanton's throat tied itself into a knot as the shadowy figure came ever closer; the hand holding the flashlight began to tremble so hard the cone of light bobbed all over the place.

In the brief moments it actually connected with the approaching figure, it illuminated the comely face and svelte body of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She wore a dark-gray skirt suit and a tan knitted cardigan that had been pulled askew across her shoulders. Her shoes were missing and her Nylon stockings had been ruined by walking around barefoot - it was obviously the cause of the unnatural gait as well.

The woman had a completely blank, frozen expression on her face; her hair was a mess, and her lipstick and subtle make-up had been smeared which gave her a grotesque appearance.

A croaked "God Almighty…" escaped Clanton as it finally dawned on him what, not to mention who, he was looking at. Jumping off the Jeep's hood, he was at the woman's side in an instant. She didn't respond to his arrival at all, so he put his hands on her upper arms to keep her safe and stable.

Once she had been helped over to the Jeep, Clanton eased her onto the somewhat uncomfortable seat behind the steering wheel. "Miss?  Please, Miss, are you Peggy Alexander?" he said in a voice that he tried to keep from trembling so the stunned woman wouldn't grow even more spooked.

After what seemed an eternity, she turned her head to look at him with the deadest, most shell-shocked eyes he had ever seen on a human being, and that included the five months he had spent as a volunteer in a military hospital in liberated Germany over the course of the summer and fall of 1945.

The woman nodded. "Y- yes… I'm Peggy Alexander," she said in a frail voice that cracked several times even though she only needed to form four words.

"What happened to you, Peggy?  Why did you leave your car?"

"Th- they made me…"

"Did you have someone in the car with you?  Maybe hitch-hikers?"  When no reply was forthcoming beyond a small shaking of the lady's head, Clanton took Peggy's ice-cold hands and began to rub them in a supportive fashion. "Who, Peggy?  Who made you leave?"

"The little men…"

"The litt-"

"The little, gray men," Peggy said in a whisper as if she was afraid the mere words would re-introduce the beings.

Clanton drew a deep, fast breath. He briefly stared at Peggy Alexander before he performed a slow, 360-degree turn to take in their entire desert surroundings. There was nothing untoward to see anywhere, but the goose bumps that swept over his skin told a different story. "Talrinians… and they've deployed. Dammit, I knew that roaming Class Six vessel was up to no good!" he said and smacked a fist into an open palm.

"Wh- what?"

"Never mind, Peggy. Don't you worry about that now. How were you able to escape them?" Clanton said as he gave the woman's hands a reassuring squeeze.

Peggy sat like a marble statue for a brief moment; her brow furrowing as her blank expression increased. "I c- can't remember… I w- was just… they were there… and then I was alone…"

"You obviously feel disoriented, but are you strangely warm or cold?  Are your ears ringing?  Does your skin tingle?"

"I'm… I'm just numb," Peggy said and reached up to touch her lips with trembling fingers. "I c- can't remember a thing… there's nothing th- there…"

"All right. Sit tight, Peggy… I need to see if this thing works now," Clanton said as he reached for the handset on the cumbersome field radio. Like the earlier attempt, all it was able to receive was reams of static on all frequencies - fiddling with every knob and dial on the top of the square box yielded no results. "No. Nothing. I can't report the encounter or even call for help," he continued as he put the handset back on the hook.

He took a step back and let the cone of light sweep across the desert floor for the umpteenth time that night. "We're five miles from the secret compound and eight miles from the post. I can't take a civilian to either and there's nowhere else for her to go," he said in a mumble. "Caught in the middle of nowhere with a possible Talrinian ground offensive on our hands… and no way to report it. Dammit!"

"I don't underst-"

"I'm sorry, Peggy. I'm just talking to myself," Clanton said before he broke out in a smile in an attempt to defuse the tension - it didn't work. "Peggy, I have a suggestion. You're clearly too shaken to drive regardless of whether or not I'd change the flat for you, so we need to go in my Jeep. There's a twenty-four-hour diner about ten, twelve miles east of here… they can call for a doctor for you if you want or need one. You'll be safe there. All right?"

"Well… all right…"

"Good. I'll get your suitcases from your car," Clanton continued in a voice that had grown in confidence now he had taken the initiative. "I don't want to alarm you, but we may need to get out of here in a hurry."

Peggy stared at Clanton for a brief moment before she broke out in a nod. "Yes… yes, that's a sound plan," she said and moved to get up.

Clanton helped her up from the driver's seat and around the front of the Jeep. Once the lady was safely installed on the passenger-side seat, he jogged over to the trunk of the abandoned Studebaker and grabbed the two sturdy leather suitcases and the large traveler's bag. He let out a dark grunt as he looked at the odd shape of the hat box.

The traveler's bag had a carrier strap so he was able to swing that over his shoulder, but he remained fresh out of hands for the hat box as the square-edged design of the suitcases meant he couldn't carry two in one hand, or even stuff one of them under his arm.

He hadn't finished pondering the combination-puzzle when time ran out and reality literally caught up with them.

An unrestrained, high-pitched scream that burst from Peggy Alexander made Clanton spin around and stare across the road in a wide-eyed panic. A million goose bumps exploded all over his body as he watched a group of three, then seven, then twelve, then fifteen four-foot-tall, pale-gray shapes appear from the darkness and approach the Jeep. The creatures walked in a bizarre light-footed gait as if they weren't yet accustomed to Earth's level of gravity.

Their bald, oddly-shaped heads that were disproportionate with the rest of their bodies were proof enough of their origin - their obsidian-black eyes and the spindly legs and arms that ended in four-fingered hands only proved it.

Crying out in terror, Clanton flung the suitcases and the traveler's bag onto the ground before he took off in a sprint to get back to the Jeep and Peggy.

Though no more than a few seconds went by, the first of the Talrinians had made it to the passenger-side of the Jeep where it reached for the fainted Peggy - all the otherworldly visitor got out of it was a size-twelve military boot to the chest that shoved it backwards and sent it sprawling onto the two-lane blacktop.

Strange noises burst from the other Grays as they witnessed the rough treatment their team leader had been exposed to. Re-organizing themselves in a hurry, the other visitors rushed the Jeep and tried to grab hold of the humans.

"The hell you don't!" Clanton roared at the top of his lungs. He kicked out at another of the Talrinians who reached for Peggy. The impact was just as strong as the first one, and sent it slamming sideways into the Jeep.

Clanton wasted no time in running around the vehicle - he simply jumped up into the rear and then let himself fall down onto the driver's seat. A Talrinian arm that rested on the seat was broken by the weight that suddenly fell upon it, but Clanton had few tears to shed for the attackers.

Cursing the lengthy start-up procedure, he moved as quickly as humanly possible while declutching, flipping the ignition switch, tapping the throttle pedal to fill the carburetors and finally slamming his boot onto the floor-mounted starter button - it all happened within a few seconds. He let out a cry of relief as the engine came alive at the first attempt.

He jammed the long shifter into first gear and took off with a kangaroo-style jerk that would have left any driving instructor distinctly unimpressed. In the back of the Jeep, two further Talrinians who had just climbed up on the rear frame flew off and landed on the road with heavy thuds.

Clanton glanced at the fainted Peggy as he drove off the State Route and into the desert to take full advantage of the Jeep's all-terrain capabilities. The car had no seat belts so the lady was already bouncing around dangerously. Cursing under his breath, he forced himself to slow down as he drove through a wide curve to head south - back to Area 63 and the protection offered by the Guard Company.

All through the maneuver, the Jeep's narrow tires kicked up so much desert sand and dust that the front of his olive-drab uniform soon turned as pale-gray as the skin of the creatures they had just left behind. That caused a few mumbled curses as well, but the breach of the uniform code for officers was the least of their concerns.

He made sure to keep a good distance to the State Route at first. When they drove past the spot where the attack had taken place, another million goose bumps fell over him as he watched the Talrinians huddled up as if they were discussing their next move.

The sound of the Jeep's hard-working engine alerted them and broke up their huddle. A couple of the small creatures set off in a foot-chase, but they soon gave up as the motorized vehicle was far too quick.

Clanton turned back onto the two-lane blacktop 300 yards away from the aliens. With the smoother surface providing a far easier ride, he was able to mash the gas which brought their speed up to nearly sixty miles per hour - he had to reduce it to fifty soon after as the strain on the Jeep's frame proved too great.

-*-*-*-

October 28th, 1948 - 04:27 Hours.

A minute later, Peggy came to with a startled cry. She bolted upright in the seat and grabbed hold of the dashboard with both hands. She whipped her head around several times to see where they were and where their attackers had gone; when it dawned on her they were racing along with no creatures nearby, she fell against the backrest and buried her face in her hands.

"We're safe!  We're safe for now!" Clanton said strongly to overpower the note of the strained engine and the headwind that created plenty of noisy turbulence and buffeting as it struck the upright windshield.

"Wh- where are they?!"

"Far behind us. Try to relax… we'll soon be at the facility!"

The look upon Peggy's face proved she had a hard time relaxing, and perhaps an even harder time believing they were safe. After another half-mile racing along the State Route at a staggering fifty miles per hour - in a rattling, creaking and groaning vehicle - she twisted in the seat to look into the space behind the seats. "My… my luggage?"

"I'm sorry, Peggy, I had to leave it behind," Clanton said and took a brief look at his passenger. "The Talrinians came too fast. I hope there wasn't anything too valuable in your suitcases?"

"Just a few swatches and- and other product samples. I w- work for a company that designs curtains…"

"Oh?  That's nice." The words had barely left Clanton's lips before he rolled his eyes at himself and the inane comment.

"My purse… were you at least able to get my purse?"

"I'm afraid not, Peggy. It's still on the front seat of your car. I promise we'll return to it and retrieve all your belongings as soon as it's safe to do so."

Peggy fell quiet and simply nodded.

As they continued to race along the two-lane blacktop, Clanton couldn't help but cast frequent glances up at the vast heavens above their tiny Jeep. Each of the pinpoints of light that appeared to be stars could in reality be a larger Class Five or Six Talrinian craft in a holding pattern, or even a smaller Class One or Two ground attack vessel poised to pounce.

There was no sense in agonizing about things that were out of their control, however, so he concentrated on looking at the road ahead instead. Area 63 always operated under a strict blackout even during less active periods, so he needed to be on his proverbial toes to make sure their high speed wouldn't cause them to miss the nondescript dirt wagon trail that led to the super-secret facility.

An "Oh!" suddenly came from Peggy. She reached over to put a hand on the sleeve of Clanton's uniform jacket. "I remember something… I was… I was inside a… the little gray men's flying saucer!  Yes… I remember now… they-"

"What did it look like up close?"

"Oh… well… I don't kn- I can't recall how it looked. It was large. The room they put me in had smooth walls and… and… they shone some kind of red light on me!  It came from an eye in the wall. It moved up and down my body but it didn't hurt. And they made me wear some kind of… hat or… no, a cap. Like a swimcap… it had wires sticking out of it… and… and I could understand what they said!"

"An electro-mechanical translator?"

"I don't know… but then I-" Peggy stopped from one syllable to the next. She clutched her fists and held them tightly against her chest. Her face grew stark-white as if she was on the brink of fainting again. "I… I saw a lizard!" she said in a croak.

Clanton narrowed his eyes; he briefly looked behind them to see if he had run over some kind of reptilian, but it was much too dark to see anything. "When?  Now?"

"N- no… back at the flying saucer," Peggy said in a monotone. Her wide-open eyes stared straight ahead in the same shell-shocked fashion they had been in when she had first reappeared. "The little, gray men were joined by a lizard. It wore clothes. It was much taller than them… it was taller than me!  Oh God, that thing frightened me… pointy teeth… dozens of pointy teeth!  It spoke to me but I cou- couldn't understand much… the gray men could, but… but I could only… it said something that sounded like see… or s-e-a… yes, it was sea-lotion!"

Peggy buried her face in her hands as she burst into tears. Wails and sobs soon came freely as the frightening images played across her mind's eye.

"Sea-lotion?  What in Sam Hill does that mean?  An amphibious reptilian?" Clanton mumbled, shaking his head in utter confusion at the strange word. A moment later, he needed to stomp on the brake pedal as the dirt wagon trail that led to Area 63 suddenly presented itself off to the left.

He briefly wrestled with the Jeep's clumsy steering but managed to drive onto the trail without tilting too far. Because he was going much faster than usual, the amounts of sand and desert dust kicked up by the tires created a pale-brown storm cloud that followed the Jeep as it snaked its way through the terrain.

"Peggy, we only have a short distance to go now and then we'll be safe," Clanton said before he reached over to put a calming hand on his passenger's shoulder. "I'm afraid I don't have a clean handkerchief you can borrow… everything's been coated in sand."

"That's all right," Peggy croaked in a thick voice. "I have one… no, I must have lost it somewhere," she continued as she rummaged through the pockets of her skirt-suit jacket.

A mere one-hundred yards from the thirty-foot-tall wire mesh fence that ran the entire perimeter of Area 63, a spine-chilling hum filled the air. A second later, the Jeep's engine coughed, spluttered and eventually died. Before Clanton had time to complain about the quality of vehicle maintenance in the US Air Force motor pool, the stars above them disappeared.

*
*
CHAPTER 3

October 28th, 1948 - 04:39 Hours.

The angry words were stuck in his throat as he stared up at a huge, black void hovering directly above the Jeep and the two people riding in it. An odd surge of static electricity caused his hair to stand on edge - a quick glance to his right proved that Peggy was even worse affected because of her longer, more voluminous hair.

"Don't touch any metal!" he said in a strangled voice. Peggy responded by wrapping her arms around herself.

The electric fence up at the facility literally went haywire as the outer fringe of the energy field reached it. Showers of golden sparks soon exploded off the wire mesh fence itself and all the electrical connectors and repeaters attached to it.

Shrill alarms were heard immediately from all over the compound; the soldiers of the Guard Company poured out of their barracks and assumed combat positions behind the countless sandbags that were stacked up on either side of the main entrance. Orders were barked and repeated the old-fashioned way, so it seemed the energy field wreaked havoc on the communication devices.

"Oh, God, we're going to die here!" Peggy cried as she grabbed hold of Clanton's arm.

The words had barely left her mouth before a cobalt-blue beam stretched down from above to bathe the people and the Jeep in a blinding light - a horrendous stench of sulfur testing everyone's gag reflex.

A few seconds later, the Jeep started shimmying and shaking almost as if it couldn't make up its mind on whether to stay on the ground or rise to greet their visitors. The entire back half suddenly rose a full foot off the sandy ground. Up on the seats, Clanton and Peggy cried out in terror as they grew weightless and began to float upward on the blue beam.

"Jump out!  Jump out or they have us!" Clanton roared, but it was easier said than done. Peggy tried all she could to push herself clear of the Jeep, but all she succeeded in doing was to float even further up.

"Dammit!" Clanton cried as he threw himself to the left to get out of the seat. He did in fact leave it, but the bizarre lack of gravity meant he never made it onto the desert floor though it was a mere two feet below him.

When the cobalt-blue anti-gravity weapon made the five rows of barbed wire - that were on top of the tall fence - rattle and vibrate in ever-increasing oscillations, the officer in charge of the Guard Company barked a clear and unmistakable order to open fire on the aggressor in the sky. Soon, the soldiers responded with all they had from their submachine guns as well as the more powerful, rapid-firing .30-caliber machine guns installed in pillbox bunkers.

Square panels, round tubes and random debris of every other shape began to rain down from the Talrinian vessel as hot lead slammed into it. The ship's superficial damage grew deeper and more critical when a Jeep equipped with a .50-caliber Browning M2 joined the fray. The M2's gunner soon fired salvo after salvo at the large target in the sky - its sheer size and close proximity meant it was impossible to miss.

From one moment to the next, the Class Six Talrinian research craft broke off its attack and withdrew to a safe distance from the barrage of small-arms fire it had been exposed to. Humming like a giant electrical ice chest, it slithered through the black night at an altitude that never grew beyond 100 feet.

Plenty of blue and golden sparks spewed from the damaged sections illuminating the craft and revealing that it was several hundred feet wide and at last fifty feet tall - and that it really was shaped like a pair of saucers that had been glued together.

The underside was equipped with a small dome that housed all the various scientific beams and defensive particle weapons the vessel had at its disposal; a larger dome akin to the bridge of a traditional Earth-based warship had been placed in the center of the upper saucer.

As the cobalt-blue beam retracted, Clanton and Peggy found themselves on the losing side in the age-old struggle with gravity. Peggy was closest to the ground so she had the shortest distance to fall, but her landing took place directly onto her rear-end which caused a pained moan to escape her.

Clanton was less lucky: not only was he nearly four feet off the ground, his head was aimed downward at the time. He let out a long cry of "Ohhhhh shhhhhh-" as the ground rushed up to greet his mug. He managed to twist in mid-air at the last moment but still ended up burying his face deep into the sand on the wagon trail. "This hasn't been my day," he mumbled before he needed to spit a few tons of grit out of his teeth.

"Lieutenant… Lieutenant, are you all right?" a male voice said right next to Clanton.

Looking around in a daze, the upside-down Clanton O'Keefe soon realized they had been joined by the officer in charge of the Guard Company as well as a host of heavily-armed soldiers.

As Clanton shuffled around to get back on his feet, he quickly learned he needed to put a hand on the side of the Jeep to maintain his balance. "Yes, Captain, I'm fine. We're grateful for your assistance, Sir," he said and saluted the superior officer though he was still on his knees. "Miss Alexander there is in greater need of medical attention. She was abducted by the crew of that ship. She needs to be examined from A to Z for foreign germs and whatnot."

"We'll get her to the infirmary. What the hell is that thing, anyway?"

"It's a Class Six Talrinian research vessel," Clanton said matter-of-factly as he clambered to his feet. The look upon the Guard Captain's face hinted at him not knowing what on Earth - or elsewhere - was meant by that. "It's a very long story, Sir."

"Must be. All right," the Captain said before he turned away to speak with his men. "Sergeant!  A status report!  What's that S.O.B. doing right now?" he continued in a bark.

Clanton coughed several times to get more grit and desert dust out of his system; doing so tore at his lungs and throat, but it had to be done. "Peggy… Peggy, come, these gentlemen will take you to the infirmary," he said as he put a hand on the lady's arm.

Peggy Alexander stared back at him with wide-open eyes that were so full of shock and disbelief it was obvious she had just about zoned out. After a moment or two, she broke out in a silent nodding before she pushed herself off the Jeep and hobbled along on her bare feet and ruined Nylon stockings.

"No, wait, Peggy… I got an idea. Is there a medic present?  We need a stretcher over here!" Clanton said in a strong voice. It prompted a soldier whose helmet sported a Red Cross patch to run over to them carrying a medical kit over his shoulder. Clanton glanced down at Peggy's bare feet and then back up at the medical kit. "Unless you have an inflatable life raft in that bag, son, it won't be of much use for us right now. No, we need to carry her. Grab her right arm. I got the left."

The medic seemed puzzled but complied with the order. Unfortunately, they had only taken a few steps carrying Peggy between them when the Guard Captain barked a message that sent a chill down everyone's spine:

"Incoming!  They're back for more!  Men, take aim and fire at will!"

"Dammit!  Those fools just don't know when to quit!" Clanton said as he tried to glance at the sky over his shoulder. They were still forty paces from the top-secret compound's main entrance, and not closing particularly fast.

As the first men of the Guard Company recommenced firing at the approaching interstellar craft, Peggy Alexander took matters into her own hands by wiggling free of her helpers and setting off toward the fence at a far higher tempo than what they had been going at up until that point.

Chuckling at the absurdity of it all, Clanton straightened his uniform and set off after the fleeing woman - the medic just looked even more puzzled but eventually shrugged and returned to other duties.

-*-*-*-

October 28th, 1948 - 04:58 Hours.

The interior of Area 63's infirmary belied the facility's uniqueness by looking identical to any other military infirmary in any service branch anywhere in the world: everything was monochrome and featureless. White tiles on the walls and the floors, white ceilings, white lamps hanging down from those ceilings, white medicine cabinets, white tools atop white trolleys, and finally white lab coats worn by nurses and somber-looking doctors.

One of those somber-looking medical professionals was the middle-aged fellow who examined Peggy Alexander: Captain Harlan Williams, MD - a hold-over from the old US Army Air Corps Medical Service - whose perpetual glum expression allowed little room for humor of any kind. Though he was only in his mid-fifties, his hair had turned prematurely gray almost as if it shared his somber outlook upon life.

Doctor Williams kept alternating between looking over the rim and through the lenses of his reading glasses as he held a pen light up against Peggy's ear to look inside. A few non-committal grunts escaped him as he jotted down the information he deduced from what he saw there. Swapping the pen light for a spatula, he moved around to Peggy's mouth and said: "Say ah."

"Gahhh!" Peggy echoed as the doctor used the spatula to press down on her tongue so he could look at the state of her mouth and uvula.

"Thank you," Doctor Williams said as he removed the spatula. "You have very nice teeth. I suspect you brush them twice a day?"

"I do, Doctor," Peggy said as she wiped a drop of saliva off her lower lip.

Taking in the odd scene, Clanton scratched his neck for a short while before he ran out of patience. "I agree that dental hygiene is very important, Doctor, but what in Sam Hill does it have to do with the horrors Peggy went through?  It's high time for some answers!  Is she all right?"

"Temper, temper, Lieutenant. All in due course," Doctor Williams said while he sent the younger man a scathing look above the rim of his reading glasses. Moving with meticulous precision, he found a mercury thermometer that he handed to Peggy. "Now, Miss Alexander, please put this under your tongue for five minutes. If you feel any discomfort, let me know at once. All right?"

"Yes, Doctor. Thank you," Peggy said with a weak smile. Opening up, she put the thermometer under her tongue and settled for sitting there in silence.

Clanton scrunched up his face in a fit of annoyance with the whole procedure. "Look, Doctor Williams, the world may come under attack!  We might be facing a Talrinian invasion force out there, and yet you're fiddling with spatulas and thermometers and whatnot!"

"Lieutenant-"

"Dammit, no more chit-chat!  Just tell me if she or I have suffered any lasting effects from being fired upon by that damned beam weapon!"

The middle-aged doctor mirrored Clanton's sour expression. His jaw moved without producing any words for a few seconds before he said: "You're fresh as a daisy, Lieutenant. You can return to your post whenever you wish-"

"Thank you!  You could have told me that five minutes ago," Clanton said and grabbed his dusty uniform jacket off the backrest of a chair.

"However," the doctor continued as he moved back to the other patient, "it is a very different story with Miss Alexander here. She was inside the craft. We need to monitor her closely for several hours. We also need to have a debriefing expert speak with her."

"A shrink," Clanton said flatly. "Well, I have news for you, Doctor. It must have been one hell of a frightening experience, yes, but it didn't make her go soft in the melon if that's what you're worried about. She's a fine lady and in fact quite a tough cookie."

"But she's a woman, Lieutenant," the doctor said and moved over to study Peggy. "You know how sensitive women are. She may suffer from repressed memories that could come back to haunt her at any moment."

Though the thermometer was still firmly in place under Peggy's tongue, the sublimely annoyed look on her face proved she had a notion of telling Doctor Williams a few truths - the moment was lost when, exactly on cue, one of the inner doors opened to reveal another middle-aged man who couldn't look more like a psychologist if he tried:

Professor Irwin Paulsen wore ergonomic shoes, brown corduroy pants, a dark-tan shirt, a brown necktie and finally a tweed blazer jacket that featured leather patches on the elbows. The fellow's intellectual theme continued through his round glasses, tall brow and the fact he smoked a rosewood pipe. A clipboard filled with densely written pages had been stuffed under his arm, but he soon flipped it open and found a fountain pen to get started on the business he had been summoned for.

Clanton couldn't wait for that, so he went over to Peggy Alexander and gave her hands a good squeeze. "Peggy, don't let these fellas give you the runaround. Okay?  You're a swell dame. Just try to give them what they need to know and you'll be out of here."

Peggy nodded; she mostly kept her mouth shut to let the thermometer do its job, but she did crease her lips enough to say: "I will… thank you for all your help."

"Oh, you're very welcome. I'll be back as soon as I've spoken to my superior. I need to know what in Sam Hill's really going on here. All right?"

"All right," Peggy said and nodded again before a brief smile creased her lips around the thermometer.

-*-*-*-

Outside the infirmary, Clanton stomped along the nondescript corridors of Area 63's underground bunker complex to get back to the airspace surveillance room.

The utter confusion that reigned throughout the facility - as seen by people running everywhere rather than merely walking - hadn't deterred the armed security guards protecting the door to the central room. There was no point in trying to communicate with the gruff, humorless individuals, so Clanton settled for handing out his ID-card and other identification papers and only spoke when he was asked the new password.

Stepping into the surveillance room caused him to let out a surprised grunt. Twelve of the sixteen radar screens were blank, and although Air Force technicians and specialists swarmed around the back panels of the various units, their hard work replacing broken radio tubes and rewiring melted cables didn't seem to produce much in the way of results.

The four screens that were operational only showed the regular amount of UNAC traffic in the sectors. Clanton was too far away to see which sectors were displayed, but he didn't want to disturb the technicians or his fellow radar operators so he remained well back.

Colonel James Patrick Moorhouse's voice cut through the din created by the hoopla - it seemed he was speaking into a telephone in his office. The harsh tones and strong words he produced proved that not all was well within Area 63.

Clanton set off for the office while trying to brush the worst sand and dust off his uniform. When he reached the doorjamb and got ready to knock, he had to hold back a chuckle at the sight of the Colonel's own uniform that was as far removed from being in accordance with the Officer's Dress Code as was humanly possible: the jacket had been shed, the necktie had been pulled crooked and the shirt's top-three buttons had all been undone. The dark patches under the Colonel's arms that had appeared earlier in the evening had grown larger and had been joined by matching areas on his chest.

"What I would really like to know, Captain," Moorhouse said into the telephone, "is why the hell we never received any air support?  The No Fly Zone was extended from thirty-five to fifty miles because of the hectic activity all night. The standing order is to scramble interceptors if it's breached. Well, you better believe it was breached!  That Goddamned thing that attacked us wasn't even thirty-five Goddamned yards away!  No, I'm not exaggerating, Captain!"

Looking up, the Colonel nodded a greeting at his guest before he pointed at a chair that had been brought into the office since the last time Clanton had been in there.

The First Lieutenant entered the office and made a beeline for the chair.

"So you're scrambling your interceptors as we speak?" Moorhouse continued into the telephone. "Well, that's nice except that we no longer have any use for air support. No!  Because the bogey has left the sector, that's why!  Captain, those resources are better used elsewhere. We're still flying blind here so you need to inform your base C/O to get in touch with Central Command. They'll provide you with the latest intel. Yes. All right. Goodbye, Captain."

With the receiver slammed on top of the Bakelite telephone, J.P. Moorhouse dropped onto his swivel-chair that responded with a pained creak. Once seated, he rubbed his face repeatedly - that was Clanton's cue to jump to his feet and stand to attention.

"First Lieutenant O'Keefe reporting for duty, Colonel. May I enquire about our status, Sir?"

Colonel Moorhouse glanced up at Clanton with bloodshot eyes. "At ease, Lieutenant. We were caught with our pants down after all. The Talrinians found a weakness in our systems. Whether it was a concentrated effort or a sheer fluke, I can't say. At the exact same moment the Class Six re-appeared right above our damn heads, we suffered a complete blackout of all communication systems. Hell, even this old landline didn't work," Moorhouse said and tapped a finger on the Bakelite receiver.

"Sir, when I looked at the three screens that are back online, it didn't appear as if there were any imminent dangers or even potential threats-"

"That's correct, Lieutenant. From the intel I've been able to gather, the Earth is not under attack as such. It was a localized deal. Maybe the Talrinian commander didn't like you upsetting their carefully-planned research schedule. I can't say. It did show us one thing, though… we need to upgrade on the double. This room might be blastproof in the classic sense, but it's obviously vulnerable to electronic attacks."

"Yes, Sir."

"Yeah," Moorhouse said before he rubbed his face again. He fell silent for a short while before he let out a deep sigh and said: "The entire nature of war changed with the advent of the atomic bomb. Conventional warfare is now a thing of the past. The forces unleashed when those things detonated over Japan weren't merely restricted to shockwaves and firestorms, you know."

"Sir?"

"The detonations created invisible pulses that were just as devastating as the visible. Imagine if the Soviets were able to create an electronic bomb?  Not a fly would be hurt, not a roof tile would be blown onto the street even if they dropped it in the heart of New York City, or Los Angeles or wherever, but our entire communication grid would be wiped out. The civilian as well as the military. We'd be sitting ducks for several days, at least. Plenty of time to launch an airborne assault."

The Colonel suddenly realized he was rambling. Shaking his head, he got to his feet and put his hands on his hips. "Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you any of this. It's highly classified material. You must forget all I've said."

"Yes, Sir."

"Who was the woman brought in with you?"

"A civilian, Sir. Miss Peggy Alexander from California. I found her car stranded at the side of the road en route to my post. When she appeared a few minutes later, she told me she had been taken by the Talrinians and subjected to various tests and examinations. That would be consistent with what we know of a Class Six research vessel, Sir."

Moorhouse furrowed his brow. "Was she, ah… violated?" he said at a far softer volume.

"I don't believe so, Sir. She would have told me. She was greatly upset at first but soon settled down. She did in fact tell me the Talrinians gave her some kind of electro-mechanical translator that enabled her to understand them."

"Oh, that's fascinating!  We should be able to extrapolate something from that. But abductions, dear God… this is something we simply have to keep from the press and the public at large. The mass hysteria would rival anything since the fall of Babylon. It would make the saucer-craze of last summer look like a small ripple in a goldfish pond."

"Yes, Sir."

Before the Colonel could go on, the telephone rang again. "Colonel Moorhouse," he barked into the receiver. He grunted several times as the news filtered through to him. "Good morning, Major. No, we're still mostly blind. Some systems have been brought back online. I see… very well. All right. Thank you. Goodbye, Major."

Moorhouse put down the receiver but didn't make a move to carry on the conversation until nearly thirty seconds had passed. "Well. We don't have to worry about our Class Six bogey coming back for a third bite of the cherry. It just exploded over the Pacific."

"Shot down, Sir?"

"No, they were last spotted at one-hundred-seventy-five-thousand feet and climbing. It was an internal explosion, apparently. I suspect they were trying to return to the fleet command craft without knowing the true level of damage they had suffered. Well, if their carrier group is still up there, of course. We simply don't know at this time."

"At such an altitude, the debris field will be enormous. We'll never be able to find enough pieces to study their technology."

"Very true, Lieutenant," Colonel Moorhouse said and sat down once more. A dark grunt escaped him. "That's the second Class Six research vessel and crew they've lost here in two days… their fleet brass can't be too pleased about that."

"Probably not, Sir. Ours certainly wouldn't be."

"I'll say!  All right, Lieutenant O'Keefe," - the Colonel smacked his palms onto the desk top - "until the technicians are able to coax more screens back into service, there's little for you to do here. You may stand down, but remain at the facility. Grab a shower and get a shave… and do something about your uniform, man!  You look terrible."

Though the Colonel's statement sounded harsh, it was delivered with a rare gleam in the eye - it didn't last long, but it had been there.

"Yes, Sir. Standing down immediately, Sir," Clanton said before he spun around on his heel and strode out of the office.

-*-*-*-

October 28th, 1948 - 05:10 Hours.

The return trip to the infirmary was undertaken at a slower speed, but Clanton couldn't help but march along even if he wasn't going anywhere in particular. A brief knocking on the door yielded little, so he poked his head inside to see if the coast was clear.

Doctor Williams was tending to another patient who had suffered a couple of broken fingers in the hubbub, so the glum look he shot Clanton above the rim of his reading glasses was anything but friendly.

"Doctor, would you happen to know where I might find Miss Alexander?" Clanton said in the friendliest voice he could muster.

"She's still being debriefed, Lieutenant. I'll let you know when she's ready for your company." With that, the doctor turned his full attention to his new patient.

Grunting, Clanton stepped back into the corridor and closed the door behind him. The hallways connecting the departments in the underground part of Area 63 weren't meant to be used as recreational zones, so there were no tables, chairs, benches or any other kind of place where someone could rest if they had a few minutes to kill.

---

Seven minutes went by before Professor Irwin Paulsen led Peggy out of the infirmary and released her into Clanton's custody. "Here you go, Lieutenant," he said as he literally passed Peggy's hand from his own grasp to Clanton's. "She's a little shaken up. Nothing major, and certainly nothing a cup of strong coffee won't cure. Now, if you'll excuse me. I have plenty of work to do."

"Thank you, Professor," Clanton said as he guided a pale Peggy over to the nearest wall so they wouldn't be in the way of the Air Force personnel who used the corridor to hurry from this to that and vice versa.

Peggy's skirt suit and the knitted cardigan had suffered just as much from the sand and dust they had driven through as Clanton's uniform. Working on autopilot, she reached up to brush sand off her shoulders and out of her messy hair. She still hadn't found her missing handkerchief, so all she had at her disposal to dab a little moisture from her eyes were her sleeves. "I remembered more from when… when I was in the saucer," she said in a voice that was subdued but not weak.

The words had almost been drowned out by the general din of the hallway, so Clanton put a hand on Peggy's elbow to guide her over to a quieter place. They found it in an offshoot to one of the service corridors that led even further underground.

Peggy once more dabbed her eyes on her sleeve; Clanton patted all his pockets without finding anything he could offer the lady. "You said you remembered more?"

"Yes. About the lizard. It asked me several questions… the recollection broke through when Professor Paulsen held up some kind of strange pendulum and asked me to fix my gaze on it. The lizard asked about Earth women's place in society and things like that… you know, I almost had the feeling it was a female. Maybe it was just woman's intuition, but… I think it was a female."

Clanton furrowed his brow at the news. "I know too much to dismiss your claims, Peggy. We know about the Grays… they call themselves the Talrinians… but I must admit I have a very hard time wrapping my head around the image of a talking lizard. Was it like an Iguana, or…?"

"No, no!  Like I already told you, it was taller than I am. It stood on its hind legs and it wore clothes… some kind of shiny uniform. It was definitely an intelligent being. I… well… I could see that in its eyes. They sparkled," Peggy said, nodding solemnly. "The little, gray men were just like, oh… fruit flies. Constantly whizzing to and fro with no sense or purpose. How they were able to control that saucer, I'll never know. Or maybe the lizard was the pilot?"

"It's impossible to say, Peggy. We've never encountered such a species before," Clanton said with a slow shaking of the head.

Peggy sighed and briefly looked at the beehive-like activity of the other Air Force personnel. "It makes you wonder, doesn't it?  About how many different creatures we've yet to meet… how do you imagine they'll interact with us if or when they visit Earth?"

"I have no idea, Peggy," Clanton said with a shrug. He snorted briefly. "But I can easily imagine how some Earth people will behave when they discover that mankind isn't the solitary miracle they've been led to believe. Well, that's a discussion for another day. Come, let me buy you a cup of coffee. The base has an excellent cafeteria."

"I could certainly use a cup," Peggy said with a smile.

Clanton returned the smile as they left the undisturbed corridor and went back into the heaving mass of soldiers and clerical staff. "Good. As soon as the base comes out of full lockdown, I promise I'll find someone from the motor pool who can drive you back to your car and change the flat tire. Once again, Peggy, I'm very sorry that I had to let go of your luggage-"

"Oh, Clanton… may I call you Clanton?" Peggy said and hooked an arm inside the Lieutenant's. "Don't worry about that. It was far more important to get out of that horrific situation alive… oh…"

"What?"

Peggy came to a halt and shot a dark, concerned glance at Clanton. "I just thought of something… what if there are more of those saucers out there right now?  And more creatures?"

Clanton had time to lick his lips, rub his chin and let out a "Well, ah…" while he pondered what to tell the lady - there wasn't much at Area 63 that didn't fall under the highest level of Top Secret, so his options were severely limited regardless of the need to pose as a calming presence. "Everyone I've spoken to has said there was only one flying saucer in the area. I'm sure they're long gone and won't be back." A brief smile graced his features, but the white lie he had fed the charming lady made it fade before long.

They locked eyes for a moment before Peggy broke out in a nod. "I hope you're right. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Oh, let's get that coffee. I feel so tired all of a sudden…"

"Well, it's five thirty in the morning…"

Peggy stared wide-eyed at the Lieutenant for a few moments. "Goodness me!  That would certainly explain it… say, would you happen to know if the cafeteria serves a proper breakfast?"

"I believe they do, but let's find out for certain." Smiling, Clanton patted Peggy's hand before they moved down a long, nondescript hallway. At the far end, they turned right and went out of sight.

-*-*-*-

Five and a half miles from the underground bunker complex at Area 63, Xeloshian anthropologist Professor Telonni Palnahann sat tenderly on the front seat of the abandoned Studebaker while she studied the small piece of paper she had found in a purse. Her large, faintly purple eyes took in the details written on the card that was apparently some kind of official document.

She looked up when the commander of the Talrinian craft came over to her holding an electronic device in its spindly hands. 'Any news, Captain?'

'Yes. The decoy worked,' the Talrinian said in a heavily-accented Xeloshian, 'The Earthlings followed it blindly like we expected them to. The controlled self-destruct seems to have fooled them all. I have been in contact with the Admiralty who approved our plans. A shuttle craft from the Eleventh Fleet will be by tomorrow to pick up my crew. We will leave you with enough supplies for ninety Earth days, then-'

'Oh, don't worry about me, Captain. This place is very much like home. I'll have plenty to feast on here.'

'Good. You will be contacted after ninety Earth days just in case. You have free hands to conduct further experiments in that time, Professor.'

'I greatly appreciate it, Captain. This is a rich planet with many different races. We can learn a lot here. We just have to find a few suitable subjects,' Professor Palnahann said as she tapped a claw on the driver's license that read Peggy Alexander, 138 Crescent Drive, Madison Lake, California…

*
*
THE END of THE TALRINIAN ENCOUNTER

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

*
*
COFFEY & CREAM

The streets and avenues of Doncaster City were filled to - and in some cases beyond - capacity as the evening rush hour marked the end of another dreary working day. September 21st had been unusually hot for early fall, and the exhaust fumes that spewed out of the thousands of car-shaped tin cans that clogged the state capital's streets only added to everyone's misery. Inevitably, disharmonic honking concerts popped up here, there and everywhere adding noise pollution to the already lengthy list of grievances.

Chris Coffey didn't care about any of that. The tall, slender mid-twenty-something - whose birth certificate had her listed as 'Christine' - strolled along the Thirteenth Street sidewalk to get to her job. She wore shiny shoes and a black two-piece business suit over a white shirt; a black necktie with a knot as slender as her own frame completed the ensemble.

A redhead at birth, she had tried many different hair colors over the years. At present, she had chosen to dye it purple as a waving middle-finger-reply to the You Can't Do That!-faction of her family who insisted on being on her back regarding most aspects of her lifestyle.

That she identified as a She-Male, behaved masculine and always wore men's clothing had been the cause of plenty of gnashing of teeth, but even those dramas had been overshadowed by her morbid line of work: she was a chauffeur working the night-shift at Th. Harvey Transport & Rentals, a private subcontractor that provided vehicular assistance for the City Coroner whenever simple fatalities or victims of violent crime had to be transported to the city morgue or the forensic pathologists located at the Doncaster City University Hospital Center.

Constantly being surrounded by dead people didn't bother her at all - in fact, she vastly preferred their silence to the ceaseless yakking of the living. Dead was dead. What was left was an empty shell that needed to go from A to B.

She continued strolling along the sidewalk until she reached the gates at Theodore Harvey's. Turning right, she went through a squeaky metal door and crossed over the paved courtyard to get to the main building.

The courtyard was home to seven vehicles: three nondescript, dark-gray GMC panel vans, two of the company's three black Cadillac hearses, the Toyota Camry belonging to the boss and finally the radio dispatcher's near-ancient Volvo 240.

A couple of junior employees zipped around the Cadillacs while a boom box played noisy hip-hop at maximum volume. The teens polished the black metal and shiny chrome to make sure the vehicles would give a good impression of the company during their regular runs at respectable places like funeral homes, hospices and the like. Nobody cared about spit-shining the GMC vans as they were only used for picking up and dropping off the regular dead.

The next door Chris went through squeaked in sympathy with the metal gate out front. A heady smell of fresh coffee and sweet pastries trickled into her nostrils even before she had made it ten feet past the door. The crew cafeteria and rest area were straight ahead through an off-white hallway, but she didn't have time to visit the lounge before her boss poked his head out of his office.

"Coffey!  Get in here!" Theodore Harvey said in his customary gruff bark - it was the only tone of voice he had at his disposal.

"Sure thing, Mister H.," Chris said as she made an about-face to walk back to the office she had just gone past. A recurring joke among the drivers was to impersonate their boss' voice uttering various stock phrases like: 'What time is it?!' 'Where did that sock go?!' or even 'Was that good for you, darling?!'

"Close the door!  We need to have a serious conversation!" Theodore said as he sat down behind his desk. In his late sixties, the fellow with the gruff voice had an exterior that suited the vocal cords: built like a Bulldog with regards to body type and a prominent underhung jaw, he always looked as if he was ready to jump out and gnaw on the person he happened to be speaking to at the time. He had slimmed down recently but was still on the hefty side of 250 lbs., and his thinning hair, bushy eyebrows, angry eyes, bulbous nose and large teeth just added to his dog-like appearance.

The office was surprisingly clean and tidy, but Theodore did have a growing collection of filthy coffee mugs and empty plates stashed away over at the window overlooking the courtyard. The desk itself was home to a laptop computer hooked up to a regular keyboard - his wide fingers couldn't hit the laptop's tiny keys - as well as several stacks of papers in various colors.

The gruff fellow toyed with a ball point pen until it literally went south and ended up on the office floor. Several mumbled curses escaped him as he leaned down to pick it up. Once he was upright once more, he slammed the pen into a decorative beer tankard now used for pens, pencils, rulers and other types of office supplies.

Chris put her hands on her hips. She had worked there for just shy of two years, and the Big Boss had never been any different - he would speak when he was ready, not a second sooner.

"We're deep in the red, Coffey," Theodore said after another short delay. "Unless more people start croaking in this Goddamned town, we're screwed. The bills are piling up but the bodies aren't. I had to give one of our chauffeurs the boot earlier today. Your riding partner Simon Crenshaw."

A long groan escaped Chris. "Is it really that bad, Mister H.?"

"In short, yes," Theodore said and reached for another ball point pen to toy with. "We managed to renegotiate the contract with City Hall last week so we'll get a greater percentage for each trip we make, but it doesn't amount to more than a Goddamned wet fart when people aren't dying!"

"All right, but why Simon?  Fat Tommy is a hole in the ground compared to him!  I mean… Simon always works hard and is willing to do overtime in spite of being married. He's got a two-year-old and his wife has one in the oven."

"Crenshaw shoulda used a Goddamned condom like the rest of us!" Theodore barked as he smacked the ball point pen onto the desktop. "Hell, they're only one dollar a pop!"

"I wouldn't know, Mister H.," Chris said and put her hands on her hips all over again. "So who am I riding with tonight?"

"Your second-favorite among the assistants. Tommy Murdock."

"Oh, for frick's sake, Mister H.!  Not Fat Tommy… that man's the most offensive S.O.B. on the planet!  Being forced to listen to his brand of non-humor for an entire shift amounts to torture. I'm pretty sure the United Nations will object-"

"Well, I'm the President!  And the United Nations can go screw themselves!" Theodore Harvey bolted from the chair and put his clenched fists on the desktop to look even more like a Bulldog. "If you're so wound up about Murdock, maybe you oughtta look for the exit, Coffey?"

"Maybe I should, but I can't. I need the money."

"We all need the Goddamned money. Now get the hell outta here and hook up with Fat Tommy. You're in Oh-One today." Theodore gesticulated at the office door to signal that the audience was over.

Chris let out a sigh as she left the office and went into the lounge to find her oh-so-charming colleague.

-*-*-*-

Half an hour later, Chris had one of the dark-gray GMC panel vans trickling along Twenty-first Street en route to nowhere in particular. The dispatcher kept the drivers up-to-date with regards to traffic density and potential hot spots, but the volume had been turned down on the receiver unit to reduce the chatter that was largely irrelevant.

She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in frustration. The thirty minutes she had shared the vehicle with 'Fat' Tommy Murdock had been enough to make her wish she had told Theodore Harvey to take the job and shove it after all. Sighing, she looked over at her designated helper who was busy picking his nose. When he didn't do that, he rubbed his crotch, belched, farted or stuck most of his pinkie into his auditory canal to give everything in there a good shaking.

Tommy Murdock wore a black suit identical to Chris', but that was one of the few similarities. He was shorter, older, hairier and altogether cruder in appearance and personality. The fact that 'Fat' Tommy was as skinny and sinewy as a metal coat hanger was typical of the kind of humor often found among the people who dealt with death on a daily basis - it was their pressure relief valve.

Chris' own nickname was 'Coffin,' but she would only allow her friend Simon to call her that - Fat Tommy knew about her discomfort and naturally used it against her: "Hey, Coffin," he said as the GMC van slowed to a halt at an intersection, "do you know what's really weird about the Moslem babies?"

"No, and I don't give a sh-"

"They wrap their diapers around their head."

Chris let out a deep sigh. Her fingers tapped even harder on the steering wheel. "That's insightful, Tommy. Why don't you say something awful about your Momma while you're at it?"

"Sure. My Momma's ass is so big-"

"I didn't mean it literally, you dumb schmuck!"

"-she needs to haul herself around in a wheelbarrow."

Chris and Fat Tommy glared at each other for several seconds. When the traffic lights turned green, she mashed the gas in the hope her riding partner would fall out and get run over by a cement truck - unfortunately, he didn't.

She was only allowed one city block's worth of peace until Tommy took a deep breath. "There I was, sitting in a bar when this awesomely sexy piece of Korean ass walked in with a black guy in tow. The sexy doll was maybe five-foot-one and the black guy at least a foot taller. The bar keep asked if it wasn't difficult to get it on with such a difference in height. Do you know what the tight, little Korean said?"

"Look, Tommy… when the hell are you gonna understand I don't want to hear your-"

"She said, it's okay 'cos the twelve inches that matter are down here where I am!"  A couple of seconds went by before the oh-so-funny joke made Fat Tommy break out in a sleazy chuckle that lasted for the next minute or so.

Chris' blood pressure was already on its way up toward the upper end of the scale, but it was saved from reaching the proverbial red zone when the dispatcher hailed them: 'Central to Unit Oh-One. Central to Unit Oh-One. Do you read me, over?'

Happy for the respite, she grabbed the radio mic at once. "Unit Oh-One to Central. We copy. Do you have a job for us?  Please say yes. Over."

'We do. City Police requests a transport vehicle at an alley off Thirty-first Street. A deceased on the third floor-'

Predictably, Tommy interrupted the conversation with a resounding: "Third floor?!  Awwwwww-crap!"

Chris shot an Evil Eye at her helper before she depressed the small button on the radio mic. "Dispatch, please repeat the last part of your message. We had someone in here who wouldn't shut the hell up. Over."

The middle finger that Tommy waved at Chris didn't need any kind of translation - neither did the glare that was sent in the other direction.

'Unit Oh-One, repeating. A deceased on the third floor. You need to liaise with uniformed Sergeant on-site. No evidence of foul play at the time of contact, so your destination will most likely be the city morgue. Over.'

"Message received and understood, Central. Continuing toward alley off Thirty-first Street. ETA seven to ten minutes. Over."

'Noted, Unit Oh-One. Central out.'

As Chris put the mic back on its small hook, she glared at Fat Tommy once more, but the annoying fellow was too busy digging into his auditory canal to notice.

-*-*-*-

Forty minutes and a bucketful of sweat later, Chris closed the double-doors at the rear of the GMC van after depositing the dead body on shelf A3/A. The trip up to the third floor hadn't been too bad, but the descent had been an exercise in frustration. The stairwell reeked of waste, onion soup and sweat, and it had soon become painfully obvious that Fat Tommy Murdock had little interest in holding up his end of the deal - literally.

Leaning against the GMC, Chris wiped her brow on a handkerchief. Tommy had taken off to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what, and she was sorely tempted to get in and drive off without him.

Even at a quarter to nine in the evening, the ambient temperature was high enough to create an inhospitable environment in the narrow alley where the van was parked. The smell was bad, the rats were plentiful and the peanut gallery leaned out of their upper-floor windows to hurl abuse and the occasional beer can at the hard-working people below.

The cargo hold of the GMC was equipped with eight shelves - four on each side of a central aisle so the employees could do their job without stepping on someone's remains. In case of large-scale emergencies, each shelf could be extended to double its original width through a special, double-layered base plate that could be unfolded.

The three upper shelves on either side could carry up to 250 lbs. while the two at the bottom were certified for 450 lbs. Deceased of the grossly overweight kind would always be put on the lower shelves to prevent the van from getting top-heavy and thus creating a traffic hazard in narrow turns.

Although the van was air-conditioned, it only worked in the rear to keep unfortunate smells from developing too soon. All in all, transporting the dead from A to B was tough, sweat-inducing work.

Chris pushed herself off the van to seek out the uniformed police Sergeant they were meant to liaise with. When she found him in the company of Fat Tommy - while engaged in a loud belly laugh at one of Tommy's unfunny and offensive jokes - she let out a deep sigh and rolled her eyes. Some days she just had to clench her butt cheeks and press on regardless.

-*-*-*-

It took Chris and Tommy a full hour to drop off the deceased at Doncaster City's West-Side morgue. Though traffic was far lighter at that time of day, it seemed the amount of paperwork that needed to be filled out multiplied by a factor of two each time they drove down the ramp and into the morgue's underground garage.

The digital clock on the GMC's dashboard had just flicked over to 9:56pm when Tommy broke out in a chuckle. "So," he said after shuffling around in the seat, "it was Danny's eighteenth birthday, right?  Everyone thought he was still a virgin, so his friends bought a hooker for him so he could finally be a man. Well, they got a hotel room and got nekkid and everything. When they got going, Danny kept grinning like a maniac. Do you know what he said?"

Chris kept staring straight ahead through the windshield in the hope it would persuade Fat Tommy to keep quiet, but the silent treatment had no impact on her riding partner.

"Danny said," Tommy continued, "wow, this is so good!  Your clam is a lot tighter than grandma's!"

Chris smacked her hand onto the steering wheel. "Tommy, for Chrissakes… don't you ever stop to think about the offensive puke that spews out of your mouth?"

Tommy piped down for a change, but it only lasted for a few seconds. "What the hell's offensive about that joke, Coffin?  You wanna hear an offensive joke? Okay, I got one for ya-"

Chris' ears were spared the torture when the radio crackled to life with a message from the dispatcher: 'Central to Unit Oh-One. Central to Unit Oh-One. Do you read me, over?'

"Thank frickin' Gawd," Chris mumbled as she reached for the radio mic. "Unit Oh-One to Central. We copy. Over."

'Proceed to Forty-eighth Street near Rozalyn Park-'

"Oh, yippee," Tommy said with a sour expression etched onto his face, "that's ass-deep in the ghetto. Gangland. And the Street Vipers and the Black Marauders are on the war path. Perfect."

The dispatcher continued: 'City Police requests a transport to the patho at the Uni-center. Be advised, there's a large police presence and hostile locals, over.'

"Message received and understood, Central," Chris said into the microphone. "Moving toward Forty-eighth Street near Rozalyn Park. ETA six to eight minutes. Over."

'Noted, Unit Oh-One. Central out.'

---

It soon became clear that their dispatcher hadn't exaggerated on either the massive police presence or the hostility of the bystanders. The area in front of the fire exit of a pool hall at Forty-eighth Street near Rozalyn Park was lit up by flashing emergency lights that cast psychedelic blues and reds onto everything.

Chris swung the GMC around so its tail-end was close to the action without actually getting in the way of the uniformed officers who swarmed around the crime scene.

Other officers pushed onlookers behind demarcation tape so they wouldn't interrupt the investigation. The clothes worn by the angry and vocal crowd proved they were all full members of the Black Marauders gang - it didn't take a professor of behavioral patterns to recognize the signs among the onlookers: a few instigators were already busy whipping the others into a frenzy that would inevitably lead to vengeful excursions deep into enemy territory.

Chris and Tommy soon exited the van to see what all the hubbub was about. The brick wall of the building they stood in front of was covered in gang-related graffiti and tags telling other street crews to stay away or face the consequences. A metal door had been built into the center of the wall. It had no external handles of any kind which meant that guests who wanted to get in needed the assistance of someone inside.

Members of the Doncaster City Police's Crime Scene Forensics unit knelt next to a twisted lump that had been a young man not so long ago. The forensic experts - who were clad in pale-blue protective suits that made them look like extra-terrestrials in a cheap 1950s science-fiction flick - poked a little here and prodded a little there to gather evidence and figure out the sequence of events.

Tommy popped a stick of chewing gum into his mouth as he and Chris waited by the van. "I'm amazed. I didn't think those morons had any brains left after smoking all that crack shit, but this one sure did. Look, there's brains over there… and some over there-"

"Tommy…"

"-and even some on the door. Isn't that amazing?"

Chris sighed and rubbed her brow. She needed to chew on her cheeks in order to stay quiet.

Fat Tommy had no intention of doing so: "Do you think it's got something to do with the dollar-sized hole in his forehead?  I think it might… okay, I guess it's possible he choked on a piece of fried chicken, but… nah. I don't see no drumsticks around here."

The telephone that rang deep down in Chris' pocket proved to be the lifeline her soul needed to cling onto sanity in the face of Fat Tommy's onslaught. A grin spread over her face as the caller-ID read Cream. "Hiya, buddy!  Talk about perfect timing!" she said as she turned her back to Fat Tommy and shuffled up to the front of the GMC to gain some privacy amid the high-strung drama that surrounded her.

'How so?' Simon 'Cream' Crenshaw said at the other end of the connection in his customary dulcet tones.

"Oh, I'm riding with Fat Tommy tonight. That S.O.B. gives me the sour burps. So… how are you, man?  I can't tell you how shocked I was when Mister H. told me he had axed you from the roster."

'Thanks. It was a shock for me, too. I've been doing this and that today. Listen, Chris, can we meet?  Maybe at eleven-thirty or so at Jennie's over on Nineteenth Street?  There's something I need to tell you.'

"Shit, I don't know if we can make that," Chris said and checked the time on her telephone. "We're caught up in a gang shooting at a pool hall on Forty-eighth Street. The DOA hasn't even been released yet and they want us to drop him off at the pathologists over at the university center. You know how slow those people are at this time of night. They only have a skeleton crew… which is all kinds of darkly ironic, come to think of it."

'Okay. Well, I'll be at Jennie's from… say, twenty to twelve onward. You can just swing by whenever you're ready. We really need to talk, so I hope you can make it.'

"Oh, we'll be there. No worries, buddy," Chris said with a grin. "Hey, Coffey and Cream can't be apart for too long, right?  The donuts are on me when we hook up."

'Thanks, Chris… it means a lot 'cos it's kinda important.'

"Yeah, okay."  The sound of the GMC's rear door opening made her peek down the side of the van. The Crime Scene Forensics had finished up and Fat Tommy Murdock was already on his way over to the dead gang member holding the type of body bag they used for such an assignment. "Oh, I gotta go. See you soon, buddy. Bye," she said and held the telephone ready to close the connection.

As soon as Simon Crenshaw had said 'Bye' at the other end, Chris pressed the bar that terminated the call - the telephone was soon back into her pocket so she could go to work.

-*-*-*-

Ten to midnight, Chris opened the glass door to Jennie's Coffee Shop and made room for Fat Tommy to walk in ahead of her. The reason for the unexpected turn of chivalry was simple: she knew that his eyes would be welded onto her gently wiggling rear end if he went second.

Jennie's on Nineteenth Street was a typical blue-collar establishment. Though the walls, the ceiling and the lamps hanging down from it had turned amber from being exposed to decades' worth of nicotine, the timeless furniture was made by craftsmen and thus of high quality. The coffee was excellent, the pastries were fresh and sweet, the tunes in the jukebox were everyone's favorites, and the regular crowd was never less than likeable.

It only took Chris a few seconds to spot her good friend Simon 'Cream' Crenshaw sitting at one of the tables up against the far wall - he wore a multi-colored tracksuit rather than his regular black work clothes. He held up a metal coffee pot to show that the liquid nourishment had been already taken care of. She waved at him before she turned to Fat Tommy. "Beat it, pal. This is a private conversation."

"Oh yeah?  I rode with Cream before you did, Coffin," Tommy said and puffed out his chest. "You know what?  I think I'll have a chat with my old partner. Yeah."

Chris sucked on her teeth for a moment before she shrugged and moved over to Simon's table. She and Tommy had barely made it there before the owner - known colloquially as The Scarecrow due to her rough, uncombed hair that nearly always stood out in all directions - came over to the table carrying a notepad, a pencil and a big grin.

The forty-something Jennie Easting greeted them with a cheery "Hiya, Coffey!" and a far less cheery "Tommy." She wore a dark-brown apron over a short-sleeved flannel shirt and a pair of home-made denim shorts that seemed a little too chilly for the season. The pinkish, semi-healed stretch of burned skin on her right forearm was the lasting reminder of an accident involving near-boiling water and a coffee pot that turned out to be cracked. "What can I getcha today?"

"A box of your great donuts," Chris said as she pulled out the chair opposite Simon Crenshaw. "Six of 'em. Just pick your own favorite colors. Okay?"

The Scarecrow made a note of the order on the top page of her notepad. "Sure thing. How about you, Fat Tommy?"

"Oh, I'm with these guys-"

Simon Crenshaw leaned forward and pointed an index finger at one of the other tables. "No, you're not. Take a hike. This is between Chris and me."

Fat Tommy narrowed his eyes as he took in the unexpected brush-off. Simon was relentless in his dismissal, Chris smirked and The Scarecrow just scratched her ear with the eraser-end of the pencil. Without a word, Tommy removed himself from the others and chose a table over by the windows.

Grinning, Jennie gave Chris' shoulder a squeeze before she shuffled over to the other table to take Fat Tommy's order.

"Thanks, buddy. My ears owe you big time," Chris said as she put her telephone on the table so she could keep track of time. When Simon didn't reply with one of his typical quips, she observed him closer - only then did she notice that his looks and demeanor were night-and-day different compared to the norm.

Not only was he a great deal paler than usual, several beads of nervous sweat had formed at his hairline. His eyes never seemed to stand still; whenever the front door opened, he looked over to it as if he expected to see something or someone bad enter the coffee shop. "Are you ill or something?  You look real shitty…"

Simon licked his lips. "No, but I…" He rubbed his chin. His nervous eyes made another quick tour of Jennie's coffee shop before they zoomed in on Chris'. After another moment, he leaned forward so he could speak for his friend's ears only: "I did something insane tonight. Pretty fuckin' insane."

"It's gotta be something major or else you wouldn't act like this, buddy," Chris replied at a similar volume. "Don't tell me you beat your wife or…?"

They were interrupted by Jennie Easting returning with a mug for Chris and the ordered cardboard box of donuts. "Here ya go… six of my best roundies. Two of each. You'll have to fight among yourselves on who gets which. That'll be eight-ninety-five."

Chris unfolded a ten-dollar bill that she gave to the owner of the coffee shop. "Here's a ten-spot for starters. I'll be by a little later with a proper tip."

"Thanks, Chris!" Jennie said before she moved over to serve another pair of late-night customers.

"No, I didn't beat my wife," Simon continued once they had been left alone. "Nothing like that. No. When the Bossman fired me, I went home and… and… thought about what to do. I had a couple of beers… watched a little teevee. Nuked myself a hot lunch. Then my wife got home and we talked a little. Kid was still at school, so… then later, after dark, I went out and bought a line."

Chris cocked her head. "Of nose candy?"

"Yeah. Twenty dollars' worth," Simon said and used his index finger to doodle a pattern on the tabletop.

"I thought you'd quit that."

"I had, but… it seemed like a good time to… well… I brought my nine millimeter 'cos… you know… those Marauders are unpredictable at the best of times. And right now, they're even worse 'cos they have a major beef going with the Vipers."

"Simon, I don't underst-" Chris tried, but her friend cut her off by putting a calming hand on top of hers.

"No, let me speak… it turned out I was right. That asshole tried to rip me off. He told me that because of the inflation, a twenty-dollar bag was now thirty-five bucks. But I didn't have the additional fifteen bucks so we got into an argument. Next thing I knew, he was on the ground with a hole in his head and I held a smoking gun."

Chris' eyes flew wide open; then she narrowed them down into slits and leaned across the table so the rest of the customers couldn't eavesdrop. "For Chrissakes, Simon!  That was the one we just… you gotta turn yourself in, man!" she said in a hoarse whisper.

"I can't do that!  I'll get the chair… and then what'll happen to my wife and kids?"

Chris shook her head several times. "I mean… dammit, buddy… you shoulda thought about that a little sooner!  Like before going out for a line of blow!"

"I panicked and ran away… but then I started thinking… nobody saw me. Nobody came out of the pool hall after the shot was fired. And those gang members would never, ever talk to the cops, even if they did see me. And I kinda wore a disguise because I didn't want to risk being recognized by anyone I knew."

"Look, Simon, this is frickin' nuts, man-"

"The further I ran, the more it got me thinking… this might help me get back to work-"

"No!  No, it won't-"

"Yes, because if the gangs go to war, they'll kill each other wholesale. And that means the Bossman will need all hands on deck."

Chris fell against the backrest and stared at the person she had considered a good friend. The coffee and the box of colorful donuts mocked her in all their normalcy, and she shoved the pastries away with an angry gesture. "Who the hell are you?  And what the hell did you do to my buddy?  We've worked God-knows how many shifts together… we've been sitting next to each other for the past eighteen months and now you frickin' tell me you blew a hole in someone's head-"

"A drug dealer, Chris."

"That's completely frickin' irrelevant!  It was a human being- look… Simon, you need to turn yourself in. Either the cops 'll get you, or the gang will."

"No-"

"Yes, dammit!  You didn't see how they were when we got there… the fuse had already been lit. It was a powder keg waiting to go off!"

Before Simon could reply, Fat Tommy let out an almost cheerful "Whoa!  Check that out!" while pointing at the television set that Jennie Easting had installed on the wall.

Meant to be a service for the customers so they could keep track of traffic reports and the weather forecasts, the scrolling graphics on the news channel it had been tuned to screamed 'BREAKING NEWS - Full-scale gang war breaks out in Doncaster City - 4 shooting incidents within 15 minutes in 4 different locations - Police spokesperson implores residents on and near 48th, 50th, 52nd, 59th and 63rd Street to stay away from windows and not open their doors - Stay tuned for full coverage - Police press conference scheduled for-'

Chris smacked her hand onto the tabletop and shot Simon such a dark glare that the air almost crackled. "Satisfied?  There'll be fatalities for sure. How many of those people had wives and kids waiting for 'em back home?"

"That doesn't concern me now-"

"It damn well should!"

"But it doesn't."

Chris sent another dark glare at her former riding partner. "Are you high?  You're under the influence of something, right?  I can see it in your eyes."

"Yeah. Pills. I don't know what they were, but I figured that if a drug dealer carried them, they'd have some kind of kick. I popped a handful of them once I had made it to the next street. I also took seven hundred dollars from that asshole's pockets."

"Aw, Jeez… armed robbery, Simon… I mean-"

Simon looked left and right before he reached under the table. A little fumbling preceded the showing of a decent wad of fifty-dollar bills. As he flashed the cash, the hilt of the 9mm Glock he had used to kill the drug dealer came into view - he had stuck it into his waistband.

"There's a hundred bucks in it for you if you promise to keep your mouth shut," he said in a voice so quiet it barely penetrated the coffee shop's regular din.

Chris stared at the weapon, the dollar bills and finally at the man she had worked with for so long without ever seeing his true face. "Save your breath. I don't want no part of that game. Hell, it's not even yours."

"You bet your ass it's mine," Simon said and stuffed the bills into a pocket.

The telephones of Fat Tommy and Chris started ringing at almost the exact same time - Tommy's was a cheaper model so the call took a few seconds longer to reach it.

Chris answered her call at once after seeing the caller-ID listing Mister H. "This is Chris- no, we're at Jennie's- yeah, it says in our contracts that we're entitled to a break- okay. Okay. I'm not sure that's- yeah. Okay. Yeah, Fat Tommy and I'll be back on the road- yeah. Bye, Mister H."

Grunting, Chris shoved the telephone into her pants pocket and pushed the chair back. She cast a disapproving glare at her old friend before she left the table without a word. As expected, Simon's own telephone rang a short while later.

For once, she didn't care if Tommy's creepy eyes feasted on her rear end or not - she simply barged out of the coffee shop and strode over to the GMC. She had time to start the van and honk the horn twice before Tommy and Simon left the establishment. True to character, the former had abducted the untouched box of donuts so they wouldn't go to waste.

Chris growled as she reached down to reduce the radio's volume; the dispatcher chattered like a manic chipmunk on acid as she tried to keep the vans and even the chauffeurs of the Cadillac hearses abreast of where the City Police needed their assistance the most.

Her growl deepened when she realized she needed to sit close to Fat Tommy. A moment later, her nemesis shuffled into the center of the GMC's bench seat - Simon sat on the right and soon pulled the door shut.

"Well, hiya, Coffin," Fat Tommy said with a grin. "This reminds me of a good 'un I heard a while back. Two Mexi girls were out cruising for some hot action. When they found a stud they both liked, they rubbed his meat until he squirted sauce on their tacos-"

"Shut up, Tommy!" Chris barked and smacked her hand onto the steering wheel. "Just… shut up. Okay?"

As she drove out into traffic to get back to base like their boss had ordered them to, the grins on the faces of her passengers proved they were more than happy with the recent developments.

"The boss invited me back!  Told you it'd work!" Simon said in triumph.

Chris abstained from commenting on that, but one was forthcoming at once when Fat Tommy 'happened' to run his palm up and down her thigh: "Do that again, you frickin' jerk, and I'll throw you outta the window!"

"Sure," Tommy said with a grin. "Hey, Coffin… do you even have a clam down there or did you get everything sewn shut?  No, I'll bet you have a sign in your shorts that says Staff Only Beyond This Point, right?" - As he spoke, he wiggled a couple of fingers in a lewd, suggestive fashion.

Chris chewed on her tongue, lips and cheeks while she counted to ten inwardly. Then she extended the ten-count to a round twenty-five. She was saved from a messy spontaneous combustion when Simon leaned over to bump shoulders with the man in the middle.

"I think that's enough for now, Tommy," Simon said in a calm voice that - surprisingly - made Fat Tommy keep quiet for the rest of the way back to base.

---

After dropping off the grotesquely obnoxious Tommy Murdock so he could head out in the last of Theodore Harvey's GMC vans, Chris sped toward their next destination: a soul food restaurant on Sixty-first Street that had been the target of a drive-by shooting.

The climatic conditions in the van had been reduced to one notch above frosty when Tommy's departure left Chris and Simon sharing the ride on their own. They drove through Doncaster City in complete silence until Simon said: "By the way, I gave The Scarecrow another ten-spot tip on your behalf."

"I'm not talking to you," Chris said and kept staring straight ahead through the GMC's upright windshield. "Not only did you kill some random guy-"

"A drug dealer, Chris… you keep forgetting that."

"I don't care what the hell he was!  You pulled the trigger on someone!  His skull was in three pieces when I zipped the bag… that's all I ever need to know. And now you don't want to act like a man and fess up to the crime. I mean, what the hell?  How did it come to this?"

"I have three mouths to feed. Well, three and a half 'cos some of my wife's cravings are really weird. Just the other day, she-"

"I don't care, Simon. We're not talking. End of discussion," Chris said and whacked her hand onto the steering wheel.

---

Five minutes later, Chris bolted from the GMC the second she had brought it to a halt in front of the soul food restaurant on Sixty-first Street. Just like at the evening's first crime scene, the uniformed City Police kept the spectators back while the forensic team went through the grisly results of the drive-by shooting with a fine-tooth comb - their main task was to find out which shell casing belonged to which gun so they could build solid cases against the shooters whenever the guilty parties were caught.

She slammed her hands onto her hips as she took in the gruesome sight: three people had been gunned down in front of the restaurant. While two of the three victims had been members of the Street Vipers gang - their clothes and firearms were obvious clues to that - the last one was an innocent bystander.

The sight of someone's grandfather riddled with bleeding holes made her stomach clench and churn incessantly. The elderly man's chest had been ripped open by the slew of bullets that had hit him, and even in death, his face remained frozen in shock.

Simon came up to stand next to her. His own expression was neutral as he took in the grisly scene. Without a word, he unfolded three body bags so they were ready for whenever the forensics team had extrapolated what they could.

Chris needed to dab her damp brow with her handkerchief. Though the ambient temperatures had cooled off from their afternoon high, the volcanic fire within her burned at full flame. She glared at the victims on the ground and then over at Simon. "There are cops everywhere around here," she said in a hoarse whisper. "Why don't you talk to one of 'em?  Turn yourself in so the press can be told that the first murder-"

"Murder, my ass. He was a drug dealer-"

"That the first murder wasn't connected to the frickin' gang war at all!  Look at that old guy, Simon!" Chris growled as she pointed at the elderly victim. "That was someone's dad… someone's grandpa!  How many more need to die just so you can get a frickin' paycheck?"

Simon let out a sigh. "Okay, that was unfortunate… yeah, I'll give you that. Collateral damage happens in every war. But feel regret or remorse about those animals killing each other?  No way. They're scum. They don't deserve better."

Chris needed to take several deep breaths to get her emotions back in check - she rubbed her face thoroughly before she let out a muted: "You think you know someone… and then they take their mask off and you see they're really the frickin' devil in human form!"

"Oh, get off your high horse, Chris. Don't tell me you've never fantasized about having the power to-"

"So now you're telling me it was premeditated?  That the shooting wasn't an accident at all?  Can't you see how frickin' insane all this is?!"

Their conversation was interrupted by one of the uniformed officers approaching them. Once they had been given the all-clear to bag and tag the three victims, the work took over - but the volcano inside her continued to build up pressure.

-*-*-*-

The digital clock on the GMC's dashboard read 2:49am by the time she drove the van through the gates on Thirteenth Street and into the flood-lit courtyard. Thirsty, hungry and just plain worn down, she reversed into the slot nearest the main building so she didn't have to walk too far.

Once the engine had been silenced, she turned to glare at Simon Crenshaw who remained calm next to her. "We just dropped off victim number eleven, twelve and thirteen. And you sit there like it's been an average day on the job!"

"I'm sitting here counting the bonus we'll get for working overtime. You'll get it too, Chris," Simon said as he pulled the lever that opened the door.

Before Simon could exit the vehicle, Chris' hand flew over to grab hold of his tracksuit - the fabric was pulled into a ball as she clenched her fist. "It's frickin' blood money, pal!"

"And when I've cashed in the check, it'll provide breakfast, lunch and supper for my family."

"You don't have a frickin' clue, do you?  My conscience won't allow me to ignore this… I have to tell Mister H. And he'll inform the cops. Don't you understand that?"

Simon fell quiet; his hand moved toward the hilt of the Glock. When he spoke, he did so in a calm, measured tone: "You won't tell anyone. We're buddies. Buddies protect each other."

"Wake up!  You didn't steal a piece of frickin' candy… you killed someone tonight!  I can't keep quiet about that!  You'll go down, but there's no frickin' way you'll drag me down with you-"

Sudden movement at the other end of the courtyard made them both look out of the windshield. Chris let out a gasp that was matched by a growl escaping Simon. A black-and-white police cruiser trickled toward them at low speed.

"You bitch!" Simon roared and whipped out the pistol. "You ratted out on me!"

"The hell I did!  We've never been apart all evening!" Chris cried in a voice that reached an octave higher than her usual register. She stared in wide-eyed horror at the black pistol that her former riding partner waved in her face. "Put it- put that thing away!  They'll see you!"

"What the hell do you care?!  I swear to God, I'll blow your brains out if they come over here!"

A split second later, the two uniformed officers exited the cruiser and stepped onto the courtyard. They glanced at the lone van parked under the lights but didn't seem to pay too much attention to it. They continued on toward the main building.

When Simon briefly lowered the gun so it couldn't be seen through the windshield, Chris knew her only chance to escape - or simply to live - had arrived. Slamming both hands onto the arm that held the gun, she wrestled with her former friend for several seconds until she realized she played a losing game. Not only was he stronger in general, the fact that she needed to work at a crooked angle to reach around the steering wheel meant he literally had the upper hand.

Grunting and groaning, she used all her strength to force the arm and thus the gun away from her. The wrestling match only lasted for less than ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity - then Simon squeezed the trigger.

The discharge was louder than anything she had ever been exposed to. Her hearing responded by shutting down completely which left room for nothing but freaky howls and whistles. The bullet went straight through the windshield that shattered from the inside-out in a cobweb-like pattern.

As the gunsmoke did its worst to strip the hairs off the inner walls of her nostrils, she noticed that Simon was as stunned by the sudden blast as she was. The moment to escape had come. She yanked the door open and threw herself out of the van.

With no time to prepare for the landing, she ended up on her side down on the courtyard's rough pavement. Though pain blossomed at once, escape was far more important so she scrambled to her feet and ran away as fast as her aching body allowed her to.

The gunshot had alerted the uniformed officers who had drawn their own service pistols. With no other suspect in sight, they kept Chris covered as she hobbled toward them; she responded by throwing her arms in the air and crying: "He's got a gun!  In the van!"

One of the officers approached the van while the other made sure Chris was out of danger in case further shots were fired in the small courtyard. A moment later, the door to the main building flew open to reveal Theodore Harvey standing in the doorway. A roared "What the hell's going on out here?!" had just gone past his lips when another shot rang out from the van.

The second shot was followed by plenty of barking of orders from the two uniformed officers, but nothing further happened. The officer who reached the van first secured the hot zone and waved at his colleague to call off the attack - the words 'self-afflicted gunshot wound' wafted across the courtyard.

"It was Simon…" Chris croaked as she sat down on the doorstep and buried her face in her hands. "He went insane. Completely frickin' insane. He pulled a gun on me… the gun he had used to kill the gang member at the pool hall…"

"He what?!"

Chris nodded, too raw to speak.

"The second the press catches wind of it, we're finished!" Theodore barked. "Screwed!  Finito!  Dead and buried!  Worm food!  We might as well bend over and kiss our asses goodbye!"

"Be my guest, Mister H… I quit. I've had it with this frickin' madness."

For once, Theodore Harvey came to an abrupt halt amid one of his diatribes. He glared at Chris for several long seconds before he said: "Quit?!  You can't quit now!  Not in such a moment of crisis!  You're my longest serving chauffeur!  Our new number one!"

Chris shook her head; the uniformed officers had concluded their brief investigation of the new crime scene and were headed back to the main building. She let out a sigh. "Didn't you just say you were finished?  Forget it. I'm talking to these guys and then I'm out of here. For good."

"But… you can't do that!"

"Watch me," Chris said and got to her feet.

The first of the uniformed officers flipped open a notepad while the other spoke on the radio. Soon, Christine Coffey re-told the entire tragic tale from the moment Simon 'Cream' Crenshaw had called her to set up the meeting at the coffee shop to the wrestling match in the van.

A moment later, Theodore's worst fears came true when a news van came to a screeching halt out on Thirteenth Street. The pained whine that burst out of the gruff fellow would have been considered funny in most situations other than the present.

Chris wasn't entirely in the clear as too many hours had gone by from being told of the murder to getting the authorities involved, but that was for the lawyers to deal with. She didn't end up in one of their zipped body bags like Simon had, and that was all that mattered to her. The rest would sort itself out sooner or later…

*
*
THE END of COFFEY & CREAM

Continued in part 3

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