“Goddard must’ve been beside himself!” Lessing spluttered. He and Liese were both laughing.
“Yes. He was. You are very perceptive, Mister Lessing.” “What?”
“Mr. Wren asked that I insert an image of Mr. Goddard himself into the mural. He was thus literally beside himself, participating in some of my creations’ more stimulating activities.”
“And the burnt-out cell!” Liese made futile dabs at her mascara.
“Unfortunately, just as I pictured Mr. Goddard entering into sexual congress with a hermaphroditic goat and a dog-headed octopod, cell unit TC-1715 burned out. This caused a large, black hole to appear just where his figure’s head was. He had become tipsy, and “
Lessing guffawed.
Suddenly he was very close to Liese.
Laughter became desire, a friendly touch an embrace, a smile a kiss that went from affectionate to erotic and then off the scale. He couldn’t slop. His tongue found hers, and his hands travelled all by themselves from breast to thigh and beyond. He sat down heavily on one of the jade-upholstered chairs and pulled her down on top of him. For a split second Emily Pietrick flickered against the backs of his closed eyelids; then he banished her and put Liese in her place.
“Uh, Mister Lessing? Miss Meisinger? Would you like me to disappear? At least I shall lock the door against external intrusion. I am aware of your mating habits, after all.”
Like a camera clicking off frames, Eighty-Five shifted rapidly from “Dom” to the priest, to the young hero. At length it settled for a lifesized phallus in top hat and tails, seated in an armchair. This figure pulled out a purple bandana, fanned itself, and made deprecatory “tsk”ing noises.
Neither of the two humans paid the least attention.
They also failed to hear the buzzer or see the red door-light go on. Eighty-Five, once more as “Dom,” leaned forward and emitted an odd, belling whistle that brought Lessing and Liese bolt upright
“Sorry,” the computer said. “A useful emergency auditory signal. The human ear cannot tolerate more than seven seconds of that. You, Mister Lessing, will recall my previous use of sound as a weapon in my installation in Washington? I must now inform you that Mr. Mulder and four others are currently requesting admittance.”
Liese straightened her scarlet skirt, raked fingers through her blonde tresses, and repaired her decolletage, all in one fluid, feminine motion. She glanced over to see if Lessing was ready, then pressed the “enter” button on the desk. “Dom” vanished.
Mr. Mulder might be dull, but he was perceptive. He halted on the threshold and blinked. Their flushed faces told him the story. He said, “Armeliese Meisinger, Alan Lessing: meet Colonel Frank Kocstler, Captain Perry Moore, and Special Agent Janos Korinek.”
The fifth person in the group was Jennifer Caw; she gave Liese a quizzical look, then folded her arms and leaned back against the door.
Moore and Koestler were regular Army, but Lessing was unfamiliar with their unit and specialty badges: a blizzard of new insignia had appeared during the past decade while he was abroad. Koestler was short, balding, and red-faced, while Moore looked like the prototype for the whole computer-nerd genre: tall, skinny, stooped, and nearsighted, with bad skin and teeth like broken crockery. The only diagnostic missing was the plastic pocket-protector for ballpoint pens. He stood gawking at Liese.
“Perry and I are weapons development,” Koestler explained. “We work out of the proving ground at Aberdeen, Maryland. Mr. Korinek here belongs to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Washington.”
“And lucky to be alive,” the latter said in a dry, thin voice. He was squat and thickset, with albino-white hair and colorless eyes. Lessing guessed him to be in his mid-forties. “I happened to be on leave at home in Kentucky when Starak hit.”
Lessing shook hands, and Liese nodded.
“Shall we get on with it?” Moore’s voice was unexpectedly deep, vibrant, and, it had to be admitted, sexy. Lessing was amused to see that both women immediately paid attention. The man dumped a manila folder down upon the desk and addressed Liese. “Could you access Eighty-Five for me, please, miss?”
Liese was no “just-a-secretary” girl. She gave Moore a look that would etch glass and rapped, “Eighty-Five?” Months ago they had done away with verbal codes and now depended upon eye and voice prints. Some terminals were even equipped with DNA identification equipment.
“Yes, Miss Meisinger?” No figure appeared, neither “Dom” nor a giant phallus in a pink tutu. Which was just as well. “You do have authorization?” she asked Moore. “Priority three. Am I in?”
“You are, Captain Moore. I recognize you,” the computer itself answered.
“Fine. Give us a link to the Fort Lewis terminal. Prime 790, path C-850, sub-directory DF-66687.”
The mirror-wall behind the desk clouded, blazed with light, and displayed five men in Army uniforms, who eyed them expectantly. In the background Lessing saw computer consoles and instruments: a laboratory.
“Colonel Koestler?” one of the men inquired. “Major Theodore E. Metz, here. We’re ready with Magellan, sir.” “Secure code T-94-392, then. Proceed, Perry.”
Captain Moore gave instructions. The wall cleared, darkened, and refocused to show a baffling picture: the upper half was black, interspersed with whizzing, flying lights; the bottom half displayed a pitted, greyish surface covered with cracks and striations that continuously hurtled toward the viewer.
Lessing squinted dizzily. Of course! The camera was mounted low in the nose of a vehicle traveling at high speed at night over a badly paved road.
Koestler said, “President Outram asked that you see this, Secretary Mulder. You and whichever of your aides you wish.” He stared suspiciously from Lessing, to Liese, to Jennifer. In the quavering, silvery glow from the screen he looked like someone who has bitten into a sour apple. “You’re looking at… or rather through… Magellan Model IX, a mobile device dropped into a target area by parachute and then operated by Eighty-Five on a tight-beam from an overhead satellite. Magellan is a flattened spheroid about a meter and a half in diameter and forty centimeters high, the size of a large power lawnmower. It possesses wheels, treads, and climbers for walls and stairs; has infrared capabilities; monitors radiation, gases, and some biological contaminants; and is armed with grenade projectors. It can also transport a canister of nerve gas or a small nuclear device if need be, although we see it primarily as a reconnaissance instrument. Magellan travels anywhere, can drill a car’s gas tank for more fuel, and if grabbed by the wrong people it explodes with one helluva bang.” He sounded like a kid boasting about a new toy.
“What are we seeing now?” Mulder inquired from the shadows.
“A stretch of road between Albany and Berkeley, California,” Moore responded in his surprisingly resonant voice.
Mulder’s next question made heads rum: “And Mexican troops were observed near this place?”
“Yes, sir. You’ll see them too, any minute now.” Moore murmured further commands to Eighty-Five. The picture slowed and became dark bushes and shrubbery, then a forest of grey-white stalks that rose high above the camera’s lens: dry grass.
The screen now showed a fire ahead, in front of a row of run-down shops and a supermarket. Moore whispered, and the screen abruptly split into quarters: front, back, and side views. Nothing moved in any of the pictures except the leaping flames in the top-left quadrant, which showed the view straight ahead. Black humps scattered across the street in the top-right square — to Magellan’s right — could be bodies.