“Come on in.” Ricky Morez beamed at them from the doorway to his flat. “I’m really glad you both could come. You’re just in time—the nightly news is about to start and they’re supposed to show the piece about the Presley Hall attack.”
Rice stepped to the side to let Tobi go inside first, secretly impressed with Morez’s manners and flawless invitation. Rice had mentioned earlier on the phone that he was bringing a guest but he hadn’t said who, and if Morez had been surprised to see Tobi Roenick, nothing had shown on his face. Layered against the damp spring weather, Rice could feel perspiration building beneath the collar of the shirt he wore under a brightly colored sweater. Leaving his jacket in the front hall closet with Tobi’s didn’t help a bit, and Rice was beginning to wish he’d come alone or not at all. Losing a hundred credits to Morez was nothing compared to what Tobi would do to him if she ever got a hint that this date could be traced back to a bet made on an alien egg hunt. While he really had suggested this as their first date as a way of diffusing the strain of a one-on-one evening, Rice knew he would have a terrible time convincing her of that if the business about the wager ever came to light. Morez was okay, but McGarrity—that asshole couldn’t keep a secret if his mother’s life depended on it.
“Hey, Phil!” Eddie McGarrity’s voice boomed from one end of the couch in the living room as Rice and Tobi walked in. “Hi ya, Tobi. Come on over and meet my friend, Belinda.” A cooling flash of relief—safe!—swept through Rice as he saw the pretty young woman with auburn hair and gray eyes sitting next to McGarrity. If the Irishman was stupid enough to mention the bet now, it’d be a self-imposed social suicide for both of them. Thus far McGarrity hadn’t said anything rude or made a big deal out of Tobi’s unexpected appearance. The truth was, Rice would just as soon forget the damned wager had ever been made and let Morez keep his money. McGarrity might bitch about it, but it was a small price to pay to keep Morez quiet. For all Rice knew, that might have been the plan all along.
Introductions were quickly made as Tessa Morez brought in a tray bearing six wine goblets and a couple of straw-wrapped bottles of Chianti that had already been uncorked. Ricky was still pouring when they heard the familiar jingle that signaled the beginning of the six o’clock broadcast.
“Good evening from Manhattan’s Channel One,” said the newsman gravely, “your First Choice in News. Still running as one of our top stories this evening, we can now bring you complete coverage on the massive slaughter that took place last week at Presley Hall.” On his face was an expression that was appropriately grim. “As we previously reported when we first began coverage of the story, a Homeworld alien ran rampant through the first-floor crowd gathered at Synsound’s famous Presley Hall to hear a performance by the wildly popular group, the Helltones. While details were at first sketchy, today the final death count rests at seventeen with injuries totaling thirty-two more, four of whom remain in critical condition. New details include this footage—”
Here the anchorman’s face winked out in favor of a panoramic but suspiciously fuzzy shot of the carnage at Presley Hall showing sprawled bodies, both human and android. Bits and pieces of the alien were splattered across the floor, leaving acidic puddles of smoking residue amid the lurid crimson stains of human blood and milky android nutrient fluid.
“—shot after the alien was destroyed by this man—”
A new image showed a gaunt-faced man with a heavy black mustache. The dusky coloring of his face was nearly obscured by a large, dark-tinted eye shield coming out of a helmet painted olive-drab to match his military type uniform. Something like a radio microphone fed from his helmet to his mouth, and resting on one padded shoulder was a type of mini-rocket launcher manufactured a decade ago and now used primarily by mercenary guerrillas.
“—presumed to be either an illicit weapons or drug dealer. His identity and whereabouts remain unknown at this time.”
Rice and all of his companions except Belinda were listening with rapt attention and the more the story unfolded, the more absurd it became to them. The shot on the television changed again, this time to a grainy close-up of the alien when it had still been alive, presumably edited from the tape in one of the high-mounted security cameras surrounding the stage. The creature’s snout was covered with blood and filled with immense, spearlike teeth that made Belinda and Tessa wince. Ribbons of alien saliva and pieces of shredded flesh dangled from its jaws. Of the women, only Tobi maintained a calm, unchanging expression. Jesus, Rice thought admiringly, nothing ruffles her.
On the screen, the newscaster’s face rearranged itself, trying to project more compassion as he began to recite the casualties. “The families of the dead and the survivors and their families have each been personally invited by Mayor Kroschel to attend counseling sponsored by HeartWeb, the city’s newest emotional trauma counseling center and the fifty-third of its kind to open since the mayor’s term began.” On cue, the man’s expression went from sympathetic to solemn. “The creature that was destroyed is believed to be one of an infestation found in the city’s sewer system. A search and destroy team exterminated the other seven aliens found there earlier today, and the Health and Safety Commissioner has assured the city that there will be no further incidents.”
Sewer system, my happy little ass, Rice thought in disgust. He saw a flicker of a frown pass across Tobi’s eyes and knew she felt the same. The rest of the account was sufficient considering it was a hurriedly fabricated yarn to cover up the public deaths although they were pushing it a bit on the low death count, but… sewer system? That was the part Rice and his men had protested, but clearly some muckity-muckin the MedTech hierarchy had overruled his suggestion that they find somewhere else to place the blame. Stupid, stupid; the whole concept of underground tunnels was too easily distorted by the viewers that MedTech was foolishly assuming were inattentive. Their chief of security didn’t have to stretch much to imagine the questions and essays that would pepper the newspapers for weeks to come, column after column of hysterical speculation every time some half-dead drunk or jelly junkie thought he saw an oversize rat anywhere near a manhole cover. The first of many such questions Rice predicted would land his way, in fact, was being vocalized in this very room by McGarrity’s date. A perfect example of the conclusions to which people were always inclined to jump.
“Gee,” Belinda said with a shake of auburn curls. “The sewer? That’s under the whole city… isn’t that an awfully large amount of ground to cover? How can the police be sure they got them all?”
Bingo, Rice thought. This time he lucked out and didn’t have to answer; McGarrity beat him to it. “Motion scanners,” Eddie told her. “The men and women wear them around their wrists while they walk through the pipeways.”
Belinda frowned at her date and McGarrity had the good grace to look slightly ashamed. Her pretty, pixie-shaped face had taken on a look that was half disbelief, half irritation at being fed a line of bullshit. “No way, Eddie. I always heard those creatures basically hibernate until they have a reason to come out of it. I wouldn’t think a man just walking around would be enough to bring them out. It certainly didn’t do it on Homeworld—if you remember, we lost over a thousand people before we had a decent idea what we were up against.”
“You’re right, of course,” Rice said, joining the discussion to redeem McGarrity as the newscaster spiraled into something else with an inane smile and Tessa silenced the screen with a flick of the remote. Down-to-earth McGarrity didn’t have the best imagination and he could easily sour the entire evening by continuing to treat his new girlfriend like the undereducated bubblehead she clearly wasn’t. Time to save his unimaginative butt. “But the army has scouting dogs that the tactical units send ahead. They’re a lot like the canines taught to find bombs and drugs, except these animals are trained to detect hibernating aliens and sound an alarm. The aliens usually wake up when they hear the dogs, the motion detectors pick up the movement, and the crew knows where to go to kill them.” There were a thousand holes in his quick story, but he thought he could get away with it as is. Part of it was actually true, but he had a strong hunch Belinda wouldn’t appreciate the knowledge that the scout dogs had an average life span of a single mission; rarely did a dog flee fast enough to avoid being killed by the revived aliens.
“Really,” was all Belinda said. She was still frowning, but Tessa and her husband smoothly turned the conversation in the direction of the coming meal and the spaghetti with meat sauce that had been promised to McGarrity. A good thing, too; in less than a week, Rice had answered enough questions about the Presley Hall farce to last him a year and he could feel unintentional impatience starting to taint his mood. Suffice to say that an appropriate amount of money had changed hands and ended up in certain well-connected pockets within the media; thus the right people had been… persuaded as to the content of the “real” story of the terrible tragedy at Synsound’s Presley Hall. Overall, Rice was pleased at the final results: It had taken longer than anticipated to locate, but the hatched alien had been destroyed, Synsound had shuddered a bit on its corporate foundation, and the silence of the press would ensure the continued secrecy of MedTech’s high security team and private research nest. This problem was over, and life, all in all, was a good thing again.
Now if he only knew how the hell Ahiro, the dead ninja, had gotten into MedTech’s underground lab to begin with.