"You look like a damn Nazi storm trooper Boston," Earl Cowan told Officer Stephan "Boston" Frey. Frey had left Alvina looking for a career in big city law enforcement, eventually winding up in Boston, Massachusetts. A bad murder scene had left him spooked. Seven years after leaving home Frey had accepted a job in his slow moving country home town.

Cowan owned a small gas station, convenience store, one of the few that had survived competition from the large chain quickie marts. He was tall and wore his seventy years with pride. Frey nodded. Alvina PD had accepted federal funds which, as part of the transfer from the taxpayers to his station, required that Alvina officers dress in a more modern fashion. Bloused boots and black uniforms Frey suspected intimidated rather than elicited respect from people. Yet this was what the federal government defined as modern. Frey paid for his sandwich and soda and thanked Earl. The lights flicked throughout the store.

"Looks like the town forgot to pay their electric bill." Cowan's remark was accented when the lights from the few local business' dimmed in tune with Cowan's store lighting. The lights went out. There was a high pitch whining outside while lights lit up the southern night sky. The whining lasted for almost two minutes.

"Central this is Frey," he spoke into his radio mic. Though assigned a number, Frey was one of only two officers on patrol tonight, the other being Mary Kettering. Under those circumstances numbers seemed stupid. The radio returned static.

"Those lights went down around Swanton Lake," Cowan remarked. "You going out there Boston?"

"I can't raise central." He had tried again and then tried contacting Kettering.

"I have a landline, "Cowan offered, pulling his phone out from under the counter.

Frey accepted the handset with thanks and quickly punched in the station's number. Carl Jefferson, a thirty-five year veteran of the small town force answered. Jefferson was younger than Cowan but Parkinson's had rendered the officer fit only for the post of dispatcher. Jefferson said that the lights and radio were out there at the station as well as the TV which was piped into the police station via satellite. This was something out of the ordinary for sure. Frey asked him about aircraft traffic around the popular Swanton Lake. Jefferson hadn't heard anything although at that time Frey heard hysterical voices over the phone line. People were in the station and they were afraid. Frey ensured that Jefferson took good notes and then handed the phone back to Cowan.

"I'd like to think those lights weren't connected to this outage but it is damn strange." Frey looked toward the direction of the lake. A pulsing light came from that direction.

"If you're going out there you want some company Boston?" Cowan asked him. He heard the pump from the store owner's shotgun. In Boston that would have caused him distress. Here in this small rural community it was comforting, Cowan was an icon here, not a street hoodlum.

"It's your risk buddy," he answered. Civilians riding along were a definite no in the cities. Out here it was sometimes handy.

"Probably some horse hockey from Wright-Pat. Remember when that drone crashed out near the Hoover place?" Frey nodded while waiting for Cowan to gather up some ammo. Head lights appeared on Route 7, coming away from the lake.

"Meet me out there!" Frey shouted as he ran out of the store. He pulled his flashlight out of his belt and aimed it at the oncoming car. It was careening dangerously. Frey stood safely off the side of the road as the car slowed. Cowan joined him.

"That's the Arutyunov boy's car, those Russians that moved in at Baker's apartments." Cowan remarked.

Frey recognized the hopped up, foreign built speedster that was slowing before him. The immigrant family's boys tinkered with cars much the way that Frey's dad had when Frey senior was a teen. Sure enough a boy leapt out of the driver's side, barely allowing the car to come to a stop. The boy was babbling in his native language. Frey had served the obligatory military time like most cops. So it was that he had seen fear and this boy was afraid. He ran toward the two men. Frey grabbed the youth and shook him.

"They came to the house!" he shouted after several minutes of coaxing. "They came to the house!" he repeated.

"Who came to the house?" Frey asked.

"They were, they were—I don't know what they were. My sister—my sister—they cut her open!" Frey looked at Cowan. The Russian was hysterical but they could see that was because of what he had seen. Frey calmed the boy further and told him to go into Alvina and inform Jefferson and ask for reinforcements. Given a mission the boy regained his composure. He got in his car, clearly in shock but with a purpose. Frey shouted at him to drive carefully as he and Cowan got into the police cruiser.

They roared down Route 7. The small group of three townhouses that made up Gale Baker's apartments was coming up fast. Those buildings lay between the lake and Cowan's gas station. If whatever happened at the Arutyunov was connected with those lights then the threat was moving fast. The townhouses came into view. A sense of fear came over Frey unlike any he had felt since Iraq or more recently that Boston apartment. He glanced over and seen Cowan shaking. He stopped short of the apartments.

"This is like combat!" he exclaimed. Frey threw the car's door open and took a deep breath. For just an instance it felt like the fear came from outside, not in him. Frey shook his head.

"You feel that?" Cowan asked. Frey knew that Cowan, a veteran of Vietnam was no stranger to combat and it effects. So he was not alone. Something was influencing them. Frey shook his head. Rational thought had saved him overseas and when he was in Boston. He used it to again save him. He advised Cowan to shake it off while seeing the red suited nightmare approaching them.

Cowan's shotgun lit up the night while Frey drew his .45. The fear shook off, Frey saw a man in a red hazmat suit. He was also aware as Cowan must have seen that the suited man had shot at them. The gun, Frey recognized the staccato sound of an automatic weapon, was oddly reflective, like it was silver plated. Both men fired back. The red suited figure was impacted but didn't stop coming. Frey's doors rattled from more rounds. He saw another of the red suited men, dragging a person behind him while firing at Frey and Cowan. In his headlights he saw another hazmat suited figure bend over and…slice into a person on the ground. The first figure jerked.

"Hit his helmet Boston!" Cowan bellowed while reloading.

Frey who was kneeling behind the cruiser's door took air and did just that. Even the helmet was impervious to his pistol fire but the attacker was slowing down. The third round from Frey's .45 caused him to drop his gun and grab his helmet as if to block his ears. Two more shots, the faceplate cracked discharging something dark. Hazmat One as Frey had dubbed him fell back, arms flailing. Cowan who had switched to rifled slugs managed to slow a second apparition causing the man or woman to grab at his or her helmet. Frey was beginning to believe that these were terrorists of some kind. Whatever they were they were about to kill him and the storekeeper.

"Let's get into town and get more help!" he snapped to Cowan. The older man wasted no time getting back into the police car while Frey laid down covering fire. Returning machine gun fire removed the car's windshield. He knew they had to get out of here before the terrorists shot either the cruiser's tires or radiator. He jumped, threw the transmission into reverse and accelerated back.

Frey cocked the wheel hard and turned the car around simultaneously putting it into drive. Glass flew into the car as the rear windshield exploded. Both men kept their heads down. Frey pushed the car past 100 back toward the sanctuary of Alvina. They needed firepower. Were these people some kind of bio terrorists putting something into the lake? That made no sense since Swanton Lake was a swimming and fishing hole, not a source of drinking water. He was glad to be home. In Boston he could never trust the locals but here he could and now he needed that help more than ever.

"Drink it, it's water. I gave you sodium pentothal, your mouth will be dry." The janitor had Joshua Freeman's hands cuffed securely behind his back. And further chained to the chair in which he found himself. He took a swig while the man held the bottle to his lips.

"Why?" he croaked the single word after swallowing the water.

The man turned a chair, backrest to him and straddled it facing him. "Because you might have been SHADO, Marisol Foster is a dangerous and devious woman. Chances are fatal with her." His accent identified him as American.

"What's shadow?" he asked. He nodded after the janitor put the bottle out again.

"S-H-A-D-O, SHADO," his host replied. "That's going to take some explaining. I recovered your recorder and notes. You are curious about the dormant virus. So was and am I." The man sighed. "My name is John Koenig. Up until 6 months ago I was a researcher doing work with organic circuitry and nanotech tools."

Freeman surveyed a dirty room with a single smelly mattress on the floor, a camp stove and small refrigerator finished off his prison. Koenig eyed him, seeming to read his mood and mind. His warden offered him another drink which Josh greedily accepted.

"I'm not a pervert or serial killer Mister Freeman. We are on the track of the same thing." Koenig rose and moving behind Josh undid his handcuffs. "I'm betting that you'll listen to me." Josh felt feeling return to his hands. "You know that you are the first person I ever knocked out. My father was career navy but I never served a day in my life. Dad made sure though that I knew Karate and Judo. It didn't help me when they took Yvette." Koenig returned to the chair facing Freeman.

"They?" he asked.

"SHADO," he replied. "The virus is…special. It's not…from here. But Foster and her handlers want it." Koenig's answers told Josh that the stranger was sitting on a good bit more information and was not ready to reveal it to him…yet.

"Can you get us to Eastern Europe?" Koenig asked.

"Us?" he asked.

Koenig nodded. The man got up and returned with a piece of red rubber. Taking out a knife which alarmed Josh he smiled and cut the rubber. The rubber immediately sealed up behind where the knife was scoring it. Freeman had seen trickery before. Koenig seemed to sense that and again rising he returned with a silvery band. He held it before Joshua while running his finger around the inside. Freeman tensed up as he had when he had first been under fire in Afghanistan. The fear was primal, like the first nightmare that children experience. Josh's breath's came in great heaves. He was stamping his feet and stood up ready to run. Koenig seized him in a hug while showing him the bracelet.

"It generates a sense of fear as you just felt." Koenig eased him up making sure that he was steady. Freeman watched his hands, this time seeing the band's small activation switch. The fear hit him again but shorter this time as Freeman realized it came from that device.

"What does that?" he asked, his breath slowing to gasps.

Koenig shrugged. "The brain is partially electric. We have made some strides in this area, being able to suppress some neural electrical activity while stimulating other activity. How about a partnership? I've been on this ever since Yvette was taken. But I'm a scientist. I'm damn lucky to have made it this far." He turned fierce blue eyes onto Freeman. "You could help me. Your friend Sharma, bet he knows of Igor Dostevsky."

"Who is Dostevsky." He asked while angry that this Koenig had really gone through his notes.

"An expert in neural viruses specifically geared toward changing the mental processes of a person." Koenig's answer was a flat declaration.

"Mind control?" he asked his mouth open. Koenig nodded.

"He is hiding in Croatia. You have some ties from your military tour. Look this mission impossible is impossible because I can't find out much on a cleaner's salary. You could help me get to Dostevsky." Koenig looked hard at him.

"If he has information on mind control—I'm assuming that people in the government are seeking this then why doesn't he simply go to the New York Times or CNN?" Josh was wondering if Koenig was another conspiracy nut.

"He has the cure Mister Freeman." Koenig looked around. "This is a hideaway, not my flat. If you don't believe me and want to help me I'll blindfold you and lead you out of here." He turned away from Josh, intentionally putting his back to him.

This would mean his job at the Defender. Freeman hoped that he could sell his story to a major news magazine. For there was a story here he realized. This was journalism. It might lead to his ruin but he had to know.

"No need, let's work on going to Croatia," he said.

"UFO landing site is dead ahead commander." Chief Kano McGhee pointed to the HUD display on the Mobile's dashboard. They had been on the ground for almost an hour. Straker rocked back in his seat.

Built on the chassis of a Bradley fighting vehicle the mobiles were reinforced with the new reflective armor. The first bolt made him thankful that the armor worked. The mobile's infrared scanner returned an image of one of the two UFO's. There was movement on the night vision scope, alien personnel. Kano asked for orders. Straker ordered them to fire. He felt the mobile's main weapon fire through his chair. The shell had no explosive power but emitted an intense blast of noise. Straker saw figures drop. The UFO clearly defined by the scanner, fired again. Straker looked in alarm as one of his mobiles blew up. The reflective armor helped but couldn't divert all of the alien weapon's energy.

The three surviving mobiles along with two others from another aircraft closed on the UFO's. Straker ordered them to lay down a pattern of the noise producing warheads. It was theorized that the intense vibrations produced by the sound would cause the liquid breathing aliens enough stress that they would shut down. The night vision presentation showed him that indeed, two aliens had collapsed. A beam lanced out at destroying yet another mobile. Straker ordered a high speed high explosive round directed at that UFO. It exploded. At least the second UFO was between them and the one that had just been destroyed. The collapsed aliens were protected from the blast.

The surviving ship started to glow. Straker was privy to enough intelligence to let him know that the craft was getting ready for an escape. He gave his last order. He felt his mobile eject its primary weapon. The front windscreen darkened. The night lit up like day, the result of the small electromagnetic pulse weapon. The mobiles followed up with several smaller charges, antiaircraft fire really, fifty caliber rounds. The UFO rose up a full hundred feet. Straker felt rather than heard the UFO's telltale sound. He also noticed that the ship was wobbling. It was slowly another fifty feet and then fell back to earth, its glow and apparent spinning gone. The mobiles closed.

"Send out the ground troops Kano," Straker ordered while unbuckling his straps. He crawled through the mobile and exited out of the back hatch. His forces were moving quickly, medical personnel being screened by seasoned assault troops from several nations.

Two of the medics stopped near to an alien and carefully aiming a rifle at one shot the being with a tranquilizer dart. The other, with the help of one of the soldiers unfolded a metal net and running the final distance threw the net over the alien. Its special alloys and miniaturized circuitry it was hoped would defeat signals thought to travel from the alien ships to their crewmen. Other SHADO personnel approached the second downed alien. Straker saw the ship's beam emitter light. He shouted a warning while diving for the ground. The alien weapon seared the air finding Straker's mobile. Kano had smartly turned away so that only a track was vaporized. The loud zipper like sound of the mobiles' main guns filled the night.

Straker rose, a scowl on his face. The UFO was illuminated and rising unsteadily. Gases were leaking out of rents in the hull. His people tried securing the second alien only to see the thing throw off its helmet. The red suited body exploded. Straker advised his troops to head for their mobiles. He helped the medical team drag their catch along to one of the tracked vehicles. He leaped in when the alien was safely inside. The UFO climbed skywards. Straker dogged the hatch just before a second EMP device detonated. There would have to be a massive cover story for tonight's activities. The mobile sped backwards. They were all jarred; no doubt the UFO had exploded. He looked at the body they had dragged in, alive hopefully.

"Damnit! Those are just machine guns but they are tearing us up!" Boston Frey bellowed.

Earl Cowan nodded, breathing heavily. Frey thought it just as likely that he would lose his partner from congestive heart failure before the alien gunfire did Cowan any harm. Chrystal Boone pointed at where an alien crossed an alley near to Alvina's new corporate owned hardware store. Boone's father, sixty miles away at his job had left the 15 year old home with her sister. Officer Mary Kettering had died, cut open by aliens while trying to shepherd Chrystal and her sister Kate to the police station, so far Alvina's only safe haven. It turned out that Chrystal's father had taken his eldest daughter hunting and she was a good shot. She drew a bead, striking the thing's suit.

It bounced off although some of the rifled slugs from Earl's shotgun had hurt them. Aliens they were. Frey would have thought terrorists before that spinning ship had landed. They had moved quickly and quietly from the lake. Somehow they were generating fear to freeze their victims in terror and then came organ extraction. Frey had seen Kettering cut open by a laser, her heart, still beating, taken from her chest and put into a silver metallic container. He couldn't hit its helmet to stop it. They were in fact losing. Frey had a few .45 clips and rifle cartridges on his bandolier, Cowan was low and Boone had one more clip for her AR-15, not good he knew.

"They are having that sale on propane tanks at the hardware store, aren't they Earl?" he asked Cowan.

The storekeeper was recovered. He nodded, and taking aim on Frey's gesture, opened fire on the hardware store's front window. Alien machine fire rattled the door of the pickup truck behind which they hid. Chrystal returned fire toward the alien suppressing their fire. The front of the hardware store exploded throwing one of the aliens, suit burning out into the street. The second alien ran firing toward them. "Out", was what Earl Cowan announced, Chrystal Boone said the same, Frey discarding his rifle fired the last shots from his .45. They were finished. The alien seemed to have an unlimited magazine.

The red suited alien jerked. Its face plate shattered. Frey turned to see Carl Jefferson, trembling and staggering into the alien's path. The officer, despite his Parkinson's was firing away with the force's antique but functional Thompson machine gun. Frey heard the whirling from the alien's ship. They were leaving. Then he heard the zipper like sound of a mini gun. He had heard such things in war. The alien collapsed fluid gushing from its shattered helmet. Boone pointed at the sky. The strange teepee shaped craft floated overhead while being sprayed with fifty caliber antiaircraft fire. It lifted skyward despite that and then exploded. Frey heard an aircraft, human he guessed streaking overhead. Everywhere it fell silent as in battles he had been in, save for the sound of flames greedily licking whatever wood it could. He saw the lights from the tracked vehicles before he heard them.

"Things don't look good Boston," Cowan informed him. They trio stood up, the alien threat looking to be concluded. But the clearly manmade vehicles rolling up Main Street signaled a new danger. Frey stepped out while signaling to his unlikely partners to remain hidden. He raised his weapon as the armored vehicle's lights drowned his form.

They were odd. Slightly like the mine resistant vehicles that he had driven around in the Middle East except that they were shiny. One of the armored trucks silver armor was burned. Frey guessed that the burns were gotten in some of those flashes that had lit up Ohio 7. The lead car rolled to a stop. The back hatch opened, Frey could hear that. He took a deep breath as a man emerged from the darkness, a silhouette that turned into a lean blonde haired middle aged man. The man smoked a thin cigar while casually regarding the scenery before him.

"Not something you see everyday officer…" the man's gaze fell upon Frey.

"Stephen Frey, may I ask your name?" he replied, not really expecting an answer.

"Your friends can step out. We aren't going to kill you for what you've seen tonight." The man approached Frey and laid a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to clean up." The man said. Frey saw his nondescript flightsuit bearing a patch portraying a man with a flashlight…SHADO? What was that? "It's Straker Officer Frey. I can't say more. You can never say anything."

"How in the hell explain this you damned spook?" Earl Cowan spat.

"An exploding tanker truck, industrial accident, violent teens, you name it, I can come up with it. Homeland Security will see that you receive money to rebuild." Straker sighed. Frey thought that he was having some kind of inner dilemma.

"You knew," he said and then repeated it. Straker nodded sadly while puffing on his cigar. "We could have been ready! We…we might have been able to fight them if we knew about them! You knew!"

"What?" asked a confused Chrystal. "You knew and let this happen? How could they know?" the girl asked Frey and Cowan.

"All these machines here this fast, this was a trap—for them?" Cowan nodded at the burnt alien cadaver which was being taken up by SHADO personnel.

"We're fighting a battle here sir." Straker's penetrating blue eyes, though not on Frey, were compelling to say the least.

"What if we go public?" Frey shot back.

"What happens is what happens to every crackpot and nutcase, officer. Please, take the money. Let us clean up around here. What happened here could be repeated worldwide. You wouldn't want that would you?" Straker was sincere yet sad thought Frey.

He caught site of Carl Jefferson's bullet riddled corpse. These people could hide that? Frey was furious but had faced spooks before. No one could explain those blasts that had lit up Alvina unless they had power. Tears were running down his eyes. "Damn you Straker!"

"My older brother died down there," Josh Freeman told John Koenig. The Canadian C-130 lumbered toward a landing. Relegated to dropping relief supplies the Canadian aircrew gave them a ride after Freeman had called in a favor to have he and his new companion designated as relief workers for the Balkans. He hadn't thought of Al Junior in many months. His older brother shared their mother's slim physique and yet had been Joshua's protector.

"He was doing what we are pretending to do," Freeman offered in way of explanation. His brother, graduated from medical school had wanted to do field work in the Balkans. His aircraft, not the victim of maliciousness but of bad weather had crashed after a sudden snow storm had iced over the aircraft's wings. He related the story of his brother's crash to Koenig.

"That's a shame," his new companion said. "So much good is wasted in the world, all for things that people could take care of themselves." Koenig bulled him away from the small round window. "It looks cold down there."

Freeman agreed. The loadmaster ordered them to buckle up. The C-130 was soon behind the men as they rode away in a small taxi. They had the driver deposit them near to a rental agency where they got a rickety old Euro car that was clearly on its last legs. Freeman saw rust on the engine block. Nonetheless this was the dealer's best car. The two men were soon on their way into the Croatian countryside. Koenig drove.

"So Dostevsky told you where he is?" Josh asked. This seemed very simple, too simple.

"We worked together, telecons and internet conferencing. Eventually he came to America and I was shown more of what he was working on. It was there that I found out that it was a cry for help. We met casually. I took him home for dinner with Yvette and me." Koenig's voice became laden with sadness. "We went into my work shop, turned on some power tools. Foster keeps ears everywhere. I didn't know that then. Igor told me what we were dealing with. Those toys I showed you back at the shack, he gave them to me."

"What is it that you were dealing with?" Freeman asked. He had to admit that fear device was highly advanced, just the sort of thing that government agencies would like to control the population he thought.

Koenig shot him a glance. "You'll see."

Freeman offered to drive but Koenig declined stating that he knew where he was going. Josh took the time to grab some sleep. He wasn't sure about Koenig but he was committed now. Anyway if the man had wanted to kill him then that would be done and he wouldn't be here. He realized that hours had passed. Koenig was pulling off onto a dirt road. The car's single headlight, only one worked, showed cloaked figures ahead of them. Freeman shook off sleep and the uncomfortable ride. Koenig braked causing a loud squeal from the car's last millimeter of brake pad and metal. He nodded at Josh. They got out of the car.

"Igor!" his new friend shouted. Freeman watched the cloaked and hooded strangers seemingly aimless in movement quietly surround them. He caught sight of a dark face beneath a hood. A voice answered Koenig's.

"You come at last John! I knew that you were a good man!" The voice became a figure emerging from the darkness. Freeman made out the silhouette of a building behind the person who he guessed was Igor Dostevsky. The person stopped, clearly eyeing him. "You bring a stranger."

"I needed him to get here my friend." That sounded like his usefulness had come to an end Freeman guessed. "He is seeking answers. I wouldn't lead any of Foster's people here Igor." Koenig's statement carried some weight he guessed for Dostevsky seemed to relax. Koenig introduced Freeman to the scientist.

Sixtyish, round, bearded and bald was how Josh would describe the scientist. He wore a white shirt and jeans, much different from his cloaked followers. For these people were Dostoevsky's subjects, Freeman could sense that. The scientist seemed to accept that. He came up and hugged Koenig and then took Josh's hand.

"Does he know what awaits, John?" the older man asked.

"I'm holding back the best part." Koenig spoke while following the older man. The cloaked figures accompanied them. Freeman soon himself inside a dilapidated yet clean and warm house, Dostevsky closed the door behind him. They were in a room with a large fireplace. A homey looking rug lay in front of the blaze while the room contained furniture that looked rickety at best.

"Sit down," Dostevsky said. "The furniture won't kill you Mister Freeman."

Freeman sat, he was apprehensive but not about his companions. He sensed that he was onto something. One of the cloaked figures came in and helped Dostevsky make some tea and then serve it. It wasn't Freeman's drink of choice, especially this strong Turkish blend but it was welcomed. They had tea and some tasteless little cakes after which the older man lit a revolting smelling pipe.

"Something you wanted to tell me Igor?" Koenig asked their host while nodding toward one of the cloaked people.

"Those samples I sent to you at Dayton. Where did you think they came from?" the scientist asked Koenig.

"It was my understanding that none of them had ever been captured." Koenig answered.

"I withheld information my friend." Dostevsky sighed. "You were a contractor. You were never supposed to get this close. I still don't understand how you made it into Pinewood. Foster…Foster must not have expected you to come this far. We have had almost twenty…" he stopped and shot a sharp glance at Joshua. "Twenty subjects captured. They are my entourage. I couldn't stand to see them tortured at Pinewood."

"They were onto another capture!" Koenig exclaimed. Josh could read his dismay. "Janitors pick things up and I knew they expected something big at Pinewood. SHADO picked up somebody new in the power structure Igor. I heard the name Straker."

Josh's mouth dropped open as did that of the old man. "Straker from the movie studio?" he asked.

"Movie studio?" asked Dostevsky. "Straker was the head of Facility 44."

They compared notes. Freeman discovered that a Straker had headed an organization that had predated SHADO. Yet it couldn't be the same person. He told them about the movie mogul. Both men were skeptical. Yet it seemed like more than a mere coincidence. Freeman told them how his Straker was odd in that he was a retired US Naval officer, hardly movie studio material. Koenig stood up and stretched while approaching one of Dostoevsky's cloaked people. They even wore gloves Freeman noted.

"A movie studio?" asked Koenig. Just then he ripped back the mysterious person's hood.

"Christ!" Freeman bellowed. Delicate features indicated that he was probably looking at a woman, a woman whose face was green. Not mildly green as it being sick but the color of broccoli. "What kind of crap is this?" he asked, angrily. He had been roped into some kind of foolishness he sensed.

"Her skin color was altered because she has spent considerable time being immersed in a breathing liquid that is green." Dostevsky held up beaker. "Come Mister Freeman you may partake. Miko," he spoke to the green girl. "Please show Mister Freeman our apparatus. Breathing liquid is nothing incredible Mister Freeman."

"Im—Immersed, for how long?" he asked while he watched the girl come forward with a breath mask hooked to a small canister.

"Awhile," he replied. "Foster and Straker were interested in these people. They are unique in other ways." He nodded at the green skinned oriental woman. "Miko, why don't you show us how you can microwave a meal," he asked the woman. Foster saw her blank look as she retrieved a frozen meal from a refrigerator that had ceased being modern in the late 50's.

Dostevsky bade him touch the boxed dinner. The meal was indeed cold to the touch. Miko took it back from him and laid it onto a countertop. Joshua watched as she ran her hand over the dinner, watched the box smoke and then suddenly burst into flame. He stepped back, baffled and shocked. Koenig stepped in and put out the fire after Dostevsky warned Miko to stop. The dinner reeked and Freeman guessed that it was supposed to smell that way.

"It's no parlor trick." Koenig was clearly excited. "Igor, this was some of the samples! Human manipulation of EM radiation! They've done it!" Joshua watched as his mood changed. "Foster lied about capturing samples."

"They've captured many my friend. I couldn't tell you. They want the virus to control people. They," Dostevsky glanced at him. "They are worried less about the outsiders than that." Freeman heard outsiders as a code word, but code for what he knew not.

"You two are hiding something," Josh concluded. "Okay, tell me your version of things and we will go from here." He eyed the green skinned Miko wondering just how far this story would go.

Another of the cloaked people stopped in mid step and moaned. "It is alright Dylan," the old man told him. "Dylan has the ability to…link with the outsiders or at least detect when they are near. Tonight we sleep yet my study of Dylan shows that an outsider presence may be near. We go tomorrow."

Freeman yawned. "Why not come clean about whatever the rest of this is?" he asked his hosts.

Koenig sat down and faced him, piercing blue eyes locked onto Freeman's. "I needed your help in getting here and to expose this. Unless you are so convinced that you take time to try and convince us of what we already know then bring you here was all for nothing. The wrist band, Miko's display, I'm sure you think it was all a trick or could convince yourself of that. We need you to be one hundred percent."

Freeman glanced away. Koenig might be sincerer or sincerely crazy, which one he did not know. These two men were convinced about something. There was indeed the wrist band and the thirty second meal deal lady. Both could be tricks and a cynic such as Freeman looked for trickery everywhere. Maybe that was the key to real journalism, cynicism. Anyway the name Straker was a lead that much he would come away from this with. He decided to tag along

*******************************************************.

"That's Marcia Carlson," Craig Rothstein told his friend and coworker Kerry Reynolds.

Reynolds laughed and swallowed some more of his sixteen dollar vodka tonic. "What that lady is, is an over aged woman who doesn't belong here. But hey, don't let me get in your way pal."

Reynolds was married, in his early thirties and chasing two children. Rothstein was in his late twenties and still waiting for the magazine model to show up. Craig liked his fellow newsman and hated him all at the same time. He eyed the older woman who was looking back at him. He remembered her from some stupid movie about bugs. Reynolds tapped his shoulder and nodded at the woman. They were in the Singapore Hilton lounge, a huge carpeted affair about three quarters of a football field in size. Pretty waitresses in long red dresses served them. The woman that he assumed was a has been actress sat three tables away with a dour looking man. She got up.

"You two look lonely," she said as she seated herself between the men at their table. Rothstein looked past her to her male friend. "He is nothing," she explained. She sat without being invited. Rothstein saw Reynolds' grin. This woman was coming on way too strong as she touched Rothstein as if she'd known him for some time. Reynolds was willing to indulge to see his friend get what he wanted. Personally the liquor hadn't hit him that hard so that he saw a middle aged woman whose youthful beauty had long since vanished trying to look like she had perhaps ten years earlier.

"Are you Marcia Carlson?" Craig asked. The woman nodded. Kerry shook his head. Carlson ordered them another round of drinks. Her male companion seemed fixated upon them. That struck Reynolds as strange and disturbing. But as a newsman for one of the planet's top networks strange and disturbing was sometimes welcome. Usually he reported on candy coated stories of political successes. Why bother to dig, no one asked questions anymore.

He woke up sometime later. Reynolds was naked and not for the reasons usually associated with that. They were in a hotel room: he couldn't say if it was his or Rothstein's. The woman stood over him, her partner over Rothstein. Her hand went over his face. At first he felt nothing and then it was a sucking. Kerry thought about his wife and children as his mind was pulled away. He wanted to scream and somehow thought that he did. It was some consolation as he died.

Marcia Carlson looked down at her shell. It had gotten the two this far. Larry Parker stood over his empty husk. They each took a moment to collect their thoughts and then Marcia went hunting. She found the maid's cart abandoned in the hallway while doubtless its attendant was on a break. There was something: several cans of spray cleaner and even a can of spray oil. She brought them back to the room, found the microwave, nodded at Parker-Rothstein and put the cans inside. She set the timer and then turned on the power switch. Rothstein-Parker had run his hand over the room's draperies and they were now aflame. They both left, media credentials and plane tickets to Diego Garcia in hand. The explosion rocked them as their elevator neared the bottom floor.

The new moon suits were far less bulky than the original NASA Apollo jobs thought Johnny Straker. He had gotten the opportunity to train in one during his short tenure as an astronaut. Now he supposed that he could come and go to the future moon base—if successful. He applied slight pressure to Prometheus' joystick. Hundreds of thousands of microcircuits, tens of thousands electrical and hydraulic controls and it was all controlled by one piece of plastic. His hand moved effortlessly in the new suit. A voice came over his helmet asking him if all was well. He replied in the affirmative and winded down mentally.

The lunar flight's simulator was located in London, a concession to England's contribution to the mission. Straker had read and endorsed an idea that had originally located SHADO here in the UK. But government and labor laws meant a long wait time for a new movie studio. It was time that they didn't have. Fortunately Pinewood Laboratories, their surrogate here in Europe, was located nearby. Although technically Marisol Foster's command, Straker had at least on paper, some authority there. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see their prisoner.

A technician loosened his restraints. He climbed out of the simulator and headed for debriefing. Four hours later he was checking into the lab and a pleasant drive through the English countryside. The place smelled like a hospital. Foster met him and gave him the tour. Actually the facility was profitable as a supplier of regenerated tissue for burn victims. He was pleased about that as it hid budget problems as concerned SHADO and their share of taxpayer dollars from supporting countries. They were soon in the secure section. Foster guided him to a window beyond which lay the alien.

"Human surrogate sir," Foster told him. "He was a citizen of Yemen, thought to be a terrorist—a real terrorist, not one of our convenient excuses." He watched while the technicians, wearing protective gear, took the man's readings. Another tech, forceps in hand removed lenses that had covered the invader's eye. Straker inwardly winced at that.

"They protect his eyes and allow him to see through the solution." Foster looked at her patient while reciting data from memory to him. "Bruises suggest that he was subjected to high acceleration. Professor Bergman says this means that either the aliens don't have artificial gravity or that it if they do it is only partially effective. No walking around in their spaceships at any rate.

"Can we talk to him—them?" he asked.

"Your father's guests were unique, programmed to deal with the human race on a personal basis. I believe that these crewmen are simpler, harvesters if you will." Foster looked at him. "But there should be some kind of alien presence in there. We shall see."

She explained that they had inserted electrodes into their captive's brain and spinal cord as well as keeping him on drugs. Any suicidal instinct should be suppressed she explained. She invited him to interrogate the alien. They suited up in bio-suits and entered the room. Straker had brought an interpreter of Farsi along just in case there was some remains of the man's mind in there. They started with standard questions of any prisoner of war. What was his name and rank if any, and where had he come from. There was no answer. They inquired about his father, mother, wife and children, still there was no response.

"Clean up after dinner," Straker instructed the interpreter. The man gave him a puzzled look. "Family time, you are home, dinner is over and you are cleaning up, getting ready for the evening."

The speaker realized what Straker wanted. He started speaking, short, sentences that conveyed warmth instead of cold questions. He pursued this line for several minutes. Johnny heard Foster moan. "This is bloody stupid. I'll fetch my staff to dissect this thing and see what kind of responses we get."

The human alien hybrid shouted. Straker recognized mother. The interpreter spoke over him. "They were in the desert for a barbecue. Father was gathering up the plates. Mother was helping his sister. Then a strange sound and then lights. Who are they?" This last was clearly hysterical.

"Ask them why they are here," Foster hissed. The man did as he was told. There was continued babbling and then a change that caused shivers to run down Straker's back.

"We have come for you, all of you. We need you and we will harvest you." The voices seemed more mechanical than man. "You cannot solve what we are and defeat us. That is beyond you."

"What about some form of peaceful coexistence," Straker countered

"Even some cooperation on our part," Foster added. He knew of no such offer from SHADO's board of directors. Straker believed that cooperation, he felt the sting from the Ohio cop, was unacceptable. Medical and humanitarian help yes, human sacrifice was out he believed.

The human alien looked almost serene and then started convulsing. Foster called for assistance. Straker backed up hastily, glad that he had the biosuit on as the man's skin erupted. Blood spattered his helmet and suit. The wildly moving alien started smoking. An alarm sounded. Johnny watched in horror as the former human's hair burst into flames. The staff ushered them out of the room.

"We sacrificed those people in that town for that?" It was a question but Straker roared it. Out here in the tiled antiseptic observation room all that had just happened seemed unreal and antagonizing at the same time. He seized her shoulders causing her to shrug him off and back away.

"The body had been injected with one of our first attempts at nanoprobes, radioactive dies as well." We will learn what happens inside of a human body that is controlled by the aliens. His brain was also swimming in a radioactive solution that will allow me to map electrical responses and the brain areas infected. Commander—Straker we will learn how the alien's control their hosts…possibly. That is a step away from curing the virus. Those lives may buy millions of lives sir."

"Perhaps," he conceded. But he was really remembering the Ohio cop's words: if only they had been told, if only they could have prepared. Maybe there wasn't a cure for the virus. Maybe the answer lie in man's inherit goodness and strength. Straker was curious about this place.

According to Miss Foster this was their first alien capture besides that first encounter. Those humans had been unique in that they had been programmed, so it was thought, to interact with humans. Yet this place, Pinewood, seemed equipped as if this wasn't the first time. He wasn't an exobiologist nor was he an auto mechanic. But he realized when he was being sold a lemon. Pinewood wasn't a lemon but it had questions with it.