Chapter 16:
"Alarmed, officer," announced Fergi.
It was the fifth apartment on the list. They were all young, single women who worked the administrative side of the NYPD. None had close family in town, and most were loners, lacking even a close friend who might have dropped in to check on them. There were twenty-three in total. The two cops, acting on Helen's authority as a Plumber to enter the apartments on suspicion of illegal alien activity, were working their way down the chain, checking up on them.
The first four were leading pretty normal lives, living on the edge of town to make the most out of their NYPD salaries. They were future cat-ladies and current-day spinsters, and a couple of them might have been closet lesbians. None of them stood out until now.
"The last two places were alarmed," rumbled Nick. "You disabled the alarms without even mentioning it." Fergi answered that charge with, "those were primitive terrestrial security systems. This is Sotoragian technology." "Jackpot," rumbled Helen. "Scoot back t'the car, Fergi," said Nick. "We got this." After disabling the alarm system, the little alien woman flitted off on her jet-pack, wafting back down to Helen's van.
Helen used the proto-tool to open the window, then slipped inside. Nick brought up the rear, weapon at the ready. "Police," announced the New York cop! "Anybody in here?!" A very weak voice from the bedroom replied, "I'm here! Please! Help me!" The two cops knew better than to rush. Sonja Tremont was supposed to be at work on her shift right now. Their sludge-puppy spy should be there right now, but you never knew. Their spy might have had a partner.
Calling out to the voice in response, they slowly made their way back into the bedroom, keeping their eyes peeled for boobytraps. Step by painful step, they crept up on the closet–source of the voice–weapons at the ready. The room was a bit of a mess. Indeed, the whole apartment was. Whoever kept house here was a bit of a slob, and that didn't match the psych-profile they had on Ms. Tremont. Nick had a good feeling about this. This was the one. Found it in five, he thought, as they came up on the closet.
Concerned about terrifying an already overwrought mind, Helen did the honors of opening the door, and Nick shined his weapon-light inside, finding a thin, emaciated young woman who looked like she'd been laying in her own filth for months. Her eyes were wide and staring, and she flinched away from the light. "Sonja Tremont," asked Nick? "She... she took my face," moaned the woman. Standing beside him in the open doorway, Helen said, "she's dehydrated, Nick. Needs water badly."
Without even a word, Helen zipped into the kitchen, returning minutes later with a couple of glasses of water. Nick knelt down at the young woman's side and helped her drink. "It's gonna' be ok," whispered Nick. "Y-you don't understand," moaned Sonja Tremont. "She's... She looks like me, now! She's... I think she's some kind of monster! Like out of that movie, the Thing! She's... I think she's been going into work as me!" "We know," announced Helen. "We're going to get her... Just be calm." The woman took one look at the source of that soothing voice and shrieked in terror.
"S'ok," announced Nick. "This is my counterpart, Helen. She's... She's a fellow cop. She's here t'help." Helen tried on a smile. Sonja didn't look very convinced, even when Helen flashed her Plumber's badge and ID card. Still, she was cooperative with Nick. Helen got out of the way, and let Nick carry the water as Sonja Tremont told him all about what had happened to her.
She'd been here for nearly five months. She'd ordered Chinese late one night and been sitting on the couch waiting for it, when there was a knock at the door. She'd gotten up with her wallet, assuming it was the driver from the restaurant. When she opened the door, the woman on the far side–a petite little blonde–had shoved her way inside. Sonja had had a very brief scuffle with her attacker before the creature revealed itself.
Nick could hear Helen calling for an ambulance. Much as the victim needed medical treatment, he was a little queasy about that. With the mole embedded in the NYPD, he wasn't sure she didn't have access to the dispatch system. It was too late now, though. Drawing his handcuff key, Nick unlocked the young woman's wrists, freeing her from the lead pipe she'd been shackled to in the closet. Then he picked her up and carried her out to the van outside.
With a little water in her, Sonja was more lucid, and she stared around her in amazement, especially when she caught sight of Fergi. "Who are you people," she asked? "I'm NYPD," explained Nick. "This is Fergi and Helen... They're here to track down the person that did this to you." "Are they," stammered Sonja? "Yes, human," replied Fergi in a deadpan voice. She was having fun at Sonja's expense, and she announced, "the fugitive is wanted for the crime of performing illegal anal-probes on lower life forms..." Helen couldn't help it. She howled laughter at Sonja Tremont's expression.
Irritated, Nick growled, "why don't you two call this in and check on that ambulance?!" The two headed up the street a ways, still laughing. "Everybody's a fuckin' comedian," grumbled Nick. Moving on, he started debriefing the victim. As they talked, the young woman slowly calmed down. She had an eye and memory for detail, and she was able to supply him with an array of information about their mole. By the time the ambulance arrived, Nick had a good idea where they would find their Sonja impersonator.
The paramedics were almost as interested in the two aliens as the patient, and Nick cussed them too. As the two ambulance attendants lifted Sonja into the ambulance, Nick promised her she'd be alright. As the ambulance rolled away, Helen and Fergi returned looking only barely contrite. Nick sort of realized then that they were just like his buddies. "She'll be alright," Helen offered. "I'm not sore," said Nick. "Actually when she heard you two laughing, she calmed down." Helen nodded. That was kind of the point.
Moving on, the alien-girl reported, "Mike's headed for Internal Affairs with the Alphas..." At his frown, she explained, "one of her coworkers believes she's carrying on an affair with a senior officer there." "Meaning she's got access to everything IA knows," groaned Nick, as he grabbed his hair! It was all flavors of not good. They needed to stop this bird ASAP! "Mike's got it," said Helen. "He wants us to comb through Ms. Tremont's place to see what's there." It was a tall order for a man who wanted to be in on a big bust. Softening the blow some, Helen took off that ugly helmet and stowed it in the van. Shaking out her hair, she gave him a sweet smile and said, "c'mon..."
Leaving Fergi with the truck, Nick followed Helen's wiggling butt back upstairs while across town, Mike Stack led a heavily armed team of Plumbers into the IA offices. At his side walked a very worried Inspector Davis. "What am I lookin' at," asked the NYC cop? "Need you to slowly clear the building," replied Mike. "Our fugitive has superhuman strength and access to alien tech, including weapons. She can mimic the appearance of anyone she touches, and she can acquire recent memories straight out of their brains..."
Davis turned pale as a ghost. "We're here to handle her," announced Molly. "Just get your people out safely..." "Roger that," said Davis as he accelerated. Mike and the Alphas stopped where they were and waited. They were the backstop. The other half of Molly's team was already on the roof, headed down. As Molly and her team watched, men and women came out of the stairwells and elevators in streams. Molly immediately brought out a scanner, and she searched the streams of people for the tell-tale signature of a Lenopan.
Upstairs, 'Sonja Tremont' had noticed that the building was slowly emptying itself. She'd just returned from retrieving coffee for her 'boyfriend', who was fat and ugly even by Lenopan standards. Captain Anthony Tucker was an ass who really thought he was something special, and 'Sonja' had fed that ego, telling him whatever he wanted to hear. She made sure he thought he was good in the sack, and she made sure he believed she wanted him. In exchange, when he'd gone to sleep on her right after the event, Sonja got access to his laptop, phone, and network ID. Icing on the cake was the fact that he was so anxious to impress her, that he would tell her confidential information that a girl from parking enforcement should have no knowledge of.
It was the perfect setup. He'd funneled all sorts of useful tidbits to his 'girlfriend', and Sonja had picked up even more using his email, passwords, and phone. When the weeks turned into months, she'd gotten bolder, even using her own access to the NYPD's computers to zero in on bits of information that were useful for her clients. It was a good gig–one which she'd been careful to keep going as long as she could. Now, as she approached Tucker's office, she found signs that somebody else was working to terminate her employment with New York's finest.
"There's an emergency in the building," announced Anthony. "We need to leave, Sonja..." Sonja put the coffee down a moment. "What's going on," she asked? "Hell if I know," retorted the old blowhard. "I was sitting at my desk when the alert flashed across my screen. Could be a bomb-threat." He started moving towards her. Catching hold of her shoulder, he tried to turn her towards the stairwell. "Lemme get my purse," said the impostor. "Ain't got time," growled Tucker. When she saw him put his hand on his gun, she knew the truth. She'd been made.
Before Anthony Tucker's eyes, the Lenopan woman burst out of Sonja Tremont's clothes, leaving shreds there as she grew to nearly twice his height in the middle of his office. Staring at the sight of the woman he'd had sex with turning into a gelatinous sludge-monster with demonic red eyes, Anthony Tucker pissed himself. He hadn't a hope of getting his service-pistol out of its holster before she killed him, and he feared it wouldn't matter anyway.
Dropping to his knees, he whined, "please don't kill me." Hands outstretched and empty, the IA officer told her, "I didn't know! I swear I didn't know! Please don't kill me!" "Are there Plumbers downstairs," demanded Sonja? Which puzzled him. He didn't know what she was talking about. "Are they here for me," she demanded? Tucker nodded emphatically.
She thought about killing this pathetic sot. There was plenty of blood on her hands already, and he knew rather a lot about her. At the same time, he was pathetic and scarcely worth the bother. In truth, the idea of him kneeling there in a puddle of his own waste made her laugh. Without a further word, 'Sonja' turned and rushed for the stairwell door, leaving the hapless fool there, staring after her in terror.
The shapeshifter rushed down the stairs, taking them as only a Lenopan could–almost seeming to flow from landing to landing. She couldn't go out the front. They'd be waiting there. She couldn't go up to the roof either. She'd left her comlink upstairs with her purse and other junk. Noise from above her told the tale. They had a team up on the roof working their way down. She was trapped like a rat.
Almost, thought 'Sonja'.
She began to rush down the stairs much faster now, risking a fall and certain injury. She had to reach the sub-basement. If she could make the sub-basement, she had an exit–one which only the maintenance people would have suspected.
The Plumbers rushed onto the floor where Anthony Tucker's office lay with weapons ready. They moved in coordinated fashion, leap-frogging from position to position to stay under cover. Rushing into the bay where the Captain and his subordinates did business, they found the man himself kneeling on the carpet, shaking and shivering, looking like he was ready to shit his pants.
Correction, thought Rook Shar. It appeared that Tucker had already done that. As the alien lawman approached, she scanned the human just to be sure. No sludge-puppy, thought Shar. She had her helmet on and visor down so as not to scare the locals, and she called out, "where is the blond woman? Where is Sonja Tremont?"
The terrified cop looked up at the spacesuited man coming towards him, and he realized that this was his savior. He found it hard to make the words come out. "Sh-she went down the stairs...," he stammered. "You were supposed to leave and let us deal with her," growled Shar! Tucker had wanted the glory of bringing her in himself. Shar could see it in his eyes. "Dumbass," muttered the alien, using one of the colloquialisms she'd learned from Ben. The human cop flinched from that damning condemnation. "Down the stairs," growled Shar, as she headed for the stairwell.
Down at the bottom of that stairwell, the sludge-puppy slipped out into the hall wearing the shape of a pretty little blonde–with not a stitch of clothing on. She found a pair of elderly janitors down there. One had his nose buried in a car-magazine and a set of headphones blaring into his ear. The other was asleep. It was apparent they'd missed the alarm. Perfect, thought the shape-shifter.
She came strolling down the hallway, looking like something the two might have dreamt of. Neither man really looked up until she was standing next to them. The man listening to the headphones looked up, and his mouth came open in surprise. Before he could half register just what he was looking at, the alien drove her hand into his temple, killing him. As the corpse floundered on the floor, she killed the other one.
Working quickly, the alien woman stripped the smaller of the two men of his shoes and coveralls. The steam-tunnel wasn't hard to find, and 'Sonja' used the janitors' key to get inside. Hauling the two corpses into the steam tunnel to hide the evidence, she locked the door behind her and strode off into the darkness beyond.
Shar and her men exited the stairwell on the bottom-floor with no sludge-puppy to show for their efforts. Molly and Mike immediately smelled a rat. "She was here," agreed Shar. "Found the mark upstairs on his knees. I think he lost control of his stomach when she revealed herself." "He alive," asked Mike? "Yes," replied the Plumber. "I think when he heard what he had been dealing with, he thought he would try and bring her in himself." Mike rolled his eyes, announcing, "dumbass!" Which was more or less what Shar said.
"She hit the stairwell and went straight down," said the alien cop. "She should have come out here." Mike frowned at the floor a moment as he thought that through, while Molly started grilling her team about what they'd seen and the possibility the mole went out one of the other floors. "Locked," replied Shar. "They are escape routes, remember? The only way back through the doors is with a tool..." She'd used her proto-tool to open the door on the target floor. If the target had busted the lock on one of those floors, they would have seen it. "She went to the basement," rumbled Mike, and he had a pretty good hunch why. "C'mon," said he, as he stepped off.
The Alphas fell in behind him as he went trooping into the stairwell. They followed him down and down and down some more. It felt rather like going into Plumber HQ when the elevator was out. Weapons at the ready, the team stepped off the stairs in the sub-basement. The place was dimly lit, and it was clear that almost nobody came down here. Pushing Mike to the rear, Shar led the way as the Alphas slowly cleared the area, working their way through pipes and ducting, and checking in disused storage rooms. In the end, they came up with nothing. There was nobody down here. It was like the perp had vanished.
Now Mike pushed his way forward again. It was time for some old-fashioned police-work. There was a mop bucket down here–full of muddy, filthy water, with a mop stuck in it. Squatting down next to it, Mike looked at the filthy tile floor and then the wall. There were two chairs down here–stolen from an upstairs conference room. "She killed the janitor," announced Mike. "Probably for his master key." The Alphas stared at him in shock. "H-how," stammered Shar. "Old-fashioned police-work, Shar," replied Mike. "There's medium-velocity blood-spatter here..." It was right where he'd expect it if someone had been sitting in the chair and been hit in the head.
Rising, Mike said, "she tried to clean it up... hide the evidence." Stepping off, he followed the trail she'd left with that filthy mop, all the way up to an almost-hidden door behind a massive pipe manifold. "Steam-pipes," said Mike. "Where do they go," asked Molly? "Out under the street," sighed Mike. She'd gotten away. They'd lost her. Unwilling to let go so easily, Shar said, "we can chase her..." "Not in those tunnels, we don't," replied Mike. "That's high-pressure steam. Even if your armor can survive a bath in it, I've seen what happens when that steam's released. It'd blow the roof off the tunnel and maybe hurt somebody on the surface." "Damn," muttered Molly's assistant team-lead. "We'll get her, guys," said Mike. "Right now, let's get back upstairs and report in."